Jack Ryder Mystery Series: Vol 1-3

  “Good work,” I said. “Could you please contact her and have her come in for an interview? Any news on tracking that email?”

  Richard shook his head as he got up from my desk. “Not yet. But I’ll keep on trying.”

  “You do that.”

  When he left, I grabbed my phone and called Shannon. Her voice was thick with sadness as she answered.

  “Hey. How’re you holding up?” I asked. My stomach was hurting from worrying about her.

  “Okay, I guess.”

  “Did you talk to Angela yet?”

  “Not yet. It’s been quite the morning. The press is camping outside the building and yelling at us from the beach. Bruce is taking care of the calls, but they are relentless. I closed the shutters while Angela and I watched a movie and ate popcorn, just enjoying each other. I’ve been trying to build up the courage to tell her. I’m about to do it now,” she said. “I’ll get it done. Just need to…Just need to get it done. Like a Band-Aid, right? She is just so happy right now. She’s playing with a cardboard box. She cut holes for her eyes and uses it to dress up like a robot. How am I supposed to break her heart like this? I can’t do it, Jack. I simply can’t!”

  Shannon’s voice cracked.

  “You have to. She has to hear it from you, remember?” I said, and pushed back my tears, thinking about how hard it had been for me to tell my kids about what had happened to their mother. I couldn’t bear the devastation in their eyes while they asked if she never was coming back, then? It was agonizing.

  “You have to do it, Shannon. Even if it hurts so bad you wonder if life will ever be good again. You have to do it.”

  Chapter Forty-One

  March 2015

  You have to do it.

  Jack’s words lingered in Shannon’s mind as she put the phone down.

  “Look at me, Mom. I’m a robot. Beep-beep-booop,” Angela said, as she waddled towards her mother dressed in the cardboard box. She had drawn little buttons on the outside of it and made holes for her arms and legs. She was so adorable, Shannon started crying.

  “What’s wrong, Mommy?”

  Shannon sniffled and wiped her nose. “Nothing, nothing sweetie. Mommy’s just a little upset.”

  Angela looked at her mother and tilted her head. Oh, how badly Shannon craved a drink right now. Anything would do.

  “Is it those people down on the beach yelling at you that are bothering you? ‘Cause if it is, I’ll tell them to leave my mommy alone! I hate those people.”

  Shannon bit her lip. She sat down on the couch and asked Angela to come sit with her. “No, sweetie,” she said. “Those people aren’t why Mommy is sad. But, they do have something to do with it. See, baby girl, something happened and they want to ask Mommy about it.”

  Angela frowned. “What do they want to know?”

  “They want to know how I’m feeling, how you’re feeling, since this thing happened.”

  “What thing?”

  Shannon grabbed Angela’s hand in hers. She put it between both of hers and closed her eyes. She pictured the bottle of vodka that she had bought when grocery shopping a few days ago. It was a slip up; she knew it. She had hidden it under the sink in the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, and promised herself to not touch it. Now, all she wanted to do was to run in there and grab it. It was all she could think of.

  “What thing, Mommy?” Angela said.

  Shannon looked into her daughter’s eyes. She stroked her cheek gently, wondering if her life would ever be like a normal little girl’s, if she would grow up to be a normal girl or if they had completely ruined her chances of that.

  “What thing, Mommy?” she was getting impatient now.

  “I…” a tear rolled across Shannon’s cheek.

  “Mommy. You’re crying,” Angela said. “Why are you crying?”

  “Yesterday, something really bad happened,” Shannon said.

  “Like what?”

  “Someone shot some people at one of Mommy’s concerts.” As she spoke, Shannon relieved the nightmare in her mind. The sound of the gun going off, the screaming, the panic. She felt sick to her stomach. It was all her fault, wasn’t it? She could have stopped it. She knew something would happen. The email had told her, and still it happened. People had been killed.

  Joe had been killed.

  “Are you sick, Mommy? You’re all pale,” Angela said. “Are you going to throw up?”

  Throwing up was the worst thing anyone could do in Angela’s eyes. “Maddox threw up in class on Friday. Maybe you caught what she had. It’s probably going around.”

