Suddenly the school was abuzz with activity, most of it police related. Fortunately, one of the staff’s goals was to return the school to normal as soon as possible, which meant I would be out of there as quickly as possible. Rusty caught up to me in the office, where we were trying to reconstruct the sequence of events to determine exactly what had happened. I showed them where the SUV had been parked and explained my brief five minutes of actual participation. I provided a description of the man who got away and the vehicle they drove. It was hard to believe that so much could happen in such a short period of time. I looked to Jacobsen, then to Schroeder who noticed Rusty standing near the doorway. He nodded in Rusty’s direction, granting me permission to finally leave. We walked through the front doors of the school and found ourselves in a forest of microphones. I followed Rusty as he pushed his way through the press.
“We heard there was a shooting at the school. Can you tell us what happened?”
“No comment,” Rusty said flatly.
I followed in his wake. When we got to the Explorer the crowd was still behind us. Rusty unlocked the door for me and I hopped in. Microphones were shoved up to the window.
“No comment,” Rusty repeated, as he climbed in the driver’s seat andclosed the door. “Don’t tell them anything. Let Schroeder handle it. He knows what can be said without jeopardizing the case. But I’m warning you, he’ll give you the credit you deserve and they’re going to come knocking.”
“The credit I deserve. Rusty, I just want to find a rock and hide under it. I didn’t ask to be involved in a school shooting. I just came to talk to a class of third graders. I wasn’t qualified to do what I was forced into.”
We drove in silence. It took me a while to get my bearings and when I realized he was taking me home my walls began crumbling. I had thought we would go to the station, but I was relieved to officially be off duty. It was a long drive home up into the hills outside of town, which gave me plenty of time to build up a good solid guilt trip for myself. Rusty pulled into the driveway and stopped. He glanced over and assessed my stress level. It was easy for him to tell. If I looked like I was ready to disappear into the seat then he knew he had a job ahead of him. This time I was still visible, my mind still actively running in circles reliving the day, trying not to dwell on the shooting but instead focusing on what could have happened. What if I hadn’t been there? It would have been even worse. I had to force myself to realize, it could have been much worse. But then I remembered my shot. I could feel the cold metal in my hands, the tension.
“Cass, babe, we’re home.”
I slid out of the Explorer and followed him into our home. I wanted out of the uniform. It was restrictive, stiff and a reminder of the day’s events I wanted to put behind me. After changing into shorts and a tank top I found Rusty waiting for me on the old brown couch in the den. I crawled onto his lap and held on for dear life. No matter which of us needed comforting, this couch had become our source, just sitting together wrapped in each other’s arms. This time both of us seemed to need it. I needed to put the shooting behind me and he, as a detective, had to put it in perspective. He knew how things could have gone. Just like me, he was thinking it could have been so much worse, except he was thinking of me and I was thinking about the students. I was also worried about the shooters. I needed to know what would happen because of the one that got away.
After we had been sitting together long enough to settle on a question the conversation started. “How close was it?” he asked.
“I wasn’t measuring. He was a lousy shot.”
“Cass…”
“You would have thought it was close. It wasn’t close enough to scare me. I was too busy trying to stop him. What’s the first step in finding the one that got away?”
“I feel sorry for anyone driving a green SUV. They’ll patrol the area looking for the vehicle. They’ll run the plates and pay a call on the owner. All the local hospitals will be checked. They’ll talk to school officials, and try to determine a motive. A lot goes into a case like this. And those are just the first steps. Any information they can gather will bring up more questions. You know how it goes.”
“They won’t give the case to you.”
“No, I expect it will go to Tom. He’d be a good choice.”
“The gunmen were looking for someone. When they shot at people it seemed to be to get them out of the way so they could keep up their search. They weren’t planning on having much opposition.”
“You seem to be taking this better.”
“It’s because of the kids. If it was just self-defense I’d be a basket case, but I had to do it for the kids. I still hate it. It’s still going to haunt me, but we’ll just deal with it. I’m more worried about the man who escaped. I’ve got lots of questions bouncing around in my head. Like, who was the brains behind all of this? Why did the SUV take off without the other guy? They couldn’t have known he was dead. Who were they looking for? It was almost like they wanted the school to be in lockdown, so they wouldn’t have as much to deal with. It was like they knew where they were going but then something went wrong. I don’t know why I’m thinking this way. It’s like the profiling I do when I track. I just kind of read it from their actions, but nothing really happened to make me come to any concrete conclusions. If I were investigating the case, I’d go to the office and see if any teachers or students had changed classrooms recently. If they had it would be unusual this late in the school year. It might point to who these guys were looking for. I’d also look at the record of school visitors. See if one person stands out as having visited an unusual number of times, or for odd reasons. I hate it when I get curious about something. I can’t seem to put it down. It grates on me and, right now, a few things just aren’t adding up.”
“Well put this down. If you need to do something about it talk to whoever gets the case. I don’t want you mixed up in this.”
I tried to put it down. I really did, but as the story hit the news on TV and the newspapers, word got around and everybody speculated about it, about the identity of the gunman who had escaped. As anger flared in the community about who would do such a thing, my mind started forming a plan. Although I wasn’t supposed to get involved, I decided to see Tom, the detective in charge of the investigation. We talked for an hour and he agreed my ideas were worth a try. Then he made a suggestion which took me by surprise.
“In my experience, people like being around dogs. They won’t open up to an officer on the school grounds but they will talk about anything while they are petting a dog. I think you and Carla Sandoval should take a dog over to the school and just patrol. When kids ask to pet the dog, let them. And while they are at it question them. Kids know everything and they aren’t afraid to talk. You can at least get a feel for how the school is coping after the shooting.”
Chapter 2
“I don’t think I can do this,” I said nervously.
“You asked for it,” Miguel Cabrera reminded me.
“I know. If I run screaming out of the kennels, can I come back?”
“You’re not going to run. You’re going to buckle down and stay. He’s not even going after you. He’s coming after me. You’re just observing.”
“Okay, let him go.”
Carla Sandoval unclipped the leash and the big, black and tan German Shepherd bounded across the field. My flight mode kicked in, but I beat it down, willing my feet to be still. The dog leapt