Jackson Bell - Trigger Finger

And they were right about my family’s tactical position. When Allie finally called 911 that night, the Sheriff’s Department took more than twenty minutes to get there. Allie remained upstairs, clutching a frightened and bewildered Abby, while I sat on the bottom step with the rifle across my lap and looked down at the bleeding bodies, and I thought, thank you, God. With every minute that passed without the appearance of a Sheriff’s car, my grip on the weapon tightened. In the age of the telephone, the automobile and the Internet, in an age where you could watch movies and attend videoconferences from a mobile phone, our survival had boiled down to luck and a gun I never would have bought on my own. I felt the seconds ticking away and it struck me that had I called the police from the basement instead of charging upstairs to engage the enemy, these two men would have been upstairs with Allie and Abby. Because of our isolation.

I understood that then, just like I understood it now. If this Bald Man decided to make trouble, I still had the isolation problem.

Craig had parked his car in my yard before riding to the radio station with me. Usually talkative, he fell silent as I turned off 62 and began the leisurely crawl up the dirt road to my house. Although he didn’t share them, I read his thoughts. How the hell can you guys stay out here after what happened?

“B.F.E.,” I said as we emerged from the woods and the headlights splashed across the covered front porch of my house.

“Say what?”

“Butt-fuckin’ Egypt,” I explained with a partial smile. “My brother Bobby used that phrase to describe this place the first time he saw it. I said, how do you like my new house, and he said, you live out in butt-fuckin’ Egypt. So when we called 911 that night and they asked us where we were, we said, B.F.E., N.C.”

I laughed. Craig did not. When we pulled into my garage and said our goodbyes, he stopped beneath the orange glow of the light over the driveway and turned to face me. I thought for sure he would ask if I’d ever considered selling this place and moving back into town, but he didn’t.

“You did get really, really lucky,” he remarked.

“I know.”

He paused, lips pursed. He had another question loaded but seemed like he didn’t know how to ask it. Didn’t know if this new, volatile Kevin would unload on him the way I had unloaded on the Bald Man on the radio. So, very carefully, he asked, “You’re a Democrat, right?”

I stepped forward and rested against the trunk lid of the BMW. I folded my arms. “Yeah.”

“You voted for Barack Obama. You voted for John Kerry, you voted for Al Gore.”

“True, true and true.”

“You don’t hunt deer, squirrel or even housefly. You don’t hike, kayak, any of that shit. You’re not a sportsman.”

“I’m not.”

He cocked his head to one side, chewing on the ultimate question.

“So… why do you have an AK-47? I mean, that is a whole lot of gun, isn’t it?”

“It is,” I admitted.

He waited for further explanation.

“I was waiting for the race war,” I finally said. “So when I saw two black guys in my house, I said holy shit, Helter Skelter’s coming down. Yee-haw.”

“Come on, man. For real.”

“It’s a long story,” I said. “And I’ll tell you sometime. Just not tonight. And not before you buy me at least three beers.”

Sometimes, Allie waited for me on one of the barstools arranged around the island, her most recent find from the library open on the table before her. Other times, she lay on the couch in the living room, sleeping, the book resting on her chest. Tonight, I found her in neither. She had left the stove light on, though, and its sickly glow rolled across the granite countertops and disappeared into the floor. She had done this so that I wouldn’t have to fumble around in the dark for a light switch.

I shut the door to the garage and stood there, listening to the hum of the refrigerator compressor and the soft whoosh from the vents as the thermostat clicked and the air conditioning kicked on.

They’re dead. They’re lying upstairs in the beds where they were raped and strangled and I’m going to find them like that, used and discarded like candy wrappers and

“Allie!” I yelled. “Abby!”

“Upstairs,” came my wife’s distant reply. “Abby’s doing her homework!”

I rubbed my eyes, shaking my head. I trudged over to the refrigerator and grabbed a Heineken, setting my battered Southern Rifleman on the counter next to the bread box. Taking a long pull, I closed my eyes and savored the beer. When I raised my eyelids again, I found myself staring at the two doors set side-by-side into the wall before it opened into the dining room. The one on the right led to the pantry. The one on the left led to the basement.

I stood with my back to the sink and fridge, island and stools at two o’clock, straight shot down the hallway into the foyer. Dark. Same position, same lighting conditions as when I’d shot Pinnix and Ramseur.

The hallway was clean now. The cleaning company had mopped and polished the floor, scrubbed and disinfected the framed pictures and carried away their rags in buckets of pink water. My handyman had patched the bullet holes in the wall with drywall compound, sanded them smooth and then painted them over. Almost like it never happened at all.

I raised my arms as if holding an invisible rifle. I pressed my trigger finger against the Heineken bottle.

“Bang,” I said out loud. Then I moved my imaginary sight just slightly to the right and said it again.

“Bang.”

By the time I finished checking all the doors and windows on the basement and ground floor levels, I had finished the beer. I grabbed another and headed upstairs. I checked the windows in the study and guest bedroom, then stuck my head into Abby’s room. She sat cross-legged on her bed in pajamas, her long brown hair still wet from her shower. A book lay open between her knees. She looked up.

“Hi, Daddy.”

“Hey. How was school today?”

“Good.”

“What’d you learn?”

“Nothing.”

I looked at her window. The latch pointed to the left, which meant it was locked. “Nothing?”

“Not a thing.”

I looked at the book. “What’s that?”

“Civics. We’re reading about the second Iraq war.”

“Your uncle Bobby was a part of that. You should get him to talk to you about it sometime.”

“Okay.”

She didn’t say anything about the radio show, so I didn’t, either. Maybe she hadn’t tuned in. Sensing that my presence was unnecessary, I withdrew my head and continued into the master bedroom. Allie looked up at me and smiled. “How’s she doing in there?”

“I’m concerned. She spent all day at school and didn’t learn anything. I’m trying to figure out whether it’s the public school system or you drinking during pregnancy.”

“Stop it.”

Off with the suit, on with the battered Carolina T-shirt. I checked the windows remaining unaccounted for—master bedroom, master bathroom—and hopped into bed. She put her book aside and took off her glasses. Her walnut-colored hair framed a face that had outrun the aging process, like a precious doll someone had placed in a velvet-lined box and only took out to show very special people. This is a masterpiece , the doll’s keeper would say. Not owner , but keeper ; you didn’t own beauty like this. See the detail of the cheekbones and chin? The eyes? You won’t find work better than this anywhere.

Of course Pinnix and Ramseur had followed her all the way from Durham. Once a man laid eyes on a woman this beautiful it became very, very hard to tear them away. Expose her to the wrong sort of man, and…