“That’s all right by me,” she says. “My belly sounds like they’s a thunderstorm inside it.”
“Now, you testified that from behind the closed and locked solid wood door of the custodian closet, with the lights off, you got on your knees and looked out into the hallway through a small tear in the black construction paper that’s covering the six-inch-wide window in the door. Is that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“How big would you say the little tear in the construction paper at the bottom is?”
“I don’t know . . . Maybe three inches.”
“Since none of us have seen it and no proof of it has been entered into evidence, we’ll have to take your word for it, but let’s do that. Let’s stipulate that it is a three-inch tear—because even if it were the entire width of the window it would still be very, very narrow. So . . . from behind a solid wood door in the dark on your knees through a tiny three-inch tear in the construction paper at the bottom of the narrow window, you were able to see and hear all that you just testified to? Is that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am. Every word.”
“Are you sure? It just seems quite extraordinary that under those conditions and in that situation with such a limited view and with explosions and gunfire going off you could see and hear all that. Are you absolutely sure?”
“Yes, ma’am. I am.”
Without warning I am transported back to Potter High the morning of the shooting.
Withdrawing my weapon, I make my way up the hallway that leads to the main circular one beyond.
The acrid air is thick with smoke and the smell of burned gunpowder. Visibility is very low.
Through the fog, I can hear the dissonant sounds of disembodied screams, the arrhythmic bursts of semi-automatic gunfire, the intermittent explosions of bombs, and the incessant blare of the fire alarm.
As I reach the main hallway, it gets worse—the smoke thicker, the racket louder, the terrified screams more piercing.
Unable to determine where exactly the shots are coming from, I take a right and head south in the main hallway.
Even if it wasn’t dim and filled with smoke, the circularness of the hallway would make it difficult to see very far in either direction, its hard surfaces bouncing noises around, making it impossible to isolate or pin down the direction of any single sound.
“Well then let me ask you this,” Anna is saying. “With as fast as you say John was running, how long would you say you actually saw him from that three-inch tear in the construction paper? Because it seems to me it couldn’t have been more than a split second, and that if he was running as fast as you say he was, that he would’ve just been a blur. And yet you’re saying you saw him long enough to not only identify him but to see what he was doing with his weapon and to notice an expression on his face. So how long would you say you saw him for?”
“I’m not sure exactly.”
“Really?” Anna says. “You’ve been so sure about everything else. What would your estimate be?”
“A few seconds I guess.”
“A few seconds? I wonder if I could get you to use your hand and re-create the size and shape of the opening you were looking through for these few seconds?”
“Sure,” Bernice says. “Be happy to. I’m just here to try to help get to the bottom of the truth.”
She holds her thick hand up perpendicular to her face and with her arthritic fingers and thumb forms a small opening—and then actually looks through it.
It’s a great visual for the jury to see.
“Thank you so much for your cooperation, Ms. Jones. I really appreciate it. Now how far away would you say John was from the door when he ran by it?”
“I’m not sure exactly.”
“Well, the entire width of the hallway is only about eight feet . . . so if John was running up the middle of it, that would put him about four feet from you. If he was veering to one side or the other, that puts him either a little closer or farther back.”
“I’d say he was somewhere in the middle,” Bernice says. “Both times.”
Reaching the first set of library doors, I see that they are shot up and shattered, large shards of glass hanging precariously over the jagged opening.
I pause and glance in. There is no movement, and though I’m sure there are students hiding inside, no one is visible.
As I round the first arching curve of the hallway, I can hear the live gunfire better and believe I’m getting close.
Another loud explosion close by, though I can’t be certain exactly where, leaves my ears ringing.
Up ahead I hear shots being fired, and as I get closer, I can see Kim sitting on the floor in a pool of blood, leaning against the wall of a small alcove that leads to a dark, empty classroom, returning fire. On the floor a few feet away is her shot-up radio.
I rush over to her, crouching behind the same wall.
“So from about four feet away through a tiny three-inch opening you could identify who you were seeing, what they were doing, and the expression on their faces—even in the case of John who you testified was running at full speed?”
“Truths is truths,” she says. “And that’s the truth. What I say I seen and heard is what I seen and heard.”
“A part of what you say you heard was a male student yelling ‘Don’t shoot. Don’t shoot.’ Is that correct?”
“Yes, ma’am, it is.”
“And are you suggesting to the court today that that male voice was Derek Burrell? Because that seems to me like the impression you were trying to make—or at least Mr. Scott was trying to leave on the jury.”
“Well, I guess I’m not saying that for sure . . . because . . . I don’t rightly know for sure, but . . . but I believe that’s who it was.”
“Okay,” Anna says. “Let me ask you this . . . Do you know how far it was from where you were—in that small supply closet behind that solid wood door with all the explosions and gunfire going off all around you—to where Derek Burrell shot at and was shot by John?”
“No, ma’am, not exactly. I guess I don’t.”
“Would you be surprised if I told you that it was over one hundred yards and around two big curves in the circular hallway?”
