Dahmer's Not Dead

—the words—

—digging deep, deep, deeper until he was drowning in them—

««—»»

“I know you’re hiding in here somewhere.”

He’s back, he’s home, thinks the boy from Bath, Ohio. He thinks this in a way that’s terrifying yet somehow complacent.

Because he’s used to it.

The closet, the kitchen cabinets, under the bed—it doesn’t matter. Dad thinks it’s a game. Once he even hid in the attic, during the summer. He’d passed out it was so hot up there. But when he’d wakened, he’d been in Dad’s bedr—

He stifled the thought, shut it right down.

Today he’s under the bed again, only this time the bed in the guest room. Maybe he won’t think to come in here, the boy prays…

But that was one thing about prayers. They were never answered.

Silence. Stillness. Shadows of legs lay long across the guest room carpet. And next—

The entire bed rises. His father glares down.

“There you are,” he says.

««—»»

“There you go,” the keep said, sliding the translucent-blue Windex shooter to his patron.

“Thanks,” said the rail guy.

The keep glanced across the dark room. “Hey, friend. You ready for another Holsten?”

“Yes. Please.”

What next? he thought.

The way he felt, so full and brimming—he knew he had to do something soon.

“There you go.” The keep put the beer down on the table. “Care for anything to eat? We’ve got a great special today. Chicken Tenders in Mustard Sorrel Sauce.”

“Hmm. That sounds wonderful.” The offer sounded tempting. A good sorrel sauce would make any meat come alive.

Any meat.

“Thanks,” the man said, “but to tell you the truth, I’m not that hungry now. I think maybe I’ll try to whip that up myself later, when I have more of an appetite.”

««—»»

“Take a look.”

Jan Beck handed Helen a short, tractor-fed sheet of multi-colored graphical printing paper. What was printed on it might as well have been Druidic glyphs.

3 - [-3 - (-succinate-2) - 4 -(chloro- N -(2-chloroethyl)- C₅H₁₁C₁₂. -(₄-sulph—HN₂)- 0

“What’s this?” Helen asked. “It looks like something kicked out by the SEM. Some drug?”

“It’s a mole-chain, a chemical designation,” Jan Beck replied. “The last leg of my tox screen of Arlinger. And, no, it’s not from an SEM. Christ, scanning-electron microscopes are thirty years old. The only people who use SEMs these days are flunky novelists who don’t do their research. We haven’t used ours in years. This is from an AFM— that’s Atomic Force Microscope. They’re state of the art and brand new.” Beck rested a hand on a respectably sized machine to her right, with a face plate that read: TopoMetrix. “It’s ten times faster and ten times smaller than an SEM.”

“And ten times more expensive, I suppose?”

“Well, no, actually it’s only about twice as expensive. You’re looking at about four hundred grand here. But if you want fast results, like we do, we pay.”

We? Helen wondered. Yeah, that’s right—the taxpayers. “So why did you page me? What’s this all about?”

“That mole chain came from the tox screen I was just telling you about,” Beck went on.

“A chemical analysis of Arlinger’s blood?”

Beck gave a nod. “It’s a paralytic agent by the trade name of succinicholine sulphate. This guy ingested a massive dose shortly before death.”

“You’re telling me that this stuff is what killed him?”

 “No, no, when I say massive dose I don’t mean massive enough to kill him. Point-zero-three would be enough to kill, not much but from what I can tell, it was orally administered, probably put him under in about twenty minutes. My read tells me it was a dose of approximately 0.01 mgs per deciliter.”

A…paralytic agent? “In other words, Arlinger was paralyzed before he was murdered?”

“That’s a fact.”

Helen couldn’t help but acknowledge the impact of this. “But Dahmer did the same thing too, didn’t he? Back in 90?”

“Yes and no. He frequently drugged his victims, but not with anything like this.”

“Barbiturates,” Helen said, remembering.

“Right, street barbiturates to be exact. Quaaludes, Valium, and other benzodaizepam off-shoots. He bought them from pushers on the street, in the Milwaukee dope districts.”

The last thing Helen needed was another m.o. similarity, and with this, she didn’t see much of a difference. “Valium or Quaaludes or this stuff? What’s the difference?”

“That’s where you lucked out. The dissimilarity is just too apparent. Succinicholine sulphate isn’t something you buy from a pusher on the street; it has absolutely no use as a recreational narcotic.”

“Then—” Helen wondered. “Where did the P Street killer get this…succinicholine sulphate?”

“Only two places possible: a drug manufacturer or a—”

“A hospital?”

“Right,” Beck assented. “SS doesn’t produce any kind of a high, it merely paralyzes the skeletal musculature. And that would explain why Arlinger’s body showed no signs of struggle. He couldn’t struggle, not with a cardiovascular system full of this stuff. What it all boils down to, Captain, is that your man knocked his victim out, just like Dahmer did, but with the least likely and the least accessible substance. The only place you’ll find a lot of SS are in ambulances and ERs. They use the stuff for sudden seizure traumas.”

But Helen, based on what she’d just been told, was already contemplating the worst implication. “Paralyzes the skeletal musculature… You mean—”