Officer Barnes and I did continue to search the rest of Bill Williams' home. What we had found so far would be more then enough to convince others that he had carried both the attack on the school and the bombing of the police station just before it. A "remote" had been found in Williams' truck, and he had far more fertilizer bags in his garage then any one man needed to fertilize his own lawn. He was clearly the attacker, and that revelation angered both Officer Barnes and I... and seemingly Officer Barnes the most.
All of that was understandable. We were both angry because what he did was illegal and that he went after an killed fellow officers. I couldn't think any officer that would not be angry at seeing another officer killed by some criminal. Especially in this case where the criminal had the intent to do so. Going after Molly and the school made it somewhat personal for me, because of how important Molly was to me, but that was my limit. Officer Barnes had every right be even more enraged then I was because he had known the two officers that were killed longer then I had, and Officer Jenkins, the woman he had been dating of late, could have been killed in the blast as well. For him, the personal nature of the attack began with Williams' first move. And while Williams' focus seemed to be toward personal enemies at the school, that move also threatened Megan Jenkins, a young girl who was essentially his step-daughter. It was all personal for him.
"Well," I sighed as we made our way through his house looking for any clues as to why the former principal had flipped and done something so blatantly crazy, "at least we can be certain that he paid for what he did."
"Not much of a consolation if you ask me," Officer Barnes grumbled, "Justice is facing the accusers... and if you have done wrong, having it proved to you and it being shown that you were wrong... and being punished accordingly. All he did was cheat justice, as it were."
I sighed and nodded.
"Not to mention that guys like the School Superintendent will likely use this incident to either come after you and Molly in a legal way, or will raise Williams as some sort of idiotic martyr," Officer Barnes answered "like he died for something higher then himself."
I nodded again, "hopefully he'll lose the election this year... because unless you want to turn this town into a 'police-state' there's nothing we can really do about people's opinions."
Officer Barnes nodded to that. He had always been a decent man to me. Taking over the town was not on his agenda. In fact, from what I had seen of Officer Barnes, his career mindedness would hold him to the police motto, "to protect and serve" so strongly that taking over the town would be the last thing on his mind.
"You check the basement," Officer Barnes then instructed pointing to an open door that lead to a flight of stairs going down, "I'll look around here."
I nodded and made my way down there. I had to crouch down a lot, as Bill Williams' home seemed even smaller the most of the other places I had been in since my transformation. Arriving in the basement, I found what looked like a military armory. The weapons there were all basic hunting weapons. Shotguns, rifles, and even a couple of sets of bows and arrows, but the sheer volume of weaponry, hanging on hooks or in glass cases was astounding. It lead me to believe that if he somehow managed to complete his mission at the school, that he intended to make his last stand here.
Looking at it all, I wondered why he didn't take more of his arsenal on his little rampage... but there was a lot about what he did that wasn't rational. Maybe he figured he didn't need as much ammunition as he took, especially considering that the shotgun, two automatic pistols, and four hunting knives were enough weaponry for a commando to make a small raid on a relatively heavily protected fortress. Williams' only mistake there had been in the amount of ammunition and getting himself distracted at the school between Molly and the students.
On the other wall were a series of newspaper cutouts which caught my attention. Some of them were printed from computer versions of newspapers, mostly various reports on the actions of Sundarbans tigers and their predation on Bengali fishermen, woodcutters, and honey gatherers. A couple were also various stories printed by supposed naturalists and their campaigns against man-eating tigers. Corbett being the best known of them. In addition to these reports, were various local newspaper clippings following Molly's and my life in Columbia Falls.
On the clippings on local news, various lines were highlighted that were either quotes given to the newspapers from me, or reports on how things had been going for Molly and I. Written in pen by each highlighted line were pen markings that read "lies" and then included official references to the articles he had printed out on man-eating tigers in India.
"Did you find anything down there?" Officer Barnes asked.
"I think so," I called back, "you might want to come down and take a look."
