by John McMahon
The conference room went quiet then, and Senza stood up. Exhaled loudly.
“Well, not that everyone isn’t hustling,” he said. “But all this hasn’t told us a goddamn thing about why. Why was Harrington at the school? He had to have some reason to do this. The state’s gonna take this over in forty-eight hours. The Feds will be involved too. It’d be great if we didn’t look like a bunch of local yokels.”
Senza looked to me and Abe. “Did you tear his place apart?”
“To the studs,” I said. “Not a scrap of anything to indicate he was headed to this school. Or knew anyone at it.”
“Is he on social media?”
“Nope,” Abe said. “I heard from those two detectives from robbery an hour ago. I sent ’em out to Harrington’s place to go through it again. The guy had fifty banker’s boxes full of notes and articles he wrote. I’d like to spend some time digging through his writing.”
“Good.” Senza pointed. “He’s a journalist. Out of work. Let’s find out if he’s got a manifesto sitting around.”
Senza tapped at the table. “Someone knows this lunatic, guys,” he said. “Someone’s his buddy. His boyfriend. His girlfriend. Find them. Find out what beef he had with the school or with this science teacher.”
The chief swiveled his gaze. “He’s part of the friggin’ media, Merle. They love taking down one of their own—almost as much as they love taking down cops. Did you reach out to any places he’d worked?”
“Initial calls,” Merle said. “He wrote for the AJC years ago. I’m supposed to hear back from them this morning.”
There was a lot we hadn’t gotten to yet, with just the four of us on the case since three p.m. yesterday.
“Find me something I can tell the mayor,” Senza said. “You and you.” He pointed at me and Remy. “Pair together again. Same with you and Merle,” he said to Abe. “Partners have shorthand. Instinct. I need something and fast. Go.”
We all hurried out. We knew a lot, sure, but the chief was right.
When it came to what quelled the public’s anxieties and fears, to what answered the question of “why the hell did he do it” . . . we didn’t know a damn thing.
6
Wednesday, September 11, 2:50 p.m.
The man paced the art room.
In his left hand was a .38, so his right hand was free to smack at the right side of his head.
“Stupid, stupid, stupid,” he said.
About eight feet away, in the northeast corner of the room, three girls in plaid uniform skirts and white blouses sobbed violently.
“Why did I come here?” he muttered, shaking his head. “If it’s gone, it’s gone.”
“Why don’t you put down the gun,” the teacher said, her voice low and calm.
The man stopped pacing. “Don’t you tell me what to do.”
He put his free hand on her arm, and she froze. Looked down. He removed it.
The gunman’s head whipped around then, glancing out the window. “Did you see that?”
The female teacher squinted. Took a step toward the window.
“Something moved,” he said. “Out by the tree line.”
“Nothing moved,” she promised.
But he grabbed the teacher, pulling her body in front of his. As he held her, the forest was still.
“Get off of me.” She broke free of the man.
The girls started sobbing again, and their cries echoed through the room.
“Shut! Up!” the gunman screamed at the girls.
The teacher turned. Took a step toward her three most promising art students.
“Let’s stay nice and quiet,” she said to them, her voice suddenly soft and smooth. “We’ll get through this, but we need to be calm, okay?”
The girls stopped whimpering. One even managed a nod at Miss Borland.
Then the man turned to face them, his gun in hand.
That’s when they heard a cracking noise.
A single pop, like thunder.
7
Abe and I met in my office after Chief Senza left. We carved out what he and Merle would focus on and what Remy and I would pursue. We set a time in the afternoon for the four of us to regroup.
Then Remy marched in with her laptop and two coffees, and it felt like old times. The band before the breakup.
“All right,” I said. “We got the weapon, the car, and the dead teacher’s wife. That’s our morning.”
I made some calls to Mandelle Clearson at Atlanta PD, and Remy walked over to meet with Carlos Esqueveda, who ran the mod bay where Harrington’s Dodge Magnum had been towed.
Thirty minutes later I’d confirmed that Jed Harrington had bought the .38 three years ago at a place called Ammo and Mercantile, about a mile north of the Mason Falls city limits.
I knew that Mandelle would be speaking to the gun store directly, so I walked down to the precinct lobby. I wanted to run over to the mod garage and see Harrington’s car for at least a few minutes while Remy was still there.
As I hurried toward the lobby exit, Hope Duffy hailed me. Hope was the sergeant who managed the intake desk, and the area was full of gift baskets, wrapped in colored cellophane.
“You wanna tell me what to do with all these?” she asked.
I glanced at the pile. Hope was blond and late forties, with the body of a volleyball player. “Most of them are from middle school parents and addressed to you,” she said.
It felt morbid to accept a gift for taking a man’s life, even if it saved the lives of students.
“I dunno,” I said. “Patrolmen’s families, maybe? You know who’s crushing it on the day shift. Why don’t you give them out to your favorite cops.”
“Will do, Detective,” Hope said, and I moved past the pile and into the crisp September air.
