At Large

By Clayton Spann

A vicious hate crime occurs on the Washington DC Metro rail system. Four teenagers are killed execution style, and the shooter escapes. A massive manhunt ensues. A reward bounty of over one million dollars is posted for information leading to his capture. A deranged woman helps the perpetrator cover his tracks, and the frenzied manhunt leads to the arrest of the wrong person. One man alone continues the hunt for the real killer.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Clayton Spann
• Release date: Nov 7, 2022
• ISBN: 9781005681791

Book preview

Dan, Sue, Louisa, and me.  Of the four only I lived to tell the tale.  Over the past year I have pieced it together from my own experiences, public records, drone videos, SIM chips, Louisa’s fantastical diary, and the many hours I spent interviewing relatives and acquaintances of the dearly departed.  I especially thank Jamie for his cooperation.

Here we go.

Chapter 1

The tale begins innocently enough.  At the height of rush hour on an October evening, Louisa stepped onto a packed Metro car at the Foggy Bottom station.  This thirty-two year old woman without husband or boyfriend felt more despondent than usual, and the prospect of standing all the way to Vienna brought her near tears.

Louisa (strange name for a Korean) had in her teens been diagnosed as a manic-depressive.  Today she was trapped in the depressive.  Already twice this day suicide crossed her mind.

(I came to label Louisa Lee the Gook Kook.  I am half Black, so perhaps I am allowed slack using ethnic epithets.  In this case the slur is well deserved.)

As the Metro train lurched forward, a miracle occurred.  A man with a briefcase rose and offered Louisa his seat.  Like most everyone else on the train, he wore a mask.  But Louisa took deep note of his piercing blue eyes and the close cropped sandy hair below the rim of his Nationals baseball cap.

The solidly built, square headed man was a half foot taller than Louisa.  Though his left hand gestured toward the seat with stiff formality, Louisa knew beneath the mask he smiled kindly.  That this wonderful man, tall and powerful and decent, wore a gold wedding band did not diminish her joy.

Louisa fumbled words as she thanked him.  He briskly nodded, then the sharp blue eyes were somewhere else.  The sandy haired man had retreated into himself.  She knew all about that.  What troubles did he mull?

So badly she wanted to thank the man again, draw him into conversation, at least learn his name.  But the car remained dead silent except for the rumble and rattle of its passage.  If she spoke everyone would hear, and she could never speak in the spotlight without her tongue tying.

Throughout the journey Louisa stole looks at the man, until he got off at the East Falls Church station.  He did not glance back at her.  Of course he wouldn’t, she was a nondescript woman, he was married, and he was lost in grim thought.

From now on, though, Louisa would look for him on her commutes.  From afar she would come to know this gracious man.  And this evening, she would work her best dildo in frenzied tribute to him.

Chapter 2 (Tuesday, January 10)

For the third time Dan reviewed the video.  His hands clenched the cell phone.  He vibrated in his chair.  Acute rage and pain threatened to hurl him from his office.  Hurl him from here with the revolver he always carried in his briefcase.

Beyond the interior window of his office activity proceeded as normal in the main room.  None of his employees knew an IED had exploded.  Only he was ripped apart by the shock wave.

Sue and the man Dan vaguely knew—one of the lawyers at the firm where she worked—were entering a room from a balcony at a Days Inn.  The lawyer’s hand rested on Sue’s butt.  Then the door to the second story room closed.

Dan recognized the location of the Days Inn.  He knew Arlington County like the back of his hand.  Plus whoever shot the video had helpfully panned to show the street signs at the nearby intersection.  The Inn was maybe a five minute drive from where Sue worked in Crystal City.

The date time stamp on the video read noontime, last Friday.  Friday evening, and over the weekend, Sue acted as if nothing were wrong.  No hint at all.  They even made love Saturday evening, with Sue having a good orgasm.

He couldn’t go to Jamie with this.  Through the years they had often counseled each other, but Dan could never admit to being cuckolded.  The disgrace went too deep.  Dan would go to his grave with this locked inside him.

The video skipped forward forty minutes, to when Sue and the young, good looking lawyer left the room.  Ed was his name, Dan now remembered.  Dan had met him at the law firm Christmas party.  Were these two already fucking then?

