Survival of the Fittest

by Jonathan Kellerman

  “Upon what you want?”

  “Upon how worthy I feel.” Sharavi unzipped the larger bag, drew out a folded square of white woolen cloth with black stripes.

  “See, nothing dangerous.”

  “Having God on your side can be dangerous,” said Milo. “Or thinking you do.”

  Sharavi's arched eyebrows rose higher. “Because I'm religious, I'm a dangerous fanatic?”

  “No, I'm just saying—”

  “I understand your resentment, we had a bad beginning. But why waste any more time on it? You want to solve these cases and so do I. In addition to the professional incentive, I want to return to Jerusalem, to my wife and children.”

  Milo didn't answer.

  “How many children do you have?” I said.

  “Three.” Sharavi returned the shawl to the bag. “I surveilled you because it was the only way to get information. Rude? Definitely. Unethical? I could debate that, but I'll say yes. But all in all, no big crime. Because an innocent child was murdered— three children, now. At the least. I'll live with my sins. And I suspect you would, too.”

  “Know me, do you?”

  Sharavi smiled. “Well, I have had a chance to learn about you.”

  Milo said, “Hah. Do they have stand-up comedy in Jerusalem?”

  “In Israel,” said Sharavi, “everyone's a prophet. It's the same thing.”

  He touched the prayer bag. “You're effective, Detective Sturgis, and effective people focus on what's important. That's not an attempt to kiss your rear, just fact. I'm going to get some coffee. Are you sure you don't want any?”

  “Positive.”

  He left us alone in the room.

  I looked at the computer manuals and Milo unzipped the second velvet bag. Black leather straps and boxes.

  “Phylacteries,” I said. “Inside are biblical—”

  “I know what they are,” he said. “Had a robbery case last year, punks broke into a synagogue not far from here. Vandalized, stole money from charity boxes, ripped Torah scrolls and these things, too. I remember the scene, wondering what all those belts were doing there. The old guy who took care of the place— the sexton— explained it to me. Then he broke down and cried. Said it reminded him of pogroms he'd seen as a kid in Europe.”

  “Catch them?”

  “No. There's also a guy— cop named Decker— in the West Valley who's a religious Jew, actually uses them, himself. I know because someone saw him at a police retreat, getting up early to pray, all wrapped up. His wife got him into religion or something like that. They call him the Rabbi. I helped him on a case couple of years ago— Israeli connections, as a matter of fact. Maybe I should give him a call, see if he knows Carmeli, or this joker.”

  “Another murder case?” I said.

  “Missing family case that turned into murder. I churned some paper for him, no big deal. He was decent, but I don't trust him.”

  “Why not?”

  “He got promoted to lieutenant.”

  I laughed.

  He opened the closet. No clothes on the rod. On the shelf above it were several small, crisp-looking brown cardboard boxes and three oblong black canvas cases.

  He hefted the first case, opened it, and slid out something black and metallic.

  “Uzi barrel, the rest is in here.” Sticking his hand into the case, he drew out submachine-gun components, inspected them, put them back. The other two cases contained a rifle with a telescopic sight and a double-barreled shotgun, both polished to a gleam.

  The crisp cardboard boxes— ten of them— held ammunition.

  “Ready for the battle,” said Milo. “He left us here to show us he's got nothing to hide, but that's bullshit, he's got to have handguns and other stuff he's not showing us.”

  Sharavi came back with a mug in his good hand.

  “Where's the nine-millimeter?” said Milo. “And whatever other small stuff you're hiding.”

  “I'm not hiding anything,” said Sharavi. “Everything in its proper place.”

  “Where?”

  “Where would you keep your small arms? In the kitchen and the bedroom. Go see for yourself.”

  “That's okay.” Milo sauntered to the closet. “Looks like you're ready for the big PLO assault. Sure you're not thinking of doing some hunting?”

  “No,” said Sharavi. “I don't hunt.” He smiled. “Though I've been known to fish.”

  “What else is in your arsenal?”

  “Meaning my grenades, rocket launcher, and nuclear bomb?”

  “No, your heavy stuff.”

  “Sorry to disappoint you,” said Sharavi. “This is it.” He sipped, lowered the cup. “Except for this.”

  Removing a black disc the size of an M & M from his pocket, he handed it to Milo, who turned it over.

  “This is what I attached to your couch and tables, Dr. Delaware.”

  “Never seen one this small,” said Milo. “Cute. Japanese?”

  “Israeli. The ones I installed at Dr. Delaware's are channeled to the phone on the left. The other phone's a conventional line and also connects to the fax. I taped your conversations, transcribed them, destroyed the tapes, gave the transcripts to Carmeli.”

  “Covering your trail?”

  “Obviously not well enough.” Sharavi shook his head. “Using the van twice in one day was stupid. Must be jet lag.”

