Indelible

by Karin Slaughter

  Frank came up beside her. His breath was sour when he asked, “Tactical’s on the roof?”

  Lena pointed at the building by the station. “Two up there that I can see,” she said, indicating the black-clad men lying on their stomachs with high-powered rifles.

  “Twenty more people from Nick’s office just showed up,” he told her.

  “What for?”

  “Stand around with their thumbs up their asses, from what I can see.”

  “Frank,” Lena began, feeling a lump rise in her throat. “Are you sure?”

  “What?”

  “Jeffrey,” she said, the word sticking.

  “I saw it with my own eyes,” Frank said, obviously upset by the memory. He wiped his nose with his hand as he crossed his arms over his chest. “He just went down. Sara crawled over to him and…” He shook his head. “Next thing I know, the shooter’s putting a gun to her head, telling her to move away.”

  Lena chewed her lip, feeling a surprising shock of sympathy for Sara Linton.

  “Nick seems to know what he’s doing,” Frank said. “They just cut the power to the whole building.”

  “Will the phones work without it?”

  “There’s a straight line to Marla’s desk,” Frank said. “The Chief put it in when he came here. Never knew why until now.”

  Lena nodded, trying not to think about it too much. When he had first taken the job as Chief, Jeffrey had done a lot of things that had seemed unusual at the time but ended up making perfect sense.

  Frank said, “Phone company’s made it so they can’t call out unless it’s to us.”

  Lena nodded again, wondering who had known to do all of this. If it was left up to her, they would be storming the building right now, finding the fuckers who had started all of this and finishing it by carrying out their bodies feet-first.

  She put her foot on the window ledge, retying her shoe so that Frank would not see the tears welling in her eyes. She hated the fact that she could cry at the drop of a hat now. It made her feel stupid, especially because someone like Frank would take it as a weakness, when the truth was, she was crying because she was a hairsbreadth from full-out rage. How could someone do something like this? How could they come to the station, the last place Lena held as sacred, and do this kind of thing? Jeffrey had been her rudder through all of the shit that had happened to her in the last few years. How could he be taken away from her now, when she was getting her life back?

  Frank muttered, “Goddamn media’s already trying to get in.”

  “What?” she asked, hiding a sniff.

  “Media,” he said. “They’re trying to get helicopters down here to film it.”

  “The station’s within the no-fly zone,” Lena pointed out, wiping her nose with the back of her hand. Fort Grant had been shut down under Reagan, putting thousands of locals out of their jobs and running the city of Madison into the ground. Still, the military’s no-fly zone was in force, and that should keep the news stations from letting their helicopters hover over the area.

  Frank said, “The hospital isn’t.”

  “Fuckers,” she said, wondering how anybody could do that job. They were vultures, and the people back home who watched it all live were no better than animals themselves.

  Frank lowered his voice, saying, “We gotta keep in control here.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “With Jeffrey gone…” Frank stared out into the street. “We gotta keep our people in charge.”

  “You mean you?” Lena asked, but she could read on his face that he hadn’t meant it that way. She asked, “What’s wrong with you? Are you sick?”

  He shrugged, wiping his mouth with a dirty-looking handkerchief. “Me and Matt ate something bad last night.” She was startled to see tears in his eyes at the mention of Matt. Lena could not imagine what it had been like for him to watch his friend die right in front of his eyes. Frank had been Matt’s supervisor when the younger man first came onto the force. Almost twenty years had passed since then and they had spent just about every working day in each other’s company.

  Frank said, “We know Nick. We know what kind of guy he is. He needs all the support we can give him.”

  “Is that what you were talking about in the office?” Lena asked. “It didn’t seem like you were so hot on supporting him five minutes ago.”

  “We have a difference of opinion about how this should go down. I don’t want some bureaucrat walking in here and fucking things up.”

  “This isn’t a cowboy movie,” Lena countered. “If the negotiator knows what he’s doing, then we should follow his lead.”

