Killer Show: The Station Nightclub Fire by John Barylick

before her, she asks, in typical Rhode Island waitress-ese, “You guys all set?”
    DeMaio, the single mother of a seven-year-old son, was nothing if not industrious. First in her family to graduate from college, she worked full-time as a legal secretary while studying to become a paralegal. Dina began working odd nights at The Station three months earlier to make some extra money for herself and her son.
    As Butler’s camera pans left, it captures Jack Russell’s guest-list acquaintances from Denny’s: Rick Sanetti, his wife, Patty, and their young niece, Bridget. Bridget’s blond hair falls midshoulder over her light-blue rib-knit top. A black leather bag is slung over her right shoulder. As the twenty-five-year-old gestures to her aunt and uncle, her silver hoop earrings sparkle beneath fine wisps of hair.
    Butler’s video passes the Sanetti party, then zooms in on the beer taps as crew-cut club manager Kevin Beese, wearing a black “ EVENT SECURITY ” T-shirt, draws beer into a large plastic cup. Beese sacrifices as much beer to spilled “head” as he leaves in the cup. Before the camera leaves the main bar, its focus settles on an exit sign above the area’s single outside door, then, returning to the polished surface of the bar itself, it zooms in on the watch-clad wrist of a man stirring his drink. The timepiece reads “10:50.” In the background audio, one can hear Dr. Metal launching into his introductory spiel for the featured act: “We’re back . . . we’re fuckin’ back.”
    Before returning to the stage and dance floor, Butler walks his camera toward the ticket counter attended by blond, smiling Andrea Mancini. Her husband, Steven, had finished his set with the local band Fathead an hour or so earlier and is helping check ID s. Mancini’s bandanna-clad bandmate, Tom Conte, and Conte’s girlfriend, Kristen Arruda, are relaxing near Andrea’s desk. A West Warwick policeman, Anthony Bettencourt, stands beside the ticket desk in uniform shirt, radio microphone clipped to the epaulet on his left shoulder. Hired as a “private detail” by the Derderians, Bettencourt is supposed to project a police presence and maintain order. At his side is another town cop, Mark Knott, seen in profile in his Gore-Tex patrol jacketwith an American flag patch on the right shoulder. Knott was on routine patrol that night and stopped in to assist Bettencourt’s rock ’n’ roll detail with a “security check” — just in time for the main act.
    On the wall behind Andrea Mancini hangs a framed photograph of the Beatles in profile, circa 1970; a crudely block-lettered sign on her desk announces, “ TONIGHT GREAT WHITE, TRIP, FATHEAD $ 17.” The wood-paneled partition dividing Andrea’s diagonal ticket desk from the entrance corridor (leaving only a thirty-three-inch opening through which patrons are admitted) is formidable — almost chest-high.
    Butler’s video documents the following pertinent history: At 11 p.m., Great White’s soundman Bob Rager cues a CD of prerecorded Great White music. As its volume builds, the band’s instrumentalists take their positions on the darkened stage: drummer Eric Powers in an unbuttoned gold metallic shirt; rhythm guitarist Ty Longley with shoulder-length brown curls flowing over his black vest; bass guitarist David Filice wearing a long-sleeve black shirt; and lead guitarist Mark Kendall with shaved head and sunglasses. At 11:04, Station light man Scooter Stone “bumps” the stage lights, creating a strobelike flash at random intervals, as he had been instructed by Great White manager Dan Biechele. (Biechele had explained to Stone in a preconcert briefing that pyro would be ignited soon thereafter, at which time Stone was to bring up full stage lights.)
    At 11:05, guitar feedback signals the entrance of Jack Russell, who bounds onstage, wireless microphone in hand. Great White slams into the opening chords of “Desert Moon,” and Dan Biechele touches the second of two