“The shooting is about an individual. The aftermath is about a town.”
“Something like that.” Rainie unfastened her seat belt. “If you don’t mind, Agent, I spent most of yesterday in that building, and now I’d just like to get this over with. Not being an experienced profiler type, there are many things in that school it hurts me to see.”
Quincy followed her into the school. He already had his notepad out and his mind working overtime.
Earlier, in her office, Officer Conner had agreed to walk Quincy through the crime scene for his notes, as well as to refresh her own. He would not say that they were working together, more that Rainie shared his concerns about Danny’s innocence. Thus, she was allowing him to tag along as a quasi-observer, quasi-expert. Of course, she’d told him frankly, the minute he tried to claim the case as his own, she reserved the right to cut him off at the knees. At the time, she’d looked at his kneecaps quite seriously.
Quincy had the feeling that Officer Conner was not known for playing nice with others. Perversely enough, he liked that about her.
Now they walked down the yawning hallway toward the back of the school. Quincy noted the floors dusted with printing powder, the small sections of cutout tiles that must have been spotted with blood and been carted away to the lab.
According to Rainie, the CSU had finished up round one of processing the scene this morning. There would be future visits as the task force sought to finalize a thorough “walk-through” of the events on that day. Then there were the mounds of evidence it would take months to sort through. Quincy estimated that a school of this size would yield hundreds of footprints to sort and thousands of fingerprints to match. The crime-scene log would probably grow to six or seven volumes.
“This is where I found Walt and Emery assisting Bradley Brown,” Rainie said, pointing to a bloody area at the intersection of two main hallways. She looked at him expectantly.
“Was Brown conscious?”
“Yes. I asked him if he’d seen anything, and he said no. He heard the shots, came running up this hall, turned right, and boom.”
Quincy turned right, where the level of violence was clearly depicted by the outline of three bodies on the floor. “Everything happened down there?”
“That’s what we think.”
“In the hallway, not a classroom.”
“That’s correct.”
“How did Danny end up in the hallway?”
“According to his teacher, he never returned to class after lunch. Mr. Watson said he’d wondered what was going on, but Danny was hardly ever late, so he figured there must be a good reason he hadn’t returned yet.”
“What time was that?”
“The school runs three lunch periods. Danny’s is the last, ending at one-twenty. Students have five minutes to get to class, signaled by a bell at one-twenty-five. Danny wasn’t in his classroom at one-twenty-five. At one-thirty-five, dispatch received a call about shots fired.”
“So Danny skips his class. And the girls are in the hallway because?”
“Alice needed to use the rest room. Sally was her buddy—in the third grade, you travel in pairs. Their teacher gave them a hall pass.”
“What about the other fatality, Melissa Avalon. She’s alone in the computer lab?”
“Yes, it’s her lunch break. She keeps the lab open for students to use during cafeteria hours, then closes up shop at the one-twenty bell.”
“And that’s scheduled, correct? At one-twenty, she’s always alone in the lab?”
Rainie nodded, easily following his train of thought. “It’s looking more and more like she was the target, isn’t it? Sally and Alice just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
“That’s my assumption at the moment, but let’s not jump ahead.” Quincy moved to the janitor’s closet, arching one brow at the mess. “I take it Officer Cunningham is one big boy,” he murmured.
Rainie grimaced. “He was doing his best at the time. Things were intense.”
“Becky O’Grady was hiding in the back of the closet?”
“Yes, all the way in the back. Curled up in a ball. She appeared to be suffering from shock, and I couldn’t get her to answer many questions. I understand that Sandy took her to the emergency room, but the doctor said she just needed time.”
“Do you think she saw what happened?”
“I don’t know. Luke talked to her teacher this morning. She claimed Becky was in the classroom right up to the time of the shooting. Mrs. Lund thinks she got separated from her class during the mad dash to exit the building. It was a good thirty or forty minutes before Mrs. Lund even realized Becky was gone.”
“So now we have two questions.” Quincy ticked them off on his fingers. “First, what happened to Danny O’Grady between the end of lunch—one-twenty P.M.—and when you finally confronted him at . . .”
“Two-forty-five-ish.”
“Over an hour unaccounted for.” Quincy frowned.
Rainie smiled thinly. “Not completely unaccounted for. Shep was with him. He claims he arrived at the school a little after one-forty-five. Students had already fled the premises. He went inside to offer help and encountered Danny, dazed and confused and picking up the guns.”
“Picking up the guns? Oh, I like that. As if the boy simply stumbled upon them.”
“You don’t believe Shep either, do you?”
“He’s not the most objective witness,” Quincy observed. “I’ll stick with my analysis for now: we don’t know what Danny did between one-twenty and two-forty-five. The next question we have is what happened to Becky O’Grady from roughly one-thirty-five to your arrival at around one-fifty.” He frowned again. “I don’t like the fact that the two students unaccounted for just happen to be brother and sister. I don’t believe in coincidence.”
“You don’t think Becky’s part of it, do you?” Rainie was startled. “For heaven’s sake, she’s eight!”