  “It’s not a guy,” Frank said. “It’s a woman.”

  Lena gave him a scathing look. Frank had made it clear from Lena’s first day that he did not think women belonged in uniform. It must have burned him up knowing that a woman was coming down from Atlanta to take charge.

  Frank said, “It ain’t about her being a female.”

  Lena shook her head, pissed off as hell that he was worried about something as stupid as this. “You don’t get into the freaking GBI baking cookies.”

  “Nick trained with this gal when he first joined up. He knows her.”

  “What’d he tell you?”

  “He won’t talk about it,” Frank said, “but everybody knows what happened.”

  Lena bristled. “I don’t.”

  “They were holed up in a restaurant outside of Whitfield. Two idiots with guns looking to score off the lunch crowd.” He shook his head. “She hesitated. The whole thing went bad in less than a minute. Six people died.” He gave her a knowing look. “We got our people in there praying for a savior,” he jabbed a finger at the station, “and she ain’t got the balls to do it.”

  Lena stared across the street. They only had six people left in the squad room.

  She looked back at Frank. “We need to find out what’s going on in there.” There were parents and wives and boyfriends who were left hanging, waiting to find out whether or not their loved one was living or dead. Lena knew what it felt like to lose somebody, but at least she had found out Sibyl was dead fairly fast. She hadn’t had to wait like the families were doing now. Jeffrey had told her, then they had gone to the morgue. That was that.

  Frank asked, “What is it?”

  She had let her thoughts get away from her, remembering all the second chances Jeffrey had given her, including this one today. No matter what stupid thing Lena did, he never stopped believing in her. There was no one else who would ever do that again.

  Frank repeated, “What?”

  “I was just thinking…” she said, but the sight of a helicopter swooping over the college stopped her. Lena and Frank both watched as the big black bird hung in the air over the college, then touched down on the roof of the Grant County Medical Center. The building was little more than two stories of old brick, and Lena half expected it to buckle. It obviously held, because a few seconds later Nick Shelton’s phone rang. He opened it, listened for a couple of beats, then shut it.

  He said, “Cavalry’s here,” but there was no relief in his voice. He motioned for Lena and Frank to follow him outside the back of the cleaners, and they all made their way toward the hospital, the heat bearing down like a sauna.

  Lena asked Nick, “Is there anything we can do?”

  He shook his head, saying, “This’s their show now. It’s got nothing to do with us.”

  Lena tried to get confirmation on Frank’s story. “You trained with this woman?”

  His tone was clipped. “Not long.”

  “She good?” Lena prodded.

  “She’s a machine,” Nick said, but it did not sound like a compliment.

  They were silent as he led them past the shops on Main Street. They reached the hospital in under five minutes, but with the heat and anxiety, it seemed like hours. Lena did not know what she had been expecting when they reached the hospital, but it was not the elegantly dressed woman who threw open the back e
xit door and walked toward them with a purposeful stride. Behind her were three burly men dressed in the requisite shirts and chinos of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation. They wore huge Glocks on their sides and walked like they had brass balls. The woman leading them was small, around five three with a slight build, but she walked toward Nick with the same swagger.

  “Glad you could get here,” Nick said, a tone of resignation in his voice. He made introductions, telling Frank and Lena, “This is Dr. Amanda Wagner. She’s the GBI’s chief negotiator. She’s been doing this longer than anybody in the state.”

  Wagner barely acknowledged them as she shook Nick’s hand. She did not bother to introduce the three men she’d brought with her, and none of them seemed too upset about it. Up close, she was older than Lena had first thought, probably in her fifties. She had clear polish on her fingernails and little makeup. A simple diamond ring was all the jewelry she wore, and her hair was cut in one of those flyaway styles that took forever to fix. There was something calming about her presence, though, and Lena thought that whatever had gone on between the negotiator and Nick must have been personal. Despite what Frank had said, there was nothing hesitant about Amanda Wagner. She seemed more than ready to jump into the fray.

