Acoustic Shadows (11 page)

Thiery had met Sheriff Conroy, as well as a few other local police chiefs, at the makeshift command centre they had set up at the church. He collected the rest of the reports from the various agencies and thanked both of them for putting out the APB for Erica Weisz. He made a mental note that, if they were going to stay on the site past tomorrow, he would have them move in the Mobile Command Unit, or relocate to the Calusa County Sheriff’s Office headquarters so they would not intrude on the church more than they had. Thiery wasn’t thrilled with the idea of setting up a Unified Command System at the Sheriff’s Office, so he sent a quick text to the FDLE Logistics Department to locate the closest MCU available.

Conroy still seemed to have a chip on his shoulder, but he did share the information with Thiery about the stolen Camaro and the hospital’s security videos. Thiery had watched the security cam videos and seen a person he thought might have been the Weisz woman scurrying out in a white lab coat, as reported, but the camera angle did not extend into the parking lot, and the footage was grainy and not much help.

Thiery shared with them details of the meeting with the Dowling boy and also the news about the gunman asking the teacher her name. All agreed that was odd, perhaps unprecedented anecdotally, to say the least, in mass shootings.

After delegating a few more assignments and dismissing other departments less involved in the investigation, Thiery adjourned the meeting. He and Sheriff Conroy were parked next to each other.

‘I didn’t want to bring it up again in front of the others, Sheriff,’ Thiery addressed the man as they approached their respective vehicles, ‘but have you looked into the dispatch and arrival times reported by the communications office?’

Conroy looked up under the wide brim of his hat, his eyes flashing anger. ‘Yeah, I did.’

‘And?’

‘And it was a mistake. They still use the old cardpunch system. They get a call, punch a time clock, dispatch the call, punch another time clock. Units go en route, they punch another time clock. They had a new girl working that morning, and she got behind in all the excitement and punched the cards late. That’s all,’ he ended, colour rising in his neck like a thermometer.

Thiery nodded his head. Hard to believe they still used an old cardpunch system, but they seemed a little behind the times around here, so Thiery accepted it. For now. ‘Thanks,’ he said.

Conroy said nothing, and they both got into their cars and motored away from the church; Conroy accelerating away in a huff while Thiery moved out slowly, accepting that he had a bunch of monotonous paperwork to wade through. He headed back to his hotel dolefully.

It was late in the afternoon, his room at the Sun Beam bathed in tangerine light, his eyes grainy from reading all the police and witness reports, when Thiery got the call from the governor.

‘You want to tell me how come I’m the last dumb-ass in the state of Florida to find out the teacher has disappeared?’ Croll spat through clenched teeth.

Thiery fought back a yawn. ‘You want me to call you every time something new pops up down here?’

There was silence for a moment then words so angered they could only come out one at a time.

‘No … Mr … Thiery … just … when … it … pertains … to … the … fucking … woman … that … the fucking President … of … the … United States … wants … to … meet.’

‘Sir, you sent me here to do a job … ’

‘Yeah, yeah. A job I guess I should have let Sheriff Conroy handle.’

‘It was one of your sheriff’s men who was watching her when she vanished.’

Silence.

Thiery began again. ‘Governor, this thing is turning out to be something more than we thought it was. It’s tragic enough it was another school shooting, but there seems to be more to it than that. Now, the media has blown it up into a gun control issue, and people are demonstrating in front of the school. You want to bring the President into that mix?’

‘It’s not what I want to do that matters, Thiery. It’s what
he
wants, and he has called me directly and told me he wants to meet this woman. His press secretary is arranging an event for next week that will be publicized
internationally
. You know he is trying to push a gun control bill through the Senate right now.’

‘I read the newspapers. I’m sure he’ll get some sympathetic ears because of the shooting. But, I’m not sure how it will help his agenda to have a teacher who probably saved dozens of lives by using a gun.’

‘So now, you want to help steer the President’s policies?’

