Thrill Kill (25 page)

Sinclair picked up Buckner’s empty shotgun, loaded the four rounds from the buttstock carrier into the magazine, and racked a round into the chamber. He peeked around the corner. Only the man proned-out with the rifle in the hallway was visible. The other two were probably searching classrooms for children. Sinclair peeked again and pulled his head back just as a bullet zinged past him.

The man securing the hallway was two hundred feet away. Too far for a pistol shot but an easy target for someone with a rifle. To enter the hallway and get to the men searching the classrooms, Sinclair had to take out the rifleman.

He knew the spread of the shotgun’s pellets was about an inch for every yard of distance, so at this range, the nine pellets would spread half the width of the hallway. A short-barreled shotgun with buckshot wasn’t designed for this distance. A man could stand right in the middle of the pattern and remain unscathed as pellets hit all around him. A man lying on the ground offered an even smaller target.

Sinclair stuck the shotgun around the corner with one hand and fired. The recoil nearly ripped the gun from his hand. Two rifle bullets pinged into the wall behind him. The man wasn’t a skilled rifleman, but at this range, he didn’t need to be. Even an amateur could keep his sights on the corner from
where Sinclair would next appear and get a round off within two seconds.

Sinclair did another quick peek. The man was still there. Two seconds later, a gunshot rang out. Sinclair’s shot obviously didn’t hit him or frighten him into giving up his position. Sinclair was capable of hitting a man-sized target with his pistol at two hundred feet, but it required careful aiming and three or four misses for every hit. The rifleman would nail him before he got off the first shot. A shotgun with rifled slugs would’ve been a game changer, and although some officers carried them, Buckner didn’t.

Although the man presented a small target by lying in the prone position, he had obviously never learned about ricochet shooting or grazing fire, as they called it in the military. When a bullet is fired at a surface at an acute angle, it has a tendency to skip along the surface, much as a flat rock can be skipped along the surface of a lake. The Army taught machine gunners to keep their fire low when engaging enemy forces. Rounds that don’t hit the personnel directly and miss low will graze along the ground, often bouncing a foot or two high, much like a skipped rock.

It had taken two seconds for the rifleman to get off a shot. If Sinclair appeared at a location different from the corner of the hallway where the man was now aiming, the rifleman would have to shift his aim, thus giving Sinclair another second. If Sinclair could get his first shot directed at the floor halfway down the hallway within that time, one or more pellets, skipping along the floor, might hit the target. Even if he missed, Sinclair might get close enough to upset the rifleman’s aim and give him time to fire the last three rounds. He had a good chance of hitting the rifleman if he could put thirty-six pellets downrange.

Sinclair quick peeked. Two men were disappearing into a classroom near the end of the hall. Lisa Harper’s classroom couldn’t be much further. The rifleman was still in position.

Sinclair checked the shotgun. One round in the chamber, three more in the magazine. He got a running start and dashed into the hallway, immediately dropping to his knees and sliding halfway to the far wall. The shotgun’s stock was already against his shoulder. He twisted his body and fired. Without waiting to see the results, he pumped the action and fired again, and again, and again.

Sinclair dropped the empty shotgun and drew his pistol. The rifleman was motionless. He hadn’t gotten off a shot. Two men in long, black raincoats and ski masks exited a classroom and pointed guns in Sinclair’s direction. One was an SKS rifle, the other a pistol. Sinclair sprinted back around the corner out of their field of fire as a barrage of bullets struck the wall behind where he had been standing.

Although he had taken out one target, Sinclair wasn’t much better off than before. He was pinned down once again. The only way forward was through open ground defended by a man with a rifle.

Sinclair looked in front of him. The dead man’s rifle lay ten feet into the exposed kill zone. Although he had never fired an SKS, he’d handled them as evidence on numerous occasions. Years ago, Oakland was flooded with thousands of Norinco SKS rifles. At two hundred dollars each, the Chinese-made rifles were a favorite drive-by shooting choice of drug gangs for several years. Crudely built, marginally accurate, but utterly reliable, the SKS was a military rifle designed by Russia during World War II. Because it didn’t match the characteristics of an assault rifle, it was legal to purchase even in California.

