by Lisa Gardner
This motel didn’t offer much in the way of amenities. He’d hoped for a larger hotel, a nice innocuous chain. No such luck within driving distance of Bakersville. He’d had to go with a cheap, privately run place. On the one hand, the owner seemed overly interested in his guests. On the other hand, there wasn’t a large staff working all hours of the night to notice the man’s activities. Win some, lose some.
The man’s stomach grumbled again. He decided to try the local bar.
Fifteen minutes later, coat and hat in place, he journeyed down the tiny main street into a dimly lit tavern. Three local men, clustered around the single TV, looked up curiously. The lone, balding bartender gave him a small nod of greeting. The man took a seat in front of three silver keg levers and ordered a beer.
“Anything good on the news?” he called down to the other men.
“Senate wants some new gun law. Hold the parents accountable for whatever damage their kids do with guns.”
“About time,” the man’s friend mumbled. “As they say, the apple never falls far from the tree; these kids had to get their ideas from somewhere.”
The third man eyed the first two levelly. He had an old, weather-beaten face from a lifetime spent riding a John Deere. He said quietly, “Shep’s a good man.”
The other two shrugged and almost immediately began studying their feet. Apparently they felt in no position to argue.
So the man at the bar drawled, “Shep’s a good sheriff, sure. But a father—don’t you think a father is a separate thing?”
The three men turned away from the TV. For the first time, they truly studied him. The older man, Ruddy-Face, spoke first. “I don’t think we caught your name.”
“Oh, I’m just passing through. Business, you know. Generally I love traveling down the coast. Pretty countryside, nice people. But this time … A thirteen-year-old boy shooting two little girls. Then murdering that poor teacher … Such a beautiful woman, such a horrible waste.” He turned back to the bartender, whose welcoming demeanor had already disappeared. “Can I get an order of buffalo wings? Extra hot. Extra blue cheese.”
“Nobody knows if Danny O’Grady did it,” Ruddy-Face said stiffly. The bartender nodded.
“Come on, Darren,” one of his friends said softly. “My wife heard it straight from Luke Hayes’s mother that Danny confessed.”
“And I’m telling you that the O’Gradys are good people.”
“Any other suspects?” the man at the bar asked casually.
“Some kids reported seeing a man in black,” Ruddy-Face said instantly.
“Come on, Darren, no one believes that. They’re kids. They’re frightened and they got a big imagination.”
“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”
The other men frowned but once again deigned not to argue.
“I heard the O’Gradys have marital problems,” the man at the bar said next.
Ruddy-Face tried his cold stare on him. He was large, barrel-chested and thick-armed even now, from a lifetime of work. The man at the bar was not impressed. Old men like Ruddy-Face didn’t engage in bar fights. They used their age and position to shame their opponents into silence. Well, he’d finally met his match. The man at the bar had no shame.
“I’m just saying what I heard,” he said evenly.
Ruddy-Face took a step forward. One of his companions caught his arm.
“Leave him alone, Darren. Man’s got a right to his opinion.”
“Last summer,” Ruddy-Face said in a clipped voice, “I drove to Bakersville for the weekly auction. Damn if I didn’t blow out a tire on my trailer and nearly kill us all. Shep O’Grady was passing by in his patrol car, his son sitting in the passenger seat. They pulled over and helped me out. And Danny didn’t just sit there. He got out of the car, helped line up the spare, and worked on tightening the lug nuts like a fine young man. When I thanked them both, he told me, no problem, sir, and shook my hand. I don’t know what happened in that school. But I wouldn’t be too quick to judge a boy, or two parents, the rest of you have never met.”
The man at the bar said, “Really, that’s interesting. ’Cause I heard Danny O’Grady has a nasty temper. Hangs out with the wrong crowd, trashed his own locker. My client has a son at Bakersville K-through-eight, and he said everyone knew Danny O’Grady was not right in the head.”
Ruddy-Face drew his bushy white brows into a thick, thunderous glare. His friend once more caught his arm.
“Face it,” his friend said in a placating voice. “Tragedies like this aren’t meant to make sense. Makes me wonder sometimes if each generation don’t need a war, simply to have a way to vent.”
