Acoustic Shadows Read online

  ‘That’s all I did say,’ said Thiery.

  Croll stopped smiling. ‘Well, okay. When you’re in the position to make those kinds of decisions, maybe you can go that way. For now, you’re the man, the SAS, the Special Agent Supervisor. Our man. Pull this thing together so Florida doesn’t continue to look like a bunch of morons who can’t even vote right. Do the job you’re supposed to be so good at, capiche?’

  Thiery nodded, but said nothing.

  Bullock’s face turned red. If he weren’t so close to retirement, he’d tell the governor to go fuck himself. He had no right talking to one of his men like that, especially Thiery, a solid cop who’d raised two boys by himself after his wife walked out on him ten years ago.

  ‘I’ll be in Washington,’ he said blandly.

  Croll looked at him as if trying to remember if he’d given him permission to leave the state, his eyebrow arched.

  ‘For the National Police Commissioner’s meeting?’ Bullock asked.

  ‘Of course,’ said Croll, then turned back to Thiery. ‘You want to fly down with me, Agent Thiery?’ Like he was offering a gift.

  ‘I should probably drive down. If I’m taking lead, I’ll need my car to get around.’

  ‘Nonsense. Fly with me. I’ve got a limo picking me up. It’ll be the fastest way. If you need a car, you can check out a cruiser at your Orlando office, right?’

  Thiery’s jaw muscles flexed. ‘Sure,’ he said.

  In a penthouse suite at the Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, eighty-year-old Emilio Esperanza watched the live coverage of the shooting at the Florida elementary school on one of the three big screen TVs. Another TV was set to the stock market, the sound turned off; banners of numbers flowing across the bottom of the screen reflecting in Esperanza’s eyes. The last TV was showing an old black-and-white gangster film. Esperanza picked a speck of tobacco from an unfiltered cigarette off his lip with his bony, blue fingers, and flaked it to the floor, then reached over and turned up the oxygen that ran into his nostrils via a plastic nasal cannula.

  ‘You should have a nurse doing that for you, Papa,’ said his son Julio, himself over fifty years old. His thick hair looked like a coiffed chrome helmet on his head. Tanned skin. Teeth like polished porcelain chips. His collar button was open on his starched, maroon shirt, Rat Pack-style, under his tailored, bone-coloured, linen suit.

  The old man’s eyes slid over to his son’s like those of a Komodo dragon eyeing its prey. He raised his wrinkled upper lip as if to spit.

  ‘That didn’t work out too well last time, did it?’

  Julio cast his eyes to the ground. One way or the other, it would all be over soon. He wished he had the balls to strangle the old man himself, save them both a lot of trouble. But he didn’t.

  ‘Time for you to do something, Julio.’

  ‘Sure, Papa. Anything.’

  ‘Get that fucking marshal on the phone, numero uno. And, dos, get your little posse together and get down to Florida. This thing stops now.’

  THREE

  Erica Weisz lay in a private room in Lakeland Regional Hospital dreaming of fire. She saw only bright orange light and felt searing heat all around her, at once welcoming her and, conversely, pushing her back with its intensity. Then it was gone, as if sucked into a vacuum, taking her life with it, but leaving her body and an all-encompassing emptiness as cold as any Arctic region on earth.

  She woke up sweating, strands of hair stuck to her face, tears streaming down her cheeks. A feeling of post-operative nausea and dizziness enveloped her. She sat up with great difficulty and felt pain in her side and lower abdomen. The room spun to a stop, and she was able to see her surroundings in the late afternoon light that filtered through the window: an aseptic hospital room painted a vague green, an uncomfortable-looking vinyl chair for visitors, her chrome-railed bed with unwrinkled sheets as if laid over a corpse.

  Her mouth was dry. A small folding table next to the bed held a yellow plastic pitcher of ice water, a clear cup, and a plastic straw. She peeled the paper off the straw, stuck it directly into the pitcher, and drank deeply. She looked at the IV in her arm and up to the bag that fed it. Lactated ringers in a one-litre bag, piggybacked with a half-litre of normal saline, a red tag on the bag that read Amoxicillin on its side. Both were dripping at KVO (‘keep vein open’) rate. She reached down with one hand and pinched the skin on the back of the other hand. It made a small fleshy tent that lingered for a few seconds before slowly laying back down. She was extremely dehydrated. She glanced up again and saw an empty plastic IV bag, its insides coated with blood. Must be pretty bad if they had to give her blood, too. She reached up and turned the drip rate up on the bag of ringers, and forced herself to drink more water.