"Okay... I'm going to turn a light on," Officer Barnes answered, "my eyes aren't as good as yours."
The lights then came on and I realized that I had been looking at all this based off of light that was coming in through a small window near the basement's ceiling on the southern wall. I knew that my eyesight had improved dramatically in low light levels, but I supposed that was mostly taking it for granted that I wasn't noticing how well I was able to see under such conditions.
"Damn," Officer Barnes commented, "the guy has enough to be a one man regiment!"
"Yeah, but now military grade weapons this time," I told him, "the big issue is the news clippings and so forth on the wall here."
Officer Barnes nodded and came over to get a closer look.
"Who the hell is this Corbett guy, he makes all these references to?" Officer Barnes wondered.
"Jim Corbett was a British adventurer of the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century," I explained, "and he made his reputation by killing man-eating tigers and leopards in India. Toward the end of his life he began to become more of a conservationist, as many hunters seem to do in many cases, wanting to preserve India's wildlife. One of the Project Tiger Reserves in India is named for him. Though his turn to preserving India's wildlife has given him the reputation of a naturalist to many, more modern scientists have pointed out that they only real study he did of tigers and leopards was how to kill them. His turn to preserving them was probably more of a hunter's admiration for his prey rather then true scientific reasons."
"If his efforts end up saving the tiger, I don't think those details matter all that much," Officer Barnes commented.
"It hasn't," I told him, "thanks to habitat destruction, poaching, inbreeding, and even accidents, the tiger in the wild is expected to be extinct in ten to twelve years time. Saving the tiger in Asia will require more drastic measures then have been taken. Especially in places like India, China, and Southeast Asia. Tigers require a lot of space to roam, hunt and find mates. Isolating them in small preserves is a short term solution, and in many places encourages conflict as people take their villages right up to the park boundaries... and in India, as the land outside the parks is deforested, the people then go into the parks themselves to collect grass, lumber, and other raw materials and will eventually deforest the parks as well. It'd be like taking an army of lumbermen into Yellowstone and Glacier and cutting down as many trees as possible while still keeping them as National Parks..."
"That's..."
"That is how it is," I sighed.
Officer Barnes sighed and looked at the news clippings again.
"It seems as though Williams truly believed that you and Molly are like these man-eaters in these old reports from India," Officer Barnes commented, "that you truly wished to hunt people."
"His motive," I nodded, "yeah. We have a motive now."
Officer Barnes nodded and moved forward to begin collecting the newspaper clippings.
"We'll take them and the weaponry in as evidence," Officer Barnes spoke.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Collecting the newspaper clippings and weaponry took about ten to fifteen minutes of going up and down the stairs and to our patrol car. The guns and ammunition was placed in the trunk and the newspaper clippings and printouts were stacked neatly in the passenger seat of of the front seat of the car. Once that was done we finished the few procedural things that needed to be done and then began the drive back to the station.
Things at the station had quieted down a little from the scene we had left when I had heard the gunshots coming from the direction of the school. There was obviously still a large hole in the front desk area, but most of the blown up van had been removed and Officer Jenkins was overseeing the efforts to sort out the paperwork and things that could be saved and what would need to be replaced altogether. She seemed a little nervous, as some of the officers that had gone with Officer Barnes and I to the school had likely told her about what we had found there.
"Megan is fine," Officer Barnes told her, "the shooter ignored her class altogether and went after Mrs. Wayne's. She's gone home with your mother."
Officer Jenkins looked up to see Officer Barnes and I coming.
"She's okay," Officer Barnes repeated his statement.
"Thank goodness," Officer Jenkins sighed, "thank goodness."
"How are things going here?" I wondered, as I looked around the devastated front office.
"We've managed to remove the worst of it," Officer Jenkins sighed, "and the coroners have taken the DARE officer, Johnny, and the day's dispatch officer, Jenny, to prepare them for a proper funeral... closed casket, obviously."
Officer Barnes and I both nodded.
