where we were going.
I was at the Bowman Springs exit and I ran the stop sign and headed for the park. I slid in beside the van. The park looked deserted.
I got out and tried the van’s door. It was locked.
I heard the voice to my right. “Okay, wise-ass, give us the documents and we will let your family go.”
My eyes had adjusted to the darkness and I could see two men and a woman standing up, and three forms on the ground. I pulled out the briefcase and set it by the van’s door. I said, “Here are the remaining documents. Take them and give me my family back.”
I had my right hand in my back pocket on my gun when I heard the gunshot. I had no idea who fired it, but I dropped down behind the briefcase, and began shooting at the two men. I quickly fired all six bullets and had to empty the revolver of the casings and put new bullets in. I think I did it in record time. I heard a gunshot from my right and I knew that Julie was shooting.
The man closest to me was down and the other man was kneeling and I could see him firing. I strained to see my family; they were still on the ground.
One of their bullets went through the briefcase and hit me in the chest. I dropped my gun and slid to the ground. I didn’t know that I had drifted off into unconsciousness, but when I came to, there were Arlington police everywhere. The van and briefcase were gone.
Someone else was shot. I finally got it out of Julie: it was Marilyn. She had been shot in the back from very close range. She was flat on the ground when she had been shot. It was an execution and she wasn’t expected to live. Both Rachael and Johnny were fine. Julie didn’t have a mark on her. She had fired the little derringer six times. She had shot one of the men twice, and there was a blood trail to the driver’s door of the van.
Neither Julie nor I could describe the men or the woman. For all that I knew it was Marilyn standing there. Then it dawned on me: Marilyn had been shot; she couldn’t have been the other woman. Marilyn must be innocent.
When the two ambulances arrived, Marilyn went in the first one. I could see the paramedic doing chest compressions on her. I was loaded in the second ambulance and a policeman rode with me. The ride took about twenty minutes, which seemed like forever to me. I wanted to know about Marilyn, I wanted to talk to her. Who had done this, I wondered.
I was able to speak to Julie. “Take care of my kids, please.” I thought that I was going to die. What should I do? After all, I had been shot in the chest; I thought all chest wounds killed you.
Something flashed in my mind, then I realized what it was. It was the license plate of the van. I decided to keep that bit of information to myself.
The police constantly asked me questions until I was ready to go into surgery. I couldn’t or wouldn’t answer them; I just looked up into the one officer’s eyes. They were hard and expectant. My final bit of information would live or die with me.
I was out of surgery when Julie and the kids got to the hospital. Julie came in to my room alone. I could tell that she had something bad to tell me. I steeled myself as best as I could. What was wrong with me that no one had told me?
“I am sorry, Brandon. Marilyn died. How do I tell the kids?”
My heart seemed to leap up into my chest. Marilyn dead? How could that be? The mother of my children gone? She would never come back. I began to cry. There must be some mistake. My chest really began to hurt. I had to stop crying.
The nurse was hovering over me. She injected something into my I.V.. “This should calm you down, Mr. Thompson. Young lady, you have to leave. You can’t be upsetting the patient like this.”
Julie went out the door and I hoped was still taking care of my children.
My mind went back to all the good times that I remembered with Marilyn. She was really a good woman. I was going to miss her so much. I was thinking about what I was going to do now, but nothing seemed very important.
My mind locked onto two things: the man’s voice and the license plate number. I would never forget those two things, and if it was the last thing that I ever did, I would do something about it.
I began to sob again. The nurse came back over to me. “What’s wrong, Mr. Thompson?”
I responded, “My ex-wife was killed when I was shot. We have two children. That leaves them without a mother.” I didn’t say it, but I was really having a bad day.
She rubbed my hand. “I am so sorry for your loss. Now it is time for you to take care of yourself. You can’t be crying; you can mourn later.”
I was angry with the nurse, but I stopped crying. I wasn’t thinking about Marilyn at all; I was wondering how Julie was going to do with two kids to raise.