  She wondered if she’d said anything while under anaesthesia and wondered how long she’d been out. What happened to the red-haired man after I shot him? Was he dead? She recalled the urgent jerk of her body as the buckshot caught her in the side and spun her around. She remembered the look of surprise as she fired and caught him in the neck.

  Fear crept through her as she thought there might have been other gunmen and that some of the children – those precious children – might now be dead. She hoped she had stopped them all in time. Before they could get to the kids. She remembered being consumed with that goal: stop these bastards before they hurt anyone else. She remembered waking up briefly in the recovery room, a doctor speaking to her and she back to him, but she couldn’t remember what the conversation was about. Probably previous medical history, current meds, etc. Standard medical questions. Had she revealed anything?

  The plastic name band on her wrist read: Weisz, Erica. I didn’t tell them everything, she thought. It gave her relief, made her feel safe, at least for now. But that wouldn’t last long. She needed to make a plan; first, she needed to make a phone call.

  The phone rang at Robert Moral’s home. Moral was in his office, on the computer, playing Slots Jungle Casino. Netbet.org had given it a ‘#6’ rating, so he dived right in. Let his wife answer the phone. He heard her banging around in the kitchen then shuffling over to pick it up.

  ‘If it’s those vultures from MasterCard,’ he hollered to her, ‘tell them I already sent a payment, and it is illegal – make sure you tell them it’s against the law – to call a debtor’s home and hassle them.’

  ‘But …’ she began.

  Moral lost two hundred dollars on his opening bid at a double-down blackjack game. It infuriated him. If he hadn’t been distracted … ‘Just fucking tell them!’ he roared.

  His wife padded to his office as quiet as a cat, her hand over the phone receiver.

  ‘It isn’t MasterCard,’ she said, trying to ease the bitterness she found in her own voice. ‘I think it’s that woman. I think she’s called before. I recognized the area code.’

  She handed him the phone abruptly, glancing at the on-screen gambling site as if it were child pornography. She whirled and left the room; a woman with a heart of gold encased in a two-hundred-twenty-pound bag of cellulite that assured she would hold little regard for herself and forever put up with shit from her husband.

  Moral licked his lips with a scotch-dried tongue. He tried to clear his throat, then helped himself to another gulp of booze: J & B’s. He winced. No more Johnny Walker Green Label. Hell, not even black or red label these days. These days. But he’d get back there. Right after the next big day at the track. Or the tables. The real tables. Not these virtual games that were probably rigged to begin with.

  ‘This is Deputy Moral,’ he said. Nothing. But, he could hear breathing. It was her. It had to be. And she knew. Guilt welled up in him like a longing for another hit at the table.

  ‘Mildred?’ He listened for a moment. ‘Are you okay?’ he tried. ‘Can you talk?’

  Just the breathing.

  ‘Millie,’ he said, gathering his courage after another swig of cheap scotch, ‘I’m working on another plan. Don’t worry. Stay where you are, and go to safe haven ‘B�
��. We’re going to send in an extrication team. You’re safe. I’m coming down myself. Okay?’

  There was a cough; someone clearing a throat. Then, a click on the other end of the line, a dial tone that seemed to grow louder with every beat of Moral’s heart. He felt an icy sweat form on the back of his neck and lower back. He realized, with growing trepidation, that the caller might not have been the woman. Oh fuck! he thought.

  ‘Honey?’ he pleaded. ‘Did you recognize the area code on that call?’

  ‘I think it was from Las Vegas, dear.’

  But she wasn’t in Las Vegas anymore. His voice quivering, he said, ‘You better pack me a bag. I’m going to have to leave. It’s … uh, work.’

  FOUR

  ‘We have breaking news,’ said Gail Summer, looking wearier than she had earlier in the day. ‘It has now been confirmed that one of the shooters, nineteen-year-old David Edward Coody, was critically wounded, but has survived. He is currently in a medically induced coma; a decision made by doctors that will allow him to recover if they can control the swelling in his brain. Evidently, a bullet, possibly fired by one of the teachers, hit him in the neck but travelled up and pierced part of his brain. If he does survive, this will be an unusual twist to this recent surge of school shootings where most of the gunmen end up dead, usually by their own hands.

