Marcia Clark - The Competition

Bailey’s lips twitched when she saw my getup. “We’re not doing the interview on an ice floe.” She was wearing a crew neck sweater and a parka. No vest, no scarf, no gloves.

“Okay, I’ll make you a deal. I’ll peel off a few layers if you fire up the car heater.”

“Want to borrow my parka?”

“Yeah. That’s what I thought. Let’s go.”

The city of Boulder isn’t big-just under thirty square miles-and the population is just over one hundred thousand. Surprising, because it’s a beautiful place. It lies in a valley with the Rocky Mountains on one side and the Flatirons on the other. Nothing but spectacular views wherever you look. And we happened to hit a particularly gorgeous day, the sky a kind of deep, limitless blue you’ll never find in a big city. The air had that crisp, green mountain smell. “Where’s the snow?”

“They don’t usually get any until later in the year.”

How Bailey knows stuff like this is beyond me. It only took us ten minutes to get to Amanda’s neighborhood. It was pleasant and typically suburban-lots of basketball hoops in driveways and cars with bumper stickers for the kind of hip radio channels and liberal causes that showed they belonged to teenagers. But unlike suburbia in Los Angeles, the houses weren’t crammed on top of one another. Here, there were only a few houses on each side of the street, and evergreen and pine trees filled the space between them. The houses were all ranch style, and Amanda’s had a long front walk lined with yellow flowers. A beat-up skateboard on the front lawn told me Amanda probably had a younger sibling. My heart began to thud as Bailey parked in front of the house. A lot could be gained-or lost-in this meeting.

Bailey pulled her coat closed to hide the gun in her shoulder holster. I left mine in my purse. As she joined me on the sidewalk, she said, “Here goes nothin’.”

“Yep.” I put on a confident smile. So did Bailey. Neither of us was fooled, but we weren’t the audience that mattered.

I followed Bailey up the front walk, feeling my palms sweating inside my gloves. We’d just reached the front porch when the door opened and a little boy, who looked no older than eight or nine, came hurtling out, the hood of his parka pulled up over his head, with the rest of the coat flying behind him like a cape. “Bye, Mom!” he yelled, then “Oops!” as he ran smack into Bailey and bounced back.

“Hey, big man, where’s the fire?” Bailey laughed. Moments like these reminded me that she came from a big, healthy, loving family. I’d had the opposite. It made me wonder what that was like. The pang of loss for something I never had-and never would have-hit me every single time.

A tall, slender woman in a business suit with brown hair twisted in a low bun appeared in the doorway. “Zip up, Petey, it’s cold!” The boy reluctantly put his arms into his coat and zipped up, then continued on his way. The woman looked at us. “Can I help you?”

Bailey pulled out her badge and cupped it in her palm so only the woman could see it. “Janice Kozak?”

The woman looked perplexed. “Yes.”

“We’re looking for Amanda.”

“Why? What’s happened?”

“It might be better if we discussed this inside,” Bailey said. “If you don’t mind.”

“Yes, of course.” She stepped back and held the door open. “Come in.”

We followed her past the kitchen and into a cozy living room. Bailey and I sat on the plaid chenille sofa, and Janice sat on a matching wing chair across from us. I introduced myself and showed her my badge. “I know this is inconvenient. Please understand, we wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t urgent.” I told her we were investigating the shootings at Fairmont High and the Cinemark theater. When she heard that, her eyes widened. And then I told her we had reason to believe Amanda might know someone connected to them.

She put a hand to her throat. “‘Connected’? To one of the shooters? That’s impossible! Amanda doesn’t know anyone who-”

“Mom?”

And there she stood, at the end of the hallway that led into the living room. Amanda-in jeans, boots, and a blue hoodie, looking very much like her photograph.

Janice beckoned to her daughter. “These are police officers from Los Angeles, honey. They think you might know someone connected to the shootings.” Janice kept her eyes on Amanda, and I had the feeling she was waiting for her daughter to insist that was impossible. Amanda stood frozen and looked from her mother to us with wide eyes, but said nothing. Janice studied her daughter for a moment, then said, “Is that true, honey?”

“N-no, no, it can’t be.”

Janice turned back to us. “Is she in trouble?”

“Not necessarily,” I said. “But we can’t be sure until we talk to her.” I didn’t want to mislead anyone. Amanda might be in a lot of trouble. We just didn’t know at this point.

Janice’s hand shook as she tucked a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then m-maybe I should call a lawyer.”

I couldn’t let this happen. We needed the information a lot more than we needed to arrest Amanda. And we didn’t have time to haggle with lawyers. “Tell you what. I’ll make you a deal. Nothing she says to us right now will be used against her. And if we get to a point where we can’t honor that promise anymore, we’ll stop talking and let you call a lawyer. Okay?”

Amanda finally found her voice. “Somebody tell me what’s going on!”

“We’re investigating the shootings at Fairmont High and the Cinemark theater, as your mother said. Bailey Keller is the detective on the case, and I’m the prosecutor. My name is Rachel Knight.”

Amanda’s mouth dropped open. She took a step back. “ You’re Rachel Knight?”

I nodded.

I pulled out my badge in its case and held it out to her. She moved toward me as though she were sleepwalking and slowly took the badge from my hand. When she looked from the badge to the photo ID on the opposite side, she sank down on the ottoman near Janice. Her expression told me we’d found our letter mailer.

“Who was it, Amanda?” I asked. “Who gave you the letters to mail?”

Amanda’s lips moved, but no sounds came out at first. Then, finally, she managed a low whisper. “Evan. Evan Cutter.”

I felt allthe blood leave my face as her words washed over me. It couldn’t be. A buzzing filled my brain as I fought to make sense of what I’d just heard. Evan Cutter, the second shooter. The frightened runaway, the reluctant witness was…the suspect? A thousand questions sprang to mind. “What did he tell you about me and why he wanted you to mail those letters?”

“H-he s-said Rachel Knight was a school counselor who was coordinating the grief therapy sessions. He said the letters were condolences. He felt bad for the kids because he used to go to Fairmont High.”

“So he told you he wasn’t going to Fairmont High anymore?” Amanda nodded. “Did he say where he was going?”

“He said he was getting a GED.”

“And you never wondered why he didn’t mail the letters himself?” She shook her head again. “Amanda, I have to tell you, the letters he gave you were not condolence letters.”

“Th-they weren’t?”

“No.” She dropped her gaze to the floor and fell silent. I waited for her to absorb the news.

Finally, she looked at me. “What were they?”

“Threats. Written by one of the killers.”

She jumped to her feet. “What? No way! That’s impossible!”

“I’m sorry, Amanda.” I pulled the copy I’d made of the letters from my purse and held them out to her.

Her breath was coming fast and shallow. She stared at the pages in my hand as though they were poisonous snakes. “That’s impossible! I know it is because…because didn’t the same guys do the theater shooting?”