Page 40 of The Girl on Hallow's Eve

“I’ve spoken to Claire and Lionel and both say that when the footage went out, they both thought it was just equipment failure and that the team outside was working to get it restored. When it wasn’t by the time they were finished for the night, they did a quick sign-off apologizing to the audience for the issues with the live footage and went home as well.”

“I didn’t see that,” I tell her. “As soon as the camera went out, Sam and I started getting ready to drive out there. We knew there was something wrong.”

“You responded so quickly that there really wasn’t enough time for the people back at the station to really come to the conclusion there was something to be concerned about. The onsite team is there to facilitate the coverage and when a problem happens with the equipment or the transmission, it’s up to them to find out what’s going on and fix it. Everybody at the station just figured that was what they were doing and that they would either get back on the air soon, or they would all show up and we’d talk about how we were going to fix the situation. Only, it didn’t turn out that way.”

“Can you tell me anything unusual that happened while you were still at the mall?” I ask, wondering if she’s going to bring up the same incident I’ve already heard about.

When she does, we talk about the man showing up shouting about his brother, but she doesn’t have anything new to offer me except for a copy of the footage. It’s exactly what I came for, and I ask for the unedited footage from the pre-recorded segment and she agrees to give that to me as well.

“Have you tried to get in touch with that man again? To find out why he was there and what he was talking about?” I ask.

“No,” she says. “Zachary, the other producer, got his name as he was escorting him away. James Morris. But he wasn’t interested in an interview. We hoped we’d be able to talk to him again.”

I thank her again for talking with me and for all the information she’s been able to give me. She leaves me in the conference room for a few minutes and comes back with the tapes.

“Thank you so much. I’ll get back in touch if I think of anything else. And if you think of anything, or you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call me.”

I give her my business card and we leave.

The next evening Sam comes into the house with a pizza from my favorite shop. I can smell the pineapples and onions almost as soon as he steps through the door. He’d spent the day at work and when he sets the pizza down on the table, I can’t remember if I’ve eaten anything since we had breakfast together before he left.

“I’ll get plates,” he says. “Be right back.”

He comes back with plates as well as two glass bottles of root beer and a canister of parmesan cheese. He likes to sprinkle it on his pizza. It makes him feel like we’re actually at Angelo’s Pizzeria rather than just eating on our living room couch.

“Thanks, babe. This is perfect.”

“What are you doing?” he asks.

“Trying to put together a timeline of what happened at the mall. I was able to find James Morris’s contact information, but haven’t been able to get in touch with him. I watched the footage and he is extremely upset. He’s not just there to protest or cause trouble. There’s something deeper there. I need to talk to him. As for the rest of what George McCarthy recorded, there are some interviews I want you to look at to tell me what you think. One is with Cary Rainey,” I say.

“Something about him just doesn’t sit right with me,” Sam says.

“Me neither. But right now, I’m trying to go through the lists of the invited guests and the people they brought as well as all the staff to line up with the survivors and victims and make sure that everyone is accounted for in one way or another. And get as much detail into the timeline as possible. The reports we have are pretty consistent. There are some major outliers, but there always are.”

“What kind of outliers?” he asks.

“Just people reporting seeing and hearing things drastically out of alignment with what everyone else is saying. Like seeing the body in the food court when they were first coming in for the event or hearing someone screaming in the nail salon when the shooting had just happened in the atrium.”

It’s not realistic to think that every person who provides a statement after an event like this will get every detail right or line up fully with what everyone else says. In situations with that much stress, memory becomes hazy, and fear can overwrite logic in peoples’ brains. Hearing what others say can also influence what they think they remember and change their stories. That’s why it’s important to get to each individual witness as quickly as possible and before they are able to talk with anyone else.

“Are you positive there’s only one killer?” he asks.

“Positive?” I ask. “No. I don’t think we know enough yet for me to be positive about much of anything. But right now, I haven’t seen or heard anything that makes it seem like there’s more than one person involved. The attacks are clustered in certain areas and none of the timing is too close together to be feasible for one person. Everyone who was able to give a description of the attacker gave basically the same information. Right now, I believe it’s only one.”

“What is on tap for tomorrow?” Sam asks.

“I am going to talk to Rainey again. I want to ask him about the argument we overheard at the open house.”

The mall hasn’t been cleared for the management staff to return to their offices, so I have to travel to where everyone working for the Calloway Group transferred while working on the mall project. When I called Rainey’s office number earlier, a recorded message directed me to a small office building in the town of Heggs. He answered my call there, and though he sounded impatient like he’s far too busy to be meeting with me, he agreed for me to come in and talk.

I arrive in Heggs after nearly an hour’s drive and park in the small lot behind the building. The ‘For Lease’ sign is still set up in front of the building, indicating just how quickly the Calloway Group went about finding alternative workspace for their employees displaced from their usual space in the mall. A receptionist lets me through to Rainey’s office and I find him pacing back and forth in front of a window, a cordless phone held in an intense grip as he talks.

He glances over at me when I knock, but barely acknowledges me. I take the lack of dismissal as the equivalent of an invitation and enter the office the rest of the way, taking a seat on a cold brown leather couch positioned against the wall. I wonder if it was left here by whatever company vacated the office or if furnishing his space was enough of a priority for Rainey that he made sure it was done immediately upon taking over this office.

Noticing I’m not leaving, he hurries through the end of his phone conversation and hangs up.

“Good morning, Agent Griffin,” he starts, walking around behind the desk that matches the aesthetic of the couch enough to convince me they were either both here or are both recent additions. “How was your drive?”

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