Titus knew that was always a possibility. The algorithm of law enforcement made it a near-inevitability. That didn’t make it any easier to reconcile the fact that he held the power of life and death.
When Jamal Addison had first approached him about running for sheriff after Emmet Thompson had gotten pulled over by Cooter Bennings and ended up being beaten to within an inch of his life, he’d gone to the cemetery to talk it over with his mother. Under the mournful pine trees that stood sentry over his mother’s grave he’d sworn that he’d change things. Change himself. He’d seen what the width of the thin blue line could hide, and it sickened him. Almost as much as what he’d done, no matter the provocation, sickened him. He’d run for sheriff with the weight of a promise to a spirit on his shoulders.
And in the end his deputies had killed a man whose mind was held together by a delicate amalgamation of heroin-induced fever dreams and moonshine. A man who was suffering. A man who had needed his help.
Titus walked over to his SUV and slid behind the wheel. He started the car and immediately put it in gear. There was paperwork to fill out, there were phone calls to make. He had to notify Latrell’s parents. He was going to do that personally. He couldn’t hand that off to anyone else. He hoped to God he could get to Calvin and Dorothy before they saw the news online or, even worse, someone called them.
He’d have to find out who to notify about Spearman. The school would obviously be closed for the day, and probably the rest of the week. The walls and steps would have to be scrubbed clean of gore.
The exorcism by bleach and water would wash away the carnage but would have a minuscule effect on the consciousness of every person who’d walked the halls this morning. He was going to have to pull Roger and Tom into the office. That was a given. Hundreds of moving parts were now set to begin locking into place like rusted gears in an old engine. Any or all of those parts could bite him in his softest places. But that knowledge wasn’t the only thing paramount in his mind.
He also wanted to see what was on Jeff Spearman’s phone.
FOUR
By the time he got back to the sheriff’s office, news of the shooting was burning through the county like a fire in a tinderbox. Titus could hear Cam answering call after call from his desk. As soon as he ended one call another would sound, and he’d answer with the generic response Titus had told him to use in case of a mass casualty event.
“Yes, there has been an incident at the high school. At this time, we cannot release any more information. The sheriff will provide an update as soon as possible,” Cam said again and again in his weathered rawhide rasp.
Titus pointed to his own ear, then pointed at Cam. Cam removed his headset. He pushed an errant strand of dirty blond hair out of his eyes.
“My nephew?” was all he said. The words came out clipped and harsh, as if he were already preparing himself to speak about the boy in the past tense.
“He’s fine. There was only one casualty besides the shooter,” Titus said. Cam sat back in his wheelchair and closed his eyes. Relief, that voraciously selfish emotion, washed over his entire face.
“The board is blowing up. I can keep up but just barely. Maybe we should record a message on the 911 line about the shooting? Might cut down on the calls,” Cam said.
“That’s a good idea. I’ll do it now,” Titus said.
“What … what, uh, happened over there?” Cam said. He’d put the headset back on and opened a bottle of water.
“You know Calvin Macdonald? His son, Latrell, shot Jeff Spearman with a .30-30. Then Roger and Tom shot Latrell,” Titus said. He didn’t try to explain how he’d attempted to disarm Latrell or how he felt Roger and Tom had been a half second too quick on the trigger.
“Jesus H. Christ. Mr. Spearman’s the nicest teacher I ever had. He used to give me a ride home after basketball practice. My folks only had one car, and my dad used that for the night shift at R&J. Goddamn, man. We got any idea why?” Cam asked. Before Titus could answer, the board went off again.
“I’m gonna go record that message,” Titus said. He went into his office and shut the door. He hung his hat on a peg on the wall that was level with the top of the frosted glass in his office door. Easing down in his chair, he considered how quickly what’s important can shift and transform. A week ago, the biggest thing on his immediate radar was Ricky Sours and the Sons of the Confederacy planning a parade to protect a statue that no one was seriously talking about removing. Granted, he would shed no tears if someone reduced Ol’ Rebel Joe to a pile of crushed pea gravel, but the Sons’ parade was a grievance in search of a reason. Now he was going to have to record an incoming message letting folks know they had killed the man who shot a schoolteacher in front of his students. Ricky Sours and his band of neo-Confederate apologists were sandcastles washed away by the incoming tide of Charon County’s new reality.
That reality was as simple as it was traumatic. They were now the latest locality that had to add “site of a school shooting” to their town’s history.
Titus started to open his laptop when a scowl crossed his face.
“Cam, you been in here?” Titus yelled.
“I needed a pen!” Cam yelled back.
“Next time don’t move the laptop!” Titus yelled in response.
“Sorry, boss,” Cam said before answering another call.
Titus adjusted the laptop so that it was back to its usual ninety-degree angle perpendicular to his pen holder and the telephone. There was also an ink stamp embossed with his signature to his left and a yellow legal pad to his right below the laptop. Much like his closet and his personal truck and, despite his father’s best efforts, the kitchen cabinets, Titus’s desk was rigidly organized to a degree that bordered on obsessive. He wasn’t always so consumed by order. After his mother died when he was thirteen, he became possessed by a desire to give his life structure. Partly because his daddy had crawled into a bottle of JTS Brown and wouldn’t emerge for the next two years, and partly because he craved a new type of religion. The one based on blood and wine magic had failed them, in Titus’s opinion. Structure became his religion. Discipline was his crucifix against chaos.
But there were moments like today when the true nature of existence was revealed to him. Moments when the ephemeral curtain of divine composition was pulled away and entropy strode across the stage. For all his attempts at control, days like today, when he’d seen a boy he’d known since infancy get his chest cratered, reminded him that chaos was the true nature of things.
The DeCrain family could attest to that.
Chaos was king.
Titus sighed. He would keep setting the pieces of his life in straight lines. It was all he had. It was all that brought him a modicum of peace.
Titus opened his laptop and scrolled to the voice recorder app. He cleared his throat, clicked, and spoke in his calmest, most succinct manner, recording a straightforward message and assuring the town that there were no active threats.
He pulled up the emergency system administrative page and added the file to the incoming message. Then he went to the Charon County Sheriff’s social media page and typed the same message and pinned it to the top of the page. Performing these tasks, steeped in mundanity, always felt strange after he’d had to pull his gun. Writing reports seemed hopelessly inconsequential in the aftermath of holding someone’s life at the end of the barrel of his gun. Yet he knew from firsthand experience that writing the reports was the most important part. It was the record of how you upheld or dishonored your oath. In a perfect world that record was sacrosanct.
But Titus knew the world was much less than perfect.
The phone on his desk rang.
“Hello?”
“Calvin Macdonald is on line one,” Cam said.
“Shit,” Titus said. “Okay, put him through.” He rubbed his forehead with his thumb and forefinger. “Sheriff Crown,” Titus said.
“Is my boy dead, Titus?” Calvin asked. He breathed in deep gasping swallows of air.
“Calvin, where are you?”
“I’m in my truck. Dorothy called me. Said they was saying Latrell had shot up the school.”
“Calvin, can someone drive you home? I want to come over and talk to you,” Titus said, knowing as soon as the words left his mouth, they confirmed Calvin’s worst fears. But Titus said them anyway, even if they felt hollow as bird bones. He was not going to tell Calvin about Latrell on the telephone. The man deserved to see his face.
“Is my son dead, Titus?” Calvin sobbed. It was a frank and uncomplicated sound. The sound of all hope being lost.
“Calvin, go home. I’ll meet you and Dorothy over there in an hour,” Titus said.
Calvin moaned. “Aw, fuck. Fuck you, Titus.”
The line went dead.