(2 of 9)
Robert looked out into the rain pounding the driveway and saw his father suddenly look to his right. Almost simultaneously, Phyllis and the friends and family in the house jumped. She thought the series of pops was firecrackers. Then she recognized the sound as gunfire and immediately did what Derwin had taught her. She ordered everyone to get down on the floor and crawl away, because the den has wood siding. She figured they would be safer behind brick walls. She also figured it was the house next door that was under attack.
Young Robert had turned around only a heartbeat before the shooting began. It looked as if his father had lurched forward, but he was not sure. He ran to his parents' bedroom, tearing open drawers. "Where's Daddy's gun? Where's Daddy's gun?" he yelled. The 9-mm handgun was missing. Robert opened the closet where Phyllis and Derwin kept shotguns and rifles inherited from her father and his grandfather, who had been hunters. Robert found the rifles but no ammunition. "Why are you even looking for guns?" his mother asked him, still thinking the shooting was next door. "This is not going to be the shoot-out at the OK Corral. This is not the wild, wild West."
When the shooting subsided, Phyllis called 911 and peeked out a window. Between the two cars, she could see an object. It didn't look like a person. "What is that?" she asked the others. A friend said it looked like shopping bags. That's when it began to register: if Derwin had dropped the bags from their afternoon shopping trip, he might be pinned between the cars, crouching down. Or, she thought, maybe he had made it around the cars and was trapped against the house. She opened the door. "Derwin, Derwin!" she shouted into the darkness. "Come on in." When she heard no response, Phyllis stepped outside and looked down to her left. Her husband's body lay by the door. Blood oozed from both sides of his mouth. "Hold on!" she cried. Looking into his eyes, she knew he was already dead.
The killer had not been alone. Somebody was spotting for the gunman, and possibly somebody else was driving a getaway car parked a street away. They had been waiting as the cold December rain fell hard and mist dimmed a streetlamp and the Christmas lights draping the eaves of the Browns' home. The shooter had pumped six 9-mm bullets into Brown's slumping body, then had walked around the cars in the driveway, aiming his semiautomatic, Uzi-like pistol closer and firing again from the other side. Eleven of the 17 shots fired hit Brown. It took all of 10 seconds. The assailant was determined to kill. But why?