Acoustic Shadows (7 page)

From the other van, two more men got out. Both of them had automatic rifles and pistols and stayed near their van. No one got out of the back.

Julio was not frightened, or even surprised. He had seen the men who worked for his father carry guns before. In fact, most of his father’s ‘friends’ had one in a belt or shoulder holster, under their jackets. He knew his father’s businesses made lots of money, so it made sense these men armed themselves, particularly in Mexico, where kidnapping and murder were very common.

‘Go in the house, Julio,’ his father ordered. ‘The girls are sweet. They will take care of you.’ Julio grinned as if he’d just given him the best present in the world. No one had to tell him twice. He was ready to bust.

For the next couple of hours, Julio lost his virginity to a variety of willing women – all pros – using a variety of positions, angles, and tricks that aroused and satisfied him over and over again, until he thought he would die from exertion. They had gathered in the bedrooms upstairs, showered, and played until everyone worked up a voracious appetite. A few of the women had gone downstairs – tired of the insatiable needs of the boy toy – and helped Emilio cook a grand dinner for everyone there. They gorged themselves on paella and homemade sangria.

After dinner, Emilio told the women to clean up the dishes. He and the men were going outside for a walk and a cigar. Julio was exhausted, but his father insisted he come along.

‘The initiation of your manhood is not complete,’ he said. Julio grinned wearily and tagged along behind his father and the other men.

They strolled down the drive and approached the van the other men still guarded. Julio had forgotten about it and wondered what was inside that was so important as to keep these men out here while the others had enjoyed such a sumptuous meal and the company of the ladies.

Emilio nodded to the men and told them to get some dinner. They nodded back, gratefully, and one of them said, ‘The tools you need are in the front.’ Emilio said, ‘
Bueno
,’ then went to the back of the van and opened the doors.

Inside, hidden in the shadows, were three men, all bound, their hands behind their backs. Bandanas wrapped tightly around their eyes. Sweat-soaked clothing stuck to them like a second skin. Emilio reached in, grabbed one of the men by his arm, and guided him out, telling him to watch his step as he climbed out of the van.

Julio grew uncomfortable now, but said nothing. A warm wind came off the ocean like the breath of a killer whispering in his ear and he felt sweat form in his scalp, then trickle down and hang on his chin for a moment. When it fell, he thought he could
hear it
hit the ground.

Emilio went to the front of the van and looked around in the cab. He came back brandishing a machete. He approached Julio and put his hand on his shoulder.

‘These men stole money from me.’ he said, gesturing with the blade. ‘When I tried to get it back, they threatened me and my family. We cannot allow this. Do you understand, son?’

Julio nodded, but a lump of fear grew in his throat, and he could not swallow, though he desperately needed to.

Emilio pushed the blindfolded man to his knees, his once pressed, linen suit, dishevelled and filthy as a beggar’s. The man began to cry and plead for his life. The other men inside the van began to whimper like puppies in a sack that was weighted down for the river.

Emilio brought Julio over to stand with him and said, ‘Watch what I do to men who try to hurt me.’

He brought the machete up and to the side as if he were shouldering a baseball bat. When he brought it back down, it struck with a wet, meaty sound, and stopped hard against the man’s neck bones. Blood spurted and sprayed Emilio and Julio. Emilio tugged at the blade and dislodged it from the man’s cervical spine. The man began to convulse and fell forward. Before he hit the ground, Emilio swung the blade again, catching it in the wound from the first swing. This time, it went clean through. The man’s head came off, hitting the ground with a thud.

Julio stood transfixed, his mouth wide, lips quivering. He could see the man’s face and watched his mouth open and close, like a fish gasping on a hot, dry deck. He turned and retched into the grass, his legs shaking under him like saplings caught in a hurricane.

Emilio pulled another man from the van. The man sobbed and made promises and excuses, but it was as if Emilio could no longer hear him. He pushed him to the ground near the body of the first man, then turned to Julio.

‘It’s your turn, Julio. You must help kill our enemies.’

Julio shook his head. ‘No, Papa, I cannot do this.’

Emilio reached over and slapped him. The blow hit him in the ear and made it ring so loud he could barely hear what else his father was saying. But he heard enough. ‘If you don’t do this,’ Don Emilio declared, ‘one of these men will shoot you. Do you understand?’

