by Andrew Gross
A second before the body-blow of dread set in. Before he realized in horror what was about to take place.
He grabbed Jessie.
“Everyone get down!”
CHAPTER TWO
The barrel erupted, spitting orange flashes of death and terror all around. The station’s storefront shattered.
“Jess!”
Hauck pulled his daughter to the floor, the earsplitting zip, zip, zip of twenty rounds per second exploding glass, toppling counters of candy and shredding magazines all over them. He heard Jessie’s high-pitched shrieks from under him. “Daddy!
Daddy!”
Above, the window sign promoting discount tune-ups crashed in.
All Hauck could do was press himself into her as tightly as he could, shouting back above the deafening rain of glass and noise something he wasn’t sure of, something he didn’t know was true: “It’s okay, Jess, it’s okay! It’s going to be okay…”
But it wasn’t okay.
Bullets tore through the walls all around them, the store shaking like an earthquake was happening. Hauck had seen the muzzle pointed at his face. He felt sure the attack was aimed at him. Covering his daughter, an even more terrifying fear rippled through him:
What if the gunman tried to come in?
Suddenly, the barrage came to a stop. Just as quickly as it had begun. Hauck held there and prayed for the sound of the truck’s engine revving up. He didn’t hear it—only a heart-stopping double-clicking noise, which terrified him even more.
The shooter was shoving in a second clip.
He knew he had to do something. And do it now. From outside, he heard frightened wails and screaming. He had no idea if anyone might have already been hit. He slid off Jessie, fumbling at his waist for his gun—and, in panic, found only the empty space where it normally would have been, realized it was back in the Explorer. In the fucking glove compartment!
He was unarmed.
The second wave of gunfire started in.
“Stay down!” Hauck screamed above the noise directly in Jessie’s ear, rounds zinging through the remaining jagged shards of glass that still clung to the front facade.
Jessie reached for him. “Daddy, no…!”
Hauck cupped her face in his hands. “Jessie, please, just stay down!”
He pulled out of her grasp, his heart colliding back and forth against his ribs, and scrambled over to the door. He grabbed the largest object he could find, a two-gallon drum of motor coolant, and, using it as cover, crawled outside.
The red truck loomed directly above him. The muzzle jutted from the passenger window, jerking wildly from the recoil. Hauck realized his only option was to wrestle the gun from the shooter’s grip. He slid cautiously along the pavement, ducking under the gunman’s view. Suddenly the truck’s engine revved.
He got ready to lunge.
As if in answer to his prayers, the shooting suddenly stopped. Above him, he heard the deafening roar of the truck’s massive V-8, the gunman shouting something he couldn’t make out over the noise.
Then the sparkle of silver rims zooming by, the cab careening off a stanchion as it shot past him, veering into the street.
Hauck scrambled after it, focusing on the make and plates. A Ford F250, ADJ…9, dealer plates. The rest he couldn’t make out. It jerked a sharp left, bouncing wildly over the curb at the corner, and took off south, toward the Connecticut–New York border.
A plume of dark gray smoke crept out from the scene.
One by one, stunned bystanders began to crawl out from behind their cars.
Hauck looked around. “Is everyone alright?”
One man got up from behind a fuel pump, nodding uncertainly. Next to him a woman was still curled up on the asphalt, sobbing, shell-shocked.
“I’m a policeman!” he called again. “Is everyone alright?”
Amazingly, he didn’t see anyone who appeared to have been hit. He turned back to the shop, the stench of smoke and cordite biting his nostrils. The caved-in storefront looked as if a missile had slammed into it. He had to call it in! Frantically, he dug through his jeans for his cell phone, his fingers fumbling on the keys, 431, the emergency code to the Greenwich station’s front desk.
His gaze drifted back inside.
“Jess…?”
Hauck’s heart slammed to a stop, his eyes falling on his daughter. She was on the floor. Curled up. Inert. Not replying. The phone fell from his ear.
There was blood all over her.
CHAPTER THREE
Jess!”
It may have only been an instant—the same terrifying instant in which he begged his lifeless legs to move.
But in the freeze-frame of that moment, Hauck was hurtled back.
