Scott Free

by John Gilstrap

  As the cop made his little speech, Scott felt his skin contracting under the vest as it reacted to the thought of being pierced with a bullet.

  “I want to go with him,” Brandon said.

  James laughed. “I never suspected otherwise.” He handed another vest to Brandon. “This one’s yours, just in case. I figure, after all you’ve been through this past week, I won’t be able to squeeze a piece of paper between you two. I’m a little surprised Mrs. O’Toole isn’t here.”

  Brandon removed his jacket and slipped the vest over his head, mimicking what he’d seen done to his son just moments before. “Here’s some life-saving advice for you, James: never let my ex-wife hear you refer to her as Mrs. anything. She’s Doctor O’Toole, and proud of it.” He and Scott were the only ones who found the comment funny. “But she won’t be joining us,” Brandon concluded. “She’ll be somewhere around City Hall, doing a press conference.”

  And what a battle that had been. When the decision had been made for Scott to help on this crazy mission, Sherry had wanted to cancel the press conference to stay with her son. “He’s the one they’ll want to talk to, anyway,” she’d said, back in Scott’s bedroom. “I’m staying with him every step of the way.”

  “No, you’re not,” Sanders said. “I’m willing to let one of you come along with him—like I’ve even got a choice—but not both. And with all due respect, Dr. O’Toole, I don’t need a celebrity face drawing attention to what we’re doing. Please don’t argue, because it’s not negotiable. The boy gets to decide whether he goes in the first place, but after that, everything else is up to me.” There was absolutely no room for argument.

  “So, what am I supposed to do?” Sherry asked, her dignity bruised. The dismissive shrug she got from Sanders didn’t help.

  “Do the press conference,” Brandon urged, drawing a confused look from his ex. “Tell them that Scott isn’t ready to face the cameras yet, and that you’re there to answer their questions. Somebody’s got to do it, and God knows I don’t want it to be me. Do it for your fans. They must be worried sick for you. Let them know how everything turned out.”

  Sherry clearly wasn’t comfortable being on the stage alone. “But this isn’t about me,” she said.

  Brandon smiled. “You know, I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say that before.” A week ago, those words would have started a war. Now, they were just gentle teasing and Sherry smiled, too. “What else are you going to do? Just pace around the chalet? Go and face your public.”

  Looking back on it now, Brandon felt pity for her—not the spiteful pity that he’d vocalized so many times in the past, but the genuine article. Here she was trying to work her way back into her son’s life as quickly as possible, and at a moment of crisis, she was being shut out by the Secret Service. It had to be a tough pill. If nothing else worthwhile came out of the nightmare of the past week, maybe Brandon and Sherry had finally found the knob that would allow them to dial down the acrimony between them.

  “Do you think they’ll let me play my guitar if I go on the Today show?” Scott asked, squirming under his vest in an effort to make it more comfortable.

  The randomness of the question made Brandon laugh. “Well, I guess that’s just something we’ll have to negotiate when the time comes.”

  “Ladies and gentlemen, may I have your attention, please?” It was Chief Whitestone. He stood atop a desk, his hair nearly brushing the ceiling tiles. The room fell quiet. Scott found a desk chair to sit in. “Thank you, folks. As you all know, we’ve got a big crowd forming up out there, and if I estimate correctly, about half of them are cops.”

  For the next five minutes, Whitestone outlined in detail the events surrounding the president’s speech. First, the mayor would talk, followed by the governor, who would then introduce the president. The officials gathered in the squad room right now had but one purpose: to be as visible as possible. “If anyone in that crowd so much as thinks an unfriendly thought, I want them to feel squirmy.”

  From there, the speech devolved into logistics and trivia. He talked about entrance points and exit points, and about all manner of official detail that couldn’t keep Scott’s attention. His mind drifted back over the days he’d endured. The image of Cody Jamieson’s frozen corpse being torn to shreds haunted him. Cody deserved a better end than that. So did the two guys in the dry well, but at least their bodies were recovered.