Julio nodded, tears streaming from his eyes.
How had this happened?
One moment, he was happy and sated, full of wine and women. Now, his father was threatening him and he was being forced to murder a man he did not know, and in this most brutal way.

‘Stop crying,’ said Emilio. ‘You won’t be able to see what you’re doing.’ He placed the sticky handle of the machete into Julio’s hand.

Julio looked at the blade, shining black in the moonlit night. Before he had gone downstairs for dinner, he had made love with the red-haired whore and, as they lay there in post-coital bliss, he had noticed his phallus, still shining from their sex. This is what he thought of as he looked at the blood-slicked blade: a wet, throbbing phallus. In one afternoon, his father had introduced him to the utmost pleasure in life, and now mixed that gift with the most horrible deed any human could perform. This incongruent mix would haunt him for the rest of his life – he knew that, even then – but was powerless to stop it. Thirty years later – and four failed marriages due to domestic assault – proved there are forbidden elements of mankind that should never be revealed to a young, impressionable mind.

Julio held the blade out as he’d seen his father do, his hand shaking so much he thought he’d drop it. But, he didn’t. He swung it down and struck the second man, hitting him in the shoulder, down to the bone. The scream covered Julio’s arms in goose bumps.

‘Again!’ said Emilio. ‘Quickly.’

Julio did as he was ordered. The blade flashed again, this time finding the man’s neck, but hardly going through. The man tried to stand and run, but one of Emilio’s men stuck out his leg and tripped him. As the man rolled on the ground, the bandana covering his eyes came off, and he looked up at Julio, his eyes pleading, blood streaming from his neck.

Emilio came over and squatted next to the man. He pointed at the man’s throat with his index finger. ‘Right across here, Julio,’ he said, as if teaching his son how to cut firewood. Julio brought the blade down again. And again. It took several chops through bone and sinew to completely sever the man’s head.

Julio turned, fell to his knees, and vomited. When he was able to stand up, one of the men assisted him and handed him a bottle of tequila. Julio took it and rinsed his mouth, then took another swallow that burned all the way down and filled his head with fire.

They had pulled the last man out of the van and placed him on his knees in the condemned man’s position. He sobbed quietly.

Emilio looked at Julio and said, ‘Again.’

Julio teetered over; sure he could neither raise the blade again, nor swing it hard enough to do what had to be done. But, the look on his father’s face, the sneer, the disgust of having such a weak offspring, was so apparent, he did not have to hear the words. He found an anger inside himself, let it rise to a boil, and placed himself behind the man. This time, he raised the blade above his own head with both hands and, when he came back down, arcing it to the side, he put his weight into the swing. The blade was getting dull now and once again, it did not go all the way through. But, as the man fell to his side, Julio dislodged the blade, and without being coaxed this time, he swung it down again and again, until the man’s head rolled off.

Emilio nodded to the other men and, without words, they took chainsaws from the van and cranked them up.

Julio wondered why they had not used the chainsaws in the first place then realized it was probably because his father wanted him to ‘work’ through his emergence as a killer. Now, he felt the transformation within himself and knew at that very moment he would never be the same. But, he would also never be like his father.

One of his father’s men – a man whom Julio had heard being referred to as
El Monstruo,
The Monster – dismembered the bodies with the chainsaw and placed them in black plastic bags. He was a frightening presence, as wide as he was tall. His eyes were as black and lifeless as a shark’s, set into acne-scarred skin. His other facial features were blunted and slightly out of place, as if the sculptor who moulded him left him in the kiln too long. His mouth hung open as if his nose did not take in air. As toad-like as he looked, his hands moved quickly with saw and blade; an efficient and experienced butcher. Once in bags, the parts were then placed into wooden shipping containers that, Julio later learned, to his horror, were shipped back to the dead men’s families.

Emilio put his arm around his son’s shoulders, grinning as if his son had just scored the final goal at the World Cup, and said, ‘Okay.
Now
, you are a man. Let’s get cleaned up. Those lusty whores in the house want more of you, I’m sure.’ He beamed proudly as he said this, but Julio did not. Sex was absolutely the last thing on his mind at that moment.

It was Sara Logan on the phone. ‘Good morning,’ she purred.

Despite everything, his heart crept into his throat. ‘Are you here?’ he croaked. ‘I mean, at the hotel?’

‘No,’ she answered. ‘Still at the Gaylord Palms. We Feds like to stay at Marriotts. I keep the reward points and use them when I go on vacation.’

