by Lisa Gardner
(The clean halls and untouched front office. The dented lockers farther in, the spent shells on the floor. Don’t overlook the obvious, that’s what they said in class. What was obvious in a school shooting? The dead on the floor?)
P: Protect the scene.
(Rainie winced. The EMTs, the battered closet, the shells Cunningham had kicked across the floor. The parents who’d taken over the parking lot. The state Crime Scene Unit was going to arrive, and her career would be over.)
T: Take notes.
(Rainie stared at her gun. She thought of the spiral notepad in her breast pocket. She wondered how she was supposed to hold that and the gun.)
FORGET TAKING NOTES. She had to focus on step one, arresting the perpetrator if possible. God knew what it meant that she was doing things out of order. At least she was doing them and trying the best she could.
Her mind moved forward. She was searching a particularly large and complex crime scene for a suspect. She had a vague recollection of a lecturer explaining how to work a grid at a large site. Start in, spiral out, slowly expanding the area searched. She couldn’t remember much more beyond the theory and decided she would have to approach this scene as a horizontal strip. She would work left to right. Quiet, calm, prepared.
Rainie put her back to the wall, tucked her chin against her chest to make herself a smaller target, and led with her gun.
Stay calm, stay professional. Do your job.
The first room was the hardest. The top half of the closed door was glass but decorated with so many cutout pictures of bunnies and tulips that she couldn’t see inside. The lights were off as well, as in all the rooms in the school.
Rainie slowly twisted the doorknob with her left hand. From the crouch position, she pushed the door open into the room. Shadows, long and gray, in the back of the room. Sunshine, bright and fierce, in the front. She rolled across the threshold and came up with her Glock held in the two-handed Weaver stance. Right. Left. Front. Back. Nothing.
Rainie finally rose to her feet in the empty room. She turned on the lights and propped the door wide open to keep the premises exposed. And then she prepared for the next room.
Bit by bit she worked her way down the hall. Then she was at the intersection, where bloody gauze still covered the floor and the dents on the bright blue lockers grew worse. She saw more blood splatters. A big dent on a bottom locker, where a body must have careened into it hard. Casings were scattered across the white-tiled floor as if someone had flung a handful down the hall.
She could picture things now. The loud crack of gunshots, followed by the panicked screams of schoolchildren. Little girls and little boys streaming from classrooms as the fire alarm sounded; teachers begging them in shaking voices to remain calm. The chaos of bodies running for the front doors, pushing, shoving, tripping, falling. Blood in the halls.
She took a deep breath, forced her pulse to slow.
Stay professional, Rainie. Do your job.
She checked out the fifth-grade classroom, then the sixth. Next the library, big and sweeping with endless rows of books. Nothing.
Finally she was at the end of the hall, where shattered glass was strewn across the floor from the broken doors, where three bodies lay quiet and still.
Rainie didn’t want to look at the victims, especially not the children. She understood that the sight would hurt her, scar her someplace deep, where even tough guys like her were vulnerable. She knew it would make her think of other times, too, after she had worked years to forget those scenes.
But this was bigger than her. It had needs that had nothing to do with her own. It was about the rights of the victims and the needs of the parents outside, though she knew that from here on out nothing anyone did for three sets of parents would ever be enough.
The first victim, a little girl, lay on her side. Rainie felt for a pulse, though Walt had already warned her and blood stained the entire front of the girl’s shirt. Rainie swallowed hard and moved on, trying not to disturb the scene.
The second victim was also female. Looked approximately eight years old. She had also received multiple bullet wounds to the chest. She was lying just ahead of the first victim. Their arms stretched out toward each other, their fingers nearly touching. Had they been holding hands walking down the hall? Best friends giggling together? Rainie wanted to brush back the little girl’s hair. She wanted to whisper to her that it would be all right.
Her vision blurred, tears burned hot in her eyes. She couldn’t afford that.
Be professional. Move on.
