She shook her head.
A concerned look came over Emily.
Even if it weren’t true, this poor girl was in a very fragile state right now. The last thing she wanted was another death in this school. Emily had to do something to console her.
“Come on Melissa”, she said, “let’s go grab a cup of coffee over at Starbucks and we can talk.”
They drove the short distance to a local Starbucks. Emily ordered two Grande Lattes and then found a small alcove where they could talk quietly without being disturbed.
Melissa poured out her heart telling Emily about the change she started seeing in Billy; how she saw him getting into Shupe’s pickup one night, and then later the two of them in the music studio after hours a week before the shooting. She also told Emily about the fight between Shupe and LeVon and the threat that she heard Shupe make in the parking lot.
“Something just isn’t right Ms. Watson, and I’m scared that if I tell anyone, they’ll come after me! I’m not exactly popular around here, and they can find any excuse just to transfer me away.”
Her voice broke and tears streamed down her cheeks. “I need to be here with you - otherwise I’ll never get a chance to dance professionally.”
These were astounding revelations. Emily had a gut feeling that Shupe was not as innocent or heroic as he appeared. But this was beyond belief! She knew Melissa was quite right not to say anything to the principal. The School Board wanted this investigation closed and sewed up tight. The last thing in the world they wanted was for their new found public hero, Shupe, to come under scrutiny.
“Melissa”, said Emily, “Come with me. I want you to tell what you’ve just told me to Keith. He works for the St. Pete’s Times and he might be able to help you”.
“I’m just scared Ms. Watson, but if you think he can help, I’ll talk to him.”
An hour later Keith walked in the door to his home after spending the afternoon with Leona Freeman. He looked depressed.
“Well it seems like the NRA pulls all the strings in government these days”, he said discouragingly. “Practically all the State Legislature representatives are like puppets on their strings.”
He hadn’t noticed that there was a guest present.
Emily spoke up, “Keith, I brought Melissa here. She’s one of my students. There is something you need to hear from her about the shooting.”
They all sat down at the kitchen table and more coffee was passed around. Melissa again retold her story of Billy’s strange transformation and seeing him with Shupe in the same place that they say the rifle was kept. She told him too about the parking lot incident and Shupe’s attack on LeVon and threat to him.
Keith sat listening without comment, transfixed. Finally, he spoke up. “I thought the investigation seemed a bit too pat. Shupe denied even knowing Billy and made it seem that LeVon had threatened him!”
“I agree” said Melissa, “things most certainly do not add up!”
“Melissa”, Keith said, “you said that the last time you spoke to Billy, he said something like ‘You’ll see, things will come to light that will make you understand’. Is that correct?”
“Yes”, said Melissa, “But I don’t know what he meant.”
“You know”, said Keith, “One thing that has always bothered me about this thing is that he left no note or tape or video. Even at Columbine, Eric and Dylan left a video on the Web and diaries. Nothing was ever found from Billy, and it turns out his computer was broken as well. They were able to recover the hard drive, but there was nothing like that on it. That just seems strange.”
“Did he call you at all the night before?” asked Keith.
“I don’t know, Mr. Watson, I can’t find my phone. I was so upset I must have misplaced it somewhere”.
Keith sat without comment. Finally he spoke up, “I’m going to see if I can find out more about who this Shupe character really is. Melissa, keep looking for your phone. It’s just possible he may have tried to call you and you just missed the call. That could be very important to finding out the truth of this matter.”
Chapter Twenty Six
The next day Keith drove into his office at the Times. Keith knocked on the glass door separating the newsroom from the editor’s office.
“Come!” yelled his editor.
“Mr. Gross, I’d like to ask a favor”, Keith said. “You know, I’ve been working on the Emery High shooting.”
Gross nodded and added, “And you did a great job! Now that the Investigation is over it’s no longer news.”
“That’s just it. I’m not sure it really is all over” replied Keith.
“What!?” his editor replied, startled.
