Murder Board

by Brian Shea

  “I’m his father! I know how to make this right!”

  “Talk to me, Trevor. Tell me what you’re thinking. How do you plan to make this right?”

  No words. Just deep, ragged breaths filled the phone line. Kelly looked at McElroy, who shrugged, then tapped his wristwatch. Kelly understood his partner’s message. They hadn’t seen proof of life with the boy and time was running out before the tactical side took the reins. An entry with a hostage in place was one of the most challenging scenarios any tactical team could face. It required perfect timing and flawless, coordinated execution.

  Kelly had spent two years as a member of SWAT’s entry team. He’d been good, actually excelled at it, but after killing a suspect during a critical incident he decided to switch gears and become a negotiator. The TacOps guys liked having him on calls because he understood the roles of both sides and struck an even balance.

  Lyons walked across the narrow space and stood over Kelly, who was still waiting for Green to speak again. It was important to let them talk. Uncomfortable silence compelled many to open up. Trevor Green hadn’t disconnected yet, and this was a good thing. He was now sobbing loudly. This was sometimes the moment before submission. Lyons slid a folded piece of paper across the formed plastic table.

  Kelly unfolded it and read the message. Time is almost up. 10 minutes. Making entry. He looked up at the commander towering above him. Kelly scribbled something onto his notepad and slid it over to Lyons. Too risky. I’ve got this. Let me direct him into the open. The captain nodded, then pointed at Kelly’s chest. The outcome of this now hinged on Kelly’s ability to deliver. Lyons walked away and returned to his small contingent of tactical leaders.

  McElroy hit the mute button on the connection. “What the hell are you doin’, Mike?”

  “This guy’s going to do his kid. You know it and I know it. We’ve passed the point of no return.”

  “I see that.” His eyes narrowed. “Why aren’t you letting tactical make the entry? It’s protocol. Negotiation ends. Tactical takes over.”

  “I know the drill, Dave. But I also know that if SWAT storms that room, the kid is as good as dead.”

  “So, what’s your thought?”

  “Direct him to the window. Put Trevor into the open so snipers can end it.”

  “I don’t like it.”

  “It’s my show right now, and until somebody unseats me, this is the play.”

  McElroy grunted and shook his head.

  “I was a good dad. I really was,” Green sobbed.

  Kelly quietly exhaled his relief at hearing the despondent father’s voice again. “I believe you. I can tell you care about Baxter. You want what’s best for him, but I’m not sure your head is clear enough to make that decision right now. That’s where I can help.”

  Green groaned loudly. “I told you before. I know what I have to do. His mother’s dead. I did that! I killed her. You know I’m going to jail for the rest of my life for what I did. My kid’s going to end up in the system. He’s going to be in and out of foster care until he ages out. Just like I was. No way he’s going to go through what I had to. Not my kid. No way.”

  “Listen, I’ll work with Baxter and ensure whatever happens he has the best care possible. You have to give me a chance to let me help you. Haven’t I proven myself a man of my word so far?”

  “You didn’t send those cops home. They’re still out there now!”

  “I never said I would do that. I don’t make promises I can’t keep. What I will promise you is that I will not let Baxter slip through the cracks.”

  “Do you know what happens to kids raised in the system?”

  Kelly grew more worried. Green was locked on the dire image of his son’s future. “There are good people in place to help children like Baxter.”

  “I can’t let that happen. I can’t fail my son!” Green’s voice squeaked.

  “I have to know Baxter’s okay. I need to see him right now, Trevor!” Kelly said forcefully. “We need proof that Baxter is still alive.”

  He tallied the number of times Green referred to his son by name during this conversation. Zero. He was dissociating himself by dehumanizing Baxter. Kelly intentionally injected Trevor’s son’s name in as many times as possible when he spoke.

  “There is a team of highly trained operators preparing to enter your home if you don’t show us that Baxter’s okay right now. This is not how you want this to end. You care too much about your son.”

  “Let ’em come.”

