Mourning Reign

by Edward Hancock II

  ***

  Alex was no typical Mama’s boy. He wasn’t a sissy and he didn’t consider himself weak, but when Luisa Mendez agreed to fly in from Arizona to help her son take care of things, he couldn’t resist feeling as if she’d just sat him down on the kitchen counter to bandage up his skinned knee, wiped away his tears, kissed him and told him that

  Mama was gonna make everything okay now.

  Alex had gotten most of his strength from his mother. His father wasn’t a weak man but he had no determination without the support of Luisa Mendez. He often gave up on tasks both big and small if Luisa Mendez wasn’t forthcoming with words of praise or some form of encouragement. Perhaps, as Alex considered that reality, he was as much like his father as his mother. For it was true that Alex had all but given up on his own ability to handle his current situation. Fortunately for Alex, his mother was the most loving, giving person he’d known. Right up there with Lisa, of course. Luisa Mendez was both literally and figuratively an answer to Alex’s prayers.

  Alex suddenly realized he was twirling his cell phone between his thumb and forefinger. He often fidgeted whatever he was holding whenever he was nervous or lost in the deepest realms of his mind.

  Coming back to his senses, Alex returned the tiny flip phone to his breast pocket. He looked at Lisa. The light of the television illuminated her troubled face. She was asleep, but her dreams appeared to be no longer peaceful.

  “Help is on the way,” he whispered, stepping gently to her bedside. He touched her forehead. “It’ll be okay soon.”

  Mama’s gonna make it all okay.

  Was she really?

  Could Luisa Mendez successfully put a finger on trial for murdering fifty or more policemen? Could Luisa Mendez figure out why innocent lives, shopping for their groceries or school clothes, were unexpectedly snuffed out?

  “We’re now confirming the reports that Police stations in DeKalb, Illinois, Shreveport, Louisiana and Chula Vista, California have all been hit by similar incidents that struck the small town of Longview, Texas earlier this week.”

  Alex sat straight up and turned toward the television, strained to hear but resisted the temptation to reach for the volume control, possibly disturbing Lisa.

  “…Channel 8 has unconfirmed reports of similar attacks in Edmond, Oklahoma, Joliet, Illinois and Jackson, Mississippi. What appeared to be an isolated incident of terrorism now appears to be an outright attack on America by unknown enemies…”

  “Oh God!” Alex thought to himself. “And I just put my mother on a plane!”

  CHAPTER 10

  A Growing Pain

  The thought of being Captain Danny Peterson was worse than alien to him. To Danny, it was unnatural. It was less comfortable than that itchy, two-sizes-too-small sweater he’d gotten from his dad’s aunt on his sixth birthday. He felt as uncomfortable in the new office as he did in his new title. With there being no Vice Squad in the Longview Police Department, the Homicide team often got cases that weren’t necessarily straight murders. Anything drug-related, gang-related or apparently terrorist-related fell under the umbrella of Homicide’s jurisdiction.

  Danny had never noticed how far-reaching Homicide’s influence was until that very day. Until the day the entire umbrella fell under his command. Absolute power might corrupt some, but whoever said it corrupted absolutely didn’t know Danny very well. It didn’t corrupt him, wasn’t going to. He was well past the age when corruption by power would have been an afterthought. It merely unnerved him. Okay, intimidated him. A man of action wasn’t meant to be chained to a desk—even a seasoned veteran with such wide-ranging experience as Danny.

  His new office was horribly huge. White walls, freshly painted. The only ornamental detail was the pretentious wooden desk purchased for him by the city of Longview. It contained five drawers. Six if you counted the small tray-like drawer that had become something of a nervous fixation with him in the last ten minutes.

  Open, close. Open. Close. No doubt, the drawer worked quite well. And yes, Danny, it was very much still empty.

  His desktop contained all of the trappings of an excellent secretary. Everything from a phone—which, he was told, still hadn’t been properly setup—to a set of trays for incoming or outgoing mail to whatever other papers he chose to file there. Brand new computers were still being set up in each office. Danny’s had been one of the first installed. Now, he thought, he could play solitaire anytime he wanted.

