School Days

Chapter 51

THE RANGE of lunch choices around the Bethel County jail was narrow. We left Dix's car in the jail lot and I drove us to the village market in Dowling, where I had eaten pie with DiBella the first time I met him. We took a little table inside and ordered a couple of sandwiches. Dix ordered coffee with his. I had a glass of milk to cleanse my palate. A nearly intact pie sat promisingly under a glass dome on the counter.

"Your boy is retarded," Dix said.

"That's a fact or an informed guess?"

"Like most other branches of medicine, psychiatry is both an art and a science. Most of our conclusions tend to be informed guesses."

"His grades are good. He was on course to graduate. He seemed able to plan a shootout at his school. How retarded can he be?"

"Mildly," Dix said.

"What does that mean?"

"It means mildly. We can test him at length and come up with a number, but for our purposes, mildly retarded will work."

"So how come no one seems to have noticed it?" I said.

"No one else was looking for it. You knew that there was something wrong with him."

"Yes," I said.

"Actually, his parents probably noticed it, too."

"And didn't want to see it."

"Yeah. It's probably why his grandmother was so protective. He always been retarded?"

"I'd need a lot more time to answer that, and I'm not sure it would be time well spent. My guess is that he's functionally retarded."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning he has not learned to function at the level one would have anticipated."

"So he may not have been born retarded."

"He may not. There are a number of possible explanations. But the fact remains that he is now at least mildly impaired."

"Could he live a, I don't know what to call it, normal life?"

"With help," Dix said, "probably."

"He say anything about his relationship with Beth Ann Blair?"

"I didn't ask. He didn't tell," Dix said. "I was not there to question him about the crime."

"You think it had something to do with the crime?"

"In fact, of course, I don't know," Dix said. "A relationship which had proceeded to nudity, between a fully sexual adult woman and a barely pubescent retarded boy, would be a very powerful event in the boy's life. And if that boy stands accused of mass murder. . ."

Our sandwiches sat waiting and waiting on their paper plates on the counter. I stood up and got them and set them on the table. Dix had ham on light rye. I had tongue on light rye. I got a second glass of milk for me and another coffee for Dix.

"Is he retarded enough that we could use it in some sort of impairment defense?"

"I need more information. I'd want to know what role the woman played in his behavior." Dix took in a long, slow breath through his nose and let it out. "But basically, I doubt it. I doubt that his mental retardation prevented him from understanding the illegality of his actions any more than, if you are an accurate reporter, and I suspect that you are, it prevented him from some rather lengthy and careful preparation for his crime."

I nodded.

"If, on the other hand, you could establish some sort of obsessive circumstance with Dr. Blair . . ."

"Whatever the circumstance," I said, "it couldn't have been good."

Dix shrugged.

"You think it could be okay?" I said.

"I have been doing what I do," Dix said, "for a long time. I have found almost nothing that people do which is always good or always bad. How about you?"

I nodded.

"But for a kid like that," I said, "to suddenly start murdering people at random. Isn't the crime itself proof that the criminal is crazy?"

Dix smiled at me.

"You know and I know that if you start asking that question too insistently, you find yourself on a slippery, slippery slope. If doing the crime is proof of insanity, and sanity is a defense against conviction, then the crime is its exculpation, and no one is responsible for anything."

"And ten thousand years of what might optimistically be called civilization," I said, "goes right down the slope, too."

"On the other hand, if Dr. Blair was involved, and he was obsessed, and you have a good lawyer available . . ."

"Would you examine him further?" I said.

"As needed," Dix said.

"Would you testify?"

"I would testify to what I believed to be the truth," Dix said.

"Or as close as we can get to it," I said.

"One can get pretty close," Dix said, "if one keeps at it."

"Keeping at it is one of my best things," I said.

"Apparently," Dix said.

When we finished our sandwiches, we had some pie. It was blueberry this time. And none the worse for being so.