Not on the floor near Kelly.
Not in the hands of the cop who had his knee in her back.
Mason Huckabee was standing, empty hands at his sides, talking to the cop with the shotgun. Blood had turned his shirtsleeve almost black. He was talking to the cop as if they were discussing a bad call at a sporting event.
Sam scanned the ground at their feet.
Nothing.
No lockers had been cracked open.
None of the cops appeared to have tucked the revolver into the waistband of their pants.
No one had kicked the weapon across the floor.
No one had reached up to secrete it behind a ceiling tile.
Sam returned to Charlie. Her hands were empty. She still sat cross-legged on the floor, still looked dazed. Her head was turned away from the men. Sam noticed that a patch of blood swiped her cheek. She must have touched her face.
Her nose was not yet broken. Bruises did not encircle her eyes.
Charlie didn’t seem to register the group of cops rushing down the hall. Their weapons were drawn. Their vests flapped open.
The monitor went black.
Sam stared at the blank screen for a few seconds more, even though there was nothing to see.
Lenore let out a long stream of breath.
Sam asked the only question that mattered. “Is Charlie okay?”
Lenore’s lips pursed. “There was a time when I could tell you everything about her.”
“But now?”
“A lot has changed in the last few years.”
Rusty’s heart attacks. Had Charlie been shaken by the sudden prospect of Rusty’s death? It would be just like her to hide her fear, or to find self-destructive ways to take her mind off of it. Like sleeping with Mason Huckabee. Like alienating herself from Ben.
“You should eat,” Lenore said. “I’ll make you a sandwich.”
“Thank you, but I’m not hungry,” Sam said. “I need a place to make some notes for Dad.”
“Use his office.” Lenore took a key from her purse. She slid it over to Sam. “I’m going to transcribe this video, make sure we haven’t missed anything. I want to pull that so-called re-enactment from the news, too. I’m not sure where they’re getting their information about the sequence, especially the gunshots, but they’re wrong, based on this video.”
Sam said, “In court, Coin indicated there was audio.”
“He didn’t correct Lyman,” Lenore said. “My guess is there’s an alternate source. The school can barely afford its electric bill. The cameras are probably decades old. They wouldn’t pay to wire them for sound.”
“A useless endeavor, considering the number of children who are typically in the hallway. Isolating one voice from the din would be challenging.” She guessed, “A cell phone, maybe?”
“Maybe.” Lenore shrugged as she returned to her computer. “Rusty will figure it out.”
Sam looked down at the key on Lenore’s desk. The last thing she wanted to do was sit in Rusty’s office. Her father had been a hoarder before television popularized the disorder. She imagined there were boxes at the farmhouse that had not been unpacked since Gamma had brought them home from the thrift store.
Gamma.
Charlie had said that the photo—the photo of Gamma—was on Rusty’s desk.
Sam walked back to her father’s office. She could only get the door partway open before it caught against a pile of debris. The room was large, but the clutter brought down the scale. Boxes, papers and files overflowed from almost every surface. Only a narrow path to the desk indicated anyone ever used the space. The stagnant air inside made Sam cough. She reached for the lights, then thought better of it. Her headache had only slightly receded since taking off her glasses in court.
Sam left her cane by the door. She carefully picked her way toward Rusty’s desk, imagining that a virtual stroll through her father’s convoluted brain would not be dissimilar. How on earth he managed to work in here was a mystery. She turned on the desk lamp. She opened the blinds to the filthy, barred window. Sam supposed the flat surface provided by a stack of depositions served as his writing table. There was no computer. A clock radio Gamma had given him when Sam was a child was the only acknowledgment of modernity.
The desk was walnut, a large expanse that Sam recalled had a green leather blotter. It was probably as pristine as the day it was made, preserved under piles of rubbish. She tested the sturdiness of Rusty’s chair. The thing listed to the side because he was an inveterate leaner. When Sam thought of her father seated, he was always propped on his right elbow, cigarette in his hand.
Sam sat in Rusty’s unsteady chair. The squeal from the height actuator assembly was loud and completely unnecessary. A simple can of spray lubricant could eradicate the noise. The arms could be tightened down with some Loctite on the bolts. Replacing the friction rings on the casters would probably improve the stability.
Or the fool could go online and order a new chair from Amazon.
Sam moved around papers and stacks of transcripts as she searched for the photo of Gamma. She wanted to slide the flotsam off the desktop, but she was sure that Rusty had a system to his madness. Not that Sam would ever let her desk get like this, but if anyone moved around her things, she would kill them.
Sam checked the top of the cluttered credenza, which held, among many other things, a pack of unopened yellow legal pads. She broke open the pack. She found her notes in her purse. She changed out her glasses. She wrote Kelly Wilson’s name at the top of the yellow pad. She added the date. She made a list of items for Rusty to follow up on.
Pregnancy test
Paternity: Adam Humphrey? Frank Alexander?
Hospital video; security footage (audio?)
Why was Kelly at middle school? (victims were random)
List of tutors/teachers/class schedules
Judith Pinkman–?
Sam traced the letters of the woman’s name.
During Sam’s tenure at the middle school, the main floor outside the front office had been designated for the English department. Judith Pinkman was an English teacher, so that would explain why she was there when the shooting began.
Sam considered the security footage.
Mrs. Pinkman had appeared in the hallway after Lucy was shot in the neck. Sam believed less than three seconds passed from the time that the little girl was on her back, on the floor, and the time Judith Pinkman appeared at the end of the hallway.
Five gunshots. One in the wall. Three in Douglas Pinkman. One in Lucy.
If the revolver held six bullets, then why didn’t Kelly use the last shot on Judith Pinkman?
“I think she was pregnant.” Charlie was standing in the doorway, a plate with a sandwich in one hand, a bottle of Coke in the other.
Sam turned over her notes. She tried to keep her expression composed lest she give herself away. “What?”
“Back in middle school when all of that shit talk was going on. I think Kelly was pregnant.”
Sam had a momentary sense of relief, but then she realized what her sister was saying. “Why do you think that?”
“I got it off Facebook. I’ve friended one of the girls from the school.”