Chris Carter - An Evil Mind

‘Subconsciously, my brain kept on going back to the same MO as I had used with Susan, and we all know the reason why, don’t we? Though it had been nowhere near perfect, I knew I’d feel more comfortable going back to an MO I had used before and knew it worked. Familiarity, Agent Taylor. That’s why repeat offenders rarely change their MO.’ He pointed to her notebook. ‘You can write that down if you want.’

Lucien got up, poured himself a glass of water from the washbasin, and returned to the edge of his bed.

‘But I decided that I wasn’t looking for comfortable. I wasn’t looking to do something I’d already done. That wasn’t part of what I had planned in my head. So I started to think about what I’d do differently. Even before I met Karen, I knew I would do it again. There was no doubt in my mind anymore. The urges had become too great for me to resist them. I knew that it was just a matter of time, and finding the right victim. So the search for a new hidden place began.’

‘Where is she?’ Hunter asked.

‘Oh, she’s still in Connecticut,’ Lucien confirmed. ‘Actually, not that far from New Haven and Yale University.’ An otherworldly feeling appeared to radiate out of Lucien, like a fatal sort of calm that could creep out just about anyone.

‘Where exactly?’ Hunter pushed.

More for effect than anything else, Lucien hesitated, moving his head from side to side as if half in doubt.

‘I’ll tell you, but let me ask you this first.’

Taylor was attentively observing Lucien. She would never forget the evil smile he threw their way.

‘Do you know what a LIN charge is?’

Lucien had met Karen Simpson right at the beginning of his second year at Yale University. Karen had just transferred from some place in England, and was still settling in. Lucien had never forgotten the first time he saw. . no, heard her. That was what caught his attention at first, her voice. . her British accent.

It was right at the end of a rather boring lecture in Investigative Psychology and Offending Behavior, when Karen put her hand up to ask a question. Lucien had already gathered his books together and was ready to leave when the sound of her voice made him stop. There was something in the calm and unconcerned way in which she pronounced every word. There was a charming cadence to her sentences that was almost hypnotizing to the ear. The icing on the cake was the way everything was dressed up in the most charismatic British accent.

Lucien’s eyes found Karen sitting at the other end of the lecture hall, almost hidden away among the other students. She couldn’t have been any taller than five-foot-two, Lucien guessed. He took a step to the side to get a better look at her. Her makeup looked quite different — heavier, more Gothic than most. She was wearing a dark T-shirt with ‘The Cure’ written on it and a photograph of someone with messy dark hair, heavy black eye makeup, and badly applied red lipstick.

But what really grabbed his attention was the large colored tattoo on her right upper arm. As he caught sight of it, it made him hold his breath for a moment or two. All of a sudden his memory was slapped with images of Susan and what had happened that night just over two years ago. Images of him carefully slicing the skin off her arm. The memories brought with them a tremendous head rush, something he hadn’t felt since that night, and for an instant Lucien felt light-headed and almost lost his balance.

What is that? he thought as he recomposed himself, squinting his eyes at the tattoo. It looked like a couple of large birds, but from where he was standing he couldn’t be sure. What he was sure of was that Karen Simpson would never graduate from Yale. Her fate would be much, much different.

It didn’t take Lucien long at all to befriend Karen. In fact, it happened later that same day. From a distance, he’d followed her around campus for the next couple of hours, until a perfect opportunity presented itself during mid-afternoon. Karen had just stepped out of the Psychiatric Hospital building, just south of the old campus, when she paused, seemingly looking for something inside her rucksack. She rummaged through it for about two minutes before giving up. After letting go of a deep, exasperated breath, she allowed her eyes to circle around her, looking a little lost.

‘Everything OK?’ Lucien asked, recognizing the opportunity and tentatively approaching her. The expression on his face was pleasant, innocent.

Karen smiled shyly. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. I just seem to have lost my campus map, which is not the best thing to do on your first week in a campus this big.’

Yale University is spread over 837 acres of ground, with over 11,000 students.

‘That’s very true,’ Lucien agreed with a sympathetic chuckle. ‘But you might be in luck. Give me a sec,’ he said, lifting a finger in a “wait” gesture before reaching into his own rucksack. ‘Here we go. I knew it would be here somewhere. Have this one.’ He handed Karen a new campus map.

‘Oh!’ Her eyes lit up with surprise. ‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, of course. I know my way around quite well. I just never really cleaned out my bag, so that map’s been there for a while.’ He gave her a “What can you do?” kind of shrug. ‘Anyway, where do you need to go just now?’

‘I’m trying to find Grove Street Cemetery.’

Karen’s British pronunciation of cemetery brought a new smile to Lucien’s lips.

‘Wow, that’s quite a walk from here.’ He pointed south. ‘Why do you want to go to the cemetery, if you don’t mind me asking?’

‘Oh, no, I don’t really need the cemetery. That’s just my point of reference. I need to go to the Dunham Lab building, but I remember that it’s just across the road from the cemetery.’

Lucien nodded. ‘Yes, that’s right, but hey, I’m heading that way myself. I can walk you there if you like.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes, of course. I’m going to the Becton Center, which is right opposite the Dunham Lab building.’

‘Oh, that’s a piece of good luck,’ Karen said, hooking her rucksack over her right shoulder. ‘Well, if it really is no bother, that would be great. Thank you very much.’

Then, with a thoughtful expression on his face, Lucien looked at Karen a little sideways. ‘Wait a second.’ He pointed a finger at her. ‘You were in the Investigative Psychology and Offending Behavior lecture this morning, weren’t you?’ His performance could’ve won him a place in drama school.

Surprised flourished on Karen’s face. ‘I was indeed. You were there?’

‘Yeah, sitting right at the back. I’m doing a psychology PhD.’

Even more surprise now.

‘So am I. I just transferred from University College in London.’

‘Wow, London? I always wanted to go to London.’ Lucien offered his hand. ‘I’m Lucien, by the way.’

And so they became friends.

Lucien already knew he would kill again. He’d started fantasizing about how he would do it around eight months ago, and the more he thought about it, the harder it got to control his impulses. Meeting Karen Simpson filled him with an immense feeling of relief, as if he’d just found a long-lost piece of a puzzle that had been eating at his brain for months.

Lucien didn’t want to overdo it, though. He knew that people would see them together, so he didn’t want to appear like he was Karen’s best friend, or even a romantic interest. Those were the first people whose doors the authorities would come knocking once she disappeared. No, Lucien was careful to appear like just another student in Karen’s circle of friends. Even an acquaintance, rather than a friend.

His planning took another six months. Four of them were spent searching for a hidden place where he’d be able to take Karen and take his time, undisturbed. He finally found an abandoned shack hidden deep in the forestland by Lake Saltonstall, not that dissimilar to the one he’d found back in La Honda. One thing Lucien was very certain of was that he would skin Karen alive. Skinning was what had given him the biggest high that night with Susan. And that meant he would have to keep Karen in captivity for at least a few hours.