by D P Lyle
One of the girls tossed her a towel, and she wiped sweat from her face. “What you got for me?”
“Two bills,” I said. I pulled a fold of money from my pocket and peeled off a pair of hundreds. Didn’t offer them, just held them.
“Wouldn’t walk across the street for that.”
“We’re not here to negotiate,” T-Tommy said. “You got something, we’ll pay for it. If not, we walk. Try to jack me … let’s just say I can shine a light on your little sorority here. Neither of us wants that.”
She said nothing for a beat, two, and then, “What you want to know?”
“Batch of prepaid phones. Stolen a couple of months back. Know anything about them?”
She smiled. Her way of saying she did.
“Any of your girls laid off phones to someone unusual?” I asked. “Not your typical customer profile? White dude, most likely.”
Shaniqua glanced over at a thick girl with a knife scar down one cheek, hair razored on the sides, top dyed a mixture of blond and burgundy. The girl jerked her head toward the garage and moved back inside.
“Hang a second,” Shaniqua said. She followed the girl into the garage. They huddled near the back and talked, glancing our way a couple of times. Then, Shaniqua walked back into the sunshine. “Yeah. White dude. Maybe three weeks ago. Bought two.”
“Only two?”
“It’s what I said.”
I nodded toward the thick girl. “She remember him? What he looked like?”
Shaniqua tilted her head toward the girl, giving her permission to talk.
“Smaller than you,” the girl said. “Maybe five-eleven. Buzz cut. Hard. Looked like a fucking marine.”
Smaller than me? Didn’t fit the blood spatter pattern. Maybe a dead end. “No name, I take it.”
Shaniqua laughed. “Sure. And a Social Security number, a thumbprint, mother’s maiden name, and a letter of recommendation.”
I handed her the pair of Benjamins.
T-Tommy’s cell rang. He answered, listened for a few seconds, snapped it closed, and muttered, “Shit” under his breath. Then he said, “Let’s go.”
CHAPTER 39
WEDNESDAY 1:16 P.M.
THE PARKWAY PLACE MALL SAT AT THE INTERSECTION OF DRAKE Avenue and Memorial Parkway. The main entrance, obscured by a newly constructed parking deck, faced the parkway. I hung a left into the ground level of the deck. Red and blue lights strobed off its low ceiling and the scattering of L-shaped support walls. Two dozen patrol cars, three ambulances, and twenty or so HPD and sheriff’s department officers congregated two hundred feet from the mall’s entrance. Other uniforms herded a hundred or so shoppers toward the far reaches of the deck to keep them from the line of fire.
Near the periphery of the gathering and shielded by a support wall, the Channel 8 News truck sat between two cruisers. Claire stood nearby, talking on her iPhone. As we climbed from the Porsche, she snapped her phone closed and walked toward us.
“Did you beat the police here?” I asked.
She smiled. “Most of them.”
“What’s the story?”
She jerked her head toward the mall. “Some dude’s shooting things up in there. I heard it began about a half hour ago. People coming out say it’s a bloodbath. At least a dozen down. I’ve heard he’s hunkered down with some hostages.”
“One guy?”
“Looks that way.”
“Any contact?”
“HPD’s been trying, but so far nothing. Last I heard, anyway.” I nodded. “I’ll be back.”
T-Tommy and I zigzagged through the haphazard arrangement of police cars until we reached a quasi-police barricade—two HPD squad cars jammed nose-to-nose—only a hundred feet from the mall entrance. Scotty and a half dozen HPD and sheriff’s department uniforms knelt behind the cars.
“I hear it’s a single shooter?” T-Tommy said.
“Looks that way,” Scotty said. “Apparently he’s got a handful of hostages in the bookstore. Just through the entrance there. On the left.”
“Got anybody in there?”
“Not yet. Perimeter’s sealed. Guys at each entrance.”
“Any communication?”
“Tried a bullhorn. Called the bookstore. Nothing.”
I looked over the prowler’s hood. The glass rear entry doors were shattered, pieces scattered over the ground, jagged scraps clinging to the frames. A body lay just inside. No movement. “How many hit?”