‘Sir,’ Thiery said calmly, ‘I hear your concerns, and I can assure you I am doing the job I was sent here to do. But, before everyone decides who is the hero and who is the bad guy here, we should complete our investigation. You’d score major brownie points if you’d let the President know that. There’s something hinky going on here, and it would behove him to stay away from it right now, until we have some answers.’

‘Fine. Okay. Fine,’ the governor said, though Thiery guessed the man was far from ‘fine’ with anything. ‘I’ll tell the President that we need more time, but you get this clear, Thiery: you don’t make these play calls. We have a chance to get some national limelight on some of our concerns in Florida – low teacher salaries, shortage of police, rising crime rates – and we could blow it.’

Now, it was Thiery’s turn to get pissed. ‘I’ll be sure to keep that in mind when I’m talking to the families who lost a loved one.’ He paused to allow his words to sink in. ‘If there’s nothing else, sir, I’ve got a lot of work to do.’

The reply was a dial tone in his ear.

Thiery wasn’t sure why he had blown up at the governor. Maybe he was burned out. Maybe he just didn’t give a flip about the job, anymore. It had cost him a wife and took so much of his time away from his sons that, now that he could see ‘the light at the end of the tunnel,’ as the retirees referred to being near the end the career, it occurred to him that he’d missed the point. One has a job to support his family and, by doing so, form the bonds that keep them together.
What did he have now?

He suddenly remembered that Dunham had said Frank Shadtz’s wife had come to claim his body. He wondered how that was going. He hadn’t heard back from Dunham since morning. He decided to give him a call.

‘Oh, hello Agent Thiery,’ said Dunham. ‘How’s it going for you?’

‘It’s going. I’ve gone through most of the reports. Talked to a few more witnesses. None was more helpful than the Dowling boy, though. Thanks for going over there with me. I think it made them feel more comfortable talking to me with your introduction. How did it go with the Shadtz woman?’

Dunham cleared his throat. ‘Well, better than my meeting with the county sheriff.’

‘Oh?’

‘Yeah. Sheriff Conroy isn’t being exactly cooperative. When I showed up, he was expecting you and asked where the – quote, ‘Governor’s boy,’ unquote – was. I told him you were busy interviewing a witness, and he gave me a look like I just said something bad about his mother. I’m fairly thick-skinned, but it’s pretty clear he resents me, and probably you, for taking lead over him.’

‘I know. I saw him at the command centre. He’ll have to get over it.’

‘I suppose, but did you know he and the governor go way back?’

‘I got a sense of that last night.’

‘Anyway, I did talk to Shadtz’s wife. Her name is Gloria. They have a son with some developmental problems and they are divorced, but it seems she was still carrying a torch for him. She’s pretty upset.’

‘Did she tell you anything useful?’

‘Not too much. Says he’s never done anything like this before, naturally, and that he was never a gun guy. Said he loves kids, so she can’t imagine why he would’ve come down here and suddenly decided to go shoot up an elementary school.’

‘Did she mention how he and Coody came to meet each other?’

‘She never heard of Coody before last night.’

‘I was afraid you might say that,’ Thiery replied.
Another dead end
. ‘Anything else?’

‘Oh, yeah. When I couldn’t get much help from the sheriff, I offered to take the lady to the coroner’s office, and she said okay. She’s really nice, and I could sense she wanted to tell me something. So, as we were driving, she asked me to pull over. She had an item to show me. So, I pulled over, and she reaches into her purse and pulls out a big fat envelope full of cash. She said Shadtz left it for her with a note that said he was sorry he wasn’t a better husband and the money might help with their son.’

‘How much was it?’

‘Fifty thousand dollars.’

‘Wow. That’s a lot of money for someone who was a part-time bouncer.’

‘That’s what I was thinking, too.’

‘She didn’t know where he got it?’

‘Not a clue.’

‘How about the coroner? Anything newsworthy there?’

‘You could say that. The coroner said he’d need a couple more days to complete the autopsy. Mrs Shadtz wasn’t too happy about it ’cause she’s got to get back to her kid in Chicago, so I asked him if there was anything he could do to speed things up. He asked if we wanted to have his brain studied, you know, like they do with some of the serial killers and mass murderers. I said that his wife still had the right to okay or deny that request. She said there was nothing wrong with his brain, it was his lungs that bothered him most.’

