Chris Carter - An Evil Mind

Taylor could feel on her skin how volatile the air had become down in that basement corridor.

‘You’re bluffing again,’ she tried one more time, her voice angry and a few decibels louder than before. ‘Robert said that there were two perpetrators. Forensics found two sets of fingerprints at the scene. Are you going to tell us that you had a partner this once? And . .’ she stressed before Lucien could respond, ‘we now have your fingerprints on file. One of the first things the FBI’s computer system does is to check the fingerprint of any apprehended individuals for a match against the records in IAFIS, which are linked to any unsolved crimes. If your fingerprints had matched any of the ones found inside Jessica’s home, or at the crime scene of any other unsolved crime, we would’ve had red alerts screaming at us from all four corners days ago.’

IAFIS is the Integrated Automated Fingerprints Identification System. After collecting a DNA sample, the FBI computer system also does the same check against the National DNA database.

Lucien waited patiently for Taylor to finish.

‘As I have brought to your attention before, Agent Taylor, you can be quite naive sometimes. Do you think that staging a crime scene is hard? Do you think that making a murder look like a by-product of a robbery is difficult? Do you think that acquiring and planting someone else’s fingerprints inside Jessica’s house would’ve posed a problem to someone like me?’ He laughed. ‘I can give you the names of the two men those fingerprints belonged to. Not that you’ll be able to verify it anyway, but I can also give you the location where you’ll find their remains. I wanted it to look like a robbery by gang members. I wanted the police to look for two suspects, instead of one. Why do you think the FBI had no clue I existed, Agent Taylor? Why do you think that after so many murders, your Behavioral Science Unit was never able to link any of them? Why do you think you haven’t been searching for a murderer who’s been killing people for twenty-five years?’

Defeat and anger began to draw lines across Taylor’s face.

‘It’s called deception, Agent Taylor. Making the police believe one thing, while the truth is something very different. It’s an art, and I’m very good at it.’

Lucien reverted his attention back to Hunter.

‘Maybe this will clear all the doubts from your mind once and for all, Robert. You said that all the jewelry Jessica had in the house was taken, but did you tell the detectives exactly what was taken?’

Hunter felt an awkward sensation crawling like a rash across his skin.

‘Of course not,’ Lucien said. ‘I doubt you knew every piece of jewelry she owned. But I can tell you exactly what was taken. She kept everything inside this cute little flowery box on the dresser in her room. Next to another picture of the two of you. A picture that wasn’t touched, wasn’t vandalized. The two of you at the beach.’ He paused, and in Hunter’s face saw the punch hit its target. But he wasn’t done yet. ‘I took the whole box. But from her body, other than the engagement ring you’ve already said was taken, I also took her two single diamond earrings, and her dainty necklace. The pendant on it was a white gold humming bird. Its eye was a tiny ruby.’

No amount of self-discipline would’ve been able to keep Hunter’s anger locked inside this time. He exploded forward and slammed both of his fists against the Plexiglas several times.

Tears welled up in Hunter’s eyes. The deep pain in them was as clear as words on a page. Without even realizing, and through gritted teeth, a single word escaped his lips.

‘Why?’

Hunter’s outburst was so sudden and so violent that it made Taylor jump on the spot. Lucien, on the other hand, barely blinked. He was expecting it.

When Hunter’s fists finally stopped pounding the Plexiglas, the skin on his hands had turned red raw and was already starting to bruise. His whole body was trembling with rage, sadness and confusion. Lucien was simply enjoying the show, but he didn’t fail to hear Hunter’s question.

‘You want to know why?’ Lucien said.

Hunter just glared at him. He couldn’t stop shaking. At that particular moment, he was in a place very far away from his sane starting point.

Lucien gathered himself, lifting up as if what he wanted to say needed an injection of strength into the nape of his neck.

‘The real reason is because I couldn’t help it,’ Lucien explained. ‘I’d really missed you, Robert. I missed the only true friend I ever had. So eight months before the incident with Jessica, I decided to look you up in Los Angeles. I didn’t get in contact with you first because I wanted to surprise you. I wanted to see if you’d recognize me if I suddenly knocked on your door.’

Hunter allowed his hands to drop to the side of his body.

‘I found out where you lived,’ Lucien continued. ‘That wasn’t very hard. So I just hung around your apartment block one evening, waiting for you to come home. I thought that maybe after the huge surprise, or at least what I thought would be a huge surprise for you, we could go and grab a beer somewhere, talk about old times. . catch up.’ Lucien shrugged. ‘Maybe deep inside I had a masochistic desire to see if you would pick anything up — any psychopathic traits, I mean. Maybe I wanted to check if you could see behind my everyday mask. Or maybe it wasn’t that at all. Maybe I was so confident that I just wanted to put myself through a test, to prove to myself that I was that good. And what better test than to spend a few days in the company of the best criminal behavior psychologist I knew. Someone who was also a police officer, and about to become a detective. If you weren’t able to read the signs, Robert, then who would?’

Hunter’s stomach was in turmoil, and he had to concentrate hard not to be sick.

‘But that night you didn’t come home alone,’ Lucien proceeded. ‘I watched you park your car, get out and, like a gentleman, go around to the other side and open the passenger’s door for someone. Out stepped this beautiful woman. And I have to hand it to you, Robert, she was stunning.’

Hunter held his breath to stop his chest from heaving with emotion.

‘I couldn’t really tell you what it was exactly,’ Lucien said. ‘But one thing that my experiences had already taught me, was that despite all the desires, despite all the violent thoughts and impulses one gets, despite the unstoppable drive to take someone’s life, there still needs to be some sort of trigger to finally push one over the edge.’

Immediately, Hunter and Taylor’s thoughts went back to the passage they’d read in Lucien’s notebook, which Kennedy had showed them the day before.

‘With Jessica it was the way she looked at you when you took her hand to help her out of the car, Robert,’ Lucien moved on. ‘The way she kissed you right there in the parking lot. There was so much love between the two of you that I could feel it on my skin all the way from where I was standing.’

Hunter’s fingers closed into a fist once again.

‘I tried, Robert. I tried to resist it. That’s why I never approached you that time. I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to take Jessica from you. I left Los Angeles the next morning, and I did all I could to forget about her. If ever I tried to resist an urge, that was it. But what neither of you will ever understand is that once that trigger goes off inside your head, you’re doomed. The obsession drives you crazy. You can delay it, but you can’t contain it. It comes back night, after day, after night, hammering your brain, until you just can’t take it anymore. Until the visions take over your life. And that point came eight months later.’