“Is that normal treatment?” Ray asked.

He shrugged. “What’s normal? I have to look at every case with fresh eyes and suggest what I think will work. Justin was unable to function around his parents and house. A different set of stimuli seemed a good idea to try.”

“Sounds expensive,” commented Mason. A clinic for two weeks? Probably cost more than an NYC hotel. A luxurious one.

“It was. But his mother told me it was one of the best decisions they ever made.”

“Did he ever go back to the clinic?” asked Ray.

“No. He responded very well to medication after that. We had to make adjustments from time to time, but overall it was smooth.”

“Then why has he been seeing you for four years if everything is so good?” asked Mason.

Dr. Beck smiled. “I’m not soaking him for the money. We’ve discussed cutting back his therapy several times, but I’ve left the primary decision up to Justin and his parents. I’ve told Sally several times he doesn’t need to come in so often. But Justin likes it and feels he benefits from it. So it goes on.”

An odd prickle made the hairs rise on the back of Mason’s neck.

Dr. Beck’s eyes lit up and he laughed. “Detective, you should see the look on your face. No, there’s nothing sexual or predatory about our visits. It’s all clean.”

Mason’s face flushed, and Ray shifted in his seat as he said, “Maybe Justin thought differently.”

“Girls were a big topic of ours. Justin was a perfectly normal male when it came to thinking about sex and girls every ten minutes.”

“Dr. Beck.” Mason paused to get his thoughts in order. “I can guarantee no teen talks to their parents in depth every other week for a solid hour. It sounds like no one knew him better than you. What is your answer to why he committed suicide in such a violent way?”

The doctor straightened in his chair and looked right at Mason. “I have no idea.”

14

Mason surveyed the park. Fire trucks and police cars crowded every inch of the street around the grassy area in Troutdale.

“What the fuck is happening?” asked Ray.

“Wish I knew,” answered Mason, slamming the door to his vehicle. The ambulances had left. Five bodies remained behind, screened from the mass of onlookers and TV news cameras.

It’d happened again. Another morning mass shooting. This time in a popular lake park at six A.M. Again the shooter was reported to be a young man who’d taken his own life in the public restrooms.

“If I was a parent with small children, I’d never leave the house,” said Mason.

“My kids aren’t small, but I’m sure considering it,” replied Ray. “This is bullshit.”

Mason looked sideways at his partner, and noticed the slight tremor in Ray’s hands as he made a notation on his pad of paper. Sometimes fatherhood sucked. A person became a parent, assuming they could teach their kids how to be good members of society and stay out of trouble. But what did one do when trouble struck out of nowhere in locations that were assumed to be safe? The three shootings this summer had sent a shock down every parent’s backbone. How could they protect their children?

“We don’t live in a third-world country,” Ray muttered. “This isn’t supposed to happen here.”

Mason stared at the line of swings and curving slides. “Damn right.”

The children’s play area was set under big firs at one end of the man-made lake. A sandy beach sloped down to clear water where a small section of the lake was cordoned off for children. Mason recalled bringing Jake here when he was about three. The water in that area wasn’t deeper than twelve inches. Beyond that was a larger area that was marked by buoys for regular swimmers. Far across the lake he could see the place that rented small paddle boats and canoes. Good circulation and regular maintenance kept the lake clean and bacteria-free. It was almost like a giant pool.

“I’ve brought my kids here,” said Ray. “It’s absolutely packed during the summer. We’re lucky it happened so early in the day.”

Or was that a careful decision made by the killer?

“They have to all be related,” mumbled Mason.

Ray shook his head. “All three of the shooters are dead. Unless they had some sort of suicide pact that we haven’t discovered yet, I don’t see it. I think they’ve been copycats.”

“No one had considered that they were tied together until this morning,” said Mason. “The first two were far enough apart in time and distance that we made the stupid mistake of assuming they were separate incidents. We’re going to have to look at everything again.”

Ray pointed at a news van. “That’s our problem right there. These shooters are getting glamorized on television and all across social media. It’s putting the idea in the minds of others whose brains aren’t working quite right. For some reason they want the same attention and that’s what’s driving this. I swear these types of shootings happen in groups.”

Mason knew Ray had a point, but he was still going to push to find a relationship among the three shooters. “We’ll consider everything.”

“Of course.”

They signed in and headed toward the restrooms. Troutdale fell under Multnomah County’s jurisdiction. Each shooting had occurred in a different county, and the Oregon State Police hadn’t become involved until the Rivertown Mall shooting. With the cities, the counties, the state, and the FBI’s interest in the Rivertown shooting, there were a lot of cooks in the kitchen.