  ‘Adding to this tragedy,’ she continued, ‘is the discovery of two more bodies, found at the home of Coody’s mother, Shelly Granger. It appears, at this time, before going to the school, Coody stopped at his mother’s home early this morning and shot her. Evidently, Coody did not live with his mother. He lived with his father, Ellis Coody, who divorced Shelley Granger seven years ago. A second body, thought to be Shelley Granger’s husband, Ernest Granger, was also found. Both of them had been shot multiple times.

  ‘We also now know, from several law enforcement agencies’ sources, that the second gunman was 41-year-old Franklin Michael Shadtz, a man David Coody recently befriended. Not much is known about Frank Shadtz who, apparently, up to six weeks ago, lived in the Chicago area. It is unknown how the two gunmen met, or exactly what their relationship was.

  ‘Agents from the ATF and FBI responded to David Coody’s house after some non-detonated explosives were found at the Granger home. They were met by an uncooperative Ellis Coody, the father of the shooter, who was arrested for interfering with a police investigation. Forensics teams have seized computers at the home, but reports have come back saying the hard drives may have been erased or destroyed.

  ‘And, in another breaking story from Florida,’ she went on to report, ‘a six-year-old boy shot and killed his four-year-old brother last night, after finding one of his father’s loaded guns in the bedroom. The father, a former firefighter, owned sixteen guns. Police say all were loaded, and none had trigger locks. The six-year-old is in the custody of Florida’s Department of Family and Children’s Services as of this morning. Police officials say the father has been arrested and may be charged with manslaughter …’

  Bullock pulled Thiery off to the side while the governor briefed his press secretary.

  ‘Justin, I know you don’t care for the man, but you’re smart enough to know who butters your bread. I’m almost out the door, but if you handle this case as well as I know you can, they might look at you to replace me.’

  Thiery frowned at him. ‘That’s supposed to be some kind of incentive?’

  Bullock shrugged his shoulders, sweat beginning to bead on his shining black scalp as he cooked under the sun. There were bags under his bulging eyes, and his jowls hung like leather satchels on a big, beefy Harley-Davidson.

  ‘I can’t be a politician like you, Jim. I still like being a cop too much.’

  ‘Thanks, man. Why don’t you just kick me in the balls?’ Bullock said, allowing a slight smile. ‘Well, if you don’t want my job, try to keep cool so you don’t lose yours.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Jim. You were a good cop, too, but you know how it is; I can’t stand someone up my ass.’

  ‘You knew there were going to be increased responsibilities when you came to work with me. Don’t blow it now. You can last a few more years, can’t you?’

  Thiery looked at the ground, his hands in his pockets. ‘Sometimes, I think I can’t last another five minutes when I get around this governor.’

  ‘Oh, c’mon. Hang in there. Show him what you can do. Hell, at the rate he’s going, he won’t be in office another term.’

  ‘We can only hope. Okay. Sure. You know I’ll do my best.’

  ‘You going to be able to work with Logan again?’ asked Bullock.

  Thiery chewed the inside of his cheek. ‘Working with her was never the problem.’

  ‘I know,’ said Bullock, his tone consolatory. ‘You had a tough enough time raising the boys after Adrienne left. Then, the shit you got from your own department … ’

  ‘You mean when my co-workers started gossiping that maybe I’d done away with my wife? Shit. Why would that bother anyone?’

  ‘I know, I know. You got the crappy end of the stick, for sure. I was just saying, you didn’t need Logan doing you dirty, too.’

  ‘It takes two to tango. I should’a known better. She was married. Still is, I think. It was a mistake made by a stupid guy feeling sorry for himself. My bad.’

  There was nothing else to say as Thiery allowed to guilt to envelope him. After a moment, Bullock broke the silence.

  ‘All right, then. When I get back, you come over to the house. I’ll get Helen to make some of her fried chicken and collard greens,’ he offered, then added, ‘or some other redneck favourite of yours; friggin’ hillbilly.’

  Thiery laughed. Bullock making fun of his southern accent was a joke they’d shared for years. Grinning ridiculously, Bullock squeezed his shoulder.