Thiery remembered the Dowling boy had mentioned something about how the gunman seemed to be having trouble breathing.
Wheezing like asthma
, Ricky had said. ‘What about his lungs?’ Thiery asked Dunham.

‘That’s what I asked,’ the Chief answered, ‘and you know what the coroner said? He said, his results weren’t conclusive, but, as a matter of protocol, he had done an initial autopsy to save the bullets for forensic evidence. He said, as part of the investigation protocols, he had to remove the bullets from the body. He took them out of Shadtz’s skull and, when he did, he found some lesions. He decided to do a preliminary look and opened the chest cavity. While he had Shadtz’s chest open, he could see he had tumours all over in his lungs.’

‘What kind of tumours?’

‘Just a sec’, let me check my notes.’ Thiery heard pages flipping. ‘Here it is,’ Dunham continued. ‘He called it metastatic lung cancer. He was pretty forthright, and the widow seemed to be able to take it, so I asked, could that be cured? And the coroner said, no, it is fatal. Shadtz would’ve been dead within six to eight weeks.’

Thiery sat up, now, his mind racing.

Dunham went on. ‘Anyway, I took the lady for a coffee, and she said she needed a place to stay. I remembered you were staying at the Sun Beam and told her maybe she should stay there; maybe you’d like to talk to her. She said she would, and we left it at that. Did she come up there? She was driving a rental. It was a late model, white Mercury Milan if you’re looking for it.’

Thiery looked out the window. The parking lot was full, probably from all the media people in town, but he could see every car from his hotel room window. He spied the white Mercury.

‘Agent Thiery, are you still there?’

Moral watched her sleep. When he’d placed her in the bed, she felt light, as if she were withering away to nothing, and her skin was hot to the touch. Maybe if he just waited, she would die on her own. That would solve all of their problems; she could stop running, and he wouldn’t have to keep playing this deadly game.

Erica awoke to the sound of sniffling. She was fevered and her eyes burned, but she could make out the image of a man sitting in a chair next to her. It was Robert Moral. Trying to sit up, she found her hands had been secured to the bed’s headboard with handcuffs.

‘What … are … you … doing?’ she asked weakly, her throat beyond parched.

Moral wiped his eyes with the back of his coat sleeve. His cheeks shone wet. He was drinking from a pint bottle of scotch. He leaned forward and tipped the bottle into her mouth. The liquid burned her cracked lips and sore throat, but allowed her to swallow.

‘Why did you cuff me to the bed?’

Moral shook his head. His eyes bulged and a patina of sweat made his forehead slick. ‘I need time to think,’ he said.

‘About what?’ said Erica, still in a fog.

‘About what our next step should be.’

The sip of booze helped wake her. ‘How about getting me the fuck out of here,’ she suggested, her anger coming back, but with a touch of fear.
What’s he going to do to me?

‘It’s not that easy,’ he replied. ‘It’s going to take time to establish a new start. We didn’t think this one would be compromised so soon. You shouldn’t have called so much attention to yourself.’

Erica tugged at her binds. ‘It wouldn’t be compromised if someone hadn’t told those guys I was teaching at the school. Did you do that?’

Moral glanced at her, but couldn’t keep his eyes on hers. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying,’ he said. ‘They were some crazed kids. One of them used to go to the school. Maybe he was bullied there. We don’t know all the details, yet, but he was a nutcase. Played shoot ’em up video games all day, then hooked up with another nut, and they launched a raid on the school. It’s happening all over the country every week now.’

‘The man who came to shoot me wasn’t a kid. He was a grown man.’

‘What difference does it— ’

Erica bolted up, but was held fast by the handcuffs. ‘He asked me
my name
, Robert! Can you tell me why he’d do that, huh?’

Moral scrunched up his brow. ‘I can’t imagine— ’

‘Oh, shut up,’ she cut him off again. ‘Do you think I’m stupid, as well as naively trusting? It was the same as Washington, and the other places before that. My position keeps getting compromised. How is that,
Bob
?’

