Time Bomb

18

Burden was back in his office, sitting at one of the computer workstations. I wheeled one of the secretary chairs into the center of the room and sat down. He touch-typed rapidly for a few moments before looking up, dry-eyed.

“So. What’s the next step, Doctor?”

“Holly didn’t seem to have many interests.”

He smiled. “Ah, the room. You’re thinking I isolated her. For some ulterior motive.”

Exactly what I’d been thinking, but I said, “No. Just trying to get a picture of the way she lived.”

“The way she lived. Well, it wasn’t like that, believe me. Though I can understand your thinking it was. I’ve done my reading on child psychology. So I know all the theories of child abuse. Isolating the designated victim in order to maximize control. But that had nothing to do with us. Not even remotely. That’s not to say we’re… we were social butterflies. As a family or individually. Our pleasures have always been solitary. Reading, good music. Holly loved music. I always encouraged discussions of current events, various cultural debates. Howard, my firstborn, took to that. Holly didn’t. But I always tried to provide the same sorts of things other children seemed to like. Toys, games, books. Holly never showed any interest in any of it. She hated to read. Most of the time the toys stayed in the box.”

“What did she do for fun?”

“Fun.” He drew out the word as if it were foreign. “Fun. For fun, she talked to herself, created fantasies. And she was inventive, I’ll grant her that. Could take a piece of string or a rock or a spoon from the kitchen and use it as a prop. She had a terrific imagination- genetic, no doubt. I’m highly imaginative. However, I’ve learned to channel it. Productively.”

“She didn’t?”

“She simply fantasized, went no further with it.”

“What were her fantasies about?”

“I have no idea. She was a demon for privacy, liked to close her door tight even when she was very young. Just sit on the floor or on her bed, talk and mumble. If I prodded her to get fresh air, she’d go out into the backyard and settle down on the grass, and start in doing exactly the same thing.”

I said, “When she was younger, did she rock back and forth or try to hurt herself?”

He smiled like a well-prepared student. “No, Doctor. She wasn’t autistic- not remotely. If you talked to her she’d respond- if she felt like it. There was no echolalic speech, nothing psychotic. She was just very self-sufficient. From an amusement standpoint. She made her own fun.”

I watched the constantly blinking phones and self-shifting computer images. His fun.

“And she never kept any sort of diary?”

“No. She hated paper- threw everything out. Hated clutter, was a bug on neatness. Probably another example of genetics. I plead guilty to that kind of precision.”

He smiled, not looking guilty at all.

I said, “I saw only two games in her closet. What happened to all the toys and the books?”

“When she was thirteen she did a massive housecleaning, took everything out of her room except for her radio and her clothing, and piled it up in the hall- very neatly. When I asked her what she was doing, she insisted I get rid of it. So, of course, I did. Gave it to Goodwill. There was no arguing with Holly when she made her mind up.”

“She didn’t want anything to replace what she’d gotten rid of?”

“Not a thing. She was quite happy with nothing.”

“Nothing but Chutes and Ladders and Candy Land.”

“Yes. Those.” A split-second flinch. I snared it as if it were a moth.

“How old was she when she got those two games?”

“Five. They were bought for her fifth birthday by her mother.”

He flinched again, forced a smile. “You see, we’ve got an insight already. What do you make of it? An attempt on her part to cling to the past?”

His tone was clinical, detached- the classic intellectualizer. Trying to turn the interview into a chat between colleagues.

I said, “I’m not much for interpretation. Let’s talk about her relationship with her mother.”

“A Freudian approach?”

Trying to keep any edge out of my voice, I said, “A thorough one, Mr. Burden.”

He didn’t say anything. Turning slightly, he tapped his fingers on the keyboard. I waited, watched the letters and numbers on the monitor do their freeway crawl.

“So,” he finally said, “I guess this is what people in your field would call active listening? A strategic silence. Holding back to get the patient to open up?” He smiled. “I read about that too.”

