“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. Saul 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.