Page 72 of The Proving Ground

“What song was that?”

“‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ by a band called Blue Öyster Cult. I actually had it on a playlist on my phone. I put together Romeo and Juliet and ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper’ and I thought this kid might be about to hurt himself. The mother had confirmed to us that her husband kept a gun in a safe. She didn’t know the make or caliber, but all of these things were in play at that time.”

“What did you do?”

“It was a hollow interior door. I threw my shoulder into it and it popped open pretty easily. We entered the room.”

“And what happened?”

“Well, it all moved very quickly. Aaron Colton was sitting at a desk in the room. He had a laptop open on the desk and I saw a woman’s face on the screen. He was startled when the door came open, by the loud noise of it. He recovered, then slammed the laptop shut with one hand and with the other reached for a weapon that was on the desk.”

“What kind of weapon, Detective?”

“It was a chrome-plated handgun.”

“It matched the description of the gun used by the shooter at the school?”

“It did.”

“Okay, what happened when he reached for that gun?”

“My partner and I rushed him as he grabbed it and took him to the floor. I held him down while Dailyn—uh, Detective Rodriguez—got control of the weapon and took it out of his grasp.”

“Did he say anything during this struggle?”

“Yes, he said, ‘Let me die, let me die.’ Twice like that.”

“So was it your belief that he intended to use the gun on himself and not you or—”

For the first time, Marcus Mason stood and objected.

“Your Honor,” he said, “it is beyond the scope of this witness’s skills as a detective to know what a sixteen-year-old boy was thinking at that moment.”

“Your Honor,” I responded, “based on what he heard from the conversation before entering the room and what the boy said as he was wrestled to the ground, I think Detective Clarke was in a position to know what the boy wanted to do.”

“I am going to sustain the objection,” Ruhlin said. “Mr. Haller, can you rephrase the question?”

“Of course, Your Honor,” I said.

I turned my attention back to Clarke.

“Detective Clarke, when you entered that room and saw Aaron Colton reaching for the gun, were you in fear for your life?” I asked.

Clarke took a moment to compose an answer.

“Not really,” he finally said. “I was afraid, based on what I’d heard through the door, that he was going to grab that gun and shoot himself.”

“And that was before he said, ‘Let me die, let me die’?”

“Before that, yes.”

“By the way, you said you saw a woman’s face on the laptop screen before Aaron closed it. Did you ever come to identify that woman?”

“I later determined that it was an avatar called Wren. It was Aaron’s AI companion from the Clair app.”

I asked the judge for permission to put the image of Wren on the courtroom screen. After the request was granted, the judge’s clerk rolled a large screen on a wheeled easel to a position where the judge, jury, and witness could view it, as could the side of the gallery where members of the media sat. Lorna came through the gate with a laptop in hand and took my seat at the plaintiffs’ table. She quickly connected the laptop to the screen, and soon the image of Wren appeared. I let the jurors have a good look at it before proceeding.

“Now, Detective Clarke, is this the image you saw on Aaron’s screen?” I asked.