Two more shots, very close to the exit doors now.
The crowd surged away from the doors and toward the windows. Everyone was insane now, possessed with fury and panic. Slugging each other, trying to move back, thinking maybe, if anybody was thinking at all, that if they were not in the front line the bodies in front of them would take the bullets and the gunman would run out of ammunition or be shot by the police before he could kill more.
And the mass was moving relentlessly toward the only escape: windows.
Ardel heard a loud snap in her shoulder and her vision filled with yellow light, and pain, horrific pain, shot from her jaw to the base of her spine. A scream, lost amid the other screams. She couldn't even turn to look. Her head was sandwiched between one man's shoulder and another's chest.
"Ardie!" Sally called.
But Ardel had no idea where her friend was.
The voice on the P.A.--it wasn't the author; he was long gone--cried, "Get away from the door. He's almost here!"
A series of crashes, breaking glass, behind her and the mob surged in that direction, Ardel with them. Not that she had any choice; her feet were off the ground. Finally she could turn her head and she saw attendees throwing chairs through the windows. Then: silhouettes of desperate people climbing to the window frames, some cutting hands and arms on jutting shards of glass. They hesitated, then jumped.
She recalled looking out the window earlier. It was three stories above the shoreline; you'd have to leap far out to hit the water, and even then it seemed there were rocks and concrete abutments just below the surface, some bristling with steel rods from an old pier foundation.
People were looking down and screaming, perhaps seeing their friends and family hit the rocks.
"No, I'm not jumping!" Ardel shouted to no one as the bodies pushed her closer to the window frames. And tried to use her good arm to scrabble in the other direction. She'd take her chances with the gunman.
But she had no say in the matter, no say at all. The crowd pressed closer and closer to the windows, where some people were hesitating and others pushing the reluctant ones down and climbing on their backs or chests or bellies to launch themselves into the questionable safety of the stony shoreline below.
"No, no, no!" Ardel gasped as the cluster around her mounted the fallen attendees, taking her with them. Suddenly she found herself on the sill. She couldn't look down, couldn't steady herself, couldn't even find a safe place to land, if there was such a place.
"Stop it!" she shouted.
But then she was tumbling through space, terrified but also curiously grateful, in those two or three seconds of free fall, to be out of the constrictor grasp of the surging crowd.
Then a jarring, breath-wrenching thud.
But she wasn't badly injured. She'd landed on top of the man who'd jumped just before her. He lay, unconscious, on the outcropping of rock, the right side of his face torn open, jaw and cheek and arm shattered. She'd even landed more or less on her feet, and slid back on her butt, avoiding what would have been a catastrophic, torturous collision of her shattered shoulder and the cracked rock.
A massive spray of pungent salt water flared over Ardel and those around her, sprawled and sitting and crawling on the stone, cold as ice.
Screams from the victims, roaring from the water. Two fellow attendees landed nearby, one middle-aged man on his neck and shoulder. She could actually hear the snap of breaking bone.
She rose, unsteadily, looking around, clutching her shoulder. No pain now. Was that good or bad?
Her eyes stinging from the saltwater spray, Ardel scanned the huddled bodies for her friend. "Sally!" She thought she saw her about thirty feet away. But first she had to get out of the way of the--
"Ah!" Ardel barked a scream as one of the falling patrons landed directly behind her, propelling her off the rock. She stumbled forward and fell into the raging water.
A wave was now receding, pulling her in the undertow, fast, away from shore.
She inhaled from the pain and got only water. Retching, coughing, looking back for help, looking back to see how far she was from shore. Fifteen feet, then twenty, more. The chill stole her breath and her body began to shut down.
She glanced at her useless right arm, floating limp in the water.
Not that it mattered; even if it had worked perfectly fine, there was nothing she could do. Ardel Hopkins couldn't swim a stroke.
