Time Bomb (2 page)

The back doors were tinted double-glass above three concrete steps. They swung open and Milo stepped out, wearing a quilted olive-drab car coat over the plaid sport jacket. All those layers—and the weight he’d put on substituting food for booze—made him look huge, bearish. He didn’t notice me, was staring at the ground, running his hands over his lumpy face as if washing without water. His head was bare, his black hair dripping and limp. His expression said
wounded bear.

I said, “Hello,” and he looked up sharply, as if rudely awakened. Then his green eyes switched on like traffic lights and he came down the stairs. The car coat had large wooden barrel-shaped buttons dangling from loops. They bobbed as he moved. His tie was gray rayon, water-spotted-black. It hung askew over his belly.

I offered him my umbrella. It didn’t cover much of him. “Any problems getting through?”

“No,” I said, “but a bunch of mothers are having a problem. You guys could use some sensitivity training. Consider that my initial consultation.”

The anger in my voice surprised both of us. He frowned, his pale face deathly in the shade of the umbrella, the pockmarks on his cheeks standing out like pinholes in paper.

He looked around, spotted the cop chatting up the reporter, and waved. When the cop didn’t respond, he cursed and lumbered away, shoulders hunched, like an offensive tackle moving in for the crush.

A moment later the patrolman was sprinting out of the yard, flushed and chastened.

Milo returned, panting. “Done. The mommies are on their way, police escort and all.”

“The perquisites of power.”

“Yeah. Just call me Generalissimo.”

We began walking back toward the building.

“How many kids are involved?” I said.

“Couple of hundred, kindergarten through sixth grade. We had them all in the gym, paramedics checking for shock or injuries—thank God, nothing. The teachers took them back to their classrooms, trying to do what they can until you give them a plan.”

“I thought the school system had people to deal with crises.”

“According to the principal, this particular school has trouble getting help from the school system. Naturally, I thought of you.”

We reached the steps, where we were sheltered by an overhang. Mile stopped and placed a heavy hand on my shoulder. “Thanks for coming down, Alex. It’s a goddam mess. I figured no one would do a better job than you. I don’t know what your schedule’s like or if they’ll be able to pay you, but if you can at least get them started on the right foot . . .” He cleared his throat and rubbed his face again.

I said, “Tell me what happened.”

“Looks like the suspect got onto the school grounds before school opened, either by scaling or walking through—couple of the gates were left unlocked—proceeded into the storage shed, which had a dinky lock on it, and stayed there.”

“No one uses the shed?”

He shook his head. “Empty. Used to be for athletic equipment. They keep all that stuff in the main building now. Suspect was settled in there until a little after noon, when the kids came pouring out for recess. Latch and Massengil and their people showed up by twelve-thirty and that’s when the shooting started. Teachers began shoving the kids back in the building, but it was a real mob scene. Mass hysteria. Everyone falling over everyone else.”

I glanced back at the storage shed. “TV said no one was hurt.”

“Just the suspect. Permanently.”

“SWAT?”

He shook his head. “It was over before SWAT got here. One of Latch’s guys did the job. Fellow named Ahlward. While everyone else was diving for cover, he rushed the shed, kicked the door in and played Rambo.”

“Bodyguard?”

“I’m not sure what he is, yet.”

“But he was armed.”

“Lots of people in politics are.”

We climbed the steps. I took another look back at the shed. One of the mesh windows offered a clear view of the main building.

“It could have been a shooting gallery,” I said. “Near-sighted sniper?”

He grunted and pushed the door open. The interior of the building was oven-warm, ripe with the mingled aromas of chalk dust and wet rubber.

“This way,” he said, turning left and guiding me down a brightly lit hallway hung with children’s artwork in fingerpaint and crayon, and health and safety posters featuring grinning anthropomorphic animals. The linoleum floor was clay-colored and mottled with muddy shoeprints. A couple of cops patrolled. They acknowledged Milo with stiff nods.

I said, “The newscast said Latch and Massengil were going to debate on camera.”

“It wasn’t set up that way. Apparently Massengil had a solo press conference in mind. Planned to make some speech about government tampering with family life, use the school as a backdrop, the whole busing thing.”