  “How long have you been here?”

  “In L.A., five days. A month in New York.”

  “Security work.”

  “They called me over because of the Trade Center bombing verdicts. We knew there'd be a conviction, expected some sort of reprisals. I ended up watching some people in Brooklyn. People I knew from the West Bank.”

  “They do anything?”

  “Not yet. I educated our New York staff, was about to fly home, when Zev's call came.”

  “Do you know him from Israel?” I said.

  “I know his older brother. He's in the police. Deputy commander. The family's prominent.”

  “Superintendent,” said Milo. “What's the equivalent, here?”

  “Probably a captain, but there's no real equivalent. It's a small pond, we're all minnows.”

  “How humble.”

  “No,” said Sharavi. “Religious. It accomplishes the same thing.”

  “So Carmeli calls you and you can't go back— how old are your kids?”

  “My daughter's eighteen, just started the Army. I have two younger sons.” The golden eyes squeezed shut for a moment.

  “Family man,” said Milo.

  “Whatever that means.”

  “Maybe that gives you insights I don't have.”

  “Because you're gay? You don't believe that and neither do I. Policemen are like anyone else: a few genuine idiots at the bottom, equally few high achievers, the mediocre majority.”

  “You a high achiever?”

  “That's not for me to say.”

  “Any more ideas about this case?”

  “My instincts tell me the defective angle should be looked into, as well as the racial angle because all three victims were non-Anglo. But maybe that's because my case had racial aspects. I need to make sure my limited experience doesn't narrow my perspective.”

  “Maybe it's your destiny to deal with racist killers,” said Milo. “Your karma, or whatever equivalent you've got in your religion.”

  “Mazal,” said Sharavi. “Have you heard the expression mazal tov?”

  “This ain't Kansas, Superintendent.”

  Sharavi smiled. “How about Daniel?”

  “Okay. I know what mazal tov is, Daniel. Good luck.”

  “Yes, but mazal's not really luck,” said Sharavi. “It's fate— like karma. Rooted in astrology. A zodiac sign is a mazal. Yemenite Jews have a strong astrological tradition. Not that I believe in any of that. To me it boils down to hard work and what God wants you to do.”

  “God wants you on the case?”

  Sharavi shrugged. “I'm here.”

  “M
ust be nice to have faith,” said Milo.

  Sharavi wheeled the chair away from the desk, raised his arm, and let the bad hand flop on the headrest. “One way or the other I have to work the Carmeli case, Milo. Will you let me do it with you rather than at cross-purposes?”

  “Hey,” said Milo, “far be it from me to argue with God.”

  26

  Milo and I stayed at Sharavi's house until after three, wearily establishing a division of labor:

  Milo would drive to Newton Division, photograph Raymond Ortiz's shoes, and record the evidence in the growing case file. Then, back on the phone, to search for additional DVLL crimes.

  Sharavi would use his computers to scan every available data bank for the same.

  “Something else,” he said. “I could contact experts on crime against the handicapped. All over the world.”

  “Didn't know there were experts on that,” said Milo.

  “There may not be, but there are specialists in neo-Nazism, racism, that kind of thing.”

  “You think this is political?”

  “Not per se,” said Sharavi, “but the notion of eliminating the weak comes from somewhere. Maybe DVLL will crop up in racist literature.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “Striking at the handicapped could be the killer's own form of selective breeding— eugenics.”

  “Since the Berlin Wall came down, racist ideology has been circulating freely in Europe,” said Sharavi. “For obvious reasons, we monitor it, so I have my sources. If similar crimes have been recorded, if suspects have been arrested, it could give us some understanding into our killer's motives— at least the motives he honors himself with.”

  “Honors,” said Milo. “Yeah, because his main motive is sexual.” He took a sip of the coffee he'd finally accepted from Sharavi and the dark man nodded.

  “The asshole prides himself on mopping up the gene pool . . . sure, go ahead, check out all that stuff.”

  His tone was agreeable but bland. Maybe it was fatigue, maybe he was glad to keep the Israeli busy.

  “The gene pool,” I said. “Have either of you read The Brain Drain?”

  They both shook their heads.

  “Popular psychology, came out a few years ago. The basic premise was IQ means everything and stupid people— mostly dark-skinned people— are overbreeding, depleting our chromosomal resources. The book's answer was government control of fertility. The smart should be paid to procreate, those with low intelligence should be offered incentives to get sterilized. It was a minor best-seller, generated quite a bit of controversy.”

  “I remember it,” said Milo, “some professor. You ever read it?”

  “No,” I said. “But someone else might have.”

  “Our boy uses pop psych for justification?”

  “Everybody needs justification. Even sex crimes have a social context.”

