A Good Guy With A Gun (9 page)

Melissa retrieved the phone from the cookie jar and tried to turn it on. The battery had died. She’d need to re-charge it before she could tell whether there were any voice messages left on it. While she waited for the phone to charge she tried to remember the words that Billy had said to her before her last meeting
….things will come to light that will make you understand
. She definitely did not understand. What had caused Billy to change like that and then go completely off the rails and kill people? It just was not like him. She still didn’t know what Shupe and he were doing together. Finally after about 30 minutes her phone revved back to life. Immediately the icon showed she had one missed call. She pressed “1” to listen to her voice messages.

“Melissa, this is Billy”
, she heard
. “I know you don’t understand a lot of things
—
about me and about Shupe. He really is not a bad a guy. I’ve left you a video that will explain everything. You probably won’t see me again after tomorrow, so this is goodbye. You’ve been a good friend to me and if all goes as planned maybe we can meet in again in a new society that I’m going to start to build tomorrow. Goodbye Melissa”.

Melissa put the phone down quite stunned.
So he had tried to call me! But he said something about a video? What video?

Immediately Melissa picked up her phone again and dialed the number to Keith and Melissa.

Keith had just gotten home from his trip upstate and had started to tell Emily about the conversation he had with Clive Howard about Shupe when the phone rang. Emily answered it.

“Emily”, Melissa said urgently, “I need to speak to Keith!”

Emily handed the phone to Keith with a very concerned look on her face.

“This is Keith, what is it Melissa?” Keith said concerned

“I found my phone; and yes Billy did leave me a message! Listen….” She then played back the strange voice message from her phone from Billy.

Keith spoke up, “Melissa, were you able to find the video he mentioned”

“No, Keith. There’s no video here!” She relied desperately “Mom’s a bit too out of it to remember clearly, but I’ve looked in the apartment and there’s nothing here!”

“Can you come over right now?” asked Keith “There are some things that I discovered on my trip that you should hear.”

“I’ll be right over!” she said

Then she hung up the phone.

Meanwhile, listening in on the conversation a short distance away were two private-eyes who had placed a tap on the Watson’s phone.

They intently listened to the playback and said “We’d better phone this in.”

Melissa hopped on a bus that took her to within walking distance of Keith and Melissa’s home. She knocked on the door and Emily let her right in.

“How are you Melissa?” Emily asked very concerned “Is your mom drunk again?”

“Not yet, but she probably will be by the time I get home”

“Melissa, if you’d like you can spend the night here. It might be better than trying to go home tonight”.

“Thank you Emily, I’d really like that”, said a grateful Melissa.

“Now can I get you some coffee or something?” Emily asked.

“That would be great”, she replied.

Keith entered the room and both he and Melissa sat down at the table.

“Emily, I just got back from Osceola, and spoke to the chemical plant manager there about Shupe. He was very evasive and totally contradicted the reason Shupe said he was let go. As I was leaving, one of the Black workers approached me clandestinely and asked me to meet him at a local bar. There he told me that Shupe had been a member of a White Supremacist Group called the
Army of the White Brotherhood
. He told me that Shupe would frequently harass the Black workers there, and tried to recruit the Whites for what he called the inevitable
Race War
to come. The management sacked him, and when they did, he threatened to have his group blow up their plant.

“That explains a lot”, said Melissa, “the sudden change in Billy, the racial slurs. It must have been Shupe who orchestrated this whole shooting and made Billy the fall guy for it!”

“Yes, Melissa, it sure appears that way. And then shot him dead to keep him quiet!” added Keith.

“What do we do?” asked Melissa

Keith thought for a moment. “Right now there is no hard proof. If we try to take this to the authorities now, they are just going to pin in it on a fantasy of yours. Even with the information about Shupe from the chemical plant, we have no solid proof of anything. The only thing that can make this story believable is if we can somehow locate that video Billy said he sent to you.”

