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In between phone calls, McAninch checked the layout of the store. The back entrance was a thick cold-storage door with a large metal handle. McAninch braced a stepladder against the handle and built a barricade of food boxes.All the while, Tammi kept McAninch talking, looking for anything to engage him. He had tattoos running up the right side of his neck -- his birth sign, Virgo. And on his right arm were two women's names; one was his daughter's. On his left arm, there was a poem for his parents. Tammi could only make out the last line: "Let there be no more tears." She stored it all away.
"Your daughter needs you," she said. "You know that."
"Yeah, I know," McAninch said.
"You need to give up," she said, keeping her tone even, trying not to sound bossy or pushy, more like a friend giving advice. She repeated what the police had earlier told him. "Give me the gun. Put it in a plastic bag. I'll carry it out." She kept talking. "Do your time, and you'll get out."
"I can't do that," he said.
There was money everywhere. Tammi had never seen a room so disorganized. There was cash piled on the desk in the office. Checks written out to Bigfoot all over the place. Bunches of cash behind the chairs. McAninch stuffed over $1,000 into his pockets. And handed Tammi $350 out of the stack of cash on the table.
"I can't take that," she told him. "God's watching. I'm not a thief."
"Take it," he insisted. "Put it in your wallet -- now!"
She tried to shake him off. "All I want is to go home and make dinner for my family."
"I can't let you go. You're my security blanket," McAninch told her. "You're what's keeping me alive."
Emergency response teams (SWAT units) from state, county and city jurisdictions were now on the scene. Police put gunmen in place. A mobile command center had been set up some 500 yards from the store near the interstate overpass. The press corps had arrived en masse.
Alerted by the radio broadcast, Tammi's husband, Shawn, his parents and her mother and stepfather had rushed to the scene. A state police chaplain was assigned to stay with the family. Police told them Tammi was not hurt -- and, in a convenience store, not hungry. They said they would do anything to keep her safe. One officer told the press, "We are prepared to talk until the last Ho Ho is gone."
Fifteen hours crept by. McAninch sat thinking, tapping the gun against his head and making multiple demands of the police negotiator. He wanted to visit his mother's grave before being locked up, he wanted his pal Joe Scalf set free, he wanted to talk to his daughter, he wanted a live television crew filming his surrender so there wouldn't be any monkey business, and he wanted cold beer. "Of all places to hold up," he said, "I chose one that doesn't sell beer."
Through it all, Tammi was close enough to him to grab his gun, but even if she could wrestle it from him, she knew she'd never be able to use it. She tried to maintain an appearance of calm.
"You're a pretty cool hostage," he said, and told the police: "This bitch ain't scared at all."
Slowly McAninch began to talk to her. He confessed he was bipolar. That he used Valium. He had marijuana with him and started to smoke a joint, offering her a puff. She said no.
"At least I'm locked up in here with a beautiful girl and not some guy," he said.
Around midnight, Tammi told McAninch she was feeling sick. He let her go to the sink to throw up. Then he became concerned. "Are you all right? Can I get you some milk to settle your stomach?"
"Yes," Tammi said.
He went into the store and brought her some. Then he started to pace. A few minutes later, he went to the sink and began to vomit himself. When he returned, Tammi saw panic in his eyes.
"Are you scared?" she asked.
He didn't answer. But overhead they heard helicopters. Tammi pleaded again with McAninch to let her go. She was tired. She was sick.
"You're becoming a not-so-cool hostage," he told her.
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