‘I … I don’t know, Erica. I don’t understand it, either,’ he said, wiping his face with a yellowed handkerchief. ‘We’ll have to put you into a different programme.’

‘Fuck that, Bob. I’ve got the emergency relocation money and another ID. Uncuff me from this bed, and let me get the hell out of here.’

He’d forgotten about the money.
Damn, there is a God
, he thought to himself. ‘Okay, Erica, er, uh, Millie. You could make a run for it, but, without the agency’s protection, how long do you think you’ll last out there on your own?’

Erica nodded her head toward her stomach. Blood had seeped through her shirt. ‘Yeah, looks like you guys are doing a great job, protecting me.’

‘I’m sorry about that. I swear this wasn’t because of us.’

‘You don’t think the Esperanzas were behind this?’

‘I don’t see how – ’

‘Shut up and release me!’

Moral stared at her, trying to come up with some excuse, some story that might make sense to her.
Maybe she was talking to a friend? Maybe there was a mole in the Marshal’s Office?

Fuck it. He didn’t have to tell her anything. He thought about the money again. If he could use the cash to make
more
money, he might be able to get out of this, yet. Give him some time to think, sort things out. If nothing else, he could pay off that second mortgage and the credit cards. Maybe help his daughter get out of the trouble she was in. Thinking of her, of what she was doing now, always made him sick to his stomach. He felt an overwhelming anxiety overtake him. If he could only get the weight off his back, give himself breathing room. Sensing a plan, of sorts, gelling, he stalled her a while longer.

‘My job is to keep you safe, Millie,’ he said. ‘I think it’s best you stay here, and you won’t if I take the cuffs off.’

‘Quit calling me Millie. You never knew her.’

‘Yes, I did. She was a brave woman.’

Erica stared at the ceiling, hot tears spilling from her eyes. ‘If you were concerned about me you would get me medical treatment. What
are
you up to?’

‘I’m not up to anything. It’s my opinion you’re a danger to yourself, and that’s what’s going in my report. I just need some time to set up a different plan. We need to find out what you’re doing that’s allowing you to be compromised. Now, where’s that money?’

Erica glared at him. ‘Fuck you, you piece of shit. Find it yourself.’

‘You’re delirious, Millie,’ he tried. ‘You don’t know what you’re saying … ’

‘Right,’ she said, giving up. What could she do? She felt her heart beating in her throat. She was still dehydrated and needed more of the antibiotic. ‘Then call in some cops to help us.’

‘You know I can’t do that. We can’t compromise your identity and position.’

‘Go to hell.’

Moral got up and began to look through the house. It was a tiny place, maybe nine hundred square feet under roof. It didn’t take him long to find her purse. The money, stolen car keys, and her new ID were inside. He left the new identity – Christine Angel – in the purse and took the cash.

It was almost night, so the dog track would soon close. But, there was a Hard Rock Casino up in Orlando. If he could get there, double the $10K, or even turn it into a hundred, he might have some bargaining power. If he could make
that
much, he might even be able to
double
that, then he’d have the world by the balls. Suddenly, he was in charge,
electric
, on top of the world.

He stuffed the money packet into his inside coat pocket and headed for the door.

‘Robert!’ Erica yelled out to him.

He stopped at the door, his hand on the knob. ‘Yeah?’

‘If I can get out of this, I’m going to kill you, too.’

Moral felt a chill run down what spine he had left, and a lump of what felt like jagged ice pushed into his throat, his elation fell away. As he walked out to his car, feeling the lump of money pressing against his chest like the barrel of a gun, he murmured, ‘I wish you would.’

The FBI’s role in the school shooting was small.
Diminutive
was the word that kept coming back to Sara Logan as she waited to hear results from the forensic lab. She was bored and she didn’t like to be bored, because it often led her into trouble. She’d been bored – with her job, with her marriage, with her life – a few years ago, when she’d met Thiery. The idea of a harmless (
who was she trying to kid?
) one time tryst seemed like something that might end that boredom, add some excitement to her life. Men had been hitting on her ever since she’d been in the FBI, opportunities were always there, but she’d resisted them, until Thiery. He was handsome, vulnerable – an easy target – and she turned up her sexy charm, drenched herself in alluring musky cologne, and gave it a whirl. Then – like an idiot – fell in love with the man.

