Squall Line Page 2

  “Who’s Ryan Warner?” Maggie asked.

  “He’s new. I was his mentor the first week of school, but I don’t really know him that well. But he’s a nice guy.”

  “Who are these other kids?” Wyatt asked.

  “They’re just jerks. They’re bullies,” Sky answered.

  “And they posted a video of this poor kid?” Maggie popped a fist on her hip.

  “Yeah. Omigosh, this is just…it’s bull!” Sky stabbed at the phone to close the screen. “I mean, he’s a nice kid.”

  “I don’t get it. What was going on? I mean, why’d the kid wet his pants?” Wyatt grabbed his car keys, service weapon and ID from a big blue bowl on the counter. He’d resigned as Sheriff so he could marry Maggie, but he still carried a weapon. He said it was mainly for the reporters. He was now the Public Information Officer for the Sheriff’s Office, which was ironic, given the fact that we wasn’t crazy about the public and didn’t much care for giving information, either.

  “I can’t really tell, I didn’t have the sound on. It looked like they were ganging up on him in one of the classrooms.”

  “That kid has to be mortified,” Maggie.

  “Not to be sexist, but if you were a guy, you’d know mortification was just the beginning. This video’s online?” Wyatt asked Sky.

  “Yeah, they have a link to it on Facebook.”

  “Why are you friends with these guys on Facebook?” Maggie asked.

  “I’m not, Mom. Bella tagged me. Not to make fun of him, just to say it sucks.”

  “You know I love Bella but sharing a post like that just spreads it all over the place.”

  Sky shrugged and shook her head. “It’s everywhere anyway.”

  Maggie sighed as she grabbed her own keys from the bowl and picked up a stack of case files. “I hope Kyle doesn’t have to deal with kids like this next year.”

  “Please, Mom,” Sky said, grabbing her backpack from the counter. “Have you seen him lately? He’s beautiful. Besides, everybody loves Kyle.”

  “So what’s your schedule?’ Wyatt asked Maggie.

  “I’m taking Dwight to an early lunch after court, then we’ll be at the promotion ceremony.”

  Maggie looked down as Stoopid began another monologue, his chicken diaper rustling as he followed her to the door.

  “Sky, can you take Stoopid’s diaper off and shove him out in the run?”

  “Oh, Mom, that is so awkward for me.”

  “Why? It’s just chicken poop.”

  “It’s not the poop, it’s the fact that I know why you want me to take off his diaper.”

  “We’re gonna run out of chickens if we don’t get any fertilized eggs,” Maggie said. She looked over at her husband.

  “What? I’m not his pimp,” he said, slapping his SO ball cap on. “Besides, I feel sorry for him. I think the seagulls pick on him about the diapers.”

  “That’s his problem,” Maggie said, shoving the files at him. “He’s the one who thinks he should live inside.”

  She bent and scooped up Stoopid, who protested with a few wing flaps and a smattering of verbal complaints.

  “Don’t worry about the seagulls,” she told him. “They’re just jealous.”

  Lynn’s Quality Oysters was located in Eastpoint, about a mile or so beyond the bridge that connected Eastpoint to Maggie’s home in Apalachicola. Apalach was world famous for its oysters, but many of the oystermen and women lived in Eastpoint. Apalach was a quaint, historic town beloved by tourists, while Eastpoint was mainly working class, and the way to get to the bridge that went out to St. George island.

  Eastpoint was also home to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, and Lynn’s was a favorite haunt of her co-workers, and everyone else she knew. Run by the same family for generations, Lynn’s was a wholesaler and seafood market with a few cramped tables inside, and a couple of picnic tables on the back deck, right over the water. Pelicans were the only nod to atmosphere.

  Maggie and Dwight Schultz were sitting on the back deck, sipping their sweet teas. Dwight was ten years her junior at twenty-nine, and Maggie had known him most of her life. He was scrawny and sweet, but he’d worked his daddy’s shrimp boat since he could walk, and he was stronger than he looked. He was, in fact, the first person in his family to do something other than shrimping, having applied to the Sheriff’s Office immediately after graduating high school.