Keith wasn’t sure how much of the information he’d gotten from Melissa to divulge. “I’d like to do a follow-up to see what led to the shooting. Do some background on Billy Edwards and Shupe.”
Gross turned up his hands. “Look Keith, what’s there to see? The kid was a disturbed loner who shot a bunch of other kids. That Shupe guy, the armed guard, was the hero; he killed the shooter before he could shoot up more kids. End of story - period!”
Keith said, “You know my wife is a teacher at that school. One of her students came up to her with a story that makes me wonder if there might be more to it than that. I’d just like a few days to do some investigating.”
Mr. Gross sighed, “Okay kid, knock yourself out. There’s not much going on here anyway. I want you back here though next week!”
Keith returned home after getting his editor’s permission to follow-up on the shooting.
“How’d it go?” asked Emily.
“He wasn’t happy but he gave me a few days to work on it,” replied Keith.
“Is there anything I can do help?”
“I’d like to know just where Shupe came from and who he worked for before he was hired at Emory. I can’t go into the school and ask a lot of questions about him. If I do, they’ll button things up tight. Emily, is there some way you could get into the employment records at Emory without the principal knowing about it and find his file and make a copy?”
Emily thought for a moment. “I’ll have to think of some excuse, but I think I could do it.”
“Great Emily! Meanwhile I want to talk to the police chief in charge of the investigation and see if I can find out a bit more information from him. I want to find out what they know about where Billy got his gun.”
Chapter Twenty Seven
Police Chief Lewis closed the door to his office. He picked up the phone and dialed the number from his private book.
A voice at the other end simply said “Speak”.
“Luke, its Lewis. I hope to hell you didn’t have anything to do with this shooting here! Now I’ve got some reporter snooping around wanting to know about previous investigations and arrests for illegal gun sales. If this gets back to you, it could get back to me, and that could mean a lot of trouble for both of us.”
“Don’t worry Lewis, they’ll never trace it back to me.”
“Christ! Cartright, they better not! If you ever want to sell another gun in this county again, you better be real damn careful from now on whom you sell your wares to.”
Chief Gibbons disconnected and then dialed another number.
“Florida Chapter of the NRA, Jim Hendricks speaking.”
“Jim, its Lewis. I just want to let you know that I had a visit from a reporter from the St. Pete Times. He wanted all the transcripts from the investigation, the detective’s notes from the shooting, and a copy of robbery report from that Clyde Shupe guy. I don’t know what he’s looking for, but just wanted give you guys a heads up.”
“Who’s the reporter?’
“Guy named Keith Watson.”
Jim Hendricks put down the phone and turned to his associate.
“Do you think there is anything to this?”
Walter Miller, Chapter VP for the NRA shook his head.
“No, I think he’s just fishing for
anything they can use to make gun owners look bad. All the same, we can’t be too careful. Let’s put our investigators on him, just to make sure he doesn’t uncover something we don’t want to come out. This new Armed School Guard Law can be really big for us. Its proof that more armed citizens can stop bad armed men. Our sponsors wouldn’t like it either if their gun sales started declining because of some gun restrictions.”
Chapter Twenty Eight
Emory High was now surrounded by yellow Crime Scene plastic strips. Emily parked at the school and ducked under the tape.
“Hold it ma’am!”
A young police officer walked up. “Sorry Miss, the building is closed.”
He pointed to the tape. “There’s an investigation still going on and we don’t want anyone contaminating the crime scene. I’m afraid you’ll have to leave.”
Emily was not about to be put off so easily. She smiled. “I understand, officer. I’m Principal Miller’s personal assistant, and he asked me to get something important from the personnel files for the detective who is conducting the investigation back at the station. I’ll just be in there a minute.”
The police officer scratched his head. “Maybe I ought to check with my chief.”
She didn’t need this. “Look, I know just where the file is. I won’t touch anything else, I promise.”
