Spiraled (Callahan & McLane Book 3) (4 page)

6

Zander followed the small group of senior officers. The Washington County sheriff, Bernie North, had hand-selected a few men from each responding division to walk the scene. It was nearly eight
P.M.
and the mall felt empty and quiet, and the sun was well hidden behind the tall firs to the west. Nighttime was closing in rapidly. The forensic evidence collection had been turned over to the state and the teams worked silently or with low murmurs. Mason Callahan and Ray Lusco represented the Oregon State Police Department’s Major Crimes division. The police chief from Cedar Edge, one of his detectives, and three men from the Washington County Sheriff’s Office made up the rest of the group.

They’d started at the edge of the mall where the first sightings of a man with a gun had been called in. They hadn’t located video footage showing where the shooter had actually entered the mall. Yet. “Calls say the shooter aimed down the main aisle and Misty Helm was the first person hit. He was then seen moving to the aisle in front of the movie theater. He stopped and shot a woman who’d been using the mall for her morning exercise,” North stated, referring to a clipboard.

Zander had encountered mall walkers several times. The indoor malls were popular during the rainy and cold months, and most of them opened their main buildings early to let exercisers walk their daily miles. By the time the retail stores opened, the walkers were done and enjoying coffee at one of the shops. During the summer months, the outdoor malls like Rivertown were popular in the same way. He assumed it was the same routine across the nation.

“Reports say he shot multiple times but only Gabrielle Gower was hit.”

Lousy shot or lucky?

“How many camera angles are there?” asked the Cedar Edge detective.

“Lots,” North said dryly. “We have hundreds of hours of footage to look through. Even though the shooting only lasted about ten minutes, we want to look at the hours before and after. That includes the parking garage and any views from the outside. I want to see every movement of this guy starting the moment he got up this morning until he went down in that bathroom. Hell, maybe even earlier. There’s a team assigned to sift through it all.” North ran a finger along his clipboard to figure out where he had left off. He located the spot and continued. “After the first shots, people got smart and started to leave. Dick Olsen was shot moments later in front of the theater.” He pointed at a team of techs working a bloody area in front of the ticket window, and then he looked straight at Zander, knowing Olsen’s death had pulled the FBI into the case.

“Why was Olsen at the mall this early?” asked Ray.

“We don’t know yet,” said North. “He’s retired, lives alone, and we haven’t reached any family members that have an answer.” He looked at Zander again.

Zander met his gaze and gave a small shake of his head. The FBI wasn’t holding anything back on Olsen. They didn’t know why he’d been at the mall, either. Olsen’s family was scattered across the US and UK. They’d have to find a friend or neighbor who could give some insight into Olsen’s actions.

“What was Olsen wearing?” asked Mason.

North shot a questioning look at one of the Washington County investigators. “Shorts, T-shirt, tennis shoes,” answered the man.

“Possibly one of the walkers?” Mason asked. “We’ll need to ask some of the other mall walking witnesses. He might be a regular.”

Zander eyed the Major Crimes detective. He’d seen Mason leave earlier with Ava. She’d looked ready to collapse. Mason had returned with a determined glint in his eye, and Zander was glad he was part of the joint effort to find out the who and why of the shooting.

The group moved on. “Next the shooter walked down the main artery of the mall several hundred feet. Reports say he stopped and checked some of the doors of the shops and looked in the windows. Until we get the video report, we won’t know for certain if he stepped inside any stores. A few salespeople who were getting their stores ready to open said they saw him or heard him yank on their doors.”

“Could have been anyone yanking on doors, looking for a place to hide,” added one of the county investigators.

“Yes,” agreed North. “Video will tell us if it was him.”

Or terrified bystanders searching for cover.

The men moved in silence, and Zander noticed that the group was exclusively male.
How did that happen?
He worked with a large number of female agents every day. This group almost felt like the good ol’ boys’ club. Was it simply coincidence? He noticed the forensics teams were pretty evenly split.

They paused at a children’s play area in the center of the walkway. Zander nearly stumbled as he stepped onto the brightly colored flooring around the jungle gym and slide. It was spongy under his feet. He watched one of the county investigators step on it and bounce to test the cushion of the flooring. It made sense. The mall couldn’t have kids toppling off the bars and cracking their skulls on the concrete. No doubt the mall didn’t want shooters, either, but they couldn’t protect against that.

Who can?

No one said a word at the play area. Zander avoided looking at the turquoise-and-red equipment, choosing to study the men’s expressions and take in the anger and relief that they couldn’t hide.
How many of them are fathers?
No children had been hurt—this time. The mass shooting in Eugene in June had injured two children and left four adults dead.

At a large intersection in the mall, North stopped. “This is where Misty Helm was standing when she was shot in the leg. She was the first injured.” He pointed at dried brown blood sprays on the walkway’s concrete.
Arterial spray.
The evidence techs had already finished with the area, but it was still cordoned off. A dark smeared path from the initial blood patterns led across the walkway to a nearby kiosk.

“The woman was talking to an FBI agent at the time she was shot. The agent got a tourniquet on her leg and dragged her to safety, where they waited until the shooter was dead.”

Zander’s stomach turned.
The victim was lucky Ava knew what to do.
He’d known Ava had helped someone, but hadn’t realized they’d been so exposed and smack in the center of the shooting.

North looked at his clipboard. “The FBI agent said the shooter stopped in front of this kitchen store and took aim at a group of women but didn’t fire. Then he turned and went down that aisle for a few moments.”

The group moved forward. “Here is where the special agent and the teen hid,” said North, and stopped at the pool of dried blood near the sunglasses kiosk.