“Has someone followed up with her yet?”
“Luke Hayes and Tom Dawson are going to try to interview her this afternoon. I’m not optimistic, though. Shep and Sandy are pretty hostile right now, and we don’t have the right to question her away from her parents. I doubt anything will come of it.”
“You could ask the DA to subpoena her as a witness for the grand jury.”
Rainie shrugged, then surprised him by saying, “I looked into that this morning. According to Rodriguez, there’s still no way of enforcing testimony. Her parents could simply coach her to say she doesn’t remember, and that would be that. My guess is that if we hope to get anywhere with her, we need to play nice. Who knows? Shep and Sandy have to be wondering what really happened yesterday. Maybe sooner or later they’ll be willing to let Becky talk. Perhaps they’ll even let Luke ask her questions this afternoon. I’m just not betting on it.”
“How well do you know them?” Quincy asked.
“Well.”
Quincy nodded and let her move away. He didn’t think she was aware of it, but she had wrapped her arms tightly around her middle, as if she was trying to block out the scene. The stance made her appear younger, more vulnerable. She was looking at the outline of Melissa Avalon’s body. By all accounts, Miss Avalon had also been beautiful, compassionate, and dedicated to her job.
Wordlessly, they moved down the hall to the shattered doors. Quincy stopped at the door across from the computer room.
“Danny came out of this classroom?”
“Yes. He was backing Shep through the door at gunpoint.”
“Holding both the .22 and the .38?”
“Yes.”
“How did he seem?”
“Agitated. Wired.” Rainie’s brow furrowed as she contemplated his question further. “He seemed hostile toward his father.”
“Holding him at gunpoint would appear hostile.”
Rainie shook her head. “There was more to it than that. Shep was telling him that everything would be all right, then he was trying to tell him no
t to speak to me. But everything kept coming out as a command, and that made Danny withdraw even more. I think he has a big chip on his shoulder regarding his father. Shep rides him hard.”
“How so?”
“Shep was a big football star in his high school days. Superjock. Danny . . .” Rainie shrugged. “He’s small for his age, not good at sports. I think Shep believes he just needs to try harder, and I think Danny wishes his father would leave him alone.”
“Have you ever heard Shep call his son stupid?”
Rainie shook her head. “You’re talking about the interview tape, aren’t you? Danny’s obsession with being smart. That’s the oddest thing. See, Shep’s not the kind of father to worry that much about grades. Bad day on the football field, yes. Bad day on the report card, hey, these things happen. I don’t know where that was coming from.”
“Does Danny have any close friends?”
“We’re still working on that.”
“We’ll want a complete list of all students absent yesterday, plus notes on whether they knew Danny O’Grady and can account for their time.”
“Alibis for children,” Rainie muttered, and rolled her eyes. “Why the ones who were absent?”
“Because no one says the shooter had to be in attendance that day. Plus, they still might be involved. In several of the shootings, other students played a role, either encouraging the main suspect’s actions or enjoying the show.”
“What?”
“Bethel, Alaska,” Quincy said. “Evan Ramsey did the shooting, but two fourteen-year-olds encouraged him. One went so far as to teach him how to use the shotgun. Both assembled some of their other friends to join them in the cafeteria for a ‘show.’”
“Wonderful.”
“Luke Woodham also appears to have been influenced by other kids,” Quincy reported. “In this case, I’m wondering if that’s where Danny’s obsession with ‘I’m smart’ is coming from. It sounds rehearsed and overly vehement. Either it’s a phrase he’s using to compensate for genuine doubts about his intelligence, or it’s a cover for something else. Something that’s still too frightening or overwhelming for him to say. How did he seem after the shooting?”
“Distant. Withdrawn. He sobbed a little when he heard his mother’s voice. Then he fell asleep like a baby in the back of the patrol car.”
Quincy nodded, not surprised by her description. “He’s dissociating, keeping himself distanced from the events until he’s able to deal with them. That’s a normal reaction to any kind of trauma. The question becomes, how long will the dissociation last, and how will he react when his mind does start to process what happened.”
“He’s on suicide watch,” Rainie volunteered. “I understand that’s standard procedure for a case like his.”
“It’s not a bad idea. Unfortunately, Danny is probably suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and now will go through its various symptoms. One day he might talk about everything very matter-of-factly, then collapse, weeping, the next day. He might sound cold at times as he repeats the day’s events over and over again. He will probably refuse to call victims by name. All of this can be interpreted one way or another by well-meaning people. And none of it means he’s guilty. It simply means he’s experienced a trauma, whether as a perpetrator or a witness, and his mind is struggling to cope. That fact, however, can get quickly lost.”
Rainie sighed. “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe we’re making this too complicated. On the one hand, some things don’t make sense about the shooting. On the other hand, what shooting makes sense? And who else could’ve done it? All the students present that day were in class when the shots were fired, so they’re accounted for. The only two students with time lapses are Danny and Becky, and neither choice is appealing. Maybe in the end it’s just too hard to believe a child did it, so I focus on the question because it’s easier than the answer.”