“No, I don’t guess that would surprise me too much,” she says. “I don’t know how far it is . . . but I guess from what I heard about where that poor boy was killed that sounds about right.”
“Do you think that no matter how loudly someone yelled from where Derek was to where you were, behind that solid wood door and with all the chaos and confusion and explosions and gunshots going off, that someone could hear what, if anything, Derek said?”
“I don’t know . . . I thought that’s who I heard, but like I say . . . I can’t say for sure.”
“So you’re saying it’s possible that you heard another student who was far closer to you. That’s at least possible, right?”
“Sure, it’s possible. Can’t say for sure.”
“Would you say that it’s probable?”
“Can’t say for sure. Could be.”
“Now, I know you’re a custodian at the school and not in maintenance or construction, but did you know that the ceilings of the Potter High School hallways have been treated to reduce noise? That they’ve been sprayed with a dampening material to keep the noise in the hallway down?”
“No ma’am, I didn’t know that . . . but it don’t surprise me none.”
“Did you know I attended Potter High School back in the day?” Anna says. “And when I went there the hallway floors were some type of hard commercial Linoleum or some covering like that. But what are they now?”
“Carpet,” Bernice says. “Been carpet for the last few years.”
“So with carpet on the floor and dampening material on the ceiling, you’re saying that from over one hundred yards away, around two big curves in the hallway, behind a closed solid wood door, you could hear something Derek Burrell said?”
“No, ma’am,
I’m not saying that. I’m saying I thought that’s who I heard but that I don’t know for sure. I said that from the beginning—I don’t know for sure.”
“Yes you did. Thank you for that. Now, just a few more questions and I’m going to let you go and let us all go to lunch. You mentioned someone you referred to as ‘Big Daddy.’ Who is that?”
“That’s my husband, Gerald Jones, Sr.”
“So you must have a son named . . .”
“Gerald Jones, Jr. Yes ma’am.”
“Have either Gerald Jones, Sr. or Gerald Jones, Jr. had any run-ins with the sheriff’s department in Potter County?”
“Objection, Your Honor,” Gary Scott says. “Relevance?”
“Your Honor, I was about to get to that when I was interrupted.”
“Overruled,” Wheata Pearl says. “Okay, Ms. Jordan, get to it. Ms. Jones, you may answer the question.”
“Yeah, they’ve had some.”
“Has the Potter County Sheriff’s Department ever arrested or charged them with crimes?”
“Yeah.”
“And who was sheriff during those arrests?”
“Sheriff Jordan.”
“Sheriff Jack Jordan? What if any relation is he to the defendant?”
“It’s his daddy.”
“Do you know if John helped in any way, either officially or unofficially, on the investigations that led to any of the arrests of Gerald Sr. or Jr.?”
“Don’t know,” she says, “but I’d heard he had.”
25
During the lunch break, in a small conference room in the courthouse, while Anna preps for the afternoon I call an investigator friend of mine at the Bay County Sheriff’s Office and tell her what Lucas Burke had told me the night before.
As I’m talking to her, I think about my experience with my girls in the storm that night and what Burke had done to save us.
Just as we’re about to hang up something occurs to me, and when we finish the call I begin to think about it.
“What is it?” Anna asks.
I look up at her and say, “Huh?”
“I can see the wheels turning,” she says.
“You know how it’s hard to tell where Port St. Joe Beach ends and Mexico Beach begins?”
Highway 98 runs along the coast next to the Gulf of Mexico, and while some areas have obvious beginning and ending spots—natural barriers like the woods between Port St. Joe and Port St. Joe Beach or contracted barriers like the way Tyndall Air Force Base separates Panama City from Mexico Beach—other boundaries are not so clear.
“Yeah?” she says, and I can tell that’s not remotely like anything she was expecting me to say.
“The counties are like that too,” I say.
Port St. Joe Beach is in Gulf County and Mexico Beach is in Bay County.
She nods. “The division between them is even harder to distinguish.”
“Yes it is,” I say. “I feel like Mexico Beach is in Gulf County.”
“It should be,” she says.
“But it’s in Bay County, which is why I couldn’t work the hurricane house case—even though I saw it and one of the guys involved was murdered in Gulf County.”
“The body found in the van in Dalkeith the morning of the storm?”
“Exactly. It’s Bay County’s case—they processed the scene. They took possession of the body.”
“Yeah?”
“I’ve got missing persons cases and what I now believe are linked murder victims in Wewa, Port St. Joe, and Port St. Joe Beach,” I say.
“Okay,” she says, and I can tell she’s ready to get back to her prep.
“If I’m right about the cases not only not being accidental but actually being linked by the same sick predator . . . What if he went beyond Port St. Joe Beach and killed in Mexico Beach? It’d seem all the same to him, but . . . we’d never see the cases. Never even know about them.”
“Sounds like you need to call Bay County back,” she says.
I nod. “That’s exactly what I need to do, but before I do . . . and I realize how anxious you are to get back to your—to what you’re doing—I have to thank you again for what you’re doing for me in there. You’re extraordinary. And I’m—”
“How hard has it been today so far?”
