Tahoe Silence Read online

  “Say again?”

  “Nahuatl is the ancient Aztec language. The old boys write down the commandments on whatever can be shoved into the visitor’s orifice of choice. Of course, most of the boss men are in solitary in the SHU.”

  “The Security Housing Unit.”

  “Right. Twenty-three hours alone in the dark and damp and strict supervision in the yard the twenty-fourth. So they’ve developed a tapping code. The walls are too thick for voices to be understood. But they can tap. Kind of like Morse code, but that would be too easy to break. These Aztec king wannabes tap out the code, the next guy passes it along, and eventually it gets passed on to a nobody who didn’t do anything more serious than torture and mutilate a dirtball who couldn’t make a drug payment. Because the nobody has such a sweet and pure track record, he’s allowed to have visitors. So he listens to the tapping code and then makes a Nahuatl suppository and hands it to a visitor. Next thing you know, a rival drug lord gets aced in South Central L.A.”

  “How does that translate to the motorcycle gang?”

  “The Granite Mountain Boys are run by a man named Antonio Gomez. He spent three years in the Super Max’s SHU for ordering a rape and murder. The victim was a twenty-three-year-old kid who screwed up a delivery on some of Southern Mexico’s finest powder. Gomez wanted to set an example, and from what I read in the file it worked very well.”

  “How’d he get out?”

  “Yeah, my question, too. Turns out Tony Go has a lot of dirty money. Lots meaning eight figures. He’s also got a lawyer who is a miracle worker. Knows every technicality about DNA tests and testing labs, which were critical in Gomez’s conviction. He presented a case that got Gomez’s conviction thrown out. The result was that the state opened those big steel gates and let one of the worst cell jockeys in California history walk.”

  “And now you think he’s in Tahoe?”

  “According to a tip from an informer who rides with his boys. There’s a deputy up in Northern Cal who’s made the Granite Mountain Boys his hobby. He’s the guy who runs the informer. I’ll make a note, have him give you a call.

  “Anyway, Tony Go is one of those really charismatic guys, and like a lot of those types he collects followers. He has something like fifty hard core followers, guys who would do whatever he says. Then there’s another hundred men who want to be part of the action because they’re losers and they like the idea that they belong to something, especially something that makes them look tough. Of course, mostly they’re a bunch of wimps. They carry chains and guns and knives and if they were trapped all alone in an alley and Little Red Riding Hood said boo, they’d wet their pants.”

  “Could Gomez have kidnapped Marlette’s kids?” I asked.

  “Yeah, sure. He’s got the rep. But it’s hard to separate reality from bullshit when it comes to Tony Go.”

  “Give me an example?” I said.

  “There’s a wacko rumor going round that he performs sacrifices at the full moon.”

  “Killing people? Like an ancient Aztec thing?”

  “So the rumor goes.”

  “You don’t believe it,” I said.

  “Would you? My BS meter rarely redlines, but it did on that story.”

  “What’s your guess on the Ramirez kids? They get kidnapped? Or did they run away?”

  “She tell you about the last time?” Mallory said.

  “Last time what,” I said.

  “Last time the daughter went missing.”

  “No. What happened?”

  “A few years ago. The daughter went missing, ran away and stayed at a friend’s house for two days. Ms. Remmick called it into the police.”

  “A missing persons’ report?”

  “No. She said her daughter had been kidnapped.”

  FOUR

  After I got off the phone with Mallory, I went back to bed for a few hours, then put Spot into the back of the Jeep and drove into South Lake Tahoe. Marlette Remmick had given me her address. I found her street near the Stateline end of town a couple blocks up the mountain from Pioneer Trail. I turned down the narrow pine needle-covered asphalt, watching the house numbers. Marlette’s house was a pale yellow box, one of the early Tahoe cabins built in the '40s or '50s. It squatted down low on concrete block piers with just enough space beneath the house to allow lost cats to hide out of the reach of human hands and to let the cold winter wind freeze the plumbing. The narrow lot was overhung with a heavy pine canopy that dropped a thick mat of needles over the old cedar shake roof. The shallow eaves were not much higher than Spot could reach standing on his hind legs. I’d have to be careful when I stepped through the door.

