Tahoe Silence

by Todd Borg

  “Yet, you know that they saw the picture,” I said.

  “Right. But the knowledge of what they saw is trapped in the right side of their brain. So you get an idea. On a blackboard you write down several words: peanuts, house, dog, ocean and train. You ask them again what they see and tell them to use their left hand to point to the appropriate word. Their left hand rises and points to the word train. Why? Because the left side of the body is controlled by the right brain, the side of the brain that saw the image of the train. The right brain can’t tell you what it saw, but it can use the left hand to point to what it saw.”

  “Just to make sure I understand,” I said, “in normal people this isn’t a problem because the right brain can tell the left brain it saw a train and then the left brain’s verbal center can say so.”

  “Exactly,” Rhonda said. “What all this means is that in the event that the right brain cannot talk to the left brain, the right brain is completely isolated. The right side of your brain can be very smart, but it can’t communicate. Your right brain cannot talk and cannot even write or do sign language because that is all controlled by the verbal center in the left brain.”

  I said, “But Silence hasn’t had an operation to sever the connections between the two sides of the brain.”

  “No, she hasn’t. But if Silence is in fact high-functioning – meaning that somewhere in there is a bright, engaged girl, curious and self-aware – then only one or two explanations would explain her complete lack of speech. One would be that she has no functioning verbal center in her left brain. The other would be that while the right side of her brain may have high capacity, it cannot communicate with the left side. Tell me, is she left-handed?”

  “Yes.”

  “I thought so. That would fit because the left hand is controlled by the right brain. It would also fit with her drawing ability because the right brain is the creative center. When artists draw or paint, it is the right brain that is most active.”

  She continued, “I should add that there have been a few autistic people who appear completely non-verbal – they never speak a word – yet they are able to write and express themselves very well. Some of them test out with genius IQs. Some of those people have told, or I should say, have written of being verbal as young children and they found that the act of talking was too intense, too painful. Similar to the way some autistic kids can’t take anything louder than soft sounds, anything brighter than soft light. Every input must be attenuated and reduced to a low level or they undergo stress beyond what the rest of us can imagine. Normal sights and sounds and smells make them panic, make them withdraw. For these few bright kids who once had speech and went mute, we imagine their systems are simply too sensitive for normal human communication. It is as if they discovered they were allergic to human interaction. So they communicate in other ways, mostly by writing. But it is very rare.”

  I said, “Because Silence doesn’t write and has never spoken, she isn’t like that.”

  “Correct. But she may have the super-sensitivity to inputs. Like kids who are more or less allergic to speech, Silence is probably allergic to much of human interaction in addition to enduring the burden of not having a functional verbal center.”

  I said, “If some autistic kids are allergic to normal human interaction, how do they respond to the allergy? Do they get a rash? Do they have trouble breathing?”

  “Actually, there are cases of rashes and difficulty breathing. But the most common reaction is they shut down, turn away, and, quite often, they engage in repetitive physical activity.”

  “Like,” I said.

  “Like pounding on the floor. Or moaning over and over. Or rocking. Or banging their head against the wall.”

  “Or spinning?”

  “Yes. Spinning is quite common.”

  I thought about it. “The central question I have in asking you about all of this is if her drawings are a kind of substitute for words.”

  “It may be possible.”

  I pulled the letter drawings out of my pocket and handed them to her. “We think these drawings show the place where she is being held. They were slipped under the door of the high school. We don’t know how they got there. We think that Silence folded them as airplanes and flew them out her window. Someone found them and anonymously delivered them to the high school. Notice how they are addressed, with drawings in place of words. The first drawing shows a room by itself. The second one shows two men we believe to be her captors. The second drawing also has a tiny picture of a funeral pyre on the calendar. It shows a girl being burned at the stake during the full moon. It would seem an outrageous idea but for the fact that there is a motorcycle gang in the basin with a reputation for making religious sacrifices and burning the body at the rise of the full moon. What do you make of it?”

  Rhonda turned them over several times. “It is fascinating,” she said with the detachment of a scientist. “If your assessment is correct, then of course this is much more in the realm of a direct communication. But I must say I find it very far-fetched.”

  “Far-fetched that she could put it in a drawing? Or far-fetched that she could have something a kidnapper wanted so badly that he would threaten her with death?”

  “Both.”

  I said, “Another factor is the death of Silence’s brother Charlie. Apparently, he was very good at understanding her desires. In many ways, he served as her communication link. Now that she has found herself in this situation where she has a powerful motivation to communicate to the outside world, yet she no longer has Charlie to do it for her, isn’t this kind of letter drawing something she might conjure up in an effort at communication?”

  Rhonda held my eyes. “Yes, I should think so.”

  “Let me ask another question that may seem ridiculous. Considering what I’ve told you about Silence, is there anything about her or her situation that gives you an idea of how I might best proceed?”

  “Do you mean, how to catch the kidnapper?”

  I nodded.

  “I’m sorry, Owen. I’m a neurologist. What you’re suggesting is so far from my area of expertise that it’s nearly ludicrous to ask me.”

  “Try,” I said. I walked over to the windows that looked out at the lake. I stayed there for a minute, studying the boulders on the shore, giving the doctor a chance to think.