She noted positioning. She noted victimology. She crossed to the third body.
Lying just outside the computer-lab door, this victim, also female, appeared to be a teacher. Three female fatalities—coincidence or plan? She had long dark hair and exotic features. She was also young, her smooth skin making her appear as if she were simply sleeping. Then Rainie noticed the small, neat bullet hole in her forehead.
Small-caliber weapon, Rainie thought. Probably a .22. Christ, the teacher didn’t look a day older than herself. Late twenties maybe. Early thirties. No wedding band, but beautiful enough that you had to think some man would be sitting alone tonight, holding her picture with shaking hands while trying to forget the future that would never be. Christ.
Rainie had to take another deep breath. Only three more doors. All near the epicenter of violence. All dark and waiting. Time to get on with it.
Rainie backed up against the wall and sat in a crouch until her hands stopped shaking.
Only the teacher had a head wound, she thought. A single-entry shot, dead center, delivered with a great deal of precision. The two girls sported a multitude of wounds, high, low, left, right, as if they had walked into a firestorm. But the teacher . . . the teacher was different. Perhaps the intended target? Shooter went for her first, then encountered the two girls walking down the hall?
Or maybe he started with the girls in the hall, and upon hearing the noise the computer-lab teacher opened her door. She would’ve been right in front of the killer. Had he gotten up his courage by then? Decided it wasn’t that different from a video game? Figured why waste bullets if he could do it with a single shot?
Either scenario bothered Rainie. For the little girls to have so many wounds and the adult victim only one. There was something to that. She just didn’t have the time to think about it now.
Suddenly, she heard a noise. The faint screech of a metal chair slowly being pulled across the floor.
Rainie scrambled across the hallway. She threw herself against the wall next to the classroom door just as the metal handle turned and the door eased open.
“Don’t do this,” a man said. “We can still fix everything. I swear to you, son, there’s nothing that happened today that we can’t handle.”
Shep O’Grady came into view, tan uniform stretched tight over his burly frame. His buzz-cut hair glistened with moisture, while his bulldog features were unnaturally pale. From her angle, Rainie could see that he’d managed to unsnap his holster, but he’d never had time to draw his weapon. Now his hands were held in front of him in a gesture of submission. He worked frantically to plead his case.
“I’m sure it’s all a big mistake. A misunderstanding. These things happen. Now we gotta work together, clear things up. You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for you.”
Shep took another step back, his hands still up, his gaze focused ahead. Being forced into retreat? Rainie didn’t know. Then she glanced fifteen feet behind Shep, where the three bodies lay. Shep was being herded into the scene of carnage, she realized. And when he got there . . .
It was amazing how steady her hands felt, how calm her nerves had become. Shooting was something she’d done all her life. Never in the line of duty, but Shep was her boss, her friend. They went way back, had a history together few could appreciate. Everything felt natural after all.
One last thought: commit to the shot, for hesitation was the number one killer of cops.
&n
bsp; Rainie pivoted sharply away from the wall and simultaneously shoved Shep out of the doorway. Her gun went level, her legs braced for recoil, and her fingers found the trigger just as Shep screamed, “No!”
And Rainie found herself face-to-face with thirteen-year-old Danny O’Grady, pale as a sheet and bearing two handguns.
FOUR
Tuesday, May 15, 2:43 P.M.
OREGON STATE HOMICIDE DETECTIVE Abe Sanders had just sat down to a late lunch, a big Italian sub with double pepperoni and double cheese. His wife would yell at him if she saw him, lecture him about jeopardizing his health and turning her into a cholesterol widow. Most of the time he agreed with her, and at the ripe old age of forty-two, he had the trim waistline to prove it. But not today. Today was just one of those days.
Margaret Collins, an attractive blonde who manned the department phones, came walking by his desk and did a double take. “Wow, Abe. Next thing we know, you’ll be drinking beer.”
“They were out of turkey,” Abe muttered, and unconsciously held his Italian sub closer to him, as if he feared someone would take it away.
