Acoustic Shadows (10 page)

Thiery followed Dunham’s car and pulled in behind him at the Dowling home. Dunham waited on the stoop until Thiery joined him, before knocking on the door. A woman with kind eyes opened it and asked them in. A tow-headed boy sat on the couch in the living room, his hands tucked between his knees. Carol Dowling introduced her son, Ricky.

Thiery stuck out his hand and the boy jumped up like a soldier at attention.

‘Hi, Ricky, I’m Agent Thiery, and this is Police Chief Dunham.’

Ricky nodded as he shook each man’s hand. ‘Are you a
secret
agent, Mr. Thiery?’

Thiery smiled. ‘No, I’m a policeman, just like Chief Dunham, but my department calls us agents.’

The boy sat back down, a quizzical look on his face.

‘Can I bring you gentlemen some coffee?’ the woman asked.

‘No, thanks, Mrs Dowling,’ said Dunham.

‘Nor me,’ said Thiery. ‘We’ve been having our fill the past twenty-four hours. We don’t want to take up too much of your time, so maybe we should get started.’

Mrs Dowling appeared a little hurt by their rejection, but waved her hand toward Ricky. ‘Go ahead and tell the policemen everything you told me and your father last night.’ She turned back to Thiery and said, ‘I don’t know if it will help, or not, but I thought what he told us was unusual, and you might want to hear it. I mean, you probably don’t have a lot of witnesses to talk to, right?’

Dunham’s phone rang. The ringtone was a Tim McGraw song. He excused himself, appearing embarrassed, and stepped out the front door. When he returned, he leaned in and whispered in Thiery’s ear. ‘That was the Sheriff. He told me he has a woman in his office that says she’s Frank Shadtz’s wife. Wants to know what we’re going to do with his … ’ He stopped, glanced at the boy, then, ‘Wants to know what we’re going to do with the deceased suspect.’

‘They’re doing an autopsy, yes?’ questioned Thiery.

‘That would be customary. He also said he has some more reports his officers compiled at the church yesterday. Witness reports; a few of the kids and the rest of the teachers in the school. Said nothing stood out, but he thought we might want them.’

‘Okay. I’ll need all of them.’

‘Right,’ said Dunham. ‘If you’re good here, why don’t I go see the sheriff and this Shadtz woman. While I’m there, I’ll collate the reports from all the agencies, have my secretary scan them and email them to you?’

‘That would be a big help. You have my email?’

Dunham tapped his top breast pocket. ‘Right here on your card.’

‘Okay. Thanks, Chief. Maybe we can catch up this afternoon.’

‘Sounds like a plan. See you later.’

Dunham excused himself, and Mrs Dowling walked him out.

Thiery said, ‘Go ahead, Ricky. If it doesn’t bother you to talk about what happened yesterday.’ He took out his iPad, hit the settings button, then the record button, and placed it on the coffee table between his chair and the sofa.

‘Oh, no,’ said Ricky, his eyes going huge. ‘It was scary, but it was kinda cool, too. Miss Weisz was so brave. She was like the Terminator!’

‘Really?’ said Thiery. ‘Can you start from the beginning? You were in her class, right?’

‘Yeah,’ said Ricky squirming with anticipation. ‘Mrs Miller was out again and … ’

‘Mrs Miller is your usual teacher?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘I see. And how many days had she been out?’

‘Gosh, she’s been out a lot. I think it was three, no four days, ’cause she was out the Friday before, too. It was almost like Miss Weisz was our permanent teacher; she’s been there so much.’

‘You like her, don’t you Ricky?’

Ricky shrugged.

‘I do, but … ’

‘But, now you’re not so sure? Because she had that gun?’

‘Yeah. I still like her, but now I’m kinda scared of her.’

‘That’s understandable, Ricky. But, it sounds like she saved you and the other kids from the bad man.’

‘Yeah.’

‘Maybe she’s not that bad. She’s missing right now, and we want to find her, so we can talk to her about that. Anything you remember is going to be helpful.’

