4 The Killing Bee (25 page)

Barry broke the silence. "One . . . two . . ."

"Okay, I'm coming!" Andrea yelled.

She headed for the windowsill. I half turned, thinking about making a break for the door. Barry noticed it. "If you step out that door, I'll shoot your wife," he said.

I didn't step out the door. Instead I watched as Andrea climbed up on the sill, then jumped to the ground.

Keeping his gun trained on Andrea, Barry turned to me. "Now you."

"Listen, Barry," I said, "I know you. You're not a bad guy."

"Drop your flashlight now, before you come to the window."

"Get hold of yourself
—"

"One . . . two . . ."

Now it was my turn to yell. "Okay!"

I dropped the flashlight, then climbed up onto the sill. I wanted to jump down on top of Barry, but he was standing too far away, and his gun was still trained on Andrea.

"Last time I ever ask you to babysit," I said. Then I jumped to the ground.

"What are you gonna do with us?" Andrea asked.

"We're going to take a little walk across the street," he said.

I looked across the street to the Robinsons' house. Immediately I knew what Barry's plan was. He was going to kill us right by their house, to make it look like one of the Robinsons had done it.

"March," said Barry. "And don't make a peep."

I looked up and down High Rock. No trucks, no cop cars, no nothing. Andrea and I both shuffled our feet as we started down the front walk from the school. We were taking as long as we could. Barry was right behind us.

"Just tell me one thing," I said, trying to distract him.

"Shhh!" he hissed, jabbing his gun in my back.

I lowered my voice to a whisper. "Was I right about what happened? Between you and Meckel?"

"Yeah," Barry
whispered hoarsely. "Bloody bastard was gonna keep my kid out of the gifted program. I didn't mean to kill him, though. I pick up that stupid trophy and next thing I know, he's lying there dead. Like you Americans say, 'shit happens.'"

"What about Ms. Helquist?" Andrea asked.

"That fool. She calls me up the next day. Asks if Mr. Meckel ever talked to me about the discrepancy in my son's test scores. I say I don't know what she's talking about. But I can tell she doesn't believe me. Sooner or later she's gonna go to the cops. They'll put me in jail, even though Meckel was an accident. It’s not fair. So that night I go to her house with my gun. She thinks she's ready for me—she's got her own gun. So I grab it off her and I shoot her."

I said, "How can you
—"

"
It’s their own bloody fault," Barry exploded. "How could they do this to my son? Your public schools in this country are utterly atrocious!"

"But
that’s no reason to go around killing people."

"Sure it is. Move," he said. "Across the street. Now."

Andrea and I did our slow death march across the street. Never were two people more in need of A Plan.

And then, just like that, one came to me. Maybe it was somewhat desperate, but it was a plan
nonetheless. When we made it to the front of the Robinsons' house, I asked, "Up the driveway?"

I was afraid he'd order us to go up the walk to the front door instead. But we got lucky. "Up the driveway," he said.

Trying not to be too obvious about it, I cast my eyes down to the asphalt. About ten or twelve steps in front of me, I found what I was looking for: a dark shape down close to the ground. Mark Robinson's skateboard.

I glanced over my shoulder. Barry was still directly behind me.

Andrea was walking beside me. I nudged her slightly with my hip so that we'd veer a little to the left. That way the skateboard would be directly in my path.

I came to the skateboard. Again trying not to be too obvious, I lifted my legs a little higher so I would make it over the skateboard without tripping.

Then I got ready, my body tensing. And a moment later, I heard the sound I was waiting for Barry's foot coming into contact with the skateboard.

I turned, lung
ed, and rammed my head into Barry's body. I was hoping the skateboard had thrown him off balance enough that he wouldn't be able to shoot me right away.

I guess I was right, because when the shot came a moment later, it didn't hit me. Out of the corner of
my eye, I saw Andrea go down—I hoped to God it hadn't hit her either. Maybe she was just ducking. Barry and I were both falling hard. The force of my charge pushed him down to the driveway, and I landed on top of him.

His head banged against the driveway. His gun arm flailed behind him and his hand hit the ground. The gun flew from his hand. I could hear it rattling back down the driveway toward the sidewalk.

I started to jump off him so I could go for the gun. But then he grabbed onto me and somehow rolled on top of me. I reached for his neck and tried to strangle him. He got my head in both his hands and practically threw it against the driveway. I think I lost consciousness for a moment.

Next thing I knew, Barry was jumping off me and racing for the gun. Through the fog in my brain, I knew Andrea and I were done for.

