Dahmer's Not Dead

“You’re telling me that you changed a light bulb in Dahmer’s cell twice a month but only changed them in the other cells every three or four months?”

“Yes, Miss Gloss. That’s exactly what I’m saying.”

“It’s Closs, not Gloss.” Helen felt slightly taken aback by a sudden inkling of arrogance in Kussler’s tone. “Why? For what reason would Cell 648 be that unique? Why would Dahmer’s running bulb burn out so many more times faster than the running bulbs in a typical cell?”

She watched the man’s face closely, for a giveaway tic, a wavering of eye movement, any gesture of negative-impulse response. Sallee had taught her this and it worked.

But not today.

“Did you check the circuit blueprints?”

“Well, no,” Helen admitted.

“You should have, then you’d know the answer to your own question, Miss—”

“Closs. Captain Helen Closs,” she repeated.

Kussler’s eyes drifted up. “Oh, yes. I read your name in the newspaper today, didn’t I?”

He probably had. She hadn’t even checked for herself yet, but she suspected the venerable Editor Tait had lambasted her after the graphology reports had come in. “Perhaps,” she ducked out of it. “But what’s that about blueprints?”

“The architectural schematics. You’re an investigator, correct?”

“Yes.”

“Then certainly, since your undue questions involve electrical maintenance at the center, you would’ve thought to investigate the prison’s blueprints with regard electrical layout.”

This guy turned into an prick real fast, Helen thoughts snapped. He was, very indirectly, putting her down and doing a solid job. It was obvious. “To tell you the truth, Mr. Kussler, I didn’t think to do that at all because I can surmise no reason.”

“Ah, well. Surmise this then, Miss Gloss—”

You dick, Helen thought.

“It should come as no surprise, even to a novice, that the longevity of, say, lightbulbs are dependent upon such things as resistance, ohms, and variables that exist between the industrial transfer of low- and high-tension current. If you’d made obvious inquiry, and first inspected the prison’s architectural blueprints, you would have easily noted that Cell 648 is the last cell on the east tier. You would have also noted that the prison was constructed to run by ten electrical phases and that the east tier runs precisely parallel to phase seven which happens to service the center’s administrative wings. An anomaly in construction, by happenstance, placed the last cell on the east tier—Cell 648—on the same domestic power line that runs the seventh electrical phase.”

“How could I have possibly known that, Mr Kussler?”

“Simple, Miss Gloss. By investigating. You are, as you’ve stated, an investigator.”

Helen found it difficult not to unload on his sarcasm. This guy’s worse than Tait at the Tribune, she thought.

“—and likewise,” Kussler continued, “you would then not find it necessary to harass county employees.”

“I apologize, Mr. Kussler,” Helen steeled herself to say. “You feel that I’m harassing you by asking a few questions?”

The lines around Kussler’s eyes slackened. “Perhaps harassment is too harsh a term. Indispose—is that a more accurate term? Or inconvenience?”

Helen took a breath, counted to ten very quickly. “I apologize for the inconvenience then, Mr. Kussler. But would you be so kind, in lieu of my obvious investigative ineptitude—”

—to tell me what the FUCK you’re talking about, you snide, pompous ass!—

“—to explain to me exactly what you mean?”

“I’d be delighted.” Kussler sat down on a stark polycarbonate-framed couch that Helen would sooner kill herself than have in her own apartment. “It’s like this. By an accident of construction, Cell 648 is the only cell in the prison that is fed by an electrical phase-line run outside of the cellblock phases. Phases One through Six serve those cellblocks. Phases Seven through Ten feed the rest of the prison, the administrative wings. Jeffrey Dahmer’s cell, in other words, though it should’ve been connected to Phase Six was actually connected to Phase Seven, and Phase Seven suffers an anomaly of its own. A dreadful incidence of high-tension power fluctuations.”

Helen opened her mouth to object, then closed it a moment. Father Alexander, the equally snide prison chaplain, had mentioned much of the same. A lot of power fluxes, she remembered.

“So,” Kussler continued, “that is the reason the running bulb burned out twice a month in Cell 648, where as the running bulbs in typical cells only burned out two or three times a year.”

“Then how come there aren’t an equally high number of service calls to the admin wing, Mr. Kussler?” Helen was happy with herself for thinking of.

“Because the running bulbs in the cells,” Kussler answered just as quickly, “are incandescent, while all the administrative fixtures are fluorescent tubes, which typically last twenty to thirty times longer.”

This guy is making a fool out of me, and there’s nothing I can do about it, Helen realized. But her questions, she had to admit, were satisfiably answered.

Helen rebuttoned her overcoat. “I guess that’s about it then. Thank you for your time, Mr.—” Helen’s worse judgment couldn’t resist—”Mr. Kuntler.”

Kussler’s face turned up, incised. “I’m sorry, but what was that?”

“I said thank you for your time, Mr. Kussler.”

Kussler nodded, eyes thinned. “That’s what I thought you said.”

Helen turned for the door. “And have a good day—”

—you DICK!

Helen went back out to her Taurus, but she scarcely had time to start the ignition before her pager went off.

The number on the tiny screen she knew at a glance.

It was Jan Beck. And the suffix after the number struck her with even more alarm:

URGENT.

««—»»

“That’s something though, ain’t it? I mean, Christ—Dahmer.”

“You can say that again. And did you read the Tribune? Some high-brass state cop walked in there yesterday and swore they had proof it was a hoax, guaranteed that the letter was phony. Then a couple hours later their crime-lab people are saying it’s Dahmer’s handwriting.”

Bar chatter. Barkeep and lone patron at the rail. The man, the only other customer in the place, sat at a back cocktail table, in the dark.

The man liked the dark.

Friends, the place was called. Low-key hangout. Just a clean, simple bar, not an action joint like the places on the other side of the block where you could pick up some trade in less time than it took to order a beer. He sipped a bottle of Holsten and listened to the two up front continue their dull banter.

If they only knew…

He looked at them from his place. They were nearly stereotypes: the rail guy in tight jeans, a candyass black leather jacket, short dark hair and mustache. The keep was fat and meek, wire-rim circular spectacles and a short blond ponytail.

“Lemme have a Windex,” the rail guy asked.

“Windex, sure. A little of the old Blue C., a little of the old Stoli, and—damn, where’s that sour mix?” The keep stooped, hunting in the small reach-ins behind the bar. “Come on, sour mix, where are ya? I know you’re hiding in here somewhere—”

The man’s eyes went out of focus, wide and blank like diminutive moons in the barlight—

—and the words turned echoic, sounds struggling under water—