So Much Pretty (28 page)

I was in that room with their bodies for most of the morning.

EVIDENCE
P47919

4/18/09 12:00
P.M
.

Cpt. Alex Dino

Video Record 0007

Murphy, Liam

Um, my name is Liam Murphy?

I was outside by the time the police and ambulance and everybody got there. I had run outside because other people were running after the shots. There were a lot of cars out front. And people didn’t know who the gunman was. Suddenly, I saw this kid running out the door of the gym, and then there was a pop and he just fell forward. He just ran outside and got shot right while everybody was watching, while the police were there and the news was there. He thought he had gotten out. His chest hit the pavement and his feet kicked up behind him and then flopped back down. It was morning and the light was bright orange all around the school, and I remember his shadow on the ground while he was running. He died with everyone watching, on camera. It made me feel like crying. And I wondered why I didn’t throw up. My mom wasn’t there, but someone else’s mom came over and was hugging me and she put her hands over my eyes and turned me away from the school and she walked me to the buses that were taking people away. Then I noticed there were police everywhere, a line of them between us and the school while they moved us to the buses. I didn’t know I was crying until that woman put her arms around me.

I didn’t know anyone who got shot really well. I’m a sophomore, and I know one of the kids was a sophomore, but I didn’t have classes with him.

When I got on the bus, I was really confused for a minute. I didn’t
have a cell phone, and people said I could borrow theirs, but my dad works outside and has no phone and I couldn’t remember the number of the restaurant where my mom works now because it’s new. A teacher said, “Call your grandparents. People will want to know you are okay.” But my papa works outside, too, and never even ever used a cell phone, and my grandma died last year.

I sat on the bus waiting to go to I don’t know where, wherever the parents would meet us, and I was crying. Looking out the window. I didn’t look at the other kids on the bus. I was thinking how I did not want to see that kid fall. How I could picture it again right then, just like it happened, and I did not want to have seen it.

A teacher sat beside me. His face looked gray, the wrong color. I thought,
I’ve got homework in a couple of classes
. But I didn’t remember what I had done with my backpack—I might have left it in the parking lot or in a classroom. By the time we got to the state police place and people’s parents were waiting for them, it seemed like everything had happened days ago, even though it had happened about an hour ago. I got off the bus, and my mother was there because they announced it on the news where we would be taken. I could see her through the window.

My mother stood, and I watched her put her hands on either side of her face, and she would take them down from her face and shake them, like, very quickly and stiffly and then hold her face again, press her hand hard over her mouth. I could see her trying to look into the windows. When I walked off the bus, she dropped her hands and her shoulders slumped. She took a breath and started running toward me. I could see her lips move, saying “Thank God,” and she just reached out her arms.

And I ran over to her to hold her because she was so afraid. I was so sorry for how afraid she was. And I called her Mommy, which I hadn’t done in probably ten or twelve years. I said, “It’s all right, mommy.” But she was saying “Shhhh” in my ear. I’m much bigger than her, and I was bent over to hug her. And I remember she was not crying.

EVIDENCE
P479110

4/18/09 2:15
P.M
.

Cpt. Alex Dino

Video Record 0008

Thompson, Karl

I’m Karl Thompson. I go to HHS. I remember there weren’t even ten shots. And then things were really quiet, there was no more shooting or anything, and people were whispering to each other. We were in the library, and Alice came in.

She asked if everybody was okay. She was whispering, but she said the police were there and everyone was going to be fine. This is exactly what you’d expect from that girl. It was so reassuring to see her. I remember thinking I couldn’t believe how she could be perfect even in this situation. I was almost in love with her right then. Like she was an angel that had come to us, and if it weren’t for her, we would have been so much more scared. She was still wearing the Titans Swim stuff, but she took off the wig and was standing there talking to us, a bunch of people wearing glitter and stupid clothes while someone was trying to kill us, she looked really worried but, like, worried for
us
.

She said people can get real screwed up from shock, so if we were scared, we should elevate our feet and get close together for warmth. She must have known this stuff because she worked in the hospital. Her parents were doctors, too, I think. Just not in Haeden. Then she put down her backpack and went through it and got out some little cans of grapefruit juice and gave them to us. You almost felt like she could catch the shooter herself. Like she was afraid of absolutely nothing. Like bullets could go right through her. And then she said, “I have to see if everybody’s all right.” And she went back out into the hall.

Audio File: Dino, Alex, CPT. HPD 4/23/09
Stacy Flynn, Haeden
Free Press

Alex Dino. Shit, Stacy, you know who I am. Look, I’ve already talked to Albany about this, and I have already talked to the federal government. And I want you to know I wouldn’t be talking to
you
at all if it weren’t for the fact that Elmville and Chemung don’t have their own reporters anymore. Which reminds me, before I forget, there’s some hotshot wearing tassel shoes looking for you in the Alibi. Three of ’em got their laptops set up in there. Guess that’s the kind of place you all feel comfortable. I told him I’m pretty surprised you’re still here. No offense.

Don’t even ask me again about DNA, I told you what happened, and you got copies of those reports. At this point I’ve got a hell of a lot more to worry about. You want a second opinion, convince those poor people to have their daughter dug up.

All right, take it easy. I’m getting to it. Everything changed after April 20, 1999. And everything is going to have to change again. Why these things keep happening in April is anybody’s guess. Prior to what happened there, law enforcement focused on containment of these situations—making sure the problem stayed in the building. The reason there was so much collateral damage at Columbine is because police didn’t enter the school until half an hour after the shooting began. They even failed to enter the outside door that went directly to the library. It was easier to understand why no one caught that gook at Virginia Tech. He killed some girl in her dorm room to begin with—and that was just seen as a domestic, which you would never lock down a school for.

