“If only you were sleeping with a great attorney,” she says.
“You could . . . Could you represent me?”
“Of course.”
“It’s not a conflict of interest or—”
“Of course not,” she says.
“What about Taylor and Johanna and— Would you have the time to . . .”
“John,” she says, her voice emphatic, both firm and loving. “Honey, I’m representing you. End of discussion. I got this. Don’t worry about anything else. Okay?”
“Okay,” I say, and sigh as I feel an enormous relief and comfort wash over me. “Thank you.”
“Are you okay to write your report?” she asks. “You seem out of it.”
“I’m messed up about what happened,” I say, “but I also haven’t had anything to drink or eat since first thing this morning. What time is it?”
“Almost four. Stop at the first place you come to and drink and eat something,” she says, adding with a laugh, “unless it’s a liquor store.”
After I end my conversation with Anna, I call the sheriff of Gulf County and my boss, Reggie Summers.
“You okay?” Reggie asks.
I shrug.
“John?”
“Sorry,” I say. “I shrugged.”
“Giving me a shrug on the phone without saying anything does not inspire confidence.”
“I’m okay,” I lied. “Just tired and drained. Need to eat something.”
“Well, make sure you do that before you try to write your report,” she says.
I nod.
“What’re you doing now?” she asks. “Nodding?”
“Sorry.”
“Dude, you’re worrying me.”
“I’m okay. Really. Just . . . a little out of it.”
“Well, get back in it long enough to hear me loud and clear on this,” she says. “Be careful. Take this seriously. Stop on your way and eat and drink something, then take a little time to breathe and think and prepare your report before you go in and write it. Okay?”
I make sure my response is verbal. “Okay. Will do.”
“And listen very, very carefully to me on this, John,” she says. “No matter how much you want to, don’t keep investigating this case—not for one moment. That’s grounds for immediate dismissal. I have no wiggle room on this. You’ll be under criminal investigation by FDLE. They’ll be looking at you very closely. I know you’re going to want to work this thing. I know you’re going to want to know who put you and that kid in the position to shoot at each other, but you can’t. You have to let it go. Or you’ll never get to work another case again. Understand? Please tell me you do and not by nodding your damn head.”
“I understand,” I say. “I do.”
“I seriously doubt you do,” she says. “You’re my best investigator. The best I’ve ever seen. You’ve got a real gift. Don’t throw it away. Don’t work the one case you can’t and not be able to work the hundreds of others you can as soon as you’re cleared. I mean it, John. Get your head right in a hurry or you’re gonna fuck up your future and I don’t want to see that happen. And . . . let me know what I can do to help you.”
306
I read in the paper that the guns most of these kids use are pretty much military weaponry. They’re not for hunting or protecting your family and property or even for target practice. They’re created to kill as many people as fast as possible. How can weapons like that even be sold?
“How is she?” I ask.
LeAnn jumps up from her seat in the surgical waiting room of Gulf Coast Medical Center in Panama City and violently and enthusiastically hugs me.
“Oh John,” she says, starting to cry. “I’m so glad to see you. I’m so . . . I’ve been so . . . just . . .”
“I’m sorry,” I say, “I should’ve asked how you were first.”
We hold each other for a long moment, then release and take a step back as LeAnn wipes at her tears.
“I guess I’ve got some kind of post-traumatic stress going on and haven’t been able to do anything with it but sit here and worry and relive it all and . . . I’m just so glad you’re here.”
“Wish I could’ve been sooner.”
I had gone to the sheriff’s department that for most of my life had been my dad’s and written my report. It had taken a while. I was not thinking clearly and everything took me twice as long to do, but I got it done.
And then I found the nearest package store.
I haven’t taken a single drink yet—that will come later—but it’s amazing how much more at ease, how much less anxious, knowing it’s in my car makes me.
“It’s actually perfect timing,” she says. “They told me I could go in in just a few minutes. I thought her mom would be here by now, but . . . she’s . . . such a . . . mess.”
I remember Kim’s mom from back in school. What I remember most is a series of men and a lack of sobriety. I remember always being grateful that though my mom suffered from the latter, she never made me or my siblings suffer through the former.
“Any word on how she’s doing?” I ask.
“I”m assuming you mean Kim and not her crazy mom,” she says. “She’s okay. She’s going to be okay. We’ll know more once we get back there.”
“How about Derek?”
“He survived the surgery but is still listed in critical condition. How are you? You don’t look so good, pal.”
“I’ll be okay if he is,” I say.
She shakes her head, her frizzy blond hair waving about, and forms a frown with her clown-red lips. “I’m so sorry that happened, buddy, but it wasn’t your fault. You can’t blame yourself for . . . Kim said he fired at you first, that he had been shooting at her. You didn’t do anything wrong. Come on now.”
I shake my head and look away.
“Let’s go see Kimmy,” she says. “That’ll cheer you up.”
She leads me back to Kim’s room.
We find Kim propped up on pillows in her bed, her bandaged right wrist stationary on another pillow positioned for that purpose.
