Jonathan Kellerman - Time Bomb

When I stopped laughing. I said, “Crisis intervention. You’ve got the knack, Doctor.”

“Right. All the time I was stroking the moron’s ego, what I really wanted to do was give him a good kick in the pants.”

“Any word from Frisk on when the kids will be allowed back in the yard?”

“They’re allowed as of this morning. When he said there was nothing to worry about security-wise, I asked him about releasing the yard. He said, ‘Oh, yeah, sure, go ahead.’ He’d clearly forgotten about it- no big deal to him that we’ve had to keep two hundred kids cooped up. We are not talking paragon of sensitivity.”

I said, “Did he have anything more to say about the shooting?”

“Not a blessed thing. And I asked.”

“Did you tell him about Ferguson knowing the Burden girl?”

She nodded. “He said to have her phone him- that same bored tone. Doing me a great big favor. Old Esme called in sick, so I phoned her at home and delivered the message. While I had her on the line I asked her what she remembered about the girl. Didn’t turn out to be much: Holly was a loner, not very bright, tended to space out in class, had trouble learning. But she did have one nugget of gossip- the girl had a black boyfriend. Old Esme lowered her voice when she delivered that. As if I cared. As if it really mattered, now. She also said the father’s got a reputation for being a little strange. Works out of his house, some kind of inventor- no one’s really sure how he supports himself. Incidentally, I did paw through our old records and found nothing on her. Apparently all the records that old were brought downtown. I called downtown and they informed me a manual search was being made of her transcripts; anything to do with her was classified information, orders of the police.”

“A boyfriend,” I said.

“You think that’s significant?”

“Not that he was black. But if the relationship was relatively recent, he might be able to tell us something about Holly’s state of mind. Did Ferguson say anything else about him besides that he was black?”

“Just that. Capital B. When I didn’t comment on it, Esme started making flu noises and I hung up.”

“Somehow I sense she’s not your favorite person.”

“I’m sure it’s mutual. She’s a grind, biding her time until pension. I wouldn’t count on getting any insight from her on the Burden girl or anything else.”

I said, “Speaking of insight, has Ahlward or anyone else from Latch’s office called yet?”

“About what?”

“Vis-à-vis informational flow,” I said in a puffed-up voice. “We good folks were supposed to get anything we wanted as soon as the police gave the old green light, right?”

“Promises, promises.”

“Not that it matters, at this point. In fact it’s better he’s stayed away. The kids don’t need any more political involvement.”

“Neither do the adults,” she said.

The noon bell rang outside in the hallway, loud enough to vibrate the office walls. I got up. “Time to heal young minds.”

She walked me to the door. “In terms of reaching the parents, I don’t know if Friday gives us enough time. How about Monday?”

“Monday would be fine,” I said.

“Okay. We’ll keep calling. I want you to know I really appreciate all you’re doing.”

She looked beaten.

I felt like putting my arms around her. Instead I smiled and said, “Onward. Non illegitimati carborundum.”

“Ah, on top of everything else, the man’s a Latin scholar. Sorry, Prof. I took Spanish.”

I said, “Inscription on ancient Roman tomb: Don’t let the bastards wear you down.”

She threw back her head and laughed. I kept the sound in my head as I went to class.

The children greeted me with eagerness, talking freely. I had the younger ones build replicas of the storage shed with blocks, manipulate figurines representing Holly Burden, Ahlward, the teachers, themselves. Acting out the shooting, over and over, until boredom set in and visible anxiety diminished. The older students wanted to know what had caused Holly Burden to go bad, caused her to hate them. I assured them she hadn’t targeted them, had been deranged, out of control. Regretted having little with which to back that up.

A sixth-grader said, “What made her crazy?”

“No one knows.”

“I thought that was your job, knowing what makes people crazy.”

I said, “ Trying to know. There’s still a lot we don’t understand about craziness.”

“I got an aunt who’s crazy,” said a girl.

“She got it from you,” said the boy next to her.

And they were off…

I walked out of the last classroom sapped but feeling a sense of accomplishment, wanted to share that feeling with Linda and brighten up her day. But her office was locked and I left the school.

As I got in the Seville I noticed a car turn a corner and approach. Slowly. Silver-gray Honda. Dirty. Black windows.

It pulled up alongside me, stopped.

I power-locked the Seville. The Honda remained in place, engine idling, then suddenly drove off.

I snapped my head around and made out four digits and three letters of a license number. Held the information in my head until I could retrieve pen and paper from my briefcase and write it down. Then I sat there trying to figure it out.

Some kind of intimidation?

Or just a curious local, checking out the carpetbaggers?

I thought of the racist filth Linda had shown me and wondered if there could be a connection.

I looked over at the school grounds, graying in the autumn twilight. A handful of students remained in the yard, waiting to be picked up, playing under the watchful eyes of a teacher’s aide. The school buses were gone, transporting kids from suburbia back to the mean streets- but which streets were meaner?

I watched the children frolic. Enjoying their newly paroled schoolyard.

Hide and seek.

Kickball. Hopscotch.

Losing themselves in the game of the moment.

So trusting it hurt.

I looked up and down the street before pulling out. Drove home too fast and kept checking my rearview mirror.

The first thing I did when I got in the house was pick up the phone and dial West L.A. Robbery-Homicide.

This time, the new D-Three was in.

“Hey, Alex. Got your message, tried to call. Kind of crazy right now-”

“Strange things are happening, Milo. Let’s talk.”

“Sure. Later,” he said, in a voice that let me know he wasn’t alone. “Let me handle a few things and I’ll get back to you on that.”

He rang the bell shortly before seven and, operating on reflex, went straight into the kitchen. I stayed on the leather sofa, watching the roundup of the news.

Nothing new on the shooting: just close-ups of Holly Burden’s yearbook picture, a School Board official reporting that a “detailed and extensive manual search of several years of school records” had confirmed her attendance and graduation from Nathan Hale Elementary School but revealed no new insights. Then more psychiatric speculation, including one theory that she’d returned to Hale to take revenge for some imagined slight. When asked to fill in the details, the psychiatrist demurred, saying he was speaking theoretically- in terms of “classical psychodynamic wisdom.” Dobbs came on again, in a segment that looked prerecorded. Caressing his watch fob, still talking about his treatment program at Hale, blasting “society.” I wondered how long he’d keep up the charade.

Milo returned with a comice pear in his mouth, one of a dozen sent me each year as a gift by a grateful patient now living in Oregon.