Spectrum (The Karen Vail Series) (37 page)

She went to the door and knocked. A moment later, Russo was joining Vail in the observation room.

“I thought I was getting somewhere.”

I’ve gotta tell him something, but I can’t tell him that I don’t think Dmitri is the killer. It would piss him off big-time.

“There may be a reason why you’re having so much difficulty. Looks like Dmitri Harris has ASD.”

“ASD? What the heck is that? Some kind of venereal disease?”

“Autism spectrum disorder. He has to be questioned a certain way. Mind if I take a crack?”

Russo chortled. “Be my friggin’ guest.”

Proschetta entered and handed Vail the earbud.

“I’m on the line with a colleague who’s going to help talk me through the questioning.” She seated the device and then brushed her hair over the ear. “Say something, Wayne.”

“‘Something, Wayne.’”

“Very funny. Okay, we’re good. You have visual?”

“Just logged in,” he said. “Got it.”

She walked into the room and sat down opposite Dmitri. She waved Slater away with a nod, and a few seconds later the door clicked closed.

Rudnick:
“Okay, Karen, let’s start him off with a friendly chat. Anything you can say to calm him, make him feel comfortable?”

“Dmitri, I know you said you don’t remember when I visited with my son Jonathan back in 2006. You were really good. Jonathan didn’t stop talking about the tour of the crown you gave him. He said you were like a walking Internet. You knew everything.”

“You have to climb 354 stairs to reach the crown. There are twenty-five windows there and you can see the Lower Manhattan skyscrapers, Upper New York Bay, and the Hudson River. Just above you, the seven spikes on the crown represent the seven oceans and the seven continents of the world. It was designed that way to show the universal concept of liberty.”

“That’s what I mean,” Vail said with a smile. “You’re very good at your job. You know so much about the statue.”

Rudnick:
“Ask him about someone in his life who’s his anchor. I’m assuming that’s his mother?”

“You know, Dmitri, your mom’s very proud of you. She told us you went to Queens College and studied history.”

“History is interesting. So much to know.”

Vail noticed he was looking at her, making eye contact—but not really. His gaze moved from her forehead, to her hair, to her mouth.

“A lot to know, yeah. But there are other things you like too. Death is one thing you appear to be fascinated by. Why is that?”

“I like it.”

“Death? Why do you like it?”

Dmitri shrugged. “I need to read everything about it. I want to know why.”

“Why we die?”

Rudnick:
“Did he have a loved one die recently? Or when he was young?”

“Are you interested in death because of your father? Because your father died?”

Rubbing his arm: “Not my fault. Not my fault. Not my fault.”

“How come you say that, Dmitri? I noticed you like to say that a lot.”

“My dad didn’t die. He was killed. That’s what he said when he stopped breathing. To me and my mom and my sister. Not my fault. Not my fault. Not my fault.”

His errant gaze was driving her nuts:
Look at my eyes!
But he did not. He looked at her, even at her face, but not
at
her. Her nose, her chin, her shoulders. Rudnick had explained this, but it was still unnerving.

Vail nodded slowly. “I understand why you’re so fascinated with death.”

“I almost died too.”

“That’s right. I remember Detective Proschetta telling me about that. Would you like to talk to him?”

Dmitri drew back.

Rudnick:
“Don’t go there, Karen. Try something else. Ask him why he was crossing himself.”

“That’s okay, Dmitri. It can just be you and me. But tell me something. I noticed before that you were crossing yourself, when Lieutenant Russo was talking with you. Why were you doing that?”

He looked down at the table. “It’s what you’re supposed to do.”

“You mean when you go to church?”

“I go every Sunday with my mother. We went a lot in Astoria.” He crossed himself again. “The Lord be in thy heart and on thy lips, that worthily and becomingly thou mayest announce His Gospel: In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.”

Is the cross an X? Is that the X he’s been drawing?
Vail thought back to one of her earliest theories of why the offender drew an X on the victim. “Dmitri, is crossing yourself kind of like an X? Is that why you like Xs so much?”

“They represent Christ. Xs are good. Christ is good.”

Rudnick:
“I assume Xs have relevance to your case. I’m a little blind here, Karen. But ask him about the Xs. Be nonthreatening.”

