William Bernhardt - Dark Eye

I should’ve stopped reading the blog right then and there, but of course I didn’t. I kept moving backward in time until I got to an entry describing a family trip to Carlsbad Caverns. As soon as she was down in the cave, she’d freaked. Totally lost her head. Turns out that prissy mother of hers used to exact punishment by locking her in a small, dark closet and she’d been claustrophobic ever since.

So just imagine what happened when Helen found herself locked up in that coffin. No light, no air. Barely able to move. No one to hear her screams.

Small wonder her fingers were shredded, the lid of the coffin was so scarred.

I had to catch this killer. Soon.

“Seen this?”

Patrick tossed the morning paper on my desk. The double-sized headline was easy to read: KILLER INSPIRED BY POE!

I scanned the story by Jonathan Wooley, the reporter who had been covering the case. He knew about the quotes and he knew the murder methods re-created scenes from Poe’s fiction. “I thought we were keeping this to ourselves.”

“So did O’Bannon,” Patrick informed me. “He’s furious. Who do you think leaked it?”

“I have no idea. For his sake, I hope O’Bannon doesn’t find out.”

Patrick propped his feet up on the edge of my desk, leaning his chair back against the men’s room door. It was generous of him to stay out here with me. I knew perfectly well Granger had given him a nice private office.

“I read your preliminary profile. Good, solid work.”

“Thank you. I appreciate your-”

“So you won’t mind, I hope, if I say we should tear it into pieces and start from scratch.”

Slow burn. “You think I’m on the wrong track.”

“Not at all. I just prefer to build from the ground up. I’ve had previous cases where I came in late and tried to operate within the parameters of preexisting profiles. It doesn’t work. Even when I have full and free license to edit.”

“Okay.” I was not going to throw a fit. I was not going to act defensive. There would be no turf war, damn it. “Why don’t you work up your own profile, then we’ll compare-”

“No, no,” he said, looking at me with those baby-blue eyes that could probably persuade a chimney to give up smoking. “I want us to do it together.”

“Look, you don’t have to humor me-”

“Not at all. You’ve got the experience with this case, not me. And you’ve got a solid background in behavioral sciences. I might be able to contribute some of the latest thoughts and theories. We’ll work together.”

Like I said before, almost too perfect. “Okay, where do we start? What do we know?”

“Statistically speaking,” Patrick began, “our killer is most likely a white male between the ages of twenty and forty-five. Over ninety percent of all American serial killers are.”

“The cops already know that. What else can we give them?”

“Let’s start with preliminary classifications.”

“Organized and disorganized?”

“Essentially. But that terminology has fallen out of favor. Roy Hazelwood has modified Douglas’s work somewhat in this regard. He prefers to start by distinguishing between the impulsive offender and the ritualistic offender.”

“I’d say our guy is ritualistic.”

“Definitely. A thinking killer. Someone who has spent an enormous amount of time working out his fantasy and bringing it to life. He’s not taking the easy way, or the approach that would be most likely to avoid detection. He’s planning everything in accordance with some loony scheme.”

“The Poe fetish.”

“So it seems. Bringing those weird stories to life has become an idée fixe for our man. But what does he hope to accomplish?”

“Good question. Wish I had an equally good answer.”

He sat up to let one of the sergeants pass into the bathroom. “Hazelwood has delineated the five components of the ritualistic killer: relational, paraphilic, situational, victim demographics, and selfperceptional.”

“You’re going to have to explain.”

“Relational has to do with the relationship between the victim and the offender-or more accurately, what he fantasizes the relationship to be. Girlfriend? Wife? Slave?”

“And the answer is?”

“We don’t know. We need more information. Your coroner says the victims haven’t been sexually molested, at least not in the sense of penetration. Our man may be a kidnapper, but he’s no lothario.”

“Probably impotent.”

“A distinct possibility, but we both know there are still ways for a crazed man to inflict sexual damage and humiliation on a helpless woman. If we knew more about what he does with them before he kills them, that might yield some answers. Or if we knew how he selects them. How he lures them in.”

“Next component?”

“ Paraphilia is the currently vogue term for sexual deviation. Voyeurism, pedophilia, necrophilia, transvestitism-you name it.”

“You think this guy can’t get it off the normal way, so he’s grabbing little girls off the street.”

“I’m not saying that. This could be a twisted form of sexual sadism. A way of asserting his power over them. He renders them powerless with the drug, then subjects them to some Poe-inspired horror. A form of slavery, I suppose.”

“But there’s no indication that he’s trying to break their will. Play with their minds. Turn them into true slaves.”

“Not yet, maybe. But this guy is just getting started.” A grim expression crossed his face. “Let’s hope we catch him before it gets to that.”

“Situational?”

“That’s key to understanding what our boy is up to. What’s the situation he’s trying to create? What setting is he trying to realize?”

“I’m not sure I follow.”

“For instance, when I’m giving lectures back at Quantico, the setting I’m trying to create is a classroom. The relationship is teacher-student.”

“I got you.”

“Or here, for instance, with us, the setting is master-servant.” His eyes sparkled. “The young protégé learns at the feet of the seasoned master.”

“Is that what this is? I thought it was more like the hopeful acolyte worships at the temple of the earth goddess.” Okay, maybe that was a little obvious, but he’d started it.

He cast his eyes about. “Not much of a temple.”

“I’m a rose-colored-glasses girl.”

He dragged the conversation back on track, darn it. “So I’m thinking the setting this guy wants to create must be a sort of torture chamber.”

“Like Robert Leroy Anderson?”

He arched an eyebrow. “Very good. You are up on the literature.”

“I do my best.”

“So he’s using Poe for inspiration but is basically serving his own sadomasochistic need to inflict pain on helpless victims.”

My face scrunched. “I don’t know.”

“You have a different theory?”

“No. I don’t know. Maybe you’re right. I just sense there’s something more going on here. He’s had so many opportunities for cruelty, but actually there’s been little evidence of it. Kidnapping and murder, yes, but-I don’t know. Sadomasochistic lust just doesn’t explain everything.”

“Which leads us to our fourth component. Victim demographics.”

“Well, they were both young girls. Teens.”

“Both girls look young for their age.”

“That’s true. A baby-doll fetish?” I shrugged. “They came from very different backgrounds. One was solidly lower-middle-class. The other came from a super-wealthy background, daughter of a celebrity. Both appear to have been raised by their mothers.”

“But did the killer know that?”

“Seems unlikely.”

“So he was just going by appearance?”

I have to admit, I hadn’t thought I’d like working with a partner, but I did. Bouncing ideas off someone who had the same grasp of the field was exciting, almost electric. I felt a tingling run through my body that wasn’t all about serial killers, either. Good thing Patrick wasn’t in any position to make advances. I would’ve melted like a custard. “I don’t think so.”