One Breath Away Read online

  “You’ve got to be kidding me,” the man muttered. “Get her to stop.”

  Mrs. Oliver looked helplessly up at him. “I can’t. She gets herself so worked up, she just has to wear herself out. Just give her time.”

  “I can’t think with her crying like this,” he said, looking up at the white clock with the black hands hanging on the wall above the classroom door. From her vantage point on the floor, Mrs. Oliver could see the man’s shoes. Brown, polished dress shoes. Nice, but not too expensive. Not the shoes of a maniac, she thought. For a brief moment, the shoes left the floor and, with a clatter, the clock was knocked from the wall and came crashing to the floor, its glass-covered face cracked, the black hands frozen at one and five. The sudden noise caused a renewal of cries in the students still in their seats but Lucy’s shrieks became tangled in her throat and she fell silent. Mrs. Oliver watched in horror as Lucy’s face turned a sickly shade of blue and was preparing to flip her over and pound her on the back when she heard a gurgle of breath. Wide-eyed, Lucy inhaled deeply and began to bellow and once again pound her heels into the floor.

  “Christ,” the man said in defeat. “Where does that go to?” he asked, pointing to a door in the corner of the room.

  “Storage closet,” Mrs. Oliver answered loudly over Lucy’s cries. “That door is the only way out,” she said, hoping that he would at least release Lucy.

  “Open it,” he ordered the boy sitting closest to the storage closet. The boy sat, frozen with fear, his eyes flicking back and forth between Mrs. Oliver and the man, not sure what to do.

  Mrs. Oliver nodded at the boy, who warily rose from his chair and twisted the knob of the door, pulled and quickly released it as if shocked and returned to his seat. The man reached down, scooped up Lucy, carried her to the closet, hastily deposited her onto the storage room floor, shut the door and secured it shut with a chair lodged beneath the knob.

  “You can’t do that,” Mrs. Oliver protested. “I will not allow it.” Mrs. Oliver rose creakily to her knees, swayed and struggled to her feet. The man took three long steps to meet her, grabbed the front of her jumper, sending a few jeweled beads scattering to the floor, and pulled her to the front of the room.

  “Sit,” he demanded, “or you’ll end up in the closet with her.” Lucy’s cries were muffled but strong. Surely someone must hear her screams, Mrs. Oliver thought. Someone must be out there ready to help. She swallowed back tears, silently chiding herself for the uncharacteristic show of emotion. In forty-three years of teaching she hadn’t, not once, cried in front of her students. Not when she came to the heartbreaking ending of Shiloh that she was reading out loud to the students that resulted in a classroom filled with tears, even the boys. Not when Mr. Dutcher came to her door and informed her that Shirley Ouderkirk, the eighth-grade teacher she had worked with for years, had died in a car accident on her way to school that morning. Nor did she cry on 9/11 when every other teacher in the building had the news footage playing on their classroom television sets. It wasn’t that she necessarily saw weakness in tears. It wasn’t that exactly. It was just that she had worked so hard to keep her emotions separate from her teaching life. She had seen too many abused children, had students die from terrible diseases, seen her students suffer through divorces and simple heartaches that to an eight-year-old meant the world. It wasn’t that she didn’t care; she realized right then and there, she did. Maybe too much. But what good would it do the children to see their teacher crumple to the floor in a flood of tears?

  Chapter 32:

  Meg

  By the time I make it over to Chief McKinney the crowd is dispersing, Aaron is wrangling with the television reporter, and my hands are officially frozen.

  The muffled ring of the dismissal bell from inside the school causes everyone in the parking lot to pause. All eyes turn toward the front entrance. I find myself holding my breath hoping for a crush of students to pour from the building, whooping with excitement for spring vacation. Nothing. The doors remain shut.

  “Dammit,” the chief says when it’s clear that no one is coming out. At least, not yet.

  “The off-site evac location is being manned by Braun,” I say, “Jarrow will head off any more parents who show up here, and Aaron has got the media under control.”

  “Aaron and the media?” he asks with a frown.

