Ransack

Laura stood in front of the mirror in her room, wearing nothing but her underwear, examining the feminine curves of her body.  She took a deep, nervous breath as she turned to her side.  Later that night she was going to have her first “experience” with her boyfriend, Daniel.  Well, her first real experience with anybody.  She was as nervous and  excited as any 17 year old girl about to take this giant step would be.  She and Daniel had discussed this before, but until now she had never been ready for it.  Daniel was two years older than her and much more experienced and at times he was almost a little pushy about it, but she didn’t see it that way.  She saw it as him wanting to “express his love for her,’ and finally she was ready to express her love for him.  Her daydreaming was interrupted by the ringing of her cell phone.  She jumped nervously and fumbled for the phone in the pile of clothing on the floor.
         “Hey you! You ready?” her best friend’s voice asked excitedly.
         “As ready as I’ll ever be,” Laura answered, relieved to hear it was her friend and not Daniel. 
         “So what time you going over there?”
         “I’m leaving in like ten minutes.” She hurried over to her closet and pulled a few more shirts out of it trying to find the right one. 
         “So what does Daniel think about all of this?”
         “Um, he doesn’t exactly know yet.”
         “What?” exclaimed her friend. “You didn’t tell him?”
         “No, I’m going to surprise him. In fact, he thinks I’m with you,” Laura giggled as she went on the hunt for her keys. 
         “Ok then, well have fun and remember...use protection!”
         “Shut up!” She slammed her cell phone shut.
Laura finally found her keys amidst the mess, grabbed her bag, and headed for the door.  She hopped behind the wheel of the Nissan Altima that she shared with her sister and took off towards Daniel’s house.
         About ten minutes later she was rounding the corner at the end of Daniel’s block.  When she pulled up in front of the house it was completely dark, but his car was in the driveway so she knew he had to be home.  Laura parked and when she had walked up the path and was standing at the door she took one more deep breath just to make sure she knew what she was doing.  She told herself that this was right for her and everything will be better if she just went inside so she took another deep breath and rang the doorbell.  There was no answer.  She rang it again and still nothing.  She was positive that he said he’d be home alone tonight so with that in mind she took out the spare key that his mother had given her for when she walks their dog on Thursday afternoons, and let herself in. 
         She stepped into the house and was greeted by the family’s Golden Retriever.
         “Hey Riley! Hey boy!” she greeted him back, trying to be quiet. “Where’s Danny?”
Laura started towards the stairs with Riley at her heels and as she neared the upper level she heard some very faint rock music coming from the direction of Daniel’s room.  She felt relieved to know that he was home but this feeling quickly faded as she neared the door and the rock music was no longer the only noise that she was hearing.
         “Please let him be watching TV.” She prayed to herself as she took a few steps closer.
She got close enough to press her ear against the door and then it was nothing but obvious.  Her boyfriend of two years was on the other side of that door with another girl.  The blood rushed to Laura’s head.  She didn’t know whether to scream or cry or run; she felt helpless and betrayed like never before.  Her confusion turned to anger and finally in a fit of rage she flung the door open and the two of the stopped dead and turned to look at her.
         “Oh shit.” Daniel scrambled for his shorts.
         The girl was silently trying to pull the blanket over her. Laura  identified her as his ex-girlfriend, the one he swore was just an old friend.  Trying to stop herself from vomiting, Laura turned and headed for the door and Daniel went after her.
         “Laura!” he yelled. “Laura come back! Babe! I’m sorry!”
         “Fuck you Daniel!” she snapped at him hysterically.
         “Babe, Laur’. Lemme just talk to you for a second.”
         “Fuck that! Go talk to that little whore upstairs because I don’t ever wanna speak to you again! Erase me from your memory because I am not a part of your life anymore!”
She slammed the car door shut and peeled out of the driveway leaving Daniel standing there in his boxers.  She drove aimlessly for over an hour, chain smoking, reliving what had just happened over and over again in her mind.  Daniel had tried calling her over and over again for the first half hour but of course she didn’t answer.  Laura approached an intersection with some speed.  Her anger had been driving the car the entire time.  Her light was green so she didn’t slow at all and by the time she was under the light she was going so fast and was so blinded by her rage that she had no time to react to the blue pick-up  running the red in the opposite direction.
