'Various facts,' he continued, 'such as the forced entries, clean escapes, and the killer's ability to take on multiple victims, suggest a particularly confident individual, probably one with a high level of martial arts training. The stabbing technique raises the possibility of a military background. The psychopathology is sexualsadistic; I would surmise that the killer possesses a large collection of sadomasochistic pornography. The gluings and lack of semen at the crime scenes speak of sexual fear indicative of a loner type. But the most striking ,7 characteristic is the killer's lack of gender differentiation.'
The psychiatrist paused. Though his features remained composed, Janek picked up on something in his eyes. It's almost as if he's afraid, he thought as Chun continued in the same authoritative style.
'He glues up the genitals of men and women with equal thoroughness.
Children, too, and, in the case of Fort Worth, even the family dog and cat. But beyond the genitals, all orifices seem to be fair game.
With the Miami woman and the brothers in Connecticut we find mouths and anuses glued. In the case of Providence the wife's fingertips were glued together in a praying-type position. In the other cases fingers and toes were glued at random as if to create a webbed hand or foot effect. We call these variations subpatterns. they speak of something beyond conventional categories of sexual assault. In this case concepts such as straight and gay are useless, virtually irrelevant. We appear to be dealing with a man who engages in symbolic negation of any and all forms of human sexuality. One may surmise he has a disturbed relationship with a mother, who is possibly deceased. Finally, the killer is most likely sexually dysfunctional.'
This time, when Dr. Chun paused, his breathing quickened, and he screwed up his eyes. When he resumed speaking, Janek was certain.
Something about this definitely frightens him, he thought.
'… there is one very unusual aspect. This killer chooses what we call difficult victims. With the exception of the homeless man and the young woman jogger in New York, the people he chose were not easy to get at, not easy at all. Most serial killers take an easy path, preying on hitchhikers and prostitutes. But not this one.
He set's himself extremely tough challenges. From this we must infer intelligence, a capacity for careful planning, and a streak of competitiveness rarely demonstrated in this category of crimes.'
After Chun was finished, he stared down at the floor, then raised his head as if he had something to add. He opened his mouth, then abruptly clamped it shut. 'Lieutenant Janek, Sergeant Greenberg-I thank you for your patience.' Then he almost seemed to flee the room.
After Chun left, a full minute passed, during which Janek made out a short bit of conversation from the other side of the door. He strained to listen. It was between Sullivan and the psychiatrist.
Chun sounded deeply upset: щ.. doesn't fit… diabolical щ.. overworked. Get some rest. We'll talk.
When Sullivan reentered the room, Janek was impressed by his sangfroid.
He picked up the briefing just where Chun had left it off, dealing head-on with the issue of easy versus difficult.
'The homeless man was first and the Foy girl last,' Sullivan began.
'Both easy prey, both hit-and-run homicides committed outside at night in New York, and both glued quick and sloppy in the crotch. As you've heard, we find much more elaborate gluing when the killings are committed indoors. The killer goes in like a stabbing machine. But then he's careful, very, very careful with the glue. Squirts it in just right, makes sure everything's sealed up.'
Sullivan paused for effect.
'All right, you know all that. We acknowledge the inconsistencies.
In our discussions we've theorized a possible second killer, an outdoor killer, who murdered the homeless man and the jogger, as opposed to an indoor killer, who murdered the families. But the theory doesn't hold because there's another aspect to the signature. In all seven cases we find the weed.'
Aaron shook his head. 'You talking about pot?' 'Not pot, Sergeant, I'm talking about a literal weed. We didn't pick up on it at first. Then our forensic people noticed that there was always some wild plant left at the scene, a dandelion or a dried-up field daisy, a junk flower like you'd find in a vacant lot. This isn't a mystery novel. No rose or carnation or orchid here. Just a weed. A crummy weed.'
Sullivan turned to Janek. 'There was a weed left near your goddaughter's body, too. they finally did get to see Hogan's Alley. Sullivan insisted on it.
Color-coded students (red T-shirts for FBI; blue for police) ran around what looked like a movie set playing cops and robbers. The inspector watched, extremely proud, but Janek found it tiresome. These FBI people, he thought, live in a world of their own, where technology and profiling and games are ends in themselves. Meantime, city detectives like Aaron and himself worked sleazy cases out of dirty offices. He had no doubt as to which of them had a better feel for the criminal mind.
Janek arranged to meet Sullivan that night at a D.C. restaurant, then drove Aaron back to National Airport.
'I want to get him alone,' Janek explained. 'Really piss him off.'
'I thought we were supposed to make nice.' 'You want to work with him?'
'Be pretty tough,' Aaron admitted. 'But I'll give it a shot if you want me to.'
'Maybe it won't be necessary,' Janek said.
He dropped Aaron off at the Pan Am Shuttle, then drove into D.C. Though it was only five o'clock, the sky was already darkening.
Affluent-looking joggers were running all over the place, and the rush-hour traffic was starting to build. He parked his car in a garage at the Watergate complex, then set out to walk. After a while he felt himself drawn to a center of energy. It was the Vietnam War Memorial. He knew it from pictures but had always wanted to see it for himself.
When he arrived, he felt no disappointment. The wall was everything he'd imagined. And it evoked in him a strong feeling, a bittersweet nostalgia for his own tour out there when, in 1968, he'd worked narcotics with Army CID in Da Nang. But as he stood in the shadows with the other visitors, staring at the black granite while the last light slowly faded from the sky, he felt a strong, sad anger for the awful waste of that war and the young American lives that had been lost fighting it.
The restaurant Sullivan had chosen, small, elegant, and expensive, was situated on the lower level of the Watergate Hotel. Even as Janek entered, he felt Sullivan's intention, The inspector knew he wasn't wearing the right clothes for such a place, so again he was trying to make him feel uncomfortable. Janek waited a full fifteen minutes before he realized that, too, was part of the plan. And then he found Sullivan pathetic. The manipulation was so unimaginative, an exact duplication of the method used that morning at the academy. Sullivan had proven himself to have a small-time bureaucrat's mentality. Such a man would solve a major case only by luck.
By the time the inspector did arrive, smiling, solicitous, excessive with profuse apologies, Janek had decided to play the first part of their dinner at his most collegial.
'Here's how we see it,' Sullivan said, after coaching Janek patiently through the menu. 'The five indoor family killings were very difficult to bring off. The two outdoor single killings were relatively easy. But in all seven cases we see the same thrust, same brand of ice pick, same basic mutilation of the genitals and the weed. So what we're thinking-'
Janek interrupted. 'You're thinking the homeless man was for practice. After him the killer went after desired prey.'
'You're good, Frank. I'm impressed. So tell me what else do we think?'
'You think Jess Foy was for practice, too. You think the killer lives in New York because that's where he practices. You think when he wants to kill a family, he travels outside the city until he finds one that attracts him.' Sullivan grinned. 'You've pretty much got it.'
'So tell me,' Janek said, 'if he likes happy families so much and has so much positive experience with them, what does he need another round of practice for?'
Sullivan clicked his teeth. 'Who the hell knows? These sociopaths have their own twisted logic. Some of it we understand; some we don't. Maybe the guy's losing his nerve. Maybe he's just sharpening his skills.' Janek was not charmed by that little witticism.
And he wasn't sure which notion he disliked more: Jess as random victim or used as a practice target by a serial killer.
Sullivan sat back, his pink cheeks puffed out. 'I feel something in all this, Frank. Something that goes beyond