  Wagner spoke in a cultured drawl, asking Nick, “We’ve got two adult male shooters, heavily armed, with six hostages, three of them children?”

  “That’s correct,” Nick said. “Phones and utilities are controlled. We’re monitoring for cell transmissions, but nothing’s come out yet.”

  “This way?” she asked. Nick nodded and they walked back toward the cleaners as she questioned him. “Car been found?”

  “We’re working on it.”

  “Entrances and exits?”

  “Secured.”

  “Sharpshooters?”

  “Standard six-point formation.”

  “Minicams?”

  “We’ll need them from you.”

  She glanced behind her, and one of the men got on his cell phone. She continued, “The jail population?”

  “Evacuated to Macon.”

  Overhead, the helicopter that had brought them here took off. Wagner waited for the roar of the blades to die down before asking, “Have you established contact?”

  “I got one of my men on the phone. They haven’t picked up yet.”

  “Is he trained in negotiation?” Wagner asked, though surely she knew the answer. Nick shook his head, and she said, “Let’s hope they don’t answer, Nicky. The first contact is generally the primary negotiator throughout the entire siege. I thought you’d learned that lesson.” She paused a moment, but when Nick did not respond, she suggested, “Perhaps you could stop him and get me the number?”

  Nick took his radio off his belt. He walked ahead of them, relaying the order. When he called out the station’s phone number, one of the men from Wagner’s team dialed it into a cell phone and held it to his ear.

  “Who’ve we got inside?” she asked as they started walking again. “Run it down for me one more time.”

  Nick recited like a good student, numbering people off on his fingers. “Marla Simms, station secretary. She’s elderly. She won’t be much help. Brad Stephens, foot patrol. He’s got six years on the job.”

  Wagner asked Frank, “Can we count on him?”

  Frank seemed surprised she had addressed the question to him. “He’s a solid beat cop.”

  Lena felt the need to add, “He’s kind of shaky under stress.”

  They all turned to look at her. Frank seemed angry, but Lena did not regret warning the negotiator about Brad. “I rode in a squad car with him last year. He’s not steady under pressure.”

  Wagner gave her a look of appraisal. “You’ve been a detective for how long?”

  Lena felt a lump in her throat, and all her resolve disappeared with that one question. “I took some time off this year for personal—”

  “How lovely for you,” Wagner said, turning back to Nick. “Who else?”

  Nick continued walking and they followed. “Sara Linton, town pediatrician and coroner.”

  Her lip curled in a smile. “That’s novel.”

  “She was married to our Chief of Police,” Nick said. “Jeffrey Tolliver.”

  “Just give me the names of the living.”

  He stopped at the open cleaners’ door, where Hemming and her fellow patrolman still stood guard. “There’s three kids in there, around ten years old and freaked the fuck out.”

  “The pediatrician’s probably helping. How many children were killed?”

  “None,” Nick answered. “One of them’s in the hospital, might lose his foot. School’s in the process of tracking down parents. A lot of them commute to Macon for work, but we’ve identified all the kids.” He paused to regroup. “There’s another officer inside. Barry Fordham. He was shot pretty bad from what Frank could see.”

  “We have to assume he’s dead,” Wagner said matter-of-factly as she walked into the cleaners. Inside, the crowd of officers and agents cleared a path for her. Wagner glanced around the room, her gaze assessing everyone from the four GBI agents Nick had brought to Molly Stoddard, Sara’s nurse. She finally turned her sights back on Lena, saying, “Would you get me some coffee, dear? Black, two sugars.”

  Lena felt a flicker of anger, but she walked over to the coffeemaker to do as she was told. Pat Morris tried to catch her eye, but she ignored him.

  Wagner leaned against the edge of the folding table, addressing the group. “First is the initial assault. You’ve got—what—five bodies in there?”

