In Broad Daylight (43 page)

When Steve Peter heard the first shot, his eyes were pulled to the shattering glass in the driver's door. As Trena began screaming, and her door opened, Steve decided he had better get down and out of the line of fire. He squatted between the trucks, not moving while the shots continued. Looking south, away from the shooting, he saw he was in a direct line with the west edge of the pool hall, and he figured that that would be the quickest way to get somewhere other than where he was, so he took

off in a crouching lope down the side of the building. He circled west and north back to his pickup, which was parked across the street from the Sumy station, and drove home to tell his wife.

A twelve-year-old boy, who had gone inside Sumy's gas station a few minutes earlier to get a bottle of pop, was standing by the water cooler when he heard the shots. He looked out the front window and saw a man standing at the west edge of the post office with a rifle to his shoulder, firing across the street in the direction of the tavern. The boy bolted from the gas station and raced through alleys and across yards to his home. When he told his parents what he had seen, his father told him not to tell anyone.

When Cheryl heard the crack of the rifle she saw the window shatter and McElroy's head bob down. An instant later, the second shot pushed his head further down, and she saw Trena open the door and jump out screaming. Blood and dirt streaked her arms and blouse. Jack Clement came over to where Trena was lying in the grass, picked her up, and rushed her toward the bank. (One law enforcement official would comment later that only a man with a father's faith in his son's marksmanship would walk into the line of fire like that.) Through the screen in the tavern door, Kermit saw Trena-looking like a frightened animal in search of a place to hide.

Most of the men standing around dropped down between the vehicles or took off up the hill in the direction of Sumy's gas station. The men already there stayed where they were, watching the scene unfold below. At the sound of the gunfire their eyes shifted a fraction to the left of the Silverado, and the shooters and their blazing guns came instantly into focus. The flash of the gray gunmetal, the smell of burned gunpowder, the sounds of splintering glass and a woman's screams of terror, would be forever seared in their memories.

After the men had followed McElroy and Trena out the front door, Red Smith caught up on collecting for the beer and pop and was chatting with Kermit at the south end of the bar. A few men had begun playing pool, and the talk was picking up a little when Red heard what he first thought were firecrackers going off.

"Get down," someone yelled. "Those are bullets flying!"

Red dived onto the floor behind the bar. He lay on the cement floor shaking, listening to the gunfire and praying that the bullets wouldn't start ripping into the tin building.

Kermit heard the first boom!" a pause, and then a second boom! He hit the floor beside Red, thinking that somebody had shot at McElroy and missed, and now McElroy was shooting back. There might be a goddamn war starting and those high powers would blow right through the tin walls. he thought He heard three more shots: BOOM."... BOOM!... BOOM! In his mind he saw the levers on the rifles being cocked and the rifles being leveled and re-aimed between shots. He figured the shooting lasted fifteen to twenty seconds.

Q was sitting at a table with several of his buddies when he heard the blammy! blam! blam! of the rifles. He dived under the pool table, where several others soon joined him.

When the shooting ended, the people in the bar stayed put for several minutes, unsure of what to do, but not wanting to be part of whatever was happening on the street.

"By God!" someone finally said after looking out the door, "it's over with now. He won't be bothering us no more."

A few men picked themselves up from the floor, wobbled to the bar, and ordered beers. Red, his hands shaking, got up and did his best to oblige.

The big Silverado engine was roaring, and somebody said, "Better shut it off."

"To hell with it," came the response. "Let it burn."

Q stood up, turned to his neighbor, and asked, "How long do you figure it will run like that?"

"Oh, maybe five or six minutes."