  Shannon shook her head. “No, Mommy’s not sick. I’m just really, really sad because of what happened yesterday.”

  “Did he shoot many people? Did Jack get shot?” she asked with a small gasp.

  “No. No. Not Jack. But someone else did. Someone we love very much,” Shannon said.

  This is it. I’m going to tell her. There is no way back now. God, I could use a drink. Just one.

  “Who, Mommy?” she asked with anxiety in her voice.

  “Daddy,” sweetie. Daddy was shot. He had come to see Mommy, and then…”

  Angela let out a small shriek. Shannon grabbed her and held her in her arms. “It’s going to be alright,” she whispered.

  “…Did he…?”

  “Yes, sweetie. Daddy died.” When the words left her mouth, Shannon felt like she had to throw up. It hurt so badly. She had no idea how much Angela understood of death, but she had once had a cat that died, that they had buried in the yard. But it was so long ago and she had been so young.

  “Daddy is not coming back?”

  “Remember Milo?” Shannon asked, referring to the cat.

  Tears sprang into Angela’s eyes. “It’s like Milo? He’s in heaven waiting for me together with Milo?”

  “Yes. They will be waiting for you up there, looking down at you every day, checking to see if you’re alright.”

  “But I’m not going to see him again? I’m not going to visit soon like you told me I would? He’s not coming down here anymore?”

  Her voice was shrill when she spoke.

  “No, honey. It’s just the two of us now. And we have to promise each other to be strong. You hear me? We need to take care of each other, now that Daddy is no longer here. You promise to help me with that?”

  Angela held back her tears with a sniffle. She nodded while wiping her nose on her sleeve. “Pinky promise.”

  Shannon swallowed hard and tried to push away her tears. Angela bit her lip, then stroked her mother’s cheek gently. “It’ll be fine, Mommy,” she said, her voice breaking. “We’ll take care of each other. Like we always have.”

  Shannon sighed and closed her eyes. She kissed her daughter’s hand, then got up from the couch.

  “Do you want to watch another movie?” Angela asked.

  Shannon nodded. “I would really enjoy that.”

  “I saw that Maleficent is On Demand now,” Angela said. “Could we watch that, please?”

  “Of course. Any movie you’d like,” Shannon said.

  Angela turned on the TV. Shannon could tell she was being brave for her mother’s sake. She was holding her tears back. It hurt like crazy to watch. Shannon’s stomach was turning. She felt sick.

  “Do you think there are movies in Heaven, Mom? Do you think Dad can watch Maleficent? I know he wanted to watch it with me.”

  Shannon swallowed hard to stop herself from crying. “I’m sure he can,” she said with a quivering voice. “I’m sure he can watch any movie he’d like.”

  Angela scrolled through the movies and found Maleficent.

  “You go ahead and start,” Shannon said. “Mommy just needs to go to the bathroom first.”

  Chapter Forty-Two

  March 2015

  “You’re the man that saved my life.”

  Barbara Robertson looked at me before we sat down in Ron’s office, which I had borrowed for the interview. The atmosphere in his office was a lot calme
r and more comfortable than most places at the station.

  “I knew it as soon as I saw your eyes. I knew I had seen you before,” she said, grabbing a chair.

  I remembered it too. She was the first one I pulled out from the crowd. She and her friend were about to get crushed. Her face was still bruised and she had her arm in a sling.

  “You pulled me out and up on the stage. I was about to get trampled. You reached in and pulled me out. Then you pulled Lindsey out as well. She was in bad shape, so I helped her get to our car. I drove the both of us to the hospital afterwards. She’s still there. She got a concussion from being kicked in the face when we fell to the ground and people around us panicked and tried to get away. It was awful.”

  “It was,” I said, trying hard to block the memory.

  “Well, anyway, thanks for saving my life,” she said. “You saved both me and my best friend.”

  “My pleasure.” I cleared my throat. “But the real reason why I called you in today is that it has come to my attention that you were standing right next to Phillip Hagerty when the shots were fired.”

  Barbara nodded. The expression in her young eyes was gloomy, almost remorseful, like she was blaming herself.