Logan would never leave her husband; he was a contractor who afforded her a wonderful life and did not question her many nights away ‘on assignment’. Like her, he did not want any children. That had been the problem with Thiery; his two sons. Not bad boys, but she didn’t want to be mother to them. But God, Thiery was a match for her in bed. A guy who could finally keep up with her stroke for stroke, so to speak. She missed that as she went home to her husband, sixteen years older and well into slumberland by the time she slipped between the sheets.

In the end, she began to feel guilt, then shame, and she ended it, though she never openly declared it. Thiery had begun to ask when she going to get a divorce and she told him, with all the emotion of a cold-blooded killer,
never, silly – this has just been some fun
. The look on his face told her he wouldn’t call again, and he didn’t.

She tried to put him out of her mind as she idly plucked through evidence reports Thiery had emailed to her. One of them had a list of guns the shooters had used at the school, as well as the additional firearms found at Coody’s house. The list had the make, model, calibre, and serial numbers.

Logan fed the list into the FBI’s database of guns. It was a lark, really. She assumed the guns would be stolen or the serial numbers faked, but the database returned a hit almost immediately. It was a list of confiscated guns the Kentucky State Police auctioned off months ago. Logan couldn’t believe it. Some cities were doing buy-backs and one-day amnesty programmes for folks with illegally obtained guns. But, in Kentucky, they were selling the damn things like hotcakes at a Sunday fundraiser.

Logan’s mind began to race.
Federal law does not prohibit the transportation of guns across state lines unless, of course, the person moving them is a convicted felon
. She looked up Shadtz and Coody in the FBI’s NCIC (National Criminal Information Center) and while Coody was a dead end, she found several convictions for Shadtz. She felt a slight adrenaline rush.
This case was going to be federal after all
.

She called Kentucky State Police, got hold of an admin branch manager who confirmed the weapons had been sold as a lot to a gun dealer licensed to sell in Vegas. Logan asked for the dealer’s information. It was a pawn shop called Tito’s Pawn & Guns, owned by a man named Tito Viveros. Logan called the pawn shop.

‘Hello, this is Tito,’ said a man with a distinct Mexican accent.

‘This is Special Agent Sara Logan with the FBI in Florida,’ she replied. ‘I’m following up on some of the weapons we seized that we think might have come from your shop. I just need a few minutes of your time.’

‘Uh, what?’ said Viveros, feeling a sheen of sweat break out on his forehead and the back of his neck.

‘It looks like you bought a collection of guns from the Kentucky State Police Department a few months back. Is that correct?’

Now, Viveros was in a full-blown panic. Fucking A he’d bought them. Sold them, too, to someone he wasn’t supposed to be selling them to: a kid in Florida. But, it wasn’t supposed to be able to come back to him. A federal agent who had set up the deal through the Esperanzas was supposed to take care of that.
Fuck!
he thought.
What now?

‘Can you speak louder?’ he improvised, poorly. ‘My phone, eet isn’t working so well.’

Logan fumed. ‘Don’t pretend you didn’t hear me. I need to know who you sold the lot to. You want me to fly out there and audit every record in your business? Think you could stand up to that?’

‘I … I’m sorry, my Eng-leesh, eet ees not so good … ’ he said and hung up. Then, he immediately dialled the man who had helped broker the deal: Julio Esperanza.

Julio recognized the number and did not pick up. He let it go to voicemail, then listened to the recording.

‘Hey,
Jefe
. It’s Tito,’ he announced. ‘Hit me back, man. The FBI just called. They were asking about that shipment of guns that went to the kid in Florida. I thought your guy was supposed to take care of that, man, make it a clean sale. If someone fucked up, it’s not on me. I’ll stall, man, but we might have some bad shit happening. Call me back, quick.’