  ***

  The populations of Longview, Tyler, Gilmer, Gladewater, Kilgore and surrounding communities ballooned in the days following the chaos at Wal-Mart and the Longview Police Department. Hospitals swelled far beyond capacity with injured and dying as mortuaries across four counties clamored to meet the growing demand for their services. Mothers buried sons. Sons buried fathers. Brother buried brother. Wife buried husband or vice versa. East Texas seemed awash in funeral processions—bathed in the blood of innocents. To many, it was as if this tight knit list of communities might never climb out from under the mountain of bodies in which it lay buried.

  Alex buried no one from the carnage. His wife was weak but safe. His son was small but growing stronger every day. Though he’d lost numerous friends and fellow police officers in the blast, he had been too involved in the resulting Mendez family crisis to attend any of fifty or more funerals all happening within a few days of each other. The usual “honor guard” burials given to slain officers were suspended in favor of one succinct memorial service organized by the Mayor’s office of the city of Longview. The Vice President had even flown in from somewhere overseas to attend the ceremony. So too had the governors of Texas, Louisiana and Oklahoma. If the procession of mourners hadn’t been large enough, there were enough Secret Service and FBI agents alone to fill the stands at any local high school basketball game.

  Each officer was named and ceremoniously honored by a single ringing of a bell. Each officer’s widow or next of kin was given innumerable awards honoring the slain officer’s sacrifice. Alex always found a bit of irony in the giving of honorarium to an officer killed in an accident. His death was called a sacrifice. Truly, the officers in the explosion hadn’t died in the line of duty. Every officer, heck every person who died in that explosion, Alex thought, was not a hero in the classic sense of the word. They were victims.Martyrs. They were to be remembered, sure, venerated even. But honored? Honored for what? For being in the wrong place at the wrong time? For having the terrible misfortune of going into work that morning instead of calling in sick?

  To Alex, the fallen were not to be honored. They were to be avenged, whether by God or man, the fallen required redemption. Their sacrifice required a reckoning.

  ***

  The entire building, though temporary, had been erected in a matter of days. Countless volunteers, from contractors to welders, plumbers, electricians, carpenters, and even firemen and EMT’s had assembled on the small lot just two blocks from the carnage of Police

  Headquarters to quickly build a central station from which the ensuing investigation could take place.

  It was, to Danny anyway, Longview’s own version ofExtreme Home Makeover, minus that annoying spokes model dude with the megaphone. Put up in a matter of days with some of the weirdest amenities imaginable for a police department, including marble sinks and ornate lighting fixtures that made at least the front lobby and connected areas appear more like a hotel than a police station. Of course, it had been meant to serve as an outpost, nothing more—a temporary one at that. A place where administration could be carried out, decisions could be made and pencil pushers, the kind Danny had just been forced to become, could send other cops out to do the dirty work assigned them. He hated being a desk jockey. He would’ve given anything to be on the frontlines, but simultaneously he found the very prospect terrifying. Maybe being a battlefield general did have a few perks for a cop that, he admitted, had lost his edge. Before, he’d wanted out, and he’d meant it. Part of him did still want out. But he felt r
echarged. He felt a new mission weighing down upon him and he would carry the weight until the mission reached fruition. He would see this through to the end... somehow.

  Danny’s office had literally been completed that morning and the paint fumes were still horrendous. A fresh night breeze blew through the office windows but provided only minimal ventilation. The office reminded Danny of the interrogation rooms in the former police department. Empty. Devoid of anything that would reveal the office’s inhabitant. Lacking in any of the creature comforts other pencil pushers had placed in their respective occupational domiciles. He wasn’t one to hang citations or framed medals or certificates. The room possessed no chairs, save the one he sat in behind his desk and one rather uncomfortable faux leather chair opposite his view. Uninvited guests were likely to get the hint. The only pictures were of friends and family like Alex and Lisa; and those were few and far between. He kept them on his bookshelf at home. Home, where his heart was.

  That was it in a nutshell. His heart wasn’t in it. His mind couldn’t be anywhere else, but his heart just wasn’t in it. He’d promised Alex he would avenge the deaths of their fallen comrades. He promised to find a way to bring understanding into such confusion and chaos. He promised to justify their sacrifice but how? The weight was definitely a heavy one. Danny was determined to carry it. But he knew that the fruition for which he so desperately longed was far from manifesting.

