Big Daddy Sinatra: Carly's Cry (12 page)

He looked at Jenay and Carly, who
were still lying down.
 
“You two okay?”
he asked them.

Carly nodded, and Jenay said that she
was okay.

“Tony?” Charles yelled, as he
hurriedly stood up.

Tony, still lying on Sharon,
nodded.
 
“We’re okay,” he said.

Donald, who had been upstairs, ran
down the stairs just as Charles took off running out of the lobby and onto the
street.
 
“What happened?” he was asking
as he ran down those stairs.
 

But Charles was already gone.
 
When Charles made it out onto the street, he
saw the car driving fast and recklessly toward the end of the street.
 
He did not hesitate.
 
He pulled out the handgun he had only recently
began carrying and took off on foot.
 
He
knew this town.
 
He knew this street
would dead-end on Lennox and that getaway car would have to go left, along
Spirit, until he was at the stop sign on Cash and Spirit.
 
There was only one way to turn there too.

Charles took off running across the
street, through the back of the row houses, jumping the fence toward another
set of row houses that led him onto Cash.
  
But the car sped past him just as he was running onto Cash.
 
The car was driving so fast that Charles
didn’t have time to fire his weapon.
 
But
he saw who it was.
 
He stared at the
driver as the car flew past.
 
He saw that
protestor.
 
The one he encountered that
morning.
 
Abe Norris.
 
He saw that motherfucker.

“Dad!
 
Dad!”

He turned.
 
It was Donald.

“Dad, come quick,” Donald said.

“What is it?” Charles asked, even
though he didn’t hesitate.
 
He began
running toward his son.

“It’s Mom, Dad,” Donald said
nervously as his father ran toward him.

Charles’s heart began to hammer.
 
“Jenay?”

“She didn’t realize it,” Donald
said.
 
“We didn’t realize it!”

“Didn’t realize what?” Charles asked
anxiously.
 
“What are you talking about?”

“She was hit,” Donald said.
 
“We didn’t realize Mom had been shot!”

Charles’s heart fell like a lump of
hot coal through his entire body, and he took off.
 
He ran with fire under his feet.
 
He left his own son, who was younger and
faster and smaller than him by a heap, in a trail of dust and tears.

“Yes, sir.
 
No, sir.
 
No, sir.”

Brent paced the hospital waiting room
fielding question after question from his boss, the mayor.
 
He was talking on his cell phone and but for
his conversation, the silence was deafening.

“No, sir.
 
There were additional reports of injuries,
but those were mostly from glass or somebody injured in a fall.
 
Only one person was shot.”
 
Brent stopped walking and exhaled.
 
“My stepmother,” he said with pain in his
voice.

Robert slid down the wall until he
was crotched to the floor, his hands in his blond hair as he felt the sting all
over again.
 
He and Jenay were
close.
 
He never dreamed something like
this would happen to her.

Ashley and Donald were also in the
waiting room, sitting on the sofa side by side, still wiping tears from their
eyes.
 
Carly was sitting on the sofa too,
but further over, and alone.
 
Unlike Ash
and Donald, she had not been crying.
 
But
her heart was racing.

In the back of the room, standing on
either side of the small window, was Tony, along with Sharon Flannigan.
 
Both were silent, deep in their thoughts, and
praying.
 
Sharon had no intentions of
coming to the hospital, but after Tony had saved her life (and he had when he
dived on top of her), she couldn’t just let him go alone.
 
She somehow felt connected to him now.
 
She somehow felt an obligation to make sure
he was okay.

But when the waiting room door
opened, and Charles walked in, Tony hurried to his father so fast, as did the
rest of his siblings, until it forced Sharon to bring up the rear alone.
 
Even Brent abruptly ended his call with the
mayor to hear what his father had to say.
 
And Sharon understood their anxiety.
 
If it had been her mother, she would be anxious too.
 
Besides, Mr. Sinatra, she felt, looked like a
man on the verge of falling apart.
 
He
looked devastated.
 
But his words to his
children weren’t.

“She’s going to be okay,” Charles
quickly reassured his children.

Everybody let out a collective sigh
of relief.
 
“Thank God,” Tony added.

“The doctor said the bullet only
grazed her arm,” Charles continued.
 
