Dark Rivers of the Heart

high motivation," Mrs. Shire said. "He applied for special-forces training. Army Rangers."
        "He left the army after six years," Davis said, passing another printout to Roy, "used his service benefits to go to U.C.L.A."
        Scanning the latest page, Roy said, "Majored in criminology."
        "Minored in criminal psychology," said Davis. "Went to school yearround, kept a heavy class load, got a degree in three years."
        "Young man in a hurry," Wertz said, apparently so they would remember that he was part of the team and would not, accidentally, step on him and crush him like a bug.
        As Davis handed Roy another page, Nella Shire said, "Then he applied to the L.A. Police Academy. Graduated at the top of his class."
        "One day, after less than a year on the street," Davis said, "he walked into the middle of a carjacking in progress. Two armed men.
        They saw him coming, tried to take the woman motorist hostage."
        "He killed them both," Shire said. "The woman wasn't scratched."
        "Grant get crucified?"
        "No. Everyone felt these were righteous shootings."
        Glancing at another page that Davis handed to him, Roy said, "According to this, he was transferred off the street."
        "Grant has computer skills and high aptitude," Davis said, "so they put him on a computer-crime task force. Strictly desk work."
        Roy frowned. "Why? Was he traumatized by the shootings?"
        "Some of them can't handle it," Wertz said knowingly. "They don't have the right stuff, don't have the stomach for it, they just come apart."
        "According to the records from his mandatory therapy sessions," Nella Shire said, "he wasn't traumatized. He handled it well. He asked for the transfer, but not because he was traumatized."
        "Probably in denial," Wertz said, "being macho, too ashamed of his weakness to admit to it."
        "Whatever the reason," Davis said, "he asked for the transfer.
        Then, ten months ago, after putting in twenty-one months with the task force, he just up and resigned from the LAPD altogether."
        "Where's he workin now?" Roy asked.
        "We don't know that, but we do know where he lives," David Davis said, producing another printout with a dramatic flourish.
        Staring at the address, Roy said, "You're sure this is our man?"
        Shire shuffled her own sheaf of papers. She produced a high-resolution printout of a Los Angeles Police Department personnel fingerprint ID sheet while Davis provided the photos of the prints they had lifted from the frame of the bathroom window.
        Davis said, "If you know how to make comparisons, you'll see the computer's right when it says they're a perfect match. Perfect. This is our guy.
        No doubt about it, none."
        Handing another printout to Roy, Nella Shire said, "This is his most recent photo ID from the police records."
        Full-face and in profile, Grant bore an uncanny resemblance to the computer-projected portrait that had been given to Roy by Melissa Wicklun in Photo Analysis.
        "Is this a recent photo?" Roy asked.
        "The most recent the LAPD has on file," Shire said.
        "Taken a long time after the carjacking incident?"
        "That would have been two and a half years ago. Yeah, I'm sure this picture is a lot more recent than that. Why?"
        "The scar looks fully healed," Roy noted.
        "Oh," Davis said, "he didn't get the scar in that shootout, no, not then.
        He's had it a long time, a very long time, had it when he entered the army.
        It's from a childhood injury."
        Roy looked up from the picture. "What injury?"
        Davis shrugged his angular shoulders, and his long arms flapped against his white lab coat. "We don't know. None of the records tell us about it. They just list it as his most prominent identifying feature.
        'Cicatricial scar from right ear to point of chin, result of childhood injury." That's all."
        "He looks like Igor," Wertz said with a snicker.
        "I think he's sexy," Nella Shire disagreed.
        "Igor," Wertz insisted.
        Roy turned to him. "Igor who?"
        "Igor. You remember-from those old Frankenstein movies, Dr.
        Frankenstein's sidekick. Igor. The grisly old hunchback with the twisted neck."
        "I don't care for that kind of entertainment," Roy said. "It glorifies violence and deformity. It's sick."