‘Since when do you take vacations?’

‘You’re always on vacation when you love your job.’

‘I wouldn’t know.’ Thiery rubbed his head, aching from lack of sleep.

‘You should come up. I’m sure it’s a wee bit nicer than your dive.’

Thiery ignored the invite. ‘I don’t know. This place is pretty sweet, if you don’t mind cockroaches.’

‘Eeeeyew,’ said Logan. ‘I’ve got a suite with a balcony overlooking a lake and a huge, very comfortable bed. I’m afraid I’ll get lost in it all by myself.’

Thiery shook his head. The girl didn’t give up. ‘I’m sure you’ll be fine.’ Changing the subject, he asked, ‘Anything new on your end?’

‘With the school shooting?’

‘Ye-es,’ he said, managing to make the word into two syllables.

He closed his eyes and could see her as clearly as if she were still in the bedroom they shared years ago. Still standing in front of the window at her little fuck pad in Ormond Beach, pulling her then shoulder length hair up into a ponytail, the sweat of their exertions still glistening on her dark skin.

‘I talked to the ATF agents last night,’ she answered, a noticeable shrug in her voice. ‘There’s nothing for them here, so they’re popping smoke and gone. Like you said – all amateur stuff on the explosives – probably couldn’t get them to detonate without attaching a grenade. We’ve got Coody’s hard drives. We overnighted them to our lab rats. I’ve got some people chasing down the numbers on the Weisz gun. So far, nada. And I’m collating a list of guns that the shooters had on them, and in their vehicle, and I’ll run that through our database as soon as I can. My boss told me to stick around to represent our bureau and assist your department as needed. So, if you need forensic or lab work, or just old fashioned …
leg
work … ’

Thiery again ignored her sexy punning.

‘So, how are you?’ Logan finally continued. ‘The boys doing well?’ she asked, straining to make personal conversation.

‘Grown and out of the house now. You still married?’

She hesitated. ‘Afraid so.’

He could have asked, ‘why so glum?’, or lent her a consoling ear, but he didn’t. He heard a click on his phone, glanced at the incoming call, but didn’t recognize the number.

Logan asked, ‘Is that your phone missing a beat or mine?’

‘Mine,’ he said. ‘Let’s touch base later, okay?’

‘Sure,’ said Logan. ‘And hey, thanks for not being a dick to me.’

Thiery clicked over to the second call without comment.

It was Chief Dunham. ‘She’s gone,’ he said, dolefully.

‘Who?’ asked Thiery, wide awake now.

‘The wounded teacher: Erica Weisz.’

‘She died?’

‘No, sir. She’s just … gone. Left without checking out. I got a call from the Sheriff’s office this morning. The hospital called them late last night.’

‘Why did they wait so long to notify you?’

‘Not sure. They had a deputy watching her last night, but he’s a young guy and got distracted. Stepped away for a minute. They looked around the hospital for a couple hours, but couldn’t find her, so they just wrote it up as a missing witness wanted for questioning. She hasn’t been gone for twenty-four hours, and it wasn’t reported by a family member, so it’s not really an official missing person’s case yet. They think she just left.’

‘With a shotgun wound to the abdomen?’ Thiery questioned. ‘She’d have to be really scared of something. Maybe she’s afraid of the trouble she could be in over having a gun?’

‘Could be. Federally, schools are supposed to be part of the Gun Free Zone Act. Breaking that law, a person could buy themselves a whole lot of trouble, even if she probably saved dozens of lives.’

‘I hear you,’ said Thiery, his head beginning to ache from lack of sleep. He made a mental note to ask Logan about that when he had a chance. ‘I’m heading over to the hospital now,’ he said. ‘Should be able to review the security videos. Could you do me a favour? Call the local PDs, and put out an APB on her? And let’s do an Amber Alert, too.’

‘Already got it written up. Just waiting for your okay.’

‘Thanks, Chief. Know any place I can grab a quick bite?’

‘Uh, you may have noticed there isn’t much in Frosthaven, but there’s Dutch’s Diner in Avon Park on Main Street. That’s about halfway to Sebring, where I’m at, maybe fifteen, twenty minutes from where you are. I could meet you there, if you don’t mind company.’

‘Not at all. See you there.’

Thiery arrived at the diner half an hour later. Dunham was already there, a cup of black coffee steaming in front of him. He smiled pleasantly, but he, too, could not hide the signs of fatigue. He stood and shook hands with Thiery.