The cheeks of his raven haired wife were flushed.  On the balcony Sue walked haltingly, then stumbled a bit.  Ed caught her and they had a good laugh.  As they resumed walking, the video zoomed to focus on the hand of Ed.  Which again patted Sue’s shapely butt.  Then the video stopped.

This morning Dan had received the video clip as an email attachment.  He thought nothing of opening the attachment, since the email was from his property manager in Virginia Beach.  The subject line said the attachment listed repairs on the Bay Colony house.

A double check of the email address—one letter was different—and a quick phone call confirmed the property manager had not sent the video.  Who then?

Dan suspected the video was shot from a drone.  The angle looked above the second floor of the motel, and the film wavered as if the camera fought a breeze.  A check via Google Maps showed no building in position to support such a vantage point.

So someone else knew about his wife’s cheating.  Could someone at the law firm have taken the video?  An enemy of Ed’s perhaps, a rival for a partnership spot?  Were they hoping Dan in his fury would remove Ed from the equation?

Or maybe a blackmail threat was coming?  You pay so many thousands and I spare you the humiliation of this going public.  This video sure as hell would go viral as good looking as Sue was.

Dan had stopped vibrating.  His jaw relaxed.  He calmly put down the cell phone.  He would not storm from the office with his revolver, loaded with six .38 hollow point bullets.  He would not race to the law firm and shoot the shit out of Ed (starting with the groin and working upwards).

He knew the drill.  Never speak or react while angry, his father told adolescent Dan.  It sometimes takes great will power, but respond only after emotion has died.  Then you can rationally plan how to right any wrong done to you.

That advice had stood Dan well.  In this matter he would carefully plan, right the wrong, and avoid imprisonment.

Edward would die another day.

Chapter 3 (Tuesday, January 10)

Her hero sat one seat ahead of her across the aisle.  As usual he was wearing a black Nationals baseball cap.  He had on a mask, but by now she had seen him many times without one.

Daniel was not a handsome man.  And he was starting to bald. That didn’t matter.  His face rather spoke to pure strength and purpose.  His squarish countenance bore no trace of guile.  Daniel was undoubtedly a stand up person, true to his word and resolute in action.

By now she loved him so.  Since that day in October she had not spoken to him, but her soul communed with Daniel constantly.  And every night since that first day she climaxed over him in her special room.

Louisa studied him intently.  He sat stiffly, no difference there, but what was whirling in his head?  What this evening was he planning for his adulterous wife?  Did he intend to merely slap her silly, or go full bore and beat her to death?

When Daniel got off at his stop, Louisa would get off too.  She would pull him aside, tell him she sent the video.  She would offer assistance in whatever he wanted to do to the whore.  If he wanted to kill her, Louisa would provide a good place to hide the body.  The adulteress would disappear without a trace.  The police could not prove anything.  They—

Listen up, mothafuckas! 

Louisa’s head jerked around to seek the source of the snarled command.  Her eyes landed on a man waving a machete at the center of the car.  The man wore a mask and a hoodie.  His forehead and accent said he was Black.  A geomdungi.

Now three other hooded and masked ’dungi displayed knives.  Each of the three also held a cloth bag.

The machete wielder yelled again.  Phones an’ wallets in the bags!  The blade slashed the air.  Do it!  Or I chop!

One woman near the center screamed.  She screamed worse when one of the ’dungi cut her cheek.

Phones an’ wallets!  Real quick!  Or you get worse than tha’ bitch!

Bags thrust toward passengers.  Amid stifled sobs and whimpers cell phones and wallets were tossed in.

An elderly black woman made to put in her phone.  The machete man yelled, No, mama, you excused!  All bros an’ sisters excused.  This is reparations.  Rest you give it up.

Louisa didn’t see any other black passengers besides the old woman.

Fear played on many faces as people dug into pockets and purses.  They were coaxed to move faster by knives wagged under chins and taunts of Move yo’ ass, bitch!  Bitch was applied to both sexes.

Louisa despised the compliant.  But this was the region reeking with white guilt.  Most of those onboard probably thought their phones and wallets a small price to pay for the racist sins of their ancestors.

One of the ’dungi neared Louisa.  She reached in her purse.  For the can of  bear spray.  She would blast this ’dungi full in the face.  Then let the other ones come towards her.

Behind Louisa a gun shot exploded.  The advancing ’dungi lost the top of his head.  Blood and gray matter flew and the ’dungi toppled.