In the dozen or so shootings that happened since Columbine, police enter the building right away. But that didn’t help us in here. We entered the building and we couldn’t figure out what had happened.
Everything was quiet. Kids were shut in classrooms, terrified. I mean, we had no idea. Thought someone could be hiding in there when we walked in. The natural assumption was that the shooter had got his targets and killed himself already. But looking at the boys who were dead, the way they were lying, no. And there was no gun by those scenes. There was no gun ever. The only thing we know is where it is not.

It was like the shooting had been done by a ghost. It was so quiet. We went through the whole building, the SWAT team, the state police, and there was no shooter. There was no one who could even describe a shooter. Finally, a few people said it was a swimmer—someone dressed up like a swimmer. But it was Spirit Day, and everyone, even the teachers, was dressed up.

It was awful. Those boys laid out in the hall and then the other ones in the weight room.

We had to hold nearly everyone. It was late afternoon before we got the powder display off of her and took her out to the county jail. And at that point she smiled. I’ll never forget it. She looked me right in the eye and she smiled. Like I had done exactly what she wanted.

I mean, that’s what it was that day—you were there, you know what the hell I’m talking about.

And I was right that they’re affiliated with terrorists, like I told you. The Environmental Liberation Front, for one. They call themselves ELF, which sounds real innocent but is really one of the worst groups in the country.

It turns out her parents were never married. Piper is not even a family name. They made it up when they were living in New York City. I thought it was a joke when the federal officer told me these groups call themselves anti-civilization. Like there’s nobody on earth stupid enough to believe you’re going to be alive yourself if you believe in anti-civilization. They just want chaos and murder, which is what they brought to this town. They’re out to destroy everything. Doctors gone wrong, like that Kaczynski guy was a scientist gone wrong.

They come in here and infiltrate a nice little town—they think
because nobody knows what they are, they can get away with it. Well, they got more government and civilization now than they ever believed possible, I’ll tell you right now. We’ll see all of them in jail. We’ll see the girl and her parents and the rest of those freaks like the Manson family in jail. The father and that big dark guy who comes to visit Ross Miller who’s been a nut for thirty years, we’ll see them in jail. Somebody taught that girl to shoot, somebody taught her what her targets were. Somebody got her a gun.

Audio File: Weiss, Judith, 5/3/09
Stacy Flynn, Haeden
Free Press

Judith Weiss, May 3, 2009. I can give you information about the case for background purposes and nothing more. So I expect none of this to turn up in print unless I have said to you “This is for attribution” or “This is on the record,” which I assure you I will not. Is that clear? And I am maintaining my own recording of this conversation.

I met Gene and Claire through Constant Souriani, whom I had known through mutual clients in Manhattan. It was an unusual case for me to have taken, as Alice Piper was not a corporation. It turned out odder still, because currently, there is no defendant of which to speak. If things change in the future, I assume I will still be representing the Pipers and possibly Constant, and you may want to contact me again then. There may be personal suits against the Pipers from the families of the deceased, in which case I will be representing Gene and Claire, who have done absolutely nothing wrong.

I am confident the evidence will show their historical political leanings had no influence on Alice’s actions. And that in their youth, they had been no different from other teenagers in liking loud music, bicycle riding, and traveling. I mean, please. This nonsense about anti-civilization.

As far as what exactly Alice’s actions were on that day, I must stress we don’t at all know. All we have is the paraffin test—the evidence of powder burns—but we also know Alice often went shooting in the early mornings with her uncle Ross. Because of sports and pep-rally events, there were at least fifteen girls at school who fit Alice’s description that day. The only eyewitness admits he was so terrified he may have been mistaken, that the events didn’t make sense even to him. That he couldn’t be sure. Perhaps this will get sorted out for him in counseling, who can say?

What do we know about Alice Piper? She is technically a genius. Her IQ is 158. She got a 2300 on her SAT. She is an athlete. Now. Think what this means. Think what this means for a girl in Haeden. I want nothing about her intelligence coming from this firm. But for your own purposes, you may want to consider her intellectual background and the treatment she’s been getting in this town.

A young woman from a family like Alice’s, living in Haeden, her intelligence is going to be a huge problem. It doesn’t matter that she was the sweetest girl on earth and everyone loved her. It doesn’t matter that she was a conscientious kid. Her intelligence is already half criminal. Her intelligence has already convicted her. I’m certain you understand the cultural phenomena I am talking about.

The bottom line is this: There is absolutely no concrete evidence that Alice Piper is the Haeden High School shooter, no gun, no written material, and most significantly, no motive.

EVIDENCE
P479112

4/17/09 2:15
P.M
.

Sgt. Anthony Giles

The Life and Work of Philippe-Ignace Semmelweis (Notes for first draft)

AP History Period 4

Biography and Discovery

Alice Piper

Grade 10

3/12/09

The mysterious death of a friend was the catalyst for a scientific breakthrough that revolutionized medical treatment in the mid–19th century, and presaged the work of Joseph Lister and Louis Pasteur.

In 1847, while dissecting a cadaver Jakob Kolletschka the friend of Obstetrician Dr. Philippe Ignace Semmelweis cut his finger. He died shortly after of Pupureal fever, a disease also known as Childbed Fever, which was very common in the “pauper’s hospital” where they worked.

Prior to this accident, Pupureal Fever was thought to be caused by “bad air, unfavourable atmospheric, cosmic, or terrestrial influences, and inferior psychology.” (324) It killed 20 percent of women giving birth in teaching hospitals.
^*
Need to get other stats re: general population.

Semmelweis proposed that the actual cause was the transmission of the disease from corpses to patients by doctors who did not wash their hands after handling cadavers. The disease was transferred to the women they were treating. By making doctors disinfect their hands with chloride
or lime, and clean bed sheets he decreased mortality rates by 90 percent in just a few months.