Gordon stood up. He was at least a foot taller than Wilkes. “I happen to be a lawyer, Mr. Wilkes, and I can either school you on my daughter’s constitutional right to refuse this interrogation or I can file a formal complaint with your superiors.”
Andy could see the man’s eyes shifting back and forth, his mouth itching to put Gordon in his place.
Palazzolo said, “Brant, take a walk.”
Wilkes didn’t move.
“Brant, come on. Meet me in the cafeteria. Get something to eat.”
Wilkes glared at Gordon like an unneutered pitbull before stomping away.
Palazzolo said, “Mr. Oliver, I understand your daughter’s been through a lot today, but even though Savannah’s not what you’d call a sleepy town, we’re unaccustomed to triple homicides. We really need to get your daughter’s statement down. We need to know what happened.”
Gordon corrected, “Double homicide.”
“Right.” There was a moment of hesitation before Palazzolo spoke again. “Can we do this sitting down?” She offered Andy a conciliatory smile. “I work the night shift, too. I’ve been up eighteen hours straight with no end in sight.” She was dragging over a chair before Gordon could stop her. “Look, I’ll tell you what I know, and then if Andrea feels like it, she can tell me what she knows. Or not. Either way, you get to see our side of this thing.” She indicated the other chairs. “That’s a good deal, Mr. Oliver. I hope you’ll consider taking it.”
Andy looked up at her father. Triple homicide? Two people wounded? Why did it feel like the detective was not counting Laura among the injured?
“Mr. Oliver?” Palazzolo tapped the back of her chair, but didn’t sit. “What about it?”
Gordon looked down at Andy.
She had seen that look a thousand times before: Remember what I told you.
Andy nodded. She was, if anything, extraordinarily good at keeping her mouth shut.
“Great.” Palazzolo sat down with a sharp groan.
Gordon nudged Andy down so that he would be the one who was directly across from Palazzolo.
“Okay.” Palazzolo took out her notebook, but not her pen. She flipped through the pages. “The shooter’s name is Jonah Lee Helsinger. Eighteen years old. High school senior. Early acceptance into Florida State University. The young girl was Shelly Anne Barnard. She was at the diner with her mother, Elizabeth Leona Bernard; Betsy. Jonah Lee Helsinger is—was—the ex-boyfriend of Shelly. Her father says Shelly broke up with Helsinger two weeks ago. Wanted to do it before going to college next month. Helsinger didn’t take it well.”
Gordon cleared his throat. “That’s quite an understatement.”
She nodded, ignoring the sarcasm. “Unfortunately, law enforcement has had a lot of these cases to study over the years. We know that spree killings aren’t usually spur of the moment. They’re well-planned, well-executed operations that tend to get worked over in the back of the killer’s mind until something—an event like a break-up or an impending life change like going off to college—jumpstarts the plan. The first victim is generally a close female, which is why we were relieved to find Helsinger’s mother was out of town this morning. Business in Charleston. But the way Helsinger was dressed—the black hat, the vest and gunbelt he bought on Amazon six months ago—all that tells us that he put a lot of thought into how this was going to go down. The spark came when Shelly broke up with him, but the idea of it, the planning, was in his head for months.”
Spree killings.
The two words bounced around inside Andy’s head.
Gordon asked, “His victims were all women?”
“There was a man sitting in the restaurant. He was struck in the eye by shrapnel. Not sure if he’ll lose it or not. The eye.” She went back to Jonah Helsinger. “What we also know about spree killers is, they tend to plant explosive devices in their homes for maximum casualties. That’s why we got the state bomb squad to clear Helsinger’s bedroom before we went in. He had a pipe bomb wired to the doorknob. Faulty set-up. Probably got it off the internet. Nothing went boom, thank God.”
Andy opened her mouth so she could breathe. She had come face-to-face with this guy. He had almost killed Laura. Almost killed Andy. Murdered people. Tried to blow them up.
He had probably attended Belle Isle High School, the same as Andy.
“Helsinger,” Gordon said. “That name sounds familiar.”
“Yeah, the family’s pretty well known up in Bibb County. Anyway—”
“Well known,” Gordon repeated, but the two words were weighted in a way that Andy could not decipher.
Palazzolo obviously got their meaning. She held Gordon’s gaze for a moment before she continued, “Anyway—Jonah Helsinger left some school notebooks on his bed. Most of them were filled with drawings. Disturbing images, weird stuff. He had four more handguns, an AR-15 and a shotgun, so he chose to take the six-shooter and the knife for a reason. We think we know the reason. There was a file on his laptop called ‘Death Plan’ that contained two documents and a PDF.”
Andy felt a shudder work its way through her body. While she was getting ready for work last night, Jonah Helsinger was probably lying in bed, psyching himself up for his killing spree.