                                                           
                                                     * * * * *

         Officer Patrick O’Leary sat  at  the bar at his favorite watering- hole, Monahan’s.  He was a regular there, everybody knew him by name.  He sat silently with his head propped up on his left hand  while he twirled the last two ice cubes in his now empty glass of Glenlivet with his right.  He poured another glass from the bottle that sat in front of him and the bartender, Mickey, gave him a look suggesting that he had enough.
         “Ah, c’mon Mick,” slurred Pat “You know I need this tonight.”
         “Just like you need it every other night?” Mickey raised his eyebrows at him.
         “Yeah, I do.”
         “Your liver will thank me later if you stop.”
         “Ha, ha!” Pat laughed. “Eh, but if you were me you know you’d be on this side of the bar too.  Besides, I paid for the damn thing.”
         Mickey walked away knowing that he wouldn’t win this argument.  He knew Pat had a lot to deal with; everybody knew Pat’s story.  He had been on the police force for 15 years.  He had put away some of the toughest criminals and he had a knack for quick thinking and probelm solving.  Nobody had ever alluded him. Nobody that is until the case of the notorious Hurley brothers had finally reached his hometown.  The Hurleys were two brothers in their 20's that went around terrorizing convenience stores and even a few houses.  They were wanted for burglary, breaking and entering, and assault and battery in nine different states and they were the lead suspects in three murder cases that the police knew of.  They were truly bad and O’Leary was determined that if they came to his town he was going to be the one to get them.  He put together neighborhood watch groups and even went as far as to make public service announcements on the town’s local TV channel warning people about the danger of the two men.  There was no way Pat was going to let these two men leave his town quietly. 
         One night during the whole “Hurley Brother Phenomenon,”  Pat was patrolling in his car outside a local 7-11 when he saw two young men run out in the opposite direction.  Two medium build, young, white males wearing black sweatshirts and all he could think to himself was, “Hurleys” as he reached for his gun and hopped out of his car. 
         “Police, freeze!” he yelled as he ran after them but they didn’t slow at all.  “Stop police!” He called again as they lead him down a garbage filled alley. “Stop or I’ll shoot!” 
The suspects didn’t slow at all until they reached a very high chain link fence.  One of them flew over it with ease, the other lagged behind a little.  O’Leary gave one more warning, aimed, and fired.  The bullet hit him in the shoulder and his partner on the other side of the fence just froze and stared at him as he writhed on the ground in pain.  O’Leary approached him, still aiming at him and the other suspect and when he got close enough to get a good look at him he was faced with any cop’s worst nightmare.  It was a boy who couldn’t be any older than 17 and his friend who was just as young standing on the other side of the fence crying.  They obviously weren’t the Hurley brothers, they weren’t even criminals.  They were just a couple of kids who got nervous when the store clerk questioned the authenticity of their ID’s when they attempted to buy cigarettes.  Patrick James O’Leary, a trained professional, had just shot an innocent minor.
         From that day on he was never the same.  The young boy made a full recovery and because he came from a broken home, his single mother was too busy supporting her habits to press charges.  At the end of the day, it was all written off as a terrible mistake, but to Pat O’Leary, that wasn’t good enough.  He blamed himself over and over again, losing sleep at night and eventually developing a drinking problem.  In a matter of six months he had a huge beer belly and a completely different attitude.  The bar seemed to be his only safe haven from his own thoughts. 
         He put some more money on the bar and almost fell over his stool as he got up.
         “Hey Pat! Don’t tell me you’re driving,” Mickey called to him from the other end of the bar.
         “Ah, shut up Mickey. I’m a cop. I don’t get in trouble.” He made his way to the door and into his Ford Ranger pick-up.  He cleared his throat, lit a cigarette, and drove out of the parking lot towards his house.  The rest of the ride was a blur. It had been a long time since he had gotten this drunk.  He had driven this way a hundred times before but his heavy eyelids made the ride seem a little longer this time.  He drifted in and out of drunken consciousness throughout the ride swerving many times to avoid passing cars and driving off the road.  He approached the same intersection that he drove through every other night but this time it was very different.  He barely had time to register that the light was red before he plowed into a Nissan Altima, driven by a young girl. 

                                                              * * * * * *

         Roger sat patiently in the running Monte Carlo outside of the house while his brother, John, was inside.  He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel while quietly half-singing along to an old Metallica song.  His brother said he would only be a minute and to wait right where he was and be ready to go as soon as he came out. He thought it was only going to take a few minutes but by then, Roger had been sitting in the car for about twenty.
