The Competition

by Marcia Clark

  “Yeah, it’s a pisser. We’ll try him again after we get checked in.”

  But when we got to the airport there was no time to spare. Luckily, the security line moved fast. Even so, we had to run all the way to the gate and only just made it before they closed the door to the Jetway.

  “What’ve you got on Amanda so far?” I asked, as we fastened our seat belts. Bailey had asked one of the unis to dig into her records.

  “Nothing that stands out. Average student, never in trouble. Driver’s license shows no outstanding tickets. No juvenile history.”

  Bailey pulled out a print of a photograph and passed it to me. A serious-looking young girl with long, straight brown hair parted down the middle stared back at me. She had the kind of features that could be prettied up with makeup and a little confidence, but even in this photo I could see the insecurity in her eyes. “Anybody in her family into guns?”

  “Dad owns a hunting rifle and a handgun, but he doesn’t have a carry’”

  Colorado was big hunting country, so that wasn’t unusual, but it did mean she had some connection to guns. “You find any gun shows near Boulder?”

  Bailey gave me a little smile. “Funny you should mention it. I found a pretty big one in Colorado Springs.”

  “When was it?”

  “April.”

  Six months before the shooting. “The timing works,” I said.

  “And it’s only an hour and a half away from Boulder.”

  The edges of the puzzle were starting to fall into place. I sighed. Now if we could just find the center piece.

  70

  By the time we landed in Boulder, it was almost nine thirty. Too late to drop in on Amanda. Bailey rented a car and we drove straight to our hotel, the St. Julien, a fairly nice place with a spa we’d never get to use. Bailey called Harrellson again. And got his voice mail. “Shit,” Bailey said. She threw her cell phone on the bed.

  “On the bright side, this must mean Unger’s still in the running,” I said. If he’d been ruled out, Harrellson would’ve let us know by now.

  “Yeah, I guess.”

  The restaurant was closed, so we showered and ordered room service. I got the chef’s salad, Bailey ordered a hamburger, and we both decided we deserved a bottle of Pinot Noir. When our dinner came, I poured us each a glass and we toasted. “To a cooperative Amanda,” I said.

  “And to finding a healthy and breathing Evan.” We clinked glasses.

  “I’ve been trying to figure out why she’d do it,” Bailey said. She shook out some ketchup on her fries. They smelled so good—too good to resist. “Wouldn’t you be suspicious if someone told you to mail some letters? I sure as hell would be. And I’d tell him to go mail them himself.”

  “You’re assuming she doesn’t know what she’s mailing—”

  Bailey picked up her hamburger, and I snuck a couple of fries off her plate.

  “Well…yeah.”

  “If you’re right, then either she’s kind of dim or this guy has something on her—”

  “Or he knows how to charm her,” Bailey said.

  As she took another bite of her hamburger, I snaked my hand up to cadge another couple of fries. Bailey sighed, took a fistful of them, dropped them on my bread plate, and passed me the ketchup.

  “If she’s shy, insecure, and not particularly streetwise, and he’s kind of a hottie, I can see it,” I said. “No one’s ever paid much attention to her, and then suddenly there’s this charming guy who’s telling her how great she is—”

  Bailey sipped her wine. “It fits with what our shrinkers have been saying about psychopaths. How they can be charismatic and really good at manipulating people. ”

  It did. But if Bailey’s hunch was wrong, if Amanda knew what she was doing in sending those letters—assuming she was the letter sender—our chances of getting her to cooperate with us weren’t good. In fact, I could envision her being like the Manson girls: martyrs to the cause of protecting their “hero.”

  “We should figure out what we can threaten her with, just in case she hitches up on us,” I said. “Maybe some federal charges for helping to send those letters across state lines or something.”

  Bailey ate the last of her fries. “Let’s not go there yet. We have at least a fifty-fifty chance she’ll be cooperative.” She stood up and yawned. “I’m beat, and I’m warning you we’re getting an early start. I want to get to this girl’s house before she leaves for school.”