Two of the men coughed. It wasn’t a hiding place; it could barely be called cover. The scent of hot, baking iron hit Zander’s nose and mingled with the odor of blood in the air. Their entire walk had been a hot one. The air had cooled down a few degrees, but the ground was releasing the sun’s energy that it’d soaked up all day. He watched Mason out of the corner of his eye. He’d frozen as he saw the dried blood pool, and Zander wondered if he imagined it as Ava’s. She could have been shot as easily as the teen.

“They were fucking lucky,” muttered the Cedar Edge police chief. “They were sitting ducks.”

Mason looked away, his face blank.

“The suspect shot Anthony Sweet instead of the women.” North pointed at the blood on the wall and ground fifty feet down a wing of the mall. “Sweet was an employee at the card shop. The special agent believes he left the store to try to help her and the teenager.”

The men shifted their feet and mumbled. Was Sweet a hero or a fool? Zander understood the drive to help someone in need. Would he have done the same as Sweet? Or followed standard operating procedure and stayed hidden?

He didn’t know.

“Then the shooter entered the restroom toward the end of this wing.”

They’d passed plastic evidence markers all throughout their walk. But in this section of the mall were the most markers, increasing in number as they neared the restroom. The activity in and just outside the bathrooms had been high during the investigation, and Zander knew the shooter still lay as the police had found him. There’d been nothing a medical team could do; they couldn’t fix dead. The shooter had blown off part of the back of his head and had been left in place to preserve evidence. Zander noticed two guys from the morgue standing to the side, cooling their heels as they waited for their opportunity to remove the body.

“Three guys and one child made it out of the restroom before he shot himself,” North continued. “They were damn lucky. He could have shot them all. We’ll probably never know how he selected his victims.”

He glanced at the group. “Everyone have good stomach control?”

Silence.

“All right then. Let’s take a look.”

Mason had felt Zander’s gaze on him the whole walk. If the agent hadn’t been such a nice guy it would have annoyed the hell out of him, but he knew Zander was watching out of concern. He didn’t know the agent’s history, but he’d heard he’d lost his wife somehow. Whether that somehow was divorce or death, Mason hadn’t heard the facts, but he respected the man. Zander Wells was a sharp investigator, gave a damn about victims, and didn’t create pissing contests.

Mason wished Ava were beside him. She deserved a look at the guy who’d shot her friend and kept her pinned down in a danger zone. He wanted to hear her perspective on the scene. She’d watched the crimes play out and didn’t need to refer to a clipboard to keep the timeline straight.

He was glad he’d been assigned to the case. He hadn’t been involved with the mass shooting case in Eugene in June, but he’d followed it closely, disturbed that it’d happened again in Oregon. Nearly two decades ago, not far from the site of the June shooting, an expelled teen had decided to take a weapon into his high school after killing his parents. Children had died, and the memory had never faded from the community. Mass shootings seemed to happen in batches, breeding like rabbits. How many would it take to finish this batch?

Mason prayed this was the final one.

He’d listened and watched closely as they’d walked the path of the shooter. The mall was silent except for the swarm of evidence technicians and police. A different atmosphere from the never-ending sirens, tears, and screams of that morning. Mason wanted immediate access to a murder scene to do his job efficiently. The best time was before the techs arrived, when nothing had been disturbed, no crime scene tape, no black dust, no evidence bags.

He always felt a subtle vibration in his bones as he walked murder scenes. As if a million microscopic voices were shouting at him, trying to lead his feet and eyes to the answers.
Is it from the souls of the departed?
He didn’t know. He didn’t subscribe to the woo-woo beliefs of ghosts or the supernatural. He trusted his eyes. And his gut. And he used his brain to search for answers—not for spirits.

He liked the silence of a scene that allowed his mind to process and wander through the puzzle of what the hell had happened. Everything frozen in time, waiting for him to follow the subtle clues and answer the million questions.

In a mall like this, 90 percent of the crime should be visible on video.

“Cameras in the restrooms?” he asked North.

The sheriff shook his head. “Can you imagine the outcry if people found out there were cameras in public restrooms? No mall will go for that, but the doorway is covered from that one.” He pointed up at the opposite roof line. Mason had to stare for a few seconds before he spotted the discreet camera.

“Not a lot of room inside the bathroom. You three first.” North pointed at Mason, Ray, and Zander. The rest of the group stood to the side as the investigators slipped on booties and gloves.

“Make it fast, ladies,” one of the county investigators quipped. Mason ignored him.

Inside, a crime scene photographer spoke to the medical examiner, who was pulling off his gloves, clearly finished with his examination of the body. Dr. Seth Rutledge looked up as they entered, his face brightening as he spotted Mason and Ray. “Evening, detectives.” The men had met over several corpses, but Mason preferred to meet the good-natured ME over a beer. Sadly, the corpses had outnumbered the beers.

“Hey, Doc.” Ray lifted a hand in greeting. “Whatcha got?”

Mason took in the body. It was as Ava and Walter Borrego had described. Black from head to toe. Black Nike tennis shoes, black baggy athletic pants, black athletic jacket, mask. Tall. Not heavy. Someone had pulled up the mask to expose his face but left it covering most of his hair and what was left of his head. The face seemed young. Clean-shaven. Dark eyelashes and hair. Someone had closed the eyelids, but Mason wanted to see the eye color. Low murmurs told Mason that more people were in the rear of the restroom.

“Gunshot to the mouth.”

“With his rifle?” Zander asked.

“Yep. It’s not that hard when you’ve got long arms.” The medical examiner pointed at the sinks. “I think he balanced the butt of the gun on one of the sinks, shoved it in his mouth, and fired. See how he fell backward?”