         “C’mon John, what the hell are you doing,” he whispered to himself as he lit up a cigarette.  He barely had a chance to finish the first drag of his Marlboro when he saw his brother come running from the house like a bat out of hell with a full back pack and his gun in his hand.
         “Drive Roger! Now!” John had barely closed the door before his brother pressed the gas. 
         “Shit man, what did you do?” Roger noticed the blood on John’s hands.
         “Nothing man, just fucking drive!”
         “Shit, John, what the hell did you do? Oh God, there wasn’t supposed to be anybody there! You shoulda just bailed!” Roger was hysterical at this point.  What was just supposed to be what they called a “routine job” had gone very wrong.
         “Shut up man! Just shut up! How the hell was I supposed to bail? They saw my face.”  John took a flask out of the glove compartment and started sipping from it, even using some of the alcohol to wipe the blood off of his hands.  Roger watched him in silence as they sat at a red light on the quiet road.  The light turned green and they drove without saying a word for another few blocks when John instructed Roger to pull into the parking lot of a convenience store up ahead.
         “Okay, now go in there and get me a six pack and a pack of smokes.”
         “I don’t want to.  I don’t wanna get outta the car.” Roger gripped the wheel as if by not letting go would mean that he was stuck in the car and would be able to get out of what his brother asked him. 
         “Hey!” snapped John, giving Roger a slap on the back of the head. “Do what I say.”
Roger saw the look of anger in his brother’s eyes. A look that he knew all to well. 
         “Okay, okay.” Roger got out of the car and went into the store, his hands shaking.  He walked in and  the flourescent lights stung his eyes as he walked through the door.  He grabbed what he needed out of the cooler and walked to the front, surveying the store as he approached the register.  He put the beer down, asked for the cigarettes, and paid while trying to fight back tears; This woman knows.  She knows something bad is going on. I can see it in her eyes. Shit, the cops are probably on their way. I gotta get outta here!  Before the woman, who suspected nothing, had even taken his change out of the drawer Roger was in the car, barely able to catch his breath.
         “What the hell’s wrong with you? What? Did the woman in there try to touch you’re heiney? Ha ha!” John broke out into hysterics as he grabbed the stuff out of Roger’s hands.
         “It’s not funn,” mumbled Roger. “Now tell me what happened back there.”
         “Hell no Roger, I told you not to wor...”
         “I’m not driving until you tell me what happened!” He was screaming now, and his brother, who rarely took him seriously, knew that this might be a good time to start.
         “Okay, relax. I’ll tell you.” John started to recall the event that took place just about an hour before.
         He had gone into the seemingly empty house to snoop around and grab whatever money, jewelry, and anything else of value that he could find.  He had done it a million times before; it was almost involuntary at this point.  Get in quietly, grab some stuff, and get out quietly.  He had been halfway through looting the master bedroom when he heard a voice in back of him;
         “Hey! What the fuck are you doing?’
         John spun around to see a young man about 18-20 years old standing in the doorway.  John and the boy made eye contact for a second and the boy turned and made a dash for the nearest phone.
         “Oh shit,” muttered John.  He knew that if the boy reached the phone he would be caught for sure so he grabbed his gun out of the back of his pants and took off after the kid.  He found him in the kitchen standing behind the counter with the receiver from a wall phone in his hand.  Without even thinking John raised his gun and made one perfectly round bullet hole right in the middle of the young man’s bare chest. John heard his body hit the floor on the other side of the counter and he heard a slight whimper follow the thud.  A whimper? He knew it couldn’t be the kid, in fact, it sounded like a girl.  With his gun still drawn he slowly rounded the corner to the other side of the counter and saw a girl, about the same age as the boy, crouched in the corner next to where the kid’s body had fallen, crying and splattered with the boy’s blood.  She looked up at John, her blue eyes all red and puffy and her entire body shaking with fear.  John looked back at her for a moment.  For a second he contemplated having mercy on her and letting her go, but he knew that she would not have mercy on him later when she got the police involved, so he raised his gun again. The girl straightened herself out a little when she saw it.  Her eyes widened and she stopped breathing; she knew what was going to happen.  John aimed the gun perfectly between the girl’s eyes and almost in an execution style manner, pulled the trigger, and just like that what had started out as a burglary had now turned into a double homicide.  John grabbed the few pieces of jewelry off the two kid’s bodies and stopped by a hall closet on the way out.  He found an expensive looking red and white football jacket, so he grabbed it, stuffed it in the backpack he was carrying, and ran out the door..
