by Marcia Clark
His head jerked around. He turned and fired. But at the same moment I dropped down to a crouch. The shot zinged over my head and ricocheted off the wall to my right. I raised my gun and aimed for his torso—the biggest mass, as my father had taught me—and pulled the trigger. Once, twice, three times. The first two shots missed, but the third hit him square in the gut. He staggered backward and looked down at his stomach, where a neat, black hole began to fill with blood.
I straightened up and prepared to shoot again. But in that moment, Cutter suddenly raised his gun and lunged toward me. I dived again, catching a brief glimpse of muzzle fire as gunshots exploded above me. Just before I hit the ground, I felt a searing heat slice through my body. I landed hard on my back and my head slammed onto the concrete floor.
When I opened my eyes, he was standing over me. “Perfect,” he said. I stared into the muzzle of his gun. Dizzy and disoriented, I raised a hand to push the gun away and tried to roll out of range.
Another shot split the air. And then, all was quiet. My head hurt. Badly. I put my hand to my forehead, where Cutter’s gun had been aimed. No blood. How could that be? I managed to raise up just enough to see Evan Cutter lying at my feet. He was on his side, facing me, eyes vacant. Dead. My head began to swim, and bile rose in my throat. I sank back onto the floor and swallowed to keep from throwing up.
“Knight? You okay?” I looked up and saw Bailey running toward me, her gun at her side.
I realized that the last shots I’d heard were Bailey’s. She took my pulse and leaned over me. I smiled up at her worried face.
“I don’t need CPR, Keller,” I croaked through a dry throat. “So don’t be using this as an excuse to pound on me.”
“Shut up.” Bailey opened my coat and lifted the hem of my sweater.
I knew I’d been shot. “Is it…?”
“I don’t think it hit anything major.” She pulled off her scarf and wrapped it tightly around my body.
I remembered the image of Evan Cutter firing down into the crowd. My heart thumped, and I struggled to sit up. “Was anyone…?” I asked.
Bailey put a restraining hand on my shoulder. “I don’t know yet. Now stop talking and lie down or I’ll knock you out, I swear.”
I wanted to argue, but my eyes wouldn’t focus, and the queasy feeling in my stomach told me that if I tried to sit up again, I’d regret it. I heard the sound of sirens wailing in the distance. I closed my eyes and listened as they got louder and louder.
81
The next time I opened my eyes, we were surrounded by police. An officer with sergeant’s stripes gestured toward Evan’s body. “That him?”
Bailey nodded. Only then did I notice the smell of smoke. “The fire—”
“It’s out,” the sergeant said. “Fire country up here. They keep plenty of fire extinguishers on hand. They got it before it could reach the audience. Scorched the back of the stage pretty bad, though.”
Bailey gestured to me. “Paramedics coming? She got hit.”
He nodded. “Should be here in a few seconds.”
One more second, actually. The paramedics arrived carrying two gurneys. I pointed to Evan Cutter’s body. “You only need one. I’ll be okay. Just give me a few minutes.”
The younger paramedic shook his head. My theory—that God made paramedics good-looking so you got to see something beautiful before you died—was once again proven true. He was a dead ringer for Brad Pitt. Blue eyes and all. He knelt down, checked my right side, then swapped out Bailey’s scarf for a big gauze pad and an ACE bandage, which he began to wrap around my torso.
He shook his head. “See, just the fact that you said something that ridiculous shows you’ve got a nasty concussion,” he said. He shined a light into my eyes, checked my pulse, and with the help of another paramedic, lifted me up onto a gurney. He was about to wheel me away when the sergeant who’d spoken to Bailey walked over. “How’re you feeling?”
“I’m okay.” I gestured to the paramedic. “Pay no attention to Brad Pitt.”
The officer smiled and shook his head. “We’ll take your statement at the hospital. After another ‘know-nothing’ like Brad says you’re able. But I want to be the first to say that you and your partner over there are heroes. You saved a lot of lives today.”
