“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.”
Chapter
16
HIS CONFIDENCE IN his ability to perform as a detective growing, Decker spent another hour going over and over the preliminary shot registry. It was based on witness accounts, which Decker knew were unreliable; forensic evidence, which he knew was not nearly as flawless as TV made it seem; hunches, which were just that and nothing more; and, lastly, common sense, which might just be the most accurate and helpful of the bunch.
Lancaster looked away from her laptop screen and studied him.
“So what do you think?”
Decker absently stroked his shortened beard, his belly rumbling. It was now light outside. And it had been a long time in between meals for him. But he could stand to miss a few meals. A few hundred of them, in fact. He was like a polar bear. He could live off his accumulated fat all winter.
“Point one. I think he originated from the cafeteria.”
“Okay.”
“Point two. I think Debbie Watson was the first vic.”
“So we’re back to your dilemma. One plus one equals three. How did a big guy in cammies, hood, and face shield walk the length of the school with weapons totally unseen? And then where did he go? He can’t just vanish.”
“There’s no way there could be two shooters?” he said. “One coming out of the freezer and one coming in the rear?”
She shook her head. “Impossible. There was only one shooter. Same description. Unless you think identically shaped men did this together.”
“Okay, one shooter. The pistol is easily hidden. The shotgun could be stowed down a pants leg.”
“But the clothing. The shield?”
Decker thought some more about this. “Who’s to say he put that on in the cafeteria?”
“We found a fiber in the ceiling.”
“Still doesn’t mean he had all the stuff on in there.”
“So he carries it down the hall with him? In what? And the guns? The guy must have been so bulky that someone would have noticed. Especially if he was a stranger. And then where does he change?”
“You’re sure no one was seen walking the halls at that time?”
“Yes.”
“No one? Really? In a busy school?”
“Everyone was in class, both students and teachers. The folks in the office were working. Most had not been at their desks long. The gym teacher was in his office where he was shot. There was a half-eaten Egg McMuffin on his desk and a nearly full cup of coffee. Custodians were in their part of the school going over the schedule for the day.”
“But if no one was in the halls, there was no one to see a stranger roaming.” But then Decker immediately corrected himself. “Only all the doors have windows. He would have had to pass by numerous ones.”
“Exactly,” agreed Lancaster.
“When will they have an answer?”
Lancaster rubbed her eyes and checked her watch. “I’m not sure. Look, I’ve got to get home, grab an hour’s sleep, and change my clothes. And I need to give Earl a little break. Sandy hasn‘t been sleeping very well lately.”
Decker knew Sandy Lancaster as gentle, funny, bubbly, and wildly enthusiastic about ever
ything and everyone. But he knew she could also become depressed and anxious over something relatively trivial. And then she wouldn’t sleep. Which meant no one else in the Lancaster household did either.
“You need any help with that?” asked Decker.