  “Well,” Rhonda eventually said, “all you have to go on is the supposition that the kidnapper wants something that Silence has. What does Silence have or know? Figure that out and perhaps it would lead you to the kidnapper.”

  THIRTY-EIGHT

  I was disappointed as I rode away from Dr. Netman’s. She’d told me much about autism, but I still had no good idea about how to proceed. I focused on thinking about what Silence could know that would attract a kidnapper.

  My most promising lead was Marlette’s revelation about Silence’s biological father. If he had told her or shown her something valuable, that would give me a direction to search.

  Marlette had given me his work number, but it was past six. I knew there would be very little chance to catch him that evening, so I decided to do a little cruising for biker gangs.

  When I climbed back up the Glenbrook road to the highway, I turned left at the guardhouse and headed up Spooner Summit. I took the left where Highway 28 turns off and headed up through the twilight toward Sand Harbor. I had no idea where the Granite Mountain Boys would be on a cold Tuesday evening, but Sand Harbor was where I last saw any of them. I opened the bike up here and there on empty sections of the dark twisting road, the rush of cold air draining heat from my bare fingers. I left the muffler valve in the loud position, and the bike ran well, the engine never skipping.

  As expected, Sand Harbor turned out to be empty, the parking lot vacant except for a Nevada Division of Parks pickup sitting empty in one corner.

  I continued on toward Incline Village and saw my first group of bikers turning up the Mt. Rose Highway. I turned after them and roared up toward the
rear of the group as they charged up the steep road toward the pass. There were eight of them, dressed in the bad-boy uniform, but as I watched their various headlights flickering in the dark, I realized that the two riders in front had on full helmets.

  I knew that no Granite Mountain Boy would be caught dead in an emasculating full helmet, so I slowed, turned around and coasted back down to town. I turned right on 28 and continued counter-clockwise around the lake.

  Another group of bikers came toward me near Kings Beach. I studied them as they went by, six groups of two, all in donor helmets. I spun around and came up behind them. One of the rear riders turned, watching me as I drew near. We all cruised the curves around the lake, a long noisy parade through the quiet North Shore neighborhoods. On the curves my headlight periodically washed over the four closet bikers in front of me. They too had the bad-boy uniform. All but one, anyway. He had the big leather jacket, but his pants didn’t fit. Instead of the standard leather or jeans, his pants were some kind of light gray, probably corduroy, definitely indicating his bad-boy quotient was wannabe status instead of the real thing.

  Again, I turned around and continued to Tahoe City. I came across several other biker groups, but each time decided that they were unlikely to have any affiliation with the Granite Mountain Boys.

  It was now very dark and cold, so I turned and rode home.

  The next morning I called Silence’s biological father Michael Warner and reached his voicemail. I left my name and number and a vague message saying that I’d been referred to him by Marlette Remmick.

  After a quick breakfast-for-two, Spot and I drove to Marlette’s house. I left Spot in the Jeep and talked to Marlette at her kitchen table.

  She seemed in a sour mood as I asked for the physical addresses of both Michael Warner and her ex-husband Shane. I thought it might help her to hear of my conversation with Dr. Netman, so I summarized what I’d learned from the pediatric neurologist.

  Marlette became upset as I recounted the doctor’s thoughts, mostly, I think, because she thought that I was spending too much time analyzing Silence’s predicament and not enough time shaking down bikers and gang members.

  “Let’s go for a walk,” I said. “Get some fresh air.”

  She hesitated, then stood up without saying anything. As she straightened her legs, she used the back of her knees to aggressively push her chair back from the table. The legs caught, and the chair tipped over backward. The crash on the linoleum was loud. Marlette leaned forward as if to fall, caught herself by placing her outstretched hands on the table. She hung her head, shut her eyes and was motionless.

  I stepped over and picked up the chair.

  In a moment, she walked to the door, pulled a sweater and scarf off a hook and went outside.

  I followed her out and said, “Do you want me to lock the door?”

  “No,” she mumbled as she walked to the street. “You don’t need to lock your doors around here.” I pulled the door closed behind me.

  Suddenly she stopped and turned around. “Jesus, what am I saying?”

  I turned around, opened the door, twisted the lock button and shut it again. I joined her where her gravel drive met the asphalt. We turned right and walked the neighborhood.

  “Let me ask you something,” I said. “What if the kidnapper isn’t Antonio Gomez.”

  “You mean the Aztec biker guy.”

  “Right. What if it is somebody else, somebody who has nothing to do with the bikers. Somebody Silence knows.”

  Marlette stopped walking and turned to face me. “There is no way somebody who knew Silence would kidnap her.” There was palpable tension in her voice as if her frustrations with my lack of progress were about to erupt in a full boil.

  “Why couldn’t her kidnapper be someone who knew her?”

  “It’s obvious. She’s sweet and kind. Well, maybe kind isn’t the right word. But she’s inoffensive, and she never did anything bad to anybody. And there’s no money to ransom. Not even from distant relatives. You said yourself that the fact that there isn’t a ransom note shows that the kidnapping isn’t that kind. The only explanation is something really sicko.” Marlette’s eyes flooded. She quickly turned away and resumed walking, faster than before.

