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  “Bad luck for that little girl,” he said. “Okay, so it’s your basic senseless crime. I was hoping for something a little more . . . psychologically illuminating. But no beef, you were up-front about no promises. Forget the b.s. about cutting your fee. When the government wants to give you money, take it . . . there’s nothing at all you can give me about disposition?”

  “What will happen if you certify them as adults?”

  “Initially, they’ll get long sentences and go off to Quentin or a place like it. If I juvey them, they’re off to the California Youth Authority, which, nowadays, isn’t all that different from grown-up prison except the inmates are shorter. The longest they could be C.Y.A. wards would be till age twenty-five.”

  “Meaning they’d be released at the peak of criminal drive.”

  “You bet,” he said. “In big-boy lockup, they’d be vulnerable to the Black Guerrilla Army and Nuestra Familia, probably run for cover to the Aryan Brotherhood. So we’d be creating a couple of little Nazis. But most of the C.Y.A. facilities are gang-ridden, too.”

  “Why’d you say they’d have long sentences ‘initially’?”

  “Because if I adult-certify, there’s a good chance some higher court will lower their sentences and have them switched to lower-security facilities. Meaning they could end up with less time than a C.Y.A. placement. I’ve got the victim’s family to think about. Like you said, the best we can hope for is approximating justice, and Lord knows we’ll never get closure— whatever the hell that means. But there’s got to be something that does the least harm.”

  “I haven’t seen the family in the media.”

  “They’ve kept a low profile, but the father’s called the D.A. a few times, demanding justice. No one can give him what he really wants— his kid back. And two other kids have ruined their own lives. It’s a rotten situation for all concerned.”

  “Beyond rotten.”

  “Alex, they’re so damned young. What the hell turned them so bad?”

  “Wish I could tell you,” I said. “The precursors are all there— bad environment, maybe bad biology. But most kids exposed to the same things don’t murder toddlers.”

  “No, they don’t,” he said. “Okay, send me whatever you feel comfortable putting down on paper. I’ll start your reimbursement voucher churning through the system.”

  CHAPTER 10

  In the end, resolution came the way it usually does once cases fade from public scrutiny: the product of backroom negotiation and the search for the least of all evils.

  Five months after their arrests, in what the papers termed “a surprise move,” both boys pled guilty and were sentenced to the California Youth Authority until they were twenty-five or until it could be proven they’d been successfully rehabilitated.

  No trial, no media hoopla. No need for me to appear as an expert witness and my check from the court arrived in a timely fashion.

  I talked to no one but Milo about it, pretended I was sleeping well.

  * * *

  Troy Turner was sent to the N.A. Chaderjian camp in Stockton and Rand Duchay ended up at the Herman G. Stark Youth Correctional Facility in Chino. The C.Y.A. promised to provide counseling for both boys and special education for Rand.

  The day the deal was announced, Kristal Malley’s parents were caught by a TV crew exiting the courtroom and asked for their opinion of the deal.

  Lara Malley, a small, wan brunette, was sobbing. Her husband, Barnett, a tall, raw-boned man around thirty, glared and said, “No comment.”

  The camera closed in on his face because anger’s more fun for the camera than despair. He had thin, sandy hair, long sideburns, sharp features, and prominent bones. Dry-eyed; the unmoving eyes of a sniper.

  “In your opinion, sir,” the reporter pressed, “do the ages of the defendants make this an appropriate solution for closure?”

  Barnett Malley’s jaw flexed and he jerked his hand upward and the soundman picked up scuffling noises. The reporter retreated; Malley didn’t move. The camera zoomed on his fist, frozen midair.

  Lara Malley whimpered. Barnett stared into the camera for another second, grasped his wife by the arm, propelled her out of range.

  * * *

  Tom Laskin called me six weeks later. It was just after noon and I’d finished a session with an eight-year-old boy who’d burned his face playing with swimming pool chemicals. His parents had sued and a quack “environmental medicine” specialist had testified that the child would get cancer when he grew up. The boy had overheard and become traumatized and it was my job to deprogram him.

  “Hi, Tom.”

  “Could we meet, Alex?”

  “About what?”

  “I’d rather talk in person. I’ll come to your office.”

  “Sure, when?”

  “I’ll be finished in an hour. Where are you located?”

  * * *

  He arrived at my house, wearing a camel jacket, brown slacks, a white shirt, and a red tie. The tie was limp and pulled down from an open collar.

  We’d talked over the phone but had never met. I’d seen his picture in newspaper accounts of the Malley case— mid-fifties, gray hair trimmed in an executive cut, square face, steel-rimmed eyeglasses, a prosecutor’s wary eyes— and had formed the image of a big, imposing man.