I tried to raise myself up again, but Brad Pitt gently pushed me back down. “Did he get anyone?” I asked.
The sergeant looked at me sadly. “I heard five got hit.”
I closed my eyes. “God, no.”
“Yeah,” he said. “But so far it looks like two, maybe three are going to make it.” He leaned down and spoke with intensity. “Listen, it’s bad. But it would’ve been a helluva lot worse if it hadn’t been for you and that detective.”
I guess I should’ve been consoled, but I wasn’t. At least two more had died at the hands of this monster. As Brad Pitt rolled me away, a hot ball of anger burned in my gut. I’d been determined to see Evan Cutter brought to court in chains and made to live out a life of miserable anonymity behind prison walls. But he’d managed to go out in a hail of bullets—in a bloody shootout with a cop and a prosecutor, no less. It may not have been exactly the ending he’d fantasized about, but it was close.
Bailey insisted on accompanying me to the hospital. It turned out she was right: the wound was through-and-through, no vital organs involved. I’d heal cleanly. But I did have a concussion, which meant I’d have to spend the night there. I hate hospitals. Too many sick people. “You can let me go home,” I said. “Bailey will stay with me.” I looked at her. “Won’t you?”
She started to answer, but the doctor—a young Asian man with a ponytail—held up a hand to stop her. “I don’t care if Mother Teresa wants to stay with you. You’re not going anywhere. We need to monitor you for twenty-four hours.”
“Twenty-four hours?” I rolled my eyes.
“They tell me that’s only one day. One day to make sure you don’t die of a brain bleed. Is that so much to ask?” I started to say yes, but he glared at me, then turned to Bailey. “She always like this?”
Bailey shrugged. “Pretty much.”
He muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like “wingnut,” then turned on his heel and walked out.
After the doctor left, I remembered the sight of Principal Campbell as he fell, face-first onto the stage. I asked Bailey if she knew how he was.
“I’ll call around, see what I can find out.”
I must have fallen asleep, because when I opened my eyes, Bailey was across the room, curled up in an armchair, covered with a blanket. Graden was standing at the foot of my bed, whispering to my warden, the Asian doctor.
Graden smiled when he saw I was awake. “How many of me do you see?”
“Just two. But one of you has a ponytail.”
The doctor chuckled. “Not bad for a few hours after a concussion.” He gave me a stern look. “But you’re still not going home.”
I started to fold my arms across my chest, but it hurt, so I let them drop. “You’re a real buzz kill, you know that?”
“Yes.” He patted my foot and walked out.
Graden came over and kissed me on the forehead. “You’ll have to start giving your statement pretty soon.” He nodded toward Bailey. “She’s already given hers a few times.”
I knew we’d both be giving statements for days to come. No matter how obvious it was that shooting Evan Cutter was justified, there would be a full investigation. And that meant endless questioning.
But I had some questions of my own. “Have you been able to find out what kind of bomb he used at the amphitheater?” I asked. I told him about seeing Evan Cutter on the hill with the trash can.
“They’re pretty sure it was a propane bomb.” Graden saw my expression and nodded. “Same as Klebold and Harris.”
Klebold and Harris had put propane tanks with alarm-clock timers in the school cafeteria. The timer had been set to go off when the cafeteria was at its most crowded, but some
thing went wrong. The bombs malfunctioned and never detonated.
“How’d he make it work?” I asked.
“I didn’t get all the details. But from what I heard, it can be done if the valve on the tank is jammed and unable to release pressure—for example, by putting the tank upside down in a trash can. Then, all he had to do was start a fire in the can. The pressure builds and…”
So Cutter had managed to “outdo” Klebold and Harris once again.
Graden’s phone buzzed. He looked at it and frowned, then looked away.
“What?” I asked.
He sighed and took my hand. “I don’t want to give you this news right now, but I don’t want you to get blindsided. There were two more casualties.”
A lead weight dropped into the pit of my stomach. “Who?”
“Officers. They were patrolling the hillside behind the stage. I don’t know if you know them. Craig Silvers and Dwight Rosenberg. Silvers is critical, but Rosenberg didn’t make it.”