She smiles faintly when we walk in.
“Hey,” she says. “I’m so glad y’all came. I didn’t think they were ever going to let me see anyone.”
“Came?” LeAnn says. “Bitch, I been here all day. Haven’t left.”
“Ah, thank you so much. Who’s got the best best friend ever?”
“Obviously you do,” LeAnn says.
“Yes I do,” Kim says.
“And I do too,” LeAnn says. “I’m so glad you’re still here with us so you can keep being my best best friend.”
“Little bastards didn’t manage to kill me but they got me good enough. How are you, John?”
I nod. “I’m okay. Just glad you are.”
She starts to say something else but bursts into tears instead.
LeAnn and I move closer to her, LeAnn starting to shed tears of her own again.
“I . . . still can’t believe it’s real,” Kim says. “None of it. The shooting itself. Getting shot. Ace. Derek. None of it seems real.”
“We’re all still in shock,” LeAnn says. “It’s not supposed to feel real.”
“Did y’all catch him?” Kim asks. “Who was it? Who did all this to us?”
I shake my head. “We think there were two shooters—one with a rifle and one with a handgun.”
“Really?” she says, squinting and looking into the distance. “I only saw one. And he had a handgun. But I have no idea how . . . It doesn’t make sense at all. One minute I was shooting back at something out of a horror movie with a handgun and the next it’s Derek falling down on the floor with a shotgun, bleeding out. Was he involved?”
“We think he was trying to help,” I say. “Students in his class say he was in there with them from the beginning and at some point went out to his truck and got his shotgun, came back in with it to shoot the shooters.”
“But he didn’t?”
I shake my head again. “At this
point it appears he only shot at you and me.”
“Where the hell’d the shooters go?” she asks.
“The one with the rifle stayed mostly on the north side of the hallway and did the most damage—”
“Is he the one who shot Ace?”
I nod.
Fresh tears fall.
“Among others. The one with the handgun stayed mostly on the south side in the section near you. At some point, they both took off their outfits and stuffed them and their guns into lockers then blended in with the other students.”
“Oh my God,” she says. “So they’re still out there and we don’t have any idea who they are?”
“Well,” I say, “we have some ideas.”
“Please tell me you’re going to find them, John,” LeAnn says. “How can we possibly go back to school knowing there are such brutal, coldblooded killers among us?”
“Actually,” I say, “I’m off the case.”
“What?” she says.
“Suspended while the investigation into my shooting of Derek Burrell is conducted,” I say.
“Oh my God, John,” Kim says. “That’s so—but it was a clean shoot. You’ll be— You saved my life. He shot at both of us.”
“You can still find out who did it for us, can’t you?” LeAnn says. “Unofficially. Make sure they get the right kids.”
“Go anywhere near it and I’ll be fired.”
“So we’re dependent on fuckin’ Chip Fife and Clueless Glenn?” LeAnn says.
“Several agencies and top law enforcement officers will be involved,” I say. “Including FDLE and the FBI.”
“The FBI?” LeAnn says.
“In a school shooting like this?” I say. “Absolutely.”
Kim looks at LeAnn. “It’ll be a long time before the school opens again. And they’re not going to send us back in until the killers are caught. Promise you that. Tell her, John.”
I start to, but before I can my phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out to see that Anna’s calling.
“Sorry,” I tell them, holding up my phone. “It’s Anna. I need to take it. Give me just a second.”
“Of course,” Kim says.
LeAnn nods.
“Hey,” I say into the phone.
“Where are you?” she asks.
I can tell something is wrong.
“At the hospital,” I say. “LeAnn and I are with Kim in her room. Her mom’s gonna be here soon, but we’re—”
“I need you to come home now,” she says. “Don’t watch TV or listen to the radio. Don’t even answer your phone. Just come home.”
307
I know people want us to have less guns or less of a certain type of gun, but a gun can’t be evil. Only a person can. Evil is in the mind of mankind not the chamber of a gun. What good is taking away guns going to do?
Rushing into our home, I ask, “What’s wrong?”
Anna pauses the TV playing in the living room.
Quickly crossing through the kitchen I find that she is alone.
“Where are the—”
“Carla is playing with the kids in their room so we can talk,” she says.
“About what?”
She nods toward the TV. “I didn’t want you to be blindsided by this while you were out there on your own.”
“Okay.”
“It’s bad,” she says. “Take a breath and brace yourself for it.”
I do. When I nod, she lifts the remote, points it at the TV, and pushes a button.
The screen is filled with images of the pandemonium outside Potter High School earlier today—kids and teachers running out, cops and EMTs running in, parents waiting anxiously, what looks to be hundreds of patrol cars and emergency vehicles, all with their lights flashing.
And then a shot of me as I rush through the crowd searching the students’ feet for black boots.