  I parked on the street and as I got out I saw Marlette through the living room window. She was riding an exercise bicycle. Her exertion didn’t look so much like exercise as it did a test to gauge the strength of the metal components. She stomped down on the pedals, spinning them into a blur. She gripped the handlebars as if to rip them off, and her head bobbed with ferocious intensity. I realized I was witnessing an exorcism of sorts and I was reluctant to interrupt. Then again, maybe it was imperative I stop her before she self-destructed.

  I knocked on the door. Then, realizing she’d never hear over the noise of the bicycle, I pounded on the wood with the meat of my fist.

  The whirling subsided and stopped. Marlette opened the door and beckoned me in. She had on the same pants and blue work shirt as she’d worn at my cabin hours earlier, only this time the shirt was dark between her shoulder blades, wet with sweat. She smelled of sweat but also of fear, biting and acrid.

  We sat in the kitchen at her dining table, a pine plank affair coated with a thick layer of glossy varnish.

  Her chest still heaved with oxygen deficit.

  I said, “Mallory says you called in some time back and said that Silence had been kidnapped, that this is the second time.”

  “That was different,” she said between breaths.

  “How?”

  “It was three years ago. Shane had just left me. I was nervous and afraid. Except for going to school, Silence had been a shut-in up until that point. Then one morning she went to school and didn’t come home. I called and the school said she never showed up. She’d never done anything that would have made me think she could disappear or run away. So I assumed the worst.”

  “She was okay,” I said.

  Marlette nodded. “Yeah. Instead of going to school, she went to a classmate’s house. The girl I mentioned this morning. The one who moved to Santa Monica. I had no clue. Gave me a fright to stop my heart. Silence came home a day and a half later. I wanted to slap her I was so upset. In fact, I would have if I thought it would’ve made any difference. But with Silence you never know if you’re reaching her.”

  “What was her reason?”

  “That’s why it’s so hard, her not ever talking.”

  “Doesn’t talk, or can’t talk?”

  “Silence is non-verbal. She’s never uttered a word in her life.”

  “Because she’s autistic,” I said.

  “Yeah. She’s what’s called verbal receptive, but not verbal expressive. Which means that she doesn’t talk even though she can sort of understand what people say. I’ve studied it. All parents of autistic kids have. It’s so frightening to have an autistic child, we’ve practically started an industry trying to figure it out. Discussion groups and support groups and books and talk shows and Internet sites. I don’t know that what we’re all learning has made a huge difference, although certainly some kids have gotten much better treatment and done much better than they would have in the past.”

  “It sounds like you don’t think Silence has improved.”

  Marlette seemed to stare at the air above my head. “The thing is, many autistic kids start off normally and begin to learn to talk. Then they regress at eighteen months or two years and lose their ability to make words and simple sentences. They stop looking at you and stop responding to you. It’s like you’re not in the room.”


  “Do they get better?”

  “With intense therapy they sometimes do. Some kids eventually learn to talk and communicate. Not like you or me, but they acquire enough words and sentences to get what they need.”

  “But not Silence?” I said.

  “No. With Silence, there never was any communication. She never noticed me, not from the time she was a newborn. Didn’t grab my fingers, didn’t look at my face. I tried to breast feed her. My God, it was a nightmare. It was like I was a food bottle, nothing more. She didn’t turn to look when I came in the room. She didn’t notice anybody. And, no, she never learned to talk. Not one word. Not even the word mama.”

  Marlette winced at the memory.

  I didn’t speak for a minute. Finally, I said, “What are her capacities? How does she function in other ways?”

  “I’m her mother, but I still haven’t figured her out. In many ways, she seems retarded even to me. Just like they say.”

  “What do you mean, ‘just like they say?’”