  Dwight had married his high school sweetheart, Amy, the day after he’d graduated the academy, and they now scrimped and saved so that she could stay home with their three kids, aged six, four and one. For the last year and a half, Maggie had been mentoring and training Dwight for a promotion to Sergeant and a place in the Criminal Investigative Division. The increase in pay would make a huge difference to Dwight’s family, and the added investigator would make a huge difference to Maggie’s. She was one of only two investigators with the Sheriff’s Office, which served a county of fewer than twenty-five hundred people.

  “Anyhow,” Dwight was saying, as he picked at what was left of his steamed shrimp, “Amy doesn’t know it yet, but I changed our vacation plans for next month.”

  “That doesn’t sound healthy.” Maggie squeezed one drop of lemon onto a raw oyster, then tipped her head back and let the cold, salty sweetness slide into her mouth.

  “No, I got a surprise for her,” Dwight said, his prominent Adam’s apple dancing. “I got us a Groupon deal for a hotel up in Fort Walton. Four days. Her mama’s gonna take the kids. This is gonna be our first time without the babies.”

  “That’s cool, Dwight. You guys’ll love it if you can stop thinking about the kids.”

  “Yeah, I reckon that could be a problem, but a problem on the beach is better than a problem in our back yard.”

  He popped his last shrimp into his mouth, and Maggie reached over as a pink shrimp leg landed on his chest. They normally wore jeans or khakis and their SO polo shirts for work, but today Dwight was all fixed up in his full black uniform, his badge polished to a high shine.

  “Watch it,” Maggie said, picking the shrimp leg off of his shirt.

  “Aw, crud,” Dwight said.

  Maggie flicked the leg into his red plastic basket. “Don’t worry, it didn’t stain.”

  “Man, Mags, I forgot how long it took to put all this stuff on.”

  He wiped his mouth with his napkin, looked at his watch, and jumped up from his seat. “Shoot, I gotta run over and get Sadie at the bus stop.”

  Dwight’s oldest daughter was in first grade. They lived just across 98 and back a few blocks, and Dwight was meeting her at the school bus stop so she could ride in his cruiser to the Sheriff’s Office. Amy and the younger two would meet them there.

  “Go ahead, I’ll get this,” Maggie said. “Only because it’s your big day.”

  “Thanks. I’ll be back in a minute,” he said as he hurried off.

  It was a pain in the neck to get out of the tiny parking lot and then across 98. It was much faster to walk across, so Dwight waited for a break in traffic, then ran across 98 and then up School Road. It was only three blocks, two up and one over, to the bus stop, but Dwight was grateful for the overcast sky and the almost cool breeze from a coming storm. He didn’t want to sweat up his uniform.

  School Road was lined with working class homes and mature trees. In some places, old live oaks nearly met over the yellow line.

  It only took him two minutes to get to Smith, and as he rounded the corner he saw that the bus was already there, at the next corner, facing away from him. He picked up his step.

  There were a couple of middle and high school students already walking away from the bus, looking like pack mules under the bulk of their backpacks. There was also a small group of high school boys standing just a few feet outside the open bus door. The buses carried students from elementary, middle and high school
together. Sam, the bus driver, liked to let the older kids off first so they didn’t trample the little ones.

  For just a second, Dwight thought it was weird that the little kids weren’t getting off the bus, but then he realized why, as he heard Sam yell at the boys to move on. It looked like a fight was afoot.

  As he hurried closer, Dwight could pick up the conversation.

  A kid Dwight didn’t know shoved another kid he only knew by sight, the kid that lived with his mom a few blocks away.

  “I told you I was gonna mess you up, Warner!” the first kid said. The blonde.

  “Kick his ass, man!” That was Stuart Newman. Dwight didn’t like him, or his daddy.

  “Y’all boys get away from the bus stop!” Dwight heard Sam yell. Sam had been the bus driver for this route since Dwight was in sixth grade.

  Dwight was just a few yards away when the blond guy shoved the smaller boy in the chest. Dwight had his mouth open to yell when the smaller boy suddenly pulled a .22 out from under his hoodie. Dwight’s heart thumped as the kid pointed it at the bigger kid.

