Double Shot by Diane Mott Davidson Page B

loved him. I had hated him. He had stood beside me, grinning, when Arch was born. Many nights, he had thrust out his chest and thrashed me, until welts rose on my arms and back. I’d been convinced he had a black heart. Now his chest cavity was a gory mass of skin, bone, and blood.
And his heart wasn’t beating.
I couldn’t look at him, or what was left of him. I knew that smell now: cordite, the gas produced when a gun fires. My clammy hand gripped my cell phone. I called 911 and shakily explained that my ex-husband, Dr. John Richard Korman, had been shot. Yes, I thought he was dead. They asked for my location and I blanked.
“Aspen Meadow Country Club.” My voice cracked. “A rental. Tudor house, on a dead end. This is a new place, and he’s lying in the garage. Wait. We’re at 4402 Stone berry. I can’t remember —“
But there was something I did remember: Arch. Oh my God, Arch. He was at the front door, waiting. Waiting for his father. What if he came looking for me in the garage? I was not going to allow him to see this.
“Ma’am?” The emergency operator’s voice spiraled into my ear. “What do you mean, a new place for him?”
“Look, I have to go. I’ll be out front when the sheriff’s department shows up. My van, Goldilocks’ Catering, is parked there. Please, I have to go. My fifteen-year-old son is here. He doesn’t know his father is dead.”
The operator’s voice droned on. I didn’t know if I was hearing her words or just mentally substituting what I knew she would say. Stay on the scene, stay calm, stay put, do not hang up. I ducked beneath the half-open garage door and closed the cell phone
A sudden wind whipped the aspens and pines around the houses of the cul-de-sac. A cloud of dust rose into the air and shimmered in the sunlight. Then it blasted against John Richard’s house. I closed my eyes against the grit and fought dizziness.
For he himself knows whereof we are made; he remembers that we are but dust.
What was I going to say to Arch? I simply could not imagine how to announce, “Your father had been shot. He’s dead.”
Riffs of jazz guitar emanated from the van radio. Arch had gotten tired of waiting. The time was ticking down until I told him.
I was having trouble breathing. Inhale, I ordered myself. Exhale. I pulled out the cell and dialed Tom.
“Somebody’s shot John Richard,” I announced to his voice mail. “He’s dead. Oh, Tom, please come up to his house.” The wind rose again and showered me with dust. “We need you. Please.”
I closed the phone. I would have to get rid of the hysterical note in my voice before talking to Arch.
John Richard’s chest had been blown wide open. The image of what I’d seen made me dizzy. John Richard’s pink shirt had been drenched in blood. And his pants . . . khakis, had been covered with blood, too. Oh, God, I couldn’t think about it.
I dialed Marla’s cell.
“Get over to the Jerk’s new house as quickly as you can,” I said to her voice mail. “I think somebody’s shot him. He’s dead.”
My knees buckled and I sat down in the driveway. The wind picked up another nimbus of shiny dust and whacked it onto the cul-de-sac. John Richard’s lush grass bristled and flattened. The blue delphiniums rimming the house bent and swayed.
Our days are like the grass; we flourish like the flower of the field.
I prayed. Help me. perhaps God was already sending these verses from the 103 rd Psalm, one my Sunday-school class had memorized. We flourish like a flower in the field, and then?
When the wind goes over it, it is gone, and its place shall know it no more.
John Richard was no more. Was it possible, after all these years? Was he really gone, this man who had hurt so many people? I swallowed hard, stood, and steadied myself. It was time to go talk to Arch.

    * * *

“Hon, something very bad has happened.” I slipped into the van driver’s seat and turned off the radio.”
Arch furrowed his brows. “What? Is Dad