  “That makes sense,” said Sharavi. “Sex killers often go for prostitutes because prostitutes are at the bottom of the ladder and easier to dehumanize, right? From what I've seen, every killer needs to dehumanize his victim in some way: assassins, soldiers, sadists.”

  “The social context,” said Milo. “He deals with his twisted little brain by convincing himself he's cleansing the world of defectives.”

  His chin was resting in one hand and he kept it there, looking down at the hardwood floor.

  “Death by Darwin,” he mumbled.

  “It would also fit with the notion of someone who thinks he's superior,” I said. “He's operating out of some eugenic fantasy, so he doesn't carry out a sexual assault. And takes care to arrange the body with what he considers respect.”

  “Only Irit's body,” he said. “Raymond was reduced to bloody shoes. I can buy the fact that the killer was just starting out, honing his craft. But what about Latvinia? She came after Irit and he strung her up, treated her rougher.”

  “I don't know,” I said. “Something's off— maybe he's just jumping around to avoid an obvious pattern.”

  No one talked for a while. Sharavi took a swallow from his third cup of coffee.

  “DVLL,” he said. “That's the pattern he feels safe sharing.”

  “Let's get back to the uniform angle,” said Milo. “In addition to it helping him snag victims, he could also like it because he's a man on a mission. Maybe someone with a military background or a military wanna-be.”

  “If he served, he may very well have a dishonorable discharge,” I said.

  Sharavi smiled weakly. “Uniforms can be valuable.”

  “Being Israeli,” Milo asked him, “would Irit relate in a special way to someone in uniform?”

  “Hard to say,” said Sharavi. “In Israel, we have a citizens' army, almost everyone goes in for three years and returns for reserve duty. So the country's full of uniforms, Israeli children see that as normal. Irit has actually lived outside of Israel for most of her life, but being around embassies and consulates she was accustomed to guards . . . it's possible. I don't really know much about her psychological makeup.”

  “The Carmelis didn't fill you in?”

  “They told me the usual. She was a wonderful child. Beautiful and innocent and wonderful.”

  Silence.

  Milo said, “We could also be talking cop wanna-bes— like that asshole Bianchi.” To Sharavi: “The Hillside Strangler.”

  “Yes, I know. Bianchi applied to many departments, got turned down and became a security guard.”

  “Which is a whole other angle,” said Milo. “No one screens security guards. You get ex-cons, psychos, all sorts of fools walking around looking official, some with guns.”

  “You're right about that,” I said. “I had a case a few years ago, child-custody dispute. The father was a guard for a big industrial company out in the Valley. Turned out to be flagrantly psychotic— paranoid, hearing voices. The company had issued him pepper spray, handcuffs, a baton, and a semiautomatic.”

  “Let's hear it for personnel screening. . . . Okay, so what do we have so far: Joe Paramilitary with high-IQ fantasies and weird ideas about survival of the fittest, a sex drive that goes out of whack every so often, maybe photographic equipment. By taking pictures for later usage and arranging the bodies in a way that throws us off, he has his cake and . . .”

  He cut himself off, gave a sick look, rubbed his face. Hard. Rosy patches appeared on the pale, scarred skin. His eyelids were heavy and his shoulders sloped.

  “Anything else?”

  Sharavi shook his head.

  “What I can do,” I said, “is see if any eugenic-related murders come up in the psychiatric literature. Who knows, maybe DVLL will crop up there.”

  Sharavi's fax machine began spitting paper. He collected a single sheet and showed it to us.

  Paragraphs in Hebrew.

  Milo said, “That sure clarifies it.”

  “Headquarters wants my weekly time-log. Precise accounting of my time.”

  “Been a bad boy?” said Milo.

  “Tardy.” Sharavi smiled. “One needs to prioritize. Perhaps I should go to Disneyland, bring the chief superintendent back a Mickey Mouse hat.”

  Crumpling the paper, he tossed it into the trash basket.

  “Two points,” said Milo. “You have basketball in Israel?”

  Sharavi nodded, managed to smile. He looked exhausted, too, eyes sinking even deeper.

  “Basketball but no sex killers, huh? What, you pick and choose what you borrow from us?”

  “I wish,” said Sharavi. “If only we were that smart.”

  Milo got up. “I'll take those bugs out myself, if it's only the four you said.”

  “Only those.”

  “Then I can handle it.” He stared down at the smaller man. “You stay here and talk to Interpol, Nazi hunters, whatever.”

  27

  Once they were gone, Daniel locked the house, activated the alarm, and went to his bedroom, where he sat on the edge of the mattress.

  He indulged himself in a few minutes of
loneliness before pushing away thoughts of Laura and the children and assessing how it had gone.

  Sturgis didn't trust him one bit, but still the situation was not bad, considering his own stupidity.