The Third Victim (11 page)

Avery Johnson said sternly, “You’re a police officer, Shep, and not even you can prove your son’s innocence—”

“I will—”

“You can’t—”

“I got six months.”

Avery Johnson sighed. He clearly thought they were both in denial. He tried again:

“Even if you manage to explain away how
your
guns came to be at
that
crime scene, why
your
son held
you
hostage, and why
your
son confessed twice to
three
murders, the fact remains that Danny is a troubled boy. He obviously has issues. Thus, all legal necessities aside, as parents you should be able to see the value of the next six months as an opportunity to get Danny the help he needs. He’ll be examined by child-development experts. He’ll take a battery of psychological exams. He’ll have his childhood, his family, his friends, all thoroughly explored. While I’m sure it may be awkward at times, the result should be a better understanding of who Danny is and what problems he’s facing. Does that make sense?”

Sandy finally considered the matter. She glanced at Shep, who was rolling a bite of pie around in his mouth in a manner that indicated he didn’t really taste it. She could tell the lawyer’s words had depressed him; his shoulders had slumped again. Danny had problems. Danny had issues. It was Shep’s way to deny all things he didn’t like to hear, but he had no more words left. The lawyer’s comments had struck too close to the secret doubts in their hearts. What if Danny was troubled? What if they had turned their little boy into a monster?

There were such dark shadows beneath her husband’s eyes. Sandy had to look away.

She knew that after leaving her room last night, Shep had lain down on the floor next to Becky’s bed. Their little girl had refused offers to sleep in her parents’ room, instead building a wall of stuffed animals around her bed. Big Bear, her favorite doll, was reserved for special bodyguard duty. Hannah the horse was positioned at the door. Twelve Beanie Babies cordoned off the windowsill. Pugsley the dog was handed over to Sandy, just in case she needed protecting too.

Becky whimpered many times in the middle of the night. Once, around three
A
.
M
., Shep caught her leaping out of bed and running for her closet. When he tried to shake her awake, she whimpered harder, so he finally carried her back to bed with Big Bear. Becky mumbled for him to look out for monsters before falling more deeply asleep.

At six
A
.
M
. Shep moved to the couch in the family room. At seven
A
.
M
., when Sandy went to check on Becky, she found her curled up in the far corner of the closet, four dresses pulled down to hide her gleaming blond hair.

Becky still hadn’t said anything about what had happened yesterday, and the doctors predicted she never would. Whatever she had experienced was too traumatic for her eight-year-old mind, and she was now working resiliently to lock it all away. Sandy and Shep were instructed to make their daughter feel safe, while being careful not to sound dismissive of her fears. Whatever that meant.

Sandy had the feeling she and Shep were aging exponentially these days. She would dearly love to pick up the phone to speak with Margaret or Liz or Margie about it, the way the four mothers had been comparing notes on their children for the last six years. Except she couldn’t do that. Her children might be suffering, but her son was supposedly the cause of everyone’s pain. It was now her job as his mother to pay his dues.

“What . . . what if Danny did do it?” Sandy ventured for the first time, staring tremulously at the rich, successful Avery Johnson, who held their future in his hands. “What if all the experts study Danny and conclude that he is a killer?”

“This is what I’ve been trying to explain. The point of this trial isn’t to say that Danny is a killer; it’s to evaluate whether he will kill again. Juvenile court is going to appoint a forensic psychologist to evaluate Danny, his personality, past behavior, violent tendencies, et cetera. There is a whole range of parameters this psychologist will analyze, hence it takes some time. When he’s done studying Danny, the expert will write up a report. In this case, given the seriousness of Danny’s alleged crime, the forensic psychologist will probably make two statements. One will say, presuming Danny did commit mass murder, he has
X
percent chance of killing again. If he didn’t commit mass murder, he has
Y
percent chance of being rehabilitated.”

“I don’t understand. If Danny didn’t do the crime, then he should have a one-hundred-percent chance of leading a normal, healthy life. How can there be a second statement?”

