Jubilee's Journey (The Wyattsville Series) (8 page)

The bread truck blocked Hurt’s view of Paul crossing the street. And the girl, small as she was, sitting on a bench partly hidden by an oak tree, was beyond the scope of where he’d fixed his vision.

He moved down the street with long strides. No cars out front: good. No passersby: good. Hurt had to make sure there were no witnesses. Witnesses only meant trouble. He’d gone soft in the jewelry store heist when Eloise Mercer had whimpered and cried, and what did he get in return? She pointed an accusing finger at him, and he spent an extra five years in prison.

“No more,” he mumbled. “No more.”

Paul was standing in front of the counter asking Sidney Klaussner about the job when the store door opened.

Sidney Klaussner was fifty-eight years old but sharp as a tack. He was also damned and determined that nobody was ever gonna rob his store again. A year earlier three thugs who had jumped off a freight train came in waving a gun and walked off with more than four hundred dollars.  For a good six months Sidney berated himself for letting them get away with it; then he went out and bought a Browning 16 gauge shotgun. It was an automatic that could fire off five shots faster than a rabbit could run across the yard.

Whenever the store door swung open, Sidney always looked up and nodded a hello. It was his way of greeting people. When Hurt walked through the door, Sid saw him reach into his jacket pocket and pull the gun out. Before Hurt closed the gap between them Sidney pulled the rifle from beneath the counter, and without taking time to aim he began firing.

Hurt was faster. His bullet tore through Sidney’s chest like a cannon ball.

Sidney squeezed off two shots as he fell. The first one hit Paul in the head. The second one went wild and lodged itself in the ceiling.

Hurt stepped over Paul and banged open the cash register. He grabbed all the bills, then turned and walked out of the store like a man who’d just stopped in for a pack of cigarettes.

He never noticed Martha Tillinger. Without her hearing aid she’d been unaware of what was happening until she heard the bang of gunfire and that’s when she squatted down behind the cereal boxes.

Martha, afraid for her life, stayed behind those cereal boxes for nearly twenty minutes before she found the courage to venture out. When she finally tiptoed out and saw the bodies in the floor, she screamed so loud that Mario Gomez heard her two doors down. He came running from the barber shop, and that’s when they finally called the police.

By time the patrol car pulled up in front of Klaussner’s Grocery, Hurt McAdams was five blocks from the bus station.

Angry Faces

T
he Klaussner’s Grocery Store robbery occurred at 8:06 on the first Wednesday of March. By 8:30 there were two ambulances and five patrol cars sitting crosswise on Main Street. Cars were rerouted to Washington, but those on foot could cut through the park and come out on Main. Within twenty minutes there were nearly fifty people who had come from out of nowhere crowded in front of the store.

Ethan Allen left for school at 8:40. It took ten minutes to get there and he had ten minutes to spare, so when he bicycled across Ridge Road and saw the flashing red lights a block down on Main he turned and headed in that direction.

Leaning his bicycle against the lamppost, he edged his way into the crowd and looked for a familiar face. Seth Porter’s was the first one he saw.

“Hey, there, Mister Porter,” he called out.

Porter turned and scanned the faces in the crowd.

“It’s me,” Ethan Allen called and pushed past a hefty woman who’d been blocking his view. “What’s going on?”

“Ain’t you supposed to be in school?”

“Yeah, I’m on my way.”

“Then you’d better get moving.”

“What’s going on?” Ethan Allen repeated.

Porter glanced at his watch and thumbed his finger in the direction of the school. “Get going. It’s five ‘til nine.”

“School don’t start ‘til ten today,” Ethan answered. “So what’s going on?”

“A robbery,” Porter finally said. “Sidney Klaussner got shot. They’re saying he shot one of the bandits, but the other one got away. ” He eyed Ethan Allen suspiciously. “You sure school don’t start ‘til ten?”

“Positive.”

Moments later Carmella Klaussner jumped out of Henrietta Banger’s car and pushed her way through the crowd screaming, “Sid! Sid!” The poor woman was almost hysterical, and it was all anyone could do to hold her back. She screamed, cried, and pleaded, but still Ed Cunningham refused to allow her past the barricade he’d set up. It was Ed’s third day on the job, and he was starting to think that maybe being a policeman wasn’t what he was cut out for.

“This is a crime scene,” he kept repeating, “and no one except the police and medics are allowed in.”

Of course the crowd of onlookers sided with Carmella.

“Let her in!” somebody shouted. “She’s got a right to see her husband!”

“Yeah!” several others yelled. “Let her in!”

“Nobody’s allowed in,” Cunningham repeated, but by then beads of nervous perspiration were building on his forehead. He wanted to explain how the police were trying to collect the sort of evidence they needed to find the perpetrator, but the crowd was obviously not in the mood to listen.

It was after ten-thirty when the medics carried out the first stretcher. Cunningham pushed the crowd back to clear a pathway to the ambulance, then helped Carmella in so she could be with her husband. As the doors slammed shut, the last thing he heard was Carmella’s voice crying, “Say something, Sid, say something…”

The second stretcher was carried out minutes later, and when the medics went by an angry rumble rolled through the crowd.

“Murderer!” someone yelled; then others echoed the word. Once the gurney was locked in place, the second ambulance sped off.

“You should’ve just let the hoodlum die!” somebody shouted. After that a loud and angry discussion ensued about what was right and wrong.

“If someone repents of their sin, the Lord forgives them,” Pastor Brian argued.

“An eye for an eye!” Bob Ballard yelled.

“Yeah,” several people agreed. “An eye for an eye.”

Cunningham started to sweat profusely. “Let’s all calm down. There’s nothing more to see here. Just go home and let well enough be.”

After a lot of arguing and yelling, Pastor Brian left the group and made his way back across the park. Little by little the others began to drift away.

Only then did Seth Porter realize he’d lost track of the time. It was well after eleven when he finally shooed Ethan Allen off to school.

Making his way through the now-thinning crowd, Ethan Allen noticed the girl sitting on the bench. She was a little kid, sitting there all by herself.
She probably should be in school too,
he thought,
but nobody’s telling her to scram.
As he pedaled past the bench, a fleeting twinge of resentment caught hold.

“How come
she
gets to stay here?” he grumbled as he turned the corner and headed toward Wyattsville Junior High.

Jubilee remained on the bench throughout the morning. She’d heard the gunshots, but she’d heard gunshots before. In Coal Fork it simply meant the men had gone hunting. Even as she watched the crowds gather she was not alarmed. This was the city. Paul had warned her things were different in the city.

When several hours had passed and he still hadn’t returned, she began to search the faces of the stragglers standing in front of the store. The expressions were hard and the voices angry, so Jubilee remained where she was. She thought back on Paul’s words.

“You can’t go talking to strangers,” he’d said. “People in the city ain’t like us. They got their ways, and we got ours.” So far, Jubilee was none too fond of their ways.

For a brief moment there had been a boy who seemed different—someone she might ask to go in search of her brother. The boy looked at her for a moment, then climbed onto his bicycle and pedaled off. Once he rounded the corner and disappeared, Jubilee knew it was a foolish thought. He was like all the others.