Chuck Hustmyre - A Killer Like Me

“What do you want, Agent…” Murphy glanced at the bottom part of the agent’s credentials again, which the man still held up like a battering ram.

“Donce,” the man said. “Special Agent Walter Donce.”

“What do you want, Agent Donce?”

The FBI man slipped his identification back into his pocket. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you. I’ve had our Behavioral Science Unit at Quantico work up a profile of your serial killer.” He raised the envelope in his left hand. “If you have some time, I’d like to go over it with-”

“I don’t have time, Agent Donce. I’m busy trying to catch the killer, not psychoanalyze him.”

The FBI agent looked almost hurt. “All I’m trying to do is help, Detective.” He gave the envelope a little shake. “I have a tool that might be of use to you.”

Murphy shook his head. “A profile isn’t going to help me catch this killer. I’ve been saddled with your profiles before, and I’ve seen them mislead entire investigations. I’ve seen them cost lives.”

“A criminal profile is not a blueprint. It doesn’t tell you who the killer is, but it can-”

“Then what good is it?” Murphy said. “If your profile doesn’t help me identify the killer, why should I waste time reading it?”

“Serial killers share many of the same personality and behavioral traits, and identifying those traits can help us eliminate-”

Murphy cut off the FBI agent again. “I’m not looking for a personality type here, Agent Donce. I’m looking for one man.”

Murphy had no respect for profiles or the snake-oil salesmen who hawked them. As far as he was concerned, criminal profiling was junk science, like asking a voodoo priestess to assist on a case. He hoped that one day profiling would go the way of phrenology, the discredited nineteenth-century “science” of predicting criminal behavior by “reading” the bumps and dimples on a person’s skull.

There were too many cases in which innocent people had been killed because the investigators were following a profile instead of the evidence. The FBI profile of the Unabomber said he was a college student in his early twenties who drove an old car. In reality, Theodore Kaczynski turned out to be an over-forty mathematics genius with a PhD, who didn’t own a car and who lived in a cabin in Montana with no electricity.

The Washington, D.C., sniper, the Green River killer, the Baton Rouge serial killer, the post-9/11 anthrax attacks-those cases had all involved badly flawed profiles that misdirected the investigators, sometimes for years.

Donce dropped the hand with the envelope. “Our profiles nearly always turn out to be accurate.”

“That’s because you keep updating them even after the killer is caught. It’s nothing but Monday-morning quarterbacking.”

“That’s not what we do.”

Murphy pointed to the envelope. “Tell me about your profile.”

Donce held it out to Murphy. “You can have a copy if you want.”

“I don’t want to read it. Just give me the Reader’s Digest version. Better yet, I’ll give it to you. He’s a white male, twenty-five to forty, but probably on the higher end. He’s a loner. He’s clever but has little formal education. If he’s employed he’s probably got a fairly mundane job. He’s awkward around women. And he’s got issues with his mother. That about cover it?”

“That’s very much an oversimplification of what this report-”

“Tell me about his mommy issues. Those are always good.”

Donce looked disgusted, as if Murphy had just shit on his favorite shoes. “What you call mommy issues are really a complex set of problems that describe the most long-term, dominant relationship the killer has ever had. He was likely raised by his mother. His father either died or abandoned him at an early age. Therefore, his mother became the most powerful force in his life.”

Murphy felt his face go slack. For an instant, he saw his father lying on the kitchen floor, dead from a heart attack. Then his mother’s face, a cigarette dangling from her lips. He smelled her vodka-soaked breath.

“His mother is domineering and demanding,” the FBI agent said, “and those attributes have led to an almost constantly elevated level of tension between them. He blames her for holding him back, and she blames him for not living up to her expectations. At the same time, she is angry at him for always trying to leave her. If he’s dated, she hasn’t approved of any of the women in his life.”

Memories and images flooded Murphy’s consciousness. Notre Dame, his one season of football and a future that didn’t happen. Mother’s constant nagging. Her criticism of every girlfriend he ever had. His failed career with the police department. Marcy Edwards on the floor of her bathroom, his arm locked around her throat, choking her to death. The last line in the letter: You are a killer like me.

“Detective Murphy, are you all right?” Donce asked.

Murphy took a deep breath. “I’ve got to get some air.”

He rushed down the hall to the fire exit. Outside, he had to lean against a Dumpster to keep from falling over.

Monday, August 6, 3:00 PM

The killer stares through the sliding glass door at the rain pounding the street. On the television behind him, the chief meteorologist at Channel 4 is talking about the coming storm.

Mother left this morning. He saw her hauling her suitcases out and piling them into the trunk of her cream-colored Buick LeSabre. The car is ten years old and in mint condition. She’s never let him drive it, not even when his Honda was in the shop and he needed to get to work. “Take the bus,” she said. “That’s what your father used to do.”

She left without saying good-bye. Just slammed the trunk and took off, headed to a hotel in Baton Rouge to ride out the storm.

According to the WWL weatherman, Hurricane Catherine’s forward movement has slowed slightly, but she is still on track for a direct hit on New Orleans. The outer bands are now expected to start raking the city sometime this evening. Hurricane-force winds will arrive before midnight.

Maybe Mother will make it to Baton Rouge before the storm. Too bad. With nearly forty thousand people killed each year in automobile accidents, why couldn’t she be one of them? According to the newscast, the traffic corridors leading out of town, I-10 west to Baton Rouge and I-55 north to Hammond, are parking lots. Unfortunately, there is not much chance of a fatal car accident when traffic is barely moving.

The killer is waiting for nightfall. He feels safe in the dark. But he can’t wait much longer. There are things he must do before the storm arrives. God has wrought the storm not to hurt him but to help him. What Katrina started, Catherine will finish. This godless city will be purged.

His apartment sits at ground level. Mother’s house is set on piers. Her bottom floor is three feet above ground. The second floor, really only a half story, is four feet above that. Across the street is Saint Anthony of Padua Catholic Church, a century-old three-story block of stone.

During Katrina, the killer’s Mid-City neighborhood got nearly six feet of water. If the levees and flood walls crumble and the water starts to rise again, he will cross the street and take refuge at Saint Anthony’s. The pastor knows Mother well. She goes to Mass at least four times a week. If no one is there, he knows how to get inside.

A car slows as it passes his house. The killer steps back, away from the sliding glass door. The street is one-way, left to right from the killer’s perspective. The car stops in front of the house next door. The killer yanks the drape across the glass, leaving only a slit to peek through.