Dwight. I couldn’t believe it. Hot tears pricked my eyelids. My voice was thick. “How?”
“We had security patrols set up around the entire amphitheater. But we only had a few on the sides of the hill because it was the least likely point of entry. Dwight came here straight from the Taft High scene and saw we were a little shorthanded there…” Graden paused and took a deep breath. “Silvers wasn’t able to say much, but it seems Evan was dressed like a volunteer. He rolled up with the trash can, and when Silvers asked to see some ID, Cutter shot him. Dwight came running when he heard the shot. Silvers passed out at that point, but based on what we saw, our guess is Evan Cutter got the drop on Dwight.”
I was so miserable I could barely move my lips to speak. I stared out the window. “And so that despicable piece of shit gets his damn blaze of glory, doesn’t he? They’ll write about how he got the jump on the police and managed to set off a bomb and got killed in a shootout with a prosecutor and a cop.”
“They were going to write about him no matter how it ended, Rachel. He bought himself a place in history with the very first shots he fired at Fairmont High.”
Fame is amoral. It was such a bitter, bitter pill to swallow. “And right now, there’s another monster out there, salivating over his chance to show the world how he can do it better.”
“There probably always will be. We can take them out when we find them, but we can’t stop them from being born.”
Epilogue
Graden worked through the night, but Toni and Bailey stayed in my hospital room with me. The next day, before I was released, Graden came by to tell us the rest of the story. A car had been found parked at the side of the hill near the amphitheater. It had been stolen early on the morning of the memorial from a location near Taft High. Clothing, food, three handguns, and a notebook that had the plans for all the shootings, plus a detailed diagram of the San Juan amphitheater, were found in it. The writings in that notebook revealed that Evan and Logan had planned to do the Cinemark shooting together, but that Logan had lost his stomach for the killings after Fairmont. He’d committed suicide. Evan had waxed eloquent in his disgust for Logan’s “pathetically inferior weakness,” saying that he didn’t need that “fucked-up loser.” He would win this “competition” on his own.
We figured Evan had been living in his car all along, and we were right. He stole another car on the morning of the memorial and used Charlie’s car as the decoy at Taft. And there had indeed been a body in that car. A canvass of the neighborhood near the school turned up a good lead as to whose it was. The cashier at a Seven-Eleven on Ventura Boulevard saw a white male matching Evan’s description talking to a Hispanic man who regularly hung out at the store, looking for work. The Hispanic man was last seen getting into a car with that white male. The car matched the description of Charlie’s beige Chevrolet. The charred remains in the car hadn’t left much to work with. They were still trying to get a positive ID.
Bailey and I were both taking time off. We hadn’t slept much in the past two weeks, and that plus the endless rounds of interrogations had left us thoroughly depleted. My gunshot wound was healing, but it was no picnic.
We probably could’ve slept for the next two weeks straight if we’d had the chance. But we didn’t. From the moment we left the hospital, Bailey and I had been besieged by requests for interviews and appearances by every news program in the country.
Neither of us had much love for the spotlight, and after so many had died, we didn’t feel like there was anything to celebrate. We kept our appearances to the bare minimum. The City of Los Angeles had voted to award us a sort of medal of valor—or, as the mayor put it, a “warm, heartfelt thanks for your courage and bravery.” It was a big honor. Beyond that, it had the unexpected charm of annoying the hell out of Vanderhorn. That camera-loving, face-time sucking publicity whore, who would’ve had a hard time choosing between seeing me and suffering a bout of food poisoning, was forced to stand on the stage and clap for us. His smile was so strained he looked constipated. I asked one of the friendlier reporters to see if he could get me some still photos that’d be suitable for framing.
The following week, with police interviews and most media appearances done, we finally had the chance to wind down. Bailey was going to spend the time with Drew, which meant she’d be hanging around the Biltmore a lot. That worked for me.