The police officer thought for a moment and finally said, "OK ma’am. Don’t go anywhere else except the office though. I’ll be right outside!”
Emily hurried in before he changed his mind. She went to the door marked Principal and entered to a receptionist’s office. Beyond it was a door marked Private. Not sure where the personnel files would be kept, she first went to a four-drawer file cabinet in the receptionist’s office. Leafing through the folders, she saw only receipted bills, handwritten letters presumably from parents, and lists of names of students arranged in years.
The personnel files would have to be in Principal Miller’s private office. The door was unlocked and she cautiously went in. The carpeted, paneled room contained a polished mahogany desk fronted by a pair of upholstered chairs. The wall was decorated with diplomas, merit certificates and photos of Miller with people she assumed were celebrities.
Alongside the desk was a small mahogany cabinet. She went to open top the drawer. “Damn!" she cursed, it was locked. She thought for a moment and then opened his top desk drawer and spied a small key with a round label on it marked Personnel Files. She took the key and unlocked the file cabinet, and began searching through the large office files. Finally, she came to the one marked “Shupe, Clay”. She took it out and went into the main part of the office over to the large copy machine. She placed the pages in the in tray and ran off a copy of all three pages. When she was done, she slipped the file back into the cabinet and re-locked it. She then replaced the key in the desk and walked out.
She walked briskly to her car. “Thank you officer”, she shouted as she got in, “I got what I needed. I hope you complete your investigation soon, we all just want to get back to our normal routine of teaching again.”
Back at their home, Keith was waiting. He took the three pages and started to go over them.
Hmm it says he worked at two other jobs here in Florida as a security guard, but was laid-off; the last one after less than a year on the job. He indicated it was for economic reasons. I wonder though….Keith thought to himself.
“Emily”, he called to her from his paper filled dining room table, “Would you be upset if I left for a day or two? I want to go up state to Osceola to check out some of his past employers myself.”
Emily wasn’t thrilled with the idea of him leaving her so soon after the tragedy, but she had friends who could spend time with her to take some of the edge off the strain of the recent events.
“Okay, Keith, do whatever it takes to prove Melissa’s story. You take the Prius. Leave me the Subaru.”
Osecola was eighty miles from St. Petersburg. Keith programmed his auto navigator, and backed his Toyota Prius down his driveway and drove down the driveway. A short distance away, a Southern Telephone Company utility truck was parked and two men were working at the utility box.
Chapter Twenty Nine
Keith parked his Prius and headed for the main office of the Anaconda Chemical Company. He approached the woman seated at the reception desk.
“Hello, I’m Keith Watson from the St. Petersburg Times. We’re doing a feature on Clay Shupe, the armed school guard who saved the school kids down at Orange Grove. I was wondering if I could talk to someone here about what he did when he worked here.”
She went into the back office and a short time later came back with a short, fat, bald middle-aged man.
“Hello I’m Oliver St. Martin. I’m the head of personnel here at Anaconda. I understand you want to do a story on Clay Shupe?”
“Yes, I’d like to know a little bit about him when he worked here”, Keith replied.
“Well there isn’t too much to tell, he was only with us for a short time. I believed he was one of our security people at the plant.”
“Can you tell me if he was well liked here? Did anything stand out about him?” asked Keith.
The little man turned pale. “Well, I really don’t know anything about him. After all I’m only the personnel manager”.
Keith was not going to be so easily put off. “To your knowledge did he ever have any run in’s with the Black employees – anything like racial slurs or the like?”
“The man turned even paler, “Like I said, I really didn’t know the man.”
“Can you tell me why he was let go?” Keith continued.
“Mr. Watson, is it? I’m really not at liberty to discuss these matters, but I seem to recall that he left voluntarily to care for his sick mother. Isn’t that right Susan?” he said turning toward the receptionist sitting at the desk.
Susan appeared startled. She looked at her fingernails and in a quiet voice uttered, “I really don’t know Mr. St. Martin.”
