Graden pulled me in for a quick hug before we went out into the world. “Let me know what the shrinks say.”
“I will.”
He gave me a little smile. “And hey, thanks for last night.”
“No, thank you.” I wrapped the scarf around my neck and opened the door. “Your money’s on the nightstand.”
Graden gave me a shove. “Get out.”
We headed downstairs. Graden, unlike Bailey, always had Rafi park his car, and he tipped well. His car was waiting at the curb. Bailey pulled up, and Graden waved as he drove off. She raised an eyebrow at me as I buckled up. “I see you’ve been putting in some overtime.”
“How original of you.” I told her about the newscast and getting protection for Amanda.
“I’d be surprised if Evan bothered with her at this point, but we should ask the shrinks about it.”
I intended to. “Did you get a copy of Evan’s journals out to Jenny and Michael?”
Bailey nodded. “Made them myself last night. Sealed them up and had them hand-delivered early this morning.”
“Do you ever sleep?” Bailey gave a grim smile. It was a drag of a chore, but she was wise not to trust anyone else with it. If those journals leaked, there’d be mass panic. “You talk to Harrellson yet?” I asked. “Hear anything about that San Diego kid, Mark…?
“Unger, yeah. He’s got a solid alibi. Kid’s been in school and at work at the local Jamba Juice every day for the past month. So at least we know we’re only looking for one psycho.”
“Good,” I said. “Did you ask Harrellson if he ever found that uni report saying witnesses had seen Evan in the gym?”
“I did. He can’t find it, and now he thinks he must’ve been hallucinating.”
“But Evan did go to homeroom,” I said.
“Yeah. But if they had all their stuff stashed close by, he could’ve ducked out when everyone else headed to the gym. It’s not that hard.”
Exactly what I’d figured. Now that I thought about it, I’d snuck into the girls’ room to ditch assembly a time or two myself. “I assume by now someone’s told Evan’s parents that we’ve got an arrest warrant out for him?” Bailey nodded. “How’d they take it?”
“The mom fell apart, but the dad refuses to believe it. Said Evan was never violent and never showed any interest in guns.”
“Did anyone ask them how Evan was acting just before the Fairmont shooting?”
“Yeah, and they said he acted completely normal. A little busier than usual; he wasn’t around much. But that was it.”
I had a hard time believing it. How could he possibly be that well controlled? Maybe later, when the shock wore off, his parents would be able to sift through their memories and find the clues that were escaping them now. But those clues had to have been fairly subtle for the parents to have missed them to begin with.
“Has the tip line blown up?” I asked. Now that we’d identified Evan Cutter as the shooter and released his photo, I expected a flood of calls.
“Of course. But nothing solid yet.”
Releasing Evan’s identity was a double-edged sword. The upside was that people would be on the lookout. The downside was that now he’d know he had to act fast to put on his big “finale.” And that meant the pressure was on like never before.
I put in a call to Eric to bring him up to speed.
“Hey, Rachel, I just heard about Evan being your suspect. What the hell?” I gave him the whole story in abbreviated form. “I have never seen a case like this in my life.” Eric gave a long sigh. “I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but Vanderhorn wants you in ASAP for a debriefing.”
“Tell me he didn’t actually say ‘debriefing.’”
“Unfortunately, he did. I wouldn’t push you on this, but there’s a big memorial planned for the Fairmont High School victims, and he’s planning to attend.”
“Of course he is. There’s bound to be a ton of press.”
I could hear Eric smiling. “So Vanderhorn wants to know as much as possible, just in case he has to give a statement.”
Just in case. He’d chase them down and tackle them if they didn’t ask for a statement. This was one of the few moments when I really hated my job.
“Okay. But I’ve got a meeting with the shrinks first.”
75
We found Jenny and Michael already starting on their second cup of coffee. This coffee-meeting ritual had grown on me. There was something comforting about it, although given the reason for these meetings, I didn’t know why. The photocopied pages of Evan’s journal were spread out on the table between them. Jenny held up the pot. “Want some?”
“Sure, thanks,” I said. Bailey took a cup too, and we settled in around the table. Bailey brought them up to speed on the latest events, including the press release identifying Evan Cutter as the shooter and the leak that we’d been in Boulder.
Michael and Jenny exchanged a look; then Michael cleared his throat. “Before we get to these pages”-he gestured to the copies of the journals-“we think you should be aware that the press releases are likely to speed up his timetable. I guarantee he knows that he’s been identified.”
“So the net is tightening quickly,” Jenny said. “As we’ve surmised, he never expected to go on indefinitely, and this journal confirms what we’ve said all along: he plans to continue these rampages until he’s stopped-”
“And that means when he dies,” Michael said. “Evan Cutter has no intention of being taken into custody.”
And I had no intention of letting him have his finale of choice. Death was too good for this subhuman. I wanted Evan Cutter taken into custody alive and kicking. “We agree. What’d you think of his journals?”
Jenny led off. “This boy is a classic example of a psychopath-”
“No big shock there,” Bailey said.
“No. But I’ve seen what many would have called the most extreme psychopaths in the world, and Evan Cutter is right up there. And unlike some of the other, more prolific killers, he doesn’t even pretend to be serving a political ideology. He simply hates the world. And loves power. The combination of that hatred and thirst for power is what fuels his desire to kill. Murder for him is the epitome of power.” Jenny pushed a few of the pages around, then pulled one out and pointed to the bottom of the page. “See here, where he rails against his father for moving the family around so much? For a normal child that might be tough, but for Evan Cutter it was torturous because it undermined his power. His father said go, and like it or not, he had to go. That infuriated him. You said his father is a military type, a former Marine, correct?” I nodded. “And I’d guess fairly strict?”
“I got that impression,” I said.
Jenny shook her head. “You couldn’t hope for a worse combination. In general, psychopaths can’t tolerate any form of restriction. But Evan in particular has a very low threshold for frustration. What is apparent in these pages is that any obstacle, no matter how small, sends him into a rage.”
“Because it’s a threat to his power,” I said. Michael nodded. “But he doesn’t fit the profile you guys gave us. Evan didn’t complain about feeling persecuted or even do a lot of yakking about guns. And neither did Logan.”
“We had to go with generalities,” Jenny said. “But when it comes to specific individuals”-she sighed-“there just are no concrete rules. And this is a big part of the problem when it comes to spotting a potential psychopath of this ilk. As we said from the start, they’re heterogeneous. There is no single profile.”