  I was dead tired myself and it was already close to midnight. “But that means we’ll have to be at her house before seven thirty.” Bailey stared at me. “Fine.”

  But as it turned out, I was so keyed up my eyes flew open at six a.m. Neither one of us wanted to bother with breakfast. We made coffee in the little two-cup machine in the room and drank it while we got ready. I piled on my thermal underwear, sweater, down vest, and coat, slipped on my gloves, and wrapped my wool scarf around my neck.

  Bailey’s lips twitched when she saw my getup. “We’re not doing the interview on an ice floe.” She was wearing a crew neck sweater and a parka. No vest, no scarf, no gloves.

  “Okay, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll peel off a few layers if you fire up the car heater.”

  “Want to borrow my parka?”

  “Yeah. That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”

  The city of Boulder isn’t big—just under thirty square miles—and the population is just over one hundred thousand. Surprising, because it’s a beautiful place. It lies in the valley with the Rocky Mountains on one side and the Flatirons on the other. Nothing but spectacular views wherever you look. And we happened to hit a particularly gorgeous day, the sky a kind of deep, limitless blue you’ll never find in a big city. The air had that crisp, green mountain smell. “Where’s the snow?”

  “They don’t usually get any until later in the year.”

  How Bailey knows stuff like this is beyond me. It only took us ten minutes to get to Amanda’s neighborhood. It was pleasant and typically suburban—lots of basketball hoops in driveways and cars with bumper stickers for the kind of hip radio channels and liberal causes that showed they belonged to teenagers. But unlike suburbia in Los Angeles, the houses weren’t crammed on top of one another. Here, there were only a few houses on each side of the street, and evergreen and pine trees filled the space between them. The houses were all ranch style, and Amanda’s had a long front walk lined with yellow flowers. A beat-up skateboard on the front lawn told me Amanda probably had a younger sibling. My heart began to thud as Bailey parked in front of the house. A lot could be gained—or lost—in this meeting.

  Bailey pulled her coat closed to hide the gun in her shoulder holster. I left mine in my purse. As she joined me on the sidewalk, she said, “Here goes nothin’.”

  “Yep.” I put on a confident smile. So did Bailey. Neither of us was fooled, but we weren’t the audience that mattered.

  I followed Bailey up the front walk, feeling my palms sweating inside my gloves. We’d just reached the front porch when the door opened and a little boy, who looked no older than eight or nine, came hurtling out, the hood of his parka pulled up over his head with the rest of the coat flying behind him like a cape. “Bye, Mom!” he yelled, then “Oops!” as he ran smack into Bailey, and bounced back.

  “Hey, big man, where’s the fire?” Bailey laughed. Moments like these reminded me that she came from a big, healthy, loving family. I’d had the opposite. It made me wonder what that was like. The pang of loss for something I never had—and never would have—hit me every single time.

  A tall, slender woman in a business suit with brown hair twisted in a low bun appeared in the doorway. “Zip up, Petey, it’s cold!” The boy reluctantly put his arms into his coat and zipped up, then continued on his way. The woman looked at us. “Can I help you?”

  Bailey pulled out her badge and cupped it in her palm so only the woman could see it. “Janice Kozak?”

  The woman looked perplexed. “Yes.”

  �
��We’re looking for Amanda.”

  “Why? What’s happened?”

  “It might be better if we discussed this inside,” Bailey said. “If you don’t mind.”

  “Yes, of course.” She stepped back and held the door open. “Come in.”

  We followed her past the kitchen and into a cozy living room. Bailey and I sat on the plaid chenille sofa, and Janice sat on a matching wing chair across from us. I introduced myself and showed her my badge. “I know this is inconvenient. Please understand, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t urgent.” I told her we were investigating the shootings at Fairmont High and the Cinemark Theater. When she heard that, her eyes widened. And then I told her we had reason to believe Amanda might know someone connected to them.

  She put a hand to her throat. “‘Connected’? To one of the shooters? That’s impossible! Amanda doesn’t know anyone who—”

  “Mom?”