Sinclair had survived one sprint into the long hallway, and he hoped his luck would hold out again. If the two remaining gunmen were skilled at hitting a moving target, as were many hunters, he was a dead man. He dashed into the corridor and grabbed the SKS. His leather-soled shoes provided little traction on the slick floor, and he nearly fell. Bullets pinged around him as he dove back to safety around the corner.

He pulled the SKS’s bolt to the rear and ejected a live cartridge into his hand. The internal box magazine, which could hold up to ten rounds, was empty. The dead man had fired them during their brief gunfight. Sinclair wished the body wasn’t in the kill zone because the man’s pockets surely contained stripper clips of ammo, but he didn’t dare risk searching the body while exposed to gunfire. He pressed the single cartridge into the magazine, released the bolt, and watched it load into the chamber. He had one shot. If he was lucky, he could take out the man with the rifle, close the distance to the final man, who was armed only with a handgun, and finish the fight.

He quick peeked around the corner. The muscular man had a crowbar in his hand and was trying to pry open a classroom door at the end of the hall—Lisa Harper’s room. His rifle lay at his feet. The other man, tall and thin, stood nearby holding a pistol in his hand. Both wore black backpacks identical to the one Sinclair saw in the parking garage just before it detonated.

Sinclair shouldered the rifle and stepped into the hallway. He pointed it at the thin man and walked forward. If the muscular man went for the rifle, Sinclair would shift to him, put the sights on his chest, and take the shot. He’d then drop the rifle, draw his pistol, and engage the thin man. Sinclair was confident he was a better handgun shooter than his adversary, and even with the time it took to drop the rifle and transition to his pistol, he had a decent chance of prevailing. He was now 150 feet away. The man with the crowbar looked up at him. The other just stood there and watched him advance. An easy rifle shot, but still far for a pistol. Sinclair continued to close the distance, moving slowly to maintain his balance and shooting stance.

The muscular man, who Sinclair suspected was Andrew Pearson, put down the crowbar and began to reach for the rifle. Sinclair shifted to him and prepared to pull the trigger. He thought of yelling, “Police! Freeze!” but it seemed ridiculous under the circumstances.

“I’ve got this handled,” the thin man said to Pearson, and he pulled the ski mask off his head with his gun hand.

Sinclair immediately recognized Travis Whitt from the photos he’d seen. He shifted the rifle back to him, settling the sights on his chest while watching Pearson in his peripheral vision.

“Keep working on the door,” Travis said to Pearson. He then pulled his left hand from his pocket and held a small black box the size of a garage door opener above his head.

“What’re you doing?” Pearson shouted to Travis. “I thought the plan was to hightail it out of here before you pulled that out!”

“Just get the door open,” Travis said.

Pearson shoved the straight end of the crowbar into the gap between the door and the frame and pulled backward. It slipped out and he jammed it in again.

Sinclair took a few steps closer. He pictured all the third and fourth graders huddled together in the back of Mrs. Harper’s classroom, surrounded by teachers hushing them in hopes the gunmen would think the room was empty and move on. He imagined Alyssa in the middle of the huddle, trying to comfort the terrified children while hiding her own fear from them.

“Put the triggering device down, Travis,” Sinclair said. “You know I’m not letting you get in that classroom.”

“Prostitutes destroy families,” Travis said. “You, if anyone, should know that. They deserve to die.”

“Even if that was true, why the innocent kids?”

“That’s the only way the one-percenters take notice.”

It was futile to argue with crazy men armed with guns and explosives. They only understood one thing. He shifted the sights to the imaginary triangle between Travis’s eyes and nose. A bullet there would kill him and short-circuit his brain before he could trigger the explosives.

“I know what you’re thinking,” Travis said. “Kill me and no big boom. But what I’m holding here is a dead man’s switch. I’ve already pressed one button. If my finger comes off it without depressing the other button first, both backpacks explode.”

“Wait a fucking minute,” said Pearson. “I’m not part of any suicide mission.”

“Just open the door,” Travis said. “The cop knows if he shoots us, he’ll die with us. Besides, cops don’t kill unarmed men.” Travis crouched down and set his handgun on the floor.