  “Most non-verbal autistic kids are quite retarded. Their mental capacity is not enough to allow them to take care of themselves in any way. A lot of them need full-time caregivers.”

  Marlette looked embarrassed. “Let’s face it, I’m poor, so it’s not like I can take Silence to every specialist in the books. And, frankly, I haven’t been very good at obtaining help from the various social service agencies. But over the years, many people have looked at Silence. The Special Ed teachers at the school have been especially thorough in getting Silence all the tests and doctor evaluations and putting together her IEP and her planner.”

  “What’s the IEP?”

  “Individualized Education Plan. I really owe those teachers for how hard they’ve worked with Silence. But some of the specialists have said that Silence is retarded and will never get any better. They say she’ll always need someone to live with her and attend to her needs. Don’t get me wrong, she can dress herself and feed herself, things like that. But they say she’ll never be able to arrange for her own living situation or manage her finances. Of course, how could it be otherwise? She can’t talk.”

  “How does she communicate? Does she sign? Can she write?”

  “No. The school psychologist says that signing or writing is another form of talking. If you can’t talk, but you can sign or write, you are verbal in most ways. For example, deaf people who sign are verbal. They just talk with their hands. But Silence is non-verbal. She can only communicate in the most primitive ways. She grunts and points and makes these little chirping sounds. Sometimes she pushes you toward what she wants. It’s hard to know what she wants. Very hard.” Marlette paused.

  “Charlie knows. Charlie and Silence have some other kind of communication. I’ve never understood it. It’s like he understands her sounds as if they were words.” Marlette was shaking her head. “I don’t know... Sometimes I’ve thought he is just making up what he thinks she wants. Then he says it like it is absolute fact.

  “There’s a psychiatrist in town who’s done Silence’s annual evaluations, and I asked him about it. He said it was possible that Charlie and Silence communicate the way identical twins do when they have their own private language. But he also said it was extremely doubtful. He’s a nice man. Thoughtful and caring. But he didn’t want to give me false hopes. He doesn’t think there is any hope that Silence will get better.”

  “It sounds like you disagree,” I said.

  “I don’t know. I’m not sure I disagree. It’s just that one of her teachers really disagrees.”

  “You mean she has a teacher who thinks she will be able to learn to talk and communicate?”

  “No, I don’t think she thinks that. But she has said many times that she’s convinced that Silence is very smart. She even said she was brilliant.”

  “Who is this teacher?”

  “Henrietta Johanssen. She’s one of the Special Ed teachers over at the high school. She’s been working with Silence for quite a few years and has become her advocate. She says that Silence has convinced her of her intelligence in many ways.”

  “How?”

  “Well, there’s her drawings. She’s always had an amazing ability to draw the things she sees. Henrietta says it’s a clear sign of high-level mental functioning.”

  “May I see them?”

  “Of course. Come look in her room.”

  I followed Marlette down a short hall and into a bedroom. It was like how I imagined any other teen-aged girl’s bedroom might look, painted lavender with purple trim. In one corner was a twin bed with a lavender bedspread. A small wooden desk had a lavender top and legs. The drawers were painted purple. In case the room didn’t have enough color, the lampshade was hung with a purple scarf.

  But where other girls have posters of movie stars and rock bands, Silence’s walls were covered in drawings. Wall-to-wall drawings. There seemed to be no theme. The drawings were in pencil on lined notebook paper, and they showed a hundred different subjects from Silence’s bedroom to various Tahoe mountains and landmarks and scenes of the lake. There were drawings of the high school and classrooms. There was an entire section of pictures of Spinner, the dog. As rendered in pencil on paper, Spinner was handsome in spite of a large thatch of head fur that stood up straight like a fright wig.

  On the dresser were two stacks of sketchbooks. I picked one up. It was filled with drawings, all very detailed, all incredibly accurate.

  The only thing that seemed consistent in her drawings was the lack of people. There were just a few drawings that depicted a boy. Young but tall, strong and poised. The drawings were so realistic you could get a sense of his personality. He looked to have that unusual quality of knowing exactly what he wanted out of life. He was the kid you’d pick out of a group and remark that he was going to go places.

