Scent of Evil

34

The high-school cafeteria was a sterile place at the best of times: linoleum floor, pale cinder block walls, fluorescent strip lighting. The only colorful spots were the dispensing machines along one wall, a few socially conscious posters across from them, and a bolted-to-the-floor army of garish blue-and-red, picnic-style tables and benches in between. Now, however, late at night, with only maintenance lighting leaking in from down a distant hallway, the illuminated soda and snack machines dominated the place, glowing as from some inner life-force, spreading the hues of their chaotically clashing logos across the huge, ghostly quiet room.

Pierre Lavoie and I sat facing each other at one of the picnic tables, I with a legal pad before me, he with a small knapsack. The pad was for show only, the sack to hide his portable radio. Our budget did not allow for the fancy hands-off communications systems the Secret Service seems to favor. We made do with standard patrolman radios, tucked out of sight and hooked to a small earphone and a somewhat larger clip-on lapel mike whose side button had to be manually depressed for the user to transmit his message. The gloominess hid most of the extraneous wires from sight, as did the long-haired wig I’d forced Pierre to wear. The mikes were clipped to the armored vests inside our shirts.

Pierre, his voice disguised, had placed the rendezvous telephone call to my office thirty minutes ago, giving the high school as the meeting place. He’d then gone straight there to wait for me. Around us, out of sight and in place for an hour already, were Sammie and J.P. along the “open” corridors; Dennis and Tony Brandt outside the building; and, his exact location unknown even to me, Willy Kunkle.

The cafeteria was right off the building’s main southern entrance, which Pierre had unlocked with his passkey, and which I’d walked through to join him two minutes earlier. Three hallways radiated out from this general area: One continued north from the entrance into the heart of the building; the second took off at a ninety-degree angle to service the east side; and the third, far shorter and narrower, almost inconsequential, led from the back of the cafeteria around a corner to the west, to a few isolated rooms, two staircases leading up, and a side door to the outside.

“Where do you think he’ll come from?” Pierre muttered.

I arranged the pad before me and began to write, pretending to take notes. Most of the room was windowless, but one wall of it was made of glass and looked onto another, equally large dining area which often doubled as classroom space. On its far wall, along with one of the doors I’d chosen to jam shut, there were windows. If this guy was going to come for us, I wanted to make damn sure he believed what he saw until it was too late.

“He’s got three obvious choices. The way we came in, the door at the far end of the east hall, and the one out the side, around the corner. If it were me, I’d take that one; it’d allow me to sneak up on us the best. The other two are too wide-open.”

“Shit. That’s what I feel, wide-goddamn-open.”

He was sweating badly, but then so was I. Armored vests are cool-weather defenses; plus he had the wig on.

I surreptitiously reached under my jacket and keyed the radio mike. “Hi, boys and girls. Everybody in place?”

Over the earpiece, I heard a tinny chorus of acknowledgments.

“You see anyone when you came in?” I asked Pierre, more to keep him occupied than anything else.

He was about to answer when he stiffened suddenly. It was Brandt’s voice on the earphone, reporting from outside. “Someone driving up to the front door.”

“Christ, so much for subtlety.” Pierre let his hand drop casually off the table near his waist, where his gun was hidden.

I stayed the way I was, pretending to take notes.

“One occupant; short-haired male.” Brandt’s voice was calm and detached, reminding me of those jet jockeys who announce they’ve taken a missile and are corkscrewing in.

“He’s parked. Getting out. Pale striped golf shirt, dark slacks, no visible weapons.” There was a pause. “It looks like Fred McDermott.”

I keyed my mike. “Everybody stay put. Let’s see what he does.”

Sammie Martens, who was behind a door in the hallway leading away from the main door, peeked out. “He’s approaching the south entrance.”

We both heard one of the large glass doors rattle as someone tugged at it.

Sammie’s voice again. “Trying to get in locked half of the door.”

The rattling stopped and was followed by a door swishing open. Footsteps sounded in the lobby, slapping against the linoleum. Pierre dropped his hand entirely into his lap, and I heard a small click as he snapped the safety off his automatic.

The dark outline of a man appeared at the corner where the lobby expanded into the cafeteria. “Hello? Is anyone here?” McDermott’s voice was absurdly loud, ringing off the cement walls.