  And there she stood, at the end of the hallway that led into the living room. Amanda—in jeans, boots, and a blue hoodie, looking very much like her photograph.

  Janice beckoned to her daughter. “These are police officers from Los Angeles, honey. They think you might know someone connected to the shootings in Los Angeles.” Janice kept her eyes on Amanda, and I had the feeling she was waiting for her daughter to insist that was impossible. Amanda stood frozen and looked from her mother to us with wide eyes, but said nothing. Janice studied her daughter for moment, then said, “Is that true, honey?”

  “N-no, no, it can’t be.”

  Janice turned back to us. “Is she in trouble?”

  “Not necessarily,” I said. “But we can’t be sure until we talk to her.” I didn’t want to mislead anyone. Amanda might be in a lot of trouble. We just didn’t know at this point.

  Janice’s hand shook as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then m-maybe I should call a lawyer.”

  I couldn’t let this happen. We needed the information a lot more than we needed to arrest Amanda. And we didn’t have time to haggle with lawyers. “Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. Nothing she says to us right now will be used against her. And if we get to a point where we can’t honor that promise anymore, we’ll stop talking and let you call a lawyer. Okay?”

  Amanda finally found her voice. “Somebody tell me what’s going on!”

  “We’re investigating the shootings at Fairmont High and the Cinemark theater, as your mother said. Bailey Keller is the detective on the case, and I’m the prosecutor. My name is Rachel Knight.”

  Amanda’s mouth dropped open. She took a step back. “You’re Rachel Knight?”

  I nodded.

  I pulled out my badge in its case and held it out to her. She moved toward me as though she were sleepwalking and slowly took the badge from my hand. When she looked from the badge to the photo ID on the opposite side, she sank down on the ottoman near Janice. Her expression told me we’d found our letter mailer.

  “Who was it, Amanda?” I asked. “Who gave you the letters to mail?”

  Amanda’s lips moved, but no sounds came out at first. Then, finally, she managed a low whisper. “Evan. Evan Cutter.”

  71

  I felt all the blood leave my face as her words washed over me. It couldn’t be. A buzzing filled my brain as I fought to make sense of what I’d just heard. Evan Cutter, the second shooter. The frightened runaway, the reluctant witness was…the suspect? A thousand questions sprang to mind. “What did he tell you about me and why he wanted you to mail those letters?”

  “He-he s-said Rachel Knight was a school counselor who was coordinating the grief therapy sessions. He said the letters were condolences. He felt bad for the kids because he used to go to Fairmont High.”

  “So he told you he wasn’t going to Fairmont High anymore?” Amanda nodded. “Did he say where he was going?”

  “He said he was getting a GED.”

  “And you never wondered why he didn’t mail the letters himself?” She shook her head again. “Amanda, I have to tell you, the letters he gave you were not condolence letters.”

  “Th-they weren’t?”

  “No.” She dropped her gaze to the floor and fell silent. I waited for her to absorb the news.

  Finally, she looked at me. “What were they?”

  “Threats. Written by one of the killers.”

  She jumped to her feet. “What? No way! That’s impossible!”

  “I’m sorry, Amanda.” I pulled the copy I’d made of the letters from my purse and held them out to her.

  Her breath was coming fast and shallow. She stared at the pages in my hand as though they were poisonous snakes. “That’s impossible! I know it is because…because didn’t the same guys do the theater shooting?”

  “Yes. So?”

  “So, there’s no way! He couldn’t have done the shooting at that theater.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he was gone! He ran away; it was on the news!” Tears sprang to her eyes.

  I didn’t bother to argue. “Then you haven’t heard from him since he gave you the last letter?”

  “No.”

  “Please read these letters, Amanda. It’s important that you know the truth.”

  Amanda took the letters and sat down on the ottoman. Her mother leaned in and read with her. I watched as the horror spread across their faces.

  Everything we’d believed about Evan was a lie. The distraught, conflicted friend, the frightened witness—all of it was an act.

