ROBERT KLOSS / from HOW THE OLD MAN TRAINED HIS ASSASSINS
In such rooms. All manner of atrocity.
The projection. A gray room, a stainless steel table, a carcass upon the table. Little body, little hands, finger nails.
Do you remember the little girl who was killed? the projectionist said. The one who was in pageants?
The bruises at her neck, her arms, legs. They measure everything. Search for fluids, cells, not her own. They pry her open, the long cut, the skin and fat, now the shining heaps of organ lifted out, inspected. measured and weighed. The emptied out carcass. They peel off her scalp like a rubber mask, and reveal the bloody bone beneath. The skull is fractured, split open. Now the cap is removed. The brain beneath inspected, sliced, weighed.
The film is 176 minutes long. The subject, her name known world wide, and the filmmaker, anonymous.
*
When she comes to me. She is sometimes the girl she was then. She stands at my elbow and she whispers my name. And sometimes she is what she would be now.
I don’t need to dig up her grave to know she isn’t there. She was never there.
What proof is there. Reports, the words of witnesses, photographs, video. Convincing, until it is not. One finds the crack and pulls at the opening, peels and peels away the false skin. The rest is exposed in due time. How obvious it all becomes.
*
—the disappearance, the kidnapping, the ransom letter, nearly three pages, hand written. Listen—carefully—We represent—a faction—If you so much as—look at a dog—We will behead your daughter—Leave $118,000 in—a paper bag—No. The murder—She was so tiny and still, the detective said. Duct taped at the mouth, bound at the wrists and the ankles, her underwear—She had been violated, the detective said.
Headlines—A tiny beauty—a Beauty Queen—Little Miss—Slain—
I’d never seen anything more beautiful, the detective said, than this poor little girl murdered in her own home.
I’d never seen anything more beautiful than this girl, dead, slain, although I never saw the girl herself—
By the time I came to the investigation she’d already been autopsied and interned in her family’s crypt some thousand miles away.
I was given files, boxes of written reports, photographs, videotapes. Photographs of the girl, seven hours dead, rope marks at her wrists and neck and ankles. Here she was bound, here she was strangled, slowly, you see, the tension increased. The ropes, the duct tape, by her father removed.
What skin and fluid to the tape affixed. What adhesive to the lips and cheek flesh.
I was given video tapes of the beauty performing. She’s in silvery gown and lipstick, tiara, rouge. Her voice—when she sang, when she answered a question, the microphone held to her face—what composure, eloquence. Who in the audience did not feel some force grip their heart. You just had to see her in a bathing suit and high heels. Those blue eyes. You just had to see her in that cowboy outfit, those boots, to know there were men in that audience who. You just had to see her twirling that baton to know—
She is purity, innocence, goodness, vivacity. I’ve never known a child possessed by such charisma.
Her skull split open, shattered, excavated, photographed. Her skull—a ruler measures—Her skull—perhaps, a baseball bat.
What was it about this girl, I asked myself. Is her innocence, her purity, so exceptional. Are not all children innocent. Is this not their great quality.
Is it her beauty. She was, it is so, an extraordinarily beautiful child. A gift to degenerates. The very fantasy of child rapists.
What man would struggle against his conception of his own goodness and decency. What man faced with this child, preening and prancing in absurd intoxicating parody of a mature woman, sashaying across a stage in spangled bathing suit and cowboy hat, would not find himself forced to deny such stirrings in opposition to his very conception of himself as a good man.
Yes, her beauty, yet there is something more. A mischief, a glint of the eye, a flicker of smile, a fracture through the sheen of performance. One sees in such moments more than the child herself. In such moments one perceives the woman she might have become.
What detail spoke first? A photograph, perhaps, or something in the transcript, or a gesture from one of her parents?
*
To understand what happened, the detective said, we must first comprehend the motive.
There are a million little girls in this city alone. If you put yourself in the mind, the body, of such an assailant. If you watch for them, they are there, alive, full faced. Every color and shape. Every personality. Every state of movement. Every state of dress. Why select this one versus that? There is no shortage.