Chapter 32
Antioch March had returned from the Bay View Center and was sitting in his Honda parked about five blocks away from the venue, near the Sardine Factory, the wonderful restaurant featured in the harrowing movie by Clint Eastwood, Play Misty for Me. It was one of March's favorite flicks, about a beautiful woman obsessed with a radio disk jockey. Psychotically obsessed.
It was really about the Get, of course.
Anything to seize what she desired.
He stretched and reflected on the plan he'd just put into place. It'd gone quite well.
Forty minutes earlier he'd carted a Monterey Bay Aquarium shopping bag along Cannery Row, then slipped behind a restaurant near the Bay View Center. He'd changed into his "uniform," militia chic, he joked to himself--camo, bandanna, gloves, mask, boots. Then, ten minutes after the self-help author had started his reading, time for rampage.
He'd slipped out from the hiding spot and, firing his Glock, walked closer to the Bay View Center, aiming in the direction of people but not actually at them. Everyone scattered. Everyone screamed.
He made his way toward the center's fire exit doors, shooting away. He figured he had about four minutes until police showed up.
Then, when people began leaping out the windows, falling onto the rocks and into the bay, he'd turned and slipped back to his staging area. He stripped the camo off and was soon once again in T-shirt, windbreaker, shorts and flip-flops, pistol hidden against his spine. The costume went into a mesh dive bag weighted down with rocks and he'd tossed it into the bay, sinking thirty feet into the kelp.
Then, newly touristed, March made his way along the shore to where the Honda was parked. On a prepaid he called 9-1-1 and reported the gunman had moved off--toward Fisherman's Wharf, the opposite direction from where March now was. He then called a local TV station and said the same thing. Another call--to a Fisherman's Wharf restaurant, not the one he'd eaten at last night, to report that a crazed gunman was approaching. "Run, run, get out!"
A lot of police--not everywhere, since this was a small community, but plenty of them. But not a single one paid any attention to him. Their focus was elsewhere. He'd wondered if they would make the connection that he'd masqueraded as the fire inspector, Dunn, to make sure that the exit doors were conveniently taped open. Probably not. The precautions the venue had taken had assured the success of the attack.
Thank you...
He'd waited for a while but then decided he could return to, yes, the scene of the crime.
The streets were congested, of course, as he made his way toward the venue where the tragedy continued to unfold. In the water, he could see, a dozen police and Coast Guard boats cruised and floated, blue lights, searchlights. Some people bobbing, mostly divers. People on the rocks too, beneath the shattered windows of the venue. Some sat, seemingly numb. Some lay on their backs or sides. Rescue workers had carefully descended along a steep line of rock, slick with vegetation like green hair and salt water, to get to the injured. Several had lost their footing and gone into the ocean. A fireman was one of these, flailing in the water as it lifted and dropped him against the shore. Two fellow workers pulled him to safety.
He wasn't, March noted, the Hero Firefighter. But March was sure Brad Dannon would be here somewhere.
Through an alley and onto Cannery Row itself. Across the street and up the hill overlooking the Bay View Center. Victims and their families wandering about numb, huddled on curbs or the backs of ambulances, enwrapped in blankets for warmth.
What delicious chaos...
March eased cl
ose. He saw three body bags resting respectfully in the side driveway of the Bay View, near the emergency exit doors, which were all wide open. Not a bad plan, this one, sending the self-helping book buyers out the windows and onto the craggy rocks or into the breathlessly cold water.
March glanced down and noted another vehicle honking its way close to the Bay View.
Ah, what have we here?
My friend...His gut twitched.
The gray Nissan Pathfinder featured a blue flasher on the dash. The vehicle parked near him--because of the congestion of the crowds and emergency vehicles it couldn't get close to the center itself.
Kathryn Dance climbed out, frowning. Looking around.
March had been to her house, of course, but hadn't been able to see much. There'd been dogs, people coming and going. He'd gotten some details about her life, her family, her friends, though he hadn't managed to get a good close look at her. Now he did. Quite attractive. A bit like that actress Cate Blanchett. She wore a dark jacket and midcalf skirt. Stylish boots. He liked the hint of dark stocking he'd caught when she'd climbed from the vehicle. Her hair was back in a taut ponytail, secured by a bright red band.