“Six confirmed dead. Eight more down that we know of. Two off to the hospital. Neither looked very good. Witnesses say there could be a dozen or so more dead or hit in the second-floor food court.”
The thought crossed my mind that this could be our guy. Taking his final bow in an explosion of violence. The thought also crept in that this could all be my fault. I baited the guy. I wanted to draw him out, and this could be the result. T-Tommy apparently saw the concern in my face.
“What is it?” he asked.
“This could be our boy.”
“Guess it’s possible.”
I looked at Scotty. “Got a description of the shooter?”
“Male in his thirties. After that it varies from witness to witness. Tactical unit’s on the way.”
Two department stores, Belk at the south end and Dillard’s at the north, anchored the top of the T-shaped mall. The foot of the T was the entrance before us.
T-Tommy nodded toward the north end. “I’m going inside. I need to see what the deal is.”
“I’m going with you,” I said.
“No. You’re staying here.”
I shook my head. “Maybe we can get close enough to talk to the guy. If he’s our guy, he knows me. We chatted last night. Old friends now. Maybe he’ll listen to me. Worth a try, don’t you think?” I could see T-Tommy was mulling that over. “Besides, this could all be my fault.”
He looked at me, eyes narrowed. “Stay behind me.”
“You can bet on that.”
We made our way around the north end. At the entrance, we collected four uniformed officers and hurried through Dillard’s. The main hallway stretched away from us. We worked our way toward the T-junction. A middle-aged couple lay near a cell phone kiosk. Both had been shot: the woman in the chest, the man in the head. I checked for pulses. She had one; he didn’t. Nothing I could do. She needed to get to an ER STAT. T-Tommy sent an officer back to get the medics, and instructed another to stay with the woman.
We continued, passing three more bodies. All dead. At the T, we moved to the far wall and hugged it as we approached the bookstore. Two more bodies lay near its entrance; a pool of blood fanned out around them. Above them, the store’s glass door and front window radiated spiderwebs from several bullet holes.
I heard a baby crying and then a man’s voice. “Shut that fucking kid up.”
A woman’s voice. High-pitched, hysterical. “Please. He’s just scared.”
I peeked through the corner of the cracked window. Near the rear, left corner of the store, a man stood before a group of people huddled in front of a display of children’s books. Eight that I could see—plus the baby. Fear pulled their faces tight, and I could see tear streaks on several. The man was maybe five-ten. He wore jeans and a loose, dark green T-shirt. The Glock in his left hand waved back and forth over the terrified group as if searching for its next target. Must have looked like a cannon to them.
This guy was a nut job, but he wasn’t our nut job. Our guy was much bigger and right-handed. The relief that brought—that I wasn’t the trigger for this guy’s demons—was momentary. The carnage I’d already seen; his voice; the tightness with which he gripped his weapon; his erratic, angry pacing back and forth—his entire body language told me he wasn’t someone to be reasoned with. Listening wasn’t what he was about. He was dead and he knew it. He simply wanted to take out as many other people as he could beforehand. He had to be taken down—fast. I whispered as much over my shoulder to T-Tommy.
I could feel T-Tommy’s brea
th on my neck. “Got no shot from here. Hostages are downrange.”
The baby wailed again. The Glock snapped toward the woman. “Shut him up, or I’ll kill you both.”
One of the men said, “Let her go. You have the rest of us.”
The man turned the gun toward him. “You want some of this? You want to stick your nose into my business?”
“Please,” the man said, looking up toward the gun’s muzzle. “Just let her and her baby go.”
The gun boomed three times. The man jerked back, his chest blossoming with blood. He settled against the display case, dislodging several books. They tumbled over him as his head lolled forward. A chorus of screams rose from the others. Several scooted away from the dead man. The baby screamed even louder.
“Shut the fuck up,” the gunman screamed. He ejected the clip from the gun and slammed another one home. He moved to the woman, grabbed her by her arm, and yanked her to her feet. “This is your lucky day. Get your snot-nosed brat out of here.”
