The Third Victim Part 29

Sanders grunted.

"Don't know enough yet about the gun safe to determine how hard he had to work to get into it. I do know Shep had a h.e.l.luva gun collection.

We're lucky Danny went with two small handguns instead of the rifles.

G.o.d knows what kind of damage he could've done then."

"Do we know why he chose the .38 and .22?" Quincy asked.

Sanders looked at Rainie. She shook her head.

"He didn't comment and I didn't think to ask. I guess I a.s.sumed because they were easier to fit into a backpack. Concealment."

"But Danny was a hunter, wasn't he?" Quincy asked.

"Sure. Since he was very young."

"Did he spend a lot of time with handguns as well?"

Rainie had to think about it. In the meantime, their dinners arrived.

Quincy's salad looked fresh and crisp the advantage of being in farm country. Rainie's chicken-fried steak, on the other hand, was smothered in thick gravy, with a pat of b.u.t.ter melting on top. The smell made her stomach growl, but when she picked up her fork, she discovered that the conversation had already destroyed her appet.i.te.

"Shep generally tells hunting stories," she said after a moment.

"I know Danny has some marksmans.h.i.+p awards, but I think they were with a .22 rifle."

"First place, junior division," Sanders confirmed.

"We seized the trophy from his bedroom."

Rainie grimaced. She didn't want to think what it must have been like for Sandy and Shep to watch their son's room be boxed up by Crime Scene Unit personnel. Or what kind of impression that must have made on Becky.

Quincy was talking.

"So Danny's most comfortable with a rifle but selects two handguns. He has a love-hate relations.h.i.+p with sports but goes after the teacher of the computer lab, whom he supposedly adores. He hides in a room so n.o.body will see him but never leaves the building after the shooting.

Interesting." He turned to Sanders again.

"About the school computers ... ' "Techies are examining them now,"

Sanders said.

"Looks like a main computer and three workstations. The school had a firewall server, so the good news is that it probably has a record of which workstation visited which Internet sites at what time. In theory, the lab rats will have a complete rundown for me of all the sites visited by the end of the week. I did get a call this afternoon saying that the computers have been messed with the cache file purged, the Web browser's history file deleted, et cetera so it appears that someone made an effort to cover their tracks. The techies weren't too concerned. Something about probably being able to find things in the cookies, or G.o.d knows what. They were going to start work on it in the morning."

"If there are any problems, we have excellent recovery agents at the Bureau," Quincy mentioned casually.

"Yeah, yeah, yeah." Sanders definitely had no intention of parting with his evidence. He waved his hand dismissively.

"I'm sure we'll be fine. We already got a lot of evidence in place. At this point, the computer stuff will just go to state of mind."

"We don't have anything connecting Danny to Melissa Avalon," Rainie pointed out.

"Then the DA just pursues the charges for killing the girls. That's fine by me. There are only so many consecutive life sentences a man can serve."

"A boy can serve," Rainie said absently, giving up on her dinner altogether and stealing a piece of Quincy's lettuce.

"Only so many consecutive life sentences a boy can serve."

Sanders rolled his eyes.

"Like age has anything to do with it these days. We're about to be overrun by an entire generation of juvenile psychopaths. Isn't that right, Quincy? Dual-income families have turned out a batch of

superpredators who have no sympathy or remorse. Blast 'em up on Nintendo; blast 'em up on the streets. Murder pregnant women; run home to watch Bugs Bunny on TV. The New York Times ran a whole article on it."

"I wouldn't believe everything you read," Quincy said.

"Why not? I read that article in the early nineties and we've had how many school shootings since then?"

"Half a dozen, I'm sure," Quincy said mildly, 'but we still had one of the safest school years on record in 1998."

Sanders gave Quincy a dubious look. The FBI agent returned it levelly.

"In the 1992-1993 school year," Quincy said, 'a time frame I'm sure that article quoted, there were fifty-five fatalities. As you point out, however, this is before we experienced the rash of school shootings. In the 1997-1998 school year, we saw three school shootings. And yet, total fatalities for that year were only forty, nearly a thirty-percent decline. The truth is, violence in schools is a lot like airline crashes tragic and shocking and headline-grabbing, but by no means indicative of the whole sector. Children are still safer at school and in planes than in the family's minivan."

"But then again, these incidents aren't magically going away," Rainie countered. She stole a crouton from Quincy's salad and gave him her own version of his hard, direct stare.

"In the beginning, maybe you could dismiss this as a phase, but it's been years now. One shooting is scary. Seven are downright terrifying."

"We face troubling issues," Quincy agreed, 'but we shouldn't lose perspective. Overall juvenile criminal offenses have declined in the last five years. And as we've cracked down on drugs and gangs, schools have become safer. That's the good news.

"On the other hand," he added as he saw their growing skepticism, 'some teenagers are shockingly violent and lacking in remorse. And, unfortunately, the media distorts that fact. Normal Boy Kills Ten.

Perfect Family Murdered by Fourteen-Year-old Son. It leads us to rampant paranoia and, if we're not careful, fear of all children. The truth, however, is that the overwhelming majority of children who commit these shootings aren't, quote unquote, normal. Several have suffered from recognized mental disorders and were supposed to be on medication. Even the ones who weren't under a doctor's care probably had a strong degree of attachment disorder, making it easier for them to contemplate murder."

"What's attachment disorder?" Sanders asked.

"It's the failure to bond," Rainie said instantly, then shrugged and helped herself to more of Quincy's salad.

"I studied psychology in college. I remember a thing or two."

"Very good," Quincy a.s.sured her, then frowned and pulled his salad protectively to him. She stole another crouton. He gave up.

"Everyone needs to bond," Quincy explained to Sanders.

"In theory, as children we bond with our parents. We cry, our parents respond to our cry by feeding us, and we decide our parents are good people and love us we bond. As we grow older, this bond extends to the rest of society, helping us be good friends, neighbors, husbands, et cetera. Unfortunately, not all children form bonds. The baby cries and is. .h.i.t. In that case, instead of learning to trust or care about others, the child becomes egocentric, lying compulsively, manipulating others, being incapable of feeling empathy. For the most part, we see this phenomenon in abused or abandoned children. Lack of bonding, however, can happen in "good" households too. It's just not as common."

"Good parents have bad kids?" Sanders asked, and rolled his eyes to show his opinion. Quincy wasn't fazed.

"Absolutely. A mother suffers from severe postpartum depression and is unable to meet her infant's needs. Or the newborn suffers from a painful medical condition and it's not in his mother's power to meet his needs. Or the newborn simply isn't amenable to bonding. No matter how hard the mother tries, the baby pulls away. It's rare, but it happens. So yes, good parents can end up with one child who is very social and one child who is very antisocial." Sanders gave Quincy another dubious look.

"I don't buy it," he said bluntly.

"You're saying these kids are little freaking psychopaths from birth.