  I shrug. “He was more than happy to do it.”

  The chief gives me a yeah, right look and shakes the snow from his coat.

  “What’s next?” I ask.

  “Most of these incidents resolve themselves within twenty minutes. Good or bad. We’re already at—” he checks his watch “—forty-five minutes. But we’ve got to prepare ourselves for the reality this might last much longer.” He shakes his head. “Goddamn ancient school. Only video camera is mounted at the entrance and we can’t get to it.”

  “This is the last year the school is going to be open. I guess the school board didn’t want to dump any more money into it,” I say.

  “Yeah, bet they’ll be regretting that decision.” Chief McKinney pulls a handkerchief from his coat pocket and blows his nose. “One camera, no buzzer system to let people in, and the layout of the school…” His eyes roll heavenward. “It’s going to take hours to do a sweep. It’s like a goddamn monstrosity with all its wings and nooks and crannies. You got a floor plan?”

  “Yeah, in the squad car,” I tell him. It was part of our emergency responder training for safer schools to keep floor plans of the school in our squad cars for just these situations.

  “Go get it. We need to start making sense of the 9-1-1 calls, see if we can pinpoint where the gunman is located. I’ve got Jay Sauter bringing his RV over for us to use as a makeshift command center. We can spread out the blueprints, compare notes with Randall at dispatch. Hopefully we can get the principal on the line and get more info out of her.”

  “Any word on the tac team?” I ask.

  “Only one guy from Waterloo can make it. Goddamn roads are a mess. It will be hours before anyone can get here.” His shoulders slump at the thought.

  “I’ll go get the plans, then what do you want me to do?” I ask. I feel sorry for the chief. You couldn’t pay me enough to be in his position. Virtually all the children of Broken Branch between the ages of five and eighteen are in that building with a man with a gun who had unknown motives.

  “Meg, I need you to find out who the hell is in there. I want you to get the principal on the line and find out what she knows. I want to know about any custody disputes, any former employee grudges, any disgruntled students.”

  I nod, taking in the hugeness of it all. Every scrap of information I can gather is crucial.

  “And after you talk to the principal, I want you to go back and talk to the secretary. No one knows more about the inner workings of a place than the secretary.”

  “Got it,” I say as the chief’s old friend Jay Sauter slides across the school parking lot in his run-down RV and comes to an abrupt stop by plowing into a snowbank.

  “Jesus,” he mutters. “At least we’ll be warm.”

  Chapter 33:

  Will

  The crowd in front of the school was being herded away like cattle and while Will could understand the need to get the civilians out of the way for their own safety as well as for the sake of the investigation, it still irked him. He didn’t like not knowing what was going on, and though he implicitly trusted Chief McKinney, whom he had known for years, he would feel better if he knew what the game plan was or at least if there was a game plan.

  “You have a ride over to Lonnie’s?” Will asked Verna, who nodded.

  “I’m going to go check on Darlene first, see how she’s holding up. She’s waiting in the car.”

  “I’ll meet you over there,” Will promised. “I want to have a quick chat with McKinney first.”
Will waited until McKinney chewed the Vinson brothers and the other men who brought shotguns onto school grounds up one side and down the other. Will couldn’t help chuckling to himself. McKinney was all of five-eight and slender. The biggest thing about him was his mustache, but he emitted an air of confidence, and when the chief spoke, people listened.

  When Neal and Ned sheepishly slinked away, shotguns hanging limply at their sides, Will approached McKinney, who greeted him with an exasperated shake of his head. “Can you believe the stupidity of those boys?”

  “Youth can be blamed for many things,” Will responded, wincing inwardly.

  “Yeah, well, I don’t have time for that bullshit,” McKinney said, blinking snowflakes from his eyelashes. “Damn snowstorm’s got I-80 and I-35 closed down.”

  “What’s that got to do with the price of eggs?” Will asked impatiently. He was concerned about what was going on in his grandchildren’s school, not the weather and its effect on travel conditions.