Travis might have been right about the explosion killing Sinclair as well as them. He was forty yards away, more than twice the distance from the last bomb. But this was an enclosed area, which would contain and direct the explosive force to the areas of least resistance, one of which was down the corridor where Sinclair was standing. He wondered if people inside the classroom would survive an explosion in the hallway, and whether the bombs packed more explosives than the last one, and whether they were filled with nails or other shrapnel that would rip through his flesh like a wall of high-velocity bullets.

His only other option was to back down the hallway. But he couldn’t do that. One bomb inside the enclosed classroom would surely kill everyone inside. Maybe Travis was bluffing about the dead man’s switch. But suicide was often the final step in many school shooters’ plans.

There were too many unknowns with too many possible outcomes, but one thing was for certain: Sinclair had no doubt he could pull the trigger. It didn’t matter if a gun was in Travis’s hand or on the ground. Any uncertainty he had when he faced Garvin in the Mills Café a few days ago had vanished the moment he’d stepped into the school.

“Last chance, Travis,” Sinclair said. “Put down the detonator.”

“You won’t shoot me. You wouldn’t shoot an unarmed man.”

Sinclair squeezed the trigger.

Everything began to move in slow motion. He felt the recoil of the rifle against his shoulder and heard the report of the gunshot. Travis’s head jerked backward. Red mist sprayed from the back of his head. Pearson looked at Travis, an expression of shock and surprise on his face. Sinclair released the rifle and went for his pistol on his right side. His eyes shifted to Pearson—his next
target. Sinclair’s hand touched his Sig Sauer. In another second, it would be in his hand and at eye level, pointed at Pearson. In a split second, he’d decide whether to pull the trigger or not.

Since he was still alive and hadn’t been blown to kingdom come, the thought that Travis had been bluffing flashed through Sinclair’s mind as his fingers curled around the butt of his pistol and began to lift it from the holster. Simultaneously, a brilliant flash of white light blinded him, a deafening roar filled his eardrums, and a shock wave smashed into his body.

Sinclair fought to open his eyes. They felt glued shut. He tried to reach his hand to his face to separate his eyelids, but it had ropes or something attached to it. He tried his other hand. It took all the strength he had to move it. He touched his face. It was scratchy. He was sure he had shaved this morning. Familiar voices sounded as if they were at the end of a tunnel. They were coming closer. Or was he moving through the tunnel toward them? He rubbed his eyes with his free hand.

“I think he’s waking up.”

The voice sounded like Maloney.

“Matt, are you awake?” Braddock asked.

Sinclair opened his eyes. He was in a hospital bed. A blurry shape that he made out to be Maloney stood on one side of his bed. With great effort, he turned his head and recognized Braddock on the other side. All around him were machines attached to wires and tubes that were running into him. Braddock pressed a button on a box, and the back of Sinclair’s bed rose until he was sitting up. She held out a glass and put a straw in his mouth.

He sucked on the straw. Tasted something cold and sweet. Apple juice. That confirmed he was in a hospital. No other place served apple juice to adults. He tried to raise his left hand again, but saw a thick IV tube stuck in his forearm. He had so many
questions, he didn’t know where to start. He tried to speak, but his voice cracked. He swallowed more of the juice.

Maloney turned and spoke to a uniformed officer seated outside his room. “Tell a nurse he’s awake.”

“You don’t need to talk,” Braddock said. “You’re in the ICU at Highland Hospital. You’re going to be okay.”

Braddock’s voice sounded distant, even though she was beside him. Sinclair stuck a finger in his ear, hoping to clear it. He ran his right hand down his chest and tried to move his legs. His feet moved the blanket that covered him.

Braddock laughed. “Every body part is accounted for.”

“What about the kids . . . are they . . . ?” Sinclair began in a hoarse whisper.

“They’re all alive,” she said. “The blast blew out part of the cinderblock wall that separated the hall from the classroom. A few were injured by debris, others had minor concussions, but nothing life threatening. The last child was released from Children’s Hospital today.”

“Today?” Sinclair said, trying to form a complete thought in the mud in which his brain seemed to be immersed.

“It’s Saturday, Matt,” Braddock said. “You’ve been unconscious for two days.”

“Two days?”