Does one simply close their eyes, reach down into the great world, pluck from the herd—Does one simply say, yes, this one will do.
*
By the time you were brought onto the case: photographs, reports, videos, boxes.
Videotapes. Here she is, the pageant queen, lips made bright red and cheeks rouged. She wears red white and blue while singing I’m a yankee doodle dandy. Here she pantomimes riding a horse, waving her hat, triumphantly. Her attire, spangles shimmering, feathered boas twirling. Other performances, costumes, her many gowns, heels. Her multitude of hats, bucket hats, red, white, and blue festooned with ribbons, black and white polka dot cloche, a red beret, a glittering silver cowboy hat. She knows when to touch her hand to the brim, remove it, twirl it, wave it. Her smile, her winks. Her movements, a child’s attempts at dance, various steps, kicks.
Here she is at the holiday parade. There are four girls in all. They wear winter coats, fur lined, fur puffing, white gloves, they wave to the crowd. Three, their faces blurred—The fourth, the dead one, wears a crown—She alone seems fixed in time. How clearly we see her, blue eyes and bright smile.
By the time I was brought onto the case. Both the father and mother had fallen under what the press called the umbrella of suspicion.
You have to step backward, I told the others. Remove yourself from this clutter and by this I meant every impression, perception, interpretation they had gathered since first they discovered the little girl.
They considered my labor, my very involvement, superfluous, a waste of time, money—
*
The entire thing stinks, the detective said.
The father, look at him, another detective said, you can see it all over him. They are watching home movies, the daughter, bouncing on the father’s knee, the daughter, smiling, waving her cowboy hat. Jesus Christ, the detective moaned. Another detective now. Oh yeah, he smiled. The father was definitely fucking her.
You have to step back, I said, further and further away, observe the thing from a great distance, removed from any emotion. You have to see it transpire.
There is a room devoted entirely—Photographs—videos—the crime scene—the autopsy—Transcripts and videos—interviews with the parents—family members—friends—In bags—carefully sealed—her clothing—her pajama bottoms—her t-shirt—her underwear—The blanket used to wrap her—The rope into a garrote fashioned—used to kill her—The baseball bat—perhaps used to kill her—
The parents didn’t kill her, I told the detectives, no one did. How they laughed at me behind my back to reporters, said I was washed up, insane.
*
They were, every neighbor said, the model family. A father and mother, a beautiful young daughter. The child in the front yard, romped with her poodle dog. They worshiped a benevolent god, and unto this family material success, wealth, a colossal house, a dozen rooms. And within this house one might scream from one corner and remain unheard in another.
Her summer days, I thought. How vivacious she was, everyone said, she was bursting with life. She would skip rope, play hopscotch. Neighborhood children, their little bicycles on the sidewalks. A sprinkler, water spray flashing, a poodle dog yipping, her yellow bathing suit, grass clippings, pattern her heel.
I have watched her at play. Her laughter. The poodle dog licks her face.
Bare feet in pajamas to her ankles, bare feet on cold floors scamper, bare feet, pull themselves under warm blankets.
Where is her dog now, I asked the parents. Their answers, over the years, various, shifting. He ran away, they said, succumbed to heart failure not long later, they said, we gave him away, they said, the remembrance of his time with their dear sweet girl simply too strong.
Her parents didn’t kill her and yet they were arrested, tried, sentenced, executed.
Why this child. Why this fascination when no day passes without some girl—No day passes without some girl discovered in an alleyway or ditch. When daily they wash ashore, clog gutters. Many are found, naked, anonymous, bearing neither name nor history.
Many such children, beautiful, precocious, impish, clever. Many such little girls, missing a tooth hen they smile. Many such little girls, giggling. Many such dance and sing and daydream and twirl in their mother’s hats and scarves.
Many disappear and are never again known.
Robert Kloss is the author of five novels. The sixth is How the Old Man Trained His Assassins.