“The Hathaway case turned sour, didn’t it?” Margaret deduced sagely. She was a true-crime buff and often had better instincts than any of the detectives.
“Damn judge,” Abe said, and took a huge bite of sandwich.
“Inside a drawer isn’t plain sight.”
He chewed busily, too polite to talk with his mouth full. After a choking swallow, he declared, “The drawer was already open.”
“By another homicide cop.”
“Damn cop,” Abe said, and took a bite of cheese.
Margaret laughed. She winked, making him momentarily forget his wife, then sauntered away, leaving him alone with his feast. Abe chewed down another bite, but his heart wasn’t really in it. Brown deli mustard had dripped onto his desk. He shook his head and set down the sandwich in favor of a napkin.
Truth was, he always ordered indulgent food when cases went bad, and he rarely ate any of it. He’d fantasize about just what he’d like to order, salivate while in line, and get the largest size possible. Then he’d take it out, think about the calories, the fat content, the cholesterol level, and set it aside. Decadence just wasn’t in him. He was a type-A control freak to the core, even when confronted with a loaded Italian sub or a plateful of double-chocolate brownies. He’d even been known to put the lid back on a pint of Ben & Jerry’s chocolate-chip cookie-dough ice cream after only one bite.
When Abe Sanders was young, he’d been the Boy Scout with all the merit badges, the student with the good report card, and the track star with the fastest time. He’d read the classics “just for the hell of it.” He’d gotten the girl every guy had wanted. And he’d bought a four-bedroom ranch in an older, “nice” section of Portland with an impeccably manicured lawn.
Then he’d finally shocked his family. He’d become a cop.
His parents joked that their neat-freak son had decided to clean up the whole world. His two brothers, one older, one younger, told him he suffered from an overdeveloped hero complex. His chess buddies gravely informed him that the entire accounting community had wept the day he headed for the academy, that spreadsheets would never be the same.
Abe himself never really talked about why he became a cop. Maybe he simply understood better than most that life was messy, even for type-A control freaks. There was his wife, whom he loved and adored and who finally discovered, after five years of trying, that she could never have children. There was the tidy house they’d chosen as their home in the early eighties, only to have gang-bangers and crack addicts move in down the block. There was Abe himself, anal, precise, obsessive–compulsive, learning that his planned path as a CFO simply couldn’t hold his attention.
He wanted a sense of accomplishment, a sense of change. Hell, maybe he did just want to make the whole world as orderly as his desktop files.
Didn’t matter in the end. Detective Sanders was a damn good cop.
Other detectives rode him hard. They shook their heads at his manicured hands, told jokes about his polished loafers. Tried to drive him nuts by replacing his expensive, personally purchased black stapler with a cheap gray government issue that always jammed. One day they even rotated the tires on his car to see if he’d notice (he did).
Then they worked with him.
Abe Sanders with a case was a man obsessed. Abe Sanders with a case was passion and drive and, for reasons not even he could explain, anger. Pure rage at the injustices of life and the goddamn shit-faced pea-for-brains numbnuts who took away good, honest, hardworking lives.
Maybe other detectives didn’t understand the value of a good stapler, but all cops knew rage. It was the common denominator no one ever spoke about and everyone understood.
Abe carefully rewrapped his sandwich, placing it in the middle of the triangle-shaped paper, folding in the corners, and rolling it tight. He dabbed at the mustard on his desk with a wet napkin. Then he threw everything away.
The Hathaway case had burned him. Not that it was really the judge’s fault. Snickers had written the search warrant too loosely, so the cops had had to improvise. That never worked anymore. Lawyers ran the world, and smart cops had to learn to anticipate the fine print. That was just the way of things.
Abe could count on one hand the number of warrants and arrests he’d had problems with. Being anal was good.
He got up to go wash his hands, and his lieutenant stuck his head out of his office.
“Sanders? Need a word.”
