STATE OF ANGER: A Virgil Jones Mystery Series (Detective Virgil Jones Mystery Series Book 1) (18 page)

__________

The governor stepped up to the
podium and turn on his camera smile. “I have a quick announcement to make, and
then I’ll take a few questions, if you have any, that is.” The reporters all
laughed politely. “Well, as you all probably already know, I am here today to
announce my intentions to run for reelection for the office of Governor for the
great state of…”

__________

Senior put the cross hairs on the
governor’s forehead. His finger had just started to pull the trigger when
Junior spoke and everything changed. “City cop turning in. He’s parking right
next to the building.”

Senior relaxed his finger. “Son of
a bitch.”

“Want me to take him?” Junior
said. She reached under the seat and pulled the silenced pistol out. “I bet I
could get him before he knew what’s what. Just like that state boy.”

“No, no, hold off. Let’s see what
he’s doing.”

“Looks to me like he’s eating a
sandwich.”

“Maybe today’s not the governor’s
day,” Senior said.

“It has to be today. We don’t have
a choice.”

Senior thought about it. It did
have to be today. The cops would put it together before too long, and they did
not want to be around when that happened. The governor had flown the plane,
everyone knew that. But it was Rhonda Rhodes’ husband, the on-scene fire
department commander that wouldn’t let anyone in the hotel after the crash. Elle
Richardson’s husband, the city cop had backed him up. Together they let Sara
burn. Goodwin’s wife, Tess, was the twat that had switched Sara’s schedule to
the night shift, otherwise she wouldn’t have even been there that day. And Bob
Anderson? That motherfucker worked the tower that morning, so his hot little
number of a wife, Jenny, well she had to go too. Now every single one of those
cocksuckers would know what it felt like to Sid, Sr., what it still feels like
every god damned day of his life.

The weight of it all had been
building for such a long time that Sid felt like he might bust. He laid the
rifle down, turned and spoke, his voice as hollow as Junior had ever heard. He
was always going to tell her, but he was also going to wait until after they
were done with the governor. But now…

“There’s something you should
know, Sidney. About the governor.”

“What?” she said. “I know
everything there is to know.”

“No, you don’t.”

“What else is there? He crashed
his plane into the hotel and Mom burned to death,” Junior said as she pointed
to where the governor stood talking to the media. “Nobody went in to rescue her
or anyone else, all while that son of a bitch floated down in his parachute and
landed without a scratch.” She shook her head. “Now pick up your gun, take the
fucking shot and I’ll go take care of the cop.” Junior reached for the door handle
but Senior caught her arm and stopped her. The pressure of the situation was
almost too much for Junior to take.

“
What
?”

“Listen to me,” Senior said. He
practically hissed it at her. “There’s something you don’t know. Something I
should have told you a long time ago.”

“Well what is it, for fuck’s
sake?”

So Senior told her…

__________

Cauliffer finished his sandwich
and for the first time noticed the van at the back of the lot. It was white. He
scrolled through his computer and checked the logs. There was something about a
BOLO for a white van. There was a plate number too, he thought. He found the
report and read through the details.

__________

…and when Junior heard the words,
she snapped. Her life had been a sham, everything she knew to be true, everything
that made her who she was and what she had become was a lie. She didn’t think,
she didn’t weigh her options, she just did what she thought anyone would do,
something that she was very familiar and very comfortable with after all these
years. She raised her gun and fired. Senior took one in the forehead.

Then two in the heart.

__________

When Cauliffer saw that the make
and model of the van matched the BOLO he picked up the microphone to call for
backup, but then just as quickly set it back in it’s holder. Check the plate
first, he thought. Lots of white vans in the city. He opened his door, got out,
and brushed the crumbs from his uniform shirt. He was about half way across the
lot when the side door of the van flew open and a woman jumped out with a gun.

He pulled his service revolver and
yelled. “Police! Drop the weapon!”