  ***

  Alex knew that had he been among the dead, his ghost would never be comfortable receiving an award for services he would never feel he had truly rendered. Not that he was about to go out lobbying the

  Longview Police Department to stop the giving out of awards. If nothing else, it was a roundabout way of acknowledging the hideousness of modern day society. It was a way of balancing the inexplicable evil by shoving an irremovable homage to the forces of

  Good in its face. It was as if the Longview police had thrown down the challenge to the terrorists.We will find you. We will avenge our fallen.

  But it was not going to bring anyone back. And Alex wasn’t sure if anyone in the town of Longview understood that fact. How many widows, he wondered, clung to the small ribbon or triangularly-folded flag as if begging the very Gatekeeper in Heaven to drop their loved one back to Earth?

  What kind of award would they have given baby Joseph if he’d died in the carnage? What award would the janitors receive for their contribution to Longview’s safety? After all, they saw to it every day that no officer broke his leg or his neck in the transition from police station to police cruiser. They kept the place sanitized, cleaning up after the dirtiest of society’s dregs. They minimized the bacterial invaders that might otherwise sideline those sworn to protect and serve.

  They helped keep a hazard-free environment just as much as the police working the streets.

  What of the mechanics who kept the cars in working order so that the uniformed public servants could “protect and serve” with at least some reassurance of automotive safety? In a sense, the janitors, mechanics and administrative staff might have been the biggest loss of all. They protected the protectors.

  And what of the innocent civilians simply taking time out of their day to pay traffic fines or pose a legal question of Longview’s finest?

  What award would they receive? What recognition of their sacrifices would be made to their next of kin? What ribbon, certificate or plaque would be awarded for their terrible run of luck? Was their death suddenly less tragic simply because they did not pin on a badge or swear an oath to protect?

  It wasn’t the honor of awarding the service of slain police officers that Alex resented. It was the ignoring of the truly innocent souls that bothered him. The unsung heroes. Pinning on a badge did not give a monopoly on the terms hero, martyr or victim.

  A rap on Danny’s door echoed through the vacant office, startling him.

  “Come in,” he called.

  The door opened slowly and a small uniformed officer edged into the office. She was a black woman, possibly mixed race, judging by her light skin. She stood, Danny guessed, about 5’3. Beneath the police uniform, it was difficult to gauge her form, but Danny had no doubt she was in good shape. Young, giving the impression of nervousness, her eyes seemed unable to lock on any one fixture for more than a few seconds. Either she was simply that nervous or she was such a good cop as to render her unable to halt her curious need for investigation.

  Probably new, Danny thought. Her name badge said “Warner” causing Danny to immediately think of Lisa.

  “Yes, Officer? Can I help you?”

  “Sir,” she offered, with a shaky voice. “This was dropped off for you earlier this afternoon. Sgt. Reynolds asked me to bring it to you.”

  She presented a small padded manila envelope containing no postmark, no return address and with only Danny’s name written in calligraphic script. Somebody went to great pains to mask their identity, he instantly thought.

  “What did the guy look like?” Danny asked.

  “I…” she paused. “I didn’t see him, sir. I’m just delivering this for Sgt. Reynolds.”

  “I see,” Danny said, “why so nervous, Officer?”

  Her cappuccino skin blushed noticeably. Her eyes flashed to the floor. “Sir, I just… I…” She released a heavy sigh.

  “Speak, Officer,” Danny said, mixing authority with controlled compassion. “What’s on your mind?”

  “Sir, I just wanted to say that I’m with you on this. Whatever I can do to help you get the fools responsible for this—count me in. They got my sister at the station. My Aunt Beulah worked at Walmart. I know we all have a job to do, sir. But I know that you’re leading the investigations and I’d like to be a part of the team.”

  “What’s your name, Officer?”

  “Tisha,” she said, her voice still shaking. “Tisha Warner.”

  “Been a cop long, Tisha?” Danny asked.

  “No… No Sir,” she stammered. “Just a year. Not quite a year actually.”