“The forensic psychologist is looking beyond this moment, Mrs. O’Grady, to Danny’s entire life, not just this one act, which he may or may not be guilty of.”

“Danny has always been a very good boy,” Sandy said automatically.

Avery Johnson looked at her sympathetically but firmly. “Danny suffers explosions of violent rage. He spends a lot of time with guns. He has a reputation for being antisocial. These things are going to come up, Mrs. O’Grady. The forensic psychologist will be looking at all sorts of factors, including tensions in your family and other sources of stress.”

Shep bowed his head. Sandy knew what he was thinking. Their crumbling marriage. Shep’s raging temper—not a great model for dealing with aggression, though Shep, God bless him, had never lifted a hand against her or the children. The furniture, however, was not always so lucky.

Shep finally spoke up. “What if we don’t like the expert’s findings? Can’t we get our own shrink?”

“Absolutely. First thing tomorrow morning I’ll petition juvenile court for our own forensic psychologist. They’ll still appoint the expert, but he’ll work for us.”

“What does that cost?” Sandy asked hesitantly. “I mean . . .”

She glanced at Shep; she could tell he was angry she’d brought up money. But she couldn’t help herself. Sheriff paid only twenty-five thousand a year, and Sandy barely made nine dollars an hour at her job. She’d been hoping for more, she’d been hoping to be salaried after this new deal with Wal-Mart closed, but that already seemed a million years ago. She’d run out of the office and never looked back. In the evening Mitchell had left her a very nice message telling her to take all the time she needed, but she could tell he was disappointed. He needed help for the meeting now. With her gone, he’d have no choice but to find someone else. That was business.

“The juvenile court pays for the experts. It comes out of the court’s funds.”

“It won’t cost us anything?” Sandy asked.

Her husband growled. Avery Johnson assured her it wouldn’t. For the first time she saw some compassion in his eyes. He probably understood a great deal more about their finances than she’d thought.

“The advantage of having our own expert is that he’ll be subject to patient-client confidentiality. Danny can be perfectly honest with him, and if we think that’s too damning in the end, we simply won’t have our expert testify. No one will be the wiser.”

“But us,” Sandy said.

“If you have the information, you can get Danny help,” Avery said calmly.

“If you keep him out of adult court,” she countered.

“That’s the challenge,” he agreed. “For a thirteen-year-old boy, adult court spells doom.”

They were all silent for a moment, contemplating the road ahead and the young life at stake. Sandy rubbed her aching temples.

“Danny didn’t do it,” Shep said stubbornly. “I’m going to prove it.”

The phone rang. Shep automatically picked it up. He said hello, then his face froze and he slammed the phone down.

“Wrong number,” he muttered, but they all knew he was lying. The phone had been ringing all morning. Disembodied voices yelling,
“I hope they rape the bastard good. I hope in prison they fucking tear him apart. Baby killer, baby killer, baby killer.”

Sandy had lived in this town all her life. She had loved it with her whole heart.

She turned back to Avery Johnson. “What are our chances? Tell me honestly. What happened to the other boys accused of mass shootings?”

“Nearly all are in jail for life. But most of the shooters were sixteen, which made them fall automatically under the jurisdiction of adult court.”

“But not everyone? There’s been an exception?”

“Jonesboro. Those two boys were too young, and Arkansas didn’t have a statute for sending juveniles to adult court.”

“They remained in juvenile custody?”

“I believe they were ordered held until their twenty-first birthdays.”

Sandy felt hopeful for the first time. “And did that work out, Mr. Johnson?” she asked anxiously. “Are they safe, productive members of their community now?”

“Nobody knows yet, Mrs. O’Grady. Nobody knows.”

TWELVE
                                                                                                                                                                                                               

Wednesday, May 16, 5:57
P
.
M
.

