“To check all people of corresponding professions who were targeted in the investigation of sexual misconduct towards children. Including those acquitted and never come to trial.”
“Correct. It made a rather long list, but all of them happened to have alibis. Obviously, our bastard is too careful to leave witnesses and victims alive. But since he is a professional, we can look for traces of his professional work. For a teacher it is more difficult, but he’s not a teacher; he starts hunting prior to the beginning of Christmas vacation. But if we assume that his job is closer to a science, then what?”
“We can look for publications in scientific journals! On the topic of problem families, or conflicts in a school setting, or violence against children.”
“Bravo, John. However, there are too many such publications. There may be even more psychologists, psychiatrists and psychoanalysts in this country than lawyers… Still, we have checked up on some of them, carefully, since we lack probable cause. Nothing remarkable was found. On the other hand, there are no guarantees that he really has published works…”
“And that he is a psychologist at all. If he simply puts on Santa’s costume…”
“And here you’re wrong, John. One doesn’t exclude another. A five-year-old kid can be deceived by any guy with a white beard and in a red jacket. But the Snowman works with older children. And among these youngsters, not all will agree to follow a stranger if he doesn’t impress them… Perhaps, the real beard plays a considerable role here—but it isn’t the only factor.”
“Perhaps. So, we should look for journal authors who have a big beard and are between forty and fifty years of age. As you worked on this already, I believe, you identified some authors?”
“Yes, but, as I’ve said, there are too many of them. But now, knowing about the beard and age, we can narrow our search.”
“I would offer additional criteria, sir. Most likely, he writes articles alone, instead of co-authorship. And, possibly, he was born in a northern state. Perverts, of course, happen to be rather odd, but it seems doubtful to me that a heat-loving southerner would enjoy sex in freezing temperatures. Also, there is an off-road vehicle registered on his name… He, of course, can rent cars, but he prefers to use his own in order not to show himself in rental offices.”
“Well, in these parts almost everyone owns off-road vehicles… But as a whole your ideas sounds reasonable. Sit down at the computer, John. Let’s see how they teach you to work with information nowadays.”
The third thing which Gregory Prime hated was lies.
In the beginning of his life he simply couldn’t imagine that such a thing as a lie might exist. The idea that it is possible to say something that is not true seemed so absurd to him that it didn’t deserve consideration at all. Indeed, why then speak at all? In adult terms, his conceptualization of that time would sound like this: a conversation is the purposeful exchange of information, so any corruption of the information contradicts the very essence of a conversation. Later, about an age of three, he found out that the lie nevertheless does exist and immediately he felt a deep contempt for it. For this reason, he hated fairy tales since they were just a pack of lies.
Both Greg’s parents had higher technical education (his father was an engineer in a power company and his mother was a chemist in a pharmaceutical laboratory) and were atheists who adhered to materialism. At the age of three, the boy already knew the structure of the atom, what positive and negative particles were, and what a water molecule consisted of. And, certainly, he knew that no wizards and witches actually existed. The single attempt to intimidate Greg when he was mischievous, by saying that an evil sorcerer would take him away, caused so furious a reaction of horror that Mrs. Prime renounced forever using such methods. She apologized to the boy, repeating that it was a silly joke and there were, of course, no sorcerers at all.
When other children of his age tried to involve Greg in playing out some fairy tale plots (they, seemingly, actually believed in magic), he looked at them disdainfully, as at ignorant savages. At first he generously tried to explain the truth to them, but they, apparently, were too stupid to accept the education. Later, when he was four, Gregory understood that not true is not always a lie. It can also be an honest fiction, and fairy tales belong to this category. Then he began to read them, even with pleasure, perceiving them the way adults do: as entertaining stories which, however, don’t have and can’t have anything in common with reality. However, he preferred science fiction, for its scientific character.
But, recognizing the right to fiction in literature, Greg was still sure that in real life only the truth should be told. And especially that the truth and only the truth is told by his parents. People around him disappointed him more and more often—condemning lies verbally, they told lies all the time. Religion was one of the most unpleasant forms of lie—fairy tales, including terrifying stories about the omnipotent absolute tyrant, were straight-faced passed off as the truth. But, of course, Greg’s parents explained to the scared boy that no god actually existed and that Christian beliefs were in no way better than Ancient Greek myths about Zeus who threw lightning bolts from Olympus. No religious dogmas have scientific confirmation; on the contrary, science found more than enough refutations of them. However, Mrs. Prime also had added that Greg should respect the feelings of believers and not say to them that they value stupid fairy tales. But the boy couldn’t agree with her in any way: why he should respect another’s stupidity and lie? Then Mr. Prime came up with a more compelling argument: “You see, Greg, not all of them can be persuaded; they just will not listen. So it is useless even to try—you’ll only make them angry, but will not be able to set things right.” The boy already knew this from his own experience and had to agree.
Yes, anyone else might lie, but his parents always told him the truth. And, consequently, Greg didn’t even think to doubt their word about Santa Claus.
What they said about Santa Claus came, of course, from the very best motives. It never entered the heads of Mr. and Mrs. Prime to what long-term horror they doomed their son—the horror of the committed materialist who learns from an absolutely authentic, in his opinion, source about the real existence of a magic being.
Greg did not give a damn that this being was kind and gave gifts! It destroyed the whole scientific picture of the world! He desperately tried to save the situation, grasping at any rational explanation for this undead creature. Maybe Santa Claus is actually an extraterrestrial? In science fiction, aliens could do much more than humans and all that is thanks to their science. But aliens travel on spaceships, not on reindeer. And besides, if Santa is an alien, why isn’t NASA interested in him? If he is some unexamined natural phenomenon, why don’t scientists explore him?
Gregory shared these hypotheses with his parents, but they still didn’t understand and only laughed at the scientific meticulousness of their son. Mrs. Prime with a smile told Greg that science didn’t explore magic. Greg was ready to assume… no, not that parents lied him—he still couldn’t even think about that. But maybe they, so clever and educated, nevertheless fell into deception themselves?