Memory Man

  “What?” asked Lancaster as she popped another stick of gum in her mouth after wadding up the old one in a tissue and throwing it into the trash can.

  “If your theory holds that Debbie Watson was the first vic, she was on the hall next to the rear entrance. That would mean that if our guy was hiding in the freezer overnight he would have had to walk down the hall between the cafeteria and the library, turn right down the main hall, pass two more corridors on both sides, past classrooms and presumably people, to take out first Watson and then, at the other end of the hall, the gym teacher Kramer. Then he reverses his path and starts mowing folks down as he moves back to the front of the school.” Decker looked at her skeptically. “That doesn’t seem plausible. Why not just start shooting on the front half of the school and work your way to the back? Which would mean Watson would be one of the last vics, not the first.”

  “But the time stamp on the video?”

  “That’s the real hitch in all this. That tells us he did begin his shooting at the rear part of the school. And he wanted us to see him on that camera for some reason. Now that we know he might have been hiding in the cafeteria, the video image looks like misdirection. So that means we have one proven point—the video camera time stamp, and one almost proven point—the shooter was hiding in the cafeteria. If they’re both true, neither makes sense as a whole. One plus one does not equal three.”

  “You’re starting to lose me, Amos.”

  “You have the school interior laid out with your prelim shot register?”

  She nodded.

  “Let’s take a look. Because it might just be this guy did the reverse of what we think he did.”

  “But if you’re right about what you found, and he did go front to back to front, he would have made his escape out through the storage area off the cafeteria and then through the path to the woods. That’s the easiest egress. It would all fit.”

  Decker took a breath, let it out, and stared at the ceiling.

  “And maybe that’s exactly what the son of a bitch wants us to think.”

  Chapter

  16

  HIS CONFIDENCE IN his ability to perform as a detective growing, Decker spent another hour going over and over the preliminary shot registry. It was based on witness accounts, which Decker knew were unreliable; forensic evidence, which he knew was not nearly as flawless as TV made it seem; hunches, which were just that and nothing more; and, lastly, common sense, which might just be the most accurate and helpful of the bunch.

  Lancaster looked away from her laptop screen and studied him.

  “So what do you think?”

  Decker absently stroked his shortened beard, his belly rumbling. It was now light outside. And it had been a long time in between meals for him. But he could stand to miss a few meals. A few hundred of them, in fact. He was like a polar bear. He could live off his accumulated fat all winter.

  “Point one. I think he originated from the cafeteria.”

  “Okay.”

  “Point two. I think Debbie Watson was the first vic.”

  “So we’re back to your dilemma. One plus one equals three. How did a big guy in cammies, hood, and face shield walk the length of the school with weapons totally unseen? And then where did he go? He can’t just vanish.”

  “There’s no way there could be two shooters?” he said. “One coming out of the freezer and one coming in the rear?”

  She shook her head. “Impossible. There was only one shooter. Same description. Unless you think identically shaped men did this together.”

  “Okay, one shooter. The pistol is easily hidden. The shotgun could be stowed down a pants leg.”

  “But the clothing. The shield?”

  Decker thought some more about this. “Who’s to say he put that on in the cafeteria?”

  “We found a fiber in the ceiling.”

  “Still doesn’t mean he had all the stuff on in there.”

  “So he carries it down the hall with him? In what? And the guns? The guy must have been so bulky that someone would have noticed. Especially if he was a stranger. And then where does he change?”

  “You’re sure no one was seen walking the halls at that time?”

  “Yes.”

  “No one? Really? In a busy school?”

  “Everyone was in class, both students and teachers. The folks in the office were working. Most had not been at their desks long. The gym teacher was in his office where he was shot. There was a half-eaten Egg McMuffin on his desk and a nearly full cup of coffee. Custodians were in their part of the school going over the schedule for the day.”

  “But if no one was in the halls, there was no one to see a stranger roaming.” But then Decker immediately corrected himself. “Only all the doors have windows. He would have had to pass by numerous ones.”

  “Exactly,” agreed Lancaster.

  “No visitors?”

  “None logged in and no one remembered any. That’s not to say someone didn’t slip in. That’s always possible. And like you said, he could have come in the night before during the play. The school was wide open then.”

  “But why would the guy hide in the freezer?” said Decker. “Is there security here at night?”

  Lancaster shook her head. “No, but if he came in during the school play, he would want to be out of sight. He couldn’t know someone wouldn’t come into the cafeteria that night for some reason.”