  Smiling, feeling like a purveyor of endless wisdom was building inside him, Danny said, “Ah, just a year? I remember my first year on the job. Lost a lot of sleep thanks to the things I saw. My first week in uniform, I was working a traffic accident. Young mom driving a Honda with an infant in the back. Hit by a speeding diesel. I was two hours picking up baby and mother body parts, mopping blood off the street. I carry that image with me every time I work a case. Death isn’t pretty, but you can’t let it be personal.”

  As Danny listened to himself, he felt like a hypocrite. Death is always personal. Even if it’s death by old age, it’s still personal to somebody. Death by murder was infinitely more personal. It was personal to many; to the perpetrator, to the victim and to the families and loved ones connected to each. To the survivors—those who loved

  Officer Warner’s Aunt Beulah, for example—it was personal on a level all its own. To the survivors of terrorism it was downright intimate. As Danny regarded his fellow survivor, he couldn’t help but feel empathy.

  He’d been there. He’d pulled Lisa and a number of others to safety. He’d faced Alex in the aftermath. He’d viewed more bodies and more body parts over two days than most cops—certainly most East Texas cops—do in an entire career. He’d watched a building erupt into flames and knew without seeing that he’d just watched the last moments of some of his best friends and fellow cops.

  His better judgment told him that a good boss would put Tisha Warner as far away from the investigation as possible. The hypocrite inside him screamed of his own desire to be far away from an investigation with which he had such an intimate connection. As the two battled for control, Danny knew the compromise was his to resolve. Striking the perfect balance was his responsibility alone.

  “Tisha,” he sighed. “I have to make a decision here and it’s not an easy one for me to make.”

  Saying nothing, the petite black woman stood stiff-necked, waiting for the moment she would have to accept rejection. Tisha
Warner’s face showed all signs that her mind was searching for resolution.

  “Officer Warner,” Danny continued. “We all have a job to do. Have you ever drawn your gun on anyone?”

  “No sir,” she said.

  “Ever faced a bank robber? Ever stopped a mugging? Ever been called to the scene of a traffic accident to pick up body parts?”

  “No sir,” she repeated, becoming noticeably deflated.

  “What’s the worst thing you’ve ever faced as an officer?” He

  asked.

  “The day they bombed my home,” Tisha said, suddenly filled with a raging confidence. A confidence fed by anger. A dangerous confidence, Danny thought to himself. “Longview is my home, Captain, the department. These guys came into my home and disrespected me. Nobody comes into my house and disrespects me and my family.”

  “Family,” Danny repeated. “That’s an interesting choice of words, officer.”

  “The department is my family, Captain. More than just my blood kin died in that explosion. Many of my brothers and sisters died. Sir, I know this may speak bad of me but I don’t think avenging your family is a bad motive. Muslims speak of their dead as martyrs. They become motivated to carry on the struggle in the name of their mounting dead. Maybe if more of us thought more like that our side wouldn’t be losing so badly.”

  Though he couldn’t have agreed more, Danny had to rein her in.

  “We’re not street thugs, Officer Warner,” he admonished. “We’re not terrorists and we can’t resort to their tactics.”

  “Why not?” she lashed, “Why don’t we just serve them up the same hell fire they served us? Why don’t we just fight fire with fire? They kill our innocent citizens. Why don’t we just kill theirs? Dead people don’t fight back, Captain.” Shocked at her own outburst, Tisha Warner grew silent. A noticeable blush colored her softening face.

  “Who are we going to kill?” Danny asked. “Terrorists come from untold numbers of countries. Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Cambodia. Heck you can count North Korea, France and Russia among the nations that give rise to terrorists. If I remember correctly an American perpetrated one of the worst terrorist attacks on American soil. Remember Tim McVeigh? So ask yourself what country’s innocents do we kill? Who do we attack? I was right in front of this guy. You couldn’t see his face. You couldn’t see his skin. You couldn’t tell what country he was from. He never said anything, so who’s to say he was a foreigner? He might have been some disgruntled former cop or some Army Ranger with Schizophrenia or PTSD. He might have lived up the street or been your next door neighbor for all we know.”