Aftermath(73)

“What he did was more than just picking on you, Jesse.”

“I know. And I think, if he lived, once we were both grown up, I’d have told him what a jerk he’d been to me. How he’d made me feel. But I won’t get that chance now. It just… ended. He’s gone, and there’s nothing more. There can’t ever be anything more.”

Skye

Jesse and I have an early lunch, and then spend all afternoon working in a quiet corner of the central library. We supplement what we already know with what we learn at the library, both from digitized newspapers and computer searches.

No one knew how the shooting was supposed to start. In the aftermath, Harley could say only that Isaac made the plan, and they were to follow his lead. As for motive? “Make people pay,” according to Isaac. That’s all Harley needed.

Whatever the plan, it went awry from the beginning. The police received an anonymous call reporting a kid with a gun at North Hampton. The call came from a cell phone that had been taken from a girl’s backpack and dumped into the school trash, no fingerprints left.

Harley said he’d been the one who called it in. That he had second thoughts about Isaac’s plan and reported it, but then he’d been forced to join Isaac in the shooting or Isaac would shoot him.

When the call came, the police had a car nearby and got there within minutes. The school went into lockdown, but Riverside had never experienced such a thing. It was chaos – kids running to classrooms, kids running from classrooms. Then police saw Luka coming out of the bathroom with a gun. One shouted for Luka to drop it. Instead, he raised it. That’s when the officer shot him.

The officers moved in to disarm my brother as he lay on the floor, dying.

That’s not what my mother told me. She said he died instantly. That he never knew what happened. The police saw him with a gun and fired, and he was dead before he hit the floor.

He wasn’t.

I don’t need to know this. I really do not need that image in my head. Now it’s there, and it always will be. This is the price I pay for choosing to dig deeper.

Could Luka have been saved if the ambulance had arrived faster? That’s another question that will haunt me, because nothing in these reports answers it. What happened next meant there was no way for the paramedics to get into the school quickly, no chance for the officers to administer first aid.

What happened next.

When Luka fell, the officers must have presumed they had their perpetrator. The report said there was a gun. Here was a boy holding a gun. Situation averted.

But there were kids in the hall when it happened. Kids running for their classrooms. One heard the shot, saw Luka on the ground and freaked out, shouting that someone had shot Luka Gilchrist. The mayhem of the lockdown became panic. Teachers lost control of the situation.

That’s when Isaac acted. He took advantage of the tumult, and Isaac and Harley pulled the guns from their backpacks and began shooting.

Four dead.

Ten injured.

Then Harley got shot in the shoulder and went down. Isaac ran, escaping in the chaos of kids fleeing the scene.

Two days later, a dog walker found Isaac’s body. He’d shot himself in the temple shortly after the shooting. No suicide note. No explanation. There could never be an explanation.

Any answers had been lost with Luka’s death and Isaac’s suicide. Harley pled guilty and went to prison. He may have tried to avert the crisis with that phone call, but it didn’t excuse the fact that he’d killed one person and injured three others.

After we finish our research, I curl up on an armchair, legs under me, staring into space, lost in thought.

When Jesse says, “I’ve never really thought this through before, but why was Luka in the bathroom with a gun?” I pull from my thoughts, a little annoyed with the interruption and maybe snapping a bit when I say, “What?”

“The school is on lockdown. Luka walks out of the bathroom holding a gun. Why?”

“How should I know?” Now I’m definitely snapping, but I can’t help it, annoyance and frustration sparking.

“I don’t know why he did any of it,” I say. “I’m not even sure I knew him.”

“You did. We both did. And it makes no sense for Luka —”

“Just don’t, okay?”

After a few minutes, Jesse says, “What the papers said about Jamil. That’s not true.”

Jesse’s quiet tone is enough to make me soften mine as I say, “Hmm?”

“The papers say he saved a kid. Shoved her out of the bullet’s path. It’s not true.” Jesse sits back, one knee drawn up. “There was this guy who saw it. He didn’t like Jamil much. Hated seeing him portrayed as some kind of hero and felt the need to tell me otherwise.”

“Asshole.”

Jesse shrugs. “Yeah, I thought the same thing. Why bother, right? But he had to set the record straight. He said Jamil and the girl were both running for a doorway. Jamil shouldered his way through first. That’s when Isaac shot him in the back. I could have told myself this kid was just trying to cause trouble because he didn’t like Jamil. But I had to know. So I asked the girl. She said it didn’t matter how it happened – Jamil still saved her. Which I guess answered my question. I thought that proved what a selfish jerk he was. Then I saw his face, in that projection. He was so scared. I don’t think he meant to shoulder her aside. He just wanted to get out of the hall. I’m not sure I wouldn’t have done the same.”