“I got the same impression.”
“Officer David Czernowitz,” she said. “But everyone’s called him ‘Witty’ since he was little.”
“Because… he’s not bright? Ouch.”
“Yeah, well… he never seemed too bothered by it. But like I said, he’s not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and I’m not sure he ever really got the joke. Even in high school, he was doing pretty much anything Jeb said. I have to admit though… he’s still awful cute. Had a thing for me for a while.”
She played with her necklace when she said it, and Bob had the feeling maybe the crush had run the other way. “So his partner Jeb is his buddy?”
“Sure. I mean, it always seemed a bit more abusive than that. Jeb saved him from some trouble once, when they were little. So David was always worried about hurting Jeb’s feelings, or offending Jeb. And Jeb wasn’t what you’d call kind to him.”
“Hmm,” Bob said.
“What?”
“Nothing. Well… not really, because I don’t know enough about them. But there’s a certain behavioral profile I learned about in the military, the low-empathy individual who befriends a slower-witted one to take advantage.”
“That’s about the case of it, I guess,” she said. “Witty’s just a little dumb. I mean, not so stupid as to not remember stuff. He can learn and such. He passed school and all, but he wasn't going on to educational greatness. He didn’t make good decisions, or know how to handle stuff. He was sort of dazed. Professionally, I’m never supposed to diagnose someone from afar, but if I was forced to, I’d say he has ADHD, maybe a bit of Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, from his momma’s drinking problem.”
“And he’s a cop?”
“There are people in every walk of life who deal with developmental disabilities, Bob, people who are otherwise gifted in all sorts of ways. So you really never can tell.”
“Hmph,” Bob grumbled.
“What? ”
“Well… you basically just repeated how a shrink in Vegas described me. He thinks I have ADHD and PTSD simultaneously. It shows up similar symptoms to what they used to call Aspergers and now call Autism Spectrum Disorder One. So it’s hard to tell them apart.”
“Wow. That's difficult,” she said.
Bob shrugged nonchalantly. “It seems it to you, I guess. It’s all normal to me. I mean, those are two of the symptoms, being hyper-focused and unemotional. But that can cause attachment issues, not to mention a little depression, too. I don’t really understand it, and I need to if I want to get the most out of my life. So I’m looking for a second opinion. That’s why I was going to Seattle, before Marcus was arrested.”
“It sounds complicated.”
“It is.”
Their food arrived and the waitress set it down and offered refills before departing.
Bob took a bite from his burger and chewed it quickly. “So assuming you’ve got the right guy, and this Michelsen guy is behind it, how do we prove it?” He frowned, thinking back to the arresting officer’s report. “Why that alley, for one?”
She stared at her omelet, picking at it with a fork but not eating. “I… couldn’t tell you. Dad and I… we didn’t talk much in… in the last year.” She pursed her lips tight, holding back tears, emotional weights crushing her. “I… Oh, God.” She had to stop talking. She grabbed the paper napkin from the table and covered her mouth for a moment, then dabbed at her eyes, clearing tears. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t…”
“Don’t apologize for crying. You’re not wrong. There’s nothing worse than losing someone you love.”
“Except maybe losing them when you’ve been fighting, and aren’t talking. I… I was so angry at him for placing first his career, then his business and then the HMO above his family, above retiring and being here for the rest of us. My mother died of cancer six years ago, and he wasn’t there for her enough when she was in treatment. She’d insist on taking care of things herself, anyway, but he didn’t have to use that as an excuse to throw himself into his business.”
“It felt like he was selfish,” Bob reasoned.
“I got angry. He didn’t pay much attention to me after about age twelve, or to my younger sister. I… I was such a bad daughter in the last year. I went to work for a competing HMO. I wanted to punish him, force him to care, even though I knew he loved me, that he was just distracted. But… even when I was a ‘rebellious’ teen, we still had good talks. He was a good dad. And now I’ll never get to talk to him again.”
The tears began to flow freely. Bob stayed respectfully silent. He didn’t want to think about how she was feeling, though. That would bring about his own memories, of losing Maggie, of the Sarge. Of the men he let down in Tehran, when Team Seven almost spun into oblivion. Of Sister Eva. Of Ellie Grainger’s husband, weeping softly at her pointless, meaningless death.
So instead, he tried not to think about anything.
He chewed on his burger, and Sharmila wept.
8OILDALE, CALIFORNIA
The man standing in front of the old wooden desk looked unwell. His light brown hair was long and greasy, his grubby string vest and black shorts stiffened by encrusted dirt. He was rail thin, bones jutting out over sallow cheeks, most of his teeth missing, the remainder shrinking from rot.
More than that, he looked ill at ease, shuffling his feet, holding his arms across himself defensively, not so much crossed as hugging himself like a shock victim.
His dark-brown dot pupils contemplated the two objects on the desk, flitting between them, ignoring the man sitting behind it. It was clear he was having difficulty deciding.
Behind the desk, Merry Michelsen shifted in his seat, a gold-painted Louis XVI knockoff wooden armchair, built for his larger frame, creaking under each shift of his four hundred pounds.
An array of gold chains and jewelry was half hidden under his open grey tracksuit top. He tossed his bleached-blonde hair a little as he studied the man.
It wasn’t like he had contempt for his customers; they were addicts, and they needed their medicine.
He just didn’t feel much about them at all.
Or anyone.
Instead, Merry had always enjoyed things. New things to play with, new things to do. Something new every day. Merry liked the visceral, anything that could make him feel immediate power or pleasure.
That’s why he liked the game he played with the junkies when they couldn’t pay up.
