“What about Janey? Is she dead too?” Klein asked.
“No, well, she wasn’t when I left her. She is with a band of survivors about 25 miles from here. They were under attack and we intervened, we took out two quads but Barnes was killed and Janey was hurt pretty badly. Luckily the group has a Doctor and he stitched her up.”
Klein was upset at the loss of her fellow marine, one she had known for quite some time, but she controlled her emotions and she said
“Tucker, listen to me. The Livingstons want you dead, well Darnell does and probably his parents too. Did you do what they said? Did you strangle that girl?”
Tucker turned away his silence was his answer. Klein waited a full minute before she gave him some water to drink then she stood and walked to the wooden wall on the edge of the roof top garden. She began her guard duty in silence.
Day 20
I didn’t sleep much that night; I couldn’t decide what I was feeling if anything at all. When I heard someone in the hall I got up too. I slung my rifle and opened the door and saw Mrs. Driscol coming out of the bathroom. She smiled at me sadly then walked over to me and took me by the hand; she spoke quietly since it was still dark outside,
“Shall we go get some food and then maybe take some up to Mr. Tucker?”
I nodded and allowed her to lead me down stairs, when we got to the landing I saw the blood stains where OMT had been handcuffed to the stair rails last night. I remembered what it was like to watch Darnell kick his ass, the old man was just that, an old man. He wasn’t fierce or invincible he was just as broken as the rest of us, maybe more so.
In the kitchen Mrs. Driscol lit the gas stove and started putting together something, she was getting some left overs together with a can of bacon flavored SPAM, I guess that was more breakfast-y than regular SPAM. She set some warmed up tea for me and coffee for herself then dished up the peas, boiled potatoes from a can, and the SPAM. “Breakfast of Champions” she whispered to me and nudged me conspiratorially, I smiled at her. I really did like Mrs. Driscol; if I couldn’t have my Mom then she was easily the 2
nd
best thing. We ate in silence but as I finished mine I said,
“That girl was alive when Janey and I left to get you guys.”
She nodded and swallowed then set her fork down, her appetite having disappeared.
“What about the others?” I shook my head,
“They were all dead by then.”
She seemed as sad as could be imagined.
I asked her “why do you think he did it?”
She sat back and put her hands in her lap,
“I don’t know Johnny, I just don’t know.”
I thought about it,
“The only people here were the Franks, OMT and the Livingston girl.” I said.
She looked at me, “Well, maybe we should go up and ask him?”
I nodded in agreement and drank down the last of my tea. She gathered up some food on a plate and a cup of tea; at the last moment she asked me to bring a bottle of water so I did.
The sky was that pale pinkish orange that says the sun is just about to appear when we stepped out onto the roof top garden. Deputy Weir was standing with his back to us and was scanning the horizon with binoculars. He stopped and turned to look at us when he heard the door open; he didn’t say anything to us, he just went back to his searching. Mrs. Driscol leaned over and whispered to me
“That guy is one odd duck, huh?”
I smiled in spite of myself. Old Man Tucker was handcuffed to the huge wooden storage bin, he was sitting on the ground and his arms were above him, his face was swollen terribly but it looked like someone had at least wiped the blood away. Both eyes were black and purple and I doubted he could see out of them. I stood by his feet and Mrs. Driscol set the plate next to him; she reached out and gently touched his shoulder,
“Mr. Tucker?” she said.
The old man reacted with a spasm and a moan, I guess he had been dreaming and she had startled him.
“Who is it? Who’s there?” he asked with just a bit of panic in his voice.
“It’s me Mr. Tucker, Amy and Johnny is here too.” he visibly seemed to relax a bit.
“What are you two doing up here?” he asked.
I noticed that someone had given him a beach towel to use as a blanket and there was the faintest hint of blood on it as it lay on his shoulders.
“We’ve brought you some food and some water.” she said.
She picked up the plate and using a fork she scooped some of the peas and held them to his lips,
“Here, eat something.” she said.
He did but started coughing and spat up more blood onto the deck.
“Oh my, Mr. Tucker I think you must have internal injuries.” she said with concern.
“I think so too Mrs. Driscol” he added, “cracked ribs for sure and I hope nothing is punctured in there.”
She tried to give him some SPAM but he shook his head no,
“Can I have some water please?” he asked.
He sounded as pathetic as he looked and Mrs. Driscol looked at me with despair then she opened the bottle water and let him sip it slowly. After he had nearly half of the bottle she set it away and got right to the point of our visit,
“Mr. Tucker, can you tell me why you killed that girl?”
I could see him set his jaw, his brow furrowed and he snarled back at us
“What difference does it make? I’m a dead man anyway.”
Mrs. Driscol put a hand on his shoulder,
“No, no, not necessarily, we are going to talk about it today and we...”, she paused “I need to know Mr. Tucker, why?”
The old man looked away as if it hurt him to think we were looking at him, he told her what he had seen, what he had done about it. Everything was as I knew it until Janey and I left and then I could hear something odd in his voice? Grief?
“It was Mrs. Franks” he said, “she was beaten and bloody, she had been raped and terrorized, her husband too, she said she couldn’t rest if she knew the girl was out there, wondering when the girl would be bringing friends back to kill us all. We couldn’t keep her prisoner and we couldn’t let her go, so I did what I did.”
He started to cough again and I could tell his ribs were causing him a great amount of pain. Mrs. Driscol helped him drink the rest of the water and he got control of himself,
“Listen,” he said, “I feel the sun on my face, it won’t be long now, John I want you to promise me that you won’t let Lucy watch whatever it is they are going to do to me. Okay? I want you to take her far away, out of sight, out of sound. Please John, just this one thing, that’s all I ask.”
