Run You Down

by Julia Dahl

  “All units all units. We have an active shooter at 67 Hillcrest in Roseville. Repeat: Active shooter. All units respond.”

  For a moment, we all just stare at the radio, and then Van presses a button on his mouthpiece and says he is en route.

  “Stay here,” says Van but we are already opening the doors on Saul’s car. Aviva in the back, Saul and me in the front. Van switches on his lights and siren; he can’t keep us from following. I get on my GPS and find 67 Hillcrest. We are forty miles away. Google says the address belongs to something named Toras David.

  “It’s called Toras David,” I say.

  “That’s the yeshiva,” says Aviva. “Sammy’s yeshiva.” I turn around to look at her. She is clenching her jaw. I reach over the seat and put my hand on her knee. It’s going to be all right, I want to say, stupidly.

  As we pass through the EZ Pass booth on the Thruway, my phone rings. It’s Mike at the city desk.

  “We’re hearing there’s an active shooter situation in Roseville,” he says. “How close are you?”

  “I’m on my way. Maybe half an hour. It’s a yeshiva.”

  “We know. Photo will call you. Get everything you can from the scene. I’ve got a report of at least one person dead. It’s usually the shooter, but it could be anything. Did you work Newtown?”

  “Not the scene,” I say. I was in the Trib office, actually, when the first reports of a shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary came in. It was a Friday and I wanted to turn in my weekly timecard before my shift. I remember everyone standing around looking at the TVs above the city desk. First it was just a teacher shot in the foot, and then a whole classroom of six-year-olds missing. I’ll never forget the quiet that dropped over the newsroom when the words “at least twenty first-graders” flashed across the screens. It was just a few seconds, but everything stopped as we all began to catch glimpses in our minds of what “at least twenty first-graders” at the wrong end of a gun looked like. And then one of the women on the copy desk threw up. Her daughter was in first grade there. It wasn’t until several hours later that she got word her little girl survived, kept safe by her teacher in a bathroom stall as Adam Lanza picked off his prey.

  “We need a victim count. Dead and injured. Number of shooters. Weapons. This is where your girl lived, right? You know it a little?”

  “Yeah,” I say, thinking: what, exactly, do I know?

  “School shootings are a clusterfuck. With the Jewish angle this’ll be national in an hour. It’s in our backyard and we need to own it, so feed everything back as soon as you get it. Cathy’s lead on rewrite. Get whatever the cops on the scene will tell you, which won’t be much. Take photos. Talk to anybody you see. When did the shooting start? What did they hear? You don’t speak Yiddish do you?”

  “No,” I say. “But I’m with someone who does.”

  “Great,” he says. “Keep your phone by you. I’m sending Lindsay and Will. They’ll be there in an hour, maybe two. Work the scene for now. Once we start getting names we’ll door-knock. A lot of what you hear at first is gonna be wrong. At the Sikh Temple shooting we initially reported fifteen dead and it was only five or six. I’d like to avoid that. Makes us look bad. Usually the shooter is dead by the time we show up, but not always. This could turn into a hostage thing. What we need is a name. Once we get confirmation on a name we run with it. So: name and body count.”

  He’s about to hang up. “Mike!”

  “What?”

  “I think I might be related to somebody involved in this.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  “It’s a long story.” I look at Saul. He nods.

  “Tell it to me fast.”

  “The guy who I think killed Pessie, that girl I wrote about?”

  “Faster.”

  “My uncle was dating the guy’s son.”

  “Your uncle?”

  “But I’ve never met him. I was…” Fuck! “I never knew my mom and it turns out she had a brother. That’s this guy. I just found out.”

  “Which guy? The guy who killed the girl?”

  “No, the guy who dated the guy whose dad might have killed the girl.” Jesus, that sounds ridiculous. “But I don’t have it on the record.”

  “What are you talking about? Do you have a name?”

  I turn to Aviva, who is looking at me with unfocused eyes. She appears dazed, like she’s concentrating so hard she’s about to pass out. Is that what I look like when I’m lost in fear?