“You came around a bit yesterday,” Braddock said. “You mumbled something, thrashed about, and tried to pull out your IV. The doctor gave you some more pain meds and you drifted off.”

“Alyssa?” Sinclair asked.

“She’s fine. She and the other teachers were checked out at ACH and released. She’s been one of your most frequent visitors.” Braddock smiled and took his hand in both of hers. “I called her when you started coming around. She’s on duty downstairs in the ER and will be up to see you soon.”

The final moments before the explosion were slowly coming back to him. “What happened?”

“Cathy was getting Buckner onto a gurney when the next officer arrived,” Maloney said. “He ran inside. How do you stop an officer from rushing toward the gunfire? He got to the corner of the hallway where Bucker had been shot just as Travis pulled out the detonator. The officer thought if he rushed down the corridor to cover you, one of them might panic and start shooting or press the button. His body camera was on, so we have a full video and audio recording of everything that happened. When you shot Travis, the officer instinctively ducked around the corner. There was a full-second delay between your shot and the explosion.”

“Buckner?” Sinclair asked.

“He’s alive,” Braddock said. “Two paramedics and three firefighters arrived. The doctors don’t know if he’ll fully recover and return to duty, but he’ll live. The bullet went through a lung and other stuff, so he’ll be in for a long time.”

“The trauma surgeon said that if he got here two minutes later, he’d be dead,” Maloney said. “Cathy was a warrior. The paramedics weren’t exactly waiting at the front door for her. She dragged Buckner across the parking lot and was getting ready to head down the street when the paramedics and firefighters finally decided to ignore the staging order from their bosses and ran up.”

Braddock gripped Sinclair’s hand harder. “He wasn’t going to die in my arms because I sat at the front door waiting for help.”

“Bucker’s body camera was on,” said Maloney. “The chief’s office edited it and released it to the media. It’s great PR to show the heroic actions of the three of you, but they did have to add a bleep when you told Cathy to drag Buckner all the fucking way to ACH if she had to.”

“I’m proud of you.” Sinclair squeezed her hand. Buckner was well over two hundred pounds with his gear on, so dragging him nearly a quarter mile was no easy task even for a large,
muscular man. But he had no doubt Braddock wouldn’t have quit until she got Buckner into the hands of the paramedics.

“Me? Shit, Matt, you blew yourself up to save those kids. You can’t turn on the news without hearing your name.”

A nurse walked in, checked Sinclair’s vitals, and shined a penlight in his eyes. “How’s the pain?” she asked.

“I feel fine,” he said.

“I’ll talk to the doctor and see if we can cut back on the pain meds. We’ll probably run another MRI later. Can I get you anything?”

“Coffee,” Sinclair said.

“That’s not on the approved list for patients, but I’ll see what I can do.” She stopped at the door and smiled back at him. “We have some good stuff at the nurse’s station, and I won’t tell if you don’t.”

“ATF brought in their big team from back east to work the bomb scene,” Maloney said. “Both devices were pressure cookers just like the last one, but with twice as much black powder. ATF said that if even one bomb had gone off inside the classroom, everyone would’ve died. Not that they even needed the bombs. Both Pearson and Whitt had twenty loaded magazines for their nine millimeters. They had four hundred rounds and only needed a few seconds to change magazines. Shooting kids and teachers huddled in corners is no more difficult than shooting tin cans at the dump.”

The nurse brought Sinclair his coffee. He felt his head begin to clear at the first sip. “Was this all over Travis’s father and his affairs?” Sinclair asked.

“I don’t know if we’ll ever know the full answer,” Braddock said. “I read his mother’s diary and William’s journals. We have to assume Travis did, too, and that’s what set him off.”

“What’s the connection between him and the anarchists?” Sinclair asked.

“The FBI pulled out all stops and processed every bit of evidence at both of Dawn’s apartments and the one where Edgar
Pratt was killed,” Braddock said. “Coupled with e-mail and cell phone records, it looks like Travis went to Dawn’s apartment alone and killed her. He returned later with Edgar Pratt and another anarchist by the name of Justin Dixon to move the body. Dixon was the man you and Buckner shot at the school. Travis, Pratt, and Dixon took her body to the park. I have to think that was all Travis’s idea. Andrew Pearson came into the group and accompanied Travis and Dixon when they went to kill Edgar Pratt. Then a fourth guy, an anarchist friend of Pearson, joined them at the school. He was the rifleman you killed with the shotgun. Travis apparently had all these guys convinced they were mounting a noble attack on the establishment, when in effect, it was just personal. I think he planned to go out in a huge bang that his father had no choice but to notice.”