Then I saw a shadowy figure down by the sidewalk. It was Andrea. She was holding the gun.

Barry rushed at her. "Stop!" Andrea said. "Stop!"

He was almost on top of her. His arms reached out—

Then I heard the gunshot.

Barry gave a wild banshee scream and fell down.

He moaned for a while, and then he was silent.

18

But Barry got lucky—or unlucky, depending on how you look at it. He didn't die. Andrea, who's much better with blood and gore than I am, was able to staunch some of the bleeding from the hole in Barry's chest. The paramedics arrived within ten minutes. Barry spent a couple of weeks in intensive care, then went to jail.

According to Dave
, the cops found Barry's fingerprints and alterations on the preliminary score sheet. That, combined with the statement Andrea and I gave, convinced Barry and his lawyer they should negotiate some kind of plea bargain. They're working it out now. I don't know what kind of sentence Barry will get, but I doubt he'll see freedom anytime soon. I hear via the grapevine that Barry's wife and kids are planning to move up north to Stony Creek this fall, to live with Ronnie's parents and try to escape some of the bad memories.

Andrea felt pretty shaky about firing a gun at a real person
—it's not something she ever imagined her pacifist self doing. And my kids felt a tad weird going to school with the children of a man their mother had shot. But time helped us regain our balance, and once again, dinner table conversation at the Burns household most days revolves around point guards and Pokémon instead of murder.

Our recovery was helped along by the fact that Chief Walsh dropped all the criminal charges against me for breaking and entering and obstruction of justice. I guess he was afraid he'd look ridiculous throwing me in jail right after my
wife and I had single-handedly—or should I say double-handedly—apprehended Public Enemy Number 1. Judy Demarest had splashed Andrea and me all over the front pages of the
Saratogian
and turned us into local heroes. Chief Walsh never thanked us for solving the murders for him, though; he just sort of tightened his jaw and looked away whenever we happened to see him on Broadway. I almost felt sorry for the guy.

But not quite.

Andrea was officially awarded tenure, and the whole family went out to Bruno's Pizza to celebrate. Meanwhile, Elena and Melanie were both rehired for next year. Did they actually cheat on their students' Terra Nova tests? Guess I'll never know for sure.

I got a call from Lou Robinson one morning, and he apologized endlessly for going gonzo on me. He told me that he and his family had started going to a therapist. I wished him the best.

My inmates did their three performances at Mt. McGregor Correctional Facility and got standing ovations every time. Of course, they did have captive audiences. I sent Brooklyn's one-act play to a couple of friends of mine in New York City who run off-Broadway theatres. Hey, you never know.

My favorite thing that happened recently is Laura Braithwaite's new boyfriend
—she's going out with a
Schenectady Gazette
reporter who did a feature on her. He seems like a nice guy.

When Andrea hea
rd about it, she said, "So something good came out of this whole business after all."

Life is something
else. One moment you'll be sailing along peacefully, and the next moment you'll happen to aim a spelling bee trophy at the wrong part of somebody's head, and your goose is cooked.

The truth is, my family is blessed. And if my kids don't get the best education in the world . . . well, as Charizard would say, even if school is thirteen
-fourteenths boring, there's always recess.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to thank my literary agent, Jimmy Vines; my editor, Genny Ostertag; and the folks who helped me along the way: Carmen Bassin-Beumer, Betsy Blaustein, Nancy Butcher, Tara Clavell, Julia Fleischaker, Bill Harris, Joe Pittman, Mike Sauro, Benson Silverman, Justin Wilcox, Celia Witten, and every
body at Malice Domestic, the Creative Bloc, and the late, lamented Madeline's Espresso Bar.

Also, I'd like to thank my son Zachary, who contributed the poem "Corn" to this book, and my son Jacob, who contributed the poem "Spring."

Finally, many thanks to Nancy Seid, who is not only my wife and girlfriend, but also a darn fierce editor.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Matt Witten has written four Jacob Burns novels:
Breakfast at Madeline’s, Grand Delusion, Strange Bedfellows,
and
The Killing Bee. 
He’s written for several television shows including
Law & Order, House,
and
Pretty Little Liars. 
His published stage plays include
The Deal, Washington Square Moves,
and
The Ties That Bind. 
His first movie,
Drones,
will be released in 2014.  Matt lived in Saratoga Springs, New York, for ten years with his wife Nancy, who was an English professor, and their two young sons.  (Not that
The Killing Bee
is autobiographical or anything.)

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