“Not really. But maybe he changed when he grew up, got smoother.”
“Mr. Silk,” I said.
“Maybe he’s a good faker. Always was. Faked looking nuts, even back then-psychopaths do that all the time, right?”
“They do,” I said. “But did this police chief sound like someone easily fooled?”
“No. He said the kid was nuts but had one thing going for him.
Musical talent.
Taught himself to play guitar and mandolin and banjo and a bunch of other instruments.”
“The next Elvis.”
“Yeah. And for a while people thought he might actually make something of himself. Then one day, he just left town and no one heard from him again.”
“How long ago was this?”
“Nineteen-seventy.”
“So he was only twelve. Any idea why he left?”
“Chief had just busted him for drunk and disorderly again, gave him the usual lecture, then added a few bucks for him to get some new clothes and a haircut.
Figured maybe if the kid looked better he’d act better. Lyle walked out of the police station and headed straight for the train depot.
Police chief later found he used the money to buy a one-way ticket to Atlanta.”
“Twelve years old,” I said. “He could have kept traveling and ended up in Santa Barbara, been taken in by de Bosch as a charity case–de Bosch liked to put forth the humanitarian image, publicly.”
“Wish I could get hold of school records. No one seems to have any.
Not the city or the county.”
“What about federal? If de Bosch applied for government funding for the charity cases, there might be some kind of documentation.”
“Don’t know how long those agencies hold on to their records, but I’ll check. So far I’m drawing a blank on this bastard. First time he shows up in California is an arrest nine years ago. No NCIC record prior to that, so that’s over a decade between his leaving Georgia and the beginnings of his West Coast life of crime. If he got busted for petty stuff in other small towns, it might very well not have been entered into the national computer. But still, you’d expect something.
He’s a bad egg, where the hell was he all that time?”
“How about in a mental institution?” I said. “Twelve years old, out on his own. God knows what could have happened to him out on the street. He might have suffered a mental breakdown and got put away.
Or, if he was at the school the same time as Delmar Parker, maybe he observed Delmar’s death and broke down over that.”
“Big assumption, he and Delmar knowing each other.”
“It is, but there are some factors that might point in that direction: he and Delmar were around the same age, both were Southern boys a long way from home.
Maybe Gritz finally made a friend. Maybe he even had something to do with Delmar stealing the truck. If he did and escaped death but saw Delmar die, that could have pulled the rug out from under him, psychologically.”
“So now he’s blaming the school and de Bosch and everyone associated with it?
Sure, why not? I just wish we could push it past theory. Place Gritz in Santa Barbara, let alone the school, let alone knowing the Parker kid, et cetera, et cetera.”
“Any luck finding Parker’s mother?”
“She doesn’t live in New Orleans, and I haven’t been able to find any other relatives. So where does this Silk-Merino thing come in? Why would a Southern boy pick himself a Latino alias?”
“Merino’s a type of wool,” I said. “Or a sheep–the flock following the shepherd, and getting misled?”
“Baaa,” he said. “When are you planning to see Rosenblatt’s kid?”
“Couple of hours.”
“Good luck. And don’t worry, everything here’s cool. Ms. Castagna lends a nice touch to the place, maybe we’ll keep her.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Sure,” he said, chuckling. “Why not? Woman’s touch and all that.
Hell, we can keep the beast, too. Put up a picket fence around the lawn. One big happy family.”
New York was as clear as an etching, all corners and windows, vanishing rooflines, skinny strips of blue sky.