Survival Of The Fittest

6

Milo dropped me off and returned to the West L.A. station. As I headed up the stairs to the front entrance, I heard the whine of Robin's table saw from out back and detoured through the garden to her studio. Spike, our little French bulldog, was basking near the door, a mound of black-brindled muscle melting into the welcome mat. He stopped snoring long enough to raise his head and stare. I rubbed his neck and stepped over him.

Like the house, the outbuilding is white stucco, compact and simple with lots of windows and a tile roof shaded by sycamore boughs. Lateral sunlight flooded the clean, airy space. Guitars in various stages of completion were positioned around the room and the spicy resin smell of crisply cut wood seasoned the air. Robin was guiding a hunk of maple through the saw and I waited to approach until she finished and turned off the machine. Her auburn curls were tied up in a knot and her apron was filmed with sawdust. The T-shirt beneath it was sweaty, as was her heart-shaped face.

She wiped her hands and smiled. I put my arm around her shoulder and kissed her cheek. She turned and gave me her mouth, then pulled away and wiped her brow.

“Learn anything?”

“No.” I told her about the park, the leafy vault.

Her brown eyes got huge and she flinched. “Every parent's nightmare. What next?”

“Milo asked me to look over the files.”

“It's been a while since you got involved in something like this, Alex.”

“True. Better get to work.” I kissed her forehead and stepped away.

She watched me go.

By the end of three hours I learned the following:

Mr. and Mrs. Zev Carmeli lived in a leased house on a good street in Beverlywood with their now only child, a seven-year-old boy named Oded. Zev Carmeli was 38, born in Tel Aviv, a career foreign-service officer. His wife, Liora, was four years younger, born in Morocco but raised in Israel, employed as a Hebrew teacher at a Jewish day school on the West Side.

The family had arrived in L.A. a year ago from Copenhagen, where Carmeli had served for three years as an attachÉ at the Israeli Embassy. Two years before that he'd been assigned to the embassy in London and had obtained a master's degree in international relations at London University. He and his wife and Oded spoke English fluently. Irit, said her father, had spoken “very well, considering.”

All the quotes were from the father.

The girl's health problems had followed an influenza-like illness at the age of six months. Carmeli referred to his daughter as “a little immature but always well-behaved.” The term retarded never came up in the files, but an educational summary report supplied by her school, The Center for Development, indicated “multiple learning problems, bilateral hearing impairment, including total deafness in the right ear, and mild to moderate developmental delay.”

As Milo had said, Carmeli was adamant about having no enemies in Los Angeles and brushed off all questions about his work and the political situation in the Middle East.

Detective E. J. Gorobich wrote:

“V.'s father stated that his job is “coordinating events' for the consulate. I asked for an example and he said he'd organized an Israel Independence Day parade last spring. When I inquired about any other events he'd coordinated, he stated there were lots of them but that the parade was a main one. When I inquired about possible connections between what had happened to his daughter and his occupational/political position and/or activities, he became noticeably agitated and stated: “This wasn't political, this was a madman! It's obvious that you have many madmen in America!' ”

The Center for Development was a small private school in Santa Monica specializing in children with mental and physical handicaps. Tuition was high and student-teacher ratio was low.

A school bus had picked Irit up each morning at 8:00 A.M. and dropped her off at 3:00 P.M. Mrs. Carmeli taught mornings only and was always home to receive her daughter. Younger brother Oded was enrolled at the school that employed his mother and attended classes til four. Before the murder, he'd been taken home by car pool or a consulate employee. Since the murder, Mr. or Mrs. Carmeli picked him up.

Irit's academic records were skimpy. No grades, no quantitative testing, an assessment by her teacher, Kathy Brennan, that she was “making excellent strides.”

Brennan had been interviewed by Gorobich's partner, Detective Harold Ramos.

