Mean Streak(109)

He gave a brusque shake of his head.

“Then what have you been hiding from?”

“From being the legend who took out the Westboro mass murderer.”

Left speechless, she could only gape. When she was able to speak, her voice was thin. “You did your job.”

“True. But I didn’t see it as cause for celebration. I didn’t think it merited recognition. It was a good day for our team. We did spare lives, no doubt. I wanted it left at that.”

“But it wasn’t.”

“Not by anybody who knew me. Not by anybody, period. The media wanted my name, but thank God nobody on the team, including Jack, leaked it. I’ll always be grateful to them for that.”

“Remaining anonymous only made you more intriguing.”

“I guess,” he muttered. “I was the most sought-after interview, one TV station said. Some of the victims’ families wanted to meet me so they could personally thank me. I got it. I understood. Closure. An eye for an eye. All that. But I didn’t even read the letters they sent Jack to pass along to me.

“The buzz, for lack of a better word, lasted for months. Seemed like every frigging day it was in the news. A different aspect of the incident. I got sick of it and thought, hell, if it won’t go away, I will. So I tendered my resignation and took off. Rebecca, too. Jack’s been after both of us ever since.”

His explanation disarmed her. But considering the closeness they’d shared, physically and emotionally, she felt wounded by his not confiding all this to her sooner. “Why didn’t you tell me? Or was that a test, too?”

“Test?”

“To see if I would believe the worst about you and still go to bed with you?”

“No.” Then with more emphasis, “No.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

He pushed back his hair with both hands, and when they met at the nape of his neck, he held them there for a moment before lowering them. “I killed that kid, Emory. I put a bullet through his head and he died.”

“You did your duty,” she said with soft earnestness. “You did it in order to save lives.”

“Doesn’t make it any easier to accept. He wasn’t a criminal or a psychopath or a fanatic with a point to make. He was a victim, too.”

He got up and walked over to the window, where he twirled the wand on the blinds to open them. Looking out, he said, “His name was Eric Johnson. Jack referred to him as an angry, bitter young man, but he had just turned seventeen. Seventeen. He was working through summer vacation, about to start his senior year in high school. Most kids would be excited. Not Eric. He couldn’t bear the thought of school and more bullying.”

“He was bullied by his classmates?”

“By just about everybody.”

“His parents?”

“No.” He came around to face her, perching on the window sill. “Honestly, I don’t think so. He was their only child, and all indications were that they loved him. Maybe they should have sensed his increasing withdrawal and gotten counseling for him, and maybe they didn’t read the signs of his impending meltdown, but their negligence wasn’t malicious. Besides, by definition, the unthinkable never would have occurred to them, would it?

“They were shattered by what he did and shocked to learn that he had obtained his murder weapon without their knowledge. His dad had never owned a gun of any kind. Eric hadn’t grown up around them. He bought his murder weapon online and learned to use it in secret.

“The discovery came too late, when investigators from every branch of law enforcement turned the Johnsons’ lives and their house upside down looking for answers as to why he’d done what he did. Pundits aired their theories. But the reason was clear.”

“The bullying.”

“Yeah. Eric was an overweight, classic nerd. No people skills. No special talents or athleticism. In an effort to get him more involved, his dad encouraged him to attend a soccer camp one summer, and the following fall, he actually made the junior varsity team. In a journal, he described the cake his mom had decorated in the team colors to celebrate that achievement.”

Emory swallowed with difficulty.

“It didn’t turn out so well, though. He was slow and had no aptitude for the game.”

“Then why was he chosen for the team?”

“To be the coach’s whipping boy. If they lost, Coach gave the team hell, but he was especially hard on Eric.”

She murmured, “The soccer coach in Utah.”

“He’s not a coach anymore and never will be.”

“You saw to it.”

“I never laid a hand on him. All I did was hand him a length of pipe similar to the one he’d cracked across Eric’s kneecap.”

“With an implied threat.”

He didn’t respond to that. “More often Eric’s torment was psychological. He attended a parochial school. It was reported to the headmaster that he’d been caught masturbating in a restroom stall. During chapel the following morning, the headmaster used the incident to illustrate moral turpitude.”

Her heart sank with pity for the boy who’d been publically humiliated, and her expression must have revealed the sadness she felt for him. “This headmaster was a priest?”