“Is Yates connected to this at all?” Sinclair asked.

Sinclair noticed a conspiratorial look between Maloney and Braddock.

Maloney nodded to Braddock, obviously giving her permission to continue. “William Whitt knew Travis lost his job three months ago, and he and Councilmember Yates were actually closer than he let on,” she said. “Yates needed someone in his community outreach office to revamp their computer network and website, and William recommended his son. Yates hired Travis to work twenty hours a week, but it was like hiring a master chef to flip hamburgers at McDonalds. Travis met scores of political activists while working there, some of whom were connected to the anarchist, Occupy, and Black Lives Matter movements.”

“How do you know Yates didn’t put him up to killing Dawn?” Sinclair asked.

Braddock shrugged her shoulders. “We talked to Yates’s staff. They acknowledged that Yates and Travis had talked together privately at times, but everyone assumed it was about computer stuff. Since the chief thinks we’re the biggest heroes in OPD history, he let the lieutenant and me interview Yates. The man is
smooth and convincing. If he and Travis conspired to kill Dawn, he never let on, and their secret died with Travis.”

“So he gets away with it?” Sinclair said.

“We can’t prove he did anything,” Maloney said.

“What about other evidence that connects them—phone records, e-mails?”

“The FBI gave us all of Travis’s cell phone and e-mail records,” Braddock said. “There were calls to and from Yates’s offices. All of that is explainable by Travis working there.”

“What about the ties between Yates and Kozlov?” Sinclair asked. “How does Yates explain Kozlov giving him a condo for his mistress?”

“He took the fifth on that,” Maloney said. “Kozlov’s attorneys won’t let him talk to us about it either.”

“And that’s it?” Sinclair said.

“Look, Matt, we’re the murder police,” Maloney said. “We solved both homicides. All of the suspects are dead, so nothing’s going to trial. It’s up to others to investigate political corruption and bribery.”

“It’s not right,” Sinclair said.

“I know,” Maloney said.

“What about William Whitt?”

“Jankowski and I interviewed him for hours,” Braddock said. “He’s guilty of protecting his son, but that’s about it. His life is in shambles. He resigned from Cal Asia and has already listed his house for sale. He’s talking about moving to Florida, where he has a sister and can start a new life.”

“I’m sure they have escort services down there,” Sinclair said.

“I spoke to Dawn’s parents and both of her sisters numerous times over the last few days,” Braddock said. “No one understands why Dawn was so fixated on leaving home and living out here. I explored the possibly that she was abused as a child, but both sisters were adamant such a thing never occurred.”

“It’s probably impossible to look at someone else’s life from the outside and figure out why they took a particular path,” Sinclair said.

Braddock looked at him funny, squinting with one eye. She wasn’t used to him being so introspective.

She continued, “One thing’s for sure: Madison couldn’t be in a better home. Just this morning, I got a call from Dawn’s father. He received a notice that the brokerage account that was sending the checks will begin sending five thousand dollars every month and will deposit another two thousand into a college fund, both until Madison turns twenty-five.”

“Guilt money to make Yates feel better, or hush money so Dawn’s parents let it go,” Sinclair said. “That’s all it is.”

“Dawn’s parents would love to talk to you once you’re better, and they want Madison to meet you when she gets older.”

“I’d like that,” Sinclair said. He thought for a moment about meeting the boy whose parents he couldn’t save outside the movie theater years ago, and now planning to meet Madison, whose mother he also couldn’t save. Maybe by the time those meetings happened, he’d be in a place where he no longer felt that he had failed them.

“I don’t intend to let this stuff with Yates go,” Sinclair said.

“Get yourself better,” Maloney said. “We’ll talk about it more later.”

The nurse pushed a wheelchair into his room. “We have a reservation for you in radiology. Do you feel up to taking a ride?”