The mechanical mod yard was located around the back side of the same building the precinct was in, but it was faster to walk outside and around the corner than navigate the elevators and hallways that led through the bowels of the hall of justice.
As I turned the corner, I saw the place was hopping with activity.
The two outside bays had black and whites in them, each jacked up into the air. A mechanic worked under the body of the cruiser on the far left, while a second guy installed a new battering ram on the black and white at the right.
In the center spot was Harrington’s black 2008 Dodge Magnum, the only vehicle not up on a lift.
Remy was gloved up and leaning over the open hatchback of the station wagon. Beside her stood Carlos Esqueveda, in a blue one-piece canvas jumpsuit.
Carlos had shoulder-length dark hair that was wrapped in a thick red rubber band, and he sported a beard that must’ve taken two months to grow.
“Jesus,” I said. I hadn’t seen him since June. “You look like a goddamn terrorist.”
Carlos grinned. “Hey, man, don’t be racially profiling me. My people have stuck to illegal immigration and drug trafficking for a century. We don’t do bombs. Keep us in our lane, okay?”
I smiled. Carlos and I went back and forth like this all the time.
“So what’ve we got?” I asked Remy.
My partner offered a frustrated look that I knew well. “More like what we don’t,” she said.
“There’s no notes planning any school shooting,” Carlos said.
“No other firearms in the car,” Remy jumped in.
“And no extra ammo in the car for the .38 he was carrying,” Carlos added.
“Huh.” I snorted, not understanding the logic of Jed Harrington bringing a loaded .38 Special into a school with no additional ammo, either with him or in the car.
“A buck knife,” Carlos offered, lifting the object up. “Six-inch clip blade. Steel.”
“Well, he didn’t bring that with him onto campus,” I said.
I stared around. The bay smelled like someone had spilled a gallon of motor oil inside the place. “That’s it?” I asked.
“Not much else in his ride,” Carlos said. “His glove box has the manual, and nothing else. His center console has some coupons for a juice place. A hundred bucks hidden in an envelope. Probably emergency cash.”
“Will more time help?” I asked.
“Always.” Carlos nodded. “But I’m not hopeful. How about I tell y’all anything new by two p.m.?”
“Deal,” I said.
I told Remy what I’d learned from ATF about the weapon and where Harrington had bought the .38.
She stripped off her latex gloves. “You wanna drive out there?”
“ATF’s already doing the legwork, partner,” I said. “Plus, we got Ginnie Tanner coming in five minutes. That’s why I came to grab you.” I wasn’t going to do our interview with the wife of the dead teacher alone.
Remy nodded, and looked to Carlos. “Two p.m., C. We need something big,” she said.
Carlos nodded. “Then how about giving me ’til end of day?”
8
Ginnie Tanner was in her thirties with jet-black hair and muscular arms. She wore a black blouse and tan pants, the athletic but stocky build of a soccer goalie.
Remy and I sat across from her in Interrogation Room B, and Abe watched from the window. The skin around her nostrils was raw.
We apologized for her loss and got background first. Found out that she and Leaf had met through friends and were married for the last five years.
“I don’t know what else you want to know,” she said, offering a blank stare.
I’d seen this look a dozen times on the spouses of victims. The pale skin. The resigned attitude. Abe called the ones left behind “flickers,” since they were like traces of themselves. Copies of the original.
“I talked to the guy in uniform yesterday,” Ginnie continued, referring to Patrolman Gattling. “I told him already. It wasn’t any special day. Just another school day.”
“Your husband hadn’t had any trouble with anyone?” Remy asked.
Ginnie Tanner’s eyes were flat and black like buckshot. “Like who?”
“Anyone at school?” I said. “A parent? Another teacher? A coach or administrator?”
“Nope,” she said. “Now these reporters are calling all our friends and family. They give some line about honoring Leaf’s memory, but they’re like maggots, digging through our lives.”
“Our press information officer,” Remy said. “She may be able to give you some advice on how to handle reporters.”
Ginnie Tanner barely heard Remy. “I loved him,” she said, “but it’s gonna come out. And I’m gonna look like a monster.”
Remy reached out and held Ginnie’s hand. A good move. “What’s gonna come out, hon?”
“We were getting divorced,” the wife said. “So naturally I’m confused. I mean, I cared about Leaf, but we argued every day. I wouldn’t want him dead. But he was so friggin’ mean. Just—all the time. Always some agenda.”
“Was he physically violent?” Remy asked.
“No,” Ginnie said.
I thought about the prospect of a divorce, and if this changed anything. “Was there infidelity?” I asked.
The wife glared at me. “I know where you’re going with this, Detective, because the TV people haven’t been shy about it. One of them asked my sister straight up—was Leaf screwing this art teacher?”
We waited a second.
“No way,” she said.
“What makes you so sure?” Remy asked.
“I had an affair three months ago,” she said. “It was a way out for me. Away from him. Then I confessed it to Leaf.”
Remy and I waited.