To Jessie—only six. In a Teletubby T-shirt, cross-legged on the grass outside their two-family home in Woodside, Queens. Curled up there, she looked as clear to him then as she did now.
All they heard was her shriek. “Mommy! Daddy!”
He and Beth, rushing to the kitchen window. Knowing immediately that something was wrong, seeing only their white van as it bounced silently down the embankment and came to a stop in the quiet street.
Jess—too scared to even point or move. Just frozen there. His and Beth’s eyes falling on the tiny yellow tugboat that their younger daughter, Norah, had been playing with only moments before. The truth taking hold of them. Petrifying them. Beth’s eyes already filled with terror and fleeing hope.
Oh, Ty, please, they said, don’t let this be happening. Please…
Now Hauck fixed on Jessie and ran over to her across the glass-strewn floor.
His daughter lay motionless, crimson matted on her sweatshirt. He lifted her by the shoulders. Blood spatter was all over her cheeks and chest. Frantically, Hauck searched her limp body for a wound.
Oh, Jesus, Jessie, no. He peeled back his daughter’s matted brown hair. This can’t be happening again!
Like an answer to his prayers, he felt her stir.
Just the slightest murmur. She blinked and slit open her dazed brown eyes.
“Daddy?”
“Yes, baby, yes…!” Hauck’s chest exploded in a spasm of joyful relief. “Oh yes, honey. Jessie, it’s me.”
Fright flared up in her. “Are they gone?”
“Yes, honey, they’re gone! It’s over. It’s going to be okay.” Hauck shut his eyes and felt tears stinging. Every bone in his body seemed to rattle in a joyful exhale. He drew his daughter up to him, squeezing her. He brushed the specks of blood off her cheek. “They’re gone.”
Behind him, Sunil slowly rose from behind the counter.
Hauck looked up at him. “Are you okay?”
The manager nodded, his dark brown skin blanched almost pale. “I think so.” Sweat glistened on his forehead.
“Call 911. Tell them there’s been a shooting. Tell them I’m here and we need immediate medical support.”
“Yes, Lieutenant, okay.” With eyes as white as moons, he scanned around the store. “Gracious God in heaven…”
Hauck lowered Jessie back down. “You just lay there, honey…let me look. Where are you hurt?” He carefully checked over her clothing but couldn’t find any wound. No signs of fresh blood seeping out.
“I don’t know, Daddy.”
“It doesn’t matter. You just stay there. Help will be here soon.”
He flipped open his cell phone and punched in the 431 line to the station that signaled Emergency.
The duty officer answered.
“This is Lieutenant Hauck. I’m at the Exxon station on Putnam and Holden. There’s been a shooting. The manager here just called in a 911. We have wounded. We need immediate medical response. Cars on the scene, EMTs, everything…”
“This is Reyes, sir. We’re already on it. We should have cars there any second…”
“Listen to me, Sergeant, I want you to put out an inter-agency APB on a red F250 pickup, Connecticut plates, ADJ…9…That’s all I could make out. Raised chassis, ch
rome rims. Shooter may be Hispanic and may be wearing a red bandana. When it left here it was headed south on Putnam. You get that out immediately, Sergeant, you hear?”
“I’m all on it, sir.”
Hauck hung up. He yanked off his fleece pullover and bunched it like a pillow underneath Jessie’s head. “You just sit tight, baby. Help’ll be here soon.”
She nodded hazily. “Okay…”
He checked her again. Miraculously, he couldn’t locate any direct wounds. Where the hell was all the blood coming from? Slowly, he felt his heart crawl back into his chest.
As a droplet of blood fell onto her sweatshirt.
Scared, Jessie looked up. “Daddy, you’re bleeding!”
Hauck felt for his neck, which was suddenly throbbing. A sticky red ooze came off in his hand. He felt his stomach turn.
“Daddy, you’re hurt!” Jessie said, lifting onto her elbows.
“Don’t worry,” Hauck said. But suddenly he wasn’t sure. “Sunil…”
The manager, who was now on the phone with his family, ran around the counter. “Yes, Lieutenant?”