  “Okay, that makes sense. Let’s move to Debbie Watson. She was heading to the nurse’s station?”

  Lancaster nodded. “Yes. She had stopped, apparently, to get something from her locker. It was right near where she was found. The locker door was still open.”

  “And the nurse’s room is in the office section?”

  Lancaster nodded again. “She would have had to walk along the main corridor from the rear to the front.”

  “What class was she coming out of to go to the nurse?”

  “Math. Classroom 144.”

  “Same hall as custodial?”

  “That’s right,” said Lancaster. “Which has a loading dock. And thus an exit.”

  “So if we’re right and the guy came through the cafeteria, here’s what his route looks like. He went from the front to the back of the school on the first floor. I’m assuming the second and third floors were clear?”

  “We’re searching them, of course. But the enrollment at Mansfield has steadily gone down over the years. There are enough kids to fill out the first floor and that’s it. They have a hard enough time finding bodies to fill out the football team. The upper floors are used for storage and such. And they’re locked and barred off. And they were still secure when we checked them, with no sign of tampering.”

  “Then for some reason he waited to start shooting until he got to the rear of the school. Then he starts popping people, going down halls, entering classrooms, shooting as he goes. He reaches the office at the front, kills the assistant principal. And then he escapes through the cafeteria’s loading dock and takes the footpath to the woods. How likely is that?”

  “You mean why didn’t he just start shooting in the front, work his way to the back, and then escape out the rear?”

  Decker was studying the ceiling. “Let’s put means aside and look at motive. Mansfield has its share of violence. Gangs, drugs, assaults. Kids mature a lot faster.”

  “No argument there.”

  “So is this a Columbine? A kid with a grudge? Maybe not even a student. Either from another school or he graduated, or he dropped out.”

  Lancaster said, “We’re compiling a database with all that info. The FBI is helping.”

  “When will they have an answer?”

  Lancaster rubbed her eyes and checked her watch. “I’m not sure. Look, I’ve got to get home, grab an hour’s sleep, and change my clothes. And I need to give Earl a little break. Sandy hasn‘t been sleeping very well lately.”

  Decker knew Sandy Lancaster as gentle, funny, bubbly, and wildly enthusiastic about everything and everyone. But he knew she could also become depressed and anxious over something relatively trivial. And then she wouldn’t sleep. Which meant no one else in the Lancaster household did either.

  “You need any help with that?” asked Decker.

  She looked surprised. “Are you offering to babysit?”

  “I don’t know. I’m just…asking,” he finished awkwardly. He had never done much with Molly when she had been really little. He was so big and she was so tiny he’d been terrified he’d break her.

  She smiled. “I’m good, Amos. But thanks. I’ll be back at the station later this morning. We can grab a cup of coffee and go over things. You need a ride back to your place?”

  “No, I’ll hang out here for a while.”

  “Suit yourself. You want to talk, about anything, give me a ring.”

  She gathered up her things and started to leave. But she stopped and looked at him. “It really feels like old times.”

  Decker said nothing, but he gave her a slight nod, which made her smile. She turned and walked out.

  He sat in the chair in the library. He’d spent more time in here now than he probably had in his four years as a student. It wasn’t that the schoolwork had come easily to him; it hadn’t. But he was not the type to sit and read. That had changed. Now he devoured prodigious amounts of information. Now that he could remember it all, it was like he couldn’t get enough of it. He wondered if his brain had a capacity limit. If so, he hoped it was as big as he was.

  He watched the FBI suits doing their thing at a table across the library’s main area. They all looked clean-cut, on the younger side, inexhaustibly professional, starched shirts, ties no doubt as straight as their spines. A few of them looked up occasionally at him, no doubt wondering what a fat weirdo dressed like a homeless person was doing in the middle of their investigation.

  Well, at least I trimmed my beard and cut my hair. Or else they’d probably arrest me for looking like a big-ass version of Charlie Manson.

  And then the next moment he forgot all about the FBI. He was really no longer in the library at Mansfield. He was no longer looking into the mass shooting here. It was something Lancaster had said.

  I’ll be back at the station later this morning. We can grab a cup of coffee and go over things.

  Decker would not be at the station later this morning. He had somewhere else to be.

  I’ll be at an arraignment.