  “What’s it got to do with, is the fact that the tactical team, the officers who are trained to handle these situations, can’t get here,” McKinney said sharply. “All I’ve got is my team and a few officers from nearby towns.”

  “You’ve got a town full of sharpshooters, you know,” Will reminded him. “Hunters who can drop a buck at three hundred yards.”

  “I don’t need a sharpshooter, Will,” McKinney said wearily. “I need specially trained officers who, if that man in there starts shooting, can go in there and bring him out—dead or alive, I don’t care—and who can bring each one of those children and teachers out safely. Plus, I don’t have anyone specifically trained in hostage negotiation.”

  “Why the need to negotiate? Can’t you just tell him to come the hell out or you’re coming in after him?” Will asked.

  “You don’t ever want to corner something meaner than you.” McKinney scratched at his face. “Listen, Will, I need to go. I’m setting up a conference call with a tac team trainer and a state police negotiator out of Des Moines.”

  “I’m here if you need anything, Chief,” Will assured him. “My grandkids are in that school and I’d do about anything to get them out. Holly can’t take one more bad thing happening to her.”

  “I appreciate that, Will.” McKinney clapped him on the shoulder. “You can do one favor for me—keep an ear out at Lonnie’s. Listen to what people are saying, who they think might be capable of this.”

  “Verna Fraise thinks that her son-in-law, Ray Cragg, could be capable. Ugly divorce.”

  McKinney nodded. “We’ll follow up on that. Thanks for letting me know.” The two men shook hands and Will trudged through the now nearly empty parking lot, back to his truck, which was enveloped in a snowy cocoon. Using his sleeve, he wiped the heavy snow from the windshield and looked back toward the school; it was nearly invisible through the curtain of swirling snow.

  He of all people knew the challenge of fighting an enemy you couldn’t see, couldn’t quite locate, from his time in Vietnam. First he’d head to Lonnie’s, check in with Daniel to see if the calving was going well, maybe he’d call Marlys and give her the details of what was happening. He didn’t think the going-ons in small-town Iowa would make national news, but you never knew. He’d hate for Marlys and Holly to find out by watching the television. Then maybe he’d make his own trip over to Ray Cragg’s farm, pay a friendly visit. It would ease his mind knowing that his neighbor, a man who married the daughter of a good friend of the family, wasn’t capable of holding a school full of innocent children hostage over a marital spat.

  Chapter 34:

  Augie

  The dismissal bell rings as Mr. Ellery leads Beth back to her spot on the floor, next to me. She is still crying, but it’s softer now, not as desperate sounding. ��I’m sorry,” I whisper, and she scoots as far away from me as she can. Noah gives me a nasty smirk and I resist the urge of poking him in the eye with Mr. Ellery’s pointer that he left sitting on the edge of his desk.

  Above us there is a thudding noise, faint at first, then louder, a thumping like someone is beating a drum. That or someone is pounding their head against the floor. Everyone’s eyes fly upward. “What is it?” Beth asks. “What’s going on?”

  Mr. Ellery returns to the door and opens it again, slowly, carefully. The pounding continues above us, harder and faster. “I’m going up there.” He looks at us as if he’s sorry. “I think someone is getting hurt,” he tries to explain. “Just stay put. No matter what, stay here.” He steps out into the hallway and shuts the door gently behind him.

  “This is insane,” Noah says in a regular voice, and three people shush him. “What?” he asks like he’s shocked.

  “Be quiet, Noah,” Amanda says, looking at the door fearfully. “He might hear you.”

  “This is bullshit,” Noah says, ignoring Amanda and talking in an even louder voice. “I can see the police cars from the window. “Let’s just climb out and run.”

  “What if there is more than one person?” Drew asks. “What if they have guns?”

  “That’s the problem,” Noah insists. “We don’t know anything. We have cell phones and Mr. Ellery won’t let us use them. How are we supposed to know what is going on if we can’t even talk to anyone?”

  “Why hasn’t Mr. Ellery come back?” Beth wonders. We all look at the door.

  “He probably ditched us.” Noah snorts. “Typical.”