  “I don’t…”

  “You never met him? You swear to God, Rebekah. If you lie to me you are fair game. If you lie to me you become the story. I will not protect you.”

  “I’m not lying. But listen. It’s possible he’s on the scene. With a gun.”

  “Your uncle might be the shooter?”

  “I think the shooter might be named Conrad Hall. Call Larry, he knows him. I mean, he’s covered him. He’s an ex-con. Aryan Nation, that shit.”

  “And now he’s shooting Jews in New York?” I can hear Mike typing. “Conrad Hall, you said? Traditional spelling?”

  “Yes. And he has a son. Hank. Hank Hall. It could be him, too.”

  “Is this connected to the New Paltz thing last night?”

  “Maybe,” I say. “I mean, don’t print these names. I’m just saying if they come up. It’s a possibility.”

  “And what about your uncle?”

  “What about him?”

  “I need his name.”

  I hesitate. Mike was kind of a douche to me back in January when he was worried I’d make him look bad with the managing editor. But he didn’t hold a grudge. And now he’s asking me to trust him.

  “I’m not going to print it,” he says. “I’m just going to background it. If he’s the shooter, we’ll be ready.”

  I turn away from Aviva and lower my voice. “Samuel Kagan.”

  “I won’t run it without telling you first,” he says. “If he’s the shooter, you’re off the story. If he’s not the shooter but he’s connected, we need an interview.”

  “Okay.” I’ll worry about whether I can actually deliver that later.

  I hang up.

  “Why did you say Sammy’s name?” asks Aviva. “Who were you talking to?”

  “It’s okay. It’s my editor.”

  “You cannot put Sammy in the newspaper!” she shrieks, startling me. “He didn’t do anything wrong! What are you doing? What do you know!”

  “No,” I say, stuttering, pulling back from her. “I just have to disclose … it’s part of my job.”

  Aviva starts to shake. She pulls her mouth back in grimace and releases a cry.

  “Please, please, Rebekah,” she says, her face crumbling in on itself. “He did not have the advantages you did. Please! I know he would not do this.”

  “They won’t print it unless it’s him. Unless we know for sure. I promise.” But I shouldn’t promise. The dread spreads through my blood like a hot shot: Mike will do whatever he wants with Sam’s name.

  “Then why did you give it to him?”

  “Aviva,” says Saul, gripping the steering wheel with both hands, still going seventy as we plow through the first intersection off the Thruway. “Can you try to call Sammy?”

  Aviva wipes her face with her sleeve and puts her phone to her ear. Waits. “He is not picking up.”

  We can hear the horns and sirens from several streets away. People are running along the main road and up Hillcrest toward the school, lumbering and frantic like a herd. Women tripping over their long skirts. Men’s hats flying off. Emergency vehicles are stopped in the middle of the street. Half a dozen men in riot gear—helmets and vests and machine guns; their black pants tucked into combat boots; twenty pounds of equipment attached to their waist—are gathered in a semicircle beside a van marked NEW YORK STATE POLICE. I see a truck from the bomb squad. I see cars marked ROSEVILLE POLICE and ROCKLAND COUNTY SHERIFF and RAMAPO POLICE and NYACK POLICE. The local CBS affiliate is the only news van so far. Sau
l pulls to one side and stops, blocking in a minivan. I put my laminated New York Tribune ID badge around my neck and Saul opens the back door for Aviva, who is staring at her phone.

  “Come with me, Aviva,” says Saul. He takes her hand and we run together. People are coming from all directions, it seems, running out of apartment doors, galloping through stands of trees, their faces like masks in a horror film; too long, too wide, too red, too pale, too set, too expressive. Women’s cries rise above the sirens. What do they know? What did they hear?

  “I don’t hear shooting,” says Saul, breathing hard.

  The closer we get to the school, the more people we encounter. People standing along the road, weeping, holding each other. People with cell phones pressed to their ears. They are all wearing the Haredi uniform: all in black or dark blue. I pass an hysterical middle-aged woman, waving her arms, collapsed on the concrete curb. Other women bend over her, trying to pull her up. I pass a man holding a baby, two little girls clutching his legs; one is no higher than his knees, barely able to walk. He screams into a cell phone. Saul leads us past them until we get to the place where the State Police are trying to hold a perimeter, trying to keep these panicked, desperate people from doing what nature and instinct and common sense dictate they do: find their babies.