T
HE MAN
’
S FAVORITE
service provider was AOL. He liked the way it grouped headline news and made it easy to jump from story to story. Double-click on news summary,
Sheriff’s Son Suspected in Small-Town Slayings.
Two paragraphs later, double-click again for the
in-depth
report. Whole world mourns. Three families devastated, president cries out for greater gun control, yada, yada, yada. A sidebar gave him additional options. He could chat with others on the subject. See a timeline of all the recent school shootings. Read an interview of other school-shooting survivors discussing how each new incident reopened their wounds and ripped out their hearts. He read that article. Open wounds, bleeding hearts. God, he loved journalism these days. For that matter, he kept the December 20, 1999, edition of
Time
magazine under glass. Anything for inspiration.

Two hours before he’d downloaded the most recent articles on the Bakersville story. Not as much coverage as he’d hoped. Only three dead, that was the problem. Front-page news had become a lot more competitive than when he’d first started. He’d have to remember that.

Six
P
.
M
. The man pushed away from his laptop. Damn, he was hungry.

This motel didn’t offer much in the way of amenities. He’d hoped for a larger hotel, a nice innocuous chain. No such luck within driving distance of Bakers-ville. He’d had to go with a cheap, privately run place. On the one hand, the owner seemed overly interested in his guests. On the other hand, there wasn’t a large staff working all hours of the night to notice the man’s activities. Win some, lose some.

The man’s stomach grumbled again. He decided to try the local bar.

Fifteen minutes later, coat and hat in place, he journeyed down the tiny main street into a dimly lit tavern. Three local men, clustered around the single TV, looked up curiously. The lone, balding bartender gave him a small nod of greeting. The man took a seat in front of three silver keg levers and ordered a beer.

“Anything good on the news?” he called down to the other men.

“Senate wants some new gun law. Hold the parents accountable for whatever damage their kids do with guns.”

“About time,” the man’s friend mumbled. “As they say, the apple never falls far from the tree; these kids had to get their ideas from somewhere.”

The third man eyed the first two levelly. He had an old, weather-beaten face from a lifetime spent riding a John Deere. He said quietly, “Shep’s a good man.”

The other two shrugged and almost immediately began studying their feet. Apparently they felt in no position to argue.

So the man at the bar drawled, “Shep’s a good sheriff, sure. But a father—don’t you think a father is a separate thing?”

The three men turned away from the TV. For the first time, they truly studied him. The older man, Ruddy-Face, spoke first. “I don’t think we caught your name.”

“Oh, I’m just passing through. Business, you know. Generally I love traveling down the coast. Pretty countryside, nice people. But this time . . . A thirteen-year-old boy shooting two little girls. Then murdering that poor teacher . . . Such a beautiful woman, such a horrible waste.” He turned back to the bartender, whose welcoming demeanor had already disappeared. “Can I get an order of buffalo wings? Extra hot. Extra blue cheese.”

“Nobody knows if Danny O’Grady did it,” Ruddy-Face said stiffly. The bartender nodded.

“Come on, Darren,” one of his friends said softly. “My wife heard it straight from Luke Hayes’s mother that Danny confessed.”

“And I’m telling you that the O’Gradys are good people.”

“Any other suspects?” the man at the bar asked casually.

“Some kids reported seeing a man in black,” Ruddy-Face said instantly.

“Come on, Darren, no one believes that. They’re kids. They’re frightened and they got a big imagination.”

“Doesn’t mean it’s not true.”

The other men frowned but once again deigned not to argue.

“I heard the O’Gradys have marital problems,” the man at the bar said next.

Ruddy-Face tried his cold stare on him. He was large, barrel-chested and thick-armed even now, from a lifetime of work. The man at the bar was not impressed. Old men like Ruddy-Face didn’t engage in bar fights. They used their age and position to shame their opponents into silence. Well, he’d finally met his match. The man at the bar had no shame.

“I’m just saying what I heard,” he said evenly.

Ruddy-Face took a step forward. One of his companions caught his arm.

“Leave him alone, Darren. Man’s got a right to his opinion.”