I spoke with deliberate patience. “Mr. Burden, if this is uncomfortable for you, we don’t have to continue.”

“I want to continue!” He sat up sharply, without grace, and his glasses slid down his nose. By the time he’d righted them he was smiling again. “You’ll have to excuse my… I suppose you’d term it resistance. This whole thing has been… very difficult.”

“Of course it has. That’s why there’s no reason to cover everything at once. I can come back another time.”

“No, no, there’ll be no better time.” He looked away from me, touched the keyboard again. “Can I offer you something? Juice? Tea?”

“Nothing, thanks. If the things I’ve brought up are too hard for you to discuss right now, perhaps there’s some topic you’d like to get into?”

“No, no, let’s stay on track. Bite the bullet. Her mother. My wife. Elizabeth Wyman Burden. B. 1930, D. 1974.” He tilted his head back, gazed at the ceiling. “An exceptional woman. Deductive and intuitive and extremely talented- musically talented. She was very adept at the viola da gamba. Howard played the modern viola, seemed quite promising but dropped it. I helped Elizabeth develop her abilities. She complemented me beautifully.”

He twisted his mouth, as if searching for the right expression, settled on regret. “Holly was nothing like her, really. Nothing like me either, really. Both of us, Betty and myself, are- were- highly intelligent. That’s not a boast, simply a descriptive statement. As a couple, we were intellectually oriented. As is Howard. I saw early that he had a gift for mathematics and tutored him intensively- not remedial tutoring; he was always an excellent student. Supplementary tutoring, so that he wouldn’t sink to the level of the public school system- be dragged down to the lowest common denominator.”

“The school wasn’t meeting his needs?”

“Not by a long shot. I’m sure your experience has shown you the entire system’s oriented toward mediocrity. Howard thrived on what I gave him, stayed on the math track. He’s a graduate actuary, passed all ten exams the first time, which is almost unheard of. Youngest man in the state to do so. You should speak to him about Holly, get his point of view. Here, I’ll give you his number. He lives out in the Valley.”

He turned back toward his desk, took a small piece of paper out of a drawer, and scrawled on it.

I put it away.

He said, “Howard’s exceptionally bright.”

“But Holly wasn’t much of a student?”

He shook his head. “When she got C-minuses it was because of teacher charity.”

“What was the problem?”

He hesitated. “I could spin you some yarn about poor motivation, being bored in class, never finding her niche. But the truth is she simply wasn’t very intelligent. An IQ of eighty-seven. Not retarded, but the low end of the normal range.

“When did you have her tested?”

“At age seven. I did it myself.”

“You tested her?”

“That’s correct.”

“Using what test?” I said, expecting some sort of quick-and-easy questionnaire lifted from a self-help book.

“The Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children. It’s the test of choice, isn’t it? The most extensively validated?”

“The Wechsler’s an excellent test, Mr. Burden, but it requires quite a bit of training in order to administer and score it properly.”

“Not to worry,” he said, with sudden cheer. “I trained myself. Read the manual carefully and boned up on a number of related articles in psychology journals. Then I practiced on Howard- he took to it like a duck to water. Scored one forty-nine, top tenth of a percent, I believe.”

“The Wechsler’s not supposed to be sold to laymen. How’d you get hold of it?”

Sly smile. “Not thinking of filing a complaint, are you, Doctor?”

I crossed my legs casually, returned the smile, and shook my head. “You must be pretty resourceful.”

“Actually,” he said, “it was painfully simple. I filled out an order blank at the back of one of the psychology journals, sent in my money, put a Ph.D. after my name, enclosed a card from my business at the time-‘Demographics, Incorporated. Applied Social Research.’ It must have sounded sufficiently psychological to the company, because a week later the test came, parcel post.”

Flaunting his duplicity. But then, why would someone who made his living hawking Tibetan Harmony Bells and personal power pills shy away from a bit of self-serving subterfuge?