At the NRA chapter Jim Hendricks hung up the phone, and then placed another call to an unlisted number.

Evan Hoyt answered the phone, “Hoyt here”

“Hoyt” said Hendricks, “You have a problem! It appears that that kid who Shupe recruited for the Emory School shooting left a little farewell video to his girlfriend that he said ‘
would explain everything!’”

“Were you able to get the video?’

“No, our PI’s just relayed the phone message they heard from a girl named Melissa to somebody named Keith Watson. Do you know who they are?” asked Hendricks

“No”, replied Hoyt, “but I intend to find out! We need to make sure that video never sees the light of day or this could fry us all!”

Hoyt put down the phone. “I better call up Shupe and the boys and do something about this right now”, he said aloud.

Keith, Melissa and Emily sat around the table trying to think where Billy might have sent that Video. Maybe it was in the mail box, or maybe her mom might have seen it and hid it like she had done with the phone. Anyway, it would have to wait until morning.

Emily took Melissa up to the upstairs guest bedroom and laid out a pair of spare pajamas for her to wear. “Thank you again Emily, for being my friend”, she said with tears in her eyes.

Emily could hardly contain her own tears at this.
This kid really needed a break
she thought,
this is why I went into teaching in the first place.

In the middle of the night the phone rang.

“Who could be calling at this hour?” Keith groaned drowsily.

He picked up the phone. “Mr. Watson, this is Sargent Grason from the Orange County Police department, could I please speak to Emily Watson?”

A panic went through him, “What now?” he thought and he handed the phone to a very shaken Emily.

“This is Emily Watson, what’s happened?”

“Ms. Watson, we are trying to locate the whereabouts of a Melissa Hartwood. Do you happen to know where she might be? We tried contacting the school and they suggested that we should contact you since you seemed to have an association with her.”

She could barely contain the panic in her voice “Is she in some sort of trouble? Has something happened?”

“Ma’am, do you know where we can locate her?” Sargent Grason reiterated.

“Yes, she is staying here tonight, I’ll get her.”

Emily hastily ran upstairs to the guest room and woke up Melissa.

“Melissa, the police are on the phone trying to contact you. I don’t know what it is about, but no matter
what
, we are here for you.” She said barely containing the anguish in her voice.

Melissa ran into Keith and Emily’s bedroom and picked up the phone.

“This is Melissa Hartwood”, she said breathlessly.

“Ms. Hartwood, I’m Sargent Grason from the Orange Grove Police Department. Apparently there has been a fire over at your apartment. Your mother was in there when the fire started. We were able to get her out, but she’s in the intensive care center over at the Orange Grove County Hospital.

“Do you know anything about how this fire might have started?” asked Melissa.

“We think she might have been drinking and possibly left something on the stove and forgot about it. Our investigators are looking into it now. Are you alright Ms. Hartwood? Would you like us to send a squad car over to pick you up?”

Melissa said "No, I have someone who can take me there", and then she hung up.

She looked at Emily and flung herself on her in uncontrollable sobs. Emily held her and tried her best to find some words to comfort her.

Keith looked at both of them and thought,
we are now all in danger!

Melissa looked into cubicle where her mother lay attached to tubes, monitors and oxygen. She could hardly hold back her tears.

A nurse approached Melissa and said “Are you her family?”

“Yes”, said Melissa, “I’m her daughter”.

“OK”, said the nurse, “you can go on in, but I can only let you stay a few minutes”.

Melissa walked into the darkened cubicle. “Mom?” she said in a soft voice.

The frail figure in bed turned to look at her. Melissa reached out and grabbed her hand.

“Oh Mom!” Melissa said unable to contain her sobs.

“They threaten your dad”, said Melissa’s mother in a barely audible voice.

“He called me from the prison. He said some inmates from the
Aryan Brotherhood
threaten to kill him if you said anything or showed that video to anyone. Melissa what are they talking about? What have you gotten into? Melissa, I’m so sorry I let you down…..”