Keith and St. Martin looked at each other for a moment, neither speaking. Keith knew he was hiding something. Finally, St. Martin said, “I’m sorry, I have to go see about some important matters. Susan, can you please show Mr. Watson out.”
Keith started to walk through the parking lot toward his Prius when out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of a stocky Black man wearing work clothes beckoning him around the corner of the building. He looked around to see who might be watching and then walked over to the man.
The man spoke to Keith in a hushed voice “I know why you’re here. Meet me at six o’clock at O’Grady’s Tavern on the edge of town. Don’t mention this to anyone!” Then he walked briskly away.
Chapter Thirty
At quarter to six, Keith Watson pulled his Prius into the lot of O’Grady’s Tavern on the edge of town. He parked next to the only other vehicles, two pickups and a sedan. He walked in to the musky smelling barroom and sat down at the bar. Two other men in the bar were playing pool and just gave him a passing glance.
“What’ll ya have”, yelled the bartender from the bar.
“Just a Bud”, Keith replied.
The bartender came over with a foaming glass of beer and placed it in front of him. “Not from around here are you?” he asked.
“No, just passing through” replied Keith. “Ya know any good places to stay for the night? I’ve got to get back to Miami tomorrow”.
The man pondered for a moment, “Most people stay at the Travel Lodge by the Highway— unless they’re looking for more than just a bed”, he cackled.
Keith nurtured his beer until a man walked through the front door and looked around. He took a booth in the back where no one else was around and motioned for Keith to come over. He motioned to the bartender. “Bring me a PBR, will ya Al?”
Keith picked up his glass sat down in the booth across from the man. Neither spoke until the bartender had placed the beer on the table and walked back to the bar.
; “I know why you’ve come” he instantly said. “It’s to find out about that Shupe guy, isn’t it?”
“Yes, who are you?” Keith asked.
“My name’s Clive Howard. I work the night shift over at the plant. Who are you, and why do you want to know about Shupe?”
Keith introduced himself. “I’m a reporter from the St. Petersburg Times. I’m doing a story about Shupe. The people in Orange Grove consider him a hero, you know…. saved a lot of kids from being shot.”
Howard just shook his head. “Sheeet! You really believe that?”
Keith said. “I’m not sure what to believe. Do you know something different?”
Clive paused a moment giving Keith a good look-over. Finally he spoke up. “I remember that Shupe guy real well. He was a real cracker! He always be harassing us Black workers calling us niggers and writing us up while he let all the White guys get away with anything. The final straw came when he started to pass around some of his American White Brotherhood trash around to the White workers— telling em that there was going to be a race war and all; how they needed to take sides and start buying guns to prepare for it. After that, the management canned his sorry ass. He threatened to have his White Brotherhood Army blow up the plant when he left, so they just hushed things up. I didn’t think too much about him until I read in the paper about the shooting at Emory. Only Black kids got shot by that one lone White boy…. and then Shupe coming in like some kinda superhero and saving the day!”
“I’ll bet you Shupe put him up to it—him and his White Brotherhood Army.”
Keith was stunned. “You mean he was a member of a White Supremacist Group?”
“Damn straight – a real nigger hater!”
The pieces were beginning to fit together in Keith’s mind. Keith recalled Melissa saying that it was after she saw Billy Edwards with Shupe that Billy started to trash talk to her about nigger music and being on the right side of things.
“Mr. Howard”, said Keith, “I can’t thank you enough for what you just told me.”
“Don’t thank me. You just make sure that his sorry White ass gets found out and thrown in jail as well as the rest of his White Brotherhood.”
After Keith left the bar, one of the men who had been playing pool at the bar with a large White Power tattoo his upper arm picked up a cell phone and tapped out a number.
“Shupe, this is LaGrange from the chem plant. I just saw that nigger Clive Howard talking to some guy who looks like a reporter. I heard him mention your name just now. I think he’s been at the plant asking questions about you.” Then he hung up.