Marcia Clark - The Competition

Dwight turned back to look at the Chevrolet. Now the only sound coming from the car was the crackle and whoosh of flames eating whatever would burn. They stood and watched, and waited.

The bomb squad took statements from Dwight and his team, examined the debris that had blown from the car, and studied the car itself through binoculars. After they’d huddled, the head of the squad marched up to Dwight, his jaw clenched. “Rosenberg, I know I said you got lucky. But now we have a better idea of just how lucky. You need to hear this: he had three bombs rigged up. Only the smallest one detonated. The other two were duds. If things had gone as this asswipe had planned, you, your team, and a whole lot of others would’ve been blown to smithereens.” He gave Dwight a hard look. “Get it?”

Dwight swallowed. He hadn’t thought he could feel any worse. “Got it.”

“Good. You can let the fire dudes in now.” He headed back to his truck.

The fire department moved in and put out the fire. Now even more smoke poured out through the shattered windows. Dwight grabbed a rag, doused it with water, and covered his eyes. He wanted to move closer, but the heat coming from the car was still so intense it was hard to breathe.

When the air had cleared somewhat, Dwight moved in and peered into the driver’s seat through streaming eyes. The body was charred, burned, and now soaking wet-with odd bits of the black balaclava still clinging to the head-but it was Cutter.

Dwight ran back to his car and pulled out his cell phone. He called the captain and gave him the update. Then he called Bailey. It went to her voice mail, so he left a message. “Detective Keller, it’s Detective Dwight Rosenberg. If you’re on your way here, you can stand down. We got him. Cutter’s dead. It’s over. I’m heading over to the memorial right now. I should get there in about twenty minutes.”

Bailey and Imoved into the amphitheater behind a group of students. Their arms were draped over each other’s shoulders, heads tilted together. It had been sunny when Bailey picked me up at the Biltmore, but now clouds had gathered and the air smelled like rain. As we walked down the aisle on the right side of the amphitheater toward the front section, I noticed the governor and his wife, the chief of LAPD, and several councilmen. And, of course, Vanderputz, who was cozying up to the governor’s entourage, hoping to worm his way up to the man himself. There were no cameras, at the families’ request. But I’d seen reporters, both print and television, packed into the back seats, near the entrance. The police presence out front had been impressive.

The families of the victims were all around us, and grief hung damp and heavy over the theater. Some cried, others stared vacantly, unable to absorb the cataclysmic loss. Ushers moved through the theater with baskets of tissues. Surviving students walked with heads hung low and shoulders hunched. They embraced their dead friends’ parents awkwardly, eyes cast downward.

The floral arrangements were so massive they took up the entire back half of the stage and the lower part of the hill behind it. At either side of the stage there were open wings, and I could see Principal Campbell standing with the clergymen at stage left. From the crowd behind him, it looked like all denominations were represented.

As we took our seats, my cell phone buzzed. It was a voice mail from Graden, asking if we’d heard the news. He didn’t want to say what it was on the phone. I told Bailey. “Have you had any calls?”

“No.” She pulled out her cell. “Shit! The battery’s dead. Jesus H. Christ. I can’t believe it.”

I popped the battery out of my phone and gave it to her. Bailey took it and moved to an alcove across the aisle on our right. I watched volunteers dressed in black pants and long-sleeved shirts guide elderly family members to their seats. Other volunteers carried in armloads of still more flowers, some wobbling under the weight of the larger arrangements.

As the last of them placed a huge wreath on the stage, I noticed another volunteer on the hill behind the stage, wheeling out what looked like a small trash can. Bailey came back and spoke into my ear in an urgent whisper. “They got him! Evan’s dead! He parked in the student lot at Taft High School. Rigged it up with a bomb-”

I pulled back and looked at her with alarm. “Was anyone…?”

“No. No one was hurt.”

I exhaled, relieved. “And they’ve got Evan’s body?”

“Yeah. It’s in the car.”

It was over. I couldn’t believe it. I was glad. I was. Especially because no one else had been hurt. But I was angry too. He’d gotten his wish. I’d never get the satisfaction of seeing him cuffed and caged like the animal he was. “Should we get out there?” I asked.

“To do what? Dwight-he left me the message-said he’s on his way here. There’s nothing left for us to do. Except celebrate.” Bailey gave me a grim smile, but she didn’t look all that elated either.

“You wanted to bring him in too, didn’t you?” I asked.

Bailey nodded. “I didn’t think it mattered till now. But yeah, I guess I wanted to see him locked up. This way…”

“He kind of gets what he wanted.”

“Exactly.”

My eyes drifted back toward the hill. The volunteer had left the trash can in the middle of the hill and was now moving toward the wings at stage right. Were they planning some display up there? I started to ask Bailey, but Principal Campbell walked onto the stage, leading the procession of clergymen. When he got to the microphone set up in the center, he tapped it and cleared his throat.

“On this saddest of all days, I welcome our Fairmont High families.”

At that moment, a booming explosion shook the theater. On the hill behind the stage, a fireball burst into the sky. Hot orange flames leaped into the trees. Jagged metal pieces of the trash can shot out through the air, sharp and deadly. Principal Campbell dropped, face-first, onto the stage, and a flower of red spread across the back of his head. Deadly metallic shrapnel rained onto the stage and the front rows of the audience. The clergymen fell to the floor. Fire crackled on the hill, and sparks flew into the floral arrangements at the back of the stage.

Screams of terror filled the amphitheater. The audience jumped to their feet and tried to head for the exit, climbing over one another in a blind panic.

Damn, I knew it! “Bailey, that was Evan! That volunteer on the hill was Evan!” And I knew exactly where he was headed. The wings led into the building that wrapped around the back of the theater and out to the open terrace that overlooked the only point of exit or entry into the theater. He’d be able to fire straight down into the fleeing crowd. Like shooting fish in a barrel.

With the audience clogging the entrance, the police would be stuck outside for precious seconds. We were the only ones who could get to him in time. I grabbed Bailey’s arm and pointed to the wings at stage left. “Go that way! He’s got to be heading for the terrace over the exit!” Bailey took off running. I snatched my gun out of my purse, put it into my coat pocket, and ran toward the wings at stage right.

The fire roared all around me; trees crackled and splintered as they burned. The heat from the flames was so intense I could feel it blistering my face and hands. But it hadn’t spread onto the stage yet. The earth was slippery with mud from the recent rains, and I kept sliding back down the hill. I managed to grab the low branches of a scrub oak and pull myself up the muddy incline. As I pushed my way up the hill, the branches of the shorter trees stabbed at my eyes and scraped my face and neck. Finally, covered in mud, eyes stinging with sweat and the blood that had trickled down from my scalp and forehead, I reached the ledge. I put my hands on it, jumped, and levered myself up onto the stage. Ahead was the enclosed hallway that would lead me to the open terrace.