Precise in the details, Andy noted it was seven thirty-eight when David flew out the door. By seven forty Andy was in his wife’s car, the time on the dash set in his brain.
When he reached Tanner’s street, a midnight blue Mustang blew past him. In those initial seconds, Andy nearly turned around, but he carried no weapon. As a father, he never considered another option. Had he chased Jackson, he would be going against what he was meant to do. And Mitch still would have been dead.
Racing up the stairs, the open door a silent siren, Andy glanced at his watch; seven forty-five, what he would later offer the coroner as Mitch’s time of death. Andy reached the apartment, finding a nightmare. Mitch was dead. David was unconscious. Tanner was… the cause of it all, but he didn’t appear injured. Andy lifted Mitch from David’s arms, then gently laid Mitch’s stilled frame on the floor. Then he grasped David, hearing a few weak mumbles. “It’ll be okay,” Andy said. “Stay with me Dave, stay with ME!”
“Jackson,” slipped from David’s parched lips.
“I know.” Andy pulled out his cell, dialing 911.
The phone read seven forty-six as Andy set it to his ear. Then he watched two brothers stop at the doorway as if a force halted their presence. Slowly Will stepped into the room.
If losing his career had been a symbolic death, it hadn’t prepared Will for this. For years Andy had seen dead bodies, but the Cassel brothers gaped at their first. That it was their cousin eased them little.
Will was more aware than Eric, Andy noted as he inspected David for injuries. David’s breathing was shallow but steady; he was in shock, large contusions along the left side of his head. Jackson had pistol-whipped him, but David was only bleeding from the butt of the gun. “I’ve called 911. Call your family and tell them Dave’ll be okay, but that he’s been injured.” Andy sighed in relief and sorrow. “Don’t tell them Mitch’s dead.”
“He’s dead?” Eric shouted, finally entering the room. “Jesus fucking Christ!”
That tone stirred Tanner. “What? What happened?”
The three men stared at him. “Tanner, TANNER?” Eric screamed.
Andy knew it was nerves, but better for Eric to attend to his loaded cousin than try to assist with his wounded brother.
When the ambulance arrived, Andy released David to the EMTs. Another stretcher sat outside the front door, but David left first. Will and Eric went with him as Tanner followed on a gurney. Andy offered what he knew as a brother-in-law and a lawman; at seven forty-five, Max and Liz Smith’s middle child was already deceased. The second crew of paramedics was impassive as the siren rang down the street. Andy had known to call for two vans, one to transport David and Tanner to the hospital. The other would ferry Mitch to the morgue.
Two hours later David was sleeping at Arkendale General, a facility more prone to broken limbs, ill children, or battered spouses. David’s injuries weren’t fatal, but they were unusual.
By then all knew Mitch was dead, that David would live. Those facts touched everything, from Max, Emily, and Travis’ immense heartache and Liz’s utter ruin to other relatives’ twisted relief. When Sam and Tommie broke the news, Max looked incredulous, his two children the same. A mother was different; Liz nodded, then swayed. Sam wrapped his trembling niece against him. His son was alive, but hers wasn’t.
From the hospital, Jenny and the kids kept Sam informed through texts. Much was shared in short, static sentences, easier than hearing voices or trying to speak.
Liz couldn’t talk, only shaking, then sobbing, then weeping hysterically. A doctor was called, and she was sedated around nine o’clock, allowing her brain to unconsciously fathom what seemed inexplicable.
Late on Saturday, November twenty-fourth, a heavy pall covered each Smith, Cassel, Shelton, and half of the Schumachers. Marsh and Jenn were oblivious, but Louise sensed something amiss. She nursed in the hospital waiting area, looking up when someone walked past. Many drifted by her that night, legs pacing, arms akimbo or clenched tight around one’s self or others. Louise noted the warm familiarity of her mother, then of anguished faces. At thirteen months, Louise learned the meaning of heartbreak.
It was an odd sorrow. Jackson’s gun wasn’t for kids, but on David, he hadn’t done more than raise bumps and bruises. Bones remained intact, but David wouldn’t be trekking along Mount St. Helens anytime soon.
Yet that same gun had ripped Mitch apart, two shots at point blank range straight into his heart. David’s clothing had been soaked, which had gone through Andy’s. But he wouldn’t let his wife, or any of her relatives, see him that way. Andy stopped at home, taking a shower. He arrived at the hospital when Sam did, just as David was moved to recovery, doctors assured of his survival. Andy noted a reprieve, but those faces were tempered by a loss needless and incomprehensible. So ironic that Mitch came home from Iraq alive, but couldn’t manage to stay that way in a quiet, calm town. That brutal truth slapped all that evening, some harder than others. That it hadn’t crushed those to whom Andy was now actually related was a blessing.
He sat beside his wife just outside David’s door, Jenn in a wrap along Chelsea’s bosom, Marsh in Rachel’s arms. Will, Bethany, Louise, and Eric sat across, Dana too. Will was texting, probably with his cousins, most in the main lobby, only David’s immediate kin this close to him.
His parents were on either side of their son, how Andy imagined they had been with Will when he had been hurt. Andy shook his head, said a prayer, then motioned for his son. The heart was sacrificed to fatherhood, a strong organ weakened when a loved one suffered. Marrying Chelsea had been one allowance, these babies were two more.
“Did anyone call David’s, uh…”
“What Andy?” Chelsea asked.
“Well, his girlfriend. What’s her name?”
“Oh God, Sandra, shit!” Rachel cried and Eric cradled her. “I don’t even have her fucking number!”
Rachel wasn’t prone to blue language, but fear, thankfulness, and skepticism reigned; had a man so beloved actually lost his life? If Andy hadn’t taken Mitch from David’s weak grasp, he might discount it. Mitch’s blood was washed down Andy’s shower, but the scent lingered in his nostrils.