  A nudge to Scott’s shoulder lurched him back to the present. An entire roomful of people stared at him.

  “You slept through your introduction,” Brandon said, his voice a loud stage whisper. People laughed. “The chief wants you to stand up.”

  Cringing at the redness that flooded his cheeks, Scott stood and gave a little wave.

  “Now, if he can stay awake through this exercise, young Mr. O’Toole will try to spot our man in the crowd. Officer James Alexander—wave, James, so everyone can see you.”

  Alexander smirked. It was an ongoing joke between the chief and him. In a crowd this white, no one could possibly miss him.

  “If Scott sees our man, he’ll tell James, and James, in turn, will put the word out on the radio. We’ll move in and get him. The rest of you just please keep an eye out for anything that strikes you as suspicious.”

  A murmur of assent rumbled through the crowd.

  “One last point,” Whitestone concluded, “and then we can get out of here and go to work. I don’t want to sound patronizing, but I think this needs to be said: there’s a big difference between vigilance and paranoia, okay? We have reason to believe that one man may be trying to kill the president of the United States this afternoon. One. That means, we’ll have roughly five thousand other people out there who want nothing more than a distant view and maybe a handshake. I’d just as soon not send those hands back home broken.”

  SHERRY STOOD IN FRONT of the enormous window, watching the skiers below. Standing in the wash of sunlight on this cloudless day, she was uncomfortably warm, despite the thirty-degree reading on the digital thermometer. The glare off the snow was as beautiful as it was blinding.

  The old anger was returning, grinding in her belly like a three-day fast. Intellectually, she knew it was unreasonable, but there was something about the reuniting of Team Bachelor that made her feel empty and angry. Of course she was thrilled that Scott had survived and was healthy, and that moment of warmth as she and Brandon both comforted him there in the police station was not lost on her. It was like a taste of the poisonous fruit.

  For a while there, during the darkest hours, she’d felt that she’d rediscovered her love for Brandon, and that maybe, just maybe they might be able to start the process of mending as a couple; but now, as she looked back on it, she realized that they’d merely shared an emotional buoy in the midst of a raging storm. As the wind died and the skies cleared, she’d once again be left alone as Team Bachelor motored off again.

  Hearing the brief summary of Scott’s adventures, Sherry marveled at her son’s nerve, his pluck. Given the same circumstances, Sherry knew that she’d have panicked on the first day and made some stupid fatal error. Her admiration for the young man whom she’d so recently found annoying and irresponsible now bordered on awe. She wondered when he’d grown up. How could she have spent so much time in the presence of a budding young man, yet have seen only an irresponsible boy? How could she have missed what Brandon had so plainly seen all along?

  Thinking these things, watching the antics of the skiers through the window, Sherry Carrigan O’Toole caught a glimpse of the mistakes she’d made, and tasted for the first time the price she would have to pay. She’d squandered her one and only opportunity to witness the metamorphosis of boy to man. The years lost would never return, and it was entirely possible that the threadlike bond that linked mother and son would never strengthen.

  The realization took her breath away. In chasing what appeared to be the opportunity of a lifetime, she’d blown the opportunity to share a life; she’d abdicated it to a man
she’d once thought so naïve, but now appeared to have it all. He alone would know the real story of Scott’s adventure in the woods—the details that would dribble out a little at a time over the course of months and years. Sherry would learn only the headlines, just as she’d learned only the headlines for the past six years.

  That anger brewing in her gut, she realized, wasn’t anger at all. It was envy. A raging jealousy that she’d chosen a route that would leave her to be only an observer in Scott’s life, the emotional equivalent of a benevolent aunt. It was so much easier when she could hate Brandon, but now she didn’t even have that anymore. She had only loneliness.

  “Okay,” she said to the room. “The pity party’s over.” She pulled three tissues from the box on the end table and dabbed her eyes. The last thing she needed right now was a mascara emergency.

