Time Bomb (25 page)

“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 intellec-tual 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.

19

I got home to a dark, empty house. Over the last few months—the post-Robin months—I’d worked hard at learning to consider that soothing. Worked hard under the tutelage of a kind, strong therapist named Ada Small. Ever the conscientious pupil, I’d applied myself, gaining an appreciation for the value of solitude—the healing and peace that could come from moderate doses of introspection. Not that long ago, Ada and I had agreed to cut the cord.

But this evening, solitude seemed too much like solitary confinement. I switched on plenty of lights, tuned the stereo to KKGO, and cranked up the volume even though the jazz that blared out was some new wave soprano-sax stuff in a bloodcurdling-scream-as-art-form mode. Any-thing but silence.

I kept thinking about my meeting with Burden. The shifting faces he’d shown during the course of the interview.

The shifting attitudes he’d displayed toward his daughter.

There’d been an introductory display of grief, but his tears had dried quickly in the sanctuary of his computer womb, only to be followed by a shallow lament:
I’ll be doing those things for myself now.

He might have been discussing the loss of a cleaning woman.

Once again I told myself not to judge. The man had been through hell. What could be worse than the death of a child? Add to that the way she’d died—the public shame and collective guilt that even someone like Milo was quick to assign—and who could blame him for retreating, gathering whatever psychological armaments he had at his command?