The woman spun and fired a single
shot at Cauliffer. The bullet hit the handheld radio clipped to his belt and
when it did a shard from the plastic casing fragmented upward and sliced into Cauliffer’s
forehead, just above his left eye. He ducked, winced at the pain, and
momentarily lost sight of the woman. He thought about running back to his squad
car to call for help, but then he remembered that the governor was only a few hundred
yards away.

And the woman with the gun was
running that way.

Cauliffer started after her, one
eye pinched shut and full of blood.

__________

Junior heard the cop yell for her
to stop, or freeze or some such shit that the cops are always yelling. She spun
around, fired once to slow the cop, and then ran toward the governor. She was
still on autopilot, the thoughts of what her father had just told her spinning
through her brain.

Her father.

She’d been lied to, abandoned,
neglected, abused, and rejected her entire life. But it was all about to stop.

It was all about to end.

__________

Cauliffer was gaining on the
woman, but it wasn’t going to be enough. He wanted to stop and take a shot, but
with one eye full of blood he knew the chances of hitting his target were slim
at best. And if he missed she’d be on top of the governor before he could do
anything about it. His radio was useless, so Cauliffer did the only thing he
could think to do, something that at the academy they told you never to do
because of the danger to yourself or others. Cauliffer fired three warning shots
into the air.

__________

When Junior heard the shots behind
her she turned to look back, and when she did she tripped in the grass and fell
to the ground. The cop was about thirty yards back and coming hard. Junior knew
then that the governor would live and she would not. There would be no
comfortable and peaceful villa in the Keys with her lover, Amanda. There would
be nothing except a jail cell and ultimately a needle in her vein. She
scrambled to her feet and turned toward the cop.

__________

When the governor’s three-man
protection detail heard the shots, two of them took the governor to the ground
and held him there while the third ran toward the sounds of the gunfire. Most
of the media people were on the ground as well, but one of the cameramen, a
veteran from the war and no stranger to the sound of gunfire put his camera on
his shoulder and followed the cop. He got the entire thing on tape.

__________

Cauliffer saw her fall and he kept
running until he saw her get up. He stopped, leveled his gun and yelled one
more time for her to drop the weapon. He saw her start to bring the gun up, saw
the crazy light in her eyes and pulled the trigger. The nine millimeter caught
her center mass and Sidney Wells, Jr. dropped in a heap in the grass. Cauliffer
ran over and secured her weapon, then sat down in the grass and tried to wipe
the blood from his eye.

When it was over the governor and
his protection detail pushed their way through the circle of cops and chaos.
The governor walked up to Cauliffer and shook his hand. “Officer Cauliflower,
you’ve saved my life.”

Cauliffer shook the governor’s
hand. “It’s, uh, Cauliffer, sir.”

The governor reddened at his
repeated gaff. “Yes, yes, of course. I keep getting that wrong, don’t I?”

The cameraman got the entire
exchange. It made the evening news and went viral on the Internet within hours.

Indiana Governor…Saved By Cauliflower.

__________

 “That’s all right, sir,” Cauliffer
said, as he wiped more blood from his eyes.

“What the hell happened?”

“It was a woman. She was headed
your way with a gun. She fired at me. I chased her here and when she tried to
fire again I took the shot.”

“A woman? Where is she?”

Cauliffer pointed to the other grouping
of cops. “Right over there,” he said.

The governor walked over and
looked at the body of the woman on the ground. When he saw her face he turned
away, then vomited all over his shoes.

That went viral as well.

23

__________

V
irgil
swam in and out of consciousness, or imagined he did over a period of time that
may have been a few minutes or a few days. People shimmered in and out of
focus, fuzzy around the edges, like images on a big screen television with poor
reception. When he was finally able to hold his eyes open and keep them
focused, he found himself on his back in an uncomfortable bed in a darkened
room. A tube was taped to his right arm that lead to a needle that poked into a
vein on the back of his hand, held in place with more tape. His left leg was in
a cast that extended from the tips of his toes to the bottom of his knee. As
soon as he saw the cast the pain brought him fully awake.

