beige-carpeted stairs. Here, too, there ^re unpacked cartons. The master bedroom--Diane's room--had a king-sized waterbed with a green-, pink-, and brown-flowered ^read. There were matching pillow shams, and the bed was made "P
neatly.
Tracy reached up to the closet shelf. His hand touched what e ^ught, and he gingerly lifted down a long, sheathed object. It
44 ANN RULE
was a .22 Glenfield rifle in its scabbard, stored just where Diane had said it would be. It was loaded, but it had not been fired recently; its barrel was full of dust and lint.
Tracy pulled back the action and a single live round popped out. He eased the action forward very slowly and took the cap off the tubular magazine. Seven rounds slipped out onto the bed. Carefully, so that his own prints wouldn't be on the bullets, he slipped the rounds into an evidence envelope. He pulled the gun's action back once more and a last round popped out. Nine .22
rounds--some of them silver, some bronzy-copper color. But Tracy's weary eyes had missed one round; a copper-washed cartridge had rolled onto the flowered spread and blended with the protective coloration of the pattern there. Of the eight rounds he'd picked up, six were copper-washed with a "C" stamped on the end (headstamped "C"). The other two were lead bullets and headstamped "U."
They searched the other two bedrooms silently, trying to ignore the empty beds where children should have been safe in dreams.
Diane had given carte blanche permission for the detectives to take away anything that might help them find the shooter. |
Springfield Sergeant Jerry Smith searched for a particular item at Diane Downs's request. She had asked him to bring her her diary, written in an ordinary spiral notebook. He found it, flipped through it, and saw that it was written as a series of letters, letters that had apparently never been mailed. The first entry was dated weeks before in April, and, with one exception, all the salutations were to someone named Lew.
The diary too became evidence. Smith duplicated it before he took it to Diane at the hospital.
At dawn, the search far from completed, the investigators left the Q Street residence cordoned off and under guard. They would be back.
The weary men who worked through that first long night
knew nothing about Diane Downs except her age, her marital status, the fact that she was a letter carrier, new to Oregon from Arizona. They had met her parents, seen her shattered children.
They did not know what it might take to make her break down ^ and cry, or what hopes and dreams might have mattered to her
13 when she woke up only a day earlier. If the shooting had not been a random thing, if Diane had been a preselected target, they
SMALL SACRIFICES 45
nndered what she could have done to make someone hate her ^ough to attempt to obliterate her and her children. e They planned to find out, and the sooner the better. Any detective knows a murder that doesn't result in arrest in the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours often goes unsolved. Chances decrease with each passing day. Now, the detectives were still filled with the flush of the chase, not even twelve hours into the probe.
Diane had not slept at all that first long night; she'd waited wide-eyed in her hospital bed for the first glow of dawn. A deputy was posted outside her room to protect her--just as deputies guarded her two surviving children--in case the gunman should comeback.
At seven, Diane reached for the phone beside her hospital bed and dialed a number she knew by heart. It would be eight o'clock in Arizona. She waited, tense, as the rings br-r-red far away. She could picture the building where the phone was, could see everything in her mind, even feel the heat of the sun reflecting from its rock facade.
"Chandler Post Office, Karen speaking."
"Karen? It's Diane."
They were good friends, and Diane had called often from
Oregon. Karen Batten, who was twenty-five, had taken Diane in to live with her
neatly.
Tracy reached up to the closet shelf. His hand touched what e ^ught, and he gingerly lifted down a long, sheathed object. It
44 ANN RULE
was a .22 Glenfield rifle in its scabbard, stored just where Diane had said it would be. It was loaded, but it had not been fired recently; its barrel was full of dust and lint.
Tracy pulled back the action and a single live round popped out. He eased the action forward very slowly and took the cap off the tubular magazine. Seven rounds slipped out onto the bed. Carefully, so that his own prints wouldn't be on the bullets, he slipped the rounds into an evidence envelope. He pulled the gun's action back once more and a last round popped out. Nine .22
rounds--some of them silver, some bronzy-copper color. But Tracy's weary eyes had missed one round; a copper-washed cartridge had rolled onto the flowered spread and blended with the protective coloration of the pattern there. Of the eight rounds he'd picked up, six were copper-washed with a "C" stamped on the end (headstamped "C"). The other two were lead bullets and headstamped "U."
They searched the other two bedrooms silently, trying to ignore the empty beds where children should have been safe in dreams.
Diane had given carte blanche permission for the detectives to take away anything that might help them find the shooter. |
Springfield Sergeant Jerry Smith searched for a particular item at Diane Downs's request. She had asked him to bring her her diary, written in an ordinary spiral notebook. He found it, flipped through it, and saw that it was written as a series of letters, letters that had apparently never been mailed. The first entry was dated weeks before in April, and, with one exception, all the salutations were to someone named Lew.
The diary too became evidence. Smith duplicated it before he took it to Diane at the hospital.
At dawn, the search far from completed, the investigators left the Q Street residence cordoned off and under guard. They would be back.
The weary men who worked through that first long night
knew nothing about Diane Downs except her age, her marital status, the fact that she was a letter carrier, new to Oregon from Arizona. They had met her parents, seen her shattered children.
They did not know what it might take to make her break down ^ and cry, or what hopes and dreams might have mattered to her
13 when she woke up only a day earlier. If the shooting had not been a random thing, if Diane had been a preselected target, they
SMALL SACRIFICES 45
nndered what she could have done to make someone hate her ^ough to attempt to obliterate her and her children. e They planned to find out, and the sooner the better. Any detective knows a murder that doesn't result in arrest in the first twenty-four to forty-eight hours often goes unsolved. Chances decrease with each passing day. Now, the detectives were still filled with the flush of the chase, not even twelve hours into the probe.
Diane had not slept at all that first long night; she'd waited wide-eyed in her hospital bed for the first glow of dawn. A deputy was posted outside her room to protect her--just as deputies guarded her two surviving children--in case the gunman should comeback.
At seven, Diane reached for the phone beside her hospital bed and dialed a number she knew by heart. It would be eight o'clock in Arizona. She waited, tense, as the rings br-r-red far away. She could picture the building where the phone was, could see everything in her mind, even feel the heat of the sun reflecting from its rock facade.
"Chandler Post Office, Karen speaking."
"Karen? It's Diane."
They were good friends, and Diane had called often from
Oregon. Karen Batten, who was twenty-five, had taken Diane in to live with her
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