Deadly Messengers by Susan May

editors.
    Her Google search had turned up something interesting. In 2012, a news outlet created a website documenting the past twenty years of mass killings across the country. The site had a built-in search facility using several criteria: type of weapon used; numbers killed; and the murderers’ relationship to the victims. The results could be shown as a list or a geographical map. The two most recent mass murder sites in their city, Café Amaretto and the Kenworth Home, were already loaded into the database.
    That wasn’t the surprise for Kendall. Goose bumps rose on her arms about something else. The latest two mass killing weren’t the only two events in the Danbridge city area.
    In 1995, a massacre had also occurred here. With this information, and the location, she Googled the twentieth century crime. Of course, the two most recent massacres featured prominently on the first few pages. Buried way back on the third page at the very bottom, though, was another entry. This article was about a mass killing that had occurred just on the city limits. Kendall supposed that might explain why nobody had put it together with these two. Or it could be the crime was just too long ago. Most likely it was because, technically, it wasn’t a mass killing.
    Only three people had died on the scene. She’d learned from the website a mass killing was only considered a mass killing after four deaths. In the case of the 1995 killing, one of the victims died months later after slipping into a coma following the event. He became the fourth victim. Probably by then, his death wasn’t as newsworthy.
    Twenty years ago, Lyall Wright drove through a fast food drive-thru and, apparently, was kept waiting longer than he thought reasonable. He entered the restaurant and when the manager asked him to leave, something snapped in him. He pulled out a gun and killed, indiscriminately, a server behind the counter and the manager. Turning on the customers, he seriously injured three and killed another employee, before killing himself. Two teenage workers died, along with the twenty-eight-year-old manager, then months later the customer who’d been in a coma.
    The same two photos of grieving families accompanied the articles Kendall read. Particularly poignant was the portrait of one victim’s family. The boy was the sixteen years old only child of a widower. Imagine losing your only child and being left with nothing.
    Kendall’s thoughts turned to that night, when she also lost so much. She shook the thought away and continued to read through the heartbreaking interviews with survivors and family members of the victims.
    This could definitely be a unique angle , if she could bring herself to explore it. A prickle crawled up her spine, not only because again she would face her demons, but this raised a seriously frightening question: How could three mass murders occur in one city?
    She imagined she could pitch several articles, all with slightly varied slants for different media outlets. This one story could end up providing her with a good buffer against the current lack of work.
    Could she do it?
    If you want to eat, Kendall, you’ll do it.
    She simply had no choice in the matter. The nightmares would come, that she knew. She would just have to find a way to deal with them.

Chapter 14

     
     
    THE INTERVIEWS WITH THE RELATIVES of those killed in the 1995 murders turned out to be nothing like Kendall’s interview with Beverley Sanderson.
    With twenty years having passed, the people involved, especially the parents of the three murdered employees, had adjusted somewhat to a life without their loved ones. Although, Kendall noted a pale, washed-out feel to them, as though some of their life energy had leaked away over the years. They talked of the day they’d lost so much as though it were yesterday, as if they’d just kissed their loved one goodbye, unknowingly, for the last time.
    The odd thing was they all told Kendall how relieved they felt