being used just so the girls, or someone, could see.
He had a lot of details like that, stuff that only the killer would have known.'
'So Hatcher has an easy conviction, gets national headlines-and you know that somehow they'll be his headlines-and gets in tight with the head of the Oversight Committee, all at the same time. Gosh, I'm glad you paid me this visit, Gold. Just what I need to hear.'
'John, I'm not on the law enforcement side of things, you know that. I spend my time trying to help you agents adjust to what you have to deal with. Once in a while I make a contribution to a psychological profile of some unknown perp. You tell me I'm usually wrong with those.'
'Only in the important details.'
'Thank you. So I'm no expert on the criminal mind, granted. But I'm not an idiot, either. I know a deeply violent, dangerous man when I see one, and Cooper is a deeply violent, dangerous man. A very stupid man, too.
Plus he's got a system of values that he picked up from being in and out of penal institutions from the age of fifteen on. He makes my blood run cold. He uses his strength-and the guy's as big as a gorilla-to get his way. He's got a frustration level of practically zero, cross him and he'll throw you through a window because he can't figure out a better way. Of all the guys I've heard about in the years I've been in the Bureau, this one is at the head of my list of people I wouldn't want to be stuck in a blind alley with. His violence quotient is enormous.
He even dreams about pulling people's heads off. I mean literally pulling their heads off their shoulders.'
Becker sat quietly, listening attentively while keeping his eyes on the tape recorder. He knew that Gold had not yet come to the point. He also knew that when he did, Becker was not going to like it.
'There are a lot of very nasty men I wouldn't put on that dark alley list, by the way. Dyce, the one who took men home and drained their blood because he liked to look at corpses..
'I remember Dyce,' Becker said almost inaudibly. He had captured Dyce himself and come within a breath of killing him. Becker's restraint was considered by Gold to be a signal mark of improvement. Becker was far less certain.
'Of course you do. I'm sorry if that's a painful allusion, but my point is, I wouldn't be afraid to be in a dark alley with Dyce. I wouldn't feel comfortable about it, mind, but I wouldn't feel in immediate danger because Dyce was not randomly violent. He was basically a very passive man. When he acted out his awful fantasies, he did it with a purpose, he didn't just lash out at the nearest male. He had something very specific in mind. So do all serial killers… Am I right about that?'
Becker nodded slowly.
'If you saw Dyce on the street, you wouldn't even notice him. If you saw Cooper coming, believe me, you'd step aside to get out of his way.'
'Just play the tape,' Becker said.
'Right. Cut to the chase.'
'With respect, Gold, I don't need a primer on serial killers.'
'Sorry. I need to convince myself, I think. It helps to hear my arguments aloud. Not that they're arguments. I just don't quite understand.'
'Play it.'
'Right. Okay, this is what I consider the relevant part of the session I sat in on. He's already told us what and when and where about the girls in the coal mine, very specific as I said. The voice you recognize is mine. I only asked the one question. They looked pretty annoyed that I spoke at all.'
Becker nodded and Gold started the recorder. A deep voice came from the machine. Even in this form and despite the masculine timbre, there was a quality of childishness in the speaker that came through clearly 'I took her into the cave so we could be alone,' Cooper said.
'Why did you want to be alone with her, Darnell?'
Becker did not recognize the voice of the interrogator.
'So I could hurt her,' Cooper said.
'You could hurt her anywhere. Why did you take her into the cave?'
'So I could hurt her for a long time,' Cooper said.
There was a pause, and then Becker recognized Gold's voice.
'What did it feel like when she died?'
'What did it feel like?' Becker could almost see the shrug of shoulders implicit in Cooper's tone. 'I didn't care. She didn't mean anything to me.'
'Do you like to hurt people, Darnell?' another voice asked.
'Yeah,' said Cooper.
'Does it excite you to hurt other people?'
'Sometimes.'
'Tell us how you feel when you hurt someone.'
'I feel good.'
'Do you feel better when you hurt men, or women?'
'Yeah,' said Cooper.
There was a puzzled silence@ 'Do you like to hurt men more than you like hurting women?'
'I like it all,' said Cooper. 'I like to pull their heads off.'
'Why do you like to pull their heads off, Darnell?':'Don't call me Darnell.' 'What would you like me to call you?'
'Call me Coop.'
'All right, Coop. Why do you like to pull their heads off?'
'You could call me ol' Coop. I like that.'
'Tell us about pulling their heads off.'
'That's how strong I am.'
Becker switched off the machine. Gold let him sit in silence for a time.
'What did he do when he was released?' Becker asked at last.
'He raped a young woman, stole her car. Tried to drive the car over a filling station attendant, kidnapped another young woman, battered a local cop pretty good, hit the young woman in the head a couple of times, tried to strangle her, left her in a swamp.'
'Did he kill either one of the women?'
'No. But he thinks he did. He left them for dead, let's put it that way.' '-'What did they say? Were they conscious or unconscious when he left them?'
'The first one, the one whose car he stole, said she played dead and he lost interest in her. The second one was really unconscious. She had severe bruising on her throat and some damage to her neck. It looks as if he really did try to pull her head off.'
Becker rose and turned off the heat under the pot of beans.
'So what do you want from me?' he asked.
'I don't understand the disparity… You heard it, right?'
'Let me get Karen,' Becker said. 'I don't want to have to go through it twice.'
'Are you sure you want her in on it?'
'How else? Do you think I'm the Lone Ranger-I'm going to go riding in by myself? I don't have the authority to do anything on my own, even if I wanted to, which I emphatically do not.'
Becker summoned Jack and Karen and the adults ate beans while Jack dined on spaghetti with butter and broccoli. Jack was excused from the table and Becker served coffee.
'We could go into the living room,' Karen said.
'We'll stay here,' Becker said, closing the kitchen door. 'I don't want Jack to hear any of this.'
'Meaning I'm to be let in on the big secret?' Karen asked.
'Don't be too happy about it,' Becker said. 'You're not going to like it.'
'Somehow I guessed that. Okay, let's hear it.'
Becker looked at Gold, offering him the chance to speak first.
'I'm not the expert,' Gold said defensively. 'I just thought I noticed something odd and came for advice. I haven't reached any conclusions myself'
