Shooting Starr

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There was another cough and under it a faint sandy sound. Shoes. No, boots…sliding over a vinyl floor. He must be uncomfortable; he’d shifted position, perhaps leaned forward in the chair. How did she know he was sitting? Because his voice came from a level near her own. She was pleased with herself for being able to deduce so much.

“They told me you’re damn lucky to be alive,” he said, and there was a difference in the voice now. Something harder, denser. Emotion, certainly, but what kind? She made a mental grimace at the discovery that she wasn’t nearly as good at deciphering emotional landscapes as she was physical. “They said a hair’s breadth of difference and that bullet would have blown part of your head off.”

The brutality of his words surprised her. With a bitter smile she answered in kind, “Yeah, but instead it only grazed me a little and hit Mary Kelly in the heart. So, she’s dead, and I have some minor brain swelling that just happened to involve my optic nerve. What luck.”

She heard the shifting sounds again. “They said the blindness might not be permanent. That your eyesight might come back as the injury heals, or if it doesn’t, there’s surgery they can maybe try later on.”

“That’s what they say.” Caitlyn closed her eyes and carefully turned her head away from the man sitting beside her. Might…maybe. She felt so tired…and controlling her face and her voice took so much energy. If only he would go away. If only she could relax and let the tears come.

“Do you remember anything about, uh, the shooting?” His voice was raspy now, and again it vexed her that she couldn’t read the emotions behind it.

She shook her head—bad move—and fought down the inevitable waves of nausea.

“You tried to shield her—Mary Kelly. Did you know that?” Oh, it was anger in his voice—definitely. It came through loud and clear, although he was obviously trying to hide it. It bewildered her, his anger, even as she felt a tiny flicker of triumph for having recognized it. “You threw yourself in front of her. That’s why the bullet that struck her in the chest grazed you first.”

“Who told you that?” The intense emotions were becoming too much for her. She felt desperately close to crying; there were strange sounds inside her head, and a panicky tightness in her chest. “The police? What…did they say…do they know—”

“You knew, didn’t you? You knew Mary Kelly was the target, the second you heard the shots. You tried to tell me—”

The noises in her head had become a cacophony. Through them she heard footsteps, quick and purposeful, and C.J.’s voice, seeming to rise and float above her.

“It was Vasily, wasn’t it? You told me he’d kill her. You told me, and I didn’t—”

She felt a rush of air. Hands touched her, gentle and cool.

“Look. I’m sorry….” She heard C.J.’s voice, moving away from her. “I’m sorry….”

Quiet came. And peace. With a grateful whimper she sank into the oblivion of sleep.

Summoning his courage, C.J. faced the people waiting at the nurses’ station.

“I’m sorry,” he said, squinting with the effort it took to meet their eyes. “I didn’t mean to get her upset. I just wanted to say—” He lifted a hand and let it drop. Shook his head and said it again. “I’m sorry.” Lately it seemed as if he’d been saying that a lot, both out loud and to himself.

Two of the four people there at the counter—a handsome, middle-aged couple—nodded their heads in mute understanding. It was to them he’d spoken—Caitlyn’s parents. Of the others, C.J.’s sister-in-law and lawyer, Charly, clapped him on the shoulder and murmured supportive monosyllables. Special Agent Jake Redfield of the FBI, C.J.’s brother Jimmy Joe’s in-law, leaned against the counter and took in everything with quiet and watchful eyes. He was a melancholy-looking man with stubbled jaws, and the only one present wearing a suit.

A nurse came from the glass-partitioned cubicle where Caitlyn lay, screened from view behind a curtain. “She’ll sleep for a while,” she said in her high-pitched voice with its thick upstate South Carolina accent. “If you want to, you can go down to the cafeteria, get a cup of coffee, somethin’ to eat.”

Caitlyn’s mother gripped her husband’s arm as if drawing strength from that touch, and asked the nurse in her quiet Midwestern voice, “Is it all right if I sit with her?”

The nurse nodded. “Sure. Go on in.”