         “Shit, John.” Roger was now crying. “They were just kids! How the hell could you do that? That wasn’t the plan! What’s the matter with you? I told you I don’t wanna do shit like this anymore! I told you!”
         John smacked his brother on the side of the head. “Will you calm down! You didn’t do it, I did!  Relax, it woulda been your ass too if I had let them go.”
         “John, I hate this. I really hate this.”
         “Aw, quit cryin’. Besides, look at all the good shit I got.” John pulled the bag out of the backseat and started to show his brother the items. He pulled out watches and rings, a few small stacks of money, and the jacket.  Seeing all of the stuff made Roger forget for a minute about all of the bad that his brother had just done. 
         “Hey, lemme try on that jacket.”  Roger turned around while driving to grab the jacket off the floor where John had thrown it.  He rummaged around for a second in the backseat, neglecting the road.  John was too busy opening one of the beers with his teeth to notice that in Roger’s attempt to find the jacket that they were approaching an intersection where there had just been a two car accident and they were about to be the third. 

                                                         * * * * * *          
         All three cars were wrecked.  Laura rubbed her head and looked around the inside of her car.  There was a bunch of broken glass but she was okay, no cuts or bruises and the only pain she felt was across her chest from the seatbelt.  Pat had not been so lucky.  He had been too drunk to remember to wear his seatbelt so when the crash happened his head hit the steering wheel, splitting it open right above his eyebrow.  John and Roger, who had driven into the back of the pick-up were frantically trying to get their car to turn back on so they could fly out of there, but there was no such luck.  Their car was in terrible condition to start with and the crash had done it in. 
         “Shit, shit, shit!”  Roger tried to turn the engine over.  He was so worried about getting out of there that he barely noticed the pain in his right knee. It must have hit the dash board when  they slammed into the truck.
         “Okay Roger, forget it! I’ll handle this.” John got out of the car and approached Laura who was now talking to Pat through his driver’s side window. In his best “good boy” voice he asked them, “Is everybody alright over here? Wow, I guess we just didn’t see you guys. Is there anything we can do to help?”
         “Um, yeah I’m okay, but I don’t know about him,” Laura replied motioning toward Pat behind the steering wheel. 
         John walked around the car to get a better look at them.  He looked at Laura first.  Her attractive figure and long, brown hair caught his eye and he looked her up and down which made her obviously uncomfortable. She looked back at him for a minute; to her he resembled Kid Rock.  There was blood on the bottom of his white t-shirt and all she could do was hope it was the result of a bloody nose, preferably his own.  She switched her weight from one leg to the other and wrapped her sweater around her a little bit tighter.
         “I’m sorry, miss,” responded John, trying to cover up for his staring. “But you looked familiar for a second.  You seem okay, let’s see what we have going on here. You okay mist...”
John’s words trailed off when he caught a glimpse of the man in the car.  Pat’s eyes widened a little as he saw John’s face.
         “H-H-Hur.....” he tried to say as he stared at John but the pain in his chest was making it very difficult to breathe, let alone talk. 
         “Shh. Don’t try to talk.  You just relax.  I’ll, um, call the cops.” John hurried off to his car, cursing under his breath.  Laura continued to talk to Pat to try to keep him awake as John walked over and whispered something to his brother.  Laura couldn’t hear what the two men were saying but she saw Roger grab his head in distress and John grabbed something out of the car and started back towards them. 
         “John!” Roger called out after him “John, I’m serious! John! You said no more! John!” But John just ignored his brother’s pleads and kept his eye on Pat and Laura as he stepped back up to the window. 
         Pat was a little more awake now. “Hur-Hurley,” he managed to say looking at John.
         “Ha, ha , ha. Well I’ll be dammed, it is you.  Officer O’Leary, you old son of a bitch. Ha! You look a lot fatter in real life than you do on TV.”
         “Wait a minute,” interrupted Laura. “You guys know each other?”
         “Oh yeah, me and Pat here go way back.”  John reached into his pockets and to everyone’s relief he pulled out a lighter and lit a cigarette. 
         “Miss,” choked Pat. “You get away from here. R-run!”
         Laura started to back away but was immediately stopped by John pulling a gun out of the back of his pants and aiming it at her.
         “No one is going anywhere. Now get over there!” He motioned towards his brother who was leaning up against their car, trying to hide the fact that he was crying, and Laura who was now in tears herself, walked over slowly. 
