That was where he saw two men arguing behind a delivery truck.
At first, he thought it was nothing.
Then one man shoved the other hard against the side of the truck.
Jesse recognized one of them.
His name was Martin Vale, a local businessman who owned several used-car lots in our county and donated heavily to school events. He had shaken Jesse’s hand two months earlier at a scholarship dinner.
The other man was a county detective named Colin Briggs.
Jesse knew him too, not personally, but by sight. Detective Briggs had come to our school once to speak about drunk driving.
Jesse froze.
Then the argument turned violent.
He heard a sound he first mistook for a car backfiring.
The man who had been arguing with them fell.