“Why do the Xs represent Christ?”

“It’s the Greek letter Chi. It’s the first letter of the Greek word that means Christ. That’s why Christmas is abbreviated Xmas.”

Shit, I was right.

“You like to draw Xs, don’t you?”

Dmitri nodded.

“Where do you draw them?”

Dmitri looked around, at the ceiling, the walls. “In my room. On the wall, next to my bed.”

“Why?”

“It makes me feel good. Christ is good. He’s near my bed when I go to sleep.”

“Do you ever draw Xs on other things, other than your wall?”

“In my books, sometimes.”

“What about on people?”

“On people?” He thought about that. “You’re not supposed to draw on people.”

Shit, Russo, are you seeing this? This is not our killer.

Rudnick:
“I sense this is important to your case, that the UNSUB wrote on his victims. Try to go a little deeper.”

“We found Xs written in black marker on some women, on their necks.”

Dmitri tilted his head. “You’re not supposed to draw on people.”

Rudnick:
“Karen, a quick observation here. Dmitri’s got a flat tone of voice; he’s not using inflections—his voice doesn’t go up at the end of a question. It’s a mechanical speech lacking the typical rhythmic flow. When he’s not repeating back a script, he doesn’t use conjunctions, prepositions, or adjectives. For the most part his sentences are simple.”

Vail nodded, silently acknowledging Rudnick’s comment. “Dmitri. You got your degree in history. Did you learn about the Statue of Liberty in class?”

“The statue’s full name is Liberty Enlightening the World. It was a gift from France in 1886. But the statue’s head was finished first and got displayed at the World’s Fair in Paris eight years earlier.”

Rudnick:
“Educated guess here, but I bet he really cares for the statue.”

“Is that why you became a park ranger? So you could work on the statue? So you could look after her?”

“Yes.”

Again, the wandering gaze.

“And you grew up looking at Liberty every morning, every day. From your house, when you lived on Ellis Island.”
It had nothing to do with being close to his sanctuary. It had to do with feeling comforted by the statue.

“I want to stop the birds. They land on the crown. They shit on her. I don’t like it.”

“Let’s talk a little more about death. You had a lot of books in your room. On killers. How come?”

“I like to read about it. I want to know all about it. I don’t understand it.”

“Do you ever think of hurting someone? Of killing someone, like the books describe?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Killing is wrong. It’s bad. Christ says it’s bad. My mom says it’s bad. Fedor told me we shouldn’t hurt animals.”

“Fedor’s your mother’s friend, right? How do you feel about him?”

“Fedor is good to me. He helps me. He goes to church with us. He and my mom are married.”

Rudnick:
“Come back to the animals. We both know that’s significant in psychopathy. Put your mind at ease.”

“Dmitri, you mentioned that Fedor told you not to hurt animals. Did you ever hurt a squirrel on Ellis Island?”

“We shouldn’t hurt animals.”

“Did you ever kill one?”

“No. We shouldn’t hurt animals. Animals are good.”

Vail gave Dmitri a big smile and then rose from her chair. “Let’s take a break for a few minutes, okay? I’ll be right back.”

VAIL WALKED IN to find Russo red in the face—and it had nothing to do with the pepper spray.

“What the hell kind of interrogation was that? Please tell me I taught you better than that.”

Vail glanced at Proschetta, who was rubbing his forehead, avoiding her gaze. Jenkins had left the room. It was just the three of them.

“He’s not our killer, Russo.”

Russo laughed. “You mean because he told you so?”

Rudnick spoke in her ear: “Karen, I think this is where I sign off. You need me, call me back. I’ll be right here.”

“Thanks, Wayne.” She pulled out the ear bud and faced Russo. “My colleague at the BSU has studied this stuff for two decades. He knows his shit, which is why I called him.”

“And you’re telling me that with no knowledge of the facts of this case, never having touched one of these crime scenes, your
expert
knows this guy? After ten minutes he can determine, without a doubt, that he’s not the killer we’ve been after for nineteen
fucking
years?”

“That’s not what I’m saying. He told me that
before
I even went into the room, before he listened to a single thing Dmitri said.”

Russo looked at her, head tilted in incredulity. “Karen, what the hell’s gotten into you?”

