The Shooter Puzzle

“Room full of dead bodies, all gunshot wounds. Which one’s the shooter?”

Emily set down her “coffee” in one of the six available cup holders in the center console.

“The one with the gun.”

Maggie’s eyes lit up in a cruel way, like a predator catching a scent downwind.

“Wrong”

Emily glanced out the window at everyone moving in and out of the hospital parking garage’s elevator. Her husband’s body was up on the 13th floor. She doubted anyone in the ICU had moved it yet.

“So the shooter put the weapon in someone else’s hand, slipped out through some hidden means, and the door is locked. Cops break in, she’s killed everyone and turned the gun on herself.”

“No, she’s dead,” said Maggie, bracing herself against the steering wheel to transfix Emily with an even more direct, sharp gaze. “Shooter’s body is moldering in there and he’s gotten away with it.”

“Him, huh?” Emily took another sip of the “coffee”. It brought her back to the night she met Liam. The drink he ordered her was his favorite, sparing no thoughts for what her tastes were. A signe of things to come. His pass at her was pretty clumsy, but to credit herself it had been an interesting clumsiness. “Why’s he gotten away with it? He’s dead.”

“Dead isn’t losing. In fact, picking where and when you’re dead, that’s the definition of winning.”

“Dead is always losing. It’s living that’s winning.”

“A life is complete because it ends. Reading a book is wonderful but if you never got to the end it would stop being fun and start being a chore. But that’s just how I see it”

Emily felt some tears in her eyes. She started drinking the ‘coffee’ about an hour ago and it seems like it caught up with her pretty fast. She cleared her throat but kept looking out the window.

“He won,” Maggie hissed, leaning in so Emily could almost feel her silhouette, it’s sheer malice having a weight of it’s own, “Because he did all his damage and hurt where nobody’s ever seeing it. The one getting blamed? Oh it’s her who came in and blew him away, but make no mistake before anyone else knew what was going on, he was making a bloody mess in that room.”

Emily’s phone went off in the cup holder again. Her sister-in-law had given up calling, it was just texts now at this point.

“Idk where you are but you missed it. They took him.”

Emily flicked her eyes away and saw a young man run the wheelchair lift for a young woman. No similarity, not a sister. It had to be girlfriend or wife. He helped her pull a sweater over her head, knocking off her baseball hat and revealing another bald head. Another gunman and a hostage.

“You seem to be so sure, he’s the one who killed everyone in that room. That he’s the shooter.”

“Come on Emily,” Maggie’s breath was hot on her ear, and Emily turned to see that familiar feline grin, “You know he was the shooter. And you know she had to take him out.”

Emily caught a glimpse of her watch. There was a star inlaid underneath the face. It was an inside joke she had with Liam about him being her “star” after a particularly rambunctious karaoke performance of The Chain. She had been blacked out at the time and when he showed her the video of her slurring the words on stage, she wanted to die of embarrassment.

Something that bound them together, and something that made her feel a little worse. It was very Liam.

When she would prop him on the couch so she could change his sheets, Liam would echo that line about her being ‘his star’. She really hated that. Why was he so insistent on her remembering that? She took the watch off and dropped it in the console. Probably not putting it back on.

“Why are you here?”

“You can’t drive like that. It would have been illegal. The dangerous actions of a cruel and uncaring woman. So I did it.”

“Am I supposed to thank you?”

“You’re just supposed to hear me out.”

The phone went off in the console again. Another call. Had to be someone new. Most of the others knew she wasn’t picking up.

“What if the shooter wasn’t him?”

“What do you mean?

“What if — ,” Emily took a deep breath and continued talking, “What if the shooter was in there before him, and he shot that shooter. But then… she, the one who got blamed, she came in and shot him. If it was a misunderstanding, then it’s not justice. It’s just a tragedy”

“So, the question is, ‘was the shooting tragedy or justice?’”

“Cruelty is always tragedy.”

“And yet the primary ingredient in justice. But, that’s just how I see it”

“I told him I didn’t forgive him,” Emily felt her voice get a little stronger, “He never did anything cruel to me or treated me roughly. But there was indifference. The times he made me feel apart. When he made me feel like something that was OUR problem was my problem. ”

Her throat hurt from the yelling.

“I just wish,” Emily’s voice was back to a scratchy whisper, “I could have believed there was ‘us’. I was ready to leave and then he gets that call. No choice but to keep pretending it’s ‘us’. When we both knew it wasn’t… That’s why I told him I didn’t forgive him.”

“Do you think he heard you?”

“At that point? Maybe,” Emily said, wondering which option she hoped was true, “It was kind of nice to have an honest conversation.”

Maggie handed her back the watch so she could set her own drink in the cup holder. Emily, annoyed she didn’t use one of the four other empty slots, snatched the watch. She stopped and read the familiar inscription on the back.

To Liam,

Follow what’s most important to you, and make it your North Star.

Love Dad

“Who was the shooter?”

Emily thought about it and turned to her, “The body who was smiling.”

“In all honesty, Emily,” Maggie said, face painfully gentle, “you look pretty miserable right now. But, that’s just how I see it.”