Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 122, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 745 & 746, September/October 2003
One Shot Difference
by Brendan DuBois
An EQMM Department of First Stories author, New Hampshire-man Brendan DuBois has become a prolific writer of series mysteries, stand-alone thrillers, and short stories. He has two new books out this year, a collection of stories from Five Star (Tales from the Dark Woods) and a thriller about MIAs in Vietnam. The latter, Betrayed, appeared first in England (Time Warner U.K.; followed in the U.S. by Thomas Dunne Books).
The training session that day took place in an area of the decommissioned Air Force base that had once stored nuclear weapons for the B-52s and FB-111s stationed there. The Air Force bombers were long gone and it was mostly civilian aircraft that were now using the mile-long runway. Other parts of the base had been cut up and subdivided for high-tech firms, a passport-processing office for U.S. customs, and a regional bus system. Since no one had come up with a commercial use for the two dozen concrete bunkers half-buried in the soil, they had been abandoned when the base had closed years earlier. Each bunker was long and curved, covered with soil and grass, with a ventilation shaft poking out from the center. They looked quiet and peaceful, not at all like a place that had once stored weapons capable of incinerating a city and killing millions in a matter of seconds.
Craig Francis leaned against the hood of a Porter police department cruiser, watching the SWAT team members from a half-dozen local towns get suited up and ready for the day’s session. His arms were folded and he was enjoying the early-morning sun. He was also enjoying seeing the cops goof around, eating donuts and drinking coffee and tossing footballs back and forth. Most of them were much younger than he was, quite muscular and strong, and they had the cocky attitude that came with being healthy, young, and on top of their game. He, on the other hand, was on the wrong side of forty years old, had never walked more than a mile at a time in his life, and had long ago ceased being cocky. Except for a young woman who worked as a dispatcher, talking to a couple of the cops, he was the only civilian among the early-morning crowd. His real job was owner and manager of the Francis Farms convenience store in Porter, a popular place for the Porter cops. No cop ever paid for a cup of coffee or snack at his store, and in return, they kept an eye on the place and responded quickly whenever he needed them, for something as small as a teenage shoplifter or somebody who passed a bad check, or something as bad as a holdup.
It was a good arrangement, a comfortable arrangement, and sometimes it came with a few perks, like today. The cops from Porter and other towns that belonged to the regional SWAT response team were conducting a training session, and they needed a couple of volunteers to serve as criminals, to make the training more realistic. Craig had done it a few times before and found it fun; though he usually ended the day with bumps, bruises, and once, a bloody nose, it had always been worth it.
But today... well, today was going to be different. He looked around at the cops as they put on their protective vests, their Kevlar helmets, their kneepads and gloves, and saw one Porter cop tossing a football to another. Even among the other cops, he stood out. Dirk Conrad. Twenty-seven years old, black hair shorn quite short. Even with the protective gear and body armor, it was easy to tell from the swell of his upper arms and chest that he spent a lot of his time working out.
Dirk spotted Craig looking at him, grinned, and gave him a big wave. Craig waved back with a smile. Craig knew a lot about Dirk: where he had grown up, where he had gone to school, and how he was doing with the department. Dirk was a crack shot, tough on the streets, was on a fast track for promotion, and made it clear that he intended to get out of the department one of these days and try for the FBI or CIA. He had big plans to go with those big muscles, and Craig knew that, and more.
He shifted his weight on the cruiser and lifted his head up to the sun. For Craig also knew that young Dirk Conrad was having an affair with Craig’s wife Stacy, and for that, Craig planned on ending Dirk’s life today, in the midst of all his fellow cops.
The thought and the bright sunshine on his face made him smile.
And the hell of it was, he had never intended to run that damn convenience store. It had belonged to his father, and he had worked plenty of afternoons and weekends — giving up school activities like track or band or the school newspaper, and especially dances and proms — to help out the family and make some pocket change. Sacrifices, Dad had said. To get ahead you need to make sacrifices. But once he had gone to college and nailed his Business Administration degree, he was ready to shake off Porter and raise some hell and make some money, and forget about sacrifices for a while.
But Dad had gotten a rare blood disease that seemed to eat him from the inside out, and since he was their only boy — his three older sisters had already found husbands and had children by then — Dad had pleaded with him not to sell the store. Francis Farms had opened in Porter in 1902, with Craig’s great-grandfather, and Dad didn’t want the store and the name to die with him.
Fine. A promise to a dying man and he had given it, knowing he had other plans, other ideas, and yet...
The trap had been set.
He had taken over the store and within a week knew that the reverse was true: The store had taken over him. Each day was a rolling morass of problems to be solved, problems to be addressed, problems to be ignored. Employees who didn’t show up or who showed up late. Delivery trucks blocking the parking lot for the customers. Health inspectors. Youngsters with fake IDs trying to buy beer. Liquor inspectors. Employees who stole, customers who stole, people wandering by the front of the store who stole. Water bill, tax bill, oil bill, electricity bill... Mother of God, the amount of money spent each month on electricity (for the freezers and coolers and lights and everything else) was as much as he spent on renting an apartment while going to college! Sweeping up and cleaning up after some three-year-old girl who, racing through, knocked over a display of grape-jelly jars. People coming in looking to put up posters in the window, people looking to sell raffle tickets, people looking for donations to this charity or that charity and don’t you know, it’s the duty of business owners to support the neighborhood?
Trapped. Within a week, it felt as if the chains of responsibility had been gently but firmly clasped around his ankles.
Oh, he could have given up after a month or so, but there was that streak of stubbornness in him, combined with the promise he had made to Dad, dear old Dad, to keep the damn place running.
Sacrifices.
And so he had remained, in a life of work and not enough sleep and never any real days off, until the day Stacy came by next-door, to open a hair salon.
And then it had all changed.
One of the police officers — who had a thick moustache and was wearing a bright orange vest with TRAINING stenciled in black, fore and aft — stepped out into the middle of the crowd and said, “Listen up, people, listen up. It’s time to get started.”
The cop went on about how the SWAT team would split up into different groups and work through different scenarios during the day. Two of the old bunkers would be used during the training session. Some years ago, the cop explained, Navy SEAL members had come to this very place and had constructed in the bunkers rooms made of wooden doors and plywood walls. Craig thought about that, and as the cop went on and on in great detail about the training that was going to take place, he wandered over to the closest bunker. The metal door — rusting at the hinges — had been propped open, and he stepped inside, the interior cool and damp. The floor and the walls and curved ceiling were concrete, and there was faded paint on the concrete, marking some sort of grid. Before him, just a few yards in from the entrance, was a wooden warren of rooms and corridors. He slowly walked through them in the dim light, wondering how it felt to race through here, even in a training session, knowing that something bad was waiting for you.