Amazingly enough, the earth did not crack, open up, and swallow Parker’s Mill whole when the second woman in the history of the town joined the police force. She proved to be more than capable of arresting drunk drivers, nailing out-of-state cars for speeding, and giving talks on first aid to Boy Scout Troop 2957. The scout leaders wanted to put their scouts through a real threat, so they’d designed an elaborate scenario around the detonation of a nuclear suitcase bomb. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints sponsored the whole thing, and even provided Vietnam-era gas masks for the scouts as well.
They staged a real-life disaster scenario procedural drill; at least, that’s what they called it. Hendricks put out blinking sawhorses to close off Third Street between Main Street and Franklin, but by that point, there were so many people crowding along the Main Street crosswalk taking pictures, it was clearly impassable.
The leaders parked a few cars at random between the new Walgreens and Vincent Smith’s Butcher Shop and left the vehicle doors open. Everybody involved agreed that was a chilling touch. Somebody blew fog from dry ice down the street. Volunteers from the Springfield Drama Institute draped themselves across the street and Boy Scout leaders went around with red-colored Karo syrup and thawing chitterlings.
They fully expected her to fail. They wanted her to be overwhelmed, wanted to shock the boys, wanted to teach the town about chaos and the end of the world. So they kept the troop and Sandy in the firehouse where she reviewed the basics of first aid until the stage was set. They didn’t tell the boys or Sandy, just pushed them out into the thick of things, while playing explosion sound effects from a scout leader’s pickup sound system. Sandy took a moment to take it all in, then organized the twenty-six boys into five teams that spread out over the street, reminding the boys of the three categories of the triage triangle: 1. Those who are likely to live, regardless of what care they receive; 2. Those who are likely to die, regardless of what care they receive; and 3. Those for whom immediate care might make a positive difference in outcome.
She spoke low and reminded the boys that it was just a game. “Have fun.” She sent them out into the late spring on Third Street to bandage to their hearts’ content. Twenty-six scouts in gas masks ran through the street full of smoke and fake blood. She drifted around, making sure each team was organized and working, helping decide a few on-the-fence cases, all overacted with far too much screaming and moaning and groaning and thrashing around.
Sandy tried not to laugh while she stood with nine scouts watching two hapless, dying citizens who were not destined to survive got to act out their very own death scenes. They put on a show, Sandy had to give them that. Problem was, neither one of the actors wanted to be the first one to die. So they kept flopping around, trying to be the last to move. The Boy Scouts all saluted when they finally died and stayed still.
Eddie Hudson, the previous chief, knew she had been set up for failure and goaded the City Council to publicly recognize her achievements in the disaster scenario. After that, he noticed she had a head on her shoulders and took her under his wing. But even with her impeccable track record, nobody outside the Parker’s Mill Police Department took her seriously as a law enforcement officer.
Then everybody in the country saw the video footage from her dashboard camera.
It is night. She is pulling over a weaving, possibly stolen, gray Lexus. When she goes up to the driver’s window, a man pops up on the passenger side and shouts good-naturedly, “Hey there, sweet tits.”
She takes three sideways steps toward her cruiser, following procedure, as if she were a basketball player on defense, creating a triangle between herself, the ball, and the basket. “Please get back in the vehicle, sir.”
He laughs and says, “Aw, don’t be hatin’. I got what you need, baby.”
The driver starts to get out of the car as well, all slow and controlled, but then lunges at her like a Jack-in-the-box, arms outstretched.
Sandy draws her revolver. Back then she carried a Smith & Wesson Model 686 Plus with a four-inch barrel, loaded with seven standard .38 rounds. Since her attention was on the passenger, the driver is on her before she can bring the barrel up. The driver, nearly a foot and a half taller and at least one hundred and fifty pounds heavier, crashes into her.
Sandy fires the revolver as he drives her to the ground.
They fall out of sight in front of the cruiser with a howl of pain. Sandy rises back into sight, backing away, keeping the gun trained on the driver, still on the ground in front of the cruiser’s grille. The mic can still hear him though, as he screams, “Oh BEEEP my knee, oh BEEEEP Jesus, my knee, my knee.”
The passenger comes around the back of the Lexus and rushes at Sandy.
She plants her feet and pivots her hips and shoulders, smoothly tracking him. She yells, and even though you can hear her quite clearly, the TV stations always felt the need to stamp her words across the bottom of the screen in all capital yellow letters. “STOP. YOU WILL FREEZE OR I WILL SHOOT.”
But the passenger is too full of rage and wildness to listen. When he is less than ten feet away, Sandy pulls the trigger. Twice. Two sharp cracks, so close together they sound almost like one shot, and with the suddenness of a taxi clipping a pedestrian, the passenger drops.
For a moment, the only movement is from the spinning red and blue lights, fading away into the night as rendered by the stuttering pixels of the dashboard cam. The silence is broken by the driver howling, “My BEEEEP knee. You BEEEEP.”
She slips off the screen and the mic picks her up, breathing hard, “Shots fired. Repeat. Shots fired. Officer needs ambulance. Two individuals in need of medical attention.”
Cut back to the anchors and one of the newscasters would say something predictable like, “Truly incredible, breathtaking footage,” in their special voice, a balance of solemnity and admiration, reserved for the stories that came after the daily tragedy and politics, before sports and weather.
Sandy’s fifteen minutes of fame lasted long enough to get her elected as Police Chief of Parker’s Mill. Eddie Hudson backed her, but it wasn’t easy. Sandy had two strikes against her. One, she was a woman, and two, even worse, she was a single mom.
The sheriff of Manchester County, Erik Hoyt, never had seen eye to eye with Hudson and wanted one of his own troopers in the position. He thought it would be easy, but the residents had seen the video, of course, and felt that Parker’s Mill boasted its very own genuine Annie Oakley. Some folks had private fantasies about their new police chief shooting all the goddamn illegal immigrants who were taking every job in the county. Others thought for sure she’d go down to the river and shoot anybody cooking meth. And still some in the town thought that if nothing else, she would at least keep those disrespectful teenagers in line.
Seven months later, the shock and awe of the video had worn off, and while Sandy was officially the chief of police in Parker’s Mill, she was no longer the woman who had single-handedly taught two rich thugs a lesson they’d never forget, let alone the new law officer who rode in on a white horse and straightened out the town.
She was back to being a woman, a single mom, and a pain in the ass.
CHAPTER 4
Bob Morton Sr. had promised himself he wouldn’t cry.
At least, not until he reached his son’s cornfield.
He didn’t think he was going to make it.
Sobs kept threatening to erupt out of his chest like something alive struggling to get out into the open air. He gritted his teeth and a low keening sound seeped out. Through blurry tears gathering on his lower eyelids, he could see that he was doing at least eighty miles an hour. He had to slow down. If he crashed, then where would that leave Belinda? He couldn’t do that to her, taking away both her son and husband on the same day.