  “I don’t want that. I need you to understand that if that happens and you force their entry then you’d be putting Baxter’s life at risk. I know you love your son and would never do anything to put him in harm’s way. Isn’t that right, Trevor?”

  Green slammed the phone against something hard, a wall or tabletop. The reverberation caused McElroy to jump slightly.

  “Trevor?”

  Kelly heard the distinct sound of a revolver’s cylinder spinning. He’d assumed Green had reloaded since shooting his wife and her lover, but even if he hadn’t, two of the chambers were still occupied. Enough to bring about a terrible end to the negotiation.

  “Trevor?”

  The ratcheted spinning of the cylinder stopped and was followed by a metallic click.

  “What?”

  “The gun in your hand concerns me.”

  “It’s my only ticket out of here.”

  “I’m giving you another option. Let me help you. And your son, Baxter. Let me be your ticket.”

  “Nothing you can do for us.” Trevor Green’s voice was a mumbled whisper.

  “Show us that Baxter’s okay. Do that and we can slow things down again. I need you to tell me you understand. And then I need you to make your way over to the window with the gray blinds. The same one we threw the phone into. I’ve got someone watching that window. They need you to open the blinds slowly. Present Baxter in front of the window and have him wave so we know he’s all right. After that you can close the blinds and we can continue talking.”

  “That’s it?”

  “That’s it. All they need is to verify Baxter’s okay and we can slow things back down. It’s been too long on our end and people are getting nervous he’s hurt.”

  There was a long pause. Kelly cracked his neck, releasing the tension in three loud pops.

  “Promise.”

  “I promise no funny stuff. The powers that be need a proof of life to allow us to continue talking. Do you understand?”

  “My son ain’t going to be raised in no foster system!”

  “That’s something we can discuss further after I see Baxter’s okay.”

  Kelly turned and looked over at Lyons, back on the tactical side of the RV. He gave a thumbs up and held up two fingers, indicating the middle window, second from the front.

  Green mumbled something out of range for the phone to pick up any words. Kelly heard a higher-pitched voice. The sound of Baxter’s voice provided minimal relief. The seven-year-old was only six months older than Kelly’s daughter. The age proximity between the two had been in the back of his mind during this entire standoff.

  “Stay on the phone with me. I can talk you through it again. I want you to be nice and calm.”

  “Are you talking to me? I was getting my son up from the couch.”

  “I was just saying that you can stay on the phone with me while you do this.”

  “Sure—whatever. I am going over to the window now. I’ve got him with me.”

  Kelly held his hand up. Lyons read the signal and communicated with the team set up in the neighbor’s bedroom only thirty feet away. The sniper and spotter would be set back in the room. Unlike television’s typical portrayal, no self-respecting marksman would lean his weapon out the window. Most likely the sniper team would be prone on a bed or in a seated, supported firing position.

  “Trevor, put the gun down before going to the window. Do not have anything in your hand that could be deemed a threat.”

 
“I’ll do as I damn please. If you plan to shoot me, you’ll have to go through my boy to get me. Better than the life he’s got ahead of him now.”

  A muffled shuffling and then the sweet voice of Baxter Green could be heard. “Daddy, please. You’re scaring me.”

  “Shh. Don’t worry. It’ll all be over soon.”

  “Trevor? I need you to open that curtain now. Remember, nice and slow. No sudden movements.”

  Kelly’s calm composure was disintegrating. McElroy was shaking his head.

  “Movement at the window,” one of the SWAT members whispered. “No visual confirmation of target yet.”

  Kelly had muted the phone line to avoid Green picking up any unwanted communication.

  “His son is with him. Not sure how he’s going to present. I still have him on the line. Let me guide him into the open,” Kelly said calmly. “We want him clear of his son before engaging.”

  The others in the room were watching a live feed from two cameras deployed under the cover of darkness. One camera was of the interior hallway and showed the front door. Camera two was in the kitchen window of the same apartment where the sniper team had been deployed. It zoomed in to show a clear vantage of the number-two window with gray blinds, the window where the deranged man and his young son stood.

