The Third Victim Part 8

Lying just outside the computer-lab door, this victim, also female, appeared to be a teacher. Three female fatalities coincidence or plan?

She had long dark hair and exotic features. She was also young, her smooth skin making her appear as if she were simply sleeping. Then Rainie noticed the small, neat bullet hole in her forehead.

Small-caliber weapon, Rainie thought. Probably a .22. Christ, the teacher didn't look a day older than herself. Late twenties maybe.

Early thirties. No wedding band, but beautiful enough that you had to think some man would be sitting alone tonight, holding her picture with shaking hands while trying to forget the future that would never be.

Christ.

Rainie had to take another deep breath. Only three more doors. All near the epicenter of violence. All dark and waiting. Time to get on with it.

Rainie backed up against the wall and sat in a crouch until her hands stopped shaking.

Only the teacher had a head wound, she thought. A single-entry shot, dead center, delivered with a great deal of precision. The two girls sported a mult.i.tude of wounds, high, low, left, right, as if they had walked into a firestorm. But the teacher .. . the teacher was different. Perhaps the intended target? Shooter went for her first, then encountered the two girls walking down the hall?

Or maybe he started with the girls in the hall, and upon hearing the noise the computer-lab teacher opened her door. She would've been right in front of the killer. Had he gotten up his courage by then?

Decided it wasn't that different from a video game? Figured why waste bullets if he could do it with a single shot?

Either scenario bothered Rainie. For the little girls to have so many wounds and the adult victim only one. There was something to that. She just didn't have the time to think about it now.

Suddenly, she heard a noise. The faint screech of a metal chair slowly being pulled across the floor.

Rainie scrambled across the hallway. She threw herself against the wall next to the cla.s.sroom door just as the metal handle turned and the door eased open.

"Don't do this," a man said.

"We can still fix everything. I swear to you, son, there's nothing that happened today that we can't handle."

Shep O'Grady came into view, tan uniform stretched tight over his burly frame. His buzz-cut hair glistened with moisture, while his bulldog features were unnaturally pale. From her angle, Rainie could see that he'd managed to unsnap his holster, but he'd never had time to draw his weapon. Now his hands were held in front of him in a gesture of submission. He worked frantically to plead his case.

"I'm sure it's all a big mistake. A misunderstanding. These things

happen. Now we gotta work together, clear things up. You know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you."

Shep took another step back, his hands still up, his gaze focused ahead. Being forced into retreat? Rainie didn't know. Then she glanced fifteen feet behind Shep, where the three bodies lay. Shep was being herded into the scene of carnage, she realized. And when he got there .. .

It was amazing how steady her hands felt, how calm her nerves had become. Shooting was something she'd done all her life. Never in the line of duty, but Shep was her boss, her friend. They went way back, had a history together few could appreciate. Everything felt natural after all.

One last thought: commit to the shot, for hesitation was the number one killer of cops.

Rainie pivoted sharply away from the wall and simultaneously shoved Shep out of the doorway. Her gun went level, her legs braced for recoil, and her fingers found the trigger just as Shep screamed, "No!"

And Rainie found herself face-to-face with thirteen-year-old Danny O'Grady, pale as a sheet and bearing two handguns.

Tuesday, May 15, 2:43 p.m.

Oregon state homicide detective Abe Sanders had just sat down to a late lunch, a big Italian sub with double pepperoni and double cheese. His wife would yell at him if she saw him, lecture him about jeopardizing his health and turning her into a cholesterol widow. Most of the time he agreed with her, and at the ripe old age of forty-two, he had the trim waistline to prove it. But not today. Today was just one of those days.

Margaret Collins, an attractive blonde who manned the department phones, came walking by his desk and did a double take.

"Wow, Abe. Next thing we know, you'll be drinking beer."

They were out of turkey," Abe muttered, and unconsciously held his Italian sub closer to him, as if he feared someone would take it away.

"The Hathaway case turned sour, didn't it?" Margaret deduced sagely.

She was a true-crime buff and often had better instincts than any of the detectives.

"d.a.m.n judge," Abe said, and took a huge bite of sandwich.

"Inside a drawer isn't plain sight."