“WMKG with an update to the breaking story we’ve been bringing you all day of a school shooting in the small town of Pottersville in the Panhandle of Florida,” an unseen reporter is saying. “We’re receiving reports that an off-duty officer from neighboring Gulf County, this man shown here, was in the school when the shooting occurred and that he shot an unarmed student who had nothing to do with the attack being perpetrated on the school.”
I glance over at her and frown. “I wasn’t off-duty and he wasn’t unarmed.”
“The officer is believed to be John Jordan, an investigator with the Gulf County Sheriff’s Department with quite a checkered past. We have as yet no idea why Investigator Jordan was even at the school outside of his jurisdiction or why he opened fire on an unarmed kid.”
The footage of the front of the school is replaced by a studio shot and a female news anchor wearing an ill-advised sleeveless red dress.
“Tom, do I understand correctly that this Officer Jordan attended high school at Potter High?”
“Yes, Christy, that is what we’ve been told.”
“Maybe he was there for some sort of alumni event or to speak at a career day or something like that,” she says.
“It’s possible,” Tom says. “We just don’t know. But whatever it was . . . this off-duty officer’s visit to Potter High has turned tragic.”
“Wait, hey Tom,” Christy says as they cut back to her. “I’ve just received word that . . . Mr. . . ah . . . Jordan was recently released from prison, that he actually did part of his time at the state facility near the town of Pottersville. How can that be right? Please tell me we don’t have an ex-con carrying a gun and a badge. How could that be possible?”
“The only way I can think of, Christy,” Tom says, “is if he had been pardoned by the governor. We’ll have to look into it more and see what’s really going on.”
“Can you imagine the political fallout of pardoning a convicted felon, only to have him then kill an unarmed kid?”
“Now, Christy, the minor in question, whose name we haven’t released yet, is not deceased. He’s in critical condition, fighting for his life at this very moment.”
“Oh, yes, sorry. I was just speaking hypothetically. No, I didn’t mean that the young man in question isn’t very much alive and that we aren’t praying for him as he fights for his life at this very moment.”
Anna lifts the remote and pauses the TV again.
“You okay?” she asks.
I shake my head. “No, but I wasn’t long before that.”
She turns to me, and hugs me, dropping the remote as she does.
I hug her back, clinging to her a little more than makes me comfortable but enough to comfort me nonetheless.
We hold each other for a long, wordless moment, and though it seems as if we’re both giving and receiving affection, I am doing most or all of the receiving and she is doing most or all of the giving.
Eventually, we release each other.
“There’s plenty more where that came from,” she says. “Don’t be shy about getting what you need.”
“Thanks.”
I glance at the TV.
“Do all their inaccuracies make it less of a blow?” she asks.
I let out a harsh little laugh. “No, I wish they did, but . . .”
“I’m so sorry, baby. What can I do?”
“Just get me through tomorrow,” I say.
“I’ve already been preparing for it,” she says. “It’s going to be fine. I promise.”
I nod, unconvinced. “Thank you.”
“In light of what they’re reporting,” she says, “I think we need to release a statement. Just a short one to correct the inaccuracies.”
“I don’t know . . .”
“Tell you what,” she says. “I’ll draft one and let you look at it. If you still don’t want to release it . . . we won’t.”
I nod. “Thanks.”
“Okay, what do you need first?” she says. “Food? Shower? Hugs from the kids? Call Johanna?”
“I wonder what Johanna has heard—or will hear before this is all over?”
I say. “I need to call her and Susan first. Then hugs from Taylor and John and then a long hot shower.”
308
It’s a disorder not a decision. Don’t you get it? People don’t choose to be crazy. A homicidal maniac is just that. Why are we not watching each other more closely? Why aren’t we treating mental illness?
“What the hell happened, John?” Susan says.
I always dread talking to my ex-wife. Even when everything seems as idyllic as a day at the beach. In the best of conditions, when the sky appears clear and the waters calm, there’s always a dangerous undertow swirling just beneath the salt-foam surface of the Gulf between us.
“What has she heard?” I ask.
“Nothing,” she says. “So far. But it’s just a matter of time. It’s everywhere. I’m getting calls from the parents of her friends wanting to know if the cop on the news is her dad.”
“Sorry.”
“I’m already getting calls from news agencies requesting interviews,” she says. “Apparently they want to talk about violent behavior in your past. Asked if you had ever pulled a gun on me, ever hit me—that sort of thing.”
My mouth grows dry and I find it difficult to swallow, as my thudding heart feels like it has been placed in a cold, dark echo chamber.
“You should know . . .” she says. “Dad is planning to talk to them.”
Tom Daniels, her father and my onetime colleague, had once been the Inspector General of the Florida Department of Corrections. Never much of a fan of mine, we had nonetheless been forced to work a couple of cases together. At a certain point I had accused him of committing a crime, but was unable to prove it because he had destroyed evidence and tampered with witnesses. As bad as what I imagine he’ll say is, I know it will be worse.
“I’ve begged him not to,” she says. “For Johanna’s sake, but he says he’s doing it for her and that this is my best chance of getting sole custody.”
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