  He turned out to be short— five-six or -seven— heavier and softer and older than pictured, the hair white, the jowls giving way to gravity. His jacket was well-cut but tired. His shoes needed a polish and the bags under his eyes were bluish.

  “Pretty place,” he said, sitting on the edge of the living room chair that I offered. “Must be nice working out of your house.”

  “It has its advantages. Something to drink?”

  He considered the offer. “Why not? Beer, if you’ve got it.”

  I went to the kitchen and fetched a couple of Grolsches. When I returned his posture hadn’t relaxed. His hands were clenched and he looked like someone forced to seek therapy.

  I popped the caps on the beers and handed him a bottle. He took it but didn’t drink.

  “Troy Turner’s dead,” he said.

  “Oh, no.”

  “It happened two weeks ago, C.Y.A. never thought to call me. I found out from Social Services because they were looking for his mother. He was found hanging from a punching bag stand in a supply room off the gym. He was supposed to be putting equipment away— that was the job they gave him. He’d been judged too dangerous to work in the kitchen or in the vegetable garden with tools.”

  “Suicide?”

  “That’s what they thought till they saw blood pooled on the floor and swung him around and found his throat cut.”

  I’ve always been too good at conjuring mental pictures. The brutality of the scene— small, pale body dangling in a dark, heartless place— would visit my dreams.

  “Do they know who did it?” I said.

  “They’re figuring it for a gang thing,” said Laskin. “He’d been there, what, a month? Tried right away to hook up with the Dirty White Boys— an Aryan-B farm club. He was still in the initiation stage and part of the deal was jumping a Latino boy. He pulled that off ten days ago, surprised one of the smaller Vatos Locos in the shower, hit him upside the head with a heavy hairbrush and kicked the kid when he was down. The boy suffered a concussion and bruised ribs and ended up being transferred to another facility. Troy’s punishment was solitary confinement for a week. He’d been back in his bunk-room for three days. The day before he died, they put him back on gym closet duty.”

  “So everyone knew where he’d be at a specific time.”

  Laskin nodded. “The blood was still wet and the weapon was left at the scene— homemade shank fashioned from a toothbrush and a piece of butter knife honed to a razor-sharp edge. Whoever did it took time to wipe up his footprints.”

  “Who found the body?”

  “A counselor.” He finished his beer and put the bottle down.

  “Want another?”

  �
�Yes, but no.” He uncrossed his legs, held out a hand as if asking for something. “I thought I was being compassionate by sending him to Chaderjian. Downright Solomonic.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “You agreed with the decision?”

  “Given the choices,” I said, “I thought it was the best decision.”

  “You never said anything.”

  “You never asked.”

  “The Malleys weren’t happy with the decision. Mister called to tell me.”

  “What did he prefer?”

  “The death penalty.” His smile was queasy. “Looks like he got it.”

  I said, “Would sending Troy to adult prison have made him safer?”

  He picked up the empty bottle and rolled it between his palms. “Probably not, but it still stinks.”

  “Has his mother been located?”

  “Finally. The county just authorized her for methadone and they found her at an outpatient clinic, waiting in line for her dose. The warden at Chaderjian said she visited Troy once the whole month and that was for ten minutes.”

  He shook his head. “Little bastard never had a chance.”

  “Neither did Kristal Malley.”

  He stared at me. “That rolled off your tongue pretty easily. You that tough?”

  “I’m not tough at all. I worked the cancer wards at Western Peds for years and stopped trying to figure things out.”

  “You’re a nihilist?”

  “I’m an optimist who keeps my goals narrow.”

  “I’m usually pretty good at coping with all the crap I see,” he said. “But something about this one . . . maybe it’s time to retire.”

  “You did your best.”

  “Thanks for saying so. I don’t know why I’m bothering you.”

  “It’s no bother.”

  Neither of us talked for a while, then he steered the conversation to his two kids in college, looked at his watch, thanked me again, and left.

  A few weeks later I read about a retirement party thrown for him at the Biltmore, downtown. “Child Murder Trial Judge” was his new title and I guessed that would stick.

  Nice party, from the sound of it. Judges and D.A.s and P.D.s and court workers lauding him for twenty-five years’ good service. He planned to spend the next few years sailing and playing golf.

  Troy Turner’s murder stayed with me and I wondered how Rand Duchay was faring. I phoned the C.Y.A. camp in Chino, wrestled with the bureaucracy for a while before reaching a bored-sounding head counselor named DiPodesta.

  “So?” he said, when I told him about the killing.

  “It might put Duchay at risk.”

  “I’ll make a note of that.”

  I asked to talk to Rand.

  “Personal phone calls are limited to blood relatives and people on the approved list.”

  “How do I get on the list?”