Ah, interesting: In this outfit, with this hair, she looked a bit like Jessica, from the holy trinity of Antioch March's life, along with Serena and Todd.
She walked quickly up to several uniformed police and flashed her badge, though the officers seemed to know her. Others approached and gave her information, the way they'd greet a queen. His impression from the other day, at the theater, had been right: She's the one pursuing me. The lead detective, or whatever they called it. She'd be dogged, smart. She had a piercing, studious frown, an unyielding jaw.
In five minutes or so, she'd dealt with all the requests and had issued orders. She walked up to the bodies, looked down, grim-faced. Then she strode into the hall itself.
When she was out of sight, Antioch March eased down the hill. Because of the congestion Dance had parked outside the police line perimeter, in the shadows, and he was easily able to walk up to her car without being stopped.
Equally convenient, she'd been so focused on the Bay View Center disaster scene that she'd neglected to lock the SUV.
He looked around, noted nobody was paying him the least attention and popped open the driver's-side door.
Chapter 33
About fifty people jumped; most hit the rocks." Dance was explaining this now to Charles Overby in her office at CBI headquarters. O'Neil and TJ were present too. "Half ended up in the water. The temperature was forty-five degrees. You can stay alive for a little while in water like that, some people can, but the ones who died couldn't swim or were stunned or injured by the fall. Then some were just picked up by the waves and slammed into the rocks. Knocked unconscious and drowned. Two got tangled in the kelp."
"The count?"
O'Neil: "Four dead, thirty-two injured. Twelve critical. Two are in comas from the fall and hypothermia. Three'll probably lose limbs from the fall to the rocks. No one missing. All accounted for."
"No security?"
"No," Dance said. "The manager was in the front line, trying to help. The author? He hid in the bathroom. Women's room actually. Then the shooter vanished--about three minutes before the police showed up. No sign whatsoever."
"How did that happen?"
"We think he was wearing throwaways," O'Neil said.
"The camo?"
Dance told her boss, "There were plenty of places along the shore where he could have gotten out of sight, stripped, thrown everything into a shopping bag and strolled into the crowd, vanished."
"There were reports he was headed toward Fisherman's Wharf."
"We're sure he was behind that," Dance explained. "Called dispatch, a TV station and another restaurant. Prepaid mobile. Bought in Chicago with cash about a month ago. And when I heard that, I ran the call records the night of the Solitude Creek incident. Somebody called Sam Cohen from the parking lot and told him the fire was in the kitchen and backstage areas of the club. That sent more people into the crush."
"The number the same?"
"No. But it was from Chicago too. Bought at the same time. I've sent a request to Chicago PD to see what they can find. I'm not holding my breath. Now, at the Bay View the manager said there was no security video. I saw cameras, in the hall and outside, but apparently they weren't hooked up."
"And the unsub," Overby said slowly. "Never went inside. Never actually hit anybody. Why?"
"The first question Michael and I asked about Solitude Creek. Why not just burn it down? Why not shoot his victims? He prefers them to kill themselves. He plays with perceptions, sensations, panic. It doesn't matter what people see. It's what they believe. That's his weapon, fear. And he knows what he's doing. I talked to one of the survivors. A woman named Ardel Hopkins. She was crushed in the mob and shattered her shoulder. She was about to drown but the Coast Guard fished her out. From what she said, it sounded just like Solitude Creek--people went insane. Nobody listened to reason. Security lights came on, bright ones. That added to the panic. Somebody must've broken a window and jumped. And the rest followed. Lemmings. Nobody looked to see if the shooter was actually inside. They just heard one person say 'Jump!' and they did. The manager said they'd just had a fire department inspection--the venue could either cancel the event or submit to the inspection, which required them to make sure no vehicles could park in front of the exit doors and to tape the latches open."
"At least the MCFD's being proactive. I didn't hear that. But it's ironic, hmm? The manager took all the right precautions--only that contributed to the frenzy."