“Witness stated she feels “all torn up' and “guilty' about what had happened to V. even though she'd gone over the events of the day over and over and hadn't found anything she could have done differently except watch V. every second of the day, which would have been impossible because there were forty-two children at the park including some who needed extra-special care (wheelchairs pushed on the paths, etc.). Ms. Brennan also stated that going to the park was a regular thing for the school, they'd been doing it for years, it was always considered a safe place where “kids can just run around for a while and be kids, without being watched every second.' As to whether or not she'd seen anything suspicious, witness stated she hadn't, even though she'd been “racking her brain.' Witness then stated that deceased was a “really nice kid, so sweet, no problems ever. Why do the nice ones always have to suffer!' Immediately following this Ms. Brennan broke down and was tearful. When asked if she was aware of other nice ones suffering, she stated, “No, no. You know what I mean. All the kids are nice, they all have problems. It's just not fair that someone would do this to a child!' ”

Next came face-to-face meetings with every teacher and aide present at the field trip, as well as the teachers who'd remained at school; the principal, a Dr. Rothstein; the bus driver, Alonzo Burns; and several of Irit's classmates. No transcripts of the talks with the children were included. Instead, Gorobich and Ramos offered forty-two nearly identical summaries:

“Witness Salazar, Rudy, nine y.o., blind, interviewed in presence of parents, denies any knowledge.”,

“Witness Blackwell, Amanda, six y.o., braces on feet, not retarded, interviewed in presence of mother, denies any knowledge.”

“Witness Shoup, Todd, eleven y.o., retarded, in wheelchair, interviewed in presence of mother, denies any knowledge…”

End of that folder.

A thicker one contained interviews with every employee of the park and the results of a door-to-door canvass of the surrounding neighborhood. Twenty-eight employees, nearly one hundred neighbors. Gorobich and Ramos had “telephonically” recontacted every one of them two weeks later, with the same results: No one had seen or heard anything or anyone unusual in or around the park.

I reread the coroner's files, wincing at the term “gentle strangulation” before moving on to a beefy computer printout, the cover stamped with the seal of the state Department of Justice in Sacramento, Violent Crime Information Network.

Five separate lists of names followed, each tabbed, labeled with an acronym, and subheaded CATCHMENT AREA. For all five sections, the park's zip code and three adjoining codes were typed on a dotted line:

1. SAR (Sex Registration)

2. SHOP (Sexual Habitual Offenders)

3. ACAS (Child Abuse Reports)

4. ISU (M.O.'s related to violent crimes)

5. SRF (Persons on probation/parole from CDC/CYA)

Five databases filled with names and information on sex offenders. I counted 283 names, some overlaps circled in red. Ninety-seven offenders, including four of the overlaps, had been rearrested and were in custody. Two turquoise circles identified a pair of child murderers out on parole, one living three miles from the park, the other in Bell Gardens.

Gorobich and Ramos had interviewed both killers immediately and verified strong alibis for the day of the murder. The detectives then enlisted the help of three other investigators, two civilian clerks, and three volunteer police scouts to locate the 186 criminals still out there, though none of the names on the DOJ lists matched any of the park workers, neighbors, teachers, the principal, or the bus driver.

Thirty-one men were missing in violation of parole and warrants were issued for their rearrest. A handwritten note reported eleven already apprehended. The others were contacted and presented alibis of varying strength. A note by Ramos indicated no strong suspects because “No M.O. matches to this homicide were found among any of these individuals and given the lack of assault and other sexual patterning, it is still not clear that this was a sexual homicide.”

I read the M.O. file carefully.

With the exception of a few exhibitionists, the child molesters had all played with, bruised, penetrated, or somehow made physical contact with their victims and the vast majority had been previously acquainted with their victims: daughters, sons, nieces, nephews, grandkids, stepkids, the children of girlfriends, drinking buddies, neighbors.

Both of the alibied murderers had killed children known to them: One had beaten a girlfriend's two-year-old daughter to death with his fists. The other, a woman, had intentionally scalded her own son in the bathtub.