  “I’m sick and tired of you! Leave me alone!” the smaller kid yelled, pointing the gun at the blonde. His arm was stretched out straight, and Dwight could see his hand shaking.

  “Whoa, whoa—” the bully started to yell.

  “Hey!” Dwight said, raising his voice but trying to keep it non-threatening. He held his hands up in the air. The boys’ heads all jerked in his direction as he reached the group. “Hey now, son,” Dwight said to the kid with the gun. The boy’s eyes were as big as plates, and there was anger there, but there was more fear.

  “Hey,” Dwight said again, more quietly. “Come on. I seen these kids pickin’ on you. I know you’re mad. But don’t make a terrible mistake, okay?”

  “They have been on me 24/7 for a year!” the kid yelled, his voice breaking from fear and adrenaline. “Why can’t I just go to school?”

  Dwight took his eyes from the kid’s just long enough to glance at the gun. It was a .22 semi-auto, with a four-inch barrel. The slide-mounted safety was off.

  “I gotcha. I do,” Dwight said softly. “Look at me. I was the smallest guy in my class. The poorest, too. I get it, I promise. But these boys ain’t worth what it’s gonna do to your life if you pull that trigger, you understand?”

  “I’m not trying to shoot anybody,” the kid yelled, his voice high and tight. “I just want them to leave me alone!”

  Dwight glanced over at the other boys, who stood in a semi-circle. They didn’t have anything to say, apparently.

  “Dwight, I already done called 911!” Sam yelled.

  Dwight had forgotten the bus was there. He looked up at the row of windows and swallowed hard as he saw Sophie staring out at him, her eyes big and frightened.

  “Sam?” Dwight called, his eyes back on the boy with the gun. “Sam, you go on. Go on ’round the corner, okay?”

  The bus didn’t move, but Dwight didn’t have time to focus on Sam, or on his little girl.

  “Son, what’s your name?” Dwight asked the brown-haired boy.

  “Ryan.” The kid looked scared to death, and he’d lowered his arm so the gun was aimed roughly at the other boy’s legs, but his hand shook and the safety was still off.

  “Ryan, I know this isn’t what you want, this right here,” Dwight said. “I see you’re scared. I know this is bad and all, but it’s not so bad yet that it’s gonna change your life, you know what I mean?”

  Ryan looked from Dwight to the blonde kid and back again.

  “Come on, Ryan,” Dwight said kindly. “It’ll be okay.”

  “Ryan, we’re sorry, man,” the skinny kid with a goatee said, his voice shaking.

  Dwight glanced over at him. He looked just as scared as Ryan. The other kids looked scared, but not nearly as much. Stuart Newman had pulled a phone out of somewhere and was holding it up, pointed at Ryan. Dwight was about to tell him to put it away when the blond kid tossed his backpack at Ryan’s arm.

  Ryan saw it coming and started to jump back, but his arm went up reflexively and swung away as though to avoid being hit. Swung away toward Dwight, and before Dwight could even start to believe what might happen, the gun went off.

  It seemed like a lot of time went by, between the sound and the pain that Dwight felt in his abdomen. It was like fire and a sledgehammer all at once, and Dwight almost believed it was something other than a bullet, because it just didn’t seem like what it would feel like to be shot.

  His hearing seemed to fade out, like the time he watched a shrimp boat explode. He could hear kids screaming, but they sounded far away for a second, and then the volume got turned up again. The blond kid was running away, and the little kids…they were screaming so loud, and he could hear Sophie above all of them. He could faintly hear the gears of the door as it unfolded and shut, or maybe he just saw it.

  He felt the warmth spreading over his stomach, and he put a hand over it as his eyes met Ryan’s. The kid was white as a sheet, but he tore his eyes from Dwight’s and started running. Dwight registered a millisecond of disbelief that the big kid was standing there with his phone up in front of his face.

  Dwight looked up at the bus, at the window where Sophie’s face was, where she was screaming and calling “Daddy!”

  He raised his other arm and waved toward the corner. “Sam, go on! Go on around the corner!”