“Go and see if anyone needs medical assistance out there…Tell them ambulances should be here in a second…”
“Yes, sir.” Sunil was about to run out, making a last broad sweep around the store. Suddenly he stopped. “Merciful God…,” he muttered, gazing over Hauck’s shoulder.
Hauck stood up, following the manager’s crestfallen gaze. “Oh no…”
Suddenly it became clear where all the blood on Jessie had originated from. The man in the green down vest—who had smiled at them by the cooler and stepped up behind them in line…
He was on the floor, covered by toppled racks of magazines and candy, eyes like glass, his tortoiseshell frames thrown to the side.
In the center of his chest, dotting his brown Shetland sweater, were two dark red holes.
CHAPTER FOUR
It took just minutes—frantic minutes—for Freddy Munoz and two other detectives from Hauck’s Violent Crimes Unit to make it to the scene.
A phalanx of local blue-and-whites had blocked off lower Putnam from Weaver all the way down to the car dealerships, lights flashing and sirens wailing like a war zone. An EMT van had already arrived from Greenwich Hospital and was tending to Jessie, as well as to a couple of the other bystanders.
A med tech kneeled over the guy in the green vest, confirming what Hauck already knew.
Freddy Munoz hopped out of his car, took in a long, disbelieving sweep of the shot-up storefront, the dozens of holes in its facade. “Jesus, Lieutenant, are you alright?”
Freddy had been one of Hauck’s first hires on the Violent Crimes team when Hauck had taken the position heading up the staff in Greenwich. Hauck was fond of the young detective, grooming him, in the back of his mind, for his own job one day. Looking over the scene, Hauck suddenly realized just how close that promotion had almost come.
“Yeah.” Hauck rubbed the gash on his neck. “I’m okay.”
“Jessie?” Munoz pressed with concern. “I heard she was here.”
“She’ll be alright.” Hauck pointed toward the EMT van. “Just a little shock…” As he looked at her there, reliving those initial moments, a queasiness rose back up in Hauck’s gut. “At first I just saw her there, all covered in blood. Not moving…”
Munoz squinted. “Whose blood, Lieutenant?”
Hauck turned his gaze back inside. “The guy over there…We were heading out to the boat, stopped to pick up a few things. He was right behind us in line.”
Spotting the body through the open storefront, the detective issued a short, grim whistle of disgust. “Oh, man…Anyone else hit, LT?”
“No.” Hauck placed a hand up to his neck.
“You better get that checked out, okay? You get a chance to ID the vic?”
“Not yet. I’ve been with Jess.”
“Where you ought to be, Lieutenant. You just let us handle it, okay? Go be with your daughter. I’m glad she’s okay…And get them to take a look at that gash. Damn, LT, you know how lucky you are?”
A sobering exhale accompanied Hauck’s nod. “The sonovabitch shot right at me, Freddy…I just stood there, the window rolling down. Stared right at him. Froze.”
“Don’t beat yourself up, Lieutenant. Anyone would freeze.”
Hauck nodded, eyes fixed on the body, unconvinced. “That could be Jessie.”
“Yeah, it could be, Lieutenant, but it’s not. You said you caught a glimpse of the shooter?”
Hauck nodded. “Twenties. Hispanic. Wearing a red bandana across his head. I put an APB out on a red Ford pickup, CT plates. ADJ9 or something…Couldn’t get more of a read. Listen, Freddy, I want you to get an ID on the guy inside. Have Stevie and Ed start in with the witnesses.”
“Will do.”
“And, listen, Freddy…”
“Yeah, Lieutenant?”
“I’m okay, got that? It’s business as usual here.”
“You bet your ass you’re okay, sir.” Munoz tapped Hauck on the shoulder, grinning. “Like my mother would say, LT, you had an angel riding on your shoulder today.”
“Yeah.” Hauck looked at the caved-in storefront, the man in the green vest’s legs visible through the shattered door. “Been meaning to talk to you about your mom’s take on angels, Freddy.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Hauck got the gash on his neck looked after, while Ed Sweeney and Steve Chrisafoulis started to interview the bystanders and Munoz went to check out the body.
