Survival of the Fittest Read Online Free PDF Page B

neighborhood. Twenty-eight employees, nearly one hundred neighbors. Gorobich and Ramos had “telephonically” recontacted every one of them two weeks later, with the same results: No one had seen or heard anything or anyone unusual in or around the park.
    I reread the coroner’s files, wincing at the term “gentle strangulation” before moving on to a beefy computer printout, the cover stamped with the seal of the state Department of Justice in Sacramento, Violent Crime Information Network.
    Five separate lists of names followed, each tabbed, labeled with an acronym, and subheaded CATCHMENT AREA. For all five sections, the park’s zip code and three adjoining codes were typed on a dotted line:
     
1.   SAR (Sex Registration)
2.   SHOP (Sexual Habitual Offenders)
3.   ACAS (Child Abuse Reports)
4.   ISU (M.O.’s related to violent crimes)
5.   SRF (Persons on probation/parole from CDC/CYA)
     
    Five databases filled with names and information on sex offenders. I counted 283 names, some overlaps circled in red. Ninety-seven offenders, including four of the overlaps, had been rearrested and were in custody. Two turquoise circles identified a pair of child murderers out on parole, one living three miles from the park, the other in Bell Gardens.
    Gorobich and Ramos had interviewed both killers immediately and verified strong alibis for the day of the murder. The detectives then enlisted the help of three other investigators, two civilian clerks, and three volunteer police scouts to locate the 186 criminals still out there, though none of the names on the DOJ lists matched any of the park workers, neighbors, teachers, the principal, or the bus driver.
    Thirty-one men were missing in violation of parole and warrants were issued for their rearrest. A handwritten note reported eleven already apprehended. The others were contacted and presented alibis of varying strength. A note by Ramos indicated no strong suspects because “No M.O. matches to this homicide were found among any of these individuals and given the lack of assault and other sexual patterning, it is still not clear that this was a sexual homicide.”
    I read the M.O. file carefully.
    With the exception of a few exhibitionists, the child molesters had all played with, bruised, penetrated, or somehow made physical contact with their victims and the vast majority had been previously acquainted with their victims: daughters, sons, nieces, nephews, grandkids, stepkids, the children of girlfriends, drinking buddies, neighbors.
    Both of the alibied murderers had killed children known to them: One had beaten a girlfriend’s two-year-old daughter to death with his fists. The other, a woman, had intentionally scalded her own son in the bathtub.
    Nearly two hundred predators, roaming free in this relatively small area   .   .   .
    Why only four zip codes?
    Because the detectives couldn’t be everywhere and you had to draw the line somewhere.
    Would doubling, tripling, quadrupling the area have accomplished much?
    L.A. was a country-sized sprawl, ruled by the car. Give a stalker some gas money and coffee and he could go anywhere.
    Hop on the freeway, weave nightmares, be back in bed in time for the evening news. Munching chips and masturbating, eyes glued to the headlines, hoping for fame.
    Aimless driving was one characteristic of sexual sadists.
    But Irit hadn’t been tortured.
    Still, maybe we did have a traveler. Someone who liked the backroads. Maybe this killer was up in Alaska by now, fishing salmon, or strolling the boardwalk in Atlantic City, or in New Orleans, hunkered down in a French Quarter club eating gumbo.
    Watching   .   .   .
    For all their numerical precision, the printouts seemed primitive. I put them down and picked up the next file, thin and black.
    Still thinking of two hundred predators in four zip codes. What kind of society let people who raped and beat children back out on the streets?
    It’s been a long time,