  The bus jumped into motion, and Dwight took a few steps as Sophie plastered her face to the window, calling him.

  “It’s okay, baby,” he called, starting to run after her, though he didn’t know why. He wanted her away from him. “Daddy’s okay,” he called, though not loudly enough. He didn’t feel like he could get a good breath.

  “Daddy’s okay,” he called again, as the bus rounded the corner and went out of sight. He heard people yelling, but only vaguely, as he stumbled and started to fall.

  He couldn’t control his feet, and the ground started leaping toward him. When he hit it face first, he wondered why it didn’t hurt.

  It had sounded like a .22, Maggie thought.

  She pushed open the screen door and stepped out onto the crushed oyster shells that made up Lynn’s parking lot. She squinted as she looked across 98, as though she might be able to see something, but there was nothing to see and she hadn’t really expected there to be; the shot had sounded like it was at least a few blocks back.

  “Could it have been a backfire?” one of the guys asked behind her.

  Maggie shook her head distractedly. “No. Why don’t you go on back inside, okay?”

  “Okay. You want me to call 911?”

  “It could just be somebody shooting at a possum or something,” Maggie said without turning around. “But, yeah, go ahead and call the Sheriff’s. But not 911 yet.”

  Maggie heard the screen door shut behind her, heard several people murmuring just inside the door. She pulled out her phone and dialed Dwight to see if he knew where the shot had come from, but he didn’t answer.

  She put the phone away, then jogged across 98 and up School Road, making good time despite the heaviness of her hiking boots. It had been a while since she’d worked out with any regularity. Lately, she got her only exercise from chasing suspects, working in her garden, or helping her daddy out on the oyster beds.

  Although she wasn’t necessarily in top shape, the weight in her chest and her elevated heart rate weren’t due solely to the exertion. She could feel the wrongness of the moment; there was an almost palpable thickening of the air that portended something bad.

  As Maggie rounded the corner, she saw a small group of people a bit more than halfway down the street, very close to the bus stop sign. They were in an approximation of a circle, and they were focused on someone on the ground. In one instant, she saw that Dwight wasn’t among them. In the next, she recognized the soles of Dwight’s new dress sho
es, the legs of his uniform pants, and she sprinted.

  “Dwight!” she screamed without meaning to. The people in the small crowd jerked their heads toward her. They were a blur of unrecognized faces, the only thing that registered in Maggie’s brain was that they all looked vaguely horrified. “Dwight!” Maggie screamed again, her voice cracking.

  Maggie should have been approaching cautiously. She should have been looking for someone with a firearm, even someone standing there in the little crowd, but she didn’t. After sixteen years in law enforcement, her personal instincts overwhelmed her professional ones, and she skidded into the group, already on her knees by the time she reached Dwight.

  He was on his stomach in the gravel, his face turned toward the street. His eyes were closed. There was a dark pool of blood spreading outward from underneath him, meandering slowly toward the side of the road.

  Behind her, a man’s voice said that he’d called 911. As Maggie turned Dwight over, a woman’s voice above her said that they hadn’t known whether to touch him. Two other people said simultaneously that he’d been shot. Maggie’s brain registered the 911 call, then moved on.

  Dwight’s face was frighteningly pale, but Maggie saw his Adam’s apple, the one everyone teased him about, move up and down as she turned him onto his back. His shirt and the front of his dress trousers were covered in blood. They were sopping with it.

  There was grass and a scuff mark on his carefully polished belt. Five minutes ago, she thought without intending to, she had carefully picked a shrimp leg from his neatly-pressed uniform.

  “Dwight!” Maggie ripped open his shirt. The white tee shirt underneath was soaked through. There was a small entrance wound just above his navel. It looked to be from a small caliber handgun. The amount of blood issuing from it terrified her, and she subconsciously asked God not to let it be an artery.

  She looked up, her head swiveling from one onlooker to another, looking for something to help stanch the blood, but there was nothing. She ripped her tee shirt over her head and balled it up, pressed it down onto Dwight’s wound with her right hand, and felt his neck for a pulse with her left. There was one, but it was weak.