  The curtains came apart. Baxter Green was thrust upward, and the thin, pasty right arm of his father was wrapped tightly around the boy’s waist with the throw phone visible in hand. Baxter’s tiny frame was somehow able to mask Trevor almost completely from view. What was visible was a revolver, pressed against Baxter Green’s left temple.

  “Are you satisfied?” Green yelled.

  Kelly did not like what he saw on the screen. He unmuted the phone. “Take the gun off your son’s head. Do it now!”

  Trevor lowered his son back down. He stayed behind him, the gun still pressed against Baxter’s head. Tears streamed down the boy’s face.

  Kelly held his fist in the air, giving the tactical command for hold position.

  Trevor knelt behind his son. The gun shook, but held fast against his son’s temple. Silence in the command center as the two sides, tactical and negotiation, held their breath.

  Trevor’s head lowered, disappearing from view behind his son. The only sound came through the phone’s receiver. It came in the form of pitched whimpers.

  The gun slid away from Baxter’s head. No clear shot. Only the head and upper torso of the child were visible, and Trevor’s exposed left arm. Kelly knew the sniper was holding his trigger at the break point. The most miniscule of muscular tension would send the .308 caliber boattail hollowpoint out of the Remington 700 rifle.

  This momentary lull could flare up at any moment. Kelly replayed Trevor’s resolution, as twisted as it was. He knew the deranged father had no intention of releasing his son. He was working up the nerve to pull the trigger.

  Trevor spun his son toward him and the two now faced each other. He’d separated enough to see Trevor’s exposed face. Kelly opened his hand, finally signaling to take the shot.

  “Green light,” Lyons said into his radio.

  Kelly heard the sweet, lyrical voice of Baxter Green come across the phone line. Baxter launched toward his father, embracing him in a hug.

  The crack of the rifle sounded as Kelly watched the boy move. Both immediately disappeared from the camera’s view.

  “Call the shot!” Lyons commanded into the radio.

  “Shots away. No visual confirmation.” The spotter’s voice echoed over the command center’s speaker.

  Kelly took two short breaths, trying to regain his composure. Combat breathing. He tried to get oxygen to his brain to maintain calm. He was going to be sick. He looked across the table at McElroy, whose face was an unhealthy shade of white.

  An agonizing, high-pitched wail, animalistic and unrefined, penetrated Kelly’s ear. “You killed my baby boy!”

  “Breach the door,” Lyons ordered. “Breach now!”

  Kelly watched the monitor fill with the large frames of the tactical unit as they approached the apartment’s front door. A sixty-pound ram obliterated the locking mechanism, and within seconds, seven men flooded into the apartment of Trevor Green.

  “Show me your hands!” one of the team members boomed. Kelly heard the commands through the throw phone.

  A series of grunts and crunching furniture could be heard. A team member called out over the comms system, “Subject secure. One down. No pulse. Medevac requested on the fly!”

  There was a pause. “Target was struck in the upper chest. Conscious and breathing. He’s in custody. We’ve got a gunshot wound to the kid’s head.”

  McElroy pushed back in his chair and slammed his large fist into the table with a thunderous boom. He flung his headset against the nearby wall.

  The room began to spin. Kelly dropped the phone and stood up from the negotiations table. He looked at the board, staring at his scribbled handwriting under the H. Son – Baxter. Kelly pushed past everyone, out the door, into the light of day.

  The fresh air did little to alleviate his nausea. Officer Michael Kelly bent at the waist, bracing his hands on his knees as he vomited into the sewer gutter beneath him.

  Baxter Green was dead. His promise to keep the boy safe went unfulfilled.

  1

  How long have I been here? Faith thought madly. It’s colder now than I remember. The party. I was at another party. Nice place. Not so nice men. Running. Now here? Nothing added up. The thoughts and images were coming in disjointed bursts, like watching twenty different TV shows at the same time.

  Her surroundings were unfamiliar. What little she could see made no sense.

  A bubbling grew louder in the stillness. A trickle from the nearby building’s rain gutter sang its melody as water passed down to the muddy ground below. The gurgle was somewhere off to the left, a reference point for her new surroundings.