“It’s painful for her, very painful, but she’ll be okay.”
 
Then he looked around.
 
“Where’s Bonita?”

“With Makayla and Junior,” Brent
said.
 
“She’s in good hands.”

Charles nodded, and then wiped across
his eyes with the back of his hand.
 
He
was exhausted.
 
“Good,” he said.

“But who would do this to Mom?”
Ashley asked, wiping away tears.
 
“She
wouldn’t harm a flea!
 
Who would do this
to her?”

“Who says it was Mom they were doing
it to?” Donald asked.
 
“She’s been
standing in that lobby every day for years, and nobody’s shot at her until
today.
 
And the only reason she was
standing there today was because she was being introduced to that lady over
there.”
 
Donald pointed at Sharon.
 
“She’s the only person here who’s never been
at the Inn before.
 
She’s the only person
here who’s never been in Jericho before.
 
Maybe she was the one they were after, and Mom got in the way.”

Normally, Brent wouldn’t give
Donald’s wild assertions a second thought.
 
He was always pointing fingers at somebody but himself.
 
But this time he couldn’t so easily dismiss
the claim.
 
Because Donald was
right.
 
Sharon Flannigan was the only
unknown quantity who was standing where the gunman’s bullets had targeted.

Tony, however, was completely
dismissive.
 
“That’s utter nonsense!” he
fired back.
 
“Sharon Flannigan had
nothing more to do with some crazed gunman deciding to shoot up the place than
me or you or Carly over there.
 
She was
in the wrong place at the wrong time.
 
Full stop.
 
Period.”

“And how do you know that?” Donald
asked.
 
“You just met the woman,
Tone.
 
How would you know anything about
her?”

“She was not the target,” Tony said
with a kind of unwavering confidence even he knew was absurd.
 
“You’re barking up the wrong tree.”

“Oh, so I’m a dog now?” Donald asked.

“Knock it off,” Brent said with a
frown.
 
It was stressful enough.
 
Then he exhaled.
 
And looked at Sharon.
 
“May I have a word?” he asked her.

Tony frowned himself.
 
“Brent!”

“I have to do my job, Tony.
 
I’m police chief in this county and a
shooting has occurred.
 
I have to
question her.”

“You’re going to listen to Donnie’s
ridiculousness?”

“It’s not ridiculous,” Donald
said.
 
“It’s facts.
 
And what’s your problem anyway?
 
What are you defending her for?
 
She’s not even cute!”

Tony moved to rearrange his kid
brother’s face, but Brent stood in the way.
 
“I told you two to knock it off!”

“It’s alright,” Sharon said, looking
flustered too.
 
Then she looked at
Brent.
 
“Yes, you may question me,” she
said.

Brent looked at Tony.
 
Tony finally backed off.
 
After he did, Brent and Sharon walked back
over to the window in the back of the room.
 
Tony glared at Donald, but then followed them.

But the rest of the Sinatra clan was
less interested in who did it, than their mother’s wellbeing.
 
“When can we see her, Dad?” Carly asked their
father.
 
“Can we see her now?”

“She’s asleep, but you can see her,”
Charles said, and they hurried toward the door.
 
“Don’t wake her,” he yelled after them, “or I’ll kick all of your
asses!”

“Yes, sir,” Carly yelled back, as
she, Robert, Donald and Ashley hurried out of the door.
 
Charles looked over at Brent as he prepared
to question Sharon.
 
But he already knew
who did it.
 
The question for him was
why.
 
Before Brent got involved and
slowed the process as law enforcement always did, he had to find out for
himself.

As Brent and Sharon talked, and as
Tony paid attention to that conversation, Charles eased out of the waiting
room, and then the hospital altogether.
 
He had places to go.
 
A person to
see.
 
That damned protestor shot his
wife.
 
He had to find out why.
 
He had to find out what the hell was going on
once and for all, before any more of his loved ones were harmed.

Brent didn’t realize his father had
even left the room as he questioned Sharon.
 
She told him why she was in Jericho, and why she was at the Jericho
Inn.
 
But Brent needed more.

“The shooting occurred less than an
hour after you arrived in town.”
 
Brent
waited for her to agree with him.
 
But
she didn’t.
 
She wasn’t going to
participate in her own lynching.
 