O'Neil said, "Forensics is going over the site now. Oh, we did get the shoe print analysis back from CSU--of the prints Kathryn and I found at Solitude Creek. Turns out, the unsub's shoes're pretty rare."
"What makes shoes rare?" Overby asked.
"Ones that cost about five thousand dollars a pair."
"What?"
"The toolmark people're ninety percent sure. Louis Vuitton. I'm having somebody run sales throughout the country but, well, there's rare and then there's rare. They sell about four hundred pairs a year. And I'm betting our boy paid cash for those too. And the tire evidence for the Honda? Wheelbase, track and tires mean it's an Accord. Within the last four years."
"Why's a man with five-thousand-dollar shoes driving a Honda?" Overby mused. Then obvious answer: "Because it's the most common vehicle on the face of the earth." The CBI head laughed. "Jesus. Five-thousand-dollar shoes? Who on earth is this guy?" He began to say something else but then glanced at his computer screen. "Well. Oh."
"What, Charles?"
He read for a moment. "This's from the Pipeline wire--Oakland task force. Two bangers burned down one of the G-Eight-twos' warehouses. The one on Everly Street."
"Burned it down?" Dance grimaced. She explained to O'Neil, "We found the warehouse was a front--about a month ago. We could've taken the place down but we decided to keep it running to get the IDs of trucks headed south. And ID anybody we spotted there." She sighed. "Now the G-Eight-twos'll find someplace else and we'll have no idea where. This'll set us back."
Overby continued to read. "Was loaded with about ten thousand rounds of ammo. Quite the fireworks display."
Dance said, "I don't get it. The 'house was neutral territory. All the crews knew that. Doesn't make sense to take the place out."
"Well, somebody didn't go along with the neutrality part," O'Neil said. "Maybe renegade outfit from the South. Or here."
Overby continued to read. Then looked up. "Except, it's odd. The guys who torched the place were white. At least that's what the video showed. All the crews involved in Pipeline're black or Lat. But maybe they stepped on the wrong toes."
"And the owner wouldn't do it for the insurance. Not with ammo inside," Dance said. "He'd wait till it was empty."
Overby added, "Oakland PD and DEA have a partial on the arsonists' license tag. Checking now. And video in the area, witnesses.
" Shaking his head, he turned from the screen.
Just then TJ Scanlon appeared in the office. He nodded to everyone.
"Just want to keep you in the loop. I got some info on Anderson Construction."
Ah. She explained to Overby that they'd found a crew of surveyors near the roadhouse. She'd hoped a construction worker might have seen the unsub near Solitude Creek.
"Anderson's been approached by a company in Nevada to do some development in the area. Nobody from Anderson has been at the site in two weeks. But they think the Nevada company's had some people over there recently. I've left messages."
"Thanks, TJ. Get on home now."
"See you in the a.m. 'Night, all."
Overby left as well, then Michael O'Neil after him.
Dance noted the time: It was nearly 11:00 p.m. As she ordered files on her desk, she glanced at her computer, on which was streaming a local TV news account of the Bay View incident, the sound down. Who was on but Brad Dannon--the Hero Firefighter. He hadn't been the first on the scene this time but he was a close second or third. She watched the stark images. The blood on the doorway and the shards of glass from the shattered windows and the rocks, the huddled survivors who'd been fished from the water and wrapped in thin, efficient hypothermia blankets. People stumbling through the parking lot and among the crowd of onlookers, calling out, pathetic, for their missing relatives or friends.
A new, related story appeared. Dance turned the volume up. Henderson Jobbing had been sued by eighteen people--for negligence in not securing its vehicles and keys. The commentators said bankruptcy was likely--not because of liability; it probably wasn't responsible legally. But because defending the suit would be so expensive that it would have to close down.
"The company has been a Monterey employer for years, providing warehouse services and running trucks throughout the state...and internationally as well. A local success story, but now, it seems, it will be shuttering its doors for good."