  “He wouldn’t just leave us here if he could help it,” I say angrily. But to myself I’m asking, Would he? The pounding hasn’t stopped and there’s an exit not far from our classroom that leads out into the teacher’s parking lot. He could have very easily just walked out of our classroom, out the exit, climbed into his car and driven away from all of this.

  “Then where is he?” Amanda asks. “Why hasn’t he come back yet?”

  “Maybe he got him?” Felicia says. “Maybe he got shot.”

  “Did you hear a gun go off, Einstein?” Noah says sarcastically.

  “Maybe they have silencers, maybe they have Tasers, or baseball bats. Maybe they took him hostage, Noah,” I pipe up.

  “Well, I’m not waiting around to find out.” Noah stands and goes to the window, which is thick with frost and difficult to see out of. He blows his breath on the glass, making a peephole to look through. “Yep, all kinds of police out there.” He looks back at us. “Anyone coming with me?” No one says anything. They look around at one another, waiting for someone else to speak up.

  “Maybe we better just wait for Mr. Ellery,” Drew finally says.

  “It’s been, like, ten minutes!” Noah explodes. “He left! He doesn’t give a shit about us and left us here by ourselves!” Noah’s face is pale and twisted in anger and for the first time I realize he is just as afraid as the rest of us. Above us the pounding has finally stopped and for some reason that scares me more than if it would have kept on going. Noah flips the two locks on one of the large windows and pulls the frame up until it slides open. A burst of cold air rushes into the room, but it smells new and fresh and sweeps the sweaty, scared stink of twenty-two thirteen-year-olds away. One by one everyone stands and goes to the window. Even me. Using his hands Noah pushes on the screen that separates us from freedom, but it doesn’t break away from the window frame. Several hundred feet away, the police officers that have been gathered at the edge of the parking lot have noticed that something is going on in our classroom and several pull out what look like guns.

  “Be careful,” I say to Noah before I can stop myself, and he looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. Drew comes up next to him and together they push on the screen and it tumbles a few feet to the ground below. One by one, my classmates crawl through the window and begin to run as fast as they can toward the police. There is shouting and I see Noah and Drew stop short and put their arms in the air. The others do the same. I’m d
ebating whether or not to follow them. Now there are people wrapping blankets around Noah’s and Tommy’s shoulders. I want more than anything to have a blanket around my shoulders, to even see my grandpa. I pull myself up onto the window ledge and throw one leg over and look over my shoulder. Beth is the only one left in the room. “Are you coming?” I ask her. She bites her lip and shakes her head.

  “I need to go see if it’s my dad,” she says hoarsely.

  In the distance, a woman police officer is waving me toward her, her arm swinging like a windmill. “Come on,” she hollers.

  I think of P.J. He always has to go to the bathroom when he’s nervous or scared. The last thing that kid needs is the social suicide of peeing his pants in front of his classmates. I shake my head at the police officer; she drops her arm to her side and even from so far away I can see the disbelief on her face. I turn away from the policewoman and the freedom of the parking lot. Beth is looking at me, waiting to see what I’m going to do. I reach out my hand and Beth grabs it, pulling me back into the classroom.

  Chapter 35:

  Holly

  My mother is dozing in a chair across from my hospital bed. I tell her over and over to go back to the tiny apartment she rented that is just a few blocks away, so she can get a good sleep, but she always waves her hand and says, “There’s always time for sleep later.” Which is so like my mother. I don’t think I ever once saw my mother asleep while I was growing up on the farm. She was always awake when I got up in the morning and I always went to bed before she did. Every Mother’s Day was thwarted because none of us could drag ourselves out of bed earlier than our mother in order to serve her breakfast in bed.

  My earliest memory of the farm is of standing just outside the fence where the cattle were held, watching our dog, Frisbee, wind his way in and out among the knobby-kneed heifers. My father had always warned me to stay out of the cattle pen, especially away from the new arrivals, who were skittish, scurrying to far ends of the paddock at the lightest sound or movement.