  At least the press conference would be fun, she thought. And packed to the gills, thanks to all the news crews who would already be on hand for the president’s Founder’s Day gig. What had so recently been billed as a plea for patience in the face of overwhelming odds could now address wholesale triumph over those odds. She couldn’t wait. She might not be able to do much else for Scotty, but at least she could help to make him famous.

  Even though her appointment with the cameras didn’t begin until 3:30, after the president had concluded his remarks, Larry was supposed to pick her up at 2:00 to deliver her to City Hall before the Secret Service shut down everything at 2:45. From then until the president was out of the area, no one would be allowed to enter or leave any building within a two-block radius of the bandstand in the square.

  Now, if only Larry would get here. If there was one thing about Larry that consistently pissed her off, it was his total disregard for promptness. He’d sent a message through the front desk that he would pick her up and bring her to City Hall himself, but it was already after two. Honest to God, she couldn’t count the number of times he’d raised her blood pressure over the years—

  Finally, the doorbell rang.

  “Well, it’s about time,” she said. Grabbing her coat off the back of the chair where she’d left it, she climbed the two stairs to the foyer and opened the door.

  DOWNTOWN EAGLE FEATHER looked like the Fourth of July with vanilla frosting. Red, white and blue bunting draped the bandstand gazebo in the middle of the square, continuing the theme that stretched across the front of the speakers’ scaffold that had temporarily replaced the steps of the public library. According to comments Scott had overheard, the president would announce his reelection bid at this speech, thus explaining the huge throngs of people. In the bandstand, a cluster of musicians played a piece that Scott recognized as a march, but he didn’t know which one. To his ear, marches pretty much all sounded alike.

  The Kevlar vest made him feel fat as he meandered through the crowd, James Alexander on his right, and his dad’s hand perpetually on his left arm. Living as close to Washington, D.C. as he did, Scott found that he took for granted all things presidential. At home, POTUS was just another celebrity resident of the city. Out here, though, in the president’s home state, Scott found himself genuinely impressed with all the pomp and plastic patriotism. Given the party atmosphere, it seemed impossible that anyone would try to take a shot at anybody.

  “You’re supposed to be watching faces,” James admonished quietly, “not the decorations.”

  “How am I supposed to spot one person in all of this crowd?”

  “I have no idea. But if he’s here, you’ll recognize him a hell of a lot sooner than I will.”

  It all felt so awkward. In school, eye contact was a thing to be avoided, particularly among the more aggressive ethnic groups. To lock gazes was to show disrespect and invite violence. The question, “What are you lookin’ at?” was invariably followed by a fist. Yet, here he was, deliberately looking people in the eye. It surprised him that most looked away.

  As the commencement time for the speech approached, the knots of people drew tighter and tighter, each of them pressing in for a spot closer to the action. For Scott and company, it made crowd wandering all but impossible. If Scott had said “excuse me” once, he’d said it a thousand times.

  “This is hopeless,” he said to his father. “There’s no way I’m going to be able to find one face.”

  “Hey! Scott! Brandon!” They both turned as Larry Chinn shouldered his way through the crowd. As he approached, James Alexander drew protectively close, but Scott pushed past him and the two skiing buddies exchanged a huge hug. “God, am I glad to see you!” Larry exclaimed, tears in his eyes.

  “Me, too,” Scott said. “It got pretty hairy.”

  “You poor thing. But you’re okay. That’s the important thing. I’ve never heard your mother so excited. I’m so sorry to hear about Cody, though.”

  James Alexander conspicuously cleared his throat, breaking up the reunion. “The crowd, Scott. Watch the crowd.”

  Scott shot the cop an annoyed look, then said to Larry, “We can catch up later?”

  “You bet we will.” To Brandon, Larry said, “Have you seen Sherry? I got a message that a driver was picking her up to bring her to City Hall.”

  “Last I heard, that driver was you,” Brandon said.

  “Who told you that?”