The woman clutched the child to her chest, but didn’t move. Probably afraid to do anything.
“Leave right now, or I’ll empty this fucking gun into you.”
She staggered toward the door, glancing back over her shoulder a couple of times as if she expected to be shot at any moment. The glass on the floor crunched beneath her shoes. When she neared the door, she saw me. I immediately raised a finger to my lips. To her credit, she didn’t react but rather clutched her child more tightly to her chest. T-Tommy used his drawn weapon to wave her toward the rear exit door. She hurried in that direction.
T-Tommy settled on his haunches beside me. “What do you think?”
Through the window, I watched the man pace back and forth before the hostages. He rubbed his chin with the gun barrel. His other fist opened and closed at his side. In profile, his face appeared flushed, his features fixed, his eyes wide, his neck veins protruding. His agitation level was definitely high and rising.
I dropped back beneath the window. “His world is flat, and his ship is about to go off the edge. We’ve got to do something to distract him.”
“I could pop a couple of rounds into the ceiling above his head.
Maybe get him to move this way. Get a clean shot.”
I thought about that for a second. “Or he could simply duck behind that bookshelf and unload his weapon on them.” I looked back through the window. Two women whimpered. A man seemed to be praying, his eyes tightly shut and his lips moving silently. “Any other way into the store?”
“Probably a back entrance. Off the service corridor.”
“Have a couple of your guys hold down the door. You and I can try to get inside.”
T-Tommy turned to the two uniforms who crouched behind us. “Got that?” he asked.
They nodded.
T-Tommy and I retreated back up the hallway. Next to the bookstore was a cookie shop and beyond that a metal door stenciled with SERVICE AREA. EMPLOYEES ONLY. It was unlocked. We entered an unpainted, plywood-lined, fluorescent-lit corridor and moved past one gray metal door to the second one, near the end of the hall. T-Tommy pressed the handle down. The latch released with a soft click. “You ready?” he asked.
“Let’s do it.”
I hoped the hinges were well oiled. A squeak or creak right now could flush this whole deal. I held my breath. T-Tommy inched open the door. Smooth and quiet. So far, so good. Across the room, over the rows of bookshelves, the shooter’s head moved back and forth, facing away from us. We slipped through the door, and I eased it closed.
Using the stacks for cover, T-Tommy moved toward the front, while I weaved my way toward the middle of the store. I came to the corpse of a teenage girl. On her back. Three books near her left hand. Two black eyes and a central forehead bullet hole looked up at me. Jesus.
I stepped over her and continued to the end of the row. Now only twenty feet from where the hostages huddled, I heard someone crying softly. The killer’s shoes squeaked against the tile floor as he continued his pacing. The store suddenly felt hot and the air thicker. I felt naked and stupid. Here I was, almost face-to-face with a guy who had absolutely no compunction about shooting me or anyone else full of holes, and my .357 sat under the lamp on my bedside table. I could picture it lying there. Exactly where I’d placed it last night. Wouldn’t do me much good there. I had a carry permit but rarely took it out of the drawer. Last night was the first time in … I couldn’t remember.
Now what to do? I hadn’t thought this through beyond getting close to the killer. Now that I was here, I didn’t see very many options. I figured I could just step out and say, “Hello.” Maybe stand up and shout, “Hands up.” Worked all the time in the movies. Of course, I didn’t have the script, so I didn’t know how this one would end.
“You. Stand up.”
I jumped. My heart did a tap dance before I realized he wasn’t talking to me.
“You. Blue shirt. I’m talking to you. Get the fuck up.”
“Please.” A man’s voice.
“Get up and stand over here.”
I heard the shuffling of feet. Toward where I crouched. Then I saw him. The man was middle-aged and wore tan slacks and a blue shirt. He backed into my field of view, hands in front of him as if to ward off what might come.
“Please,” he said. “I have a wife. And two kids.”
The shooter laughed. “Like I give a shit about you and your fucking kids.”
