So he sat through the prayers, the weeping, the heartbreaking eulogies in a suit too tight in the shoulders. His mother had told him when he’d come home for the summer to get a new suit, and he’d ignored the idea as a waste of money.
As usual, his mother was right.
Thinking about his suit made him feel disrespectful. So he thought about the three faces he’d seen again and again on the news.
Younger than he was, all of them, and one of them had killed Angie.
Not Hobart, he remembered. He’d been in the theater, and the cop—Officer McVee—killed him. The reports said Hobart had worked in the theater. They said he’d been the ringleader.
But either Whitehall or Paulson had killed Angie.
They looked normal in the pictures on TV and in the papers, on the Internet.
But they hadn’t been normal.
The one he’d seen—still saw in nightmares—all geared up in Kevlar, laughing as he shot a man in the head, hadn’t been normal.
He knew more about them now, the three who’d killed a girl he’d liked during their eight-minute slaughter. Hobart had lived with his father after an ugly divorce. His younger sister lived with the mother. The father, an avid gun collector, taught his children to hunt, to shoot.
Whitehall had lived with his mother, stepfather, half brother, and stepsister. His father, currently unemployed, had a couple of arrests: drunk and disorderly, driving under the influence. Whitehall—the neighbors said—kept to himself and had some drug issues.
Paulson appeared to be a model student. Good grades, no trouble, solid home life, only child. He’d been a Boy Scout—and had a sports shooting merit badge. He’d been a junior member of the USA Shooting organization, with an eye toward the Olympics.
His father had competed for the USA in Sydney in 2000, and Athens in 2004.
People who knew Paulson said they’d noticed a change (hindsight) maybe six months ago when he’d seemed to become more closed in.
That would be about the time the girl he liked decided she liked someone else better, and he’d hooked up with Hobart.
About the time the three who’d become mass murderers began to feed each other’s internal rage.
They’d documented it, so the reports claimed, on computer files the authorities were still studying. Reed, in turn, studied the reports, dug into speculation on the Internet, watched news broadcasts, talked endlessly with Chaz and others.
As much as he wanted to know, just know why, he expected it would take forever for it all to come out. If then.
As he saw it, from the pieces he put together from the reports, the gossip, the conversations, Hobart hated everybody. His mother, his teachers, his co workers. He hated blacks and Jews and gays, but mostly just hated. And he liked to kill things.
Whitehall hated his life, wanted to be somebody, and believed everything and everyone worked against him. He’d gotten a summer job—at the mall—and had been fired within two weeks. For showing up high, a former coworker claimed, when he showed up at all.
Paulson hated his luck. He’d concluded he’d done everything right all his life, but still lost his girl, and wasn’t quite as good as his father at anything. He’d decided it was time to be bad.
They’d targeted the mall for impact, and Hobart took the theater because he wanted to destroy the place that expected him to work for a living.
Rumors claimed they’d done three dry runs, timing them, refining them. They’d planned to regroup at Abercrombie & Fitch, barricade themselves inside, taking hostages as bargaining chips, and taking out as many cops as possible.
Whitehall and Paulson nearly made it, but they’d taken an oath. If one of them fell, they all fell.
When Hobart didn’t show, and with the cops closing in, Whitehall and Paulson—according to witnesses—bumped fists, shouted, “Fuck yeah!” and turned their weapons on each other.
Maybe some of it was true. Maybe even most. But Reed expected more and more would come out. They’d do a book, probably a freaking TV movie.
He wished to hell they wouldn’t.
He came back to the moment when people started to stand, and felt a wave of shame that he’d been inside his own head instead of paying attention.
He got to his feet, waiting while the pallbearers carried Angie out. He couldn’t imagine her inside that box, didn’t want to imagine her there. Her family filed out, grouped tight together as if holding each other up.
He saw a couple people he knew now—Angie’s friend Misty, some others who worked at the mall. It shouldn’t have surprised him to see Rosie. He’d sat with her the day before at Justin the busboy’s funeral.
He knew Rosie had spent the last few days at funerals or in hospital rooms.
He hung back, let her go on her way. Probably to another memorial, or to visit one of the injured, maybe to take food to someone who’d suffered a loss or was recovering at home.
That was Rosie.
The opposite of the three who’d killed.
When he stepped out of the church, he walked into a perfect summer afternoon. The sun shined out of a blue, blue sky dotted with soft white clouds. Grass grew summer green. A squirrel darted up a tree.
It didn’t seem real.
He saw reporters across the street, shooting video or taking photographs. He wanted to despise them for it, but wasn’t he clinging to every word they reported, every photo they published?
Still, he angled away from them, started for the car he’d parked nearly two blocks away. When he heard his name called, he hunched his shoulders rather than turn. But a hand dropped lightly on his arm.
“Reed. It’s Officer McVee.”
He gave her a blank look. Her hair fell down her back in a bouncy honey-blond ponytail. She wore a plain white T-shirt and khakis. She looked younger.
“Sorry, I didn’t recognize you. No uniform. Were you at the funeral?”
“No. I waited out here. I called your house. Your mom told me where you were.”
“I gave my statement and all. A couple times.”
“I’m off duty. I’m just, well, trying to do my own personal follow-up with anybody I connected with that night. For myself. Are you going to the cemetery?”
“No, I don’t feel right about it. Her family and all that. I didn’t know Angie all that well. I just … I was trying to get her to go out with me. We were maybe going to that same movie, the last show, and … Jesus.”
He fumbled on sunglasses with shaking hands.
“You want to go over to the park? Sit and look at the water for a while? It always helps me level out.”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Yeah, I guess.”
“How about you ride with me, and I’ll bring you back for your car after?”
“Okay, sure.”
When he thought of it later, he wondered why he’d gone with her. He didn’t know her. She’d been a blurred face and a uniform inside the madness and shock.
But she’d been there. She’d been in it, like he had.
When he got in her car, he had a moment to think it was older and crappier than his—if a lot cleaner. Then he remembered.
“You shot Hobart.”
“Yes.”
“Man, they didn’t fire you or anything for it, did they?”
“No. I’m cleared. Back on the job tomorrow. How are your parents dealing?”
“They’re pretty messed up, but they’re handling it.”
“And the people at the restaurant?”
“I think it’s harder. We were there, and we saw … You can’t stop seeing it. But we’re doing okay. Like Rosie—head cook? She’s doing a lot of stuff. The funerals, hospital visits, taking food to people. It helps, I think. I don’t know.”
“What’s helping you, Reed?”
“I don’t know.”
He felt the air on his face, through the open window—breeze off the water. That was real. Cars zipped by, a woman pushed a kid in a stroller down the sidewalk. All real.
Life just kept going. And he was in it. Lucky to be in it.
“I talk to Chaz a lot. My friend at GameStop.”
“I remember. He saved lives. So did you.”
“The kid? Brady? His dad called me. He wants to bring Brady to see me maybe next week. He said his wife’s getting better.”
Essie said nothing for a moment, but, like CiCi, she believed in truth and trust.
“She’s going to make it, but she’s paralyzed. She won’t walk again. He probably didn’t want to lay that on you, but you’d find out.”