  Harrellson had said Evan was present in homeroom the day of the shooting. But now that I thought about it, he could easily have slipped away when the class headed for the gym. The gym. Didn’t Harrellson say he thought he’d seen a witness statement putting Evan in the gym at the time of the shooting? But I couldn’t remember him ever saying he’d confirmed it. I’d bet there was no such statement.

  Then I remembered how Evan had talked about Otis during our first interview. What he said, they way he’d said it. Just enough spin to build suspicion, but not so much that it seemed pointed or vindictive. And Evan and Otis were close enough in size. Otis, the loner loser—and the perfect patsy. I thought about the timing of the second letter. If Evan got the second letter to Amanda on Thursday, it could easily have gotten to me the day of the Cinemark shooting. The timing worked.

  As for the logic…that did too. There was no doubt that the same shooter who’d done the Fairmont High attack had done the Cinemark shooting. And we now suspected there was only one shooter at the Cinemark. Evan was never “on the run.” He was just gearing up for his next massacre.

  In fact, now that I thought about it, all his tweets about “police harassment” were nothing more than window dressing, meant to set us up to believe he was scared so we wouldn’t get suspicious when he took off.

  “Oh, God!” Amanda dropped the letters, covered her mouth, and ran out of the room. From down the hall, we heard the sounds of violent retching. Janice picked up the pages and stared at them, pale and speechless.

  A few minutes later, Amanda stumbled back into the room clutching a wad of Kleenex, her face clammy. She squeezed into the wing chair with her mother and put her head on Janice’s shoulder. Janice wrapped her arms around Amanda and stroked her hair.

  Did it occur to me that this might be an act? Of course. After Evan’s successful feint I was ready to second-guess gravity. But this time I was prepared. “Amanda, I showed you those letters because I need you to understand how important it is that you be completely honest with us. We have every reason to believe he’s going to commit another mass murder. We don’t know where or when, but we know it’s coming. And soon. Whatever information you have, anything you know about him, it’s critical that you share it with us.”

  “But I don’t have any information! I don’t know what he’s going to do. He never told me anything!”

  He probably didn’t tell her what he intended to do. That much I believed. But she had to know something. She’d mailed those letters and apparentl
y never thought to question it. Why? I knew there was more to that than just blind trust.

  I wanted to think about it before I pushed the issue any further. For the moment, I turned to Janice. “Did you meet Evan?”

  “No, but Hank did.”

  “Your husband?” Janice nodded. “How did that come about?”

  Amanda looked up and darted a glance at her mother out of the corner of her eye. “My dad took us to a gun show,” Amanda said. “He hunts. I don’t. But I like to go to the range and do target practice.”

  I smiled at Amanda. “Me too. When was it that you all went to the gun show?”

  Amanda fidgeted with a spot on her jeans. “I don’t know. A while ago.”

  She seemed uncomfortable. I had a feeling it had to do with her mother being there. “Janice, do you think I can impose on you for a glass of water? All this clean air is starting to get to me.”

  Janice patted Amanda’s arm, and stood up. “Of course. Detective Keller, can I get you something as well?”

  “Do you have tea?” Bailey asked. Janice nodded and stood up. Bailey joined her. “Let me help you.”

  Bailey hated tea. But that was her signal that she was buying me time alone with Amanda. When Janice and Bailey left the room, I leaned toward Amanda, who’d reseated herself on the ottoman, and kept my voice low. “You’re not in any trouble, Amanda. I’m going to tell your mom that you won’t need a lawyer. But I think it’d be better if we talked privately. What do you say?”

  Amanda nodded and swallowed hard. “Only, can you promise not to tell anyone what I tell you?”

  “I can promise to try. Okay?”

  She sighed and looked away. Her hair fell forward, cloaking her face like a blanket. Eventually, she nodded. Bailey came in carrying a cup of tea and raised her eyebrows at me in a silent question. I nodded. Janice followed, carrying two bottles of water. I took one of the bottles and thanked her.

  “Amanda is not going to need a lawyer. She’s not in any trouble and she’s not going to be.”

  Bailey took over. “But we will need to talk to her for quite a while. So if you wouldn’t mind calling the school…”