“I did a fine job of testing,” he said. “More thorough than any school psychologist would have been. And I took the trouble to retest her twice. At ages nine and eleven. The results were almost identical- eighty-seven and eighty-five. No outstanding deficits or marked strengths, no imbalance between Verbal and Performance scores. Just a general dullness. My theory is that she experienced some sort of intrauterine trauma that affected her central nervous system. Perhaps due to her mother’s advanced age- Betty was thirty-nine when she conceived. In any event, there had to be some kind of brain damage, didn’t there? It might have been worse but for our unique situation.”

“What do you mean?”

“Given average heredity, she might very well have turned out truly retarded. With Betty and me as parents, she was given a genetic boost into the Dull Normal range.”

I said, “Do you have her testing profile?”

“No. I threw it all out years ago. What would have been the point?”

“Did you ever consult a specialist about her learning problems?”

“In the beginning I gave the school a chance to come up with something- saw the usual assortment of civil service flunkies. Counselors, special education teachers, whatnot. Holly didn’t fit into any of their classification groups- too smart for Educable Mentally Retarded, too dull for a normal classroom, no discipline or management problems that would have qualified her for Educationally Handicapped. They had conferences- those types love to have conferences. Sat there and talked down to me with their jargon-thought they could hide behind jargon because I didn’t have a degree after my name.”

“Would there be any records of those conferences?”

“No. I demanded they destroy them. I’m in the information business. I know how records can come back to haunt. They tried to protest- some stupid regulation- but I prevailed. Sheer force of personality. They were such a weak-willed bunch, so dull themselves. Endless talk, no action. I realized early on that I was on my own; any meaningful remediation would have to take place at home. So I washed my hands of them. It’s the same way I feel about that policeman Frisk. That’s why I took the initiative to call you. I know you’re different.”

The second negative reference he’d made to the school. I said, “Did you discuss your feelings about the school with Holly?”

He gave me a long stare. Searching. Illuminated by unwelcome insight.

“Doctor, are you trying to say I planted hatred in her mind?”

“I’m trying to get a picture of how she felt about the school.”

“She hated it. She must have. It represented failure to her. All those years of incompetence and insensitivity. How else could she have felt? But she wasn’t about to kill anyone because of that.”

He gave a derisive laugh.

I said, “What kinds of remedial things did you do?”

“Gave her my personal attention- when she’d accept it. Sat down with her every evening after dinner and walked her through her homework. Tried to get her to concentrate, tried to bribe her- what you’d call operant conditioning. That didn’t work, because she really didn’t want anything. Eventually I did get her reading skills and math levels to a point where she could function in the real world- simple instructions and computations, road signs. She wasn’t interested in- or capable of- any higher abstractions.”

“How was her attention span?”

“Just fine for things she was interested in- cleaning and straightening, listening to pop music on her radio and dancing to it when she thought no one was looking. Nonexistent for things she didn’t care about. But isn’t that true of anyone?”

“Dancing,” I said, trying to picture it. “So her physical coordination was okay?”

“Adequate. Which is all anyone needs for the dances they do today.” He flapped his arms and made a grotesque face. “Betty and I used to dance seriously. Long-forgotten baroque and classical terpsichore- gavottes, minuets. Steps that really required virtuosity. We were quite a pair.”

Drifting back, inevitably, to self-congratulation. Feeling as if I needed a thick rope to tug things back to Holly, I said, “Did you ever consider medication- Ritalin or something similar?”

“Not after I read up on the effects of long-term amphetamine usage. Stunted growth. Anorexia. Possible brain damage. The last thing Holly needed was more brain damage. Besides, she wasn’t hyperactive- more on the lethargic side, actually. Preferred to sleep late, loll in bed. I’m an early riser.”

“Did she have periods of emotional depression?”

He dismissed that with a wave. “Her mood was fine. She just lacked energy. At first I thought it might be nutritional- something to do with blood sugar or her thyroid. But all her blood tests were normal.”

