He didn't follow her into the street.
Hell, she was probably going to get killed out there.
Taking stock of his circumstances-wild looking man with a bloody knife in his hand, neighbourhood yokels starting to shout for help now, terrified of him-he decided the only thing he could do at this point was get in his car and get out of here.
Somewhere a police siren exploded.
Not far away.
He pushed past two simpering old ladies and ran to the side of the bookstore.
All he could think of was the tower and safety.
He ran.
9
By the time Chris, Emily Lindstrom, and O'Sullivan reached the crime scene, squad cars had cordoned off the entire street. Grim looking uniformed cops-men and women alike-stood next to their squad cars waving long silver flashlights and rerouting traffic. Car passengers seemed equally divided between those who were irritated at being sent two blocks out of their way, and those who were irritated because they couldn't get a closer glimpse of all the trouble.
O'Sullivan took a big PRESS card (black letters on white cardboard for easy reading), set it up behind his steering wheel, and pulled up to one of the uniformed cops.
'I'm O'Sullivan from Channel 3.'
The cop-a trim black man-leaned in and said, 'There isn't much room in there with the ambulance. Why don't you pull over by that tree there.'
'Thanks.'
The cop nodded and went back to his job.
After they'd parked and got out, Chris looked at the display past the yellow police tape. The old buildings of the neighbourhood were awash in the splashing red and blue lights of the emergency vehicles. On the other side of the barricades the police had set up stood at least twenty cops, some in uniform, most in suits.
There wasn't a smile to be seen anywhere. Reporters from TV stations were busy with mobile lights and cameras trying to get interviews with officers who clearly had no intention of saying anything at this point. It was too early to know what had gone on here. Ordinary citizens stood on the edge of the perimeter. Most of them looked shocked. Death is always hard to accept but sudden violent death is even tougher-it reminds everybody of how fragile life truly is. One moment you can be walking down the street happy and content, the next you can be on the sidewalk bleeding to death from a stab wound or a gunshot. And no amount of prestige or wealth can save you from the unexpected, either.
Then Chris saw the teenage girl the police were leading out of the bookstore. Chris's heart broke for her. Not only was the girl in shock, but even from ten yards away you could hear the low, moaning animal noise that violent death prompts from those forced to witness it.
The girl was drenched with blood and now, as she held her hands to her face as the TV lights bore in on her, her lovely, soft face became streaked with blood, too.
It was then that Chris noticed the girl's limp. She wondered if this was the result of the murder that had taken place inside the bookstore.
'Jesus,' O'Sullivan said when he saw the girl trapped in the glare of the lights.
Then before Chris knew what he was doing, O'Sullivan vaulted a barricade-he might be thirty pounds overweight but he was surprisingly nimble-and ran over in front of the lights. He started waving his arms and blocking the girl with his body so the police could more easily help her into the waiting squad car.
Chris smiled, thinking that this was just the kind of move that proved he was first a human being and second a reporter. Much as she liked some reporters, she didn't find many of them all that admirable as human beings.
Once the girl was in the car and speeding safely away, O'Sullivan turned reporter again. The Channel 3 team-two camera people and the station's reigning hunk who didn't look any smarter than usual-came trotting breathlessly up to their boss, awaiting his commands.
Rather than stand around, Chris decided to start soaking up some colour. Even if she'd been demoted to daily calendar lady, she still recognised a good-if bleak-story when she saw one.
She spent the next ten minutes familiarising herself with the scene in general. She wondered what the motive for the killing had been. Robbery seemed unlikely. Certainly the Alice B. Toklas Bookstore wouldn't have contained enough money to justify such slaughter. (Though, of course, if the killer was a junkie, he might well have murdered these people for a few dollars.) And from what she was gathering, a young white middle class boy had been murdered inside.
A few people in the crowd recognised her and pointed and smiled. You might not get much money as a local TV reporter but you got about all the fame you could handle. Grocery store, record shop, movie theatre-it didn't matter-wherever you went your public awaited you. Of course, not everyone loved you. She'd been spit at, given the finger to, and cursed out loud. And this was all during her off-duty hours.
The crime scene was laid out, as usual, to keep the maximum number of people out and let the minimum number of people inside the yellow crime scene tape. Two uniformed officers stood logging official people in and out, writing down.what they were wearing so that if later there were questions about fibres or blood or latent fingerprints, they'd know if any of these belonged to police personnel. She'd seen some crime scenes that had been limited to two or three people, police identification officers-who did diagrams and snapped photos and gathered all sorts of evidence-and one person from the coroner's office. All the activity was directed by a police commander on the scene (and many times not even the commander was let inside the yellow tape) and a commander back at the precinct. The object was to survey and catalogue the crime scene and get out before anybody had a chance to disturb or disrupt evidence. Understandably, uniformed police officers kept not only Chris but all the other reporters away as well.
This was the front of the store. She decided to try her luck in the alley, where the investigation was limited to one side of the pavement.
Two white coated men from the Medical Examiner's office stood by a wall examining a great stain of blood. The men recognised her and nodded as she walked past. Probably they didn't yet know she was now the daily calendar lady. They probably still thought she was a crack reporter. They probably didn't know how old she was, either. Too old to be anything but a calendar lady. But that was self-pity and that was one thing she always tried to spare herself. She had her health, her good if not brilliant mind, her good if not gorgeous looks, and there were one hell of a lot of people on this planet who had one whole lot less. She considered self-pity the most unbecoming of all feelings and whenever she felt herself slipping into it she bit her lip till she drew blood.
She drew blood right now.
She walked past the light in the centre of the alley, into the chill gloom near the misty light at the opposite end.
The place reeked of garbage and other filth. Near a light pole she could see the carcass of a cat that had been eaten up by some kind of scavenger. Most of the belly was gone. Its front paws and jaw were frozen in a position of extreme terror and pain. She loved cats. The poor little thing.
When Chris got back to the front of the bookstore, she found that the reporters had doubled, perhaps tripled in number. Uniformed police officers held them at bay ten feet on the other side of the yellow tape. The number of onlookers had increased, too. There was a carnival atmosphere now. Among the gloomy faces you saw a smile or two. Know-it-alls in the crowd pointed things out to newly arrived spectators. The slaying had gone from a numbing, depressing experience to one of novelty and even thrills. By now it wasn't a human experience-a life with a history and loved ones-but rather just one more titillation for the tube.
She found O'Sullivan barking at his reporters, ordering them to try to outflank the officers so they could get a better shot of the store interior. His moment of humanity-seeing that the teenage girl was protected from the wolf pack of reporters- had passed and he was once again his familiar self, a news director in a competitive TV market