“He’s up,” someone said. “Better
get the doc.”

A door opened and a shaft of light
from the hall snuck into the room then faded away as the door hissed closed and
clicked against the latch. Sandy leaned in close and brushed the hair off of
Virgil’s forehead. “Hey, tough guy,” she said. “About time you woke up.” Mason
stood right behind her.

It was all coming back now, the
attack, being tied to the steel girder, the beating, everything. Virgil wanted
to ask a dozen different questions, but when he opened his mouth to speak, all
that came out was: “Hurts.”

Mason stepped forward. “Cora was
here, son. She stepped out to get the doctor. There’s a button for the pain. Do
you want me to press it?”

Virgil nodded and his dad pushed
the button. After a few seconds, the morphine made its way through the IV and
Virgil felt it beat the pain back, though not completely. He tried to sit up a
little, and then wished he hadn’t.

“Where am I? What happened?”

The door opened again and Cora came
into the room, a doctor in tow. “You’re at Methodist Hospital, Detective,” the Doctor
said. He took a pen light from his pocket and checked Virgil’s eyes. “If you
had to rate your pain on a scale of one to ten, what would you say the number
is?”

Virgil tried to blink the light
away. “Uh, I don’t know. Eight now, I guess. My dad just pushed a button.”

The doctor inspected the IV line
and adjusted the drip. “I upped the dose a little. You can push this button
every seven minutes if you have to, and you’ll probably have to for the next
twenty-four hours or so. Did anyone tell you what we did?”

“He just woke up,” Sandy said. “We
haven’t had a chance.”

The doctor wrote something on a
chart while he spoke. “You apparently took quite a thrashing. You’ve got a
broken rib on your left side that punctured a lung. You lost quite a bit of
blood and I don’t mind telling you that you had us all a little worried there
for a while. Your chest is taped and we’ve repaired the internal damage so
you’re going to be just fine, but you’ve got a nice scar on your belly that
will make a great conversation starter at the beach. The discomfort you feel in
your leg is what’s going to be the worst of it. We had to pin it, so it’s going
to take a while to heal. You’ll need physical therapy. The pain you’re feeling
now is from the surgeries, and it’ll get better over the next few days, but
you’re going to be pretty sore for a while. That cast is going to drive you
bonkers for about eight weeks. You’ll know when the weather is about to change,
too.”

The morphine filled Virgil’s brain
like a convective fog over a pond. “Okay.”

“Your leg is broken, Son,” Mason
said. “The surgery took almost four hours.”

“We used an artificial bone graft
material, along with a few pins and screws,” the doctor said. “Had lots of
success with it in the past, so you’re going to be okay. There’s always a
slight chance of infection, but we got you cleaned out pretty good. I’ll check
on you in the morning. The nurses will be in to bother you every time you’re
about to fall asleep. Good night.”

Virgil reached out and found the
pain button and pushed it. Twice. He looked at Cora and motioned her over to the
bed. “Where’s my gun and badge?”

“We’ve got them, Jonesy. They were
there, at the scene. Don’t worry about it.”

“Okay.”

“Listen, Jonesy,” Cora said. “I’m
going to get out of here and let you rest. Sandy’ll fill you in on everything. Donatti
and Rosencrantz were here earlier while you were still out. They said to let
you know they’d be back in the morning. The governor sends his best. I’ll check
on you tomorrow.”

Virgil could feel the morphine
flowing through his body as if his blood were being heated then recycled
through his veins. “Okay.”

After Cora left Sandy moved closer
and stood at the edge of the bed. “My god, Virgil, you could have been killed.”

He was drifting and there were
still questions Virgil wanted to ask but he couldn’t seem to get them out. “I
heard the sirens, Sandy. I saw my mom, too. She was there. I think she was
there with me the entire time.”

