Jonathan Kellerman: Survival Of The Fittest

A depressed rhinoceros. He looked discouraged already.

How did that kind of pessimism square with his reputation?

Maybe it fit. The guy was a pro, he had to know the chance of learning the truth was slim.

Did that make him the sensible one?

The psychologist was a different story. Hyperalert, eyes everywhere.

Focused.

Quicker and smaller than the detective- five ten or so, which still put him three inches above the dark man. Restless, he moved with a certain grace. A cat.

He'd gotten out of the car before the detective turned the engine off.

Eager- achievement-oriented?

Unlike the detective, the psychologist appeared to take care of himself. Solidly built, curly dark hair, a little long but trimmed neatly. Clear, fair skin, square jaw. The eyes very pale, very wide.

Such active eyes.

If he was that way with patients how could he calm them down?

Maybe he didn't see many patients.

Fancied himself a detective.

With his blue sportcoat, white shirt, and pressed khaki pants, he looked like one of those professors trying to come across casual.

That type often faked casual, pretending everyone was equal, but maintaining a clear sense of rank and position.

The dark man wondered if the psychologist was like that.

As he drove toward Brentwood, he thought again of the man's rapid, forward walk.

Lots of energy, that one.

All this time and no one had even gotten close to figuring out what had happened to Irit.

But the psychologist had forged forward- maybe the guy was an optimist.

Or just an amateur, too ignorant to know better.

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.”,