The bullet had been stopped by one of my ribs. The surgeon had removed the bullet, repaired the damage, and sewn me up in fairly short time.
I was sent to a room to recover now I wasn’t in any immediate danger.
Julie and the kids got to come in and see me. She said that the police had ripped her a new one, and that she was going to take care of my kids, just like they were her own. I loved Julie with all my heart. At least what part was left over from loving my kids and Marilyn.
The next morning, I was again questioned by the police. I told them that it was dark and that the man had disguised his voice and I had no way to identify them. This wasn’t entirely true; I would never forget that voice, or the license plate number of the van.
That afternoon, Julie and the kids were back when the FBI showed up. They were more interested in the loss of the documents than me being shot or Marilyn being killed. I wasn’t impressed with them at all. After I told them what they wanted to hear, they left. Julie and the kids came back in and I was able to hug and kiss each of the three of them.
I spent another night in the hospital and then I was released. Julie and the kids picked me up and took me to the pool house. Julie had bought two more mattresses, and the kids were sleeping on them. It seemed that we had mattresses spread out all through the pool house.
That first night home, I got on the internet and bought into a website that would tell me who owned the van and what the address of the owner was.
The man turned out to be Justin Ward. I wrote down his address and then Googled it and got directions to the house. I didn’t tell Julie what I was doing on purpose. I knew that she would stop me or want to go with me.
Three days later, we moved into Marilyn’s and my old house. Julie had spent every spare moment that she had cleaning up the place. She had done an excellent job. We gave away or sold everything that was Marilyn’s. I had painters come in and paint every wall inside and out. We bought new furniture and appliances. We had the floors redone and the yard remodeled. I wanted the place to look different. It did, and I felt like I had sold Marilyn out. She had loved the place.
Marilyn’s funeral was two days later; I had no idea what kind of funeral she wanted, so I just suited myself and the kids. Her funeral had been delayed because of the autopsy. It was obvious how and why she died. She had been shot in the back, the bullet penetrating her heart. I couldn’t get over that. Someone had to pay for this, and I was going to find out who that person was very shortly.
We had Marilyn buried in a big cemetery in Dallas. There were a lot of her family and friends at the funeral, but I stayed away from them. I wasn’t certain if her parents were happy or not, and I didn’t care. They had never done much for us during our marriage, and they were very standoffish themselves. They lived in Mesquite, a city east of Dallas.
Bert, Eli, Gilbert and Salva all stood together. I did my best to ignore them.
Marilyn’s parents did not speak to me before, during or after the funeral. I had the impression that they blamed me for her death. I wanted to yell out, “But I tried to save her!”
I was in a wheelchair, and my daughter was pushing me during the funeral. I knew that would look very sad to everyone, and I wanted the people to remember Ma
rilyn’s funeral for some reason.
Johnny stood at attention in front of the casket and then saluted his mother. I didn’t know that Julie had taught him to do this, and I was very proud of both of them. In fact, I was proud of all my family.
I spent the next week trying to get out of the wheelchair and walking whenever I could. My legs worked well, I just had no strength or stamina.
During that period, I began doing research on Justin Ward. He had a brother named Benny and they were small-time hoodlums. They had no reason to steal the documents; someone had to have put them up to it. That was who I wanted. I found photos of the Wards and got their physical sizes. They both had arrest records. I still didn’t know who the woman was; probably a girlfriend. I just knew her rough size. She had light-colored hair and was just shorter than Benny. I should have let the FBI handle it, but I wanted to go after them myself. It was a matter of personal pride. I had to get even for Marilyn. I had all the information that I needed; I just needed to get well.
I worked and worked at walking and getting my strength back.
When I could finally drive, I drove by the rundown house that they lived in. I took the kids and Julie with me, but never pointed the house out to them. Julie didn’t even recognize the van that was parked in the backyard. It was in a run-down neighborhood. There were kids out in the street playing kickball. I