  ‘That’s better. Now, I gotta get going, too. I’ll see you in a few days. Okay?’

  ‘You bet,’ said Thiery, just as the governor came back.

  ‘Ready to go?’ asked Croll.

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied Thiery, and he managed to give Bullock a wink, unseen by the governor. ‘See you, boss.’

  Once on the plane, Thiery sat quietly as the governor pored over documents. After a half-hour, he looked up at Thiery, his face taking on a countenance of supreme knowledge. As if just remembering something, he reached into his tailored and severely pressed slacks and pulled out a silver dollar. He handed it to him.

  ‘My father gave that to me when I started my first business. Said he wanted to give me my first dollar earned.’ He paused like a preacher considering the next words of his sermon. ‘I’ve always believed in that: a man earning what he wants.’

  Thiery nodded and looked out the small window of the private jet. He guessed where Croll was steering the conversation, but he wasn’t taking the bait.

  ‘I went on to earn over a half-billion of those,’ Croll bragged. ‘I’m not bragging. Just wanted to let you know where I came from. What’s important to me.’

  ‘I know where you’re coming from, Governor,’ said Thiery.

  He leaned forward, a slight smile on his face. He held out his hand, palm up, the coin flashing in the light through the cabin window. Thiery waved his other hand over the coin, once, then again. The coin vanished after the second pass.

  ‘Well, I’ll be damned, Agent Thiery. I didn’t know you knew magic! You should do that for my grandson sometime.’

  Thiery nodded and went back to looking outside. He could see Croll staring at him in the reflection of the plane’s window, wanting his dollar back. He saw him blinking nervously, his Adam’s apple moving up and down, like a snake swallowing something, trying to figure out a way to ask for his money back without seeming as if he needed it.

  ‘I, er … uh …’ Croll mumbled. ‘That coin has some sentimental value.’

  ‘It’s in your top pocket,’ said Thiery, calmly.

  Croll reached in – too quickly – and found it there. He beamed, but Thiery noted the sweat on
his forehead.

  Thiery physically had to bite his tongue as the governor’s words echoed through his head: Now you know where I’m coming from.

  FIVE

  Robert Moral grabbed the first flight he could find out of Ronald Reagan National Airport going to Orlando, Florida. He had watched the news unfolding about the school shooting. He knew that Erica Weisz had been shot, but when he tried to call the hospital, they wouldn’t let him talk to her. Moral felt as if his guts had turned to water, and it was all he could do to keep them from running out his ass. He called the Sheriff’s office, found the shift supervisor, and identified himself as a US Marshal investigating a person of interest to their department. That’s all he had to say as a federal agent. After calling a number to verify who Moral was, the supervisor called him back and confirmed that Miss Weisz had been shot, but was stable. They had not been able to talk to her yet, but she was under guard at the hospital. If she woke from her surgery, they intended to ask her some questions about the event at the school. Moral gave the supervisor his phone number, and asked him to call him as soon as someone from the Sheriff’s department made contact with her. No, he couldn’t elaborate but, please, he pleaded, just do this.

  Gail Summer’s eyes were glassy. She was as tired as an Iditarod sled dog, and she looked as if she might have been crying, but she wanted to use that look, so she had told the producers of THN she would stay on for another four-hour shift. They applauded her willingness, professionalism, and perseverance.

  ‘This just in: the victim toll from this morning’s school shooting in Frosthaven, Florida has officially reached twelve dead; a number that now includes the mother of David Edward Coody, Shelly Granger and her husband Ernest, as well as the second gunman, Franklin Michael Shadtz. The number of wounded stands at four, and includes one child who was treated and released with minor injuries.

  ‘The school’s front desk receptionist, Sally Ravich, is one of the wounded survivors. She has been credited for possibly saving dozens of lives by activating the school’s intercoms and alerting the school of the attack. The other two wounded are Coody, one of the gunmen, and, finally, Erica Weisz, a teacher who, by some accounts, was responsible for saving, not only the lives of the students assigned to her, but quite possibly many others. She was, reportedly, the teacher who armed herself and fought back against the heavily armed intruders. On scene and giving us live, exclusive coverage of this tragedy is Dave Gruber. Dave, do you have anything new for us about Erica Weisz?’