  “I…I couldn’t believe the bullet hit him and not me. I can’t help but feel like I was being protected or something. Maybe I was just really lucky. I heard more than one gunshot. It could easily have struck me instead. I…I feel a little guilty. Why did this guy have to die while I was allowed to live?”

  “Survivor’s guilt,” I said. “It’s a very common phenomenon when someone has survived a traumatic event. It’s a mental condition that occurs when people perceive themselves to have done wrong by surviving a traumatic event when others did not. It is very common in soldiers surviving combat and after natural disasters.”

  “Survivor’s guilt, huh?” Barbara asked. “Well, that sounds like it. I’ve felt bad all day. Kind of haven’t slept since it happened. I keep hearing the shots, you know?”

  “Also very normal,” I said and found my wallet. I handed her the card of a psychologist I knew who helped soldiers through PTSD. “ She helps private people as well,” I told her, as she took the card. “You and your friend should call her. Tell her I sent you. She’ll give you a discount.”

  Barbara nodded and looked at the card. She was very young…in her early twenties. I hated that she had to go through this, and I hated having to rip into the wounds again and again, but I had to get some answers.

  “So, tell me,” I asked. “You were right next to Phillip Hagerty. Where was the killer?”

  Barbara looked at me. I saw anxiety rooted deep in her eyes as she relived the moment in her memories. “He was right in front of us,” she said. “On the stage.”

  “To the left side of the stage from where you were?”

  “Yes. I didn’t see him as he stepped out, ‘cause I was dancing with Lindsey. Then I reached up to touch Shannon King’s hand when she walked across the stage, so I didn’t look at anything but her. She’d just high-fived the guy next to me, the one that got shot, when I heard the sound. I looked at Shannon; her face was completely frozen and she threw herself to the ground. That was when I saw him. He was standing way back, pointing the gun towards me. It looked like he was shooting at me when he fired the next shot, but it hit the same guy again. I don’t know why he hit the same guy twice, but he did, and then the guy fell to the ground. I looked down and screamed, then looked up again, and the shooter was gone.”

  I noted everything Barbara said, while thinking we had to be dealing with an excellent marksman, since he had hit the same person in the heart twice without hitting Shannon or anyone else in the crowd. Was that a coincidence? Had he maybe really been aiming for Shannon? It seemed so initially, but something told me he wasn’t. The email, among other factors, told me he wasn’t interested in hurting Shannon. He loved her way too much for that. But why Phillip Hagerty? Was it a coincidence? It seemed less and less likely. In my mind, it was starting to look more like murder. Why else would you shoot the victim twice? Both Joe and Phillip Hagerty had been shot twice in the heart. Something didn’t add up.

  “Did you see anything…did you get a look at his face?” I asked, thinking we could get a drawing made if she remembered anything.

  “He was wearing a green hoodie. I couldn’t even see his eyes.”

  “A green hoodie?” I said and wrote it down. “Was there anything on it? Like words or a picture?”

  She shook her head. “There was something written in white, but I can’t remember what it was. “Oh, no, wait, that’s not true. Now I remember. It said: Angel Girl.”

  “Angel Girl?”

  “Yes. Like the song. Like one of Shannon King’s songs. It’s the title. Angel Girl is the story of a little girl that has to take care of herself. She packs her own lunch, and picks out her own clothes for school. Even though she has bruises, no one dares to think she may be abused until it's too late. It’s a very sad song. One of my favorites. Well, all of Shannon’s songs are my favorites, but this one is truly special.”

  “So, the killer was wearing a green hoodie with the title of one of Shannon’s songs?” I asked, wondering how much fun the media was going to have with this. It would be obvious to anyone that this killer was heavily inspired by Shannon’s songs. It was going to devastate her.

  “Yes,” Barbara said.

  “And you’re sure of this?”

  “Completely.”

  I wrote it all down. It wasn’t much, since Shannon sold a lot of merchandise all over the country to many of her fans, but it was something.

  “Anything else? What kind of pants was he wearing?”

  “Jeans.”

  I noted it. “Good. Anything else you noticed?”

  “I saw him leave.”

  I froze and dropped the pen from my hand. “What did you say?”