He chewed busily, too polite to talk with his mouth full. After a choking swallow, he declared, "The drawer was already open."

"By another homicide cop."

"d.a.m.n cop," Abe said, and took a bite of cheese.

Margaret laughed. She winked, making him momentarily forget his wife,

then sauntered away, leaving him alone with his feast. Abe chewed down another bite, but his heart wasn't really in it. Brown deli mustard had dripped onto his desk. He shook his head and set down the sandwich in favor of a napkin.

Truth was, he always ordered indulgent food when cases went bad, and he rarely ate any of it. He'd fantasize about just what he'd like to order, salivate while in line, and get the largest size possible. Then he'd take it out, think about the calories, the fat content, the cholesterol level, and set it aside. Decadence just wasn't in him. He was a type-A control freak to the core, even when confronted with a loaded Italian sub or a plateful of double-chocolate brownies. He'd even been known to put the lid back on a pint of Ben & Jerry's chocolate-chip cookie-dough ice cream after only one bite.

When Abe Sanders was young, he'd been the Boy Scout with all the merit badges, the student with the good report card, and the track star with the fastest time. He'd read the cla.s.sics 'just for the h.e.l.l of it."

He'd gotten the girl every guy had wanted. And he'd bought a four-bedroom ranch in an older, 'nice' section of Portland with an impeccably manicured lawn.

Then he'd finally shocked his family. He'd become a cop. His parents joked that their neat-freak son had decided to clean up the whole world. His two brothers, one older, one younger, told him he suffered from an overdeveloped hero complex. His chess buddies gravely informed him that the entire accounting community had wept the day he headed for the academy, that spreadsheets would never be the same.

Abe himself never really talked about why he became a cop. Maybe he simply understood better than most that life was messy, even for type-A control freaks. There was his wife, whom he loved and adored and who finally discovered, after five years of trying, that she could never have children. There was the tidy house they'd chosen as their home in the early eighties, only to have gang-bangers and crack addicts move in down the block. There was Abe himself, a.n.a.l, precise, obsessive-compulsive, learning that his planned path as a CFO simply couldn't hold his attention.

He wanted a sense of accomplishment, a sense of change. h.e.l.l, maybe he did just want to make the whole world as orderly as his desktop files.

Didn't matter in the end. Detective Sanders was a d.a.m.n good cop.

Other detectives rode him hard. They shook their heads at his manicured hands, told jokes about his polished loafers. Tried to drive him nuts by replacing his expensive, personally purchased black stapler with a cheap gray government issue that always jammed. One day they even rotated the tires on his car to see if he'd notice (he did).

Then they worked with him.

Abe Sanders with a case was a man obsessed. Abe Sanders with a case was pa.s.sion and drive and, for reasons not even he could explain, anger. Pure rage at the injustices of life and the G.o.dd.a.m.n s.h.i.t-faced pea-for-brains n.u.m.b.n.u.t.s who took away good, honest, hardworking lives.

Maybe other detectives didn't understand the value of a good stapler, but all cops knew rage. It was the common denominator no one ever spoke about and everyone understood.

Abe carefully rewrapped his sandwich, placing it in the middle of the triangle-shaped paper, folding in the corners, and rolling it tight. He dabbed at the mustard on his desk with a wet napkin. Then he threw everything away.

The Hathaway case had burned him. Not that it was really the judge's fault. Snickers had written the search warrant too loosely, so the cops had had to improvise. That never worked anymore. Lawyers ran the world, and smart cops had to learn to antic.i.p.ate the fine print. That was just the way of things.

Abe could count on one hand the number of warrants and arrests he'd had problems with. Being a.n.a.l was good.

He got up to go wash his hands, and his lieutenant stuck his head out of his office.

"Sanders? Need a word." Abe walked in curiously. He sat on the edge of the hard plastic chair in his lieutenant's office. And a moment later he heard about a small town called Bakersville, two hours southwest of Portland, that didn't even have its own homicide force. He sat, quiet and stunned, as his lieutenant described what they believed to be the second school shooting in Oregon in just a matter of years. Already reports of casualties. Crime Scene Unit was on its way, county officers on their way, and state officers rushing in. No word on the shooter yet and, oddly enough, no one could locate the sheriff.