“You think war makes for better youths?” Ruddy-Face asked incredulously.
The friend shrugged. “I remember shooting up Germans and Koreans, but never our schools.”
“That’s a load of horseshit, Edgar.”
“I’m just saying—”
“Drug addictions and double amputees, that’s what you’re saying. Yeah, war works wonders for young men.”
“Well, what do you think is going on, Darren? These shootings keep happening! Jee-sus, how many has it been now!”
All the men fell silent, even the one at the bar, who was fighting not to grin.
Ruddy-Face said shortly, “I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.”
Edgar snorted. “If anything happens. Bakersville doesn’t even have a sheriff anymore. I hear that woman’s in charge.”
“Officer Lorraine Conner,” the man at the bar said, and the bartender eyed him curiously.
Edgar nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. She’s taken over the case, and God knows she’s barely old enough to vote.”
“They also brought in a fed,” the man at the bar offered. “Some expert in school shootings.”
“The feds got an expert in school shootings?” The bartender spoke up for the first time.
The man grinned at him. “Interesting, isn’t it?” he said. “Now we just have to find out if the man is any good.”
Eight P.M. the streets of Bakersville had descended into dusky shades of gray, and Rainie’s mood had grown tense.
After speaking with Principal VanderZanden, Rainie and Quincy had paid a visit to Melissa Avalon’s tiny apartment, hoping to learn more about her life. By all appearances, Melissa Avalon was specifically targeted in the shooting. Perhaps she’d even been the only intended victim, and Rainie was having a hard time believing Danny O’Grady would purposely shoot the one teacher who’d been kind to him. Which raised the question of who Melissa Avalon was and, better yet, who might have wanted her dead. After hearing Quincy’s suspicion of an Avalon–VanderZanden romance, Rainie was starting to lean in the principal’s direction. Or maybe his betrayed wife …
Quincy, on the other hand, wasn’t convinced of anything yet. He seemed to buy Melissa Avalon as the primary target, but he didn’t think that meant the shooter had to know her. He’d murmured something about plenty of strangers having murdered plenty of young pretty women simply for being young pretty women. Rainie really didn’t want to know what the agent read at night.
Unfortunately, Sanders had halted their investigation cold by getting to Avalon’s apartment first. Drawers were rifled, the kitchen dismantled, the bed ripped apart. The crime-scene technicians had even pawed through the woman’s tampons.
Rainie would have to wait for the state’s report on the evidence or beg Sanders for information about her own damn case. It didn’t leave her feeling amused.
She had stormed back to the task-force center with Quincy just in time to meet Luke Hayes and Deputy Tom Dawson. They had hoped to interview Becky O’Grady before dinner. They had failed. Avery Johnson had been at Shep’s house. He had demanded to be present for the interview, and Sandy and Shep had insisted on sitting in as well. That had put an eight-year-old witness in a tiny family room with five scrutinizing adults.
Becky did the logical thing. She held her stuffed bear tight, curled up in a ball on the
sofa, and fell asleep.
After fifteen minutes Luke and Tom headed for the door. Shep didn’t see them out. The lawyer took care of that, after informing the officers that the O’Gradys would be changing to an unlisted number immediately due to harassing calls. Also, he wanted patrols to guard the family’s safety. Hadn’t they seen what some hostile redneck had written on the O’Gradys’ garage?
The graffiti had really bothered Luke. He took two Polaroids for their files. Then he drove straight to the hardware store, where he purchased one bucket of primer and one bucket of white paint. He and Tom had spent the last hour personally repainting Shep’s garage. Neither Shep nor Sandy ever came out to thank them.
Rainie didn’t know what to say. Tragedies brought out the best in towns. But they could also bring out the worst.
Luke and Tom had no sooner left than the mayor paid Rainie a visit. He’d just received a call from Sally Walker’s parents. What was this about the autopsies being pushed back until the next day? Why couldn’t the families get their daughters’ remains back so they could get on with the funerals? The parents were furious.
