"The police are here," said Carrie, "and have been since before the mob formed. This is the home of Greg and Susan Olson, and their two-year-old son. Mr. Olson is a construction worker and the owner of the car in which two police officers were found dead earlier today. Mr. Olson's whereabouts are still unknown, but the police are looking for him in connection with the murders. They are here today both to question his family, and to protect them."
At that moment the mob started shouting more loudly, and the camera swung around and focused on a man—the same FBI agent from before, Agent Forman—leading a woman and child out of the house. A local cop followed them out with a suitcase, and several more worked to keep the crowd back. Carrie and her cameraman pushed forward through the mob, and she called out questions to the police. The cops helped Mrs. Olson and her son into the back of a squad car, and Agent Forman approached the camera. On every side, angry people shouted and chanted, "married to a murderer."
"Excuse me," said Carrie, "can you tell us what's going on here?
"Susan Olson is being placed in protective custody, for her own safety and for that of her child." The man spoke quickly, as if he'd prepared the statement before leaving the house. "At this time, we do not know if Mr. Greg Olson is a suspect or a victim, but he is certainly a person of interest in this case, and we are working around the clock to find him. Thank you."
Agent Forman got into the car and it drove away, leaving several police behind to quell the mob and restore order.
Carrie looked as if she wanted to stay as close to the police as possible, and her hands were shaking, but she found a member of the mob and started to interview him—with shock, I realized that it was Mr. Layton, my principal.
"Excuse me sir, may I ask you a few questions?"
Mr. Layton was not ranting like many in the crowd, and looked embarrassed to be suddenly on camera; I imagined he'd get a good talking-to from the school board the next morning.
"Um, sure," he said, squinting into the camera light.
"What can you tell us about the feelings in your town today?"
"Well, look around you," he said. "People are angry—they're very angry. People are getting carried away. Mobs are always stupid, I know, except for that brief moment where you're in one, and they make perfect sense. I already feel stupid just for being here," he said, glancing up at the camera again.
"Do you feel that this kind of thing will happen again with the next death?"
"It could happen again tomorrow," said Mr. Layton, throwing up his hands. "It could happen again whenever something gets the people riled up. Clayton is a very small community— probably everyone in town knew one of the victims, or lived in one of their neighborhoods. This killer, whoever it is, is not killing strangers—he's killing us; he's killing people with faces and names and families. I honestly don't know how long this community can contain that kind of violence without exploding."
He squinted into the camera again, and the image cut away.
Around them the mob was dispersing, but for how long?
It only took a few days for new DNA evidence to come through, all but exonerating Greg Olson, and the police plastered it across the news in an attempt to give Mrs. Olson and her child a bit of their life back. The police had, of course, cleared away the snow at the scene of the attack and found the sidewalk covered with blood, much of it almost certainly from Olson himself, in quantities that made him almost certainly another victim. Rumors started to spread about a third set of tire tracks, phantom bullets that had been fired but not found, and, most telling of all, a DNA signature that matched the mysterious black substance—only this time the DNA hadn't come from the sludge, but from a bloody smear inside the police car. This meant that there were four people at the scene of the killings, not three, and FBI forensic people were sure that the fourth, not Greg Olson, was the murderer.
Of course, some people began to suspect there was a fifth.
"You seem different today," said Dr. Neblin at our weekly Thursday session. I'd been tearing down my system of rules for five days now.
"What do you mean?" I asked.
"You're just. . . different," he said. "Anything new?"
"You always ask that right after somebody dies," I said.
"You're always a little different after somebody dies," said Neblin. "What did you think of it this time?"
"I try not to," I said. "You know, rules and all. What did you think of it?"
Neblin paused only a moment before responding.
"Your rules have never stopped you from thinking about the killings before," he said. "We've talked about them quite a bit."
That was a stupid mistake. I was trying to act as if I were still following my rules, but apparently I wasn't very good a I it. "I know, I just . . . it seems different now, don't you think?"
"It certainly does," said Dr. Neblin. He waited for me to say something, but I couldn't think of anything that didn't sound suspicious. I'd never tried to hide anything from Neblin before—it was hard.
“How’s school?" he asked.
"Fine," I said. "Everyone's afraid, but that's pretty normal I guess."