“It’s good to focus on questions,” Quincy said. “It’s your job.”
“Well, it’s not a good job today, Agent. Maybe tomorrow it will be, but I’m not particularly enjoying it today.”
She headed for the side doors, obviously disturbed again. Quincy wasn’t surprised when she stopped by the broken windows and gazed out on the rolling green hills and afternoon sun. Recharge, he thought. Sometimes he had to do that himself.
He bent down and inspected the shooting area more closely. He noted the way the bodies had laid and tried to picture in what direction they’d fallen. Then he explored the door frame around Melissa Avalon’s computer lab for telltale holes.
Ten minutes later he was done making notes. Now he had many questions for the medical examiner.
He turned back to Rainie, who was still standing by the broken doors. She was no longer looking outside, however, but staring at the outline of Melissa Avalon’s body. Her gray eyes were impossible to read, her features stilled.
Quincy wondered how few hours of sleep Rainie Conner had gotten last night. And for just one moment, he was tempted to ask her. To step over the line and into her space, because once upon a time he’d been the inexperienced agent with a homicide and he understood how some images stayed in your head long after you turned out the lights.
Some nights he did wake up screaming.
But that was neither here nor there.
He said, “I’m done now.”
Rainie led him from the building.
TEN
Wednesday, May 16, 12:52 P.M.
OUTSIDE, RAINIE AND QUINCY encountered Principal Steven VanderZanden. A slightly built man with an expressive face and twinkling eyes, he now appeared subdued as he surveyed bloodred roses piled against the chain-link fence. The wind ruffled his dark, thinning hair and pressed his gray suit against his frame. He didn’t seem to notice. He walked the fence line, adjusting arrangements so that names showed more clearly, then pushed back two teddy bears to reveal a framed portrait of Melissa Avalon.
Rainie and Quincy walked up to him quietly. Principal VanderZanden and his wife were relatively new to Bakersville, having moved into the area three years earlier when VanderZanden accepted the job at the K–8. Not having kids, Rainie had never met him until last summer, when they’d rubbed shoulders at a town function. VanderZanden had impressed her then with his enthusiasm for his students and his rapport with their parents. No project was too big in his eyes, no student too small for his attention. He had been giggling like a schoolgirl over having secured the federal grant for Bakersville’s first computer lab and could barely wait to surf the Web himself.
He also seemed a little bit flirtatious, but he had a few glasses of wine under his belt when she’d run into him, and, frankly, the whole crowd was pretty loose by then.
“Principal VanderZanden.” Rainie shook his hand. She could tell he was preoccupied. Yesterday evening he’d returned to the school to survey the damage and inquire as to when he might have the building back. With only one month to go before school was out for the summer, no one knew what to do about classes. They could bus the kids to neighboring Cabot, but that town was nearly forty minutes away, and after everything that had happened, parents wanted to keep their kids close to home.
“How are you, sir?” Rainie made the introduction between VanderZanden and Quincy. She still wasn’t sure what she thought of the federal agent’s presence, but so far he was proving less annoying than the state detective. There was something to be said for that.
“Are you an expert?” VanderZanden homed in on Quincy’s credentials. “Can you tell me what happened in my school?”
“I don’t think there’s any such thing as an expert when it comes to these crimes.”
“Maybe we should’ve gone with metal detectors.” VanderZanden turned back toward the building. “After the Springfield shooting, Oregon educators were warned. But even then I thought of it as an issue for the high schools to address. We have kindergarten students here. I didn’t want them starting their educational experience passing through giant security station
s and being patted down by armed guards. What kind of message would that send?”
“Personally, I don’t believe in metal detectors,” Quincy said, but added before the principal could be too encouraged, “They would simply make the students better targets by creating long lines in front of the building.”
“Oh, this is ridiculous!” VanderZanden shook his head and expelled a gust of pure frustration. “I’ve been up all night with calls from frantic parents, wanting to know what to do. The teachers are frightened, the school board overwhelmed. On top of all that, Alice’s parents asked me to give the eulogy at her funeral. Of course I’ll do it, I’m honored. But still . . . You go into education, you fantasize about watching your students grow up, maybe even attending their wedding or admiring their firstborn child. You certainly don’t expect to give the eulogy at their funeral. Did you know that Sally’s and Alice’s parents are going to pay the burial expenses with money from their college funds?”
VanderZanden obviously didn’t expect an answer. He turned away to adjust another bouquet. Quincy and Rainie exchanged looks. They would just let the man talk. Apparently, he had a few things to say.
“The flowers started arriving first thing this morning,” VanderZanden added after a moment. “I’ve seen pictures of the flowers sent to the other schools, so I expected something like this. Still, to see it. Notes and cards from all over the country. Teddy bears and balloons from hundreds of strangers.” He turned to them, sounding angry again. “I received calls from two other principals who’ve been through this and half a dozen child experts who are experienced in this area. It’s like we joined some club. I don’t want to be part of a club! I wish we were alone. I wish we were the only place this had ever happened. Instead, we’re what? The eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth school to go through this? Dammit, we should’ve known better!”