Also, had Rainie managed to catch George Walker on the five o’clock news? That’s right. The father had appeared on camera stating to anyone who would listen that Danny O’Grady was getting away with murder. He’d killed three people, and the Bakersville sheriff’s department would never go after him because he was Shep’s son. Favoritism plain and simple, so all you mothers out there had better round up your children and lock the doors. One day soon, Danny O’Grady would be back in town.
All afternoon long there had been a run on rifles at the sporting-goods store. Not just in Bakersville but also in neighboring Cabot County.
People were frightened, the mayor stated bluntly. People were angry. So Rainie had better wrap this case up quick. Or there would be a hell of a lot more violence in these small-town streets.
Right after the mayor left, Rainie got out a new box of number-two pencils. She sat across the sawhorse desk from Quincy and methodically broke every single one in half. Then she broke the halves in half. Then she composed her thoughts.
It did her no good. Day two of the investigation and she had nothing but a longer list of questions. Why had Danny shot the one teacher who had apparently been trying to help him? Had Charlie Kenyon influenced Danny to act? Or maybe someone Danny met on-line? It seemed far-fetched to think that a stranger could influence a teenager to kill, but by all accounts Danny was a vulnerable kid and, God knows, stranger things had happened.
The single, small-caliber shot to Melissa Avalon’s forehead. The scattered wounds on the others.
It seemed as if she ought to know more by now, but instead she had no answers, and she had worked herself into a state where the mere sound of Quincy’s pen scratching against paper made her want to grab his notebook and beat him over the head with it. He’d laughed when she broke the pencils in half. The fed guys never knew how to have any fun.
He wasn’t so bad, really. Cool in his detached FBI sort of way. Curious in how he kept staring at his cell phone, as if he was both expecting an important call and dreading it. And intense. More intense than she would’ve guessed this morning.
There was something about the way he had moved through the scene at the school, something about the way he had meticulously picked through Melissa Avalon’s ravaged apartment, as if every bit of information was going into his brain and by sheer force of will he’d make the pieces fit. She had the impression that Quincy might be a little bit bright, and a little bit serious, and a little bit strong. That made her stomach tighten, which was something she needed right now about as much as a hole in her head.
Damn FBI agent. Damn state detective looking to prove a point. Damn Danny O’Grady. And damn a bunch of drunken fools who’d decided the only answer to violence was more violence. Christ, didn’t they know how much paperwork they were going to cause her?
Rainie glanced away from the window and the night descending upon Bakersville’s streets. She looked down at her new sawhorse desk, found that her hands were still fisted at her sides, and knew that her jumbled thoughts were all just noise. She could handle an FBI agent and a state detective. She honestly didn’t give a rat’s ass about what the mayor wanted for some press conference, and she wasn’t afraid of a few local boys full of too much beer and not enough common sense; she’d dealt with that before.
What she didn’t know, what she genuinely feared, was tomorrow morning at five A.M., when she would drive to Portland to watch the chief medical examiner cut open two little girls.
The thought of it unnerved her. She didn’t want to see Sally and Alice again. Not now, when she knew their names and their families and that they had been best friends from birth. She didn’t want to think of their final walk down that hall or the single cemetery plot that would now hold twin coffins.
Last night, for the first time in over five years, Rainie had dreamed of her mother’s death. The blood and brains on the wall. The smell, the godawful stench of seeping human fluids and fresh gunpowder settling into the carpet. The headless body slumped on the floor, looking so strange and alien Rainie wouldn’t have known it was her mother except for the bottle of Jim Beam still clutched in her lifeless hand.
And as she’d been staring, seventeen years old again, gray matter dripping down onto her hair, Danny O’Grady had come walking out of the kitchen and calmly handed her the smoking shotgun.
“I only did what you wanted done,” he’d said, then exited out her front door.
Rainie had woken up in a cold sweat at four in the morning, shivering uncontrollably. She forced herself to walk into the tiny living area, where the brown carpet and gold-flowered wallpaper had long ago been replaced. She studied every single aspect of the room—new, modern, fourteen years later—and she could’ve sworn she saw blood on the ceiling.
