Lisa Gardner - The Third Victim

Contents

AUTHORS NOTE
AND ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

WHEN I FIRST PROPOSED this book to my editor, it was the winter of 1998 and nearly seven months since the last shootingKip Kinkels May rampage in Springfield, Oregon. That tragedy had followed close on the heels of another, in Jonesboro, Arkansas (March 24, 1998), which had followed West Paducah, Kentucky (December 1, 1997), Pearl, Mississippi (October 1, 1997), and Bethel, Alaska (February 19, 1997). Like many Americans struggling to grasp five shootings in fifteen months, I wanted to understand why these mass murders had occurred and what could be done to prevent them.

After fine-tuning what would be appropriate to cover in a work of fiction whose goal must also be to entertain, I began researching this novel. One Monday, while wrapping up weeks of interviewing, I asked an expert if he believed that the rash of incidents indicated a new trend in juvenile behavior. While this point is controversial, the man did not hesitate to answer. Absolutely, he said. As for future shootings, the question is not if but when.

The very next day, Littleton, Colorado, joined the sad list of shot-up schools in a scope and scale that was staggering. I watched the news clips, and like people all around the world, I gave my thoughts and prayers to a community I had never met.

Each time one of these shootings occurs it is heartbreaking, but as Supervisory Special Agent Pierce Quincy tries to explain in the following pages, it does not have to be hopeless. With each tragedy, we have learned and are learning. In addition to Littleton, Springfield, and Jonesboro, there is Burlington, Wisconsin, where police responded to an anonymous tip in time to arrest three teenage boys plotting to assassinate a target list of in students, and there is Wimberly, Texas, where concerned students contacted police in time to foil a plot by five eighth-grade boys to blow up the junior high. People are learning to listen, and it does work.

In the end, I believe we owe an enormous debt of gratitude to each of the communities that has suffered this tragedy. By sharing their experience with us, and their sorrow, they are teaching us to be better people, students, families, and neighbors. May there come a day when white lilies and red roses are not piled against schoolyard fences. May there come a time when we are not haunted by the image of teenagers signing farewell notes on white caskets. May there be a future when our schools once again know peace.

The following people helped me tremendously with my research. I appreciate their help and patient explanations. Of course, all mistakes are mine, and some facts are subject to artistic license.

Dr. Gregory K. Moffatt, Ph.D., Professor of Psychology, Atlanta Christian College

Thomas Grisso, Ph.D., Professor of Psychiatry (Clinical Psychology), Director of Forensics Training and Research, University of Massachusetts Medical School

Steve Ellis, Officer, Amity Police Department

Rudolf Van Soolen, Chief of Police, Amity Police Department

Jonathan McCarthy, Paramedic, New Orleans Health Department

Amy Holmes Hehn, Senior Deputy District Attorney, Juvenile Division, Multnomah County

Stacy Heyworth, Senior Deputy District Attorney, Multnomah County

Michael Moore, Attorney-at-Law

Virgie Lorenz, teacher

Bruce Walker, computer whiz extraordinaire

Chad LeDoux, gun aficionado and fellow writer

Debra Dixon, author

ONE

Tuesday, May 15, 1:25 P.M.

O FFICER LORRAINE CONNER was sitting in a red vinyl booth at Marthas Diner, picking at her tuna salad and listening to Frank and Doug gossip, when the call first came in. She was sitting alone in the booth, eating salad because shed just turned thirty-one and was beginning to notice that the pounds didnt magically melt away the way they had when she was twenty-one, or hell, even twenty-seven. She could still run a six-minute mile and slip into a size 8, but thirty-one was fundamentally different from thirty. She spent more time arranging her long chestnut hair to earn those second glances. And for lunches, she traded in cheeseburgers for tuna salad, five days a week.

Rainies partner that day was twenty-two-year-old volunteer police officer Charles Cunningham, aka Chuckie. Known in the lingo of the tiny police department of Bakersville, Oregon, as a green rookie, Chuckie hadnt yet gone to the nine-month-long training school. That meant he was allowed to look but not touch. Full authority would come when he completed the required academy courses and received his certificate. In the meantime, he got to gain experience by going on patrols and writing up reports. He also got to wear the standard tan uniform and carry a gun. Chuckie was a pretty happy guy.

Before the call came in, he was up at the lunch counter, trying to work some magic on a leggy blond waitress named Cindy. He had his chest puffed out, his knee crooked forward, and his hand resting lightly on his sidearm. Cindy, on the other hand, was trying to serve up slices of Marthas homemade blueberry pie to six farmers at once. One cantankerous old man muttered at the rookie to get out of the way. Chuckie grinned harder.

In the booth behind Rainie, retired dairymen Doug Atkens and Frank Winslow started placing their bets.

Ten dollars says she caves, Doug announced, slapping a crumpled bill on the pink Formica table.

Twenty says she dumps a glass of ice water over Romeos head, Frank countered, reaching for his wallet. I know for a fact that Cindy would rather earn good tips than Clark Gables heart.

Rainie gave up on her salad and turned around to face the two men. It was a slow afternoon and she had nothing better to do with her time, so she said, Ill take a piece of that.

Hello there, Rainie. Frank and Doug, friends for nearly fifty years, smiled as a single unit. Frank had bluer eyes in his sun-weathered face, but Doug had more hair. Both men wore red-checked western shirts with pearl snapstheir official dress shirts for an afternoon spent out on the town. In the winter, they topped their shirts with brown suede blazers and cream-colored cowboy hats. Rainie once accused them of trying to impersonate the Marlboro Man. At their ages, they took that as a compliment.

Slow day? Doug asked.

Slow month. Its May. The sun is out. Everyone is too damn happy to fight.

Ahh, no juicy domestic disputes?

Not even a quibble over whose dog is depositing what souvenirs in whose yard. If this good weather continues, Im gonna be out of a job.

A beautiful woman like you doesnt need a job, Frank said. You need a man.

Yeah? And after thirty seconds, what would I do?

Frank and Doug chortled; Rainie winked. She liked Frank and Doug. Every Tuesday for as long as she could remember, she would find them sitting at that booth in this diner at precisely one P.M. The sun rose, the sun set. Frank and Doug ate Marthas Tuesday meatloaf special. It worked.

Now Rainie tossed ten bucks into the pot in Chuckies favor. Shed seen the young Don Juan in action before, and Bakersvilles young ladies simply loved his dimpled smile.

So what dyou think of the new volunteer? Doug asked, jerking his head toward the lunch counter.

Whats there to think? Writing traffic tickets isnt brain surgery.

Heard you two had a little encounter with a German shepherd last week, Frank said.

Rainie grimaced. Rabies. Damn fine animal too.