  Somehow, the chaos serves to focus my mind. I have a role here, and I know how to play it.

  “Officer!” I shout, my arm up, badge in hand. “I’m from the Tribune. Can you tell me if any children were hurt?”

  One of the four officers standing at the yellow tape looks at me for a moment, then turns his eyes back to the faces of the crowd he is trying to keep from stampeding past him.

  We are being held about two hundred feet from the school entrance in a side parking lot. I move to the very edge of the yellow police tape, which allows a view of the side of the school. I see a small playground, and on the playground, bodies. I count four from where I am standing. Two have people kneeling over them. Behind us, the pop and cry of an ambulance siren and the officers shouting, Move aside! Move aside! The medics inch forward and the officers lift the tape. First is an ambulance with Hebrew lettering on the side; the next is marked ROCKLAND COUNTY. And the next. And the next. They move through the crowd and park in front of the playground, blocking the bodies from view. Saul and Aviva are still behind me; Saul on the telephone, Aviva allowing herself to be buoyed by the crowd. People press into her and she sways. The officers become more aggressive. We need room! They shout. Clear out. We need to make room for emergency vehicles! Everybody back! I stand my ground at the front of the pack as they use the tape to move us back farther, creating a path in and out.

  “Is the shooter still alive?” I ask the officer in front of me.

  “I don’t have any information. You better get back.”

  “Can you tell me if any children were shot?”

  “What did I say? I don’t have anything. Now get back.”

  A woman beside me screams. She has just been given some kind of news on the telephone. She begins speaking rapidly in Yiddish, telling everyone around her what she knows. A man interrupts her, they argue; everyone seems to be speaking at once, their voices getting louder and louder.

  I turn to Saul and Aviva. “What are they saying?”

  “The woman said her brother is inside the school and said the shooter is dead,” says Saul. “She said he came out of the trees behind the building and fired on the children in the playground. She said at least five are dead. And a teacher.”

  “The man said ten dead,” says Aviva. “And he said there were two men with guns. But he did not say any names. Did he?”

  “I didn’t hear one,” says Saul.

  The group starts arguing again and Saul and Aviva turn to listen. A younger woman appears beside me. Everyone around is talking to other people, or talking on their phones, but she is silent, clutching a pillow with a raccoon face on it.

  “Do you have a child here?” I ask.

  She nods. “You?”

  “No,” I say. “My name’s Rebekah, I’m from the newspaper.”

  “My Avi is there.”

  “How old is he?” I ask.

  “He is six.”

  Her wool coat is buttoned improperly. One side juts against her chin and the other reveals the shirt beneath.

  “Why do they not let the children go?” she asks.

  “I don’t know,” I say. And then I think: maybe that is something I can find out. I look over her head for Saul. He is on the phone, Aviva still beside him. I catch his attention and he motions me toward him.

  “What’s your name?” I ask the woman.

  “Henna,” she says.

  “Stay here, Henna. I’ll be back.”

  I push through the crowd toward Saul and Aviva, dialing Van Keller. No answer. I try again and this time he picks up. We speak over each other: “You’re okay?” I ask. “Where are you?” he asks.

  “I’m here,” I say. He knows what I mean. “Has the shooting stopped?”

  “Yes,” he says. “Connie Hall is dead. Sam is in custody. It looks like he might have shot Connie. But there’s a lot to sort out.”

  I lower my voice “Is anyone else…?”

  “Dead? At least three kids, Rebekah. And two teachers. So far. There are a lot of other people shot.”

  The first thing I think is, This will be on the front page tomorrow. I don’t think of it with any kind of pleasure or excitement; it is simply a fact. They’ll use the word “Massacre,” I imagine. And “Madman.” By dinnertime, there will be hundreds of reporters in this little town. Goyim from across the globe will fill every hotel and motel room within twenty miles tomorrow night.