  It was dark. The only light came from a poorly maintained streetlight and the neon red emanating from an exit sign near a dumpster. The two weak sources of illumination covered the ground in a kaleidoscope of yellow and muted red as the subtle beams intertwined, dancing on the glisten of the wet earth at her feet. Faith Wilson’s appreciation was quickly dashed with the crunch of approaching footsteps from somewhere in the near distance.

  Her mind played a desperate game of catch-up to a set of events eluding her understanding. Faith clearly remembered this morning at the coffee shop. They treated her to a fancy coffee, a sign she was becoming valued. It wasn’t often she’d received such lavish offerings, and the reward temporarily balanced her daily shame. She recalled the warmth of her frothy latte; the sensation of the memory was in total contradiction to the cold that now crept up from the hard ground. Her lips, stuck together in cottony dryness, relented as she slid her tongue along the jagged expanse of her dry, cracked mouth. The bitter taste of blood carried the hint of cinnamon. Her last taste of the morning’s easy start soured in her mouth.

  It had been a good day. A long time since she’d remembered what that felt like. It was the first time she’d been allowed on an outing. Shopping had been fun. And the new dress she had picked out for the party was amazing. It’s all my fault. Why did I have to go and screw it up? I should’ve just stayed. It wasn’t like it was the first time. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

  Faith willed her body to move. Her limbs ignored the commands and a palpable fear swept over her. Her eyes shifted rapidly, wildly searching the darkened surroundings. It was like her body was encased, pinning her to the cold wet ground. Like being trapped in a nightmare, where your blanket blocks your subconscious from allowing your body to run freely. Even breathing took effort.

  The crunch was closer now, gravel and dirt pressed by the approaching footsteps.

  Move! Faith’s mind yearned for her body to cooperate.

  The only movement she mustered came in a slight shift of her head. She toggled and craned in all directions. The slow, agonizing writhing of her neck
gave way to blinding pain. Her eyes watered and her lids fluttered as she teetered on the edge of unconsciousness. She willed herself to remain alert. She willed herself to fight. But, with all of her intestinal fortitude, little came in the way of action.

  A drizzle of rain carried on the strangely mild breeze brought with it the salty taste of the ocean. She tried again to move only to remain teetering on her right side. Finally, she fell onto her stomach. A burger wrapper fluttered across the ground, stopping in front of her face. It smelled of pickles and mustard. A memory, like a wave receding from a sandy shore, pulled her to a time when Dad’s butterfly kiss was all she needed. It’d been several years since she’d thought of him kindly. And even odder was the timing of it now.

  Her father was a gregarious man, known throughout the town for his legendary ability to throw a football. Time had stopped for him some thirteen years earlier when he’d led the team to the high school state championship. Some people peaked in those moments of simple success, never to move beyond. The night of the big game was the same night he learned he was going to be a father.

  Faith had heard her father’s story many times before, but knew two very distinctly different versions existed, the one that he told Faith, and the one she’d heard him whisper to his closest friends. It was the latter retelling that haunted her. That girl wrecked my chance at greatness. She stole my dream. I could’ve gone on, probably played in the pros, but I passed on scholarships for her. Had to take that dead-end job to make ends meet. Faith had been eight the first time she’d heard that version. His words crushed her in ways she still didn’t fully comprehend. Her mom had left shortly after her tenth birthday. She never saw her again. Who leaves their daughter and never visits, or even calls? She never found the answer to that question and probably never would. Faith had been abandoned to live with a father who never truly wanted her. Unwanted by either parent was a terrible feeling.

  As Faith’s world imploded, she found solace in food, and by the time she’d crossed over to her pre-teenage years she was already heavier than some of the linemen on her middle school football team. She spent most of her time devising ways to fix herself. Her confidence flatlined, until her twelfth birthday, when she blew out the candles but refused to take a bite of her favorite—peanut butter ice cream cake. Instead, Faith picked up the entire cake and threw it in the trash. She could still see the look on her father’s face as the metallic lid slammed shut. It was a big first step in getting her life back on track.