‘Get any sleep last night?’ Thiery asked.

‘Probably about as much as you.’

Thiery nodded. ‘What’s good here?’

‘Everything. I like the Mustang.’

The place was fashioned with a retro look, like Mel’s Diner from the old TV show
Happy Days
: black and white chequered floors like flags at race tracks; the breakfast counter was made from the grille of an old car; neon lights that read ‘Ford’ and ‘Chevy’ decorated the walls; the breakfast plates on the menu were named after muscle cars; the Mustang was ‘a good chunk of corned beef hash grilled with two eggs’. Thiery was hungrier than that.

The waitress had pink dyed hair, earrings in her nostrils, and her arms were tattooed up to her neck. What skin still showed was as white as bone. She was friendly and attractive in an ‘alt girl’ way and as incongruent as the Pope in a strip bar. Most people in the area leaned toward cowboy boots and hand-tooled belts as their fashion statement. Thiery said he was starving and she suggested the ‘Barracuda’: three eggs, three links of sausage, three pieces of bacon, with biscuits and gravy.

The food came quickly, and Thiery went for it, eating as if he was still playing football in college, though he had to work out a lot harder to keep his weight down to what it was thirty years ago.

Thiery and Dunham ate without talking, the sounds of forks striking ceramic plates serving as the bulk of conversation until they were both finished, their hunger abated.

Sara Logan kept seeping back into Thiery’s head, specifically, the memory of their discussion about why they couldn’t continue to see each other. The anger. The hurt. One memory brought on another, until, inevitably, they turned to his wife’s disappearance and all the doubts and regrets that brought.

‘Why do you think she left?’ Dunham asked.

‘I don’t know,’ replied Thiery, momentarily thinking Dunham was referring to his wife. Refocusing, he pulled himself back to the present. ‘Maybe she has an abusive husband or boyfriend looking for her. Maybe she didn’t leave alone. Did you get a chance to talk to her at all yesterday before the ambulance took her away?’

Dunham looked sheepish, casting his eyes down. ‘No. I’m sorry, I didn’t. We were so busy yesterday. I still can’t believe this happened here.’

‘Don’t beat yourself up. You had an emergency situation. Dozens of witnesses, wounded, and the dead to deal with. The parents of the children must have kept you hopping.’

‘Yep. At one point I was sure we had more cars arriving than people. We got swamped.’ He paused to reflect for a moment, and Thiery could see the sorrow in his eyes. ‘We’ve got to make a better plan. There’s been talk about all the departments in the county going under the Sheriff’s department. The Sheriff has asked the county to almost double his budget.’

Thiery nodded, but added, ‘You could have had a platoon of marines in here yesterday, and it wouldn’t have made any difference. The damage was done and over by the time you and your men got to the school. As it was, you did a stellar job.’

Dunham looked out the window of the diner, his eyes wet.

‘What do you think about the slow response time from the Sheriff’s Office? How is it you could beat them there when their station is just a few blocks away?’

Dunham turned his focus back to Thiery. ‘Don’t know. I’ve heard their response times have been getting slower. I try not to stick my nose into everyone’s business here, but I’ve also heard some of the guys saying they are trying to get more money for more men and equipment.’

Whispering, Thiery asked, ‘are you saying you believe the Sheriff would deliberately slow his department’s responses to increase his budget?’

Dunham looked back out the window and cleared his throat. ‘I’m saying I’m a Police Chief in a small town, and I don’t know everything, but I get wondering at times. There’s a saying my daddy used to have about big government: “When elephants fight, the only thing that gets hurt is the grass”.’

Thiery made a mental note to look into it, but, for now, he had more pressing issues. He grabbed his wallet and said, ‘Let’s head over to the hospital. I’ve got the tab. The state picks up my expenses when I travel. I’ll let the governor buy us breakfast today, okay?’

Dunham nodded and wiped his eyes as subtly as he could with his napkin.

‘You can follow me over. I better bring my car in case I get a call.’

In the parking lot, both men hesitated before climbing into their respective cars; Dunham seemed to have something else he wanted to say.

‘When I talked to the hospital, they said the other lady was waking up,’ said Dunham. ‘You know, the receptionist?’

‘Yeah? That’s good to hear,’ said Thiery. ‘Maybe she can tell us something about this Weisz woman.’ He stood for a moment, considering. ‘Besides the teacher missing, you know what else is strange?’