“Last summer,” Ruddy-Face said in a clipped voice, “I drove to Bakersville for the weekly auction. Damn if I didn’t blow out a tire on my trailer and nearly kill us all. Shep O’Grady was passing by in his patrol car, his son sitting in the passenger seat. They pulled over and helped me out. And Danny didn’t just sit there. He got out of the car, helped line up the spare, and worked on tightening the lug nuts like a fine young man. When I thanked them both, he told me, no problem, sir, and shook my hand. I don’t know what happened in that school. But I wouldn’t be too quick to judge a boy, or two parents, the rest of you have never met.”

The man at the bar said, “Really, that’s interesting. ’Cause I heard Danny O’Grady has a nasty temper. Hangs out with the wrong crowd, trashed his own locker. My client has a son at Bakersville K-through-eight, and he said everyone knew Danny O’Grady was not right in the head.”

Ruddy-Face drew his bushy white brows into a thick, thunderous glare. His friend once more caught his arm.

“Face it,” his friend said in a placating voice. “Tragedies like this aren’t meant to make sense. Makes me wonder sometimes if each generation don’t need a war, simply to have a way to vent.”

“You think war makes for better youths?” Ruddy-Face asked incredulously.

The friend shrugged. “I remember shooting up Germans and Koreans, but never our schools.”

“That’s a load of horseshit, Edgar.”

“I’m just saying—”

“Drug addictions and double amputees, that’s what you’re saying. Yeah, war works wonders for young men.”

“Well, what do you think is going on, Darren? These shootings keep happening! Jee-sus, how many has it been now!”

All the men fell silent, even the one at the bar, who was fighting not to grin.

Ruddy-Face said shortly, “I guess we’ll just have to see what happens.”

Edgar snorted. “If anything happens. Bakersville doesn’t even have a sheriff anymore. I hear that woman’s in charge.”

“Officer Lorraine Conner,” the man at the bar said, and the bartender eyed him curiously.

Edgar nodded. “Yeah, that’s right. She’s taken over the case, and God knows she’s barely old enough to vote.”

“They also brought in a fed,” the man at the bar offered. “Some expert in school shootings.”

“The feds got an expert in school shootings?” The bartender spoke up for the first time.

The man grinned at him. “Interesting, isn’t it?” he said. “Now we just have to find out if the man is any good.”

EIGHT P.M. THE STREETS
of Bakersville had descended into dusky shades of gray, and Rainie’s mood had grown tense.

After speaking with Principal VanderZanden, Rainie and Quincy had paid a visit to Melissa Avalon’s tiny apartment, hoping to learn more about her life. By all appearances, Melissa Avalon was specifically targeted in the shooting. Perhaps she’d even been the only intended victim, and Rainie was having a hard time believing Danny O’Grady would purposely shoot the one teacher who’d been kind to him. Which raised the question of who Melissa Avalon was and, better yet, who might have wanted her dead. After hearing Quincy’s suspicion of an Avalon-VanderZanden ro-mance, Rainie was starting to lean in the principal’s direction. Or maybe his betrayed wife . . .

Quincy, on the other hand, wasn’t convinced of anything yet. He seemed to buy Melissa Avalon as the primary target, but he didn’t think that meant the shooter had to know her. He’d murmured something about plenty of strangers having murdered plenty of young pretty women simply for being young pretty women. Rainie really didn’t want to know what the agent read at night.

Unfortunately, Sanders had halted their investigation cold by getting to Avalon’s apartment first. Drawers were rifled, the kitchen dismantled, the bed ripped apart. The crime-scene technicians had even pawed through the woman’s tampons.

Rainie would have to wait for the state’s report on the evidence or beg Sanders for information about her own damn case. It didn’t leave her feeling amused.

She had stormed back to the task-force center with Quincy just in time to meet Luke Hayes and Deputy Tom Dawson. They had hoped to interview Becky O’Grady before dinner. They had failed. Avery Johnson had been at Shep’s house. He had demanded to be present for the interview, and Sandy and Shep had insisted on sitting in as well. That had put an eight-year-old witness in a tiny family room with five scrutinizing adults.

Becky did the logical thing. She held her stuffed bear tight, curled up in a ball on the sofa, and fell asleep.