  I pointed at the drawings. “Charlie?”

  “Yes,” Marlette’s voice was thick.

  “What do the doctors think about her artistic ability?”

  “They say it’s just a talent she has. That it is different than intelligence. They call her a savant. They say it happens with autistic kids. I’ve always remembered Dr. Power’s words. He said it’s uncommon, but it’s a regular occurrence.”

  “Henrietta thinks otherwise?”

  “Oh, yes. Henrietta says Silence notices things other kids don’t notice. She says in many ways Silence is even smarter than most other kids, but that she just can’t speak.”

  “What do you think?”

  Marlette shook her head. “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Sometimes I think Henrietta reads things into what Silence does. Like if Silence picks up a rock and looks at it, I’d probably think she was just picking up a rock. After all these years of taking care of her, day and night, month after month, I’d be pretty convinced that Silence was just, you know, picking up a rock. But Henrietta would say Silence was studying it, wondering about its composition. Things like that. Don’t get me wrong, I’d love nothing more in the whole world than to find out that Silence was like Helen Keller, a smart girl who just couldn’t communicate. But it’s not what I experience day after day. Maybe some people would say I’m heartless and unimaginative.” Marlette’s eyes watered. “But I’d say I’m practical and realistic. It’s what I see.”

  “When Silence ran away for a couple of days and you thought she’d been kidnapped, where did she go?”

  “The girl I mentioned who moved to Santa Monica. Her name is Jersey. Jersey Walker. She’s an unusual girl. Almost as strange in her way as Silence is. She’s not autistic or anything like that. But she was an outsider at school. And she never really talked to anyone except herself. I sometimes wondered if Jersey and Silence found a connection in their mutual dysfunction. Maybe Silence could tell that even though Jersey can talk, the fact that she mostly doesn’t talk makes her a little like Silence. Like they have something in common. I don’t know that Jersey really thought she could communicate with Silence. But how do I know what
goes on with two kids?”

  “Silence ran away to Jersey’s house?”

  “Yeah. She walked two miles to Jersey’s house and stayed in her bedroom for two days. Not even Jersey’s parents knew Silence was there. Prior to that she’d practically never left my side in her life. Without any glimmer of such a possibility I assumed the worst and called the cops. It was a mistake.”

  “But you think this time is different.”

  “Yes. As different as can be. I heard those motorcycles. My neighbor heard Charlie call out. And if Silence learned anything from the last time she ran away, it was never to do it again.”

  “What were your kids wearing when they disappeared?”

  “Silence had on brown khaki pants and a pink long-sleeved shirt. Charlie had on his usual, jeans and a white T-shirt. He never wears anything else, summer or winter.”

  “Didn’t you say this morning that you called Jersey yesterday after Silence went missing?”

  “Yes. Her mother said that Jersey wasn’t home from school. So I told her mother that Silence was missing. I didn’t say she was kidnapped because of what happened before. Her mother said that she would talk to Jersey and if they heard anything about Silence they’d call me.”

  “Are there any other kids who are friends with Silence?”

  Marlette shook her head. “I don’t even think Jersey was a friend in the way we normally use the word. Jersey was just, well, she happened to be there when Silence ran away. She accepted Silence in a way the other kids didn’t. But it’s not like they did stuff together. Anyway, none of the other kids at school would qualify as friends of Silence. At least, not that I know of.”

  “I’d like to talk to Jersey. Can you give me her number?”

  “Sure, let me get my address book.” Marlette went into her bedroom and came out with a small brown notebook. She wrote Jersey’s name and number on a Post-it note and handed it to me. “I just remembered. Silence has school pictures.” Marlette opened her daughter’s desk drawers, searching. “Here. Silence and Charlie and, here we are, Jersey.” She handed me three small photos. “The one on top is Jersey. The picture is old, but it gives you an idea of her. She’s a little different.”