Silent Victim - C. E. Lawrence [46]
“What do you mean by ‘not a textbook example'?” Krieger asked. “I didn’t know there was such a thing in your field.”
“Well, strictly speaking, there isn’t,” Lee replied. “No two criminals are exactly alike any more than any two people are identical. But there are greater and lesser degrees of conformity to certain—types, I guess you might say. We use terms like organized and disorganized, rage driven, sadistic, and controlling—but the truth is most offenders are some combination of those types.”
“And this particular offender?” Krieger said.
“I would guess that he has some trauma in his past, probably early childhood, involving water. And in these killings he is playing out some version of that event—reliving it, so to speak.”
“Why early childhood?” said Butts.
“Because that’s when things tend to impact us most deeply. The brain is more fluid in young children, and it forms connections that are almost impossible to sever later on. So when Ted Bundy’s aunt awoke from a nap one day to find five-year-old Teddy placing knives all around her as she lay in bed, she was witnessing the early deviant behavior of a serial killer in the making.”
“Christ,” Butts said. “That really happened?”
“Yes. It came out when his former friend Anne Rule wrote a book about him.”
“I remember that book,” Chuck said. “The Stranger Beside Me, wasn’t it?”
“Right,” said Lee.
Elena Krieger stood up and stretched her long body.
“All of this is quite fascinating, I’m sure,” she said, “but shouldn’t we focus on the matter at hand?”
Butts glared at her, his porous face reddening, as though it were about to sprout spores. He opened his mouth to say something, but Lee intervened.
“Have you been able to establish any link between the victims?” he asked Chuck.
“Not yet. The only link seems to be that they’re dead.”
“And the notes,” Butts pointed out.
“Right. The notes indicate the killer had some interaction with them before he decided to the kill them—but does that fit your usual situation in cases like this? Don’t serial offenders usually prey on strangers?” Chuck asked.
“This case is odd in a lot of ways,” Lee answered. “They do usually kill relative strangers, which helps them depersonalize their victims.”
“And makes them harder to catch,” Butts interjected.
“True,” Lee agreed. “But guys like Gacy and Dahmer had some interaction with their victims before killing them, for example, so I think we should start with the idea that this UNSUB knew the victims—at least to an extent.”
“He must have known the man he killed in the bathtub, no?” Krieger asked. “There was no sign of forced entry.”
“I agree,” Lee said. “A key element here is motive. Once we figure that out, it will help us to connect the victims. I’m convinced there is a link—we just haven’t seen it yet.”
“Maybe the killer is the only link,” Butts suggested.
“Is there any chance the choice of victims was random?” Chuck asked.
Lee shook his head. “Highly unlikely. The notes all suggest a relationship of some kind—at least in the killer’s mind.”
“Okay, then we need to set up more interviews with people who knew the vics,” Chuck said. “Detective Butts has done a few already, but I’m thinking we need to cast a wider net.”
Lee nodded in agreement, but what he was thinking was that nets have holes, and their prey had already proven slippery enough to evade them so far. He was beginning to wonder if there was a net in the world big enough to catch him.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
When Lee arrived home, there was a message on his answering machine, and it wasn’t entirely welcome. It was from Kay Shackleton, the head of the Psychology Department at John Jay College, asking him if he was interested in being a guest lecturer at the college. He sank down in the red leather armchair by the window and listened to the message a second time.
“We’ve been working on the list of visiting professors, and Tom thought of asking you,” she said. Tom Mariella was a senior professor on the faculty and an excellent teacher—Lee had taken several of