Watching Chris Brown walk away from him, C.J. thought he could see where her daughter had come by her looks. Not her grace, though, that quality of lightness that made Caitlyn seem, in his memory, at least, fairy-like…not quite real. Though tall and slender like her daughter, Chris Brown moved with a coltish—he could think of no other word for it—awkwardness that was in no way unattractive—and which made her seem much younger than he knew she had to be. But her face was the same flawless oval as Caitlyn’s, her hair almost the same shade of sun-streaked blond, but worn long and sleek and fastened at the nape of her neck with a clip of some kind. She had the same colored eyes, too—a clear and pale gray-blue—but without that heart-stopping flash of silver C.J. couldn’t seem to forget.

Charly glanced at her watch. “Well. I think I’m gonna go see about that cup of coffee. Any of you-all wanna join me?”

Caitlyn’s father smiled the kind of smile that probably came naturally to him no matter the circumstances, and shook his head. C.J. cleared his throat and said, “I think I’m gonna stick around here for a while.”

Nobody asked Jake Redfield what his plans were; he’d already gone wandering over to join the uniformed police officer seated in a chair beside the door to Caitlyn’s cubicle. Charly gave everyone a “See you later,” and went off to the elevators, and C.J. found himself alone with the man whose only child he’d almost gotten killed.

Since he’d been raised by a mother who’d taught him to face up to the consequences of his actions no matter how painful they might be, he squared his shoulders and began with, “Uh, Mr. Brown—”

Before he could get another word out, Caitlyn’s father took hold of him by his elbow and said in a low but friendly voice, “We might as well be comfortable, don’t you think?” and steered him toward the waiting area.

They took chairs at right angles to each other, with a square table topped by a lamp and an assortment of magazines forming the corner. Perched on the edge of his chair, C.J. leaned forward, hands clasped and elbows on his knees, and tried again. “Um, Mr. Brown—”

Again he was interrupted. “I wish you’d call me Wood—most people do. I was given the name Edward Earl after my dad, but the only person who uses it is my sister, Lucy.” His mouth tilted in a half smile. “Only my students call me Mr. Brown.”

“You’re a teacher?” said C.J., feeling dimwitted.

“Used to be. I’m a vice principal now.”

C.J. tried a smile and he, too, only managed half of one. “Guess that explains why I feel like I’m sitting in the principal’s office.”

Wood Brown’s smile was replaced by a look of dismay, then of compassion. He leaned forward, his pose almost a mirror image of C.J.’s. “Son—I know you feel responsible for what’s happened to my daughter and that other woman, but you’re not. Chris—Caitlyn’s mother—and I sure don’t blame you, and I don’t think Caty does, either. She put you in an impossible position, and you did what you believed was the right thing under the circumstances. That’s all any man can do.”

“If what I did was so right,” C.J. said, looking at the floor and forcing words through clenched teeth, “then how come I feel so damn—excuse me—darn bad?”

Wood sat back with a sigh and ran a hand over his thick, iron-gray hair. His rugged features were somber. “It’s not always a matter of a choice between a right and a wrong. Sometimes it’s a matter of choosing the lesser of a whole bunch of wrongs. When that happens, you just do the best you can.”

He sat silent for a moment, looking at nothing, then shook his head. “I have—had—this great-aunt. She lived to be well over a hundred, but she’s gone now, bless her soul. Aunt Gwen always believed if you wait long enough it usually turns out things happen the way they’re supposed to. Providence, she called it.” He smiled in a remembering way. “Take me, for example. I met my wife after I broke both my legs in a truck accident in Bosnia. At the time I thought it was the end of the world—the end of sports, my career, all the things I liked to do—but if it hadn’t been for that accident I wouldn’t have met my wife. And I wouldn’t have been there when she needed me to save her life.”

C.J. gave a snort of surprise, and Wood smiled. “A long story and one for another time. I guess what I’m saying is, it’s too soon to tell, yet, how this is all supposed to play out. Could be you were where you needed to be just so Caty could pick you to hijack.” His smile slipped sideways, and he gave a one-shoulder shrug. “You never know…”

Since C.J. couldn’t think of a thing to say that wasn’t going to sound rude, he kept his mouth shut. Thinking about it, though, it occurred to him that whether he believed in all that Providence stuff or not, it was a remarkable attitude for a man whose only child was lying in a hospital bed with a bullet crease in her skull and blinded maybe for life. He felt humble and grateful and undeserving, which brought him back to what he’d wanted to say to Caitlyn’s father in the first place.