“It didn’t go well, but he didn’t leave either,” she continued. “Leaf would say over and over, ‘Maybe I’m gonna screw someone today and tell you about it.’ So I’m pretty sure if he did, I would’ve heard.”
Remy was typing notes in her laptop, and I was watching Ginnie Tanner’s eyes. They were set deep in her face. Two circles of lead, dead of emotion.
“Now he’s some kinda hero, and I’m gonna be the mean-spirited bitch about to leave him.”
I slid forward a photo of Jed Harrington. “Do you know this man?”
“Nope,” she said. “They’ve been rotating the same three photos of him on TV. I’ve never seen him before.”
We needed more background on Tanner. Something that put him in that art room at 1:54 p.m. “Was your husband friends with other teachers?” I asked.
“Sure,” she said.
“Which ones?” Remy asked.
“Pam Gronus, the algebra teacher,” she said. “Jessica Lopez. She teaches history.”
Both women, I thought. Was Leaf screwing around? Maybe he was and just hadn’t shoved it in his wife’s face, like she thought he would.
“Putting aside a physical relationship,” I said, “did your husband ever mention Kelly Borland? As a professional? Were they friends?”
“Not that I knew of,” she said. “But he was that kinda guy. Women liked talking to him.”
“Do you know what he usually did during his free period?” Remy asked. “From two to three?”
Ginnie Tanner made a noise with her nose, as if struggling to blow something from it. “Went online?” She shrugged. “ESPN.com?”
The cuticles around the woman’s pinkie finger and thumb were red, and tiny splinters of skin stuck out like cilia, the remains of anxious scratches and pickings.
“Sports were an interest?” I asked.
“That and teaching were his only interests,” she said.
We went on with Ginnie for another half hour. Where she grew up. Where her husband had lived. Jobs they’d had. Schools they’d gone to. Military service. All of it with one purpose—to search for some overlap between Harrington and her husband.
It didn’t exist.
We moved on then. Got a name and address to follow up with the man she’d had an affair with. It didn’t sound like a solid lead, but we had to consider every angle.
On the way back to my desk after we sent the wife home, Abe found me.
“What’d you make of Ginnie Tanner?” he asked.
“She’s got nothing to do with this,” I said. “But Leaf Tanner.” I shrugged. “All women friends? That guy you tell your sad stories and secrets to? We’ve seen that type of guy. He usually ends up getting himself into trouble.”
Abe nodded in response. “I just heard back from the Register,” he said.
I squinted. We had calls out with The Washington Post and The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. All in case Harrington had sent in some manifesto. The Mason Falls Register was the smallest paper on the list. Our local paper.
“They have something?”
“He pitched them an exposé on the school board,” Abe said. “How it was selected. Influence in the community. How vendors were chosen when Falls Magnet was built.”
“You have a copy?”
“They didn’t end up publishing anything,” Abe said. “The editor thought the story was leaky.” Abe read from his notes. “‘Wild theories. Big leaps in logic. Unsound journalism.’”
“What was Harrington’s reaction to them passing on it?”
“Nothing, according to the editor. Almost like Harrington was feeling them out for another project. Then Harrington contacted the same editor a week ago. Said he had new information. Something salacious.”
I raised my eyebrows, skeptical. “Salacious about how vendors were selected?”
“The editor never found out,” Abe said. “Harrington said he needed another week.”
I considered this. Was some administrator gonna get exposed? And if so—how the hell did that lead to Harrington with a gun on campus? After all, he was the aggressor.
“This editor give you any background on Harrington?” I asked. It felt like we still didn’t know the man.
Abe smiled. “Oh, you’ll love his answer on that. He said to read the paper tomorrow. They’re putting together an eight-page spread.”
“Sure,” I said. “That’s more important than public safety.”
“But this other guy from the AJC,” Abe said. “He told Merle that Harrington sounded healthier than he had in years. Said he was working on something big. A book, he figured.”
“A book?”
Merle came around the corner and waved us to follow him. He steered us into the second-floor kitchen, where the TV was set on the local Fox channel.
A journalist named Deb Newberry was on-screen, a blonde wearing a black pantsuit and a bright orange blazer.
I knew Deb. She was a hard-ass. A smart investigative journalist with deep inroads into the MFPD.
“Jedidiah Harrington lived alone,” Deb said to the camera. “Unemployed. Unhinged. With potential PTSD symptoms that he would never receive therapy for, since he never officially served with our military.”
The image of the reporter faded, and a picture filled the screen.
It was a shot of Harrington’s backhouse, with those boxes piled everywhere. Then a second picture: a close-up of the gun case.
“What the hell,” I said. We’d been the only ones on Harrington’s property.
“This is just one picture this reporter obtained to paint you a picture of Jedidiah Harrington,” Deb explained.
Abe answered his phone, and I could tell it was the chief.
“Boss,” he said, “I got no idea how that got out.”
Abe looked to me, and I shrugged. “Neither does P.T.,” he added.
Abe walked to the other side of the kitchen. Shook his head in frustration. “And you really need to tell that to the mayor?” he asked.