  “Can you folks do this another time?” James asked. “We’ve got work to do.”

  “She’s at the house, Larry,” Brandon said. He checked his watch. “And right about now, I’d say she’s pissed as a wet hornet at you.”

  Larry pressed his hand to his forehead. “Why does she do this shit to me?” He spun on his heel and headed back into the crowd. “Don’t plan anything for tonight,” he called over his shoulder. “I want to hear every detail.”

  Scott beamed, loving the attention. “Okay!” he shouted. “Come for dinner!” When he turned back, he caught the disapproving look in Brandon’s eyes. “He’s a nice guy, Dad. Good skier, too.”

  “Look at the crowd!” James insisted yet again.

  “I’ve been looking at the crowd!” Scott shouted. “I keep telling you, I can’t see the crowd. There are too many people!”

  Brandon put a hand on Scott’s shoulder to settle him down. “What about it, James? This is seeming a little pointless. Maybe if we could move to a better vantage point?”

  James shook his head. “You heard the instructions, just like I did. We keep wandering and we keep looking.”

  But as the witching hour approached, and crowds continued to flood the square, the situation became unbearable. Suddenly, it was impossible for the threesome to keep together. Squirting between people was always possible, but as the human knots tightened, it definitely became a solo performance. To make it worse, Scott’s feet were still sore as hell, as was every bony protuberance on his body. Soon, he was concentrating more on avoiding injury than spotting faces.

  “This all hurts like hell,” Scott announced to James. “I feel like I’m getting beaten up out here.”

  James finally conceded the point. Standing on tiptoe, he craned his neck to find a spot nearby that might afford a better view. “Come with me,” he said, and he led the way to a brick retaining wall in front of a women’s clothing store. A family of five had been standing there since Scott and the others had arrived in the square, having staked out this prime viewing location no doubt hours in advance. “Excuse me,” James said to the father, “but I’m afraid you’re going to have to get down off that wall.”

  The father gave a pleasant if annoyed smile. “I talked with another officer earlier, and he said this place would be just fine. We’ve been here since noon.”

  “I’m sorry, sir,” James said, remaining very stern. “The rules have changed. Now you’re going to have to get down.”

  “But we’ve been here since noon,” said the mother, as if maybe James hadn’t heard her husband the first time.

  “I understand that, ma’am, and I’m just as sorry as I can be for the confusion, but that doesn’t change a thin
g. Now, if you don’t mind—”

  “But the other good spots are already taken!” the father protested. Fingers of red had begun to scale the sides of his neck.

  This time, James said nothing. He merely planted his hands on his Sam Browne belt, and shifted his stance to one leg.

  Furious, the father said, “Would it have killed you to let us know this three hours ago?” He jumped to the ground, then assisted his family off the wall.

  James said, “Thank you very much for your cooperation.” With the wall cleared, James climbed into the spot himself and motioned for Scott to join him.

  The displaced father went ballistic. “What is this?” he yelled. “You kick me and my family off so you can watch from there yourself?”

  “This is official business,” James assured him.

  The other man thrust a finger toward Scott. “He’s not official business.”

  Scott felt like every set of eyes was looking at him, and he finally found himself happy to be wearing the vest—for reasons that had nothing to do with Isaac DeHaven.

  James Alexander climbed off the wall and confronted the aggrieved father eye-to-eye. “Let’s understand something,” he said, barely loud enough for Scott to hear. “He is official, if only because I say he is. Now, is this going to be a problem, sir?”

  If ever in the history of mankind there was a question asked for which there clearly was a right and wrong answer, this was it. The father backed down, turned and ushered his family into the crowd.

  When James turned back toward the wall, he actually looked a little embarrassed.

  “Have you considered State Department work, James?” Brandon asked. “We can never have too many diplomats in the world.”

  James gave him a look that was closer to a snarl than a smile and climbed back on the wall to stand next to Scott.

  “Remember,” he said. “Watch the crowd, not the show.”