Nearly two hundred predators, roaming free in this relatively small area…

Why only four zip codes?

Because the detectives couldn't be everywhere and you had to draw the line somewhere.

Would doubling, tripling, quadrupling the area have accomplished much?

L.A. was a country-sized sprawl, ruled by the car. Give a stalker some gas money and coffee and he could go anywhere.

Hop on the freeway, weave nightmares, be back in bed in time for the evening news. Munching chips and masturbating, eyes glued to the headlines, hoping for fame.

Aimless driving was one characteristic of sexual sadists.

But Irit hadn't been tortured.

Still, maybe we did have a traveler. Someone who liked the backroads. Maybe this killer was up in Alaska by now, fishing salmon, or strolling the boardwalk in Atlantic City, or in New Orleans, hunkered down in a French Quarter club eating gumbo.

Watching…

For all their numerical precision, the printouts seemed primitive. I put them down and picked up the next file, thin and black.

Still thinking of two hundred predators in four zip codes. What kind of society let people who raped and beat children back out on the streets?

It's been a long time, Alex.

Inside the black file were aerial photographs of the murder scene- fluffy, green-black patches of treetop, as distant and artificial as an architect's design sketch.

Tan laces at the upper periphery- the roads. Capillaries feeding mountains, gullies, the city sprawl beyond.

Facing the photos was a crisp white letter on FBI stationery. DEAR DETECTIVE GOROBICH correspondence from FBI Special Agent Gail Gorman of the bureau's Behavioral Sciences Regional Unit in San Diego.

Gorman acknowledged receipt of the aerial shots, the crime-scene data, and the completed questionnaire, but regretted that insufficient information existed for a definitive profile of the killer. However, she was willing to guess that he was most likely male, white, over thirty, of average to above-average intelligence, nonpsychotic, probably compulsive and perfectionistic, presenting a neat, clean, unremarkable appearance, probably employed at the present, though possibly with an inconsistent or checkered job history.

With regard to the crime being “sexual in nature,” she repeated the disclaimer of insufficient data and went on to say that “despite the obvious organization of the crime, the lack of sadistic or vicious elements mitigate against a sexual homicide, as does the absence of obvious or covert sexual activity at the scene. However, should future homicides bearing precisely these signature elements show themselves, we would be interested in hearing about them.”

The letter ended by suggesting that “victim characteristics should be explored further: age, ethnicity, specific disabilities. While this homicide might very well turn out to have been committed by an opportunistic or premeditated stranger, the possibility that the victim knew the perpetrator cannot be ruled out and, in fact, should be looked into, though, once again, this is only a suggestion, not a conclusion. Factors mitigating against victim-perpetrator acquaintance include leaving the body faceup in a location where it would eventually be found. Factors mitigating for acquaintance include the use of diffuse-force (“gentle') strangulation and other evidence of care and time taken to avoid brutalization and degradation of the body.”

Average to above-average. Organized, compulsive, perfectionistic.

That meshed with my first impression.

A planner- someone who took pride in setting things up and watching the elements fall into place.

Taking his time- spiriting Irit a mile from the bus so he'd have time.

It implied a certain relaxation- self-confidence? Arrogance?

Someone who believed he was clever.

Because he'd gotten away with it before?

No M.O. match existed in any of the state files.

Had he evaded detection by concealing other bodies?

Going public, now?

More confident?

I let my mind dance around the data.

Someone who craved control because he'd been controlled as a child, perhaps brutally?

Maybe he was still under someone's thumb. A worker bee or submissive spouse?

Faking self-confidence?

Needing release.

Employed, possibly a checkered history…

Agent Gorman using sound psychological logic, because psychopaths' achievements nearly always lagged behind their own inflated self-images.

Leading to dissonance. Tension.

The need for release: the ultimate control.

I thought of a killer I'd met in graduate school. A strangler, as it happened, locked in a back ward of County General Hospital, waiting for the court system to evaluate his sanity. A professor who earned extra money as an expert witness had taken us to the killer's cell.