Blood tests. Half-expecting him to answer that he’d punctured her vein himself, I said, “Did your family doctor have any suggestions when he gave you the results?”

“Never had a family doctor. Never needed one. I took both of them, Howard and Holly, to the Public Health Service for their blood work. For their immunizations too. Told the civil servants there that I suspected some kind of contagious infection. It’s their responsibility to check that kind of thing, so they were forced to do it. I figured I might as well get something back for my tax dollars.”

Genuine glee at dissembling. How much of what he told me about anything could be believed?

“Who managed their childhood diseases? Where did you take them when they had fevers and needed antibiotics?”

“They were very healthy children, rarely ran high fevers. The few times they did, I brought it down with aspirin, fluids- exactly what a doctor would tell me to do. The couple of times they needed penicillin, they got it from the Health Service. Measles passed them by. Chicken pox and mumps I managed according to the books- genuine medical books. The Physician’s Desk Reference. I can read instructions as well as any doctor.”

“Self-sufficiency,” I said.

“Exactly. In some quarters, that’s still considered worth-while.”

Trumpeting his achievements had made his Mr. Peepers persona fade completely. He looked belligerent, flushed, somehow bigger, huskier. A bantam cock swelling as he scanned the barnyard for rivals.

Changing the subject, I said, “There’s quite an age difference between Holly and Howard.”

“Eleven years. And yes, she was an unplanned child. But not an unwanted one. When Betty learned she was pregnant, she was surprised but happy. And that’s saying a lot, because she wasn’t a healthy woman- bleeding ulcers, irritable bowel syndrome. I don’t know if you’re familiar with that, but she suffered from problem flatulence, very bad chronic pain. Nevertheless, she carried on like a trooper, nursed Holly for eleven months- exactly the time we’d allotted to Howard. She was an excellent mother, very patient.”

“How was Holly affected by her death?”

“Quite severely, I’d assume.”

“Assume?”

“Assume. With Holly there was no way of knowing how she really felt about anything, because she didn’t talk, didn’t express herself very well.”

“Did she attend the funeral?”

“Yes, she did. I had one of the mortuary attendants watch over her in a room off the chapel during the service and when we went out to the grave. Afterwards I sat down with her and explained what had happened. She stared at me, didn’t say anything, cried just a bit, and then walked away. Out to the lawn. To sit. Spin her fantasies. I let her do it for a while, then took her home. A couple of times I heard her crying at night, but when I went in she stopped and rolled away and refused to discuss it with me.”

“How did you explain to her what had happened?”

“I told her her mother had been very sick. She knew that- she’d seen Betty take to bed. I said she’d gone into the hospital to be treated for her stomachaches but that the doctors had been stupid and made mistakes and they’d killed her with their stupidity and we’d have to go on without her and be strong. That we were still a family and would carry on as a family.”

“Your wife’s death was due to medical malpractice?”

He looked at me as if I were in the “dull normal” range. “The woman had a nonfatal condition, Doctor. She bled to death on the operating table, in the presence of a full surgical team.”

“Did you pursue it legally?”

He gave a sharp, mocking laugh. “I talked to a couple of attorneys, but they wouldn’t take the case. Supposedly it wasn’t cut and dried enough, given her prior medical history. The truth was, they had more than their share of whiplashes. They didn’t want to bet their contingency fees on something that required some real research. I suppose I could have found some ambulance chaser to take it on, but at the time I had other things on my mind. Two children to raise, a business to run- I was doing all direct-mailing back then, still building up my lists. Much more labor-intensive than it is today. So I needed all my energy for that.”

“It must have been a difficult time for you.

