Jonathan Kellerman - Victims

“Would it have helped?”

Dead air. “Your loyalty in the face of our bureaucratic ineptitude is laudable, Doc. So you concur that broadcasting this lunatic’s face is a good idea?”

“I think if we keep the information tight it’s got potential.”

“What does tight mean?”

“Limit it to the artist rendering and the question marks and don’t let on that anyone could theoretically be a victim.”

“Yeah, that would set off some skivvy-soiling panic, wouldn’t it? Speaking of those question marks, what the hell do they mean? The FBI guy said he’d never seen that before. Checked his files and there was nothing. Only similar gutting was Jack the Ripper and there were enough differences between our boy and Jack to make that avenue a dead end.”

“Don’t know.”

“Don’t know what?”

“What the question marks mean.”

“So much for higher education… what do you think about releasing details on the coat? Could jog some citizen’s memory.”

“It might also cause the bad guy to ditch the coat and you’d lose potential evidence.”

Silence. “Yeah, there could be spatter on the fucking thing, gut juice, whatever. Okay, keep it tight. But you could still be screwed-I’m talking to you, Sturgis. He sees himself on the six o’clock, he rabbits.”

“There’s always that chance, sir.”

Another silence, longer.

The chief said, “Doctor, what’s your take on another victim coming up sooner rather than later?”

“Hard to say.”

“That all you do? Sidestep questions?”

“That’s a poser, Chief.”

“Shrink humor,” he said. “I wouldn’t count on getting a sitcom anytime in the near future. You still awake, Sturgis?”

“Wide awake.”

“Stay that way.”

“God forbid I should sleep, sir.”

“More to the point,” said the chief. “I forbid.”

Alex Shimoff delivered his rendering to Milo’s office the following afternoon.

“Don’t tell anyone who did this,” he said. “This is garbage.”

The last time he’d sat down to draw for Milo, Shimoff had produced a stunningly accurate re-creation of a girl whose face had been blown off. What he presented this time was an ambiguous pale disk filled with bland, male features.

Color it yellow you’d have Mr. Happy Face’s noncommittal brother.

And yet, it twanged a memory synapse deep in my brain.

Had I seen him before? Mental scouring produced nothing.

Milo told Shimoff, “Thanks, kid.”

“Don’t thank me for doing crap, El Tee. That Wheeling lady couldn’t come up with anything useful. I hate the computer Identi-Kit but after she gave me nothing I tried it. She said it confused her more, too many choices. She couldn’t even respond to my questions. Wider, longer, rounder, nothing. She claimed she barely saw the guy.”

“Did she seem scared?” I said.

“Maybe,” said Shimoff. “Or she’s just stupid and can’t process visually.”

Milo studied the likeness. “It’s better than what we had before.”

Shimoff looked ready to vomit. “It’s any pie-faced white guy.”

“Hey, kiddo, maybe this is what he actually looks like. Like that cartoon, the kid brings in a stick figure drawing of his family, on parent-teacher day stick figures show up?”

Shimoff wasn’t amused.

I tried again to figure out why the crude drawing gnawed at me.

Blank mental screen.

Shimoff said, “At art school I could get away sometimes with jokes. Real life? It sucks to turn out garbage. Top of that, I still have to take my wife shopping tonight.”

Clenching his fists, he left.

Milo murmured, “Creative types,” and took the photo to the big detective room where he told Moe Reed to scan and email it to Maria Thomas.

That evening at six the rendering was featured on the news, along with a sketchy tale of a Westside home invader who broke his victims’ necks and left behind a? calling card. Ambiguity made the story more frightening and the phones began ringing seconds after the ensuing commercial.

By six fifteen, Milo had commandeered Moe Reed and Sean Binchy to help work the lines. He moved out of his office and took a desk in the big D-room left unoccupied by a daywatch detective on sick leave. Manipulating three separate lines himself, pushing buttons like a concertina player, he kept the conversations brief, took a few notes, the most frequent notation being “B.S.” followed by “schizo,”

“ESP,” and “prank.” Reed’s dominant notation was “neg.,” Binchy’s, “t.n.g.” When Sean saw me trying to figure that out, he cupped his hand over the receiver, smiled, and said, “Totally no good.”

I heard Reed say, “Yes, I understand, ma’am, but you live in Bakersfield, there’s no reason to be worried.”

Binchy: “Absolutely, sir. There’s no indication he has anything against Samoans.”

Milo: “I know about the Chance cards in Monopoly. No, there wasn’t one.”

Slipping out of the room, I drove home thinking about victims.

Robin said, “No blanket? Doesn’t take much to set this maniac off.”

We sat near the pond, tossing pellets at the fish, Blanche wedged between us, snoring lightly. I’d finished a couple ounces of Chivas, was nursing the ice. Robin hadn’t made much headway with a glass of Riesling. The night smelled of ozone and jasmine. The sky was charcoal felt stretched tight. A few stars peeked through like ice-pick wounds.

She said, “She kicks him out of the clinic and he comes back to get her months later?”

I said, “Maybe he took his time because planning was part of the fun. For all I know, he set up the confrontation.”

“To give himself an excuse?”

“Even psychopaths need to self-justify and I don’t think his real motive is avenging insult. It’s got to be rooted in fantasies he’s had since childhood but he frames his victims as bad people so he can feel righteous. Glenda Usfel maintained control by being the alpha female only this time it backfired. The same probably went for Berlin. Spreading bad cheer was her hobby but she tried it with the wrong guy. What doesn’t fit is brutalizing Marlon Quigg, who’s described by everyone as the mildest man on the planet.”

“Maybe he wasn’t always that way.”

“Reformed crank?”

“People can change.” She smiled. “Someone once told me that. What did Quigg do for a living?”

“Accountant.”

“Not an IRS auditor by any chance?”

“Not even close, just a cog in a big firm, sat at his desk and number-crunched for a big grocery chain.”

“Someone didn’t like the tomatoes, they wouldn’t take it out on him. Did he have any outside interests?”

“No one’s mentioned any. Family man, walked his dog, led a quiet life. Before that he taught disabled kids. We’re talking a softie, Rob. Totally different from the other two victims.”

“Interesting switch,” she said.

“What is?”

“Trading a job where you’re constantly dealing with people for one where you stare at ledgers all day.”

“His wife said the money wasn’t there so he took the CPA exam.”

“I’m sure that’s it.”

“You have your doubts?”

“It just seems like a radical shift, Alex, but money is important.”

I thought about that. “Something happened when Quigg was teaching that pushed him in a totally different direction?”

“You just said the killer’s motive goes back to childhood. ‘Disabled kids’ covers a lot of territory.”

“A student with serious psychiatric issues,” I said. “Revenge on the teacher? Oh, man.”

She said, “What if Quigg left teaching because he encountered a student who scared him out of the profession? I know it’s far-fetched but you just said this guy loves the thrill of the hunt. What if now that he’s an adult, he’s decided to revisit old enemies?”