Mason was sitting in a visitor’s
chair in the corner of the room, and when he heard what his son said he walked
over to the side of the bed. “What was that, Virg? Say that again, will you?”

But the drugs pulled him back
under before he could answer.

__________

The doctor was right. The nurses
did come in every time he fell asleep. It got to the point where Virgil thought
they were all sadists. The doctor ordered rest, but then they didn’t let you
get any. But the next time he woke on his own the light of the day peeked
through the slats of the window blinds and he could hear the business end of
patient care coming alive from the other side of the door. Sandy was curled in
a ball on a recliner next to the window.

His leg still hurt like hell, but
it was not as bad as the previous night. It was more isolated and not over his
entire body like it had been before. He found the call button for the nurse and
pressed it, and when she came into the room he asked her about switching to a
pain pill instead of the IV drip. “It’s making me pretty loopy,” Virgil said.

“I’ll have to clear it with the
doctor,” she said. “But between you and me, I don’t think you’re ready just
yet. In the meantime, don’t be a hero. Hit that pain button if you have to. Loopy
ain’t all bad, honey.”

A short time later an orderly
wheeled in a breakfast tray and set the cart next to the bed. All the in and
out woke Sandy. She stretched, yawned, walked over to the bed, and leaned in
and kissed Virgil, hard, on the lips.

“You should have gone home last
night,” he said.

“Would you have?”

“No.”

“So, okay then.”

His leg was throbbing now, the
pain worse as he became fully awake. “I was thinking about last night. The way
you called me Virgil.”

The door opened and Rosencrantz
and Donatti walked in. “Of course she called you Virgil. That’s your name,
isn’t it?” He looked over at Donatti. “Isn’t that his name?”

Donatti nodded. “Yep. Hey Small,
what’s shaking? Did you know his middle name is Francis?”

“About time you woke up,” Rosencrantz
said as he lifted the lid on the food tray. “What’s for breakfast?” He put the
lid back down. “Wow, are they trying to cure you or kill you?”

“You know, you don’t get jack for
workmen’s comp in Indiana,” Donatti said. “I think you’re faking.”

“Yeah, definitely faking,”
Rosencrantz said.

“Hey, is it true you can predict
when it’s going to rain, now?” Donatti said. “I heard TV 8 is looking for a new
weatherman.”

“I’ll bet they’re giving you some
good shit for the pain. Can I have some?” Rosencrantz said.

Virgil looked at Sandy with a
‘help me’ expression on his face, but when she held her hands up in a ‘what can
you do gesture,’ he did the only logical thing he could think of…he said fuck
it and pressed the pain button again.

__________

That made the room spin, like he
was caught in a vortex. Rosencrantz and Donatti were standing under the
television, their heads tilted up toward the set, watching something on the screen.
A few minutes later when the rush of the morphine tapered off, Virgil looked at
Sandy and motioned for her to lean in closer. “Did you hear what I was saying
before Mutt and Jeff walked in?”

“Yes, I did,” she said. “But it
wasn’t last night. That was five days ago, Virgil.”

Rosencrantz turned his head and
said, “What was last night?”

Virgil ignored him, but Sandy
turned her head and said, “We’re talking about something else. Last night was
nothing.”

“You know how many times I’ve
heard a woman tell me that?” Donatti said. Sandy shot him a look and then
turned her attention back to Virgil.

“What are you talking about?”
Virgil said. “What do you mean it was five days ago?”

Sandy had her hand on his leg. “You’ve
sort of been in and out over the last few days.”

“What?” Virgil didn’t believe it. “What
day is this?”

“It’s Friday,” Sandy said.

Donatti looked over at Sandy and
said, “Hey, am I Mutt or Jeff? I think I’m Jeff. I’m Jeff, right?”

The door opened and a nurse came
in and told Virgil the doctor had given the okay for Oxycontin instead of the morphine
drip for the pain but the Oxycontin would probably, in her words, bind him up
some. “Not much worse than the morphine, though.”

