Memory Man

Chapter 15

Lancaster whittled down her gum while a tech team scoured the cafeteria and kitchen area. Outside, teams of police and FBI agents were following the trail that Decker had showed them.

Decker leaned against one wall of the cafeteria, his hands in his pockets, and took in all that was going on. Lancaster walked over to him.

“We had looked in the freezer before,” she said. “But we didn’t check the food or the temperature gauge. That was an oversight. I’m sure we would have noticed it later.”

“You were looking for a shooter, clearing rooms,” Decker said. “Not worrying about spoiled hamburger. I didn’t have to worry about that. I was just nosing around.”

“Right, after you took off from the library without a word. I called after you, you know. I could have come with you, Amos.”

He noted her hurt look and then gazed around. It had not occurred to him at the time. She was still on the police force, so her and Decker finding this new line of investigation together would have helped her career. As it was, it had been Decker’s discovery, which helped Lancaster not at all.

“I... I didn’t—”

“Forget it,” she said abruptly. “You did the same thing when we officially worked together.”

“I did?”

“I guess it’s just a quirk of yours. Although for a guy who has this great memory, I would have expected you to remember doing it. At least to me.”

“I’m a little out of sorts here, Mary.”

Her irritation seemed to lift. “No, I think you’re getting your mojo back. I knew you would. That’s the important thing.”

“It’s not like you need me to solve this case. You have a lot of resources.”

“The thing is, Amos.” She looked down for a moment, chewing her gum. Then she gazed up at him and said, “Truth is, I miss working with you. I think we made a good team.”

Decker nodded but said nothing.

As the moments went by, Lancaster evidently realized he was not going to comment on this admission. She said, “But what I don’t get is, if he was in here, how did the video camera capture him at the rear entrance? It doesn’t jibe.”

Decker pushed off the wall. “I’ll show you.”

He led her to the rear of the school and pointed at the camera that had captured the image of the gunman. “Check the angle.”

She stared up at the lens. “Okay.”

Keeping to one side of the rear foyer, Decker circled around so that his back was to the rear door. Then he stepped to his left. “This is the spot where the camera picks up an image. I could see it on the feed. That middle door behind me is the only one in the frame.”

“So the shooter could have done what you just did? Come in from the side and then gotten picked up by the camera.”

“And made it appear that he had come in the rear entrance when he really hadn’t.”

“I wonder why the camera is positioned that way?”

“Well, it could have been moved.”

Decker went over to the camera, extended his arm, and touched it. “I can reach it, but I’m tall. Yet someone shorter using a stick or a broom or something like that could have repositioned it. Probably no one would notice. It’s not like someone is monitoring this full-time right?”

“Damn, this thing keeps getting more and more complicated.”

“No, it’s getting more and more premeditated, Mary.”

“You want to go outside and smoke with me?” she asked.

He looked at her funny. “I don’t smoke.”

“I thought this might make you start.”

“I can be fat or I can smoke. I can’t be both.”

They walked back to the cafeteria.

When they reached it Lancaster popped another stick of gum in her mouth and started chewing. “Captain Miller’s calling you in paid dividends.”

Decker looked at her. “What dividends?”

She pointed at the room they were in. “This, Decker. Jesus. For a smart guy you can be obtuse at times.”

“I found this, so what? Not really a clue to the shooter.”

“He was hiding in the freezer with the temp turned way up. It looks like he hid his weapons and maybe his cammie gear in the ceiling. So he was already here, which is why no one saw him come in.”

“But have you found any other trace?”

“Oil mark on a ceiling tile support. Could be from a gun. The thread you found. Looks to be cammie fiber. The FBI is verifying. So that’s something.”

He drew his hands from his pockets and placed his index finger a half inch from his thumb. “This is how much I found. Nothing to cheer about.”

“Well, it’s more than we had.”

“I saw the control panel. When does the security system get turned on here?”

“Normally ten p.m. But there was an event that night. A school play that ran late. Lots of people. So the system wasn’t turned on until midnight so everyone could get out of the building.”

“And no activity on the alarm log?”

She shook her head. “None. First thing we did was check with the monitoring company. The log is clear.”

“So the shooter has to get in before midnight. Did this play involve refreshments in the cafeteria?”

“No. A friend of mine went because her kid was in it. She told me everyone left right after the play was over.”

“So he comes in during the gap before the alarm system was set and takes up his hidey-hole.”

“Why put his guns in the ceiling, then, Amos? Why not just have them in the freezer with him?”

“You’re assuming he came in with them and then took up his hiding spot. What if he brought the weapons in at another time and hid them? Then the freezer wouldn’t work. Someone would spot them. The ceiling would work just fine. If he did hide them up there.”

She shook her head stubbornly. “Why not do it all at once? It was pretty risky to get the guns in and hidden. And then sneak in again and hide in the freezer? Another risk that someone might have seen him.”

“Agreed. But if that’s the way it happened, then there must be an explanation for it. This guy strikes me as being methodical and thoughtful.”

“I can see that,” said Lancaster.

Decker continued to ruminate, seemingly talking to himself. “Guns and gear first. Then the shooter. He might have come in for the school play along with everyone else. Or appeared to do so. The auditorium is across the main hall from the cafeteria. Entering the main entrance, you turn left for the auditorium. Maybe this guy hung a right and went to the cafeteria. Or if folks came in the back entrance too from the parking lot out there, the right and left are reversed. He stays all night and starts his rampage the next morning. So you need to check if anyone saw someone they didn’t recognize at the school last night.” He paused. “But there’s the same old hitch.”

“What?” asked Lancaster as she popped another stick of gum in her mouth after wadding up the old one in a tissue and throwing it into the trash can.

“If your theory holds that Debbie Watson was the first vic, she was on the hall next to the rear entrance. That would mean that if our guy was hiding in the freezer overnight he would have had to walk down the hall between the cafeteria and the library, turn right down the main hall, pass two more corridors on both sides, past classrooms and presumably people, to take out first Watson and then, at the other end of the hall, the gym teacher Kramer. Then he reverses his path and starts mowing folks down as he moves back to the front of the school.” Decker looked at her skeptically. “That doesn’t seem plausible. Why not just start shooting on the front half of the school and work your way to the back? Which would mean Watson would be one of the last vics, not the first.”

“But the time stamp on the video?”

“That’s the real hitch in all this. That tells us he did begin his shooting at the rear part of the school. And he wanted us to see him on that camera for some reason. Now that we know he might have been hiding in the cafeteria, the video image looks like misdirection. So that means we have one proven point — the video camera time stamp, and one almost proven point — the shooter was hiding in the cafeteria. If they’re both true, neither makes sense as a whole. One plus one does not equal three.”

“You’re starting to lose me, Amos.”

“You have the school interior laid out with your prelim shot register?”

She nodded.

“Let’s take a look. Because it might just be this guy did the reverse of what we think he did.”

“But if you’re right about what you found, and he did go front to back to front, he would have made his escape out through the storage area off the cafeteria and then through the path to the woods. That’s the easiest egress. It would all fit.”

Decker took a breath, let it out, and stared at the ceiling.

“And maybe that’s exactly what the son of a bitch wants us to think.”