Chris Jordan - Torn

“He had a history of violent behavior?”

“I guess. He had a lot of grievances. Whatever he screwed up, it was always somebody else’s fault. Thought he should be somebody important, somebody successful, even though he never did much of anything. You know the type-not very smart himself but he assumes everybody else is stupid? That’s Roland.”

“He was smart enough to make a bomb,” Shane points out.

“Probably found plans on the Net.”

“Your impression is that he was organized? Capable of planning?”

Tommy shrugs. “Nah, not Roland. That wasn’t my assumption. My assumption was the dude couldn’t have planned a one-car funeral procession. But obviously I was mistaken.”

Shane makes a few notes in a small reporter’s notebook he carries for just such occasions. “I understand you managed to get a surveillance camera on-site.”

The young trooper brightens when the subject turns to equipment. “Yeah, we got a tactical fiber optic with a sixty-inch reach. Got a real good look at old Roland, strutting around and waving his gun. You know what that sick son of a bitch was doing? He was singing! At the top of his lungs! Like this was some kind of karaoke deal he had going. Ozzie-can you believe it?”

“Ozzie?”

“Ozzie Osbourne. Black Sabbath. Roland was singing along to Black Sabbath. ‘Paranoid.’”

“He was paranoid?” Shane asks, writing it down.

Tommy chuckles. “Man you really are old. ‘Paranoid’ is a song. A famous song written way before I was born. Like the most famous metal song ever recorded.”

“Sorry. I was more into Dire Straits.”

“‘Sultans of Swing.’ Ugh.”

“Hey, I was clueless. My other favorite was Supertramp.”

Trooper Tommy Petruchio laughs so hard he spits drool. “Dude!”

“Is Ozzie Osborne the one who ate bats for breakfast?”

“Yeah,” says Tommy, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand. “On his freakin’ Cheerios.”

“So Roland Penny was a heavy-metal fan.”

“I guess. Must have had it on his iPod.”

Shane stops with his pen above the page. “The perp was wearing a personal listening device?”

“Yeah,” says Tommy. “And he had it cranked. I could tell he had it cranked. I remember thinking, you little weasel, you’ll never hear the shot when it comes. You’ll never know we’re busting in until you’re already dead.”

“So the iPod was like what, a soundtrack to his suicide?”

“That’s the theory. Not that anybody really cares.”

“You don’t care?”

“Not about Roland. He’s dead. What difference does it make what songs he had playing in his sick mind?”

Shane makes a note. “Okay, you had audio and visual on the guy until what, the smoke started?”

“Yeah, that was weird.”

“How so?”

“Why bring a smoke bomb to the party when you’ve got a real bomb set to blow a few minutes later? What was the point? And when the smoke started coming out of that cart, Roland looked like he was freaking.”

“So he didn’t ignite the smoke generator?”

Tommy shrugs. “I guess he must have. Or maybe it went off earlier than he planned. Whatever, once the smoke started we no longer had visual contact. We forced entry, concentrated on getting the kids out of the building.”

“You lost sight of Roland.”

“Man, it was thick smoke! Like you wouldn’t believe. No viz at all. We were grabbing little kids just by reaching down, feeling around.”

“Any indication Roland was equipped with a gas mask or any sort of smoke protector?”

“Not that I saw. But it happened so quick.”

“So you surmise that he remained in the center of the gym while you and your men evacuated the building?”

“That’s the theory.”

“Were shots fired, once the building was breached?”

Tommy shakes his head. “Nope. The only shot he fired was to the back of Leo Gannett’s head, and that happened first, before we got there.”

“So he never reacted?”

“No.”

“He never attempted to flee the scene?”

“He was within a yard of the C-4 when it detonated,” Tommy says, folding his arms resolutely, confident of his opinions. “That’s what they determined. We found pieces of Roland all around the gym, consistent with him being that close. We figure he activated the bomb by hand.”

“How so?”

“Because the remote control he was waving around, threatening all those poor kids with how he’d turn ’em into jelly beans-that was just a regular Sony TV remote. Totally harmless.”

Shane pauses. “I hadn’t heard about the dummy remote.”

“I don’t guess it matters how he triggered the detonator. We know he triggered it somehow because it blew him and Leo to pieces.”

“And little Noah Corbin,” Shane reminds him.

“Yeah, poor little guy.”

“Any theories on the smoke? Why he was packing a smoke generator, what he hoped to accomplish?”

Tommy shrugs. “He was nuts, obviously.”

“It occurs to me,” Shane says carefully, “that smoke is a pretty good diversion, as well as a cover.”

“Yeah, but for what? Roland wasn’t trying to escape. He blew himself up.”

“Or somebody else did, using another remote detonator.”

Tommy snorts. “Yeah, that was a theory for about five minutes. Trouble is, there’s no physical evidence indicating he had an accomplice. Nothing. Nada.”

“But that smoke, the smoke bothers me. It’s a tactical strategy. It’s what you deploy if you want to confuse the situation. If the whole crazy scene with Roland was somehow staged, or he was put up to it. The smoke confuses Roland. It confuses everybody. So maybe the smoke was for a reason.”

“Oh, you mean the kid. Could somebody have snatched him.”

“Could they?”

“Doubtful. I mean, who? It was just us in there. My unit and the teachers and the kids.”

Shane looks quizzical. “I understood some of the firefighters helped out.”

“Yeah,” he allows. “They were grabbing kids, too.”

“And Roland waited until all of you were safely out of the building before he detonated the bomb.”

“Yeah,” says Tommy. “That was lucky.”

“Except for the kid.”

“Except for the kid.”

Shane pauses. They share the quiet for a while. Trooper Tommy Petruchio scratches his nose and finally breaks the silence. “You know what bothers me?”

Shane waits.

“The Escalade.”

“Escalade?” asks Shane, genuinely puzzled.

“A week before it all went down Roland Penny put three grand, cash, down on a new Escalade. We found the receipt in the glove box of his old van. He never paid the balance, never took delivery, but still. I told you Roland was a loser. He was also unemployed and without any obvious source of funds. So where did he get the money for the down payment?”

“Any theories?”

“The detectives in charge figured maybe he was dealing.”

“And was he?”

“No hard evidence either way. And if he did get the money from dealing, why’d he spend it on a car when he was planning to blow himself up in a few days? Answer me that, Batman.”

The last time I was in a diner it was probably a Johnny Rockets at a mall somewhere. In other words, a nostalgic substitute, not the real thing. No cracked linoleum counters, no worn vinyl booths lovingly polished by generations of ample bottoms. No heady perfume of sugared doughnuts and sizzling bacon. No short-order cook who looks to be in the final stages of alcoholism, eyes peering out from a ruined face as he chops peppers and onions for an omelet that never ends.

Shane has found us a prime example of a real working diner, or so he says, located just north of the Finger Lakes. This is my first visit to the city of Auburn. Shane calls it a ‘nice little burg’ and I see no reason to disagree, even if the burg’s main claim to fame is that Abner Doubleday took up residence for a time, and no doubt dreamed of baseball. Oh yeah, and according to the helpful historical notes included on the menu, the first-ever execution by electric chair took place at the local prison in 1890. So the place has a lot going for it if you happen to be a fan of baseball or capital punishment.