“That’s all right,” Rosencrantz
said. “He’s full of shit anyway.”

Virgil looked at him and thought
if the food in here didn’t kill him, the bad cop humor probably would. When he
looked at Sandy she mouthed a silent ‘I love you’ and he felt his eyes water at
the edges.

It became quiet in the room for a
minute, then Rosencrantz looked at Donatti and said, “I kinda like the way she
calls him Virgil, don’t you?”

Sandy shook her head, then stood
and said, “Hey guys, I think we need to let Virgil get his rest. What do you
say?”

“Yeah,” Doantti said. She’s right.
“Virgil’s tired.”

Rosencrantz turned and gave him a
little finger wave. “Okay, bye, Virgil. We’ll see you tomorrow.”

Sandy waved them out. “I’ll catch
up with you guys after while,” she said.

When they were out of the room,
Virgil pulled himself up in the bed a little. He could feel the tape around his
ribcage. “See what you’ve started,” he said.

“I’ll talk to them,” Sandy said.

“Ah geez, don’t do that.”

“Well what do you want me to do?”

The Oxycontin was working
already—Virgil could feel the buzz—but he was not drowsy like he’d
been with the morphine drip. The pain was still present, but it was in the
background, like it was hiding inside a closet.

“It feels like…like everything is
moving too fast. I was tied up and beaten and it feels like it all happened
just this morning.”

“We don’t have to talk about his
now, you know.”

“I think I need to.”

Sandy sat on the edge of the bed
and put her hand in his. “Are you sure you’re up for it?”

“I’m not really sure. I think
there might be a lot I don’t remember. In fact, most of it is blank right now,
that part of it, I mean. I remember eating lunch at the diner, then nothing
until I woke up tied to the post or beam or whatever it was.”

“And when you woke up?”

He closed his eyes and told Sandy
what he remembered about the beatings and the torture with the stun gun, seeing
Murton and how he killed the two men, and then how he saw his mother. When he
opened his eyes tears were running down Sandy’s cheeks and when he reached up
to wipe them away she took his hand in both of hers and held it tight against
her face. She then kissed the tips of his fingers and held his hand in her lap.
Virgil thought she might ask about his mom, but she shifted the direction of
the conversation.

“We’ve got an I.D. on the men. Their
names were Collins and Hicks.”

“What about Murton? Where is he?”

“That’s a little more
complicated,” she said.

“I’ll bet.”

“I might be able to help you with
that,” Agent Gibson said. He was standing in the doorway, leaning against the
frame. He pushed himself upright with his shoulder and said, “May I come in?”

Virgil nodded to Gibson and he
walked further into the room. He looked at Sandy and said, “Would you mind if I
spoke with Detective Jones in private?”

“That’s not necessary,” Virgil
said.

“It’s okay, Virgil,” Sandy said. “I’ve
got work to do. A lot has happened. I’ll check back on you later and fill you
in then. Get some rest.” She leaned down and kissed him on the lips, then
turned and stared at Gibson, her expression a challenge for him to comment on
their private life. But he just nodded at her and after she walked out he
looked at Virgil and said, “How are you feeling?”

“I’ve been better.”

“I checked your records. Saw you
were in the sandbox.”

“That’s a term only a soldier
would use.”

He pulled a chair close to the bed
then sat down, a pocket of air held in the side of his mouth. “So maybe I was
there.”

“In what capacity?”

He chuckled at the question before
he answered. “Let’s just say I wasn’t dressed in camouflage and humping a pack.
But that was a long time ago, wasn’t it? Right now you’re wondering about
Murton Wheeler.”

“I’ve been wondering about Murton
Wheeler for a long time.”

“So like I said, I can probably
help you with that.”

Virgil thought for a moment before
he spoke. “That day on the street, outside the bank…the bomb scare…the first
time we met? You told me Murton was part of an on-going investigation. You made
it sound like
he
was the one being investigated.”

“Did I? I don’t recall. It depends
on your perspective, I guess.”