Jonathan Kellerman - Alex 12 - Survival of the Fittest

by Survival Of The Fittest(Lit)

  'What about friends in the neighborhood?'

  'Not really.'

  'Any older kids who'd bothered or bullied her?'

  'Why? Because she was different?'

  'It happens.'

  'No,' said Carmeli. 'Irit was sweet. She got along with everybody. And we sheltered her.'

  He blinked hard, lit up.

  Milo said, 'How hard of hearing was she?'

  'She had no hearing in the right ear, about thirty-percent function in the left.'

  'With or without the hearing aid?'

  'With. Without the aid she could barely hear at all, but she seldom used it.'

  'Why not?'

  'She didn't like it, complained it was too loud, gave her headaches. We had it adjusted several times but she never liked it. Actually I-'

  He buried his face in his hands.

  Milo sat back. Now, he rubbed his face.

  A moment later, Carmeli sat up. Inhaling the third cigarette, he talked through the smoke.

  'She tried to deceive us about it. Wearing it when she left the house, then pulling it out the moment she got on the school bus. Or if not then, in class. Or losing it - we went through several replacements. We had her teachers make sure she wore it. So she began leaving it in her ear but switching it off. Sometimes she remembered to switch it back on when she came home but usually she didn't, so we knew - she was a sweet child, Mr Sturgis. Innocent, not good at sneaking. But she did have a will. We tried reasoning with her, bribing her. Nothing worked. Finally, we came to the conclusion that she preferred not hearing. Being able to shut the world out, create her own world. Does that make sense to you, Doctor?'

  'Yes, I've seen that,' I said.

  'My wife has, too. She's a teacher. In London she worked at a school for special children, said many kids with problems enter their own private worlds. Still, we wanted Irit to know what was going on around her. We never stopped reminding her to use it.'

  'So that day,' said Milo, 'even though she was wearing it, you don't know if it was switched on.'

  'My guess would be that it was off' Milo thought, rubbed his face again. 'Thirty percent in one ear at best. So even with the aid, it's likely she couldn't hear much of what was going on around her.'

  'No, not much.' Carmeli smoked and sat straighter.

  'Was Irit very trusting?' I said.

  He took a deep breath. 'You need to understand, Doctor, that she grew up in Israel and in Europe, where things are much safer and children are much freer.'

  'Israel's safer?' said Milo.

  'Much safer, Mr Sturgis. Your media play up the occasional incident, but outside of political terrorism, violence is very low. And in Copenhagen and London, where we lived later, she was also relatively free.'

  'Despite being the child of a diplomat?' I said.

  'Yes. We lived in good neighborhoods. Here in Los Angeles, a good neighborhood means nothing. Nothing prepared us for this city - certainly, Irit was trusting. She liked people. We taught her about strangers, the need to be cautious. She said she understood. But she was - in her own way she was very smart. But also young for her age - her brother is only seven but in some ways he was the older child. More... sophisticated. He's a very gifted boy.... Would Irit have gone with a stranger? I'd like to think no. Am I sure?' He shook his head.

  'I'd like to speak to your wife,' said Milo. 'We'll be talking to your neighbors, as well. To find out if anyone noticed anything unusual on your street.'

  'No one did,' said Carmeli. 'I asked them. But go ahead, ask them yourself. In terms of my wife, however, I insist on drawing some ground rules: You may not imply in any way

  even the slightest closure. He's hurting, Milo. Starving for answers.'

  He frowned. 'And we haven't given him any. Maybe that's another reason he doesn't like the department.'

  'What do you mean?'

  'That crack about having worked with us before. Someone probably screwed up on his parade or something. Sticking with the baseball analogies, I'm starting out with two strikes against me.'

  The car was where we'd left it. He gave the parking attendant another tip, backed out, and drove down the exit ramp. Traffic was heavy on Wilshire and he waited to turn left.

  'That room,' he said, again. 'Did you see the way the smoke got sucked up into the ceiling? Maybe he's not James Bond but my Mossad fantasies are taking over and I keep flashing images of secret tunnels up there, all this cloak-and-dagger crap.' 'License to cater,' I said.

  'And cynical old me thinks: protesting too much... any other impressions of him?' 'No, just what I said.' 'No special antenna-twang?' 'Why?'

  He shrugged. 'I can understand his wanting to keep distance between the murder and his job but don't you think he could have been a little more forthcoming? Like volunteering to turn over the consulate's crank mail... not that I blame him, I guess. From his perspective we're clowns who haven't done squat.' He made the turn.

  'Changing the subject,' I said. 'The hearing aid. I keep thinking it was left there deliberately. Maybe the killer's telling us that's why he chose her.'

  'Telling us? A game-player?'

  'There's a gamelike quality to it, Milo. Malignant play. And what Carmeli told us about Irit's turning off the hearing aid, retreating to her own private world, would have made her a perfect target. For children, private worlds often mean overt self-stimulation: fantasizing, talking to themselves, strange-looking body movements. The killer could have watched and seen all that: first the hearing aid, then Irit wandering away from the others, acting preoccupied, lost in fantasy. He pulled her out of her script and into his.'