“Not really. I attacked it systematically, kept everything organized. Howard stayed on the straight-A track.” He stopped. “Still, I suppose the way Holly turned out was partly my fault.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I have an impressive array of intellectual skills and talents but I wasn’t successful in communicating them to her- in getting her going on some sort of goal-oriented program. She persistently shut me out and I allowed it, because I didn’t want to be cruel. So perhaps I was too kind.” He shrugged. “Of course hindsight is always twenty-twenty, isn’t it?”

Luxuriating in bogus confession.

Despite my aversion to snap diagnoses, a diagnostic label kept creeping into my mind:

Narcissistic personality disorder. Pathological egotism.

It fit. Even with the way he’d chosen to make a living. Beauty and Balance. Access and Excel. The catalogue was a paean to narcissism. I was willing to bet he’d put his brainchild ahead of his children. Put himself ahead of everyone and everything.

I tried to imagine what it would have been like to be one of his children, and my sympathy for Holly climbed another rung.

“So,” he said, “we seem to be doing well. What else can I help you with, Doctor?”

“How did Howard and Holly get along?”

“Very well- no fights.”

“Did they have much to do with each other?”

“Not much. Howard was busy with his activities- studies, extracurricular clubs- and Holly stayed in her room. That’s not to say he didn’t love her- he was always concerned about her, if a bit baffled.”

“How’s he holding up?”

“Like a trooper.”

“Is he married?”

“Of course. Has a big house in Encino, south of the boulevard. One lovely daughter, sharp as a tack. They’re all holding up like troopers. Go visit them, see for yourself. You really should, now that I think about it. Do speak with Howard.”

Sounding urgent.

Go talk to my intelligent child. The one that came out good.

I said, “What about friends?”

“Holly? No, she didn’t have any. When she was very young I remember a few neighborhood children coming over. They made noise and bothered my work and I had to shoo them outside. But eventually that stopped. Holly wasn’t much for group play.”

“When did it stop?”

He thought about that. “What you want me to say is that everything changed after her mother died, right? But in terms of the friend situation, I’m afraid I can’t be that definite. In fact I’m almost certain she lacked playmates well before Betty’s death. She wasn’t much of a playmate herself, liked to go off on her own and leave her little guests in the lurch.”

“What about when she got older? Did she make any school chums?”

“None. She didn’t like anything related to school, wanted to drop out when she was fifteen, nagged me to allow her to take the equivalency test. I knew she’d fail it and refused to let her, but she kept on me- she could be quite stubborn when she set her mind on something. Finally, when she was sixteen, I agreed. She took it. And failed.”

“Did that bother her?”

“Not really. Neither of us was surprised. I made her stick it out at Pali until she graduated- at least get the paper. Not that she’d earned it, but the ninnies just kept passing her through. Typical civil service approach- take the path of least resistance.”

“What did she do after graduation?”

“Stayed home. Listened to her radio- the pop music, and talk shows. She could play it twenty-four hours a day. I assigned her household chores: straightening, cleaning, doing simple paperwork. She enjoyed doing things for me.”

Free live-in help. Convenient. Some men’s idea of a wife. “Did she make any recent acquaintances? Since graduation?”

“How could she? She never went anywhere.”

I said, “I’ve been told she was friendly with a delivery boy from Dinwiddie’s Market. Isaac Novato.”

His jaw set and he moved forward on his chair. “Where did you hear about this supposed friendship?”

“I was told he was someone she knew, they were seen talking.”

“Talking. Well, that’s possible. The boy delivered groceries to our home. Every week. Holly let him in and gave him his tip, so I suppose they might have talked as part of the transaction. What else did you hear?”

“That’s about it.”

“Is it? Well, I doubt they were actually friends. Not that it would bother me if they had been. No doubt you know he’s black. Unlike others in this neighborhood- in this country- I consider race irrelevant. I judge a person by his accomplishments, not the concentration of melanin in his skin.”

Given that credo, I wondered how he’d judged his daughter.

He said, “You seem skeptical.”

“Not at all.”

“Novato was treated decently in this house. Feel free to ask him.”