  Lena bit back her pride and provided, “There’s another patrol cop missing,” as she dumped two packs of sugar into a paper cup.

  “Six bodies, then,” Wagner said. “The whole town’s lit up with this. There’s only one reason he’s not checking in.”

  “Marilyn,” Nick corrected. “The missing cop is a woman.”

  “That’s the two extra shots you heard. They’re going to take out the ones most likely to resist. The uniforms will be big bull’s-eyes. Perhaps your shaky one”—she walked over to Lena and poured the coffee herself—“doesn’t seem threatening enough. That’s saved your Brad his life. For now.”

  Wagner checked her watch before asking, “Do we have a ventilation plan for the station?”

  Frank said, “All the plans are at the town hall. We’ve already got two people searching.”

  “That’s our priority.” Wagner told one of her men, “James, be so kind as to go with Nicky to help speed the search along.” Before they could leave, she added, “Let’s see about cutting the water while you’re at it.”

  Frank asked, “What’s the next step?”

  Wagner sipped her coffee before answering. “They’ll secure the area. Put all the prisoners in one place so they can control them. Step three, they make sure no one can get in. They’ll barricade the doors, and since the shooter who is obviously in charge was smart enough to bring a friend, one will always stay on point to make sure no surprises come through the front door.”

  She took another sip of coffee as she seemed to calculate variables in her head. “They’ve had ample time to do all of this, which means they’ll soon be moving on to step four, which is to make their demands. That’s where the negotiations come in. First, they’re going to want the water and power back, then food. What we want is a chance to get inside that place.” She saw Lena open her mouth to volunteer and Wagner held up a finger, saying, “We’ll get to that when we come to it.”

  Frank said, “We got parents want to talk to their kids.”

  “That won’t happen,” Wagner told him. “The goal from our end is to keep as much emotion out of this as possible. We’re not going to have crying parents pleading for their children’s lives. Our shooters already know how valuable the hostages are without us reinforcing the fact.”

  “What else?” Lena asked. “What happens next?”

  “They’ll get hungry or want to see themselves on TV. Eventually, w
e’ll get to the point where we’ve traded everything we can and they’ll want out of there. We need to anticipate what they’ll want at that point besides money. They always want money—unmarked and small denominations.” She paused. “We need to find their car. They didn’t sprout wings and fly here, and they’re certainly not planning on leaving that way.”

  Lena said, “There’s a lake behind the college.”

  “Private?”

  “Semi,” she said. “It’s hard to get a boat in without people seeing, but you can if you want to badly enough.”

  Wagner picked out one of Nick’s people. “That’ll be you, okay? Take a couple of men and search the shore for boats. We’re talking walking distance from the scene. They didn’t plan a leisurely hike as part of their getaway.” She asked Frank, “I suppose any reports filed on missing boats in the last week are inside the station?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You’ve rerouted 9-1-1 calls?”

  “Yeah,” Frank repeated. “To the fire station up the street.”

  “Could you please see if anyone reported a missing boat this morning?”

  Frank picked up one of the telephones on the counter to make the call.

  Wagner looked at the two remaining men on her team. “We’ll get the children out first for food and water.” She asked Lena, “Is there a water cooler in there?”

  “In the back by the jails.”

  “How many toilets?”

  Lena did not understand the question, but she answered, “One.”

  She saw Lena’s confusion and explained, “Drinking water. There’s around a gallon and a half of water in the tank. They’ll use that between themselves.”

  Frank hung up the phone. “No missing boats,” he said. “I put out a feeler on the radio to see if anyone remembers taking a report.”

  “Good man,” Wagner said. Then, to her team, “We’ll try to get the old woman or the patrolman out after the children. They won’t care about hanging onto them; the cop is still iffy and they’ll see the old woman as dead weight. My guess is they’ll want to keep the pediatrician.” She asked Frank and Lena, “She’s attractive?”