Dunham shrugged.

‘The age difference in the shooters. I mean, typically, if there’s two shooters, like at Columbine, they’re about the same age. Maybe went to the same school they attacked, shared the same vendetta. But, Coody is nineteen, and Shadtz was forty-one. What could they possibly have in common?’

Dunham looked at the pavement a moment before answering. ‘They both liked to kill people?’

Moral saw the news as soon as he landed at Orlando airport. It was on the huge flat screen TVs that greeted him as he stepped off the plane.

‘This just in,’ reported THN’s Gail Summer. ‘One of the survivors of yesterday’s shooting has disappeared.’ Over her shoulder, a picture of Erica Weisz popped up. ‘Erica Weisz, the teacher we now know used her own gun to shoot the intruders at Travis Hanks Elementary School yesterday, has vanished. Hospital staff stated she did not check out officially, and her absence was not reported immediately as staff spent several hours looking for her in the building and around the facility. When Ms Weisz did not return to her room after almost two full hours, the Calusa County Sheriff’s Office deputy assigned to watch her room reported her as missing. The officer said he never saw her leave, and does not understand how she could have left with such critical wounds.

‘In the meantime, to report on this unusual set of circumstances, we go back to Dave Gruber who has been standing watch at the hospital since yesterday’s tragic shooting in which a dozen persons died. Dave?’

Gruber was rested now, his eyes bright, eager for breaking news, his blond hair perfect, immovable as a plastic helmet in the light breeze moving through the parking lot in front of the Emergency Room doors.

‘Yes, good morning, Gail, and you said it right. This is an unusual set of circumstances, particularly when we consider Erica Weisz’s injuries. With me now is Dr Harold Marsh, a trauma surgeon here at Lakeland Regional Hospital.’ The camera panned and zoomed out, revealing a short middle-aged man in a white lab coat. ‘Dr Marsh,’ the reporter addressed the man, ‘what can you tell us about Erica Weisz’s injuries, and where do you think she might have gone?’

‘Ah, yes,’ the doctor began, clearing his throat, ‘I can only say that Miss Weisz’s wounds were initially life threatening. HIPAA law prevents medical professionals from discussing, specifically, a patient’s medical history,’ he continued, his comb-over hair catching the wind and flapping like a tattered brown flag, ‘but I believe it is now common knowledge that her injuries were significant.’

Gruber persisted. ‘Can you be more specific, Dr Marsh? We’ve learned she has a rather devastating abdominal wound. Can you confirm that?’

Dr Marsh blinked nervously, but felt he had to respond in some professional manner. ‘I can confirm,’ he began, ‘Ms Weisz underwent a complicated surgery performed here at the trauma centre, which, at the time, stabilized her condition. I can also add that she should never have left our facilities, as her condition is still what we’d call critical. She needs additional care and follow-up treatment.’

‘And can you speculate on where she might have gone, or why?’ Gruber pressed on.

‘No,’ said Marsh. ‘I cannot speculate other than to say it could not have been far. She is considered to be in a very vulnerable state and needs to return to the hospital as soon as possible. As for why she would leave the hospital, it is anyone’s guess. We occasionally have these things happen, but not with one of our more critically injured patients.’

‘Thank you, Dr Marsh,’ said Gruber, returning his attention to the camera. ‘There you have it, Gail. One of Erica Weisz’s surgeons telling us she is in critical condition and should not have left the hospital. Now, we’re polling people in the community this morning, and this is what some people are saying … ’

The image on TV shifted to an overweight, whiskered man standing outside a feed store in front of a faded blue Ford pickup truck with a large bale of hay in the back. His southern accent was so thick they had to put subtitles in the banner below the shot.

‘Uh, what some peoples are sayin’ is dat dis teacher lady is a-scared she gonna get in trouble wit’ da law, cuz she ’ez carryin’ a gun. But, I can tell you, dat don’t mean nothin’ to anyone ’round here. Most of us in dis town believe we should have da right to own and carry a gun, an’ we look at Missus Weisz as a hee-ro. If she hadn’t a had dat gun, we mighta had a whole lot more of our chil’ren shot up an’ dead. You ax anyone ’round here and dey’ll tell ya, iffen we see her, we’re a gonna shake her hand and give her a place to stay, iffen dat’s what she need.’