“That’s not possible,” I said. “He’s dead.”

“Dead?” The shock froze his face, thawing gradually but not completely, leaving him with a distant look in his eyes. First reaction I’d seen out of him that I was certain was spontaneous.

“When did he die?”

“Last September.”

“September. Come to think of it, I don’t recall seeing him for a while.”

“Did Holly show any signs of being upset around that time?”

“Upset? No, not that I noticed. How did he die?”

“He was murdered.”

“Oh, my. By whom?”

“It’s unsolved. The police think it was some sort of drug deal gone bad.”

“The police… Do they think there’s some connection to Holly?”

“No. It just came up when they traced her former acquaintances.”

“Acquaintances,” he said. “One thing I can guarantee you is that Holly had nothing to do with drugs.”

“I’m sure she didn’t.”

“She had nothing to do with shooting at children, either.” Pause. “But what if she got… caught up in something? If Novato got her into something.”

“Such as?”

“Some kind of corruption.”

He closed his eyes. A long silence passed and his face lost expression; taking his self-absorption under wraps. One of the laser printers spewed paper. Some of it fell to the floor. He ignored it, finally opened his eyes.

“Anything else?” he said, still sounding preoccupied.

“The police said it was your rifle she took to the school. Did she know how to shoot?”

“Not at all. She hated weapons. My firearms collection was the one part of the house she refused to clean. So that whole theory is nonsense.”

“She was found with the rifle.”

“That doesn’t make her a murderer. She could have been lured there, convinced to take the Remington with her.”

A flight of wishful thinking rapid enough to make my nose bleed. I said, “Lured how?”

“I don’t know. Yet. But this Novato situation gives me something to chew on. Perhaps one of his gang friends had something to do with it.”

“There’s no evidence he was involved with gangs.”

“In this city, drugs mean gangs.”

Another long silence.

I said, “When did yon notice the rifle was missing?”

“I didn’t, but that means nothing. I rarely looked at the collection- I’d lost interest in it.”

“Where do you keep the collection?”

He got up and took me back out into the hall. The door next to Holly’s room opened to a deep cedar closet lined with gun racks on three walls. The racks were empty. The floor had been vacuumed. The space smelled of machine oil and tarnish.

“The police took all of it,” he said. “Every piece. For analysis. I’m supposed to get it back soon. But you can bet it will take plenty of wrestling with red tape.”

I counted eight slots on each of the three racks. “Nice size collection.”

“All long guns. Antiques, for the most part. Flintlocks. Black powder. In nonfunctional condition. I bought the lot as an investment when I was being discharged from the service. An old army acquaintance needed quick cash. They’ve performed quite nicely as investments, though I never bothered to sell because, frankly, I don’t need the money.”

Thinking of Holly’s poor marksmanship, I said, “What about the Remington?”

“What about it?”

“Was it a collector’s item too?”

“No, just a run-of-the-mill Remington. Legal and registered.”

“For hunting?”

He shook his head. “Used to hunt but haven’t since I was a boy. I was an excellent shot- won marksman’s ribbons in the army- but I had no reason to pursue it any further. The rifle was for personal protection.”

I said, “Did you have some brush with crime that led you to arm yourself?”

That amused him. “No, this was an ounce of prevention. Where I grew up- rural Wisconsin- guns are a part of any household, just like salt and meat and butter. No doubt you advocate gun control.”

“Why do you say that?”

“Being liberal- most mental health people are liberal, aren’t they? Stubborn believers in the basic goodness of humanity. In any event, I’m not apologetic about keeping arms, and the suggestion that somehow I’m to blame for what happened is absurd. Besides, Holly never shot at anyone- never would, never could. She didn’t know how to handle firearms. That’s why none of what they’re saying makes sense. Unless she was corrupted.”

“The night before the shooting,” I said, “did you hear her leave the house?”

“No,” he said. “I go to bed early. I’m an extremely sound sleeper.”