“School know of his plans?”

“Nope. No one here had any idea he was coming down. But Latch’s people found out about it and Latch decided to come down himself and confront him. Impromptu de-bate.”

“Cameras ended up getting a better show,” I said.

The doors off the corridor were painted that same pumpkin-orange. All were shut and as we passed, sounds filtered through the wood: muffled voices, the matter-of-fact sonata of a police radio, what could have been crying.

I said, “Think Latch or Massengil was the real target?”

“Don’t know yet. The assassination angle brought the anti-terrorist boys zipping over from downtown. They’re interviewing both of the staffs right now. As long as the political angle is a possibility, they’re in charge—meaning I collect info and hand it over to them so they can classify it, then refuse to let me look at it on grounds that it’s classified. Perquisites of power, hoo-ha.” He gave a hollow laugh. “Top of that, the
FBI
just called from Westwood, wanting to know everything about everything, threatening to assign one of their guys as a
consultant.”

He hummed a few bars of “Send in the Clowns” and lengthened his stride.

“On the other hand,” he said, “if it’s your everyday, run-of-the-mill SoCal psycho killer gunning for innocent babies, none of the muckamucks will give a shit, ’cause the psycho’s dead—no headline value—and yours truly will catch the paperwork. Good old perquisites of power.”

He stopped at a door marked
PRINCIPAL
, turned the knob, and shoved. We entered a front office—two straight-backed oak chairs and a secretary’s desk, untended. To the right of the desk was a door bearing a brown plastic slide-in sign stamped L
INDA
O
VERSTREET
, E
D
. D. in white. Milo knocked and pushed it open without waiting for a reply.

The desk in the rear office was pushed to the wall, creating an open space that accommodated a sand-colored L-shaped sofa, tile-topped coffee table, and two upholstered chairs. Plants in ceramic pots filled the corners. Next to the desk was a waist-high shelving unit well stocked with books, rag dolls, puzzles, and games. Framed watercolors of irises and lilies hung on the walls.

A woman got up from the sofa and said, “Detective Sturgis. Hello, again.”

For some reason I’d expected someone middle-aged. She was no older than thirty. Tall—five eight or nine—leggy, high-waisted, and slim, but with strong shoulders and full hips that flared below a tight waist. Her face was long, lean, very pretty, with a clear, fair complexion, rosy cheeks, and fine features topped by a thick shag of shoulder-length blond hair. Her mouth was wide, the lips a trifle stingy. Her jawline was crisp and angled sharply, as if aiming for a point, but ending in a squared-off cleft chin that granted her a bit of determination. She wore a charcoal cowl-neck sweater tucked into a knee-length denim skirt. No makeup other than a touch of eye shadow. Her only jewelry was a pair of square black costume earrings.

“As promised,” Milo told her, “Dr. Alex Delaware. Alex, Dr. Overstreet, the boss around here.”

She gave him a fleeting smile and turned to me. Because of her height and her heels, we were almost eye to eye. Hers were round and large, fringed with long, almost-white lashes. The irises were an unremarkable shade of brown but radiated an intensity that caught my attention and held it.

“Pleased to meet you, Dr. Delaware.” She had a soft voice mellowed further by some kind of Southern twang. She held out her hand and I took it. Long-fingered and narrow, exerting no pressure. I wondered how someone with hands that submissive, that beauty-contestant voice, would handle a position of authority.

I said hello. She freed her hand and brushed her bangs.

“Thanks for coming down on such short notice,” she said. “What a nightmare.”

She shook her head again.

Milo said, “S’cuse me, doctors,” and moved toward the door.

“See you later,” I told him.

He saluted.

When he was gone, she said, “That man is kind and gentle,” as if ready to argue the point.

I nodded. She said, “At first the kids were scared of him, scared to talk to him—his size. But he really handled them well. Like a good father.”

That made me smile.

Her color deepened. “Anyway, let’s get to work. Tell me everything I can do to help the kids.”

She took a pad and pencil from her desk. I sat on the short section of the L-shaped sofa and she settled perpendicular to me, crossing her legs.