  “It was the scariest moment of my life, after the first one where he almost shot me. But when I helped Lindsey get to the parking lot and we had just gotten into the car and driven off, we were passed by a big black truck. It accelerated fast past us, but, as it did, I looked through the window and saw that same green hoodie sitting in there. I completely panicked and almost ran us off the road. I didn’t touch the gas pedal again until it was out of my sight. I was certain he would be waiting for me somewhere, ready to shoot at me again.”

  “So, you saw the truck?” I asked. Why on earth had this girl not come forward before?

  “Yes. I was terrified he would find me,” she said, like she had read my mind. “That’s why I didn’t report it before. I know I should have. When that Richard guy contacted me and told me to come in, I didn’t know what to do. I almost ran away instead.”

  “You made the right decision,” I said. “Can you tell me anything about the truck besides the fact that it was black?”

  “The license plate ended with YRJ and it had a large red bumper sticker on the back,” she said.

  I wrote the information down with great eagerness. She had seen the plate; she knew the last three letters. That was a big breakthrough.

  I looked up at Barbara. “What did the sticker say?”

  “Shit happens.”

  Chapter Forty-Three

  December 2008

  By the time Elizabeth turned six, she weighed close to 200 pounds and had diabetes, pulmonary hypertension, asthma, and sleep apnea. Her weight gain was so fast she would wear something twice, then outgrow it. At birthday parties, Dottie caught her stealing cupcakes. When the ice cream truck drove by on their street, it would result in the most outrageous tantrum from Elizabeth, as she screamed to get out of the fenced yard. Once, Dottie even caught her eating the dog’s food from the bowl, just shoveling it into her mouth and swallowing it without chewing. Dottie had contacted a nutritionist and tried to limit portion sizes and kept rigidly scheduled mealtimes. She took Elizabeth and her older sister, Anna, walking at a local track for exercise, and she got Elizabeth physical
therapy. But she couldn’t seem to halt Elizabeth’s rapid weight gain. And, more than ever, she couldn’t escape her neighbors’ constant staring and her relatives blaming her for her daughter’s size. Even her husband James made his comments.

  “You need to control her,” he would say. “It’s your job as her mother. She needs to learn self-discipline.”

  But it was easier said than done. Dottie did what she could to keep Elizabeth out of the kitchen and out of the food and kept the entire kitchen on lock-down. Literally. She had a padlock on the refrigerator, no food in any of the cabinets, and the pantry door was always locked. One day, Dottie had made a pot roast and had turned her back on Elizabeth for a few seconds, and when she turned back, Elizabeth had eaten the pot roast and was choking on it. Dottie grabbed her from behind and managed to get it out, but from that moment on, she knew she had to keep a constant eye on her daughter. Elizabeth didn’t chew her food, she swallowed it. On top of that, she constantly acted like she was starving, like she was constantly craving food. It was all she talked about…when they were to eat the next time, how much she would have. It seemed to be constantly on her mind.

  “I’m hungry, Mommy,” she said this morning on her birthday, like every morning when she opened her eyes.

  Dottie smiled and kissed her daughter’s forehead. “We’re going out for breakfast,” she said and smiled. “It is, after all, your birthday.”

  That made Elizabeth smile. She loved going out to eat. Dottie didn’t, but it was, after all, the girl’s birthday. She deserved it, didn’t she? Dottie was an optimist. All her life, food had meant joy and, in times of trouble, comfort. Denying her daughter a treat when it was her birthday felt like denying her the celebration. She feared that she was failing Elizabeth if she wasn’t allowed just a little fun. Yet, she was terrified at the way things were heading. With the way her daughter was breathing, she would probably die before next Christmas.

  They went to Ihop for pancakes. Elizabeth was panting heavily from walking from the car to the front door. Dottie helped her out and, walking backward and holding both of her hands, led her up the curb. To move forward without falling, Elizabeth rocked from side to side, inching her feet ahead a little at a time. Dottie felt her husband’s eyes on them and lifted hers to meet his. She shivered from what she saw…the disgust in his eyes when he stared at his outrageous daughter. It was written all over his face.