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Milo said, “You know a lot about all kinds of things.”
“Not really, sir. I know a little about as many things as I can find out. My dad calls it a mile wide and an inch deep, says it would make me a perfect politician but please don’t go that route.”
“Let me guess: He wants you to be a doctor.”
“A physician,” said Aaron. “But I don’t like blood so I’m looking seriously at psychology.”
Milo grinned. “Then guess what, my friend, you came to the right place. This is Dr. Delaware, our consulting psychologist.”
The boy turned to me, wide-eyed. “Really? That’sexactlywhat I’d like to do. Do you find it stimulating and fascinating?” He blushed. “Stupid question, why would you be here if you didn’t?”
I smiled. “It can be intellectually challenging.”When it’s not boring or terrifying.
“Do you profile?”
“Not strictly speaking.”
“What do you mean?”
“Official profiles stem from the information at hand. Let’s say a profile is developed based on interviews with a group of incarcerated murderers. Which is exactly how the FBI started. They may not be representative of all murderers. On top of that, criminals lie. Most important, as new information comes in, patterns can shift. Not adjusting for that is called sampling error, Aaron. So anything too structured gives false confidence and raises the risk of a high error rate. Profiles get a lot of coverage. Kind of like dark rooms in movies. But they rarely solve crimes.”
“So what does?”
“Hard work, open eyes and minds, and often a whole lot of luck.”
“Hmm,” he said. “Okay, that makes sense. So whatdoyou do?”
“I start every case from scratch, avoid tunnel vision, observe carefully, and do a lot of thinking.”
“Got it,” said Aaron Blanding. He scratched his head. “But was I right about dissociation?”
“Hundred percent. Good call.”
“Cool.”
Milo said, “How about we sit down.”
CHAPTER
22
The seating triangle allowed everyone to look at two people. Milo had constructed it perfectly, with equal distance among the chairs.
Aaron Blanding nudged his chair slightly closer to mine. Kept sneaking looks at me.
Psychologus americanus.The animal in the exotic zoo.
Milo said, “So, Aaron, what can we do for you?”
The boy shifted back to him. “I decided to come here because I thought I could offer some insight into the dynamics of my family. Unless you’ve already solved my sister’s murder and don’t need that.”
Now both of them were looking at me.
I said, “The more we know, the better. What can you tell us, Aaron?”
“For starts, I want to say that though I’m coming across relatively chill it doesn’t mean my sister’s death didn’t affect me emotionally. It did. It does. When I heard, I cried and I’m not ashamed to admit that. But then I woke up this morning and I felt I should get myself together and try to help. My mother had already said I could stay out of schoolso I told her I was walking to the Beverly Hills library to do some reading. Instead, I took the bus here.”
“Appreciate the effort,” said Milo. He crossed his legs.