I said, “Are any of them showing signs of overt panic?”

“Such as?”

“Hysteria, breathing troubles, hyperventilation, uncontrollable weeping?”

“No. At first there were tears, but they appeared to have calmed down. At least the last time I looked they seemed settled—amazingly so. We’ve got them back in their classrooms and the teachers have been instructed to let me know if anything comes up. No calls for the last half hour, so I guess no news is good news.”

“What about physical symptoms—vomiting, urinating, loss of bowel control?”

“We had a couple of wet pants in the lower grades. The teachers handled it discreetly.”

I probed for symptoms of shock. She said, “No, the paramedics already went through that. Said they were okay. Remarkably okay, quote unquote—is that normal? For them to look that good?”

I said, “What do they understand about what’s happened?”

She looked puzzled. “What do you mean?”

“Has anyone actually sat down and explained to them that there was a sniper?”

“The teachers are doing that now. But they have to know what happened. They heard the shots, saw the police swarm the campus.” Her face tightened with anger.

I said, “What is it?”

She said, “That someone would do that to them. After all they’ve been through. But maybe that’s why they’re handling it okay. They’re used to being hated.”

“The busing thing?”

“The busing thing. And all the garbage that resulted from it. It was a match made in hell.”

“Because of Massengil?”

More anger.

“He hasn’t helped. But no doubt he speaks for his constituents. Ocean Heights considers itself the last bastion of Anglo-Saxon respectability. Till recently, the locals’ idea of educational controversy was chocolate-chip or oatmeal cookies at the bake sale. Which is fine, but sometimes reality just has to rear its ugly head.”

She drummed her fingers and said, “When you came in, did you notice how big the yard was?”

I hadn’t, but I nodded.

She said, “It’s a huge campus for such a small neighborhood, because thirty-five years ago, when the school was built, land was cheap, Ocean Heights was supposed to boom, and someone probably landed a juicy construction contract. But the boom never materialized and the school never came close to functioning at capacity. Until the budget crunches back in the seventies, no one paid much attention to that kind of thing. Who’d complain about small classes? But resources started to dry up, the Board began examining head count, efficient allocation of resources, all that good stuff. Most white schools were experiencing a dropping census but Hale was a real
ghost
town. The kids of the original homeowners were grown. Housing had gotten so expensive that few families with young children were able to move in. Those that could afford to live here could also afford to send their kids to private schools. The result was classroom capacity for nine hundred pupils and only eighty-six kids attending. Meanwhile, on the East Side, things were nuts—fifty, sixty per classroom, kids sitting on the floor. The logical thing seemed to be what the Board so quaintly terms ‘modulated redistribution.’ The B word. But totally voluntary, and one-way. Inner-city kids brought in, no locals bused out.”

“How long’s it been going on?”

“This is our second year. Hundred kids the first semester, hundred more the second. Even with that, the place was still a ghost town. But the locals felt crowded. Sixty of the eighty-six stragglers were transferred immediately to private schools. All the rest left mid semester. You would have thought we were importing the plague.” She shook her head. “I can understand people wanting to be insulated, the whole idea of the neighborhood school. I know they must have felt invaded. But that doesn’t excuse how ugly it got. Alleged
grown-ups
standing outside the gates waving signs and taunting the kids. Calling them greasers, wetbacks.
Vermin.”

I said, “I saw it on TV. It was ugly.”

She said, “During summer vacation we got vandalized—racist graffiti, broken windows. I tried to get the Board to send down some mental health people, someone to mediate with the community before the new school year started, but all I got were memos and countermemos. Hale’s a stepchild that they’re obligated to feed but don’t want to acknowledge.”

“How have the children reacted to all the hostility?”

“Very well, actually. They’re so darned resilient, bless ’em. And we worked on it. Last year I met regularly with each class, talking to them about tolerance, respecting differences between people, the right to free speech, even if it’s unpleasant. I had the teachers play games and do things to enhance self-esteem. We kept drumming into them how good they were. How brave. I’m no psychologist, but psych was my minor and I think I did at least a passable job.”