‘Okay. Anyway, she came in and told us we had to silent-read this story, it’s called
Sleepy Hollow
, and it’s kinda creepy, because it’s about this guy with no head who haunts this town.’

‘Oh, yes,’ said Thiery. ‘It’s one of my favourites. Just right for Halloween.’

‘Anyway, we were just finishing it because we started it the day earlier. We were gonna make jack-o’-lanterns out of coloured paper after that, but that’s when we heard the popping sounds, like firecrackers.’

‘Only it wasn’t firecrackers, was it?’ said Thiery.

‘No, sir. It wasn’t, but it sounded like it.’

‘Where were you sitting when you first heard those sounds?’

‘I sit at the front of the class, right next to the teacher’s desk, because sometimes I get in trouble, you know?’

‘I see. And what did Miss Weisz do when she heard the sounds?’

‘Okay, I remember it exactly,’ said Ricky excitedly. ‘She stood up and went to the window. I wasn’t supposed to leave my seat, but I went to the window, too, and I heard her say something, like to herself.’

‘Really? Do you remember what she said?’

‘Yeah. She said something like, “Not again”.’

‘Hmmn,’ said Thiery.
Not again. Why would she say that?
‘That seems a strange thing to say, doesn’t it?’

‘I don’t know. I guess,’ answered Ricky. He began wringing his hands and his words came faster, running together. ‘Anyway, the intercom came on about that time, and we could hear the principal ask the men not to shoot the children, and one of the men said they were going to kill everyone, or something like that, and then there were sounds like explosions, and we knew it wasn’t firecrackers then.’

Thiery glanced at Mrs Dowling, noted her eyes getting wet. ‘Are you okay, Mrs Dowling?’

A tear fell. ‘Yes … it’s just … things could’ve been worse for us, obviously. I still shudder when I think how lucky Ricky … all of the children were. But … Dr Montessi and the ladies in the front office are … were so nice. I … just … ’ She stood up and crossed the room to where a box of tissues sat, pulled some out, and dabbed her eyes. ‘Please continue. You need to hear everything.’

‘Okay,’ said Thiery. ‘Go ahead, Ricky.’

Ricky nodded. ‘We all were really scared after we heard the shooting on the intercom. And we could hear noises down the hall. We heard a lady scream and Miss Weisz told us all to get in the closet, but we couldn’t all fit. There was too many of us, so she started turning desks over and told us to get behind them. Then Mrs LaForge looked in the window and … and … she got shot.’

‘Are you okay to keep talking, Ricky? I know this was very scary. If you need to, take a break.’

‘No, sir. I can talk, but it
was
scary. I was hiding behind the desk with Miss Weisz, and I could tell she was scared, too. They started shooting through the door to our classroom. I forgot to tell you that Miss Weisz ran over and locked it, but, anyway, it didn’t last long, ’cause the guy that came into our class had one of those guns like they use in
Black Ops
, you know, the Xbox game, like a military weapon, and it just tore the door right down.’

The boy stopped to get a drink of Gatorade that his mother had sat down in front of him. He gulped as if he hadn’t drunk anything for days. It stained his upper lip red. After a moment and a deep breath, he continued.

‘He saw Miss Weisz and he told her to stand up. Then, she tried to tell the man a fib and said we were all out on the playground, but he told her to, well, he said a bad word, you know, the ‘F’ word, and he told her to shut up. Then he asked her what her name was— ’

Thiery stiffened and leaned forward. ‘Wait,’ he said, ‘the gunman asked Miss Weisz her name?’

‘Yeah. And when she didn’t answer right away, he shot his gun around the room and it was so loud! He asked Miss Weisz her name again and, this time, she answered, but she told him her name was ‘Millie,’ or something like that. I knew she was still fibbing because I heard her and Mrs Wallace talking one morning and Mrs Wallace called her Erica, but I don’t know why she said Millie.’

‘Then what happened?’

‘I peeked up over the edge of the pile of desks and I saw that man had taken off his mask.’

‘Yeah? Did that scare you?’

