“Ringman,” she said. “My name is Nancy Ringman and I ordered the killings.” She felt a biggest sigh of relief of her entire life.
The man was silent. He was trained to let people confess without interruption.
“Thank you, Nancy,” the man said. “My name is Chad. Stephenson. My friends call me ‘Otter.’” He was giving her a tidbit of personal information as a goodwill offering. This helped build rapport with a suspect.
Nancy started crying again at the thought of whether she could call him “Otter.” She didn’t feel worthy of being his friend and calling him that because of what she’d done. Finally, she summoned up the strength to talk to him.
“What’s going to happen to me, Mr. Stephenson?”
Otter noted that her use of his last name meant she didn’t trust him as a friend. That’s okay, he thought. Whatever works.
“You’re under arrest, Nancy,” he said. “We need to find out what happened here. Can you help me with that, Nancy?”
She was still on her knees with her hands at her sides. Her head was down, and she stared at the hard concrete below her.
She looked up meekly at Otter and said, “Sir, I need to stand up. My knees hurt. This concrete is killing me.”
“A couple more minutes,” Otter said. “Can you do that for me, Nancy?”
Still looking up at him, she nodded.
“Thanks, Nancy,” he said. “We’ll get you out of here soon, okay?”
She was relieved. These teabaggers weren’t so bad after all. So far, at least. She had the oddest feeling that, even though he was pointing that terrifying gun at her, Otter wasn’t going to shoot her. She started to realize that he was pointing it at her because he didn’t know if she had a gun herself.
Nancy heard some people running up to her as Otter was saying “Over here” into his radio. She was looking up at him and swerved her head to the left where she heard people coming. They were more soldiers like Otter, dressed in military contractor clothing.
“Got her covered,” one of the other soldiers said.
“Copy,” Otter said.
Suddenly, Nancy was scared again. She had just started to feel like she could let her guard down, but now there were other people pointing guns at her. She felt like the safe minute or two she and Otter had together was over.
“This is Nancy Ringman,” Otter announced to other soldiers. “She told me she ordered the…” he hesitated to say “killings” because that might spook her. “She ordered the events at the football field.”
Nancy looked down at the ground in shame.
Seeing that her eyes were down, Otter allowed himself to smile to his teammates.
Chapter 309
“It Will Show Everyone the Legitimate Authorities Are Still in Charge”
Ron Spencer grabbed his shotgun. He was half asleep on the couch at almost midnight. He slept there when he thought someone could be trying to break in, which was always lately.
He heard it again. There was a knock at the door, a timid knock. A “sorry to wake you” knock. If this was a home invasion, it was by the most polite people.
“Who is it?” Ron yelled.
“Judy Kilmer,” a woman’s voice said. It sounded like her. She was the former administrative law judge who lived in the neighborhood. Everyone was a “former” whatever they were before the Collapse. Now, Judy held hearings for prisoners a few hours a week which got her a big, fat FCard.
“What do you want?” Ron yelled. He didn’t like Judy. She was one of those typical government workers in this neighborhood, fully integrated into the system. She was one of its minions. For years before the Collapse, she had screwed people on a regular basis with the little administrative hearings she performed. She was part of the kangaroo courts that let the government take things from people, but gave them a “hearing” so they felt like it was somewhat fair process. No one could ever explain why the government won 99.5% of the “fair” administrative hearings.
“We need to talk,” Judy said through the door, trying not to yell and wake people up.
“It’s the middle of the night,” Ron replied, but he was already awake, as was most of his family by now. It was hard enough to get any rest with a war going on all around you, and now this.
“We need to talk,” Judy repeated. “I have important information for you.”
Ron would open the door to get some important information, unless this was the Carlos Cabal and some ambush, which it very well could be. Ron had been expecting an ambush any time. It was so weird that the Carlos Cabal—Carlos the FCorps guy, Ron Maldonado his right hand man, and Scott Baker the Lima snitch—had all taken off when the shooting started. They must know something Ron didn’t.
Ron gripped his shotgun. This might be the big fight he was expecting. He was actually relieved that it was happening. Living in constant fear of being attacked was brutal. It was no way to live. Might as well get this over with.
Ron had a plan for this. He had hours a day on his hands with nothing to do but think of things just like this.
“Just a minute,” Ron said to the door. “I need to get dressed.”
He was already fully dressed and even had his shoes on. Sherri hated it when he wore shoes in the house, but she understood that they might need to run out of the house with no warning, so now the whole family wore their shoes inside, even to bed. The floors were taking a beating, but it was worth it.
Ron ran upstairs and told Sherri to get her gun and be ready to get the kids out. “Just like the plan,” he said as he ran out of their bedroom. He heard Sherri running to the kids’ rooms.
Ron ran downstairs and out the back sliding glass door. He ran around the house toward the front door and stopped at the bushes at the front of the house. He saw Judy at the door, illuminated by the porch light. She appeared to be alone.
At first, he wanted to run back in the house and let Judy in because he didn’t want to leave someone waiting at the door. Proper manners were that you didn’t leave someone waiting at your door. You let them in. Ron started to run back into the house so as not leave his guest waiting.
Guest? This bitch? Who had sided with Nancy Kingman early on when the weenies were trying to take over the neighborhood? The same Judy who wanted to get rid of the guards and ridiculed Ron for having guns? The same Judy who seemed to have plenty on her family’s FCard because she was a “judge”? A judge who made a living from signing the paperwork that let the government steal from people and put them in jail just to maintain their power? This person deserved courtesy from Ron? Courtesy that might cost him and his family their lives from an ambush?
He successfully fought the urge to let the waiting guest in the door and just stood there watching her. She was still alone and there were no movements of any kind around her. She wasn’t looking back or whispering to anyone. She was either truly alone or was a magnificent actress and highly trained assassin. Ron laughed to himself. He knew which was more likely.
He started to move from the bush he was behind to one that was closer to the front door. He was moving out away from the house so he was more and more behind Judy. He couldn’t believe she didn’t hear him. But, then again, he had been out spray painting graffiti in the night and had become very good at moving slowly and using cover. It was slightly windy and that made it hard to hear tiny little sounds of bushes rustling.
Pretty soon, he was several yards behind Judy and had his shotgun pointed right at her back.
“Okay,” Ron said out loud, causing Judy to jump, “what do you want to talk about?”
Judy was looking around for Ron, looking at the front door. She had no idea he was behind her. Ron enjoyed seeing her terrified.