“What the hell?” Pierre whispered.

I spoke into the mike. “I’ll deal with it. Keep sharp; it may be a setup.”

I rose from the table. McDermott whirled at the movement, surprised, and Pierre pulled his gun, slid off his bench, and took aim at McDermott’s chest.

“Put it away,” I snapped at Lavoie, “and sit back down.”

“What’s going on, Joe?” Fred asked anxiously.

I walked over to him, watching his hands, which stayed open and still by his sides. “What’re you doing here, Fred?”

His brow furrowed. “You asked me here.”

Suddenly, the radio interrupted over the earpiece. “Someone at the-” It had been Dennis’s voice, abruptly interrupted.

“Dennis? Dennis, come in.”

“I’m checking on him now,” reported Brandt.

McDermott, who could hear none of this, was looking more and more confused.

Pierre Lavoie, his nerves stretched as far as they would go, stood near the table, his gun still out, his wig torn off, swinging his body back and forth, trying to cover all possible avenues at once.

“Pierre,” I shouted at him, “cover the-”

The words “back hallway” were still in my mouth when another figure appeared at the entrance to the corridor. Pierre brought his gun to bear, there was a blinding flash and a terrific explosion, and Lavoie went flying backwards like a puppet pulled by a string. He sailed across the table and crumpled into the gap between tabletop and bench, his legs sticking awkwardly in the air.

I grabbed McDermott by the neck and threw him down to the floor. “Stay low.” I tore off my jacket and pulled my gun, keying the mike with the other hand. “We have a man down. Shooter’s in back hallway behind kitchen.”

As I ran toward Pierre, I could already hear Sammie throwing open her door and the pounding of feet as J.P. ran down the east hall to join us.

Pierre’s eyes were closed, but he was breathing. There was a bullet hole in the middle of his shirt. I tore it open and checked for blood. Apparently, while the armored vest had done its job, the flight across the table and into the bench had knocked him cold. I quickly straightened him out so his airway would stay open.

Brandt’s voice: “Nobody’s at the door. He’s still inside. I found Dennis. He was knocked on the head but he’ll be okay.”

“Switch frequencies and call for backup.”

“Ten-four.”

I moved to the entrance of the crooked hallway and waited for Sammie and J.P. to join me. “Okay, remember the layout?”

“Isolated two-story segment, about nine rooms downstairs, same above, two staircases, hallway like this upstairs.”

That, in Tyler’s staccato nutshell, was it. This was the only two-story section in the school’s southwest corner, which meant the upstairs windows gave out onto a lot of flat, open roof.

I looked at their two sweat-sheened faces. Both of them held handguns pointed safely up, ready for use. “Okay. Brandt’s got the exit. You two work the downstairs. I’ll go up. Remember, he may have a key, so don’t trust a locked door. And take your time; I’d sooner let him get away than have one of you killed. Deal?”

“Deal,” Sammie muttered, her voice half strangled by adrenaline.

I began working my way up the near staircase, feeling the risers with my toes and keeping my eyes, and my gun, trained up above to where the stairs doubled back on themselves to link up with the top landing. I took my time, moving slowly and quietly, my concentration not only on what I was doing, but also taking in what I could glean from the radio. In the back of my mind, I wondered what Kunkle was up to.

I reached the top without mishap and moved quickly to the angle where the landing turned the corner into the hall. There I removed the earphone to better concentrate and found myself suddenly alone.

I strained to listen for anything unusual, and heard nothing but distant sirens fast approaching; movements from Sammie and J.P. downstairs; and the distinct rasp of a chair being pushed, ever so slightly, out of the way, as by somebody groping in the dark.

That last one grabbed my attention. It had come from nearby.

I wiped my forehead with my sleeve. The additional disadvantage of my position, aside from being far removed from everyone else, was that the entire second floor of this small section was dark. There were no vending machines, no exit signs, and no windows, since the hallway was lined with classrooms. The doors leading to those rooms, however, did have windows, and gradually, as my pupils adjusted, I could just grasp the outline of the corridor from the dimly filtered streetlights outside.

That allowed me one discovery: There were no chairs in the hall, so the sound I’d heard had come from one of the rooms.