‘Yeah, I guess a little but not so much. He looked old, or sick, or something, He was sweating a lot. I could hear him breathe and it sounded like when I was a little kid. When I had asthma I sounded like that.’

‘Like a wheezing?’

‘Uh-huh.’

‘Then what?’

‘The man kind of smiled at Miss Weisz, and then Rachel came out of the closet and she was crying and her arm was bleeding. Miss Weisz saw her, and went over to her and wrapped a cloth around it that she got out of her purse. The man with the gun was putting another one of those things in it … ’

‘A bullet clip?’

‘Yep, that’s it. I was watching Miss Weisz, and the look on her face changed. She looked like my mom when she’s really, really mad. Then the guy with the gun started to point it at her again and she pulled a gun out of her purse and she didn’t say ‘drop it’, or anything like that like they do on TV. She just aimed and fired. It wasn’t as loud as the man’s big gun, but it hit him, right here in the face.’ Ricky pointed to the middle of his forehead.

Thiery stared at Ricky for a moment, trying to assess what he was telling him, but also thinking about how it might affect him later on in life. As a father, Thiery often considered how crime affected, not only the victims, but the eyewitnesses. He wondered if the school would provide grief counselling and made a mental note to check with the school board on their plans.

‘Mrs Dowling,’ said Thiery, ‘I’ll take that cup of coffee if the offer is still good.’

She needed that. Listening to her son describe how close he was to people shooting guns, getting killed, the little girl that could’ve been killed, the man that was killed, it was all too much for her. She said, ‘Of course. I’ll be right back.’ Thiery could hear her sniffling as she poured the coffee. She returned; her eyes dry but red, her face drawn.

‘Okay, Ricky,’ said Thiery. ‘You’re doing very well. What you’re telling me is very helpful. What did Miss Weisz do after that?’

Ricky took another sip of his Gatorade. ‘Let me think. She was just standing there. It was quiet and some of the kids came out from behind the desk. A lot of them were crying, and the girls went to hug Miss Weisz. She was crying, too. Then, we heard more shots and Miss Weisz said, ‘There’s another one out there.’ Then, she took her gun and told us to close our eyes and that it was going to be all right, but I didn’t close my eyes like everyone else. I just kept watching Miss Weisz and I saw her walk over to the man with the gun and she shot him again. In the head. It … it was pretty gross. She saw me looking, and she told me to sit back down and she would be back.’

Thiery was amazed. He tried to picture what was, in his mind, this demure elementary school teacher calmly walking over and putting a kill shot into the gunman’s head. This was not an ordinary action that might be expected from anyone, much less a school teacher in charge of a room full of seven and eight-year-olds. He found himself hoping he could meet her. He also found himself doubting this tragedy was mere happenstance.

So many questions now. Why would a crazed gunman ask the teacher her name before he planned to shoot her? What is the likelihood that Erica Weisz would have a gun in her purse and possess the willingness to use it? Was she expecting something like this? Was that even her real name? And the biggest question – where the hell was she?

Thiery pondered the fresh facts. Historically, when these mass murders occurred, investigators rather quickly gathered conclusive evidence pointing to the fact the gunman, or gunmen, were fanatics with some political message to announce, or a perceived slight to vindicate. That model didn’t seem to fit here. A lot of things did not fit, and Thiery was beginning to believe something else was going on, something that suggested premeditation and planning. Lots of planning.

‘Thanks for your time, Mrs Dowling, and you, too, young man,’ said Thiery as he stood to leave. ‘You’ve been a big help.’

Mrs Dowling walked him to the door. As he stepped out into the warm afternoon, Thiery heard Ricky ask his mother, ‘Mom, is it okay if Seth comes over? He’s got a new Airsoft gun and we want to play cops and robbers out back.’

Mrs Dowling gazed into Thiery’s face as if she were drugged. Her lips trembled, and a tear ran down her face as she closed the door.