Maybe he and Jessie did have an angel watching over them. There were at least eighty to a hundred bullet holes where rounds had slammed into the station, and only three people had been hit, including a woman outside, struck in the arm from a ricochet.
Eighty to a hundred shots—and only that one poor bastard killed.
Vern Fitzpatrick, Greenwich’s police chief and Hauck’s boss, was on his way down from Darien, where he had been at a golf outing. News vans were starting to line up across the street, camera crews pushing for witnesses. Patrolmen were keeping the pressing reporters at bay.
Hauck could only imagine the headlines. “Posh NY Suburb Ripped by Deadly Gunfire.” “Bystander Killed in Drive-By Attack.”
Greenwich had Saks and Ralph Lauren and Laura Ashley. This kind of thing just didn’t happen here.
While they bandaged his neck, Hauck flipped out his phone and called Jessie’s mom. “Beth, something happened…,” he said at the sound of her voice, then stopped, the freeze-frame of his daughter there and all that blood rushing back to him. He moistened his lips. “Listen, Beth,” he said, “Jess is alright. She’s fine, but…” He took her through what had happened, his ex-wife gasping, “Jesus, Ty, oh, my God…”
“Beth, listen, please…” They had spent ten years together. He had been a New York City cop then. A young detective in the 122nd in Queens, fast-tracked to the department’s Office of Information, who acted as a liaison officer during 9/11 with the FBI. That was before the accident with Norah. Before the blame and their marriage fell apart. “She’s alright,” he said, “just a bit scared. They’re going to take her to Greenwich Hospital—just to look over her a bit. You should come. Now. There are people dead here. I’m gonna have to go…”
“Oh, Jesus, Ty, tell Jess I’m on my way.”
“I’ll see you there.” He hung up. The med tech finished taping his neck. Hauck went over and sat beside Jessie in the van. They were running an IV. Hauck put his arm around her and pressed her head to his shoulder, trying to smile away the scared, confused tears welling in her young eyes.
“You okay?”
She nodded, donning the brave veneer. “I think so, Dad.”
“Mom’s on the way. They’re going to take you to the hospital here. They may give you something—just for shock, honey.”
“I’m alright,” she insisted. “You’re the one who’s been shot.”
Hauck winked at her and grinned. “You okay with putting off that boat
ride for the rest of the day? I know you weren’t so keen on it.” That made her smile. “Listen, honey, you know I have to go to work now. You know they need me here…”
“I know, Daddy…” Her baby-blue sweatshirt was still damp and matted with someone else’s blood. “How’s that guy?”
Hauck shrugged. “I don’t know, baby doll.”
“He’s dead, isn’t he? I saw him, Dad.”
Hauck bunched his lips and nodded. “Yeah, he’s dead.” He pressed her face into his chest and squeezed. “You know I love you, Jess. I’ll check in on you at the hospital. Mom will be there soon.”
Patrolmen were setting up barriers, cordoning off the scene. Hauck knew this was one you were going to hear about. No avoiding that. This was Greenwich. The people with the big rap sheets here were hedge fund managers and CEOs. Investor fraud and Sarbanes-Oxley violations were the typical crimes of passion.
Drive-bys just didn’t happen here.
Hauck had looked squarely into the shooter’s eyes as he squeezed. He tried to think: Who might want to take this kind of revenge?
Three months ago, he and his team had shut down a meth ring operating out of a bodega in nearby Byron. Word was it was connected to the Vine Street gangs up in Hartford. They were bad people.
He had busted the son of a local real estate magnate for coke; the kid had been bounced out of Brunswick Academy in his senior year. The dad had threatened to ruin Hauck.
But this? Right in front of everybody’s eyes? That would bring the whole goddamn system of justice down on top of their heads. That would be suicide.
It didn’t make a goddamn shred of sense.
Inside, Ed Sweeney was taking a statement from Sunil, who still looked like a ghost, dabbing at his brow.
Freddy Munoz kneeled over the body. The dude had seemed friendly, nice. They’d shared a smile; he was sympathetic to what was going on with Jessie. He probably had a daughter himself.