  * * *

  Sebastian Leopold took solid form in Decker’s thoughts. He went back over every second of their conversation. Every word, every look, every mannerism. Something seemed off, but he couldn’t pinpoint what, when he almost always could. Orphan facts, he liked to call them. There was no one to claim ownership because they were lies.

  Yet not with Leopold for some reason. And that was cause for concern but also hope. The reason for hope? Simply Leopold’s existence. Before, Decker had nothing to go on. Now, in the form of the prisoner, he had a layer that had been partially peeled back. And when that happened it couldn’t help but reveal what was underneath.

  He left the library and made his way outside.

  It was still raining. If anything it was raining harder. The body bag wagons had all gone, and with them the crowd had drained away. No more cell phone candles. But in front of the school was a mountain of flowers, hand-painted signs, Teddy bears.

  All drenched and soggy. But the intent was still clear. Still powerful.

  He read some of the signs.

  RIP Mr. Kramer.

  Miss you, Debbie.

  Never going to forget you, Eddie.

  The town knew who the dead were for a very simple reason, though no names had been officially released. Those people hadn’t come home.

  Cammie man had seen to that. Cammie man with no face and the ability to leap long school halls effortlessly. Because that’s what he must have done, to get from point A to the kill zone with “Miss you, Debbie.”

  Decker went back to the bleachers and sat there under an overhang to keep dry, though he was pretty much already soaked.

  Sebastian Leopold was going to be arraigned in a few hours. Decker planned to be there when he was. Arraignments were typically boring, mechanical stages of the law. Yet there was one important bit of information Decker wanted to see in person.

  He sat there for a few minutes more, then, when the rain slowed, he rose and walked back to the Residence Inn. It took him a while because he didn’t move as swiftly as he used to. But it gave him time to think. And he arrived in time for breakfast. He absorbed half the buffet, catnapped for exactly one hour, showered, combed his hair, put his “lawyer” clothes back on, and headed to the courthouse to see exactly what Sebastian Leopold was going to say to the most critical question the judge would ask him today.

  Chapter

  17

  NORMALLY, THE COURTHOUSE would be packed for something like this. A triple homicide and a guy saying he was good for it. Two days ago, it would have been the biggest story in Burlington, maybe the whole state.

  But after the slaughter at Mansfield, nobody gave a damn.

  Well, one person did.

  Decker knew the drill, having testified in the court building countless times during the course of prosecuting folks he’d helped apprehend. He passed through security, nodded to a couple of county sheriffs he knew, and checked the court docket posted on a board near the information desk. Then he headed to the courtroom, where in about twenty minutes Sebastian Leopold would make his first court appearance after walking into the police station and giving himself up.

  Decker swung open the heavy oak door and took a seat in the middle of the large room. He was the only one there. No bailiff. No court reporter. No lawyers. The press was covering Mansfield, he reckoned. Part of him would have preferred to be at Mansfield too. But the most important part of him wanted to be right where he was.

  A minute later the prosecuting attorney, a woman in her forties, came into the courtroom, passed by Decker, and took her seat at the counsel table. Decker knew Sheila Lynch, but she had not made eye contact. She opened her briefcase, took out a file, and read through it. Decker stared at the back of her neck, which was exposed because her hair was up in a tight, professional bun. Lynch’s skirt and jacket were black and already showing traces of grime. The back of her right shoe had a gouge out of it and her nylons were a bit ragged where the shoe met the stocking.

  At five minutes to ten the same door Decker had passed through opened again. He glanced back. Lancaster gave him a tiny wave. Behind her was Captain Miller. He was in uniform today.

  They took seats on either side of him.

  Lancaster said, “Don’t know what I was thinking about when I said I’d meet you at the station. Of course you’d be here.”

  “Why aren’t you at Mansfield?” Decker asked.

  Miller answered, “I have been. Since six-thirty this morning. Now we’re here. After this, Lancaster is heading there while I go sit my fat ass behind my desk and deal with crap I don’t want to deal with.”

  “Doesn’t answer why you’re here,” said Decker.

  “No, I guess it doesn’t.”

  Decker continued to eyeball Miller. “I don’t have a gun. I passed through the magnos at the entrance. I can’t shoot the guy.”

  “Never doubted that for an instant,” said Miller, smoothing out a wrinkle on his dark blue jacket. “But this is an important case, and so here we are.”

  “Were you able to trace Leopold’s real identity? Was he in the Navy?”

  “We sent his prints through the FBI’s IAFIS database. No hits.”

  -->