“But,” Deaver said, “after the frenzy and the climax, disappointment sets in because the real-life experience never quite matches the fantasy. Well, it can’t, can it? It’s never perfect, and so it’s never completely satisfying. The thirst, one could say, is not quenched.”
“That’s why they go on to do it again?” I guessed. “It’s a cycle?”
“Indeed, an addictive cycle. There’s rising tension and excitement as they fantasize, the joy of finding and snatching precisely the perfect victim, the prolonging, perhaps, of the thrill of power and control by keeping the victim imprisoned for days or even months at a time, watching, touching, toying, torturing … Then, finally, comes the orgiastic high of the kill and the petite morte recovery period of quiescence.” Deaver sighed. “Discontent inevitably follows, leading the killer to refine the fantasy. The urge to do it again mounts. This time, he wants to make it better, to bring the perfection of the imagined to reality.”
I was repelled by the way he described murder in the language of lovemaking, but I understood what he meant. The killer couldn’t stop until he got it right, and it was impossible to get it right enough to match the fantasy, so he kept going.
Deaver glanced at his watch. “I need to make my escape, I’m afraid. My class commences in precisely eight minutes.”
“Thank you for your time,” I said. “I really appreciate it.”
“I’d be most interested in hearing more about this case or in consulting with any and all law enforcement agencies,” he said. “What wouldn’t I give to be inside an active FBI investigation team? Particularly of a serial killer whose career covered multiples states and spanned many years.”
“I didn’t say any of that.” I said worriedly.
If Singh found out that I’d somehow let slip some details, he’d … he’d … I didn’t quite know what the agent would do. I couldn’t imagine him ever losing enough control to show real anger. He’d probably just scowl and give me a look, but coming from him, it would feel like a death ray from Darth Vader’s mother ship.
Deaver smirked. “You didn’t have to. You” — he inclined his head to Perry — “said the serial killer was operating in New England, which implies more than one state. And if the murder occurs in different states, jurisdiction passes from local police to the FBI. You also said that Ms. McGee here was hoping to help the authorities, which would tend to suggest an open investigation with recent developments. And you, Ms. McGee — may I call you Garnet? Such a pretty name — said there wasn’t much in the way of remains, which implies skeletonization, which in turn implies these murders happened many years ago.”
“Oh,” I said. I really needed to watch my mouth, especially with such a clever man.
“But if that’s so, what’s making you want to find out more now, eh?” Deaver cocked his head, keeping his gaze fixed on me as if wishing he could cut open my brain and peer inside. “It makes me wonder if there’s been a recent development. And putting two and two together, I come up with last week’s discovery of multiple bodies up in New Hampshire.” He waggled his eyebrows and chuckled.
“I don’t— I couldn’t— Please don’t assume I have anything to do with that.”
Deaver stood up. “May I leave you with a ‘calling card’ of my own in case you’d like to contact me?” With a smile so wide it bordered on a leer, he handed me his business card and, with a little wave of his fingers, stepped out of the room.
“Wait!” I called after him. “Your lunchbox.”
My fingers prickled as soon as I grabbed the plastic container. No images filled my mind, and I felt no emotions, but strong sensations flushed through me. Order. Control. Those were the words that most closely matched my disturbance. The feeling faded as Deaver took the lunchbox from my grasp.
“Thank you,” he said and left.
I rubbed a hand over my breastbone, staring at the empty doorway.
“Funny sort of a fellow, isn’t he?” Perry said.
“That, he is.” I lifted the glass and freed the bee, which made a direct bid for freedom via the window. “I’d better be going too. I’ve taken up enough of your time. Thanks for everything.”
“Come and visit anytime, Garnet.”
Outside his office, I pressed my fingers against my eyes, trying to push back images of buttons on tongues and heads on mantlepieces and mismatched human eyes staring out of dead ferrets, and then I left, walking away from the psych department and the part of my life that went with it.
– 8 –
Back in my tiny Boston apartment, I saved Professor Deaver’s details as a contact in my phone in case I needed to chat with him again and made myself lunch — a bacon-and-peanut-butter sandwich and a cup of coffee. The neighbor’s baby trumpeted the start of his late-afternoon colic with loud wails and, from outside, the discordant city symphony of rush-hour traffic rose up to my window.
The four walls of my apartment — and of my life — were closing in. It was time to make a decision. The lease was up for renewal, and my father, who’d been paying the rent while I studied, had told me in the nicest possible way that if I wanted to keep it, I’d need to get a job to pay for it myself.
Did I want to keep it, though? I wasn’t sure.
I grabbed a pencil and made a pros-and-cons list of staying in Boston on the blank scratchpad beside the crossword puzzle in the day’s newspaper. On the upside, I loved privacy, and here in my apartment, I had it. At least, I had privacy from my parents and people I knew, even if not from the neighbors behind the paper-thin walls and the pot-bellied guy in the building opposite who regularly stood stark naked at his window, showing the world how he could hang a Red Sox cap on his erection. Look, ma. No hands! His baseball team was the only thing I knew about him, and he knew nothing about me. That was the pleasure of big-city anonymity.
In Pitchford, everybody knew everybody. And they knew everybody’s business.
Bostonians were a cool breed, with their dry sarcasm and hardy, stoic approach to life. I noted this as a point in the pros column, even though I knew that the New England mentality stretched through Massachusetts and New Hampshire, all the way to Vermont. Another pro: Boston had a great pace and vibe. I enjoyed being a nobody watching from the edge of the crowd at the St Patrick’s day parade and at the Boston Pops concert on the Fourth of July. There were amazing coffee shops and pubs filled with students and man-bunned hipsters sounding off on politics and global warming, and the night life buzzed with burlesque, ballet, stand-up comedy, and live theatre. Admittedly, I never attended any of those, but the point was, surely, that I could if I ever wanted to. Life happened in the city, and I could feel part of things without having to be a part of them, which suited me just fine. People were hard work, and I was about as good at socializing as I was at darts.
I bit down on the pencil, sinking my teeth into the soft wood as I tried to think of more advantages to living in Boston. Food. If I left, I’d totally miss the vodka-sauce pizza from Santarpio’s as well as the amazing ice cream parlors, especially the one three blocks down that served a flavor called Mexican Chocolate. Just the thought of that super-dark chocolate mixed with cinnamon and hot pepper in cold creamy deliciousness was enough to make me drool.