IQ(36)

“Presa what?” Dodson said.

“Presa Canario. It’s originally from the Spanish Canary Islands. Big strong dog, weighs over a hundred pounds. Ranchers bred them to kill predators and for dogfighting. They call it a pit bull on steroids. It’s got an unpredictable temperament and it’s human aggressive. Mix that together with a pit’s fearlessness and determination and train it to attack on sight and I don’t know what you’ve got.” Harry closed the cage and wiped his hands on his shirt. “And I’ll tell you something else,” he said. “Whoever the fella is that bred this dog is one crazy son of a bitch.”





CHAPTER EIGHT


Jiffy Lube


May 2005

Hunting down Marcus’s killer gave Isaiah focus; something to occupy his mind besides his grief. A reason to get up in the morning. He called the East Long Beach police station and spoke to Detective Purcell who was in charge of the investigation. Isaiah told the detective he was calling on behalf of his mother. She was too upset to talk and wanted to know if there was any progress tracking down the driver.

“I’m afraid I don’t have much to tell her,” Purcell said. “In a hit-and-run people tend to look at the victim first and only see the vehicle as it’s leaving the scene.”

“Nobody saw anything?” Isaiah said. He could hear Purcell thinking Why didn’t you?

“There was a witness at the bus stop,” Purcell said. “He stated the vehicle was a late-model Honda Accord, silver, the up model. He couldn’t describe the driver, everything happened too fast.” Purcell said there were stories about the accident on the local news and an article had appeared in the newspaper but nobody called the hotline.

“Anything else you can tell my mom?” Isaiah said.

“It’s an ongoing investigation and we’re doing everything we can,” Purcell said. “If there are any developments we’ll contact you.”


For the first time since the accident, Isaiah went back to the intersection of Anaheim and Baldwin. Not much traffic this time of day. A woman filling up at the Shell station. An old man sweeping the sidewalk in front of a liquor store. A homeless kid with two dogs walking by. Normal, like Marcus was never here. Like Marcus had never died. Isaiah tried not to look at the patch of asphalt where his brother lost his life but couldn’t help it. He saw Marcus lying there, a bag of broken bones and smashed arteries, the luminous smile snuffed out forever. Isaiah felt a surge of heat coming from his insides, pushing sweat out of his pores, his face burning up. Light-headed and nauseous, he sat down on the bus bench. Somebody asked him if he was all right and he waved them away.


On the SB5 Stanford-Binet intelligence test Isaiah’s reasoning scores were near genius levels. His abilities came naturally but were honed in his math classes. He was formally introduced to inductive reasoning in geometry, a tenth-grade subject he took in the eighth. His teacher, Mrs. Washington, was a severe woman who looked to be all gristle underneath her brightly colored pantsuits. Lavender, Kelly green, peach. She talked to the class like somebody had tricked her into it.

“All right,” she said. “Inductive reasoning. It’s what those so-called detectives on CSI, SVU, LMNOP and all the rest of them call deductive reasoning, which is wrong and they should know better. It’s inductive reasoning, a tool you will use frequently in geometry as well as calculus and trigonometry, assuming you get that far and that certainly won’t be you, Jacquon. Stop messing with that girl’s hair and pay attention. Your grade on that last test was so low I had to write it on the bottom of my shoe.” Mrs. Washington glared at Jacquon until his face melted. She began again: “Inductive reasoning is reasoning to the most likely explanation. It begins with one or more observations, and from those observations we come to a conclusion that seems to make sense. All right. An example: Jacquon was walking home from school and somebody hit him on the head with a brick twenty-five times. Mrs. Washington and her husband, Wendell, are the suspects. Mrs. Washington is five feet three, a hundred and ten pounds, and teaches school. Wendell is six-two, two-fifty, and works at a warehouse. So who would you say is the more likely culprit?”

Isaiah and the rest of the class said Wendell.

“Why?” Mrs. Washington said. “Because Mrs. Washington may have wanted to hit Jacquon with a brick twenty-five times but she isn’t big or strong enough. Seems reasonable given the facts at hand, but here’s where inductive reasoning can lead you astray. You might not have all the facts. Such as Wendell is an accountant at the warehouse who exercises by getting out of bed in the morning, and before Mrs. Washington was a schoolteacher she was on the wrestling team at San Diego State in the hundred-and-five-to-hundred-and-sixteen-pound weight class and would have won her division if that blond girl from Cal Northridge hadn’t stuck a thumb in her eye. Jacquon, I know your mother and if I tell her about your behavior she will beat you ’til your name is Jesus.”


The driver who killed Marcus was going east on Anaheim, ran a red light at Baldwin, and went past the witness, who was standing at the bus stop thirty feet away. According to the bus schedule, the number nine stopped at 6:05. Rush hour. The witness, Isaiah thought, was probably on his way home from work and if that was the case he took the same bus every day.

Isaiah waited. Three Latina women showed up a little before six. Probably domestics with their steadfast faces and oversize handbags. Then a chubby black man with merry eyes and a bow tie arrived, smiling at everyone like he was ever so pleased to make their acquaintance. Seven Latino men came next in ones and twos. They wore rough clothes and rugged shoes, a few of them carrying lunch pails. Any of these people could have recognized an Accord but the witness told Detective Purcell it was the up model and if you could distinguish between the models you were into cars. The witness came last. He was stocky, short hair, a square face, and powerful hands that would never be clean. A red-and-white logo on his shirt said JIFFY LUBE. If he was changing oil all day he knew his cars.