Abe moved through Harrington’s key ring, getting to the right one.

He unlocked the case, and I reminded Abe that with a school shooting, the Feds would be called in. And that maybe we should wait on going through the weapons.

“Why don’t we send a picture to Senza,” I said. “Find out who he’s already contacted.”

We texted the boss. Then we decided that Abe would inspect the bedrooms while I went through the common areas in the house and the room back here in the yard.

Our goal was simple.

The killer was dead already, and there’d be no trial. But school shootings fall into a category that requires meaning. The question of “why” was still unanswered.

Did Jed Harrington have some beef with the school?

Or was it with this science teacher, Leaf Tanner, and the school was simply the location for their standoff?

Abe and I walked back to the house, and I started in the kitchen.

I examined the pantry cabinets, moving my gloved fingers around cans of chili and spaghetti sauce and canisters of Pringles.

As I moved into the living area, I found no notes of any plan Harrington had to enter the middle school. No diagrams or pictures of the school. A handful of magazines covered the coffee table, and the bookcase held fiction hardbacks: the latest from B. J. Graf and Karen Dionne.

Before I moved to the backhouse, Abe poked his head in.

“Anything?”

“So far, zilch,” I said. “You?”

He shook his head. “No pictures of middle school kids. No relatives or family that appear to go to Falls Magnet.”

I had been away from my phone, and I saw Abe’s iPad set up on the dresser in the bedroom. “Did Remy or Merle send us something?”

“Yeah.” Abe nodded, grabbing the tablet. “You wanna hear?”

“Absolutely.”

“The gunman’s full name is Jedidiah William Harrington,” he read. “Grew up in Macon. Went to high school there. After that, got a degree in journalism.”

“From where?”

“Tulane,” Abe said. “He worked in Atlanta at the AJC. Then made a leap to The Washington Post.”

“Impressive.”

“They embedded him,” Abe continued. “On and off for four years with the troops in Afghanistan.”

“Four years is a lot,” I said. “I had a friend who was embedded. After twelve months he couldn’t take it. He started seeing ghosts, you know?”

“How do you mean?”

“The faces of dead people,” I said. “But on those around him. Strangers in the street. Except their faces were changed.”

Abe took this in, nodding.

“Where was Harrington working lately?” I asked.

“He wasn’t,” Abe said. “Unemployed, last two years.”

Abe scrolled down through other notes. “Guy’s never been married. Co-owns the house with his sister, Maryanne.”

I thought of the clothes in the spare bedroom. “Those are her things?” I asked. “In the closet?”

“Figured so,” Abe said. “I went onto Facebook. She’s petite, and the dresses were all smalls. Merle’s contacted her. She lives in Oklahoma and is flying in tomorrow.”