Shrieks filled the stunned silence.  Another gun shot overrode the screams and the machete man had a face no more.  The other two ’dungi fled toward the opposite end of the Metro car.

Instinctively Louisa knew it was Daniel who had landed the precise shots.  She was proved right as the rock of a man strode past her seat with gun out.  The gun, a revolver, pointed at the fleeing ’dungi.

The two gunshots had left Louisa’s ears ringing, and she could smell the gun powder.  The smell of the powder spoke to lethal strength.

A third shot boomed and a third ’dungi fell.  The bullet had hit the back of the hoodie just off center.  The screaming in the car continued.

The last ’dungi stopped and turned.  He raised his hands.  His right hand still held a knife.  The tip of the knife was red.

Don’ shoot, man!, an adolescent voice half shrieked, half whined.   I quitin’.

Louisa waited for Daniel to demand the stupid ’dungi drop the knife.  Instead Daniel shot.  The masked face turned to mire as the boy flew backward.

Within seconds the train pulled into the East Falls Church station.  Her hero was first out when the doors opened.  Louisa noted that Daniel left without his attaché case.  She retrieved the case while everyone else bailed from the car.

Chapter 4 (Tuesday, January 10)

I was continuing the vigil from my car when the police scanner went from routine traffic to crap hits the fan.  A shooting involving many fatalities had occurred on a Metro train in Arlington.  Boatloads of cops and medics were headed to the East Falls Church station.  In addition, Metro service was being suspended on the Silver and Orange lines.

I shook my head.  Another mass shooting.  On and on it went nationwide.  Fortunately the past year the DC region had escaped a big bloodbath.  Little ones happened daily, but most of that involved carjackings, robberies, gang spats or domestic stuff.  Psychopaths didn’t play much part.

Now this happens, just as Metro was recovering from the pandemic.  Ridership was nearly back to 2019 levels.  Back down it would go overnight, if some monster with an AR15 had slaughtered a trainload of commuters.

I had seen online photos of what a high velocity NATO round could do to a human body, especially at close range.  Shredding was a kind word.  Hit in a limb, you lose that limb.  Hit in the torso, you’d either be funeral bound or survive as a horrible cripple.  Hit in the head, well, you got a head literally blown to pieces.

A shudder ran through me as the heavy radio traffic continued on all police frequencies.  That this atrocity probably didn’t involve children made for the only silver lining.  Those school shootings were the worst.

When was enough enough?  Goddamn, confiscate all guns.  They’d done that in Britain and in Australia, and how many of these slaughters did those countries have now?

Go house to house if they had to.  Bring back stop and frisk, implement it big time.  Shut down gun manufacturers.  These mass shootings would stop and crime would drop like a rock, too.  Fuck the NRA!  Just do it.

While my ears stayed on the squawking scanner, my eyes remained on the rear of the apartment building.  I would get Larry, sooner rather than later.

Forty minutes ago Larry Dawson arrived home.  As always he hobbled convincingly with his cane.  He had struggled up the four steps to the building entrance with his unmasked face set in a grimace.  Bravo, Larry!

I had been watching Larry for several days.  So far I succeeded no better than the two guys previously surveilling him.  Larry was good, I gave him that.  Wily and disciplined.

Seven months ago Larry received a Workman’s Comp award equal to his former salary.  Back trouble, so notoriously difficult to disprove.  And Larry, well aware we had him under observation, would do his very best to wait us out.

Which Larry could.  The insurance company that hired us said we had till the end of February to prove he was a fraud.  Our services weren’t cheap and we owned the rep of getting our man.

It ain’t bragging to say that rep applied especially to me.  Over the past four years I had steadily improved my stalking skills.

I was determined to bring down this cheat.  A 3K bonus awaited if I could.  Three thou was three thou, even if the inflation beast ate it daily.

Dusk was gone when Larry emerged from the back entrance.  A new flurry of radio traffic erupted as he did.  As I readied to slip from the car I heard an all points bulletin being issued for a heavy set male, race not yet confirmed.  Who wore a black mask, a black baseball hat, and a tan overcoat.  His pants were thought to be Navy blue.

Suspect is armed with at least a pistol.  Unless suspect is in the act of shooting, wait for backup before approaching.  Use extreme caution.

Then came the words: possible hate crime involved.

My stomach dipped at those words.  On an Orange Line train headed out from the District most of the riders were going to be white.  Was