The heavy, dark head, its oily black hair slicked back, slammed down on the massive chest. The shock of the hit flowed down through the thick torso and the lower limbs until a booted foot rocked forward on the accelerator in a heavy thrust. The V-8 leapt into life and roared out in full-throated angry protest. The engine wound up until, at full bore, its howl crashed through the town and ripped the still air like the bellowing of a mortally wounded beast. The howl rose to a terrible shriek, and smoke began pouring forth from the guts of the beast in thick black clouds. The head sat unmoving, like a huge black stone, but the heart continued to pump, and blood spurted from the holes in the neck and face, splattering everything around a bright, shiny crimson. The observers backed away slowly, mesmerized by the violence of the final throes. The heat of the struggle radiated outward in searing waves, turning the street into a huge blast furnace.

Finally, the beast's vital organs began to pop and snap under the strain, and the observers could hear the sickening sound of guts tearing apart. In the crescendo of the shriek, its insides seized and locked together in a death grip of flesh and metal, and the horrible noise ceased. A final sigh escaped, and fluids gushed onto the burning pavement with soft, gurgling sounds. Then silence filled the town.

Inside the tavern, a man at the bar said quietly, "I think I'm going out the back door and heading home." Others followed him out the back, and then a few wandered out the front door. By now, the streets were clear of pedestrians, and the last few pickups were pulling out. As the men passed the Silverado many looked inside. Kermit got in his car and drove home, then drove back into town a few minutes later and stared at McElroy still sitting in his truck.

Q walked out, glanced at McElroy sitting immobile in the Silverado, and got into "his own truck and drove around the block. He ran into a friend, and they pulled their trucks alongside each other and talked quietly for a few minutes before heading home. By the time Q walked in his back door, he was badly shaken and feeling poorly.

Left alone in the tavern, Red began cleaning the tables and the bar, picking up half-empty bottles of beer and washing glasses. Finally, at about 11:15, almost an hour after the shooting, he called the sheriff's office to ask whether anyone had reported the killing. Someone had.

Red had absolutely no desire to go out the door and look in the Silverado. He was so rattled over the shooting and the fact that McElroy was still outside, only a few feet away, that he started drinking beer himself. He didn't set foot outside the tavern until 7:00 that evening.

When Ken Herner returned to the bank after the meeting, he found a young couple in his office with a certificate of deposit. About six months earlier, an elderly man from Graham had come to the bank and said he had $20,000 that he wanted to put in a safe place and avoid probate. Herner had advised the man to put the money in a joint tenancy account with his niece and nephew, who weren't close to him but were the only relatives he had left. This morning, the two of them had come to the bank at 9:15, announced that their uncle had died a couple of hours earlier, and said they wanted the $20,000. Irritated with their greed and lack of respect, Herner had called the hospital and verified the death, then told the pair somewhat gruffly that he would cash the certificate.

He was in the process of writing the checks when he heard a series of explosions outside. At first, he thought one of the gravel trucks was backfiring as it descended the hill. Then two cashiers rushed through his office shouting, "Someone's been shot! Someone's been shot!"

Herner looked out his window and saw Steve Peter and Trena McElroy on the ground, about five feet apart, between the Silverado and a car. The cashiers were standing at the back door of his office looking out. He pulled them back in and said, "If you're going to watch, watch from the window. You don't want anyone knowing that you're seeing what's going on out there."

A minute or two later, Jack Clement brought Trena in the front door of the bank and motioned to the two cashiers. "This is Trena," he said. "She hasn't been hit. Take care of her."

Lois was just leaving the bank, when Trena appeared in the doorway. Seeing Lois startled Trena, and she tried to back up, but Jack Clement maneuvered her on in. As Trena screamed and sobbed, Lois thought sarcastically, Well, Trena, I haven't seen you in a while. Without saying a word, Lois returned to the store.

Still screaming, Trena fell into a chair and gripped its arms. Blood speckled her shirt and arms, and tiny slivers of broken glass glittered in her hair. Between sobs, she cried out, "They shot Ken! They shot Ken! They didn't have to do that!"

A brown-haired woman in her forties walked up to Trena and said adamantly, "Yes, they did. You didn't leave us any choice!"

Herner walked into the main room and was approached by an excited customer, a man from Savannah.