By the afternoon, news cameras recorded the angry crowds gathering in front of Travis Hanks Elementary School. On one side of the street, closest to the memorials of pastel-coloured teddy bears, flowers, and home-made posters expressing love and sorrow, people demanded this type of incident never happen again in the US. They carried signs and banners that read: TOO MANY PEOPLE ARE DYING BECAUSE TOO MANY PEOPLE HAVE GUNS!

Across from that group were crowds of people carrying signs – some misspelled – that read: OWNING GUNS IS A RIGHT, NOT A CRIME! DON’T LET A TRADEGY CAUSE ANOTHER TRADEGY-THE LOSS OF OUR CONSTITUTION! Within this crowd was a group of men adorned in camouflage wear and various baseball caps with embroidered slogans. Some were hunters. Some were simple rednecks. One man, in particular, was loud and opinionated, and drawing people to him like a fire and brimstone Southern Baptist preacher. It was Ellis Coody and, once again, the media was drawn to his vehement rhetoric like flies to shit.

‘Hey, I think it goes without saying this is a tragedy,’ he announced to a group of reporters, ‘but if you’re going to condemn my son for bringing a gun into that school, then you need to condemn Erica Weisz for having one, too.’ Using the spotlight for his propaganda, he continued to try to avert blame from his son. ‘I’ll say it again: none of us knows exactly what went on in that school. We knowed there was some shootin’, but who started it?’

‘Mr. Coody,’ interrupted one intrepid reporter, ‘police reported your son was one of the men who attacked the school. Are you denying that?’

‘You’ damn straight I am,’ he said, his already ruddy face glowing with heat. ‘There isn’t a single witness who states he saw my son shoot any of those teachers that died. Not a one. But, we do know that one of the teachers shot my son. Now, he’s in a coma in the hospital, and where is she? If she didn’t do somethin’ wrong, why’d she run off?’

Jonathan Montessi, the husband of the slain school principal, stood on the opposite side of the street with the anti-gun group, lamenting the deaths of his wife and her staff. He was still in a daze, unable to come to terms with the sudden loss of his spouse of eighteen years and the violation of their school. He was sleepless, emotionally charged, and within earshot of Coody’s blathering. With tears streaming down his face, he strode across the street and, without words, punched Coody Sr in the face. A brief melee followed, all caught on live television, chronicling the disintegration of the community. Police, standing guard by the school – which was still an active crime scene – moved into the crowd and tried to defuse the chaos.

Dave Gruber managed to break away and reassemble his camera crew. He reported back to Gail Summer and THN. ‘Well, you can see, Gail,’ he panted, ‘as we noted yesterday, the aftermath of the “human tornadoes” encompasses not only the tragic loss of lives, it tears at the very fabric of this community. And, once again, the question is posted: where is Erica Weisz, the teacher who reportedly shot the two gunmen who entered the school yesterday morning and has now disappeared? Where did she go, and why is she running? Back to you, Gail.’

‘Okay, Dave, thank you. Try to stay safe,’ Gail advised. The camera focused on her concerned face. ‘In other news, a case of road rage led one driver to shoot another in Atlanta today … ’

Ellis Coody managed to extricate himself from the crowd, a few of his bubbas surrounding him, offering their sympathies and allegiance. They convened in the parking lot, leaning over the bed of his pickup truck, reaching into the giant Igloo cooler, digging into the ice, and popping open some Busch beers.

Coody Sr wiped the blood from his nose with the back of his hand, smearing a red trail across his cheek. It looked like war paint. ‘Thanks, boys,’ he said, addressing the group. ‘I ’ppreciate you bein’ here, showin’ your support. But, I’m goin’ to ask you to do me another favour. I got a friend in the Sheriff’s Office that tells me a car was stolen from the hospital up in Lakeland last night, and they think that teacher probably took it. It was a black Camaro SS. There ain’t a lot of places to go between Bartow and here, ’specially for someone what just got buckshot plucked outta their belly. I’m bettin’, iffen we got a buncha eyes lookin’ in the Lake Wales area, we could find a black Camaro. I’d sure like to find the bitch that put my boy in the hospital and turned him into a cripple. Anyone with me?’