Abe walked in curiously. He sat on the edge of the hard plastic chair in his lieutenant’s office. And a moment later he heard about a small town called Bakersville, two hours southwest of Portland, that didn’t even have its own homicide force. He sat, quiet and stunned, as his lieutenant described what they believed to be the second school shooting in Oregon in just a matter of years. Already reports of casualties. Crime Scene Unit was on its way, county officers on their way, and state officers rushing in. No word on the shooter yet and, oddly enough, no one could locate the sheriff.
“The call has come down from the governor,” his lieutenant said. “This case is high profile and, by all accounts, already out of control. The brass wants a good front man, someone with experience, solid organizational skills, and the ability to coordinate city, state, and—most likely—federal resources.”
“Absolutely.”
His lieutenant looked at his neatly tailored gray suit and strong, trim figure. “Someone who looks good to the media.”
Abe smiled wolfishly. He liked the press. He knew just how much to feed them and then he devoured them alive. It made him happy. “Absolutely!” he said with more enthusiasm.
“You’d have to be on the road. Probably two to three weeks straight at the beginning, then all the return trips.”
“Not a problem.” It wasn’t. Sara hardly noticed his presence these days. He’d finally given in to her pleas and gotten her a ten-week-old puppy. Now she was busy coddling the pup and feeding the pup and chucking it under the chin. One day he was going to come home and find the dog decked out in baby clothes and a bonnet. The damn thing would probably grin and take it, too; so far, the sheltie seemed remarkably even-tempered.
Sometimes Abe found himself petting the creature. The little guy’s downy coat was remarkably soft to the touch. Not that he wanted to get that close to anything that had no bladder control, for chrissakes.
“Then you’re on the case,” his lieutenant said. “Tackle it as if you’d gotten there yesterday. And Sanders . . .”
Abe halted at the door.
“The EMTs reported at least two children dead. It’s gonna be a tough one, for everyone.”
“Is the shooter a kid?”
“No word on the shooter yet.”
“But most of them are kids.”
“We’re assuming that’s the case. Play it tight. And quick. That would be best for everyone.”
Abe understood. When kids were harmed, p
eople went a little nuts. Sometimes, cops did too.
Sanders commandeered a car. He phoned ahead for a hotel room, as he always did, grabbed what little information the department had on the still-evolving scenario, and hit the road.
“One measly sheriff and two semitrained officers,” he muttered as he headed home to pack his bags. “Kids killing kids, and not even a homicide department to manage the mess. Good thing I’m heading out there, ’cause these yokels have got to be shitting their pants.”
RAINIE JERKED HER FINGER off the trigger just before she pulled it back.
“Danny,” she gasped.
The boy stood, shell-shocked. His right arm was extended halfway, pointing the .22 somewhere around Rainie’s kneecaps in a sure grip. He held a .38 in his left hand, down by his side, and for a moment Rainie wasn’t certain where to look.
She kept her weapon trained on him, then Shep took a step toward her.
“Stop!” she yelled to no one, to all of them. Shep was still armed, and though she trusted him as a friend, she couldn’t count on his actions as a father. If he thought Danny was threatened or if Danny felt threatened . . .
Rainie could feel the situation spiraling dangerously out of control. She reined in her panic.
“You,” she said to Shep, keeping her gaze on Danny. “Are you okay?”
“It’s a mistake,” Shep said desperately. “All of this is one big mistake.”
“Fine, but until this mistake is over, keep your hands where I can see them.”
“Rainie—”
“Danny, I want you to listen to me. You must put down your guns. Okay? I want you to move very slowly and place your weapons on the floor.”
Danny didn’t move. His gaze swung wildly from side to side, and Rainie could nearly smell the panic roiling off his skin. He was dressed in black jeans, a black T-shirt, and white running shoes. She couldn’t see any more weapons on him, but it was hard to be sure. He came from a house loaded with firearms, and she knew Shep had taken him hunting from the time he could walk.