"What's the matter with that girl? What's going on here?"

Herner did not respond.

"What is wrong with that girl?" the man demanded. "Why is she screaming like that?"

"You don't want to know what's going on," said Herner. "Just get into your pickup and drive south out of town."

"Why are you so unfriendly?" said the man.

"If you go around that corner and look, you might be in trouble," the bank president warned.

The man left, mumbling under his breath.

Looking over at Trena, Herner saw the blood and glass and noticed that Trena's pants were wet at the crotch. A puddle had formed on the floor beneath her chair. The cashiers, whom Trena knew, came over and tried to take her into the bathroom to help clean her up. But she only screamed louder and grabbed the chair tighter. She had heard Jack Clement tell the women to "take care of her," and she was afraid to go anywhere with them. She kept screaming at the top of her lungs, until the cashiers thought they would go crazy. After about ten minutes, when they realized they couldn't do anything for her, Herner decided to call Tim McElroy.

"Tim," Herner said, "there's been an accident involving Ken down at the tavern. Trena's in the bank. You better come get her."

Five minutes later, Tim drove his truck up the hill, slowing only slightly as he passed the Silverado. Tim came into the bank, looked around, thanked Herner for calling him, and took Trena by the arm. As they walked out, she was sobbing and trying to tell him what had happened. "Let's go check on Ken," Tim said.

"No, no, he's dead," sobbed Trena. "Take me home, and you come back."

Without looking in the direction of the Silverado, they climbed into Tim's truck. The truck sped up this time as it passed the Silverado on the way out of town.

Herner walked through his office and looked out the back door to see whether anyone had removed the body. McElroy was still there, in the same position, and nobody was near the Silverado. All the trucks that had been on the other side of the street were gone. He walked back through the bank and out the front to the grocery store, where he asked whether anyone had called the ambulance. Someone said it had been called, so Herner went back to work.

Inside the store, Cheryl was trying to steady herself. For a few moments, the pain she felt in her body was worse than the fear she had felt when McElroy was alive. It was a deep, aching pain, as if poison had been released in her bones. She and Bo stepped out on the loading dock for a minute and looked at the bent figure in the truck. Neither spoke. Eventually, she went out the front and saw Tim leading Trena across the street to his pickup, holding her and talking quietly to her. Cheryl didn't feel the slightest twinge of sympathy for either of them; she smiled at the sight of Trena's soaked jeans. Cheryl went back into the store.

A few minutes later, deciding to move her truck and the Bowenkamps' station wagon from the scene, Cheryl went back outside. She would really look at him this time, she told herself. She walked slowly up to the riddled truck. The passenger door was hanging open. She paused, leaned in and took a nice, long look. She had never seen a dead person before, but the sight of McElroy's corpse didn't bother her at all. Blood was all over him-covering his face, spilling over his front, and flowing slowly down his back. Large green flies buzzed and snapped around him in the hot sun. On the seat lay Trena's purse and the paper sack with the six-pack of beer in it. After fifteen months of terror, he was sitting there looking like a big, dumb, dead ape. Cheryl felt better than she had in a long time.

Evelyn Carter, who lived on a farm with her husband, Junior, northwest of town, was standing in front of the B & B Grocery talking with a friend when she heard what sounded like a string of cherry bombs going off. She glanced across the street at the men standing in front of Sumy's station and noticed the tense expressions on their faces. A group of men came running up the hill, moving fairly fast for a bunch of farmers. Putting their expressions together with the sounds, she realized that rifles were firing and assumed that Ken McElroy was involved one way or another. The door to the grocery store opened, and a woman motioned her to come inside. Evelyn pulled away, thinking that the grocery store would be the worst place to be if McElroy were coming after the Bowenkamps again. She and her friend crossed the street to Birt Johnson's station, where several of the running farmers had gathered. They stood staring, like a collection of wooden soldiers, staring silently down the street.