At that she faded out. The nurse standing in back of the cubicle beckoned her to come out.

Waiting in the hallway was a police officer.

“Ms. Hartwood”, he said “We’re still not sure what happened there. Originally we suspected she got drunk and left something on the stove, but her neighbors reported that they heard some people rifling her mail box, and shortly after that they saw the apartment a blaze. That’s when they called the fire department. She was lucky they got there in time. She was out cold on the couch.”

“Are you by any chance the girlfriend of the boy who shot all those high school kids?” he asked.

She shook her head meekly.

“Could it be possible someone was trying to get revenge for Billy through you?” he asked

She just sobbed and shrugged.

“Well in any case, are you going to be alright? You can’t go back to the apartment, it’s totally destroyed.”

With that, Emily spoke up to the police officer. “Sir, I’m one of her teachers. She was with staying with us tonight, and we can keep her with us until things get sorted out.”

“Ms. Hartwood”, he inquired, “Is that OK with you?”

Melissa just nodded.

The nurse then spoke up “We’ll let you know if there are any changes in her condition. I expect she’ll be here a while.”

With that, Melissa still clutching Emily as close as she could, and Keith walked out of the Intensive Care wing and into the elevator. When they drove off in their car, Melissa fell immediately asleep in the back.

“What do you think happened?” asked Emily in a quiet concerned voice.

“I don’t know, but I doubt it was revenge by any students. Somebody’s gotten wind of what we’re after and they wanted to make sure it wasn’t ever found – even if they had to kill someone to do it.”

“Emily, he said again, “I think we are all in real danger from whoever these people are”.

As they pulled into their driveway, they didn’t notice a green pickup parked nearby with a man watching intently their every movement.

The next day, Keith went back into his office and Emily called in sick so she could stay close by Melissa. She tried to put on some upbeat music, but Melissa just sat in a trance most of the day, deep in thought.

When she finally spoke she said to Emily, “Emily, mom said that they threatened to kill dad in prison.”

Emily was taken aback, “How do you know this?”

“Mom told me in the hospital that she got a call from her dad from the prison. She said they threaten to kill him unless I shut up or if I showed the video to anyone.”

“Emily, I’m so scared right now!” she said as she broke into a new round of sobbing.

Clutching her to her again Emily could only just stroke her and say “It’s going to be alright Melissa, we’ll make sure no one harms you or your family”

Keith got home later that evening to find Emily and Melissa sitting around the table. Melissa had calmed down a little by now.

“How are you Melissa?” queried Keith in a quiet voice. Melissa just shrugged.

Melissa then told Keith about the threat that her dad had gotten from the Aryan Brotherhood in prison.

“We’re you able to find out anything new Keith?” asked Emily.

“No”, said Keith. “Apparently the mailbox had been rifled before the fire, but we’re not sure if they found anything. Your mom didn’t seem to know anything about the video, but someone does. That’s why they’ve been trying to find it, or at least make sure it never gets found.”

“I’m still puzzled by this”, said Keith, “Billy said he made a video for you Melissa, but how? His computer was broken so he couldn’t have done it with that. I want to listen to that phone message again to see if we can discover some clues.”

Keith cued up the digital recording he’d made of the message on Melissa’s phone and played it back. They listened intently, rewound it, and played it again; this time at a higher volume. Suddenly Melissa jumped up with a shout! “The
music
!” She said “He’s playing the tape from the dance routine we made when we were in the studio!
That’s
where he made the video!”

Keith thought for a moment. “Melissa, the video camera’s they use there, don’t they have a memory chip in them that records things first? When you want to make a DVD, you just play back the contents from the recorded memory chip, isn’t that right?”

Melissa pondered this and said, “Yes, that’s right! That would mean that if the memory chip is still in the camera, it would still have Billy’s video on it! We might have to proof we need!” she shouted.

“We have to get in there and get that memory chip from the camera before they figure out that it might still be there”, said Keith.