“Dmitri’s got a disorder that renders him unable to commit premeditated, calculated violence.”

“Really. He did pretty well with that pepper spray. And from what you told me, he attacked you on the torch, nearly pushed you over the edge.”

“I think he was probably frustrated and angry. I don’t think he was trying to push me over. He probably just wanted to stop me from accusing him of killing his sister.”

Russo snorted. “Lots of ‘I thinks’ in there, not to mention a ‘probably.’ Doesn’t sound like you’re too sure of what’s going on.” He turned to Proschetta. “You’re awfully friggin’ quiet, Protch.”

“I know you want this collar,” Proschetta said. “And I want it for you too. But—”

“Ah, for chrissakes. You too? This is shrink mumbo jumbo. I mean, Karen—do you know everything there is to know, or do you still see new and different things you’ve never seen before?”

“Every time I think I’ve seen it all, something new rolls across my desk.”

Russo threw out his hands. “That’s what I’m saying.”

“But I know of no reputable research, no case studies, no cases where anyone on the spectrum has committed premeditated serial murder.”

“How accurate is that?” Proschetta asked. “Back when Dmitri was a kid, when he was kidnapped, nobody knew what post-traumatic stress disorder was. They thought he was acting strange because of who-knew-what happened to him when he was abducted. And I gotta tell you, I got him off that track a split second before that train was gonna flatten us. I had nightmares for years. I can’t imagine what the kid went through.
Goes
through.”

“PTSD presents very differently,” Vail said. “You know about the problems our vets have. Depression, suicidal thoughts, flashbacks, insom—”

“I did a tour in Vietnam,” Russo said. “I know what the symptoms are.”

“Then you know that a lot of PTSD symptoms resolve, given time. The likelihood of persisting PTSD, forty years later, is small.”

“‘Small’ is not the same as impossible.”

Vail took a breath. “In PTSD, things directly related to the trauma often trigger a reaction. He’d avoid those things—like visiting the place where it happened, going near train tracks, or confronting his abuser. ASD is a completely different syndrome. Dmitri’s affect, the way he talks, his lack of eye contact, his sentence construction, it all says ASD.”

Russo waved a hand.

“Tell me something,” Vail said. “When you were questioning him, did he make eye contact?”

“No, he looked everywhere
but
in my eyes. And that told me he was straight out lying. I don’t have to tell you that eye contact—”

“Is not an accurate cue for us when dealing with ASD. Kids with ASD often avoid eye contact, but in older people, it’s different. They have odd ways of looking at you. When you and I look at someone, we subconsciously scan the face, looking for cues about emotion. We look each other in the eye, but also at the corners of the eyes, the forehead, the mouth—we gauge its shape and movement. Are you frowning? Smiling?”

“I know this, Kar—”

“But people with ASD have problems detecting facial expressions and interpreting their meaning. When they scan the face, it’s not as focused, not as efficient. They look at the face, but also the hair, the shoulders, the neck. That’s what you picked up on. It seemed like avoidance, or deception, because you felt that he wasn’t looking at you right. You took it to mean that he was lying. But that’s not what was going on.”

Proschetta seemed to consider this, but said, “His mother didn’t say anything to me about autism or spectrum disorder.”

“It’s possible he’s never been diagnosed. He may just have been written off as ‘odd.’ Or given his history of trauma, and not knowing any better, maybe that’s what they attributed it to.”

Russo scoffed. “Come on. He’s worked as a ranger for what, twenty-five years? How could someone like that deal with people, coworkers, without them realizing something’s not right?”

“They
do
realize something’s not right, but they don’t know what
it
is. The Park Police officer who helped me get to the torch described Dmitri as odd, a loner. And that makes sense because people on the spectrum have social inadequacies. But to the untrained observer, these people are strange, or creepy, or eccentric, or just plain different. But high functioning people with ASD can go to college and do well. They can hold down important jobs—provided it fits their abilities and interests.”

“But that crossing shit,” Russo said. “If he did that in front of a bunch of tourists—”

“He’s doing that because he’s confused about what’s happening to him and he’s under duress. There’s no need to do that on the job. He follows his scripted delivery of facts and information about a topic he loves. He deeply cares for the statue.”