"One of the night shift officers that came in knew something of science and took a look of residue from the van," Officer Jenkins added, "he was pretty sure fertilizer was the "ammunition" for it."
"We know that already," Officer Barnes grumbled, "Bill Williams was behind BOTH attacks..."
"Dear..." Officer Jenkins cursed, though she couldn't get the rest of it out.
"He had far more fertilizer bags in his home then a normal person needed," Officer Barnes sighed, "and we found something that would give us a possible motive for why he did what he did."
"Motive?" Officer Jenkins asked.
"He had newspaper clippings on myself and Molly," I explained, "along with old news reports on man-eating tigers in India... particularly the Sundarbans and those hunted by Jim Corbett. He truly believed that there was no difference between Molly and I and these mundane tigers. So when he snapped, he thought he was protecting the students."
"Man..." Officer Jenkins sighed, "it's just..."
"I know," I nodded.
"No, it's not that," Officer Jenkins spoke, "it's the press. Local paper only, but they've already started to arrive here with questions. Officer Howard is still at our clinic having his ankle looked at, and I'm not high enough on the chain of command to take the press conference they want."
Officer Barnes sighed as I saw that a couple of other officers in the area turned to look at him.
"Where are they now?" Officer Barnes asked with a sigh.
"They're presently in the room we use for press conferences," Officer Jenkins sighed, "being on the other side of Officer Howard's office, it was undamaged. They should be writing what they have and what they want to ask."
"Officer Wayne and I will deal with them," Officer Barnes sighed, "give them a brief rundown on what happened today. Keep things going."
Officer Jenkins nodded as Officer Barnes moved toward that conference room. I slowly followed him. When we entered, we found a couple of reporters scribbling a few things down. We made our way up the podium that had been set up. Officer Barnes stepped behind it, while I moved to stand behind him. The present reporters looked intently to both of us.
"Good afternoon," Officer Barnes began, "I would ask that you hold all questions until I can give you what we have on what happened this morning."
The reporters all nodded.
"What occurred this morning, beginning at approximately eight o-five AM was an act of domestic terrorism intended to remove Columbia Falls' two tiger people from the town," Officer Barnes began, "it was orchestrated by the former Elementary Principal William... Bill... Williams. Firmly believing that Officer George Wayne and his wife Molly Wayne to be no more then mundane animals that prey on man, he took his beliefs into his own hands and using a van filled with fertilizer, bombed our station offices, killing two officers outright, and wounding Officer Howard, and assaulted he elementary school he was the principal of... there he murdered two individuals... one was a school secretary and the other is an unknown at the present time. He also wounded two students and the woman who replaced him as principal."
"Do you believe Al Qaeda was involved?" was the first question that was asked, "does the National Security Agency need to be involved."
"No," Officer Barnes answered, "if any organization or its ideas could be connected to this, it would be R.A.M. as Bill Williams seemed to support the group's racist attitude, and his name was on the notebook of members that had donated money to Beauregard's cause. The issue here was entirely a local one."
"Did he give any statement when confronted?"
"He was already dead when we arrived on the scene," Officer Barnes answered, "his attack was faulty and ended up being shot by his own weapons."
"Do you think that this is some sort of bigger game?" the first reporter asked, "that Beauregard's supporters are organizing underground to threaten the town? And people... regardless of how furry they are... who have done nothing to threaten anyone?"
"That we do not know," Officer Barnes sighed, "I would believe that that is not true, but I also would not have anticipated what happened today would happen..."
"What do you intend to do about it?"
"We will carry on, and show those that may cling to Beauregard's ideals that you can not defeat or destroy the law," Officer Barnes answered, "and that the tactics of bullies will not corrupt those who enforce the law. Officer Wayne and Molly Wayne have done a lot for a town that until recently has largely rejected them... I intend to make sure that these cowards, racists, and bullies do not succeed in their efforts to oppress those who have had to deal with so much."
There was a brief silence for a moment before Officer Barnes finished his statement.
"That is all. Thank you for coming."