Survival Of The Fittest

8

Descending in the elevator, Milo said, “That room. Wonder if Gorobich and Ramos merited his private office.”

“Putting some distance between the murder and his work?”

“Distance is a big issue for him, isn't it?”

“Can you blame him?” I said. “Losing a child is bad enough without attributing it to your career choice. I'm sure he considered the political angle right from the beginning. The entire consulate probably did, and they decided it wasn't a factor. As you said, if they thought it was, they'd handle it themselves. And what Carmeli said about terrorism as attention-seeking backs that up. The same thing applies to counterterrorism: Send a message. Someone's out for your kids, come down hard and fast and with enough publicity to provide strong deterrence. And something else: Carmeli's demeanor wasn't that of a man who's achieved 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 unwieldly. 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 further along, forensically.”

“Pessimism,” I said, “is not good for the soul.”

“Sold my soul years ago.”

“To whom?”

“The bitch goddess 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.”