“Where’s his phone?” Chelsea whispered.
“It wasn’t on him,” Andy said.
“Still back at Tanner’s, or maybe in his truck?” Eric offered.
Will stood. “I’ll go get it.”
“You sure?” Andy asked.
Will nodded. “You think the apartment’s still, I mean…”
“I’ll call them, tell them you’re coming. It’ll be okay,” Andy said.
Giving kisses to his wife, daughter, and sisters, Will hugged Eric. Then he strode from the corridor, a slow but deliberate pace to his steps.
Will took Daniel and Brian with him, retrieving vehicles left at the scene as well as David’s phone. Now David’s cell sat in Rachel’s hands, which trembled. Andy took the phone as the county sheriff as well as David’s brother-in-law.
By then Bethany had taken Dana home with her and Louise. Kimberly drove Chelsea and the babies, with Courtney’s assistance. Extra hands did whatever was asked, but there was so little to be done.
Only one more person to tell, someone they didn’t even know; would David be angry? No one cared as Andy mustered his usual sheriff’s voice. “May I speak to Sandra please?”
Will, Rachel, and Eric stared at the professional lawman in their midst. “I’m sorry to be calling so late. I’m Sheriff Andy Schumacher, David Cassel’s brother-in-law. There’s been an altercation and on behalf of the family, we felt it appropriate to inform you that David’s been injured. No, no, he’s all right, he’s at Arkendale General. Uh-huh. Yes, that’s fine. You’ll find family in the main lobby. Someone will escort you to where he’s resting. Yes, he’s fine, just resting right now.”
Andy’s face gave nothing away, but he relaxed handing the phone back to Rachel. “She’s on her way. Sounded pretty devastated, was glad I called. Will, tha
nks. I think she’ll appreciate being here.”
“I knew it,” Rachel blubbered, gripping the cell. “I knew that stupid bastard loved her!”
While Sandra Mittingham headed to Arkendale, Sam clutched his wife, watching their wan, unconscious son breathe on his own. David had been attacked by a drug dealer, Jenny kept thinking. But at least he was alive.
Mitch wasn’t, and she balanced that against her son, what she had done three years ago when Will was in this position, his friend Jordan on life support, only to sustain his organs; would Max and Liz do the same with Mitch’s body?
Not his heart; it was gone, as was most of his upper cavity. Maybe his eyes, what else? Jenny noted Sam’s steady breaths; his body was old, no use transplanting anything from either of them, but Mitch was only twenty-four. Just twenty-four years old when he returned from Iraq in August.
David was inching toward twenty-seven, and by God’s grace would see that age in January. Jenny reached out, touching his right hand. David’s work would only be paused. He would step back inside his diamond, but Mitch was dead.
Sam hadn’t spoken much, but Jenny knew Liz was in a drug-induced slumber. When Sam left, Max was shoring up, as if waiting for a later storm. Maybe the funeral, or just the drip drip drip of days without his son, who had returned from a hurricane, then died in what appeared no more than a puddle. Yet Jackson had been out for blood. Jenny hoped that bastard would be caught, then left to rot for life. She still didn’t approve of capital punishment, but as she had felt when Dan White was tried for Harvey Milk’s murder, what Jackson would get, he would most certainly deserve.
A murder; Jenny rolled that in her head. Not like what happened in war, somehow that was permissible. Mitch had killed men, he’d never denied it. Now a man had killed him and Jenny’s rage was enormous; was she a hypocrite? If Mitch had to kill to get home alive, so be it. But that he died in a manner similar to how he had earned a living… What did that mean?
She rubbed the small of Sam’s back, wishing to be younger, prevent all this, somehow remove from Mitch and David that quick anger which increased as they aged, fleeting aggression bubbling under the surface. She never saw it in Will or Eric, but in her middle son it had been waiting for a trigger. Pilfered comic books had done it originally. That night, it had been about family.
About Tanner, and Jenny shut her eyes. He lay down the hall, unconscious not from injury, but in a state of shock from the lack of meth in his system and the sight of two bleeding bodies. According to Eric, Tanner had been a mess in the ambulance, was sedated even before they reached the hospital. Scott and Alana had given permission for any necessary treatment, and texts noted that perhaps Tanner might be admitted to the state hospital, just up the road in Salem. Treating meth addicts was an issue all its own; maybe once this reality hit Tanner, he might be ready to quit.
She didn’t blame David or Tanner. Jackson Hooper had done this all for money, money that put kids through school, bought houses, financed retirements. Over the years Sam had diligently accrued those funds for all the kids, be they Lexi Smith Shelton or Jenny’s own grandchildren. Alvin’s grandchildren, but how much did one family need? Even with a loss of twenty million dollars, two hundred eighty remained. Sam was charitable, but the bulk sat there for all those twenty cousins and three grandchildren. Then Jenny began to cry; not twenty cousins anymore.
“Baby, you okay?” Sam asked.
“All that money only brought heartache,” she mumbled.
He kissed her head. “I know. Been thinking the same goddamned thing.”
That eased her. “Sam, do we need it anymore?”
“Not really.”
“Can we do something about that?”
He caressed her face, wiping tears she shed not only for Mitch and David, but a man whose life had been complicated by the lack of funds, but not made impossible. Alvin’s days had been full of joy with no idea to what lay in Bonnie Carmine’s back pocket. Always more time than money they had joked. Maybe that notion needed to return.
“Jenny, let’s get past this. Then, yeah. Maybe it’s time to do something about the trust.”
To be speaking of finances seemed almost obscene there next to a wounded child. But if not now, then when? When did the reach of Bonnie’s blood money cease?
Chapter 22