  'Wandered off,' he said. 'So maybe we're just talking real bad luck.'

  'A mixture of bad luck and victim characteristics.'

  A moment later something else hit me.

  'There's a whole other possibility,' I said. 'It was someone who knew her. Knew that even when she wore the aid, she turned it off and was easy to sneak up on.'

  He drove slowly, jaws knotted, squinting at more than sun-glare. We traveled for three blocks before he spoke.

  'So back to the old acquaintance list. Teachers, the bus driver. And neighbors, no matter what Carmeli says. I've seen too many girls brutalized by supposed friends and acquaintances. The wholesome kid down the block who up til then only cut up cats and dogs when no one was looking.'

  'That why you asked about bullies in the neighborhood?'

  'I asked because at this point I don't know what else to ask. But yeah, the thought did occur to me that someone could have had it in for her. She was retarded, deaf, Jewish, Israeli. Choose your criterion.'

  'Someone had it in for her but took care not to violate the body?'

  'He's twisted. You're the shrink.' His voice was husky with irritation.

  I said, 'The M.O. files you gave me didn't classify by victim characteristic other than age and sex. If you can get hold of the information, I'd look into murders of deaf people. Handicapped people, in general.'

  'Handicapped defined how, Alex? Lots of our bad guys and their victims wouldn't win any IQ contests. Is a dope fiend who OD's and blasts himself into a coma handicapped?'

  'How about deaf, blind, crippled. Documented retardation, if that doesn't get too unwieldy. Victims under eighteen and strangled.'

  He put on speed. 'That kind of information is obtainable. Theoretically. Given enough time and shoe leather and cops from other jurisdictions who cooperate and have decent memories and keep decent records. That's for L.A. County. If the killer's new to the region, did the same thing two thousand miles away, the chances dwindle. And we already know from Gorman's letter that nothing about the crime tipped off the FBI computers, meaning there's no VICAP match. Even if we do find another case, it'll be unsolved. And if the bastard swept up just as thoroughly, we're not any farther along, forensically.'

  'Pessimism,' I said, 'is not good for the soul.'

  'Sold my soul years ago.'

  'To whom?'

  'The bitch god
dess Success. Then she cut town before paying off.' He shook his head and laughed.

  'What?'

  'Guy gets his statistics straight from the mayor's office. You see any career boost coming out of this one?'

  'Let's put it this way,' I said. 'No.'

  He laughed harder.

  'Your honesty is laudatory, Doctor.'

  At Robertson he stopped at a red light and touched his ear.

  'Her own little world,' he said. 'Poor kid.' A few moments later: 'Hear no evil.'

  That night I didn't sleep much. Robin heard me tossing and asked what was wrong. 'Too much caffeine.'

  The Observer

  The neighborhood was worse than he remembered. Nice houses on his friend's street. Big, by his standards, most of them still decently maintained, at least from what he could see in the darkness. But to get there he'd passed through boulevards lined with pawnshops, liquor stores, and bars. Other businesses, to be sure, but at this hour they were all shuttered and the street was given over to girls in minimal clothing and guys drinking out of paper bags.

  Night sounds: music, car engines, laughter now and then, rarely happy. People hanging out on corners or half-concealed in the shadows. Dark-skinned people, with nothing to do.

  He was glad the Toyota was small and inconspicuous.

  Even so, occasionally someone stared as he passed.

  Watching him, hands in pockets, slouching.

  The half-naked girls paraded up and down or just stood at the curb, their pimps out of eyeshot but no doubt waiting.

  He knew all about that kind of thing. Knew all the games.

  His friend had told him not to be shocked and he'd come equipped, the nine-mm out of its box beneath the seat and tucked on the left side of his waistband where he could draw it out quickly with his gun hand.

  His gun hand... nice way to put it.

  So here he was, reasonably ready for surprises, but, of course, the key was not to be surprised.

  Suddenly his thoughts were drowned out by music from a passing car. Big sedan, chassis so low it neatly scraped the asphalt. Kids with shaved heads bobbing up and down. Throbbing bass beat. Not music. Words. Chanting - shouting to electric drums.

  Ugly, angry rant that passed for poetry.

  Someone shouted and he looked around and checked his rear-view mirror.

  A siren shrieked in the distance. Got louder.

  The ultimate danger.

  He pulled to the curb and an ambulance passed and Dopplered to silence.

  Silence had been Irit's world.

  Had she been cued into some internal universe, able to feel the vibrations of her own heartbeat?

  He'd been thinking about her all day and into the night, imagining and supposing and replaying the scene. But when he began the drive to his friend's house he forced himself to stop because he needed to concentrate on the present.

  Still, so many distractions. This city... this neighborhood, all the changes.

  Don't be shocked.

