Burt doesn’t get his hand to his gun fast enough, or think to drop his coffee cup or throw himself on the ground or somehow yank the door open and throw himself across the front seat of his squad car.
For some crazy reason, for no good reason, he flashes back to the academy now, being taught about how bullets travel faster than the speed of sound.
The bullet hitting you before the sound of the gunshot catches up.
It happens that way now.
Happens before Burt can move or clear his gun, his brain somehow speeding up and slowing down at the same time as the bullet hits him—tears into him—high up in his chest, like it’s some kind of fireball trying to split him in two.
He thinks about Taylor then.
Sees her face.
Is that her bus coming up the road?
But then he doesn’t see anything because the next bullet is catching him even higher than the first, an explosion of light in his head before his world goes dark and then Taylor is gone because everything is.
SIXTY-NINE
MAYOR LARSON IS already at McDonald’s by the time I get there, but I can see as soon as I get out of my truck that she’s not the one in charge of the scene, because Helene Mayes so clearly is.
I hang back and watch her because I know enough not to get in her way.
When she finally stops stalking around the parking lot and ordering people around and telling the cops out on the road to keep the crowd on the other side of Old Cross Highway, she walks over to me.
Helene is the one who had called to tell me about Burt. She proceeds now to catch me up on everything she knows and pretty much everything that’s happened since the manager of the restaurant had called the 911 operator to tell her that Chief Burt Webb had just been shot, and the 911 operator had immediately called Helene.
By now Burt is on his way to Wake Forest Baptist Medical Center, the one with the best trauma facility in this part of the state, about forty-five minutes away. Helene tells me she’d considered ordering a medevac helicopter, but after the EMTs had examined Burt and managed to stop the bleeding, at least for now, they told her there was no point, they had all the equipment they needed intheir ambulance, that by the time the helicopter got here they’d already be at Wake Forest Baptist.
“So they’re sure they can keep him alive until they get him there,” I say.
“As sure as they can be.”
“Is Taylor with him?” I ask.
“They wanted her to ride in the front,” Helene says. “How do you think that went for them?”
“Helene,” I say now, “how could something like this have happened in broad daylight, for fuck’s sake?”
“What can I tell you, Silas?” she says wearily. “It was a goddamn drive-by. Somebody inside sitting at one of the windows, a car guy, said it was some kind of old-fashioned Fairlane, which meant absolutely nothing to me. Before she left, Taylor said she saw the same car slow down, right before she saw the flash of the muzzle. But damn if she didn’t have the presence of mind to get the license plate before the car drove off.”
“Course she did.”
“Read it off to me right before she got into the ambulance. When I asked if she was sure, she just gave me a look like I’d insulted her.”
“She’s one of the most visual people I’ve ever known,” I say.
“We’ve already run the plate,” she says. “Car was stolen in Greenville a few days ago.” Helene shakes her head disgustedly. “These assholes are dumb, but even they aren’t dumb enough to get something like this done in their own car.”
“What was Taylor even doing here?” I ask.
“She said she was going to surprise Burt, just for fun,” Helene says. “Some fun. She was about to pull into the lot when the Fairlane slowed. She didn’t know right away it was Burt or recognizehiscar, because for some reason he was using an unmarked today.”
Helene is staring at the unmarked now, and it’s as if I’m not even there, and she’s just talking to herself.
“Shot to the chest caused what the EMTs say was massive blood loss. From the looks of the head wound they say he was lucky the second shot didn’t blow his head clear off, but that he must’ve turned it slightly at the last second. And that maybe it might have deflected off the top of the car before it caught him over the ear.”
“At least he’s alive,” I say.