“Hasn’t been easy,” I say. “At least not until it’s your witness.”
“You and the actions you took that day are easy to defend,” she says. “The reason it has been relatively easy so far is . . . they just don’t have a case—which is causing Scott to reach the way he did with Bernice. I’m not saying he doesn’t still have some good witnesses to come . . . but so far it has been some weak-ass shit.”
“Is that the legal term for it?” I ask. “So typical of you attorneys . . . couch things in legalese so the rest of us have no idea what you’re talkin’ about.”
She laughs and starts to write some more notes on the legal pad in front of her but stops and actually puts her pen down.
“You know what,” she says. “I’m ready. I don’t have to do any more. Let’s talk instead. Tell me how you’re really doing.”
“You know what I keep wondering?” I say. “If anything would be different if I hadn’t done anything. And the only thing I can come up with . . . is that Derek would be alive.”
She thinks about it for a moment before responding. “You think . . .”
“If I hadn’t run up that hallway . . . the same people would be dead and Derek would still be alive. I don’t think I helped anything. The truth is . . . it was over by the time I go there. All I did was kill Derek.”
26
After the lunch break, Gary Scott calls a handful of students and teachers who all testify to the terror they felt, the chaos and confusion of the environment, how none of them could tell the good guys from the bad guys because everyone, including me, was shooting.
“We literally had a school full of active shooters,” one of the math teachers says.
Shots fired. Explosions detonated.
Tyrese on the radio. “Were those gunshots?”
Kim and LeAnn rushing out of their offices.
“Go look at the monitors and radio me where he is,” Kim says, withdrawing her weapon. “And tell Tyrese to put the school on lockdown. Go. Hurry.”
As LeAnn enters the back door to the main office, Kim runs through the commons, gun drawn, head moving about, scanning, searching, scouring.
Kim pulling her sheriff’s department radio, calling dispatch. “Active shooter at Potter High School. I repeat, active shooter at Potter High School. SRO in pursuit.”
Alarms blaring.
Tyrese on the intercom, telling teachers there’s an active shooter situation, the school’s on lockdown, it’s not a drill.
More shots. Explosions. Smoke. Fire.
Loud, concussive bangs rattling the school, raining down debris.
The explosions rocking the building make the earlier shots sound smaller somehow—popguns by comparison, or Fourth of July firecrackers.
The big bangs of the bombs are deafening, jarring, overwhelming.
The high school has become a combat zone.
When asked if any of them ever heard me identify myself as law enforcement they all responded the same way—no, they had not.
By far the best line for the plaintiffs was said by a male student who was a friend of Derek’s, when he said that I wasn’t so much an active shooter as a loose cannon.
The gunman is wearing what could be considered the school shooter’s uniform—long black duster, the collar up, black boots, black fatigues, black gloves, a black military-style cap—but with one significant addition. Unlike in any previous school rampage shootings, this time the shooter is wearing a mask.
And they all agreed that not only was Derek Burrell a great guy and hero trying to save his friends, but that no one with any sense at all would mistake him for a school shooter.
“It was obvious to everyone that he was there to help,” a fema
le student from his class says. “Shooting him was like shooting a cop responding to the attack.”
Anna attempts to mitigate what they’re saying but there is little she can do. Either the jury agrees with their perspectives and points of view or it doesn’t. And if it does I’m going to lose this case.
Later in the day, Scott calls a forensics firearms and gunshot wounds expert named Dr. Barnard Chandler who testifies that based on where Derek was shot, I couldn’t have been aiming to wound and disarm him like I had claimed. The only conclusion he can draw from examining all the evidence, including where the two rounds entered and exited the victim’s body, is that I was doing one thing and one thing only.
“And what was that?” Gary Scott asks.
“Shooting to kill,” he says. “This was an execution.”
As Anna cross-examines him, I relive the shooting for what feels like the millionth time.
As I near the place I estimate the shooter to be, I can hear the blasts of his shotgun and the return bangs of Kim’s sidearm.
I slow down, hoping to be able to sneak up behind him and take him alive, but as I round the curving hallway, he spins toward me, levels the barrel of his shotgun in my direction and fires.
The round whizzes by my head. I can hear and feel it.
In the split second before I fire back, I can see that not only is the boy not wearing a mask, but he’s not one of the suspects we’ve been investigating.
He’s big and blond and sort of soft looking, dressed in jeans, boots, and a T-shirt, and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him before.
He fires another round.
I aim at the shotgun, attempting to knock it out of his hands, but his head is leaning down on the stock, sighting, and I’m afraid the round will hit him in the face.
Lowering my gun, I squeeze off two quick rounds. One aimed at his left hip, the other his left knee.
He spins around and goes down, his shotgun thudding heavily on the hard hallway floor as he does.
“Dr. Chandler, are you testifying that you can know the motivations and intentions of a shooter by looking at gunshot wounds?” Anna asks.
The Blood-Dimmed Tide (John Joran Mysteries Book 22) Page 12