I nodded then I realized that he couldn’t see me so I said “I promise Mr. Tucker.”
I looked over at Mrs. Driscol and I thought she was going to cry. As if on cue the door opened and Darnell stepped onto the deck,
“Amy, J-boy, come on, don’t waste anything else on that cracker trash.”
I don’t know if Darnell knew it but Mrs. Driscol did not like the way he was speaking to her and as a matter of fact I didn’t like the way he spoke to me either, but we both stood up and started towards the door, “see ya”, I said quietly.
For a moment Tucker was smiling and he said “Hang in there kid, it will be over soon.”
When we got to the main lobby everyone was there except for Weir and Tucker, they were all arguing about if we should have a trial or not, should there be an investigation. It was crazy; finally Lt. Klein banged the grip of her pistol on a table to get everyone’s attention.
“Alright! Alright.”
Everyone eventually quieted down to hear what she had to say.
“First off, I need to know exactly what happened…” she began.
Darnell cut her off “I’ll damn well tell you what happened! That scum, that pitiful excuse for a human being up there murdered my sister and several others, probably Sgt. Barnes and Janey as well!”
People started talking again and all I could think was ‘
how on Earth do grown-ups ever do anything
?’
“Quiet!” the Lt. yelled and then she called on Mrs. Driscol who was standing there quietly with her hand raised. “Amy, what do you want to say?” she asked.
Mrs. Driscol walked over to stand with her back to the fireplace and faced everyone, she proceeded to re-tell everything that Mr. Tucker had said, and she left nothing out.
“Lies!” Darnell snapped, “God damned lies! Who told you that crap? Tucker?” he laughed, “bullshit from a murderer.”
But Mrs. Driscol was unfazed, she said that Tucker did not deny anything, she then said that since the world ended that he had been there for anyone who needed him.
“Lady, you are out of your damn mind.” Darnell said poking a finger at her.
“Look, I have been thinking about this” Rico offered, “and I tried to imagine what I would have done in his placed and honestly Darnell, I just don’t know, if she was with those…”
“Screw you Hernandez!” Darnell interrupted “those guys were her friends; they didn’t do any of that crap that he said they did. Face it everyone, Tucker killed them because they were black.”
Elaine answered back “Ridiculous! Tucker has never said anything like that, ever!”
“Oh my God, he has all of you turned inside out you can’t see straight! I have had enough.”
He took his M-9 from his holster and pulled the slide back and started for the stairs. There was the sound of a second gun being loaded,
“Don’t Levingston, don’t even think about it, not yet anyway.”
Lt. Klein said, she held a .45 in both hands and was pointing it at Darnell’s back. Darnell had frozen and he slowly turned to face the older woman,
“Oh that’s just great, jarheads all together, I should have known. How far did this brotherhood go with Barnes? Huh?”
Lt. Klein didn’t blink she just said
“He told me about Barnes and he told me where Janey is, he told me what happened and I believe him.”
Darnell was on the verge of losing it, his father looked hollow eyed, and I knew that he and Mr. Tucker had liked each other before, but a daughter was a daughter and people can be kind of prickly where things like this were concerned.
Darnell had a crazy look on his face and then he smiled and quick as a cat he pointed his pistol at Lt. Klein, a second later Rico had his pistol out and was pointing it at Darnell, crap this was turning into a gunfight where no one was going to win. Elaine snatched up Lucy but she couldn’t leave the lobby because Darnell was in the way, Karen and Kyle slipped back by some of the overstuffed chairs, I guess they hoped all that stuffing would stop the bullets. I couldn’t stand it, this was insane, and so I did the only thing I could do, I stepped in the middle between all three pistols.
“I saw them” I said, I swallowed then reiterated more softly “I saw them.”
The three soldiers looked at me as if I had spoken Martian or something, I felt a hand on my shoulder and I turned to see Mrs. Livingston’s soft eyes looking at me,
“What did you see, son?” she asked quietly.
I couldn’t look away from those eyes, those eyes that seemed to drill into me.
“I saw them do things to Mrs. Franks, I saw Mr. Franks chained to the flag pole, I saw the bruises and the scars and the open wounds. I saw Mrs. Frank’s cousin and how they cut his...” I didn’t know how to finish that part so I just finished “how they killed him.”
Mrs. Livingston didn’t look angry she just kept looking into my eyes,
“Is that all you saw, Johnny?”
I shook my head softly “No Mam, I saw him shoot my mom.”
Words seem to burst from me as if I could just say them fast enough then it would be like I never said them,
“She was hurt real bad and was in pain and well…”
I felt tears welling up inside me and a little voice in my head said ‘
Why did you do this? They were going to kill him
!’ but I shook my head to clear the whispers away and I finished by saying
“He just did what he had to do.”
I looked around and all the pistols had been lowered but it was Darnell who broke the silence
“I can’t believe this, Mother, you don’t believe this do you? That Janae was a member of some freak-ass gang shit?”
Mrs. Livingston walked past me and up to her son,
“Darnell, you have been gone a long time, and she wasn’t the same as she was before you left. So, yes son, I believe it.”
“No! It’s not possible!” Darnell begged.
His father spoke next “Son, these are terrible times and your sister was traveling with some pretty terrible people, there is enough death going around for everyone, we don’t need to add to it.”
Darnell looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone he thought warranted it, by that I mean the adults, he finally got to Mrs. Driscol he looked at her, forced her by sheer will to meet his gaze, it was if he was pleading with her to stand by him. Mrs. Driscol, sighed deeply then shook her head, she mouthed “
I’m sorry
” to him. Darnell’s handsome face, the face of a movie actor was etched in fury and the pain of betrayal. He turned and stormed down the hall towards the armory.