After fifteen minutes Luke and Tom headed for the door. Shep didn’t see them out. The lawyer took care of that, after informing the officers that the O’Gradys would be changing to an unlisted number immediately due to harassing calls. Also, he wanted patrols to guard the family’s safety. Hadn’t they seen what some hostile redneck had written on the O’Gradys’ garage?

The graffiti had really bothered Luke. He took two Polaroids for their files. Then he drove straight to the hardware store, where he purchased one bucket of primer and one bucket of white paint. He and Tom had spent the last hour personally repainting Shep’s garage. Neither Shep nor Sandy ever came out to thank them.

Rainie didn’t know what to say. Tragedies brought out the best in towns. But they could also bring out the worst.

Luke and Tom had no sooner left than the mayor paid Rainie a visit. He’d just received a call from Sally Walker’s parents. What was this about the autopsies being pushed back until the next day? Why couldn’t the families get their daughters’ remains back so they could get on with the funerals? The parents were furious.

Also, had Rainie managed to catch George Walker on the five o’clock news? That’s right. The father had appeared on camera stating to anyone who would listen that Danny O’Grady was getting away with murder. He’d killed three people, and the Bakersville sheriff’s department would never go after him because he was Shep’s son. Favoritism plain and simple, so all you mothers out there had better round up your children and lock the doors. One day soon, Danny O’Grady would be back in town.

All afternoon long there had been a run on rifles at the sporting-goods store. Not just in Bakersville but also in neighboring Cabot County.

People were frightened, the mayor stated bluntly. People were angry. So Rainie had better wrap this case up quick. Or there would be a hell of a lot more violence in these small-town streets.

Right after the mayor left, Rainie got out a new box of number-two pencils. She sat across the sawhorse desk from Quincy and methodically broke every single one in half. Then she broke the halves in half. Then she composed her thoughts.

It did her no good. Day two of the investigation and she had nothing but a longer list of questions. Why had Danny shot the one teacher who had apparently been trying to help him? Had Charlie Kenyon influenced Danny to act? Or maybe someone Danny met on-line? It seemed far-fetched to think that a stranger could influence a teenager to kill, but by all accounts Danny was a vulnerable kid and, God knows, stranger things had happened.

The single, small-caliber shot to Melissa Avalon’s forehead. The scattered wounds on the others.

It seemed as if she ought to know more by now, but instead she had no answers, and she had worked herself into a state where the mere sound of Quincy’s pen scratching against paper made her want to grab his notebook and beat him over the head with it. He’d laughed when she broke the pencils in half. The fed guys never knew how to have any fun.

He wasn’t so bad, really. Cool in his detached FBI sort of way. Curious in how he kept staring at his cell phone, as if he was both expecting an important call and dreading it. And intense. More intense than she would’ve guessed this morning.

There was something about the way he had moved through the scene at the school, something about the way he had meticulously picked through Melissa Avalon’s ravaged apartment, as if every bit of information was going into his brain and by sheer force of will he’d make the pieces fit. She had the impression that Quincy might be a little bit bright, and a little bit serious, and a little bit
strong
. That made her stomach tighten, which was something she needed right now about as much as a hole in her head.

Damn FBI agent. Damn state detective looking to prove a point. Damn Danny O’Grady. And damn a bunch of drunken fools who’d decided the only answer to violence was more violence. Christ, didn’t they know how much paperwork they were going to cause her?

Rainie glanced away from the window and the night descending upon Bakersville’s streets. She looked down at her new sawhorse desk, found that her hands were still fisted at her sides, and knew that her jumbled thoughts were all just noise. She could handle an FBI agent and a state detective. She honestly didn’t give a rat’s ass about what the mayor wanted for some press conference, and she wasn’t afraid of a few local boys full of too much beer and not enough common sense; she’d dealt with that before.

What she didn’t know, what she genuinely feared, was tomorrow morning at five
A
.
M
., when she would drive to Portland to watch the chief medical examiner cut open two little girls.