This is another take on George Anderson's February Sucks story. His story is brilliant, and I highly recommend it. My favorite is the one told by an uber driver with somewhat of a surprise ending but I lost it.
I am a Captain in the State Police investigating a mass shooting at a local night club. Twelve people had been killed and there were twenty others with various injuries. The shooter was also dead. The killing took place at a night club called Club 81, owned by a former pro football player who had grown up locally. The football player, Mark LaVelle and most of those killed were sitting at the same table. The only survivor was a young woman, dressed like a hooker without any panties on. She was sitting across from me as the EMT's were examining her. She was covered in blood and brain matter but the EMTs concluded that none of it was hers and most of it probably belonged to the football player who had been sitting next to her.
I tried asking her some questions, but she was catatonic staring into space. The only time she reacted was when I asked her about the tattoo in the webbing between her thumb and forefinger. She showed me the tattoo, a black spade with a white 81. Then she returned to her blank stare and the EMT's took her to the hospital.
The initial witness statements were all over the place as usual. From the security cameras, my team was able to piece together that the shooter was dressed as a waiter and approached the table carrying a tray and stood to LaVelle's right. He dropped the tray to reveal a pistol in each hand. His first shot was from his left hand, point blank into LaVelle's face explaining the brain matter and blood covering the survivor who had been sitting to LaVelle's left. The woman sitting to LaVelle's right was next, shot from the shooter's right hand, point blank into the side of her head and removing most of her face.
Chaos ensued from that point. Some of the men sitting at the table were armed and began firing back. One lucky shot hit the shooter in the chest, but he must have been wearing a bullet proof vest because he quickly got back up and continued firing, now using LaVelle's body as a shield. The vest must have saved his life, but you only see people get up and keep shooting like that in the movies because it hurts like hell. Twice I was knocked on my ass in similar circumstances.
The shooter systematically worked his way around the table shooting everyone sitting there or people shooting back at him. There were 10 people sitting around the table, and he killed nine of them and some of the people standing nearby.
The survivor could be heard pleading with the shooter, "please kill me, Jim."
The shooter responded, "Oh no my darling wife, I want you to suffer for a long time. Plus, I have only one bullet left, and I need that to destroy the part of my heart you haven't killed, besides this way you'll be able to see my face in my coffin."
The shooter slid his gun under the vest, pulled the trigger and blood exploded from around the vest.
The next morning, I met with my team. The shooter was identified as Jim Silverman and he was married to the survivor, Linda Silverman. Initially, there was no evidence that they were estranged. She was a teacher at an elite private high school. The shooter was a managing partner at one of the big international accounting firms. I wasn't sure what a managing partner did, but I was told he probably was worth more than LaVelle. The two handguns were purchased three weeks ago, both contained 19 round clips. The shooter spent most of his last few weeks at a gun range. What I found most amazing was that the shooter turned the gun on himself using round 38. In all the chaos and multiple minor wounds, he was able to keep track of the number of rounds he fired.
While we were meeting, the Silverman's McMansion exploded, leveling the house and causing significant damage to their neighbor's houses. A gas leak, probably intentional, was the initial conclusion. I was fortunate that none of my team or innocent bystanders were injured since members of my team were enroute to the shooter's home. The neighbors said they hadn't seen the survivor or her children in three weeks and only occasionally saw the husband since then. He was normally very sociable but hadn't spoken to anyone in the last three weeks.
One of my team brought up the couple's face book page. Pictures from their wedding, parties, baby bumps and the two kids growing up who were now probably school age and looked the same age as my children. Finding their children became our number one priority. A visit to the wife's parents found the front door open with no response. My agents entered the house and found both parents dead in their living room with gunshots to their faces.
We were able to access the ring camera. Jim can be seen knocking on the door and forcing his way into the house, there's yelling and screaming from the in-laws.
Jim pulls out his guns and tells them, "Shut the fuck up, since you think it was such a good idea for Linda to live out her fantasy, I'm sure you'll allow me to live out mine."
He then shot both in-laws in the face, first the husband and then the wife.
We found the kids at the shooter's parents' house. Both parents were nearly as catatonic as their daughter-in-law while a nanny was taking care of the kids. The parents understood from the news that their son was responsible for the mass shooting, but they didn't know much more. Their son showed up at their house unannounced three weeks ago with the two children and a bunch of their clothes. He told them that he was separating from his wife and needed his parents to take care of the kids until things settled. He popped in occasionally since then to see how the kids were doing but never talked about what happened or what was going on.
It took a few days to identify the victims at the night club since some had their faces blown off. The female victim who had been sitting to LaVelle's right was identified as Mary Allison, a friend of the survivor. We were able to find an address for Mary and her husband and we interviewed the husband who was barely sober and smelled like shit.