  “Apply.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Fill out forms.”

  “Could you please send them to me?”

  He took my name and address but the application never arrived. I considered pursuing it, rationalized not doing so: I lacked the time— and the desire— for long-term commitment, so what use could I be to Rand?

  For the next few weeks, I scanned the papers for bad news about him. When nothing appeared I convinced myself he was where he should be.

  Counseled and tutored and taken care of for the next twelve years.

  Now, he was out in eight.

  Wanted to talk to me.

  I supposed I was ready to listen.

  CHAPTER 11

  I left the house and set out for Westwood.

  The restaurant was called Newark Pizza. A sign underneath the tricolor boot promised Authentic New Jersey Pasta and Sicilian Delicacies Too!

  Lights on behind pink-and-white-checked drapes, the faint outlines of patrons.

  No one waiting outside.

  I walked in, got a headful of garlic and overripe cheese. Bad murals covered the sidewalls— walleyed grape pickers bringing in the Chianti crop under a bilious sun. Five round tables rested on a red linoleum floor, covered in the same checked gingham as the curtains. The rear wall was a takeout counter backed by a brick pizza oven that gave off yeasty fumes.

  Two Hispanic men in stained white aprons worked the dinner crowd, which was three parties. The cooks had Aztec faces and took their work seriously.

  The customers were a Japanese couple sharing a petite pepperoni pie, a young bespectacled couple trying to control a pair of wild-eyed, tomato-sauced preschoolers, and three black guys in their twenties wearing Fila sweats and enjoying salad and lasagna.

  One of the countermen said, “Help you?”

  “I’m waiting for someone. Young guy, around twenty?”

  He shrugged and flipped a limp white disk of dough, sprinkled it with flour, repeated the move.

  I said, “Has anyone like that been around?”

  Sprinkle. Flip. “No, amigo.”

  I left and waited out in front. The restaurant was on a quiet block, sandwiched between a photocopy service and a one-story office building. Both dark for the weekend. The sky was black and, two blocks up, traffic on Pico was anemic. L.A.’s never really been a nightlife city, and this part of Westwood hibernated when the mall wasn’t bustling.

  The mall.

  Eight years after he had brutalized Kristal Malley, Rand wanted to talk about the crime, two blocks from a mall.

  I’m a good person.

  If it was absolution he was after, I wasn’t a priest.

  Maybe the distinction between therapy and confession was petty. Maybe he knew the difference. Maybe he just wanted to talk. Like the judge who’d sent him away.

  I wondered how Tom Laskin was doing. Wondered about all of them.

  I stood there, careful to stay in the reflected glare of the boot sign, watching for the man Randolph Duchay had become.

  He’d been a big kid, so he was probably a large man. Unless eight years of institutional food and God knew what other indignities had stunted his growth.

  I thought of the way he’d struggled to make out the word “pizza.”

  The word was two feet of tricolor neon.

  Five minutes passed. Ten, fifteen.

  I took a stroll up the block, watching my back for no reason except that a murderer might be looking for me.

  What did he want?

  Returning to Newark Pizza, I cracked the door, in case I’d missed him. I hadn’t. This time the black guys checked me out and the cook I’d talked to got an unpleasant look on his face.

  I went back outside, positioned myself ten feet up from the restaurant, waited five minutes more.

  Nothing. I drove home.

  * * *

  My message machine was blank. I wondered if I should call Milo and ask him to check the specifics of Rand Duchay’s release. Solicit a detective’s guess as to what Rand had wanted and why he hadn’t shown.

  A quarter century of homicide work had implanted a doomsday chip in Milo’s brain, and I had a pretty good idea of how he’d respond.

  Once a scumbag, always a scumbag, Alex. Why mess with it?

  I made myself a tuna sandwich and drank some decaf, set the house alarm, and settled on my office couch with two months’ worth of psych journals. Somewhere out in the darkness a coyote ululated— a warbling, shrieking a cappella solo, part scavenger’s protest, part predator’s triumph.

  The Glen’s teeming with the creatures. They dine on the haute garbage that fills Westside trash cans, and some are as sleek and fearless as house pets.

  I used to have a little French bulldog and worried about letting him out in the yard alone. Now he was living in Seattle and life was simpler.

  I cleared my throat. The sound echoed; the house was full of echoes.

  The howl-sonata repeated itself. Enlarged to a duet, then grew to a coyote chorus.

  A pack of them, exulting in the kill.

  Food-chain violence
. That made sense and I found the noise comforting.

  * * *

  I read until two a.m., fell asleep on the couch, managed to drag myself to bed at three. By seven I was up, awake without being rested. The last thing I wanted to do was run. I dressed for it anyway, was heading for the door when Allison called from Greenwich.