But Graden was swamped. The fact that both suspects were dead didn’t end the investigation. How they’d acquired their weapons, where they’d stored them, and, most important, how to prevent this atrocity from happening again, were among the many questions that still needed answering.
Toni, on the other hand, had finished her trial and was available to play. We spent our first day off getting mani-pedis and taking in a movie at the iPic in Pasadena. It’s a theater that features recliner lounges for seats and serves food and liquor. We ordered martinis and watched a goofy rom-com starring a hottie whose name I forgot five minutes after it ended. It was decadent fun.
I spent the next day going through my closet. Toni had proposed a shopping trip, and I wanted to see what I needed. Midway through the afternoon, I decided I couldn’t try on another skirt. I’d just decided to call to see if Graden was up for lunch, when my hotel phone rang.
“Hey, Rache,” Graden said. “Want some company?”
“I was just about to call you. It’s about lunchtime. Want me to order something here? Or you want to go out?”
“Let’s eat at your place. Order whatever you think sounds good.”
I ordered a cheeseburger and fries for Graden—actually, the fries were for me—and a Caesar salad with salmon for myself. Then I put on some makeup, fluffed my hair, and spritzed on some cologne. If I played my cards right, I might get lucky.
But Graden’s expression when he walked in the door told me “lucky” was not on the menu. He gave me a warm kiss and a hug, but his expression was serious. “How are you feeling?”
“I’m good,” I said. “Really good.”
Room service had already delivered our lunch. We sat down to eat. I asked him about the investigation, but Graden gave me short, terse answers. When we’d finished lunch, he put down his napkin and leaned forward.
“I have news. It’s about the bug in your office. Are you ready?” I sat up. My heart began to pound. “No, but okay.”
Graden gave a tight little smile. “First, we figured out who put the bug in your office. It was a woman on the cleaning crew.”
I sat back and thought about that for a moment. “Someone hired her, didn’t they?” Graden nodded. I started to speak, but my throat constricted. I did—and didn’t—want to hear the answer to my next question. “Who?” Somehow, I knew an instant before he said the name. “Who was it?” I asked again.
“Lilah Bayer.”
A knot twisted in my stomach. “How?” As far as we knew, Lilah wasn’t even in the country.
“The cleaning woman has family in Croatia. She met Lilah there last spring. The woman wante
d to bring her children to the States. Lilah promised her money and visas.”
I nodded slowly. “And she didn’t know why Lilah wanted my office bugged.”
“Or care,” Graden said. “But we know why. Lilah wanted to keep tabs on us, on you. To find out whether we were closing in on her. And whether Chase Erling has recovered and started talking.”
“Croatia? We’ll never get our hands on her.”
Graden smiled. “Actually, we have a source who says she’s in the States now. I don’t want to say any more at the moment. But I can promise you this: we will get her. And soon.”
I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Graden came around the table, pulled me to my feet, and put his arms around me. “It’s over, Rachel. You’re safe.”
That night, Graden and I celebrated the good news in a quiet but spectacular way in my suite. The next day, I went shopping with Toni—a less quiet but only slightly less spectacular celebration.
I was a little apprehensive about the expense, but Toni scoffed. “You’ve been through a lot, right?”
“Yeah.”
“Therapy’s a good idea then, isn’t it?”
“So they say.”
“Retail’s the best kind I know.”
We drove to the Premium Outlets at Camarillo—I’d spotted it during our travels on the case—and spent the day finding lots of things we didn’t need and a few things we did. We’d made plans for all of us to have dinner later at the Pacific Dining Car.
After an insanely fun day of spending—shoes, jeans, tops, and no suits—Toni and I returned to my room and changed for dinner. When we went down to the bar, we found J.D. there, talking to Bailey, and Drew. J.D. stood up and gave me a hug. “You’ve sure been through the wringer. How are you feeling?”
“Like I haven’t seen you in forever,” I said.
J.D. shrugged. “It’s been about three weeks…”
“Seriously? It feels like three years.” I shook my head.
“You know how time flies when you’re having fun?” Bailey said. “It goes slower than shit when you’re not.”