  I caught up with her. “I want to consider all the possibilities. I’d like you to think about all the people who know Silence.”

  “But it couldn’t be someone she knows because there aren’t that many people who know her. Except for the kids at school, I probably know all of them myself. I’ve met all of her teachers, her doctors, the few people from church who talk to her. Everybody. None of them would do such a sick thing.”

  “Maybe not. But if you talk to a psychologist about what seemingly ordinary people are capable of, it is surprising. We need to be open-minded.”

  “No. You’re talking psycho-babble. We’re talking about people I’ve known for years. Some of them are my best friends. Common sense is how this will be solved. Silence was kidnapped by those bikers. I heard the motorcycles! I saw her spinning. She obviously saw them coming toward her and she reacted by withdrawing into her spin. And the Aztec word was on Charlie! What more do you want! You can’t afford to waste time going in stupid directions. You’re also wasting my time and my money. And every moment wasted brings Silence one step closer to ending up like Charlie!”

  “Marlette, you may be right. But I’ve talked to you enough to know that you want to see the world in good terms. You want to see the good in people. But we need to consider everybody, even the people you think would never do such a thing.”

  “What’s this, the cynic speech?” Her voice had a sneer in it. “You sound like the cop I heard on TV the other day after they caught the Basement Killer in St. Louis.” She lowered her voice to mimic him. “‘Even his mother didn’t have a clue and she lived in the same house.’ Well, I do have a clue. This terrible thing was done by those bikers. They’re probably torturing her as we speak and you’re doing nothing about it except giving me lectures on the evil in ordinary God-fearing people. You try to sound like the cops on TV, but you’re just a PI trying to make a buck off other people’s misery! If you were a real cop, you would have made progress by now!”

  She said it with such force and disgust I thought she would sprint away. But she didn’t. She walked faster, her entire body tense and stiff. She swung her arms like a wooden soldier. I stayed with her. “I was a cop. Homicide. In San Francisco.”

  “Sure!” she said. “Next thing you’ll tell me you were in gun battles like Dirty Harry, and you killed people and you saw the underbelly of the scum in the swamp.” She walked faster. “You don’t even carry a gun. Don’t try to protest. I’ve noticed. All ex-cops carry a gun. Even if you were a cop, you were probably fired. How did Commander Mallory have the audacity to put me onto a two-bit, pretend detective like you!”

  I stopped and took a deep breath. When we’re suddenly attacked in a personal way, the impulse to lash out is in our genes. You see it from corporate boardrooms to kiddie playgrounds. I was no better. I grabbed her shoulder and forced her to stop.

  “So this is where I trot out the history? Roll back the sleeves and parade the scars? When I bring out the citations and hospital files, you should pay special attention to the diagnoses of the shrinks who all agreed that the mental trauma caused by a single dead child was out of proportion to the incident. Who all agreed that the symptoms were more like those of a soldier in combat than those of a decorated cop responding to a bank holdup with an armed kiddie robber. Clearly, the cop had questionable mental stability in the first place. And when the cop voluntarily became an ex-cop and decided to give up guns for good, it only proved their suspicions that he was not all there. He was a wimp, no better than a meter maid, a self-emasculated prima donna.”

  Marlette was making motions with her mouth, but no words came out. She stared up at me as if I were an alien, a man talking about himself in the third person, voluntarily revealing the warts and pimples
and ulcerated wounds of the psyche.

  I was angry now, spit on my lips, too late to stop myself before I got in deep. “And you should add to the pile of character indictments the missing persons report from the unannounced solo trek into the rain forest wilderness of British Columbia where the weary excuse for a man exorcised the demons by hiking twenty miles a day. Where he starved the nightmares by fasting for two weeks. And at the very bottom, when he crawled out of his tent in the middle of the night and walked to the edge of the bluff to look at the moon setting over the Hecate Strait, he startled a prowling mama Grizzly with a single cub. Mama charged, all 700 or 800 pounds of her snarling and roaring, and he sat down on the rock, shivering and sweating at the same time, watching the moon and waiting for her to grab him from behind. He dared that ursine monster to find some stringy flesh from the starved, wasted 180-pound carcass on the six-six frame. Chew away, if you please, and when you’re done throw the remains into the ocean.

  “But mama Grizz turned away, and he thought maybe, just maybe, he could try life one more time. So, awash in adrenaline and hallucinating from starvation, he went and climbed up the creaky ladder into the mental attic, dimly lit by that moon over the waters just south of Alaska, dusted off the old mainframe, and started sorting the old disks. Memory triage. Those to burn, those to consider revisiting and those to save.

  “Life reduced to three departments, one of which to destroy. When completed, the bonfire consumed most of the past.

  “The few memories that weren’t special but were not so bleak to torch comprised a very small bundle, but at least now there was more space to store them.

  “And the precious good stuff, the few really great times, the wisecracking, tear-jerking moments that make all the hard effort worth it, were brought into the moonlight and savored anew. They were arranged in the center of the big dusty table, where the moon came in like a spotlight. They became the rare moonbeam memories that resurrected the life.”