  He turned off onto a night-black side street, then another, and another, until he found himself in a completely different world: dim, silent, the big houses austere as bureaucrats.

  His friend's house looked the same, except for the for sale sign staked in front.

  It was good he'd caught him in time.

  Surprise!

  He pulled into the driveway, behind the dark van.

  Touching the gun, he looked around again, got out, alarmed the car, and walked up the flower-lined pathway to the paneled front door.

  Ringing the bell, he uttered his name in response to the shouted 'Who is it?'

  The door opened and he got a face full of smile.

  'Hey!'

  He stepped in and the two of them embraced briefly. To his friend's left was an old mahogany mail table against the wall. On it, a large manila envelope.

  'Yeah, that's it.'

  'Thank you. I really appreciate it.'

  'No problem. Got time to come in? Coffee?'

  'Sure. Thanks for that, too.'

  His friend laughed and they went into the kitchen of the big house.

  The envelope in his hand, stiff and dry.

  The guy had come through. Taking risks.

  But when had anything worthwhile ever come easy?

  He sat and watched as his friend poured coffee, saying, 'Easy drive over?'

  'No problem.'

  'Good. Told you it got bad.'

  'Things change.'

  'Yeah, but they rarely improve. So... you're back in the game. From the looks of it we've got plenty to talk about.'

  'That we do.'

  The hand stilled. 'Black, right?'

  'Good memory.'

  'Not as good as it used to be.' The hand paused again. 'Maybe that's for the better.'

  It's affecting my work,' said Helena. 'I see a suicide attempt wheeled into the E.R. and I want to scream, Idiot! I watch the surgeons open a gunshot wound and start thinking about Nolan's autopsy... he was so healthy.'

  'You read the report?'

  'I called the coroner until someone spoke to me. I guess I was hoping they'd find something - cancer, some rare, disease - anything to justify it. But he was in the pink, Dr Delaware... he could have lived a long time.'

  She began crying. Pulled a tissue from her purse before I could get to the box. 'The damn thing is,' she said, catching her breath, 'I've thought about him more in the last few weeks than all the years before combined.'

  She'd come straight from the hospital, still wearing her uniform, the white dress tailored to her trim frame, her nametag still pinned.

  'I feel guilty, dammit. Why should I feel guilty? I never failed him because he never needed me. We didn't depend on each other. We both knew how to take care of ourselves. Or at least I thought so.'

  'Independent'

  'Always. Even when we were little kids we went our separate ways. Different interests. We didn't fight, we just ignored each other. Is that abnormal?'

  I thought of all the genetically linked strangers who'd passed through my office. 'Siblings are thrown together by chance. Anything from love to hate can follow.'

  'Well, Nolan and I loved each other - at least I know I loved him. But it was more of a - I don't want to say family obligation. More of a... general bond. A feeling. And I loved his good qualities.'

  She crumpled the tissue. The first thing she'd done upon arriving was hand me insurance forms. Then she'd talked about the coverage, the demands of her job. Taking time to get around to Nolan.

  'Good qualities,' I said.

  'His energy. He had a real-' She laughed. 'I was actually going to say "love for life". His energy and his intelligence. When he was young - eight or nine - the school tested him because he was goofing off in class. Turned out he was highly gifted - something like the top half-percent - and he'd been tuning out because he was bored. I'm not stupid, but I'm not even remotely in that league... maybe I'm the lucky one.'

  'Being gifted was a burden for him?'

  'It's crossed my mind. Because Nolan didn't have much patience and I think that had to do with his intelligence.'

  'No patience for people?'

  'People, things, any process that moved too slowly. Once again, this was back when he was a teenager. He may have mellowed when he was older. I remember him always railing about something. Mom telling him, "Honey, you can't expect the world to go at your pace" - could that be why he became a cop? To fix things fast?'

  'If he did that could have been a problem, Helena. There are very few fast fixes in cop work. Just the opposite: Cops see problems that never get solved. Last time you said something about conservative political views. That could have led him to police work.'

  'Maybe. Although, once again, that's the last phase I knew about. He could have been into something completely different.'

  'He changed philosophies often?'

  'All the time. There were times he out-liberaled Mom and Dad, radical, really. Just about a Communist. Then
he swung back the other way.'

  Was all this in high school?'

  'I think it was after the satanic phase - probably his senior year. Or maybe his freshman year in college. I remember his reading Mao's Little Red Book, reciting from it at the table, telling Mom and Dad they thought they were progressive but they were really counterrevolutionary. Then for a while he got into Sartre, Camus, all that existential stuff, the meaninglessness of life. One month he tried to prove it by not bathing or changing his clothes.' She smiled. 'That ended when he decided he still liked girls. The next phase was... 1 think it was Ayn Rand. He read Atlas Shrugged and got totally into individualism. Then anarchy, then libertarianism. Last I heard he'd decided Ronald Reagan was a god, but we hadn't talked politics for years so I don't know where he ended up.'