David Baldacci - Memory Man

Decker stepped into the cafeteria and looked around. His hand instinctively went to the butt of his pistol, which was wedged in his waistband and hidden under his jacket. He nudged the safety off with his thumb. He already had a round chambered. The lights were off in here. Decker found the switches and flicked them on using his elbow.

He walked across the main space, passing tables with chairs stacked neatly on top of them. At the end of the room were the serving counters, all stainless steel and glass. The serving tubs were all empty. Everything was clean, dishes stacked neatly, all ready to go except for the absence of any hungry students and folks ready to serve them.

His gaze was roaming to the floor as he stepped. But there wasn’t a discernible footprint there. Decker stepped through the opening into the rear space. There were portable shelving units here used to carry food from this area to the serving area. They were parked against the walls. There were mops and buckets and other cleaning tools.

That was of no interest to Decker.

What was of interest to him was the built-in freezer located at the far end of the storage room.

A whooshing sound. A vacuum. A freezer door closing.

Or opening .

He pulled out his pistol. He wasn’t actually expecting to find the shooter in full cammies inside the freezer. They had to have searched back here and of course opened the freezer. But he had seen enough weird shit in his life not to discount the possibility. And to take anything for granted at this point could mean he too might leave the school in a body bag in the back of a silent transport.

He aimed his pistol at the door, stepped to the side, gripped the handle with his coat sleeve, jerked it upward, and tugged it hard. The door opened cleanly.

With a whoosh , he noted, as the air seal was broken. He imagined in the early morning hours it would have echoed right out into the empty, silent hall and into Melissa Dalton’s ears. Well, this had been his little experiment, and it seemed to corroborate what the girl had said.

Decker backed away and took up position behind a worktable. He edged around it until he could see fully into the freezer. It was empty, except for food. But had it been empty at 7:28 the morning of the rampage?

Decker stepped inside the freezer and looked around. He noted that the door had a safety mechanism that allowed anyone inside to open it. That way one couldn’t become trapped inside and freeze to death.

Then he noticed it. Or felt it, rather.

Freezers were supposed to be really cold, set at zero, in fact. This freezer was merely cold. Maybe not as cold as even the temperature outside.

He checked the temperature gauge. No wonder. It read forty-five. He opened up some of the containers in the freezer and saw what he expected to see. The meat and other perishables had defrosted and were beginning to go bad. They would have to throw them out.

So the guy had upped the temperature in the freezer and used it as his hiding place. And Melissa Dalton had heard exactly what she thought she had. A whooshing sound as the guy emerged at 7:28. But why hide in the freezer? And how did he get in the school to begin with? Presumably the freezer was used during the day, so he had to have come in after hours. And he had to have come in the night before the shooting. Otherwise he would have been discovered when the freezer door was opened by the kitchen staff when they began their duties.

Next question: What would coming in here gain him?

And the mother of all questions: How could he have walked from the cafeteria at the front of the school all the way to the back to commence his rampage and no one see him? It was like he’d teleported in from a spaceship.

Fresh questions started coming in waves to Decker as the potential suspect pool morphed.

What about visitors? Parents? Outside service people? Lancaster hadn’t mentioned anyone like that. But he presumed that anyone in the school at the time would have been held for questioning. That was the most basic rule of a criminal investigation. No one got to simply walk away. But there had been a gap between the shootings and the police shutting down ingress and egress. The shooter had to have made his escape then. But how had he done it without being seen?

Decker came out of the freezer and closed it behind him. He walked a few paces and looked up. The freezer did not have a hiding place. But here was something.

He grabbed one of the chairs and planted it in the middle of the room. He heaved himself up onto the chair. With his height he bumped his head against the tile ceiling. A drop-down ceiling, what people also called a floating ceiling, since the light tiles rode on metal racks that hung down about two feet from the actual permanent ceiling. It had been a retrofit, he knew, done long after the school was originally built. No one was installing drop ceilings in the 1940s.

He lifted one of the ceiling tiles and poked his head through. Using his phone as a flashlight, he shone it around the darkened interior of the space. There was a lot of crap up here, including electrical lines, pipes for the sprinkler system, and HVAC ductwork. There was no way a guy that big could fit up here. And even if he had managed it, the light supports wouldn’t have held his weight. He repositioned the chair three more times until he found something. Not up top, on the floor. A bit of ceiling tile dust. He looked at the spots that he had already examined. There was a bit of such dust now under each because he had lifted the tiles there and dislodged the grainy material. But he hadn’t touched the tiles at this spot.

He took pictures of everything from different angles. Then he positioned his chair and hoisted himself up once more. He used his hand, covered with the sleeve of his jacket so as to not smear or add to any fingerprints already there, to push the tile gently up. He poked his head through and looked around. The space was empty here. No pipes or electrical lines or ductwork. What was here was space to hide something. Like cammie gear and perhaps even weapons.

He looked over every inch of space and then hit pay dirt.

Snagged on a metal support was a thread. He shone his light on it. It looked beige. At another support point there was a smudge in the dust. And a third spot might just be oil residue from maybe a shotgun wedged there.

He touched nothing, climbed down, and texted Lancaster. The forensics team would have to come down here and tear this place apart. While he was waiting for them, he walked to the exterior door opening onto the small loading dock.

“Shit.”

It had looked locked, but when he had leaned his bulk against the door it had fallen open, prompting his expletive. He stepped out onto the small loading dock. It was surrounded by a six-foot-tall wooden fence. With his height he could see over. Some garbage cans were located here, as well as a small Dumpster. And wooden crates were stacked in one corner. Decker nudged open the fence gate and peered out.

Two parking spaces, both empty now. Off that, a short strip of cracked asphalt and then a chain-link fence that led to a long row of ten-foot tall bushes and other shrubbery that had grown up right next to the fence. He walked quickly over to the fence. At the spot opposite from the kitchen entrance he pushed his way through the bushes. The chain-link fence here was split right down the middle. He shone his cell phone light over it. Rusted. It had been this way for a while. He continued through the bushes and came out on the other side. Here was a path that led down into the woods that had been next to the school since forever.

Easy come, easy go .

Lancaster whittled down her gum while a tech team scoured the cafeteria and kitchen area. Outside, teams of police and FBI agents were following the trail that Decker had showed them.