Jonathan Santlofer - Anatomy of Fear

“Are you saying he could be living a normal life?”

“I’d say a double life as opposed to a normal one, but yes.”

After the meeting I stopped to talk with the Quantico shrink.

“Very interesting presentation,” I said. “And it sounds like you enjoy your work.”

“Oh, I do. I was never interested in having one of those comfortable practices-you know, dealing with everyday neurotics. Interviewing someone like Duane Holsten is a thrill. How many shrinks ever get to work with a true sociopath in their entire lifetime? Me, I get to do it all the time.”

“And it’s not frightening?”

“Oh, very frightening. Going into maximum security facilities, feeling all of those eyes on you-I can assure you that part is not fun.” She shook her head. “I’m sorry, you are…?”

“Nate Rodriguez. Forensic artist.”

“Oh, the one who is making the sketches for us.”

“That’s me.” I smiled. “So, what you said about our unsub believing he’s right in his actions, I agree; but what about the emotion that drives him?”

“Well, everyone experiences emotions differently, but with your unsub it’s obviously anger,” said Schteir. “Anger he can’t control.”

“But he does control it. He takes his time making drawings of his vics before he kills them, right? After that, there doesn’t appear to be much emotion behind the act. It’s sort of like he’s gotten the anger out in the planning and drawing, and the killing becomes perfunctory, wouldn’t you say?”

Dr. Schteir raised an eyebrow and assessed me more fully.

“And anger is usually accompanied by another emotion,” I added.

“Such as?”

“Fear, usually. Fear that the object of your anger-the victims, in this case-poses some sort of threat to you.”

“I see you’ve been studying.” Schteir smiled. “Who in particular?”

“Paul Ekman, for one.”

“Creator of the Facial Coding System, of course. I’m familiar with his work.”

“Ekman says we often focus anger on people who don’t share our beliefs, or offend our basic values.” I hoped I didn’t sound like I was showing off, though I was, a little. “I’ve studied anger and fear so I can recognize it on people’s faces and be able to draw it.”

Terri was suddenly by my side. “Nate can draw a face from memory and create one from the flimsiest description.”

“Really? There could be a job for you at Quantico, Nate.” Schteir touched my hand.

“He’s already been there,” said Terri, before I had a chance to speak.

I gave her a look. “It was just a few courses,” I said.

“Stop being modest, Nate,” said Terri.

“She’s right, Nate, don’t be modest.” Schteir tapped my pad. “Anything in there I can take a peek at?”

I wasn’t sure I should, but couldn’t help showing off a little more, so I opened the pad.

“Oh,” said Schteir. “No one has ever done my portrait.”

“They’re just doodles,” I said.

“No, they’re terrific.”

I ripped the page out of the pad and handed it to the profiler. “Here. One day I’d like to do something more serious.

Maybe you could sit for me.”

“You’re embarrassing Dr.

Schteir,” said Terri.

“Not at all,” said Schteir. She reached into her bag, came up with her card, and gave it to me. “Call me.”

I said I would. I wanted to stay longer and explore the possibility, but Terri tugged me away.

“Sorry to interrupt your little tête-à-tête,” she said, “but this is serious.”

“Yeah?” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “The Post has gotten the story. The connection has been made.”

NEW YORK POST

PORTRAITS OF MURDER

By Lou Sands

Three vicious murders appear to have a connection. Though the NYPD would not confirm the link, sources close to the investigation suggest that the victims had drawings, portraits which looked like them, attached to their dead bodies. The families of Harrison Stone of Brooklyn, Daniel Rice and Roberto Acosta, both of Manhattan, would not comment, except to voice their frustration that police have not yet apprehended a suspect. Investigators denied the connection, pointing out that the methods of killing has varied: two victims shot, one stabbed. Chief of Department Perry Denton refused comment. But as one unnamed source said, “A serial killer is never something the police department is eager to confirm.”

A serial killer?

He shakes his head, thinking he should not be surprised, that it is probably a plant, a conspiracy between the press and the government to make him out to be a monster, a villain in the public’s eye.

The fact that the homicides occurred in different locations has brought together several precincts in what appears to be a full-scale, though confidential, manhunt. The recent murder of a young prostitute, whose body was found near Manhattan’s Chelsea Piers complex, may also figure into the case, though it has not yet been confirmed. What has been confirmed is that agents from the Manhattan FBI Bureau and Quantico have been brought into the case.

Of course he knew the FBI had joined the case. He’d expected it. And it does not worry him. Many of the people he most admires have been the subject of FBI investigations, and he is proud to join their ranks.

According to an unnamed source, one of the police department’s most sought-after forensic artists, Nathan Rodriguez, has been brought into the case. It’s been suggested that a witness may have survived an attack and is working with the sketch artist to create a composite image of the killer.

What? His fingers coil and crimp the edges of the newspaper like an insect’s teeth about to gnaw at it.

A sketch artist? Making a composite? Of me?

But there is no way he has been seen. He is sure of that. And no one has survived, so how is it possible?

He heads down the stairs quickly, unlocks the door, flips on the light, his breathing so loud it’s like a growl as he smoothes the newspaper onto his work table and stares until the type blurs.

He paces back and forth, back and forth, trying to get his fury under control, manages to sit, fingers thumping at the keyboard as he signs into a chat room. He finds a few familiar names, proposes a game, and tugs his PlayStation headset over his ears so he can hear the other players, nerve endings tingling as the screen flashes blood-red and one of the players says, “Let’s do some damage.”

He chooses his favorite over-the-shoulder point of view staring down a rifle’s sight line at a surrealistic war zone. Figures dart across the screen, and he fires off virtual ammo at a virtual enemy while the actual men roar racial epithets, their curses and heavy breathing piped through his headset directly into his brain along with the rat-a-tat of gunfire and exploding bombs. The pixilated figures die and spawn, die and spawn, over and over, bouncing back to virtual life seconds after being virtually killed, and it starts to backfire, eroding his confidence rather than building it, and he thinks that he will never accomplish what he needs to do. He tears the headset off and hurls it across the room. It hits the cinder-block wall, cracks, and crashes to the floor. He stares at the cyberspace enemy, who refuse to die, skittering across a now mute screen.

He closes his eyes, but the men are still racing across his retina. He takes a deep breath, then another, and when he opens his eyes and sees the posters on his walls and the sketches on his desk, begins to feel stronger. Then he looks at the newspaper article and his paranoia springs back to life like those spawning figures.