Edward Lee - Dahmer's Not Dead

“Well, yeah,” Helen admitted, looking down at the technical gobbledegook on her notepad.

“Psychotic killers as well as borderline sociopaths tend to display irrevocable pattern behavior. My point is, to put it more simply: Dahmer never strayed from his demential purview; what he did in Milwaukee in 1991 was merely an emblematic amplification of the same things he was doing as a boy in Bath, Ohio. Any forensic psychiatrist in the country will tell you the same thing. Despite the outward similarities on P Street, the perpetrator clearly displays a different profile. He’s nothing even close to Dahmer; instead, he offers a different mental state: semi-delusional, aggressive, hyper-violent. By leaving the body and the note for the police to find, he’s challenging the authorities, something Dahmer would never have done. Only a full-stage episodic break could account for someone like Dahmer committing the crime at P Street. Your perpetrator merely copied the most simplified aspects of Dahmer’s atrocities, while ignoring the actual psychological imprint.”

“One of the first things I’m going to do is run a computer break-down of recently released mental patients and convicts,” Helen said.

“And you should, but don’t be disappointed if you come up with nothing,” Sallee countered. “Arlinger’s murderer is quite crafty—the note, for instance, and his avoidance of being seen entering the motel. If he committed crimes like this in the past, he probably hasn’t been caught.”

“So where do I start?”

“Obsessional contact is usually how this kind of killer is launched into an active crime-phase.”

Helen didn’t get it. “Obsessional contact?”

“The letter left at the P Street Motel was undoubtedly written by Dahmer some time before his death. But Dahmer was in lockup, so we can safely assume that the P-Street killer was in contact with Dahmer during his incarceration. Look for a ‘Killer Groupie,’ someone drawn to Dahmer via his publicity. It’s either someone he was corresponding with, or someone in close contact in the prison.”

Helen complimented herself on having already essentially discerned that. “At least that’s an easy lead.”

“Of course. I’m sure the prison keeps a log of all correspondence leaving the facility, for legal reasons.”

Helen’s hand began to cramp, she was writing so fast. But at the end of the manic scribbling, she felt satisfied that she had what she needed. “This is great, Dr. Sallee. This’ll help me lot.”

“And as for our good friends with the newspapers, feel free to quote me. You can even direct them to me personally if you like.”

“Thanks.” Helen felt winded after the influx of information. She put away her pad and began to get up. “I guess that’s it then.”

“Oh, no it’s not, Helen,” the psychiatrist contradicted. “You still have some other things to tell me, don’t you?”

Helen knew full well what he was driving at. Immediately, and without conscious forethought, she began rubbing her locket between her fingers. Just as immediately, her previous job-related zeal collapsed.

And all of her fear swooped down on her.

“You’re an ostrich, Helen.”

“A— what? ”

Sallee looked at her. “You bury your head in the sand. Right now the sand is your job. But eventually, you’re going to have to take your head out of it, aren’t you?”

She knew exactly what he meant. She was avoiding her problems, not facing them. Eventually she’d be right back to Square One, right back in the jaws of all her inadequacies: her mood swings, her pre-menopausal fears, her complete lack of personal security…

“You’ve got a lot to be proud of, don’t you?” Sallee suggested.

Her response was bitter as turpentine. “Like what?”

“You’re among the most decorated officers in the history of Wisconsin law enforcement. Your arrest-versus-conviction rate is phenomenal. And you’re the only female on the force who’s ever been up for deputy chief. Aren’t those accomplishments you can be proud of?”

“Not really,” she mumbled in admission. “I’ve never felt very driven. I think it’s been mostly luck.”

“That’s foolishness, and you know it. You refuse to give yourself any credit at all merely because you’ve never had what you perceive of as a successful relationship with a man. That’s irrational and wholly illogical.”

He’d said it all a thousand times, but it never really mattered. It was impossible for her to feel any other way.’

“Still having nightmares?”

She gulped and nodded. “The pale figure chasing me.”

“Any other dreams?”

“No, I don’t think so.”

“Any sexual implications?”

The question didn’t even embarrass her any more. “No, I— Oh, wait I did have a different dream, just before—” But the memory stopped her from continuing, lopped off the rest of the recollection like a knife through a carrot on a butcher block.

Sallee’s tone never changed. “Just before what?”

Her fingers rubbed frantically against the locket. “Just before I woke up and heard Tom talking on the phone…to another woman.”

The doctor nodded as if unimpressed. “Tell me the dream.”

“There was a—a fire or something. I was rushing to put it out.”

“Were you naked?”

Helen popped brow. “Yes.”

“And you weren’t particularly afraid or the fire, were you?”

“No, no I wasn’t. But how did you—”

“Go on.”

Flustered, she tried to remember. The water hose… “The fire was burning, so I ran to get a hose to put it out, but when I turned it on, no water came out.”

“And the fire continued to burn,” Sallee said rather than asked.

“That’s right.”

“But I must say, Helen. That’s a very sexual dream.”

Her eyes squinted up. “How so?”

“Look at the symbology and then look at yourself. Your greatest fear is that menopause will kill your sexuality, and hence make you less attractive to men. The fire in the dream represents your sexual self—a woman still quite sexually capable, a sexual yearning that needs to be quenched. Fires are quenched by water, correct? But you couldn’t get the water to come out of those hose… Correct?”

Suspiciously, she nodded.

“And let me guess,” Sallee went on, “sometime previously you’d had sex with Tom. You were excited, even orgasmic. Am I on track?”

Now she actually blushed. “More than you realize.”

Sallee held a finger up, in further postulation. “But Tom himself, he experienced some sudden sexual dysfunction.”

He lost his erection, she shamedly remembered. He couldn’t come. But Sallee’s “guesses” began to mildly infuriate her. It was as though he was picking her brain against her will. “How can you possibly know that?”

“It’s a terribly common dream, Helen,” Sallee replied and nearly chuckled. “No water came out of the hose, symbolic of Tom’s inability to complete the act. It’s a dream of clear paranoia: Tom gave you pleasure but experienced none himself, so, paranoically, you blame yourself, you feel you failed in being able to satisfy him as he satisfied you, so know you’ve developed this ideation that he’s cheating on you, that’s he’s seeking some other woman.”

Helen threw her hands up. There was no use. “But that’s where you’re wrong. I’m pretty sure he is seeing another woman.”

“Pretty sure? Not totally?”

“Well—” She faltered. “Not totally, but—’

Sallee cut her off yet again. “And even if he is, Helen, there’s no relevant reason for you to blame yourself for every incompatibility, is there?”