Memory Man

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.