There had been a vigil outside his house the night after the murders. They had been real candles then. Plus a pile of flowers, signs, and stuffed animals. It had been meant as signs of support, love, solidarity, caring. That was all good. But the sight of that pile had left him sickened and disoriented. And mad with something even beyond grief.
He turned away from the window and kept walking as the rain started to hammer down on the school’s roof.
He could imagine the cell phones winking off as the group hastily put them away. Or maybe they would keep them out in the rain. Let them die too, as a sign of solidarity to those who had been lost inside this place.
Decker passed a detective he knew in the hall. He was talking to someone in a suit whom Decker had seen before in the library; the man was FBI. The detective nodded at Decker.
“Hear you’re consulting on the case, Amos. Good to see you.”
Decker nodded hesitantly as he glanced at the FBI agent. The man was giving Decker the once-over, and the appraisal, Decker could tell from the man’s expression, did not turn out favorably.
“Yeah,” was all Decker could manage in a gruff voice, before he hurried on.
But then he put aside the awkward encounter, which his mind allowed him to do quite easily. He could compartmentalize at an astonishing level. It came from not giving a shit.
And something did not make sense. That was the reason for his abrupt departure from the library.
Page two of the witness statements.
Melissa Dalton, aged seventeen and a junior, had been putting books away in her locker. The time had been early, 7:28, more than an hour before school officially began. She was here to take a makeup test she had missed due to an illness.
Dalton had known the exact time because she had glanced at the clock on the wall above her locker, afraid that she would be late. She had perfect attendance throughout high school, with not even a tardy to mar her record. This was important to her, since her parents had said four years of such perfection would merit a hand-me-down car all her own when Dalton graduated.
So 7:28.
That’s when Melissa Dalton had heard something. And she had told Lancaster when Mary interviewed her.
She had heard something one hour and two minutes before the bell would ring. Maybe twelve minutes after the bell rang, or at approximately 8:42, Debbie Watson would lose her face and her life when the shooter turned the corner and raised his shotgun. All because she had an upset stomach.
But how could Melissa Dalton have heard what she did?
Small observations can lead to large breakthroughs.
He kept going.
Chapter
14
DECKER STOPPED AND looked around. The gym was to the far left on the last hall on the first floor. Then classrooms, then the rear entrance. On the other side of the main corridor were more classrooms, the custodial space, and the rear loading dock off that. The main corridor ran front to back, splitting the first floor exactly in half, with three corridors running off that to the left and right, like straight branches off a tree trunk.
Since only the middle hallway had exits on either end, that meant there were four sets of entry and exit doors, situated at all four points of the compass.
He headed to the rear entrance and peered up at the camera. Then he walked to different spots along the rear doorway and checked the camera each time he did so.
Interesting.
He reversed course and walked down the main hall until he neared the front entrance. Then he veered to the left, down the hall where the cafeteria was located on his left and the library on the right.
This was where Melissa Dalton’s locker was located, directly across from the cafeteria. He looked at the locker. Just behind it was the library where Lancaster was toiling away. On the opposite side, next to the sprinkling of classrooms, was the large cafeteria.
Decker recalled from his school days that there was a storage and prep area at the end of the cafeteria with an exterior door leading to a small concrete porch area where shipments of food would be stacked. So that actually made six doors. Four main ones off the halls, one off the rear loading dock, and one here off the cafeteria.
At 7:28 Melissa Dalton had heard a door open and close. It was not an interior classroom door, because there had been a whooshing sound associated with it, she had said. Like a vacuum closing.
Like a vacuum closing. Those had been Dalton’s words. Lancaster had noted in the statement that Dalton had told her she loved science and the class had just gone over vacuums, which was no doubt why that term was fresh in her mind. Lancaster had put multiple question marks next to this statement, plus a large asterisk. She was no doubt planning to check that out later. Decker couldn’t blame her for marking the statement so. It didn’t seem to make sense.
So that was page two of the statements.
On page ten of the witness statements was a little nugget. It was the counterpart information that had really caused Decker to come here.
The cafeteria workers came in at 8:45 sharp. Not before, not after. That had been verified from multiple sources as being the case yesterday as well. All the cafeteria workers were female. There was simply not a six-two, two-hundred-plus-pound, broad-shouldered male among them.
And since the shooting had started at 8:42, none of the cafeteria workers had actually made it into the school. Four of them were getting out of their cars in the parking lot and another was waiting to turn into the lot when all hell had broken loose.
Decker stepped into the cafeteria and looked around. His hand instinctively went to the butt of his pistol, which was wedged in his waistband and hidden under his jacket. He nudged the safety off with his thumb. He already had a round chambered. The lights were off in here. Decker found the switches and flicked them on using his elbow.
He walked across the main space, passing tables with chairs stacked neatly on top of them. At the end of the room were the serving counters, all stainless steel and glass. The serving tubs were all empty. Everything was clean, dishes stacked neatly, all ready to go except for the absence of any hungry students and folks ready to serve them.
His gaze was roaming to the floor as he stepped. But there wasn’t a discernible footprint there. Decker stepped through the opening into the rear space. There were portable shelving units here used to carry food from this area to the serving area. They were parked against the walls. There were mops and buckets and other cleaning tools.
That was of no interest to Decker.
What was of interest to him was the built-in freezer located at the far end of the storage room.
A whooshing sound. A vacuum. A freezer door closing.
Or opening.
He pulled out his pistol. He wasn’t actually expecting to find the shooter in full cammies inside the freezer. They had to have searched back here and of course opened the freezer. But he had seen enough weird shit in his life not to discount the possibility. And to take anything for granted at this point could mean he too might leave the school in a body bag in the back of a silent transport.
He aimed his pistol at the door, stepped to the side, gripped the handle with his coat sleeve, jerked it upward, and tugged it hard. The door opened cleanly.
With a whoosh, he noted, as the air seal was broken. He imagined in the early morning hours it would have echoed right out into the empty, silent hall and into Melissa Dalton’s ears. Well, this had been his little experiment, and it seemed to corroborate what the girl had said.
Decker backed away and took up position behind a worktable. He edged around it until he could see fully into the freezer. It was empty, except for food. But had it been empty at 7:28 the morning of the rampage?