Today's Reading
"High-velocity GSWs?"
"Yeah, we've collected a ton of .223 Remington casings. But this is another weird one. Same thing we saw in that mass grave in Denver. Maybe you heard about it."
"I haven't."
"Dismemberment."
"Have you determined what was used?"
"In most instances, it's not a clean break, like a machete or ax strike. These bones are splintered."
"A chainsaw would do that."
"Yeah. So I'm thinking they cut everyone down with AR-15s and then went through with chainsaws. Making sure no one crawled out."
The blond hairs on the back of her neck stand erect, a rod of ice descending her spine. The sun burns down out of the bright June sky, more intense for the elevation. Snow still lingers above timberline on the distant peaks.
"You okay?" Sam asks.
"Yeah. This is my first trip out west. I'd been working New York City up until now."
"Look, take the day if you want. Get yourself acclimated. You'll need your head right for this one."
"No." She stands, hoisting the duffel bag out of the grass and engaging that compartment in her brain that functions solely as a cold, indifferent scientist. "Let's go to work."
There is no decent place to stand in a massacre.
—LEONARD COHEN
The president had just finished addressing the nation, and the pundits were back on the airwaves, scrambling, as they had been for the last three days, to sort out the chaos.
Dee Colclough lay watching it all on a flatscreen from a ninth-floor hotel room ten minutes from home, a sheet twisted between her legs, the air-conditioning cool against the sweat on her skin.
She looked over at Kiernan, said, "Even the talking heads look scared."
Kiernan stubbed out his cigarette and blew a river of smoke at the television.
"I got called up," he said.
"Your Guard unit?"
"I have to report tomorrow morning." He lit another one. "What I hear, we'll just be patrolling neighborhoods."
"Keeping the peace until it all blows over?"
He glanced at her, head cocked with that boyish smirk she'd fallen for six months ago when he'd deposed her as an adverse expert witness in a medical malpractice case. "Does anything about this make you think it's going to blow over?"
A new chyron appeared across the bottom of the screen—45 DEAD IN MASS SHOOTING AT A CHURCH IN COLUMBIA, SOUTH CAROLINA.
"Jesus Christ," Dee said.
Kiernan dragged heavily on his cigarette. "Something's happening," he said.
"Obviously. The whole country—"
"That's not what I mean, love."
She looked at him.
For a moment, he just sat there, smoking.
"It's been coming on now, little by little, for days," he said finally.
"I don't understand."
"I barely do myself."
Through the cracked window of their hotel room—distant gunshots and sirens.
...