A gaunt, almost skeletal man in his thirties, with sunken cheeks and wispy black hair, the strangler lay on a cot, restrained by wide leather straps.

One of my classmates asked him what it felt like to kill. The gaunt man ignored the question at first, then a slow smile spread across his lips and they darkened, like paper held to a flame. His victim had been a prostitute whom he hadn't wanted to pay. He'd never known her name.

What it feels like? he finally said, in a disturbingly pleasant voice. It feels like nothing, it's no big fucking deal, you stupid asshole. It's not actually doing it, anyway, it's being able to do it, asshole.

The power…

Opportunistic or premeditated.

Had Irit's killer known about the annual field trip in advance or was he just aware that the park was frequented by schoolkids?

Were the Carmelis right about Irit's victimization being one of those wrong-time/wrong-place horrors of chance that give atheists fuel?

Predator leering as the school bus unloads.

Feeling sweet contentment the way a fox might as it views chicklets hatching.

Every parent's nightmare.

Picking a weak one out of the herd- but why Irit?

Special Agent Gorman had suggested the girl's disabilities, but Irit's problems weren't obvious to the casual observer. On the contrary, she'd been an attractive child. No shortage of other kids with more conspicuous handicaps.

Was that the cue? The fact that she looked normal?

Then I remembered the hearing aid on the ground.

Despite all the care taken to arrange the body.

Not an accident. The more I thought about it, the more certain I became.

Leaving the pink disc behind- a message?

Communicating what?

I grabbed up the M.O. file again, looked for crimes committed against deaf people. Nothing.

Had the hearing aid told him Irit was the easiest target of all- less likely to be aware as he came up behind her, less likely to scream?

She wasn't mute, but maybe he'd assumed she was.

Gentle strangulation.

The phrase disgusted me…

Care and time taken to avoid degradation of the body… No sex at the scene but perhaps he'd gone elsewhere to get off, masturbating to memories, as sex killers usually do.

But sex killers often used trophies to trigger memories: clothing, jewelry. Body parts; the breasts were a favorite.

Irit's body had been left pristine, nothing taken. Posed- almost primly. Expressly unsexual.

As if the killer wanted the world to know she hadn't been touched.

That he was different?

Or maybe he had taken something- something unobtrusive, undetectable- a few strands of hair.

Or had the souvenirs been the images themselves?

Photos, snapped at the scene and pocketed for later.

I pictured him, faceless, standing over her, tumescent with power, arranging- posing, snap, snap.

Creating a tableau, a hideous art form.

Polaroids. Or a private darkroom where he could modulate optical nuance.

A self-styled artiste?

Taking Irit far enough from the path so no one would hear the click, see the flash.

Cleaning up… obsessive but not psychotic.

You have many madmen in America!

I reread S.A. Gorman's letter, everything else in the box.

For all the hundreds of pages, something was missing.

The Carmelis' friends and neighbors hadn't been interviewed. Neither had Mrs. Carmeli, and her husband had been contacted only twice, both times briefly.

Respect for the grieving or soft-glove treatment for a diplomat?

Now, months later, a dead end.

My head hurt and my lungs burned. I'd been at it for nearly three hours.

As I got up to make coffee, the phone rang.

The operator at my service said, “A Ms. Dahl is on the line, Doctor.”

“I'll take it, thanks.”

“Dr. Delaware? It's Helena. I just got my on-call schedule for the week so I thought I'd try for an appointment. Do you have anything in two days? Maybe around ten in the morning?”

I checked. Several court reports were due. “How about eleven?”

“Eleven would be fine. Thank you.”

“How's everything going, Helena?”

“Oh… about as well as can be expected… I guess I'm going through a point where I really miss him- more than I did… right after. Anyway, thanks for seeing me. Bye.”

“Bye.”

I wrote down the appointment. So much for clinical predictions.

What was the chance I could do better for a dead girl?