A resounding, ‘Yeah, man,’ came from Coody’s loyal friends, and they climbed into their mud-splashed trucks, gun racks prominently displayed in the back windows. Each of them called some of their friends, who, in turn, called more of their friends. Within half an hour, there were a hundred sets of eyes from Kissimmee in the north to Sebring in the south and from Yeehaw Junction to the east, back to Plant City in the west, all looking for the woman called Erica Weisz driving a stolen black Camaro. The official Sheriff’s APB seemed like an afterthought.

Erica checked herself in the mirror – her new blonde hair was a startling change. She’d done a decent dye job, though the roots at the centre parting still showed dark, as did her eyebrows. But, it would do. She put on the jeans again and a loose-fitting, comfortable but nondescript blouse that would not draw attention, and a clean pair of Nikes. She just couldn’t get away from those running shoes. Just in case.

Picking up the new cell phone, she considered calling Moral, but she couldn’t get past the fact that he was the only person who could’ve known where she was.
Could she trust him?
This wasn’t the first time she’d had reason to doubt him.

The more she thought about it, the more she was convinced that the gunmen had not come to the school randomly. She kept asking herself:
Why did that man ask my name? Would a crazed mass murderer do that?

She thought of the man as he’d confronted her class, removing his mask, an act in itself that said one of two things:
no one here is getting out alive,
or
I’m not getting out of here alive.
It was a look of finality. She remembered the look on the other, younger man’s face. It was not one of resignation like the older man. It was one of complete insanity, like the look in a mad dog’s eyes.

Erica’s mind swam incoherently, and she felt her eyes burn. A sign of fever, maybe? She felt her forehead with the back of her hand. It was warm. It would be a miracle if she didn’t get an infection from the abdominal wound. She knew she should be in a hospital with a steady infusion of IV antibiotics, but she didn’t feel safe there. She wondered:
Was it all my imagination?

Digging into her purse, she found a notepad and wrote down some essentials she needed from the store. If she could wait until dark, when the roads and the stores were less busy, grab the few items she needed, and clean out the ‘B’ haven house, she could probably get out of the state by early morning. But then what?
Where would she go? Was any place safe?

The notion that, if she could get to the main offices of the Department of Justice in Washington, perhaps she would be safe there. Get a new manager, a new location, a new start. But, she’d been in Washington before, and her ‘haven’ there had been compromised, too. Before that, in Las Vegas – when it all started – she had been surrounded by deputies, but, while they had kept
her
safe, she’d lost everything and everyone else.

Memories of that time slipped back into her mind like a shark creeping up from the depths while she floated on a volatile surface. She couldn’t believe it had been three years. Fatigue swept over her as she tried to fight off those horrible images, but, before long, she found herself curled into a foetal position on a bumpy couch, drifting off to sleep while scenes of blood-splashed walls filled her mind.

The sound of tyres crunching over the shell-rock drive startled her awake. She wasn’t sure how long she’d been asleep, but the light coming in the window had morphed into that salmon colour that is trademark to Florida sunsets. Her throat was so dry it felt like something was stuck in it, and it hurt to swallow. Her skin was hot and flushed, and she no longer doubted if she had a fever.

A car door slammed, and she sat up, her wounded side screaming at her for moving so fast. She managed to get up and hobble back to the room where she’d left her purse and the gun. She looked out the window of the living room where she had a view of the drive. There was a big, silver car behind the Camaro, but no one was inside.

Erica wobbled into the kitchen and looked out the window and into the backyard, but saw nothing. She remembered a small utility room in the back of the house, near the bedrooms, and rushed back to make sure the door was locked. When she got there, the door that led outside was open.

She knew she’d screwed up, even as she turned and found the man standing behind her. Her gun was at her side; his was aimed at her, the hammer pulled back ready to fire. He was saying something to her, but there was a persistent ringing in her ears, and her vision began to lose its focus. Her stomach reeled and began to empty itself, bile dripping from her slack mouth, the effort so strenuous she felt herself falling, striking her knees against the hard terrazzo floor, before coming to a rest against the side of a washing machine, its cold steel like ice against her face.