  “Why don’t they let the kids that are okay go? People are freaking out.”

  “They’re sweeping the school. I think they’re worried about timed explosives.”

  Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris, I remember reading, set bombs all over Columbine High—they just failed to detonate. And James Holmes—The Dark Knight Rises shooter—booby-trapped his apartment before he opened fire in a movie theater. What did Connie do?

  “These people out here need some information,” I say.

  “The shooter’s dead,” he says. “And the kids that that got shot were the older ones. You can tell them that.”

  “Do you have any idea when they’ll let them out?”

  “No,” he says.

  “Can I tell my paper what you said?”

  “Yeah,” he says. “Don’t use my name. Just…”

  “A police source?”

  “Yeah. Fine.”

  “I’m glad you’re okay,” I say. “I can’t believe this is happening.”

  “You know what scares me, Rebekah? I can. I really fucking can.”

  He promises to call me if he gets more news. I elbow back to Henna and tell her what he told me. She nods, but my news about the older boys does little to comfort her. Her face has a strange expression on it, one I don’t know if I’ve ever seen before. It’s as if her features have shifted, been knocked sideways by a punch, and she’s trying to recover without actually moving. She does not seem to be able to focus her eyes as she speaks. The terror, I think, has altered her appearance, perhaps forever.

  Saul and Aviva have stepped back from the crowd. They are standing together, his arms around her, his head on hers. Both of them have their eyes are closed. After a moment, Saul opens his. I wave and he lifts one hand, calling me over. I tell them what Van said and Aviva grabs my hand.

  “Sammy did not do this,” she says. She’s not pleading this time, she is telling. “I know you do not know him. I know you do not know us. But I am telling you, he did not do this.”

  I decide to believe her. At least for now. I will call in what Van gave me, but I will not call in what I know about Sam’s role. They’ll get it eventually, of course, but they won’t get it from me.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  REBEKAH

  The shooting at the yeshiva b
ecomes known as “The Playground Shooting” or “Toras David” or just “Roseville,” depending on the publication. Connie Hall killed seven people that day. Four students and three adults. Fewer casualties than Oklahoma City or Virginia Tech or Newtown or Aurora or Columbine, but more than Wade Michael Page slaughtered at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, and the same number that One L. Goh gunned down at Oikos University in Oakland almost exactly a year before.

  The children were, as Van initially told me, from one of the older classes. Their instructor was running late and they stayed on the playground while the other students were ushered inside for class. It was a nice morning, after all. Nearly fifty degrees and sunny. There were three acres of wooded land behind the school building, and that’s where Connie hid. He came out, dressed in a t-shirt that read GOD HATES FAGS beneath green Army fatigues, shooting an AR-15. He hit thirteen-year-old Mayer Klein first. Mayer, whose bar mitzvah was to be the next weekend, was hanging from the monkey bars trying to do a third pull-up when Connie shot him in the back. The tardy instructor, twenty-six-year-old father of three, Shimon Schwartz, who had just reached the school, ran to Mayer, and was killed for it. Shot once in the stomach, once in the neck. It wasn’t like Newtown, where Adam Lanza had the kids inside classrooms, like fish in a barrel. The boys of Toras David ran, and they ran fast. Four weren’t recovered for more than twelve hours; they were huddled together almost a mile away behind a self-storage warehouse, their clothing torn and mud-thick. Dovid Blau, twelve, and Aaron Siegel, thirteen, made it nearly fifty feet into the trees before Connie got them. Dovid died there, after a bullet pierced his spleen; Aaron fell with a shot to his spine, and will never walk again. Twelve-year-old Joel Silverman, the boy everyone called a hero afterward, pushed four fright-frozen friends from the playground’s mini suspension bridge as Connie came toward them. He paid for his selflessness with a shot to the side, which ripped through his liver and burst open his heart. Joel was an only child; his mother, Devorah, had suffered four miscarriages and a stillbirth before having him. When he was a year old, doctors discovered polyps on her ovaries and insisted on a hysterectomy. Three months after the shooting, she jumped in front of the M train at Marcy Avenue. Her husband never remarried.