A Maidens Grave

That’s the important issue. Henry, tell us about the girl.”
    LeBow’s finger clattered. He read from the screen. “Seventeen. Born of deaf parents. IQ of one hundred and forty-six.”
    “This is hard to listen to,” Budd muttered. Potter nodded for LeBow to go on.
    “First in her class at the Laurent Clerc School. And listen to this. She’s got a record.”
    “What?”
    “She was a protestor last year at Topeka School for the Deaf, a part of Hammersmith College. They wanted a deaf dean. Fifty students got arrested and Susan slugged a cop. They dropped the charges for assault but gave her a suspended for trespass.”
    LeBow continued, “Volunteered at the Midwest Bicultural/Bilingual Center. There’s an article here—in the material Angie brought.” He skimmed it. “Apparently it’s an organization that opposes something called ‘mainstreaming.’ ”
    Angie said, “The dean of the Clerc School told me about that. It’s a movement to force the Deaf into regular schools. It’s very controversial. Deaf activists oppose it.”
    “All right,” Potter said. “Let’s file that away for a moment. Now, who’s Handy given up so far?”
    “Jocylyn and Shannon,” Angie said.
    “Anything in common about them?”
    “Doesn’t seem to be,” Budd said. “In fact, looks like they’re opposites. Jocylyn’s a timid little thing. Shannon’s feisty. She’s a little Susan Phillips.”
    “Angie?” Potter said. “What do you think.”
    “Control again. Susan was a direct threat to him. She had an in-your-face attitude. She probably challenged his control directly. Now, Shannon, with her kicking Bonner . . . Handy’d sense the same threat but on a smaller scale. He wouldn’t feel the need to kill her—to reassert control in the most extreme way possible—but he’d want her out. Jocylyn? She was crying all the time. Sniveling. She got on his nerves. That’s a way to eat at his control too.”
    “What about the adults?” LeBow asked. “I’d think they’d be more of a threat than the children.”
    “Oh, not necessarily,” Angie said. “The older teacher, Donna Harstrawn, is half-comatose, it sounds like. No threat there.”
    “And Melanie Charrol?”
    Angie said, “The dean at the school told me that she’s got a reputation for being very timid.”
    “But look at what she just did,” Potter said. “Getting Kielle out.”
    “A fluke, I’d guess. Probably impulse.” She gazed out the window. “He’s an odd one, Handy is.”
    “Unique in my experience,” Potter said. “Say, Henry, read to us from your opus. Tell us what we know about him so far.”
    LeBow sat up slightly and read in a stiff voice. “Louis Jeremiah Handy is thirty-five years old. Mother raised him after his alcoholic father went to jail when the baby was six months. The mother drank too. Child protective services considered placing him and his brothers in foster homes several times but nothing ever came of it. No evidence he was abused or beaten, though when his father returned from prison—Lou was eight—the man was arrested several times for beating up his neighbors. The father finally took off when Handy was thirteen and was killed a year later in a barroom fight. His mother died a year after that.”
    Officer Frances Whiting shook her head with undirected sympathy.
    “Handy killed his first victim at age fifteen. He used a knife though he apparently had a gun on him and could have used the more merciful weapon. It took the victim, a boy his age, a long time to die. Six years in juvenile for that then out long enough to earn a string of GTA arrests, carjackings, assault, D&D. Suspected in ATM stickups and bank robberies. Was almost convicted twice for major jobs but the witnesses were killed before trial. No link to him could be proved.
    “His two brothers were in and out of trouble with the law over the years. The eldest was killed five years ago, as I mentioned before. It was thought Handy might have done it. No known whereabouts for the younger brother.
    “As Handy’s career’s progressed,” LeBow said to his audience, “he’s gotten more violent.” It was the severity and randomness of his crimes that seemed to escalate, the intelligence officer explained. Recently he’d taken to killing for no apparent reason and—in the robbery inwhich he’d most recently been convicted—started committing arson.
    Potter interrupted to say, “Tell us specifically what happened at the Wichita robbery.