         “Well, well Pat.  Fancy meeting you here.”  John waved the gun in O’ Leary’s face, his voice was cold and vindictive.  “You’ve been on me and my brother’s asses for months now and look, here we are, and you can’t do a goddam thing about it. Ironic isn’t it?”
         “You wont get away with this. I’m a well respected man!”
         “Oh yeah? So what would your buddies down at the station think if they showed up here and saw your drunk ass behind the wheel? Oh that would look great.”
         “It would look a hell of a lot better than killing a cop!”
         “Oh yeah?  Not to me.”  John raised his gun and aimed it at him. Roger and Laura were watching in horror anticipating his next move.
         “JOHN NO!” screamed Roger hysterically. “ NO! YOU CAN’T DO THAT! HE’S A COP! WE’LL FRY! JOHN! J..” But it was too late.  Once again his brother’s cries had meant nothing to him.  There was a loud bang and a flash of light and it was done.  Roger vomited and Laura screamed and turned to press her face against the car window, hoping that if she didn’t look everything would go away. 
         “John you stupid fuck!” Roger ran at his brother and tackled him to the ground.  The two wrestled around for a minute, Roger got in a few good shots but it was obvious that John would be victorious.
         Laura saw their scuffling as her chance to get away, but when she started to back away from the car something sitting in the backseat caught her eye.  A red and white football jacket with the last name, “Matthews” and a huge number 27 written on the back in big white letters.  She gasped and took a step back; she could recognize that jacket anywhere.
         “Daniel,” she whispered.
         The two men were done fighting and now noticed Laura staring into the car.  She had already seen too much and now they knew that she had seen even more.
         “Hey,” shouted John, causing her to swing around. “What the hell are you doing?”
         “Where did you get that jacket?” Laura tried to hold back the tears as she asked him this through clenched teeth.
         “Oh that old thing? That’s Roger’s, he’s had that for years.”
         “LIAR! I know who’s jacket that is! What did you do?”
         “Is that right?” John got up in her face “What? Was that your little boyfriend? Because that wasn’t you in the house. Ha ha ha! Seems as though someone’s bein’ a naughty boy.  I don’t know why though. I mean, mmm, look at you.” He took a step closer to her so that his body was touching hers. She cringed and tried to control the nausea.  He grabbed her hair and lowered his lips towards hers.  His breath smelled like cigarettes and Jack Daniels.  Laura held her breath and closed her eyes. 
         “John!” Roger interrupted them, by pulling his brother off of her.  Laura could finally breathe again and her knees buckled and she fell to the ground in tears.  Her head was spinning with the thoughts of what had just happened, Daniel and the girl, neither of whom she could hate at that moment, and the fact that she might never see her family again.  She cried even harder. 
         “John, you asshole! What the hell are you doing? Let’s just get out of here!” Roger headed towards the street that looked the darkest.
         “And leave this girl here? We got no car, she’ll have the cops on us in ten minutes. “
         ”So what are you gonna do John? What are you gonna do?”
         “Aw, Roger. You know what I’m gonna do.”  John walked towards Laura who was still on the ground but her back was pressed against the car now and the look of fear in her eyes showed that she knew what John had planned for her. 
         “Sorry sweetheart,” he said as he raised his gun to her head. “But this is business. No hard feelings. If it helps, you’re the hottest little piece of ass I ever killed.” He cocked his gun, and Laura squeezed her eyes shut, whimpering and silently whispering a prayer. Bang! A shot went off.  She waited for the pain but it never came.  She waited for a second then slowly opened her eyes to see John laying on the ground in front of her.  His once slightly bloody shirt was now much bloodier.  She looked up and there was Roger, still standing there with his gun aimed.  He lowered his weapon and they stared at each other for a second until Roger ran to the other side of the car and started grabbing a few things out of it.  Laura stood up to watch him. Neither of them said a word. 
         He quickly grabbed everything he needed and he stopped to look at Laura again.  They were both scared and although they both wanted to say so much, both of them were silent.  Roger turned away and Laura watched him run up the road and into the woods on the right.  The police showed up just a few minutes later and were shocked to see what had gone on there.  They immediately bombarded Laura with a million questions about who did it, what happened, and so on.  Laura barely said a word. The experience was too fresh in her mind for her to try to relive it.  One young cop came and sat next to her on the back bumper of an ambulance.
         “Please miss,” he said to her. “ It’s very important that you tell us where the other suspect went. Which way did he go? Did you see him run off?”
         Laura thought for a minute about Roger standing there with his gun pointed and then running off into the woods. “I’m sorry.  I didn’t see him.”