“Does the house have an alarm system?”

“Yes,” he said. “Though you’ll notice there’s no console pad in the entry hall. My system’s a good deal more subtle.”

“Did Holly know how to operate it?”

“Of course. She wasn’t imprisoned.”

“And she switched it off before she left?”

“The alarm never went off, so obviously she did. But she switched it on again- it was set when I woke up. I had no idea she’d left.”

“Was that typical of her when she left at night?”

“Leaving at night wasn’t typical.”

“Mr. Burden, Holly was seen taking walks around the neighborhood at night.”

More genuine surprise. “Well… she may have stepped out from time to time- to chase away a cat, or take some air. But by and large she stayed in her room. She had everything she needed right here.”

His stare was fierce. He looked at his watch. “I suppose that’s it for today.”

A statement, not a question.

I said, “Sure.”

He walked me to the door.

“So,” he said, “How’re we doing? What do you think?”

“We’re doing fine.”

He took hold of my sleeve. “She was an innocent, believe me. A naïf. IQ of eighty-seven. You, more than anyone, know what that means. She lacked the intellectual capacity to plot. And violence wasn’t in her nature- I didn’t raise her that way. She’d have no reason to shoot anyone. Certainly not children.”

“Would she have reason to shoot a politician?”

He shook his head, exasperated. “I can’t help but feel, Doctor, that you’re still not grasping who she was, the way she lived. She never read the papers, never cared a whit about politics or current affairs or the outside world. She slept late, listened to her radio, did her dances, cleaned the house. Scrubbed it until it sparkled. At the proper time, she prepared simple meals for both of us- cold food. I did all the cooking when cooking was called for. She liked her routine. She found comfort in it.”

He removed his glasses, held them up to the entry light and peered through them.

“It won’t be the same without her. I’ll be doing those things for myself now.”

During the time I’d spent there, the sun had set and I walked out into darkness. It enhanced the feeling of having been away for a long time. Having been on another planet.

An unsettling man. The portrait he’d painted of his daughter was bleak. But instructive.

Living in a cell.

Talking to herself.

Scrubbing everything spotless.

Not autistic, but aspects of her behavior had an autistic flavor: self-absorption to an extent that implied mental disorder.

Creating her own world. Like father, like daughter.

But he’d willed his isolation. Channeled it lucratively. The New Age Entrepreneur.

Had she encased herself in a bubble only to be trapped within? A victim of genetic insult? Environmental accident? Some incalculable combination of both?

Or had she taken on her father’s life-style of her own free will?

Had she been capable of free will?

She enjoyed doing things for me.

Had the purveyor of gadgets manufactured himself a house-cleaning robot- efficient, mechanical, like some high-priced toy out of his catalogue? Adapted her inadequacies and pathology to his needs?

I’ve done my reading on child psychology… know all the theories of child abuse… She wasn’t imprisoned…

A little too quick on the draw?

Or was I just letting clinical guesswork get the better of me because he wasn’t a likable man?

I reminded myself he was a victim, wanted to feel more sympathy, not the resentment that had grown within me during my incarceration in that cold, empty house.

I realized I was thinking of him, instead of Holly. Taken in by his narcissism.

I forced myself back to the main subject.

Whatever her motivations, an image of Holly Lynn Burden had emerged from the murky ground of the interview.

Early childhood loss.

Repressed anger.

Mental confusion.

Low intelligence.

Low achievement.

Low self-esteem.

Social isolation.

A young woman with no external life and a flood of unknown fantasies swimming through her head.

Dark fantasies?

Stir in a parental attitude that disparaged authority. Disparaged all schools, and one school in particular.

Add a sprinkling of new friendship, snipped cruelly by violence. Buried rage that buds anew. And grows.

Night walks.

Guns in a closet.

Mahlon Burden couldn’t have come up with a better profile of a mass murderer had I dictated it to him.

A profile of a time bomb, ticking away.