“Sure.” The judge started to head off the bench, then turned back. “Hey, by the way, you and Graden still on for dinner Saturday?”
Graden and I-Graden, the lieutenant of Robbery-Homicide-had been dating for over a year now. And Judge J. D. Morgan had been dating Toni for the past two years. It’s a cozy, some would say quasi-incestuous, group. But we work seventy-hour weeks-at least. Where else are we going to meet someone? The parking lot?
“Absolutely.”
“Good. Now go make nice to Sweeny and pick a date.”
J.D. trotted down off the bench and headed for his chambers. I did my lawyerly duty with Sweeny, then called Bailey back.
“Hey, Rachel,” Bailey answered, her voice tense. “You get pulled in on that school shooting yet?”
I had just pushed my way into a packed elevator. “What school sh-?” I managed to close my mouth before saying “school shooting” out loud.
“Just happened.”
“Oh my God. How bad?”
“We still don’t have a body count. I’m putting a team together.”
Body count. We used the term all the time, but about children? Never.
“Rachel? You still there?”
“Yeah, I just…give me a sec.” I had to push away from the horror of it all and make myself think. If the case was already big enough to justify bringing in the Robbery-Homicide Division, then District Attorney William Vanderhorn, affectionately known by me as the Dipshit, would insist that we have a presence in the investigation. It gave him a chance to show up at the scene and get free publicity. And if Bailey had anything to say about it, that presence would be Yours Truly. “You on your way out there now?” I asked.
“Yeah. You may as well let me pick you up. Odds are you’ll wind up getting sent out anyway.”
Bailey was right. Vanderhorn’s obnoxious press grab aside, it is SOP for the Special Trials Unit to show up at the crime scene, because we usually get our cases the day the body is found. That means we’re involved in the investigation. And that makes for a lot more work-normally prosecutors don’t even get the file until they start picking a jury-but it lets us put together a much tighter case. It’s an honor to be chosen for Special Trials, but it’s not a job for anyone who wants normal working hours. Free evenings? Free weekends? Fuggetaboutit.
The elevator bounced to a stop at the eighteenth floor of the Criminal Courts Building, one of the two floors occupied by the district attorney’s office. It’s a long-standing, not-so-funny joke that the contract for the elevators went to the lowest bidder. They operate like one of those cheapo traveling carnival rides. “Okay.” My voice was as leaden as my heart. I didn’t even want to imagine what I was about to see.
“We think we’ve already identified the shooters.”
I punched in the security code on the door that led to my wing and headed for my office. “Then why…?” If they already had the shooters, there wouldn’t be much for me to do. I unlocked the door to my office and dropped the case file on my desk.
Bailey sighed. “Yeah, now that I think about it, Rache, maybe you don’t need to come. This one’s gonna be…really bad.”
I couldn’t remember ever wanting to take a pass on a crime scene before, but I did now. Though homicides are always grim, nothing compares to the tragedy of a child victim. Let alone a mass murder involving children. I didn’t want to see it. I didn’t want to know about it. I didn’t want it to be true. But it was. And I had to do something about it. Even if it was too late.
3
“What do we know?” I asked, as Bailey pulled away from the Criminal Courts Building.
“Precious little. Everyone’s got cell phones, so between the kids and the teachers, we have about a thousand reports. And they’re all over the place. ‘There were two gunmen. There were four gunmen. They had AKs. They had handguns. They had grenades, they had Molotovs.’ The only thing we know for sure is that they yelled at the jocks. But when they fired they didn’t seem to be targeting anyone specific. A soccer coach, maybe. And she might’ve just been in their way.”
“Any idea how many casualties?”
“Not yet.”
“But the building is cleared already?”
Bailey nodded. “SWAT went in through the library window. Word is that’s where the last shots were fired.”
“And that’s where they found the suspects?”
“Yes.”
I looked out the passenger window as we made our way down the 101 freeway. It was an incongruously glorious fall day, the kind I imagine L.A. used to have in abundance before we fouled the air with modern conveniences. Piercingly blue skies; brilliant yellow sunlight; and a clean, mild breeze that carried the burnt orange and ochre smells of autumn. The palm trees swayed gracefully in that breeze. At this moment I hated the sight. It felt like proof that the world didn’t care.
Our destination was Woodland Hills, a suburb in the San Fernando Valley that lies north and west of Los Angeles proper. Bailey got off at Tampa Avenue, and I distracted myself by counting the number of storefronts advertising Asian “foot massage” for twenty dollars. When I reached six, Bailey turned south and headed us into the maelstrom that surrounded Fairmont High School.
Fire engines, police cars, and ambulances-more than I’d ever seen in one place-packed the front entrance. Overhead, police helicopters competed for airspace with news copters. Their deafening whump-whump, the flashing blue and red lights, the piercing scream of ambulances, created a dark swirl that made the whole scene feel apocalyptic.
More than two hundred stunned civilians crowded the grass quad in front of the school. I guessed that most were the families and friends of the students who hadn’t been accounted for. Many were hunched over, holding cell phones to their ears, or staring at them as if willing them to ring. The air was thick with anguish. Circling like vultures were the inevitable news crews. I watched in disgust as reporters held out microphones to catch every drop of misery from the anxious crowd.
Bailey double-parked next to a squad car on the corner, and we headed to the police barricade at the side of the building, where things were quieter. The school was big-two stories high-and relatively new-looking, with a facade of light-colored stucco. The stairs leading to the main entrance were filled with local police officers.
A sobbing couple hovered over a gurney that was being loaded into one of the ambulances. The woman called out in a quavering voice, “Don’t worry, baby, you’re going to be okay! We’ll be right behind you!” The paramedic slammed the rear door shut and jumped in, then the ambulance flew down the street, siren screaming.
Bailey and I stopped just outside the tape that had been placed around the perimeter of the school and she flashed her badge at the nearest officer, a wiry guy who seemed almost young enough to have been a student himself.
“I’ll have to check with the sergeant before I let you in,” he told Bailey. He glanced over at me. “But she’ll have to wait. I’ve got strict orders: no civilians allowed.”
“I’m not a civilian,” I said, irritated. I pulled out my badge and held it up. “I’m a deputy district attorney-”
The officer studied my badge, then shook his head. “I’m sorry, ma’am, orders are not to let-”