The Third Victim Part 4

"Walk right behind me, Chuckie. Eyes open, hands off your gun. Walt's acting without authority, but he still doesn't deserve to be shot." Chuckie nodded dutifully.

"There are just three things to remember at a crime scene: Don't touch a thing. Don't touch a d.a.m.n thing. Don't touch a G.o.dd.a.m.n thing.

Okay?"

Chuckie nodded again. Rainie glanced at her watch. 1:57 p.m. The parking lot was still a mess, and it was hard to think over the din of sirens and crying children. It was hard to look too closely, because now she was noticing the red spots on the sidewalk, the unmistakable trail of blood from the school into the yard. The injured children fleeing for their lives. And the others? The ones Richard Mann said the other teachers had seen?

Rainie couldn't think about that yet. She had her Clock in her right hand and her backup .2.2. holstered at her ankle. She hoped that was enough. She gave Cunningham a rea.s.suring nod, and entered the building with her walkie-talkie in her left hand.

The noise was louder in the building, the long hallways funneling the relentlessly pinging fire alarm and raining the sound down upon their heads.

"Dispatch," Rainie yelled into her walkie-talkie.

"One-five calling dispatch. Linda, come in."

"Dispatch to one-five."

"Get me Hank on the wire. I need to know how to turn off the d.a.m.n fire alarms."

"Ummm, okay. One moment."

Rainie and Chuckie paused in the front lobby, wincing against the steadily increasing noise.

Ahead of them, the main hallway was surprisingly clean. No backpacks scattered, no books thrown across the vast white-tiled floor. To the right loomed the admissions office, where the gla.s.s windows were covered with pastel cutouts of paper flowers and the cheery word Welcome! Rainie still didn't see any signs of violence.

The walkie-talkie crackled to life. Rainie held it up against her ear to catch Linda's instructions. Inside the main office. A master panel. Rainie eyed the closed door. No telling what was on the other side. And impossible to hear. That was the whole problem.

She motioned Chuckie to the side. No time like the present.

Ducking low. Leading with her gun. Kicking open the door and rolling inside. Coming up ... Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Office secured.

She crossed to the main control panel, and a second later the fire alarms abruptly broke off.

Chuckie blinked sharply. The silence was stunning after the noise.

Stunning, and eerie.

"That that's better," Chuckie said after a moment, working on sounding confident when his face had turned the color of parchment.

"Major learning from Columbine," Rainie muttered.

"The fire alarms obscured all sound. Made it impossible for the SWAT team to pinpoint where the shooters were in the building."

"You've been trained in school shootings?" Chuckie asked hopefully.

"No. I read Time magazine." Rainie jerked her head.

"Come on. Keep your head on straight. Use your ears. You'll be okay."

They returned to the main hall, both of them holding their sidearms and moving gingerly. After the office, rows of blue lockers began, the doors closed. The shooting must have happened after all the students were back in cla.s.s after lunch, Rainie decided. She wondered if that was significant. Then she wondered what she would find in the cla.s.srooms.

She noticed a few misshapen slugs on the floor as they moved farther in. Probably stray shots from the main area of incident, or maybe debris kicked into this area when People stampeded out. She stepped carefully around all the objects, though she had no illusion about the situation in front of her.

An officer's first priority when approaching any crime scene was to preserve human life. The second objective was to apprehend the perpetrator, if still in the vicinity, and secure the scene. Third was to detain witnesses and protect me evidence, for it was always the officer's job to look beyond the tragedy of the moment. In the days to

come, the people of Bakersville would be clamoring for answers. They would want reconstructions of the day, who did what to whom. What had gone wrong. Who was to blame.

Rainie already knew that those questions would not be easily answered.

The school was located in a residential area, and too many civilians had beaten officers to the building. Between them, the EMTs, and the students, the hallway was contaminated. And now here were Rainie and Chuckie, two armed and inexperienced officers at their first major crime scene. She was in trouble before she started, and she still had no choice but to continue.

Rainie could hear Cunningham breathing hard behind her, while Walt cursed fifty yards in front of her.

"G.o.ddammit, Bradley," the volunteer EMT was muttering.

"Don't you cut out on me now. h.e.l.l, man, we got poker on Friday."

Rainie and Cunningham quietly came up behind Walt and took inventory.

Custodian Bradley Brown lay at a main intersection of two wide hallways. From this vantage point, Rainie could see nearly a dozen cla.s.sroom doors to the left. They were all shut, which immediately made the hairs on the back of her neck p.r.i.c.kle to life.

She glanced at Chuckie, but the rookie was looking to the right, where the hallway led to two gla.s.s side doors, shattered and streaked with a dark substance that was probably blood. More lockers dented here, a great deal more damage. The primary area of incidence.

A body lay not far from the doors. Long dark hair, a flowing summer dress. Probably a teacher. Closer in, Rainie saw two more shapes.

Smaller, motionless. Not adults. Cunningham made a hiccuping sound.

Rainie turned away.

"Already looked," Walt said tightly from the floor.

"You shouldn't even be in here."

"They're kids, Rainie. Just kids. We had to." Rainie didn't bother with any more chastising. Walt was a former army medic and an experienced volunteer EMT. He knew the considerations, and what was done was done. She turned her attention to the custodian.

Bradley was an older man, his gray hair bristly, his brown pants and blue chambray shirt well worn. He wore a modest gold watch, the kind you might get as a reward for twenty years of service. And he had been shot high in the chest: blood relentlessly seeped through the white gauze bandages.

"Others?" the janitor whispered.

"Everyone's fine, Bradley," Walt answered crisply.

"Just gotta worry about your miserable hide. What are you doing, getting yourself shot like that?" Walt slipped an IV needle into Bradley's arm, trying to get fluids into the man as his own drained out.

"You're doing great," Rainie rea.s.sured the janitor, kneeling down beside his head and giving him a smile.

"So what happened here, Bradley?"

"Got .. . shot."

"No kidding." She forced a chuckle, as if they were sharing a small story over lunch.

"See who did it?"

"Came .. . around .. . the corner."