John Verdon - Think of a Number

“You might want to touch on a few key points. Correct me if I’m wrong,” he said, glancing around the table and clearly not expecting to be corrected, “but with the exception of Dave, I don’t think the rest of us have had much practical experience with serial murder.”

Rodriguez looked like he was about to object to something but said nothing.

Holdenfield smiled unhappily. “Is everyone at least familiar in a general way with the Holmes typology of serial murder?”

The assortment of murmurs and nods around the table was generally affirmative. Only Blatt had a question. “Sherlock Holmes?”

Gurney wasn’t sure whether this was a stupid joke or just stupid.

“Ronald M. Holmes-a bit more contemporary, and an actual person,” said Holdenfield in an exaggeratedly benign tone that Gurney couldn’t quite place. Was it possible she was mimicking Mister Rogers addressing a five-year-old?

“Holmes categorized serial killers by their motivations-the type driven by imagined voices; the type on a mission to rid the world of some intolerable group of people-blacks, gays, you name it; the type seeking total domination; the thrill seeker who gets his greatest rush from killing; and the sex murderer. But they all have one thing in common-”

“They’re all fucking nuts,” said Blatt with a smug grin.

“Good point, Investigator,” said Holdenfield with a deadly sweetness, “but what they really have in common is a terrible inner tension. Killing someone provides them with temporary relief from that tension.”

“Sort of like getting laid?”

“Investigator Blatt,” said Kline angrily, “it might be a good idea to keep your questions to yourself until Rebecca finishes her comments.”

“His question is actually quite apt. An orgasm does relieve sexual tension. However, it does not in a normal person create a dysfunctional downward spiral demanding increasingly frequent orgasms at greater and greater cost. In that respect I believe serial killing has more in common with drug dependency.”

“Murder addiction,” said Kline slowly, speculatively, as though he were trying out a headline for a press release.

“Dramatic phrase,” said Holdenfield, “and there’s some truth in it. More than most people, the serial killer lives in his own fantasy world. He may appear to function normally in society. But he derives no satisfaction from his public life, and he has no interest in the real lives of other people. He lives only for his fantasies-fantasies of control, domination, punishment. For him these fantasies constitute a superreality-a world in which he feels important, omnipotent, alive. Any questions at this point?”

“I have one,” said Kline. “Do you have an opinion yet on which of the serial-killer types we’re looking for?”

“I do, but I’d love to hear what Detective Gurney has to say about that.”

Gurney suspected that her earnest, collegial expression was as phony as her smile.

“A man on a mission,” he said.

“Ridding the world of alcoholics?” Kline sounded half curious, half skeptical.

“I think ‘alcoholic’ would be part of the target-victim definition, but there may be more to it-to account for his specific choice of victims.”

Kline responded with a noncommittal grunt. “In terms of a more expanded profile, something more than ‘a man on a mission,’ how would you describe our perp?”

Gurney decided to play tit for tat. “I have a few ideas, but I’d love to hear what Dr. Holdenfield has to say about that.”

She shrugged, then spoke quickly and matter-of-factly. “Thirty-year-old white male, high IQ, no friendships, no normal sexual relationships. Polite but distant. He almost certainly had a troubled childhood, with a central trauma that influences his choice of victims. Since his victims are middle-aged men, it’s possible the trauma involved his father and an oedipal relationship with his mother-”

Blatt broke in. “You’re not saying that this guy was literally… I mean, are you saying… with his mother?”

“Not necessarily. This is all about fantasy. He lives in and for his fantasy life.”

Rodriguez’s voice was jagged with impatience. “I’m having a real problem with that word, Doctor. Five dead bodies are not fantasies!”

“You’re right, Captain. To you and me, they’re not fantasies at all. They’re real people, individuals with unique lives, worthy of respect, worthy of justice, but that’s not what they are to a serial murderer. To him they’re merely actors in his play-not human beings as you and I understand the term. They are only the two-dimensional stage props he imagines them to be-pieces of his fantasy, like the ritual elements found at the crime scenes.”

Rodriguez shook his head. “What you’re saying may make some kind of sense in the case of a lunatic serial murderer, but so what? I mean, I have other problems with this whole approach. I mean, who decided this was a serial-murder case? You’re racing down that road without the slightest…” He hesitated, seeming suddenly aware of the stridency of his voice and the impolitic nature of attacking one of Sheridan Kline’s favorite consultants. He went on in a softer register. “I mean, sequential murders are not always the work of a serial murderer. There are other ways to look at this.”

Holdenfield looked honestly baffled. “You have alternative hypotheses?”

Rodriguez sighed. “Gurney keeps talking about some factor in addition to drinking that accounts for the choice of victims. An obvious factor might be their common involvement in some past action, accidental or intentional, which injured the killer, and all we’re seeing now is revenge on the group responsible for the injury. It could be as simple as that.”

“I can’t say a scenario like that is impossible,” said Holdenfield, “but the planning, the poems, the details, the ritual all seem too pathological for simple revenge.”

“Speaking of pathological,” rasped Jack Hardwick like a man enthusiastically dying of throat cancer, “this might be the perfect time to bring everyone up to date on the latest piece of batshit evidence.”

Rodriguez glared at him. “Another little surprise?”

Hardwick continued without reaction, “At Gurney’s request, a team of techs was sent out to the B &B where he thought the killer might have stayed the night before the Mellery murder.”

“Who approved that?”

“I did, sir,” said Hardwick. He sounded proud of his transgression.

“Why didn’t I see any paperwork on that?”

“Gurney didn’t think there was time,” lied Hardwick. Then he raised his hand to his chest with a curiously stricken I-think-I’m-having-a-heart-attack look and let loose with an explosive belch. Blatt, startled out of a private reverie, jerked back from the table so energetically his chair nearly toppled backwards.

Before Rodriguez, jangled by the interruption, could refocus on his paperwork concern, Gurney took the ball from Hardwick and launched into an explanation of why he’d wanted an evidence team at The Laurels.

“The first letter the killer sent to Mellery used the name X. Arybdis. In Greek, an x is equivalent to a ch , and Charybdis is the name of a murderous whirlpool in Greek mythology, linked to another fatal peril named Scylla. The night before the morning of Mellery’s murder, a man and an older woman using the name Scylla stayed at that B &B. I would be very surprised if that were a coincidence.”

“A man and an older woman?” Holdenfield looked intrigued.

“Possibly the killer and his mother, although the register, oddly enough, was signed ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ Maybe that supports the oedipal piece of your profile?”

Holdenfield smiled. “It’s almost too perfect.”