Rainie went back to bed, but she knew from the trembles in her hands when she woke up an hour later that her dreams had still been unkind.
This case was getting to her. She hadn’t expected that after all these years. It frightened her. And it made her mad.
“I want dinner,” she stated abruptly, standing up at the crude desk and beginning to gather her things.
Quincy looked up from his notebook. His expression was mild, but he’d discarded his jacket, rolled up his sleeves, and loosened his burgundy tie. It made him look more approachable. It also emphasized the dark circles beneath his eyes. Apparently, superagent hadn’t been sleeping much even before arriving in Bakersville.
“They have food in this town?” he asked with feigned surprise. “And here I’d thought we skipped lunch out of necessity.”
“Lunch is for sissies,” Rainie said. “Come on. I’ll take you to Martha’s Diner. Best chicken-fried steak in town.”
Quincy raised a skeptical brow, maybe questioning Martha’s claim to fame, maybe already anticipating his arteries hardening. Either way, he grabbed his navy blue jacket and followed.
Martha’s Diner was quiet at this hour. Most working folks had already eaten, and most farmers would soon be in bed. Nothing like several thousand cows to ruin a town’s nightlife. Rainie recognized the credit union’s president, Donald Leyden, eating alone after his divorce. Then Rainie spotted Abe Sanders.
Sitting alone in a corner booth, Sanders was holding his cell phone with one hand while picking at a skinless chicken breast with the other. In between comments on the phone, he chewed raw carrots from a Ziploc bag. Then Rainie noticed the Tupperware container of lettuce. The state detective traveled with salad. If she hadn’t known before, she definitely knew now—Abe Sanders was the Antichrist.
“Yes, I hear the puppy,” he was saying with some exasperation into the cell phone. “No, Sara, you don’t need to put him on the phone. No, no. Hey—” His voice suddenly changed to a higher pitch. “Hi there, Murphy. Yes, you’re a good dog. You’re such a good dog. Now put your mom back on the phone. Really, put your mom—Sara. Sara, there you
are. Yeah, yeah, I said hi, but he’s a dog, for chrissakes. He doesn’t understand the modern miracle of AT&T.
“Wait a minute. Is he whimpering now? Why is the puppy whimpering? What happened? What? Really?” Sanders sounded surprised, then sheepishly pleased. “Murphy goes around the house each morning looking for me? He misses me. Huh. I’ll be damned. He really is a smart little guy.”
Sanders finally noticed Rainie and Quincy staring at him.
He sat up quickly, looking caught red-handed, and hastily said good-bye. He was still blushing when he snapped shut his flip phone.
“New puppy,” he muttered. “My wife … she’s kind of nuts about the thing. You know how it is.” He swallowed, then nodded toward the empty side of the booth. “Want to have a seat? I got some news.”
Rainie already felt wary, but she slid into the red vinyl booth while introducing Quincy to Sanders. The two had obviously heard of each other, and the handshake was perfunctory.
“So what brings you to Bakersville?” Sanders asked after Quincy blew off Rainie’s suggestion of chicken-fried steak and ordered a Caesar salad. Rainie shook her head to let him know he was making a mistake, then ordered the steak, mashed potatoes, and an extra helping of gravy. She hadn’t eaten all day, and she’d be damned before she was shamed by two men into eating salad. She was still trying to decide if a chocolate malt would be overkill, when Quincy answered.
“I’m researching school shootings for the Behavioral Science Unit. Naturally I’m interested in this case.”
“You’re observing?”
Quincy looked at Rainie. “Something like that.”
“We don’t need federal help,” Sanders said bluntly.
Quincy smiled. “Don’t worry, Detective. I wouldn’t dream of stepping on Officer Conner’s toes by claiming jurisdiction over the case. I hear she has very strong feelings on the subject—and that she’s very good with her sidearm.”
Rainie grinned at the unexpected compliment. Sanders scowled.
“Well,” the state man said briskly, wiping his hands on his napkin, “the whole thing will probably be moot by morning. As a matter of fact, I’m pretty sure I wrapped up the majority of the case today.”