Whoever I was stalking knew the building. The door he’d entered hadn’t been jammed, but it had been left locked so as not to appear suspicious. Since Dennis had been put out of action just seconds before Pierre had been shot, no time had been wasted picking a lock. Therefore, the gunman did indeed have at least one of the building’s four passkeys. In addition, he’d known that particular door led to the most discreet approach to the cafeteria, and that McDermott’s arrival through the main entrance would encourage us to face in the wrong direction at just the right time. Ironically, had Pierre not lost his cool, it might have worked.

But what did all that tell me? That he had to be in one of the north-facing rooms, the only ones which gave out onto the roof, and which were invisible from the ground level.

I looked out into the corridor again. Using that logic, I had two choices, both of them almost directly facing me: the two doors of the only classrooms whose windows afforded the access my quarry was seeking.

Crouching, I slipped across the hall and placed my hand very gently on the doorknob of the first door. Slowly, hoping that perhaps in his haste he’d forgotten to lock it behind him, I twisted the knob. The sweat began to pour off my forehead, stinging my eyes.

The knob fully over now, I positioned myself on the balls of my feet and gave a little push. As I did, the door released a loud mechanical snap.

I instantly yielded to instinct. Rather than pulling back and surrendering my hard-won surprise, I threw my weight against the door and dove in to one side of the room, covering my head with my arm to ward off any chairs or tables that might be in the way. The room blew up with the sound and light of a single gunshot, and I heard the sharp splat of a bullet hitting the door I’d just used.

I rolled on the floor, trying to find a target against the slightly pale windows lining the opposite wall, but my eyes were still blinking away the white star left behind by the muzzle flash. There was the sound of glass shattering, of feet scrambling for a toehold, and of a distant thump as something heavy landed on the roof outside.

I staggered to my feet and punched the button on my microphone. “He’s on the roof, he’s on the roof.” Against the night sky, I could see a shadow running and hear his feet slamming on the gravel as he made for a distant rooftop greenhouse.

Not wanting to fire indiscriminately, I made to follow and placed my hand right on a jagged shard of glass. I swore and stepped back, using my gun barrel to sweep the window frame clean. “He’s making for the greenhouse. Close in on him from downstairs.”

I tried again and this time jumped cleanly to the roof. It was higher by two feet than the pale rubber-coated roof on which the small greenhouse stood, so I quickly moved to the lower level where my footsteps would make no sound.

There I paused to reassess. The greenhouse, a small fifty-by-thirty-foot student research facility, was a penthouse of sorts, with an interior metal staircase leading down to a cavernous forestry and horticulture classroom, a part of the career-training school. I couldn’t see the door of the greenhouse from my vantage point, but I was betting that was where the gunman had been heading. Unfortunately, if he was on his toes, he now knew what I knew and had therefore probably changed his plans; that meant I was either staring at an empty structure and he was long gone in another direction, or he was waiting around the corner to plug me as soon as I became visible.

I began circling the small glass building from a distance, my eyes on its sharp-edged silhouette, watching for any crouching form, waiting for an ambush. As the narrow end came into dim view, I could see the flimsy metal door was half open. Encouraged, I began closing in, slowly, cautiously, still balanced and poised to duck to either side. The first three feet of the greenhouse walls were aluminum, so I kept almost on hands and knees for cover as I peered around the edge of the doorway and looked down the short cement-floored aisle. Warm, fetid air hit my face, tinged with the slight sweetness of confined vegetation and damp earth. I listened and heard only the faint hum of some overhead fans, along with voices and the sounds of people gathering down below, no doubt preparing to make an assault up the narrow stairs.

From where I crouched, I could see a light switch just inside the door. I reached in quickly, turned it on, and slipped back to see what would happen. The building lit up like a jewel in the night, but not a sound or a movement followed suit.

I gingerly poked my head back around the corner. What I saw made me laugh. I straightened up, crossed the threshold, and after a brief final glance around the place, walked to the middle of the aisle, keying my radio as I went. “All clear. I’ve got him in the greenhouse.”

Stretched out before me, spread-eagled and unconscious on the floor, his gun several feet beyond his reach, was the inert body of Selectman Luman Jackson.

Willy Kunkle, his part done, was nowhere to be seen.