So he
continued.
 
“Before you arrived, was
there anybody you can recall who might have some beef with you?
 
Some grudge?”

“No one,” she said quickly.

Too quick for Brent.
 
“Shouldn’t you give it some thought before
you answer?” he asked her.

“I have already given it thought,”
Sharon responded.
 
“Considerable
thought.
 
There is no one.”

“Look Miss Flannigan,” Brent said,
“it’s my job to find out if you were involved in this shooting or not.
 
I’m not trying to give you a hard time.”

“Insinuating that I brought this
trouble to Jericho is my idea of a hard time,” Sharon shot back.

“You don’t have to take it
personally.”

“Oh, Brent, give me a break!” Tony
said.
 
“How else is she supposed to take
it?
 
As a group?
 
Of course it’s personal.
 
And she’s right.
 
You can’t lay this mess at her feet.”

Brent ignored Tony.
 
He was always taking on crusades, and apparently
this school teacher was his new pet project.
 
But Brent still had a job to do.
 
“Maybe your ex-boyfriend,” he said to Sharon, “could hold some grudge.
 
Or an ex-husband?”

Tony could see a sadness suddenly
appear in her eyes.
 
“No,” she said.
 
“There’s no one that I’m aware of who would
have ever perpetrated this crime.
 
I’m
sorry, Chief, but I cannot help you.
 
Am
I excused?”

“After you answer my questions,
yes.
 
Is there an ex-boyfriend or
ex-husband or whomever out there who may wish to do you harm?”

“No,” Sharon said firmly.
 
“There is no ex-boyfriend.
 
There is no ex-husband.
 
I cannot help you, Chief.
 
Am I excused?”

Tony looked at Sharon.
 
Brent thought she meant there were no ex who
wished to do her harm.
 
But he could see
the pain in her eyes.
 
There were no ex
period.
 
No prior relationship
period.
 
And it was a painful part of
what had to be her lonely existence.
 
His
heart, once again, went out to her and he couldn’t understood why.
 
She was an accomplished woman.
 
She didn’t need his sympathy or empathy or
even his concern.
 
But to Tony’s own
astonishment, she had all three.

Brent, giving up, nodded.
 
“Yes, you’re excused,” he said.
 
“I apologize if I offended you, Miss
Flannigan, but I have a job to do.”

“I fully understand,” she said.
 
And as Brent left to go check on Jenay too,
she looked at Tony. “I’m glad your stepmother is doing better.
 
I’m very pleased with the news.
 
But I’m going to leave.”

“If you can wait a few moments for me
to at least eyeball my mother for myself,” Tony said, “then I’ll be happy to
take you back to the Inn.
 
Or wherever
you want to go.
 
You rode with me, and
the least I can do is drive you back.” When she appeared to be wary of waiting,
he went a step further.
 
“Please,” he
added.

Sharon really didn’t see why she
couldn’t just call a cab and leave, but she nodded.

And Tony hurried out of the waiting
room.
 
But when he eyeballed Jenay for
himself, and saw that she was medicated and resting comfortably as his father
had said, he hurried back into the waiting room.
 
But it was no surprise to him that Sharon had
gone.

Jeff Cruikshank heard the commotion,
but turned too late.
 
Charles grabbed him
by the catch of his collar and flung him against the wall.

“What’s the meaning of this?”
Cruikshank asked.
 
“What are you doing,
Sinatra?”

“What game are you playing at?”
Charles angrily asked.
 
“What the fuck is
this about?!”

Cruikshank’s campaign volunteers ran
into his office, but stopped in their tracks when they saw the perpetrator was
Big Daddy.
 
They knew how mean, and powerful,
he was.

“I don’t know what you’re talking
about!” Cruikshank insisted.

“Where is he?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Where is that fucker that tried to
kill my wife?”
 
Then Charles slammed him
against the wall again.
 
“Where is he,
got
dammit?!”

“I don’t know.
 
Get him off of me!
 
I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“They wanted me, but they got my
wife.
 
My wife!” Charles said with anger
and pain in his voice.
 
Then he pulled
out his gun, and put it to Cruikshank’s head.
 
The volunteers took off running out of the office.
 
“Nobody threatens my wife and get away with
it.
 
That’s not going to happen.”