The gun exploded. The man clutched his chest and staggered backward. Blood oozed through his fingers, and a maroon blossom spread over the front of his shirt. He looked down at his chest, disbelief on his face. His knees folded. He wavered for a second and then collapsed on one side. His eyes locked on mine. He opened his mouth to speak, but before he could make a sound, his body fell limp and his pupils dilated into two black pools.
Then the shooter came into view. He stood looking down at the man. I froze. Sitting duck came to mind. His gaze shifted up, toward me. His eyes widened. The world dropped into slow motion. The gun at his side started a slow rise. I snatched two books from the shelf beside me, knocking several others to the floor in the process. The muzzle continued its rise: my knees, my abdomen, my chest. I hurled the books at him. He recoiled, using his gun hand to deflect them. I stood and began to move toward him. Had to get there before he recovered. Now his hand seemed to move quickly. I wasn’t going to make it. I found myself praying that the first one would miss. My only chance.
The first bullet struck his shoulder, the second his throat, the third his chest as he spun. He staggered sideways. His gun dropped to the floor. He followed.
T-Tommy appeared. He kicked the shooter’s gun across the floor.
CHAPTER 40
WEDNESDAY 6:02 P.M.
BRIAN WAS DOZING ON THE SOFA WHEN THE CALL CAME. “You ready for tonight?” the caller asked.
“Of course.”
“No more showboating. Follow the script.”
“Yes, boss.” This arrogant bastard was pissing him off. “You got anything new for me, or is this a social call?”
“Turn on the news. Channel Eight. You don’t want to miss it.”
“Miss what?”
“Just watch.” He hung up.
I found myself back in makeup, under the roasting lights, sitting between Claire and T-Tommy. Claire had decided to include T-Tommy, so she could talk with both of us about the mall shooting and then move on to the interview we had originally set up.
Claire faced the camera. “To update our top story, the shooting spree of Gregory Thomas Hay, I’ve just received word that another victim has died at Memorial Medical Center. That brings the death toll for the tragic incident to seventeen with twelve others injured, six critically. To understand more about what happened today and why, I have two special guests. HPD Homicide Investigator Tommy Tortelli and author and forensic expert Dub Walker. Welcome.”
“Thanks for having us,” I said. T-Tommy gave a nod.
She directed her fi
rst few questions to T-Tommy. “As was reported at the beginning of this newscast, you went into the mall in the face of so much carnage and took down the shooter. How did you pull it off?”
“Back door,” T-Tommy said. “He was occupied with the hostages, so we were able to sneak in without him knowing.”
“I understand the SWAT team was on the way but that you decided not to wait. Why is that?”
“This guy was very unstable. Shooting people at random. I felt the hostages were in immediate danger. Since minutes counted, we went in.”
“Because you were convinced he would kill more of the hostages?”
“He had shown that he had no problem with killing. In fact, he shot one victim right in front of us. Without provocation.”
Claire turned to me. “Investigator Tortelli is accustomed to being in such situations, but I suspect that you’re not. At least not since you were a Marine MP. When was that? Ten years ago?”
I tried not to smile. Failed. She knew exactly when it was. Our divorce was finalized while I was in the service. I nodded. “That’s right.”
“As I understand it, the killer actually had his gun trained on you when Investigator Tortelli shot him. Scary?”
“Afterward. At the time, there’s too much adrenaline pumping to be scared.” That was a lie. My heart had been jammed into my throat.
“How did you find yourself in the middle of this?”
“I went in with Investigator Tortelli in case we got a chance to talk to the shooter.”
“Talk to him?”
“One of the things we considered was that this guy could be the killer we’ve been looking for. The one who killed Sheriff Savage and the others. If so, I might have been able to talk him down.”
“Was he? Was Gregory Thomas Hay the guy who has been terrorizing the county?”
I shook my head. “Too small. Only five-nine. The guy we’re looking for is over six feet. Hay’s left-handed. The killer’s a righty. And there are other things that rule him out.”
“Such as?”
“That information isn’t being released yet.”