'I can agree with that,' I'd said. 'Guilty by reason of insanity, so to speak.'
'Just so. Serial murder is a behavior precipitated by a lifetime of prior stressors. It's an act that generates further stress. It demands paranoia, it's always obsessive, and the most important factor: It is not under the individual's control. Regardless of the possible consequences--
the probable eventuality of capture--he not only will not stop--he can- not. Inability to halt a behavior even when one knows that behavior is destructive to self is a form of psychosis, yes?'
'Sure.'
'This is why, in my opinion, we see decompensation in so many serial offenders, be they organized, disorganized, or in between. The pressures, internal, external, imagined, real--build up and eventually break down the already damaged mind.' He'd smiled, but it wasn't a happy smile. 'I think the same raving lunacy sits there in all of them, latent and waiting to bloom. Provide enough stress and you can bring it to life.'
He'd sighed. 'The larger point being, Smoky: Beware of trying to put the monsters into easy boxes. There are no rules here, only guidelines.'
The point in the present being: The blood art is not important. Revenge as a motive makes sense, and will help lead us to him. His treatment of the children is important, and will help lead us to him. The tattoo? Pure forensics. I need to concentrate on finding the artist, not figuring out its significance. Whether he feels he's like the angel or is the angel is, for now, just mental chatter. I take the page with the notes I'd written about Sarah. I correct her name now.
SARAH LANGSTROM:
BEEN WITH THE KINGSLEY FAMILY APPROX. ONE YEAR
Then I'm stumped.
What else have we really learned about her?
Two things come to me. I write them down because they're true, although neither is particularly significant.
SHE'S A SURVIVOR.
SHE'S LOSING HER MIND. SHE'S SUICIDAL.
That's an impetus at least.
More unresolved, but that's okay. Everything is about unceasing forward motion. Look, examine, deduce, posit, evidence, evidence, profile. We have a physical description of the perpetrator and we have a basic understanding of his motive. We have a living witness. We have a footprint. We know this perp keeps videos as trophies and when we catch him those videos will hang him.
We also have Sarah's diary and I need to read it and see where that leads. The victims are the key to him, and from what I can see, she is his favorite. The point of it all.
I set aside the notepad pages and examine what Callie gave me. The pages are white, blown-up, larger than the originals, easy to read. Sarah's flowing black cursive beckons, and she begins by speaking to me directly. Dear Smoky Barrett,
I know you.
I guess what I really mean is that I know about you. I've studied you in the way you study a person who could be your last and only hope. I've stared at your photograph until my eyes were bloodshot, memorizing every scar.
I know that you work for the FBI in Los Angeles. I know that you hunt evil men, and that you're good at it. All of that is important, but it's not why you give me hope.
You give me hope because you've been the victim too. You give me hope because you've been raped, and you've been cut, and you've lost the things you love.
If anyone could believe me, I think--I think--it would be you. If anyone could make it stop--could want to make it stop--it would be you.
Is that true? Or am I just dreaming when I should be slitting my wrists?
I guess we'll find out. I can always slit my wrists later, after all. I've called this a diary but that's not what it really is. No.
This is a black flower. This is a book of dreams. This is a path to the watering hole, where the dark things go down to drink. Like that? What I mean to say is: It's a story. Here on paper, that's where you'll see me run. The only place you'll see me run. Here on the white and crinkly, I can really move. I'm more of a sprinter than a run- ner, as I think you'll see, but the point is, ask me to explain what I've written out loud and I'll struggle, but give me a pen and a pad or a com- puter and a keyboard and I'm going to go, go, go. Part of this, I think, is because of the brightness of my mother's soul. She was an artist and some of it seems to have rubbed off. The rest of it, I think, is because I'm going crazy inside. Loony as a goony. The white and crinkly is where all the crazy comes out, unfiltered and screeching. A big black batch of mind-crows.
I have a rhyme for it (a crazy-rhyme of course): 'A little bit of dark, a little bit of light, a little bit of shimmy-shimmy makes it just right.'
I think about what I feel, in other words, and I write you a path to the watering hole.
I started writing about two years ago, in one of the schools I went to. The English teacher, a very decent man named Mr. Perkins (and you'll find out in a minute why I know he was a decent man), read the first story I ever wrote and asked me to stay after class. He told me, when we were alone, that I had a gift. That I might even be a prodigy. For some reason that praise brought out The Crazy. The Crazy is one of the creatures that drinks down there at the watering hole, dark- skinned and big-eyed and goony. The Crazy is angry. The Crazy is mean. The Crazy is, well, crazy.
So I grabbed Mr. Perkins's crotch and said: 'Thanks! Want a blow job, Mr. P?'
Just like that.
I'll never forget the two things that happened. His face fell and his cock got hard. Both at the same time. He pulled away and sputtered and walked out of the room. I think he was afraid, and I can't really blame him. I also understand that the first of the two (the falling face, the dis- may) was the real Mr. P. Like I said, a very decent man. I walked out of the classroom, fevered and grinning and heart ham- mering. I walked out of the school and around the back and I pulled out a lighter and lit that story on fire and cried while it burned and blew away in the breeze.
I've written a lot since then, and I've burned it all. I'm almost sixteen years old now, as I begin writing this, and though I find I kind of want to burn it too, I won't. Why am I telling you this? For two reasons.
The first one is a broad one, bigger than a breadbox. I want you to know that my sanity has become something I can see inside myself, like a white line or a vibration of light. It used to be strong and constant, but now it's weak and flickers a lot. Dots of darkness fly around it, like a swarm of sluggish death-bees. Someday soon, if things don't change, the dots will overwhelm the light and I'll be a goner. I'll sing forever, and never hear a word.
So if I hiccup sometimes, if my needle jumps the groove, understand: I'm hanging on with my fingernails here. I spend a lot of my time watch- ing that white line of light, because I'm afraid if I look away, I'll look back and it'll be gone, but I won't remember it was ever there. The Crazy is down at the watering hole, and it's a short walk from that bad water to me saying or acting in ways I shouldn't, okay?
Okay.
The second reason is because of what comes next on the white and crinkly. I could have done a diary, I guess, a nice, dry, factual recount- ing. But come on--I'm GIFTED. I'm a PRODIGY.
Why not tell a story instead?
So that's what I've done.
Is it all true? That depends on your definition of truth. Could I read my parents' minds? Do I really know what they were thinking when The Stranger came for them? No.
