Below the rifle, a matching bipod and carrying case and an infrared nightscope. On the bottom rung, five bladed weapons: a squared-off chopper, a leather-handled Buck, a curved Indonesian fighter, an all-black knuckle knife, and a stiletto. All appeared unused.
Milo said, “What’s that all about?”
I said, “Maybe he takes them to shootings for moral support.”
Flick’s computer, unprotected by a password (my answer to Milo’s question: “Overconfidence”), gave up a file on each of his L.A. victims, always headed Ansatz.
Milo said, “Sounds German.”
I looked it up. “Good guess. It’s a word mathematicians use to describe setting the framework for a proof.”
“Wonderful.”
We read the files. Each began with an exposition of “the necessary documentation of offenses” inflicted on Flick’s “followers.”
Rhiannon Sterling, “a crackerjack math-head, especially good with probability theory which will serve her well as a quant and probably make her rich,” had wept to her tutor about the stress her dad was under due to “hateful and unreasonable demands” by his “vicious and asocial ex-girlfriend” and her fear that “never ever seeing baby boy Jarrod will tear my family utterly apart. Essentially cancel him and us.”
Keisha Boykins had been “terrified to the point where her AP calc is suffering right when she needs it to be Harvard-shiny and her IBD is intensifying.” The source of her fear: Jamarcus Parmenter’s “vile, misogynistic doggerel” and the possibility Parmenter would “take out his rage at Mr. B for his quite reasonable dismissal on my brilliant girl K.”
Michael Saucedo was “adjusting to Oberlin gradually (something I can relate to) but like me he’ll triumph due to superior cognitive ability.” Vicki’s brother had expressed “justifiable despair at the unwillingness of law enforcement” to investigate his sister’s “brutal” assault. “Mike admits that inertia on the part of his parents isn’t helpful, either, but he is certain that if a serious attempt had been made to uncover the truth, they would have come around.”
Errol Moffett “is extinct and that’s an outrage and one that was eminently preventable. Remedial measures must and will be taken.”
At the end of each account: QED.
That one I knew from a statistics prof who proclaimed it on the final day of every semester.
“Quod erat demonstrandum. Latin for ‘what was to be demonstrated.’ ”
“What the hell does that mean?”
“The proof is complete.”
Chapter 47
The day after Lance Guidot Esq. began his court-appointed task of defending Cameron Flick, he was fired by his client.
Milo said, “I was over at the jail filing papers, met the guy leaving and looking kinda glum. I said what’s up, he said Flick claimed he wasn’t smart enough and gave him the boot. But that’s not why I’m calling. Followed your advice and called Crystal Jo Wiebelhaus in Akron and yeah, she’s Flick’s older sister. Hasn’t seen him since he moved to L.A. ten years ago but her voice still shakes when she talks about him.”
I said, “She grew up with his unpredictable cold anger and his cruelty to animals, other kids, and her.”
Silence.
“Why do I bother? Yeah, from the time he was little he terrified her and her mother. Who is indeed Felicia Sue in Vantage who is not taking my calls. Crystal’s sure Cam murdered Wiebelhaus but not because she has evidence. She just said Leonard was strict, he and Cam didn’t get along, and Cam hated his guts and smiled for days after Wiebelhaus’s death.”
“No abuse.”
“Not according to her. Looks like Cam doesn’t need much of a trigger to reach for his trigger.”
Chapter 48
The day after firing his first lawyer, Cameron Flick was assigned a second counsel from the court roster named Marcia Kendall.
That association lasted twenty-six hours, after which Flick fired Kendall for “insufficient attention to the gravity of my situation.”
Milo called and told me. “Gonna be a while before we’re rid of him. He’s obviously playing games.”
I said, “Is there a limit how far he can take it?”
“I asked Nguyen. He says when you pay your own way you can manipulate for a while but with court-appointed counsel it’s up to the judge. Luckily for Flick he got one of the D.A.’s buddies on the bench, total moron, believes bad guys can do no wrong. So who the hell knows? I’ll keep you posted if anything changes.”
It did. But not the way either of us expected.
On the third day of his incarceration, Cameron Flick summoned a jail deputy and announced that he’d be serving as his own counsel. Then he said he wanted to talk to Milo.
Chapter 49
I left my car at the station and the two of us drove east of downtown to the Men’s Central Jail on Bauchet Street. Forty-minute ride from West L.A. Five minutes from the Coroner’s on Mission Road, which is efficient.
Before we got out, Milo said, “Anything else you want to tell me?”
“Nope.”
“Just be aware that his world revolves around his self-image as brilliant.”
“Exactly. He’ll likely insult our intelligence and try to control the situation with insults and erudite vocabulary.”
“Got it,” he said. “Duh.”
It had been a while since I’d been at the jail but the procedure hadn’t changed.
Check in, leave your I.D., stash any weapons in a locker — in this case, Milo’s Glock.
That completed, a Sheriff’s deputy named Ortiz met us on the other side of a sally port and guided us up the elevator to a stale-smelling hallway and finally to an interview room where a second deputy named Coolidge stood guard.
Ortiz left and Coolidge let us into a stingy, windowless space that would never recover from decades of human stink.
Cameron Flick sat behind a small steel table screwed to the floor. His right hand was chained to a heavy eyebolt welded to the table’s side.
His red uniform signaled High Risk. So did the H on his red wristband. Below that, K1, for “Keep him away from everyone else.”
His free hand flicked the blood-colored fabric. “Not my best hue but good taste is in dire shortage here.”
We sat down facing him. Coolidge said, “I’ll be right outside.”
“Superfluous announcement,” said Cameron Flick. “If you know what that means.”
Coolidge remained stoic and left, closing the door behind him.
Flick said, “Good riddance to maladaptive detritus.”
He’d shaved off his beard, ended up with a pale, doughy, soft-around-the-edges baby face blotched in places by pink razor rash.
I thought about him wielding a razor in his cell as I studied him.
Just a face. Like his eyes, unremarkable.
Sometimes you see the same kind of countenance in old photos of young Nazi storm troopers making their way through the streets of Munich or Berlin.
The monster concealed within.
Camouflaged like the weapon Flick had used to slaughter half a dozen people.
Milo said, “You wanted to talk to us.”
“To you. Who’s he?”
“Alex Delaware.”
He looked me up and down and shrugged. Eager to clarify how little my presence meant to him. Returned his attention to Milo.
“So,” he said, “you must be quite pleased with yourself. With the erudition you acquired learning about me in the course of your so-called investigation.”