In the distance there was the sound of another siren.
“That’ll be Arthur,” DeAngelo said.
“Call Molly,” Jesse said. “She covers the station. I want everyone else down here.”
DeAngelo nodded and began to speak into the microphone clipped to his epaulet. Jesse walked to the other cruiser and got in. An adolescent girl with a lot of brown hair worn up, and braces on her teeth, was sitting in the passenger seat hugging herself.
“I want to go home,” she said.
“Anybody coming to get you?” Jesse said.
“No.”
“What’s your name?”
“Kate.”
“Kate what?”
“Ryan.”
“What’s your phone number, Kate?”
She gave it to him.
“But no one’s home,” she said.
Jesse nodded.
“Okay,” he said. “You got a work phone for one of your parents?”
“My father works in Boston,” she said. “My mother sells real estate.”
She gave him both numbers.
Jesse picked up the radio and called Molly and gave her the phone numbers.
“Get a parent down here for Kate Ryan,” he said.
“I’m on it,” Molly said. “What’s happening?”
Jesse put the mike away without answering.
“They’ll be here soon,” he said to Kate. “So what happened?”
“He came in the front door and right past me.”
“Snyder?”
“I don’t know his name. I never seen him before.”
“You were at the checkout?”
“Yeah and he went right past me and he took out his gun and he said he was going to kill her.”
“Mrs. Snyder?”
“Yeah. She just started working, customer service, and he said he was going to kill everybody and I run out and seen that cop, and started screaming and…” She shrugged and spread her hands. “What if they can’t find my mother or father?”
“She’s a cop,” Jesse said. “She’ll find them. What kind of gun did he have?”
“Just a gun. I don’t know nothing about guns.”
“Was it a handgun or something longer like a rifle or a shotgun?”
“Hand.”
Jesse took his .38 off his belt.
“Did it look like this?” Jesse said. “Kind of round, or was it more square?”
“It might have been more square,” she said. “I don’t know. It was a gun.”
Jesse put the gun back in its holster.
“Okay,” he said. “Did you hear him say anything else?”
“No. I run out as soon as I saw the gun and he went past me.”
“Who was in the store besides you?”
“Mario, from the meat counter… Ray the vegetable guy… some customers… Bethany, the other cashier, was on break.”
“How many customers?”
“I don’t know.”
“Ten?”
“No. Not that many.”
“Five?”
