“Shit!” said McLamb, who had heard every word.
They both knew the statistics. The abuse and murder rate for children in military communities was double that of civilian communities elsewhere in the state. For wives, it was even higher. The macho mentality. The deadly training. Add mangled pride and you had a volatile combination that could blow without warning any time, any place.
“Sergeant Overholt,” she began again in her most diplomatic voice. “If we could just talk?”
“I’m through talking!”
The sound of breaking glass was all the split-second warning they got. As they both dived for the ground behind the car, Richards registered the report of the rifle at the same instant that her right side erupted in fiery pain.
From the nearest houses and trailers, doors opened and people yelled.
“Police officers!” McLamb yelled back. “Stay inside!”
Another burst of shots raked the side of their car, and pebble-sized bits of shatterproof glass rained down on them.
From her position flat on the cold ground, Mayleen Richards saw a neighbor farther down the street step out into his yard. He wore Army fatigues and a brown sweatshirt and he yelled, “Mike? What the hell’s going on, buddy?”
The man took one more step, then the rifle barked and he crumpled to the ground. A woman screamed and ran to him but she never got there. Overholt’s next bullet spun her around and she dropped in midstride.
By then, Richards and McLamb were both on their phones calling for backup.
A second later, he realized that she had been hit, too.
“Officer down! Officer down!” he screamed into his phone.
Suddenly gunfire blasted from the house next door to them and diagonally across from the Overholt trailer.
Several automatic rounds sprayed the trailer.
“I’ll hold him down,” yelled the soldier who lived there. “Y’all run around to the back of my house. The door’s open.”
There was no way Mayleen was going to try to run, and McLamb was not going to leave her. “Stop the god- damned shooting!” he cried.
An eerie silence fell over the neighborhood. Long minutes passed and they heard one of the shooting victims groan. Impossible to say which it was. Dogs barked and children were crying. A woman’s hysterical voice called to her friends and they heard her beg someone to let her go help them. It seemed like half a lifetime before the blessed sound of sirens reached them from a distance, coming ever closer until the air was full of raucous wails.
No sooner did the first patrol cars swoop down the street than a chopper appeared overhead and hovered like a protective guardian angel.
The ground troops piled out of their cars and took cover, but nothing moved behind the shattered windows of the Overholt trailer. A SWAT team arrived on the heels of two rescue trucks and one of the team members immediately came over to get briefed by Richards and McLamb. While rescue workers hurried to the other shooting victims, one EMT stanched the blood in Richards’s side.
“Lucky,” he grunted as he finished bandaging it. “You need stitches, but looks like the bullet passed right through the fleshy part without nicking anything major.”
He went back to the truck for a shot of painkiller and wanted to transport her to a hospital in Fayetteville, but she refused.
“What about the other two that got shot?” she asked.
“Through the heart,” said the tech. “The woman’s still breathing, but I doubt she’ll make it. Most soldiers are good with a rifle, but they say this guy’s a Ranger with a really high proficiency rating.”
Someone on a bullhorn called for Overholt to come out with his hands over his head.
There was no answer and no sign of movement inside.
Sheriff Poole arrived about the time they lobbed a tear gas canister into the trailer. A moment later, the SWAT
team stormed it.
“All secure! Two down!” someone called from inside.
Richards had been sitting on the ground while the painkiller took effect, and now, with a hand from McLamb, she stood upright and walked over to join the other law officers who were milling around the front of the ravaged trailer.
A raised ten-by-ten concrete square served as a front patio and was level with the door. A single shallow step led up to it, and when the two deputies approached, they saw that strings of tiny multicolored Christmas lights still dangled from the top edge of the trailer. The front door stood wide, as did a rear door to help disperse the tear gas fumes.
While they waited, Richards stepped to one side of the patio and looked in through what had been the picture window. A single long shard of glass remained, and as she watched, it slid loose from the caulk and crashed to the concrete, making several men jump. Inside, a woman lay face up on the couch. Darla Overholt. Late thirties, thought Richards, automatically cataloging. Bright red lipstick, blue eye shadow on the closed lids. But the blood that caked and stiffened her blue sweater was dry, and Richards heard one of the EMTs say to another,
“What do you think? Twelve hours?”
