“Brad, I’d like you to meet Garnet McGee. She’s developed a …” — there was the smallest pause as Perry searched for an appropriate phrase — “a special interest in a New England serial killer and is hoping to assist the authorities with her … insights. Garnet, this is Professor Bradley Deaver, who happens currently to be in the process of writing what will no doubt be a seminal text on American serial killers.”
Deaver’s hand, when I shook it, was cold, but his gaze was friendly enough as it flicked between my brown left eye and my blue right one. My own gaze, as it so often did recently, automatically dipped to his hands. Pale skin stippled with a few age spots, watch on the left wrist, no wedding ring — unexceptional in every way.
Deaver settled into the chair beside mine and held up the flat Tupperware container he’d brought with him. “I hope you don’t mind if I eat my lunch while you pick my brain about death and desire?”
“Well, about serial killers, yes,” I said.
“What would you like to know?”
“A general overview would be great. I mean, I know some theories about them, but like, what are the rules?”
Deaver smiled. “First rule of serial killer club — there are no rules.”
– 6 –
Professor Deaver opened his lunch container. The contents were organized into subdivisions of different foods — small blocks of chicken, shredded lettuce, chopped carrots, sliced beetroot, a buttered bread roll — and no one type of food touched another.
He leaned over the container and sniffed deeply then said, “The serial killers themselves do have rules, of course — sometimes — but they’re rules that make sense only to themselves. Take Israel Keyes, for instance, one of the most intelligent and meticulously prepared serial killers ever to operate in this country. The eleven murders attributed to him — and a great many more are suspected — comprise men, women, single victims, and pairs, including a middle-aged married couple killed right here in Vermont in 2011. His victims were young and old, different ethnicities, killed at night and in daylight and in a variety of states across the country. And he got away with it for at least fourteen years,” Deaver said, sounding almost impressed. “He shot, strangled, and asphyxiated. On some occasions, he tortured and raped his victim first, on other occasions, not. In short, he had no preferred type of victim, no discernable kill zone, no favorite killing method, no common way of dumping the bodies. No ‘wheelhouse,’ as they say.”
“The pattern was no pattern, I presume?” Perry said.
Deaver removed a plastic-wrapped disposable fork from his shirt pocket and pointed it at Perry. “Rather presumptuous this time, I’m afraid. You see, Israel Keyes did usually kill far from home and never in the same place more than once. He made sure he had no connection to any of his victims, didn’t kill during the three years he served in the military and, after his own daughter was born, never again killed children — or so he claimed. And he had a rule that ‘Canadians don’t count,’ whatever that means. My point is, he had his own personal set of rules.”
“Though this be madness, yet there is method in it,” Perry said.
I thought the quote might be from Hamlet. He’d seen ghosts, too, and it had driven him crazy.
“Ha-ha, indeed!” Deaver said. “The variety and the lack, or oddity, of rules is what makes it such a stimulating subject to study. But it’s an enormous field, young lady, so you’re going to have to narrow your question down a bit for me to give you any useful answers.”
I pulled my gaze away from the container, where the ruby juice oozing out of a stack of pickled beetroot slices trickled dangerously close to a mound of cubed pineapple. “I guess one thing I’d really like to know is what you can deduce about the perpetrator from the crime scene.”
“I believe you mean induce rather than deduce,” Deaver said. “And when you say, ‘crime scene,’ do you mean the place where the victim was abducted, the spot where the murder was executed, or the site where the body was left?”
“Oh, right.” I didn’t know whether the cops or FBI knew where the victims had been snatched from or where they’d been killed. “The place where he dumped the body.”
He removed the fork from its wrapper, winding the clear plastic around the first joint of his index finger. “The body or the bodies?”
“Bodies,” I said, aware of Perry’s gaze on me.
“You’re looking at a specific case, then? I’d need to get more details before I could generate any useful hypotheses.” He looked at me with an eager, hopeful expression.
“Sorry, I don’t know any specifics.”
Not for the first time, I wished I knew more details about the Button Man’s murders. Just about the only thing I did know was that the killer had left a button with at least some of his victims’ bodies, and I wasn’t going to tell Deaver that.
He made a low frustrated sound. “I suppose, speaking in general terms, you can usually tell from the dump site whether the killer is of the organized or disorganized type.”
“Organized?” I said, imagining a killer with a planner and a to-do list.
“It’s an old classification system but still, I believe, a useful one.” He peered down into his lunchbox and used his fork to edge the pineapple away from the beetroot juice. “The kills of the disorganized type are usually impulsive. Typically, the perpetrator is suddenly overcome by rage, or the voices in his head get too loud. Or perhaps the victim just walks blindly into his hunting ground like a juicy insect drifting into a spider’s web. He’s not prepared, so he just uses what he has on hand to commit the murder and then usually” — Deaver held up an admonitory finger — “usually, but not always, he then either leaves the body right there where he did the deed or else somewhere nearby. The disorganized ones aren’t careful.”
“What would the scene of a disorganized killer look like, then?” I asked.
“There might be some real craziness — bizarre or surreal elements that make sense to him but to nobody else. It might look messy or hurried,” he replied.
“Right.” That didn’t much sound like the Button Man to me.
Deaver stabbed the fork into a piece of chicken, examined the meat closely for a second and then ate it, chewing so slowly that I had to fight the urge to tap my foot in impatience. “Now, the organized killer, on the other hand, tends to operate with premeditation and often exquisite planning.” Deaver’s eyes glinted; clearly, he approved of systematic preparation. “He takes immense care when getting rid of the body. He might, for example, leave identifying pieces of it, like the hands or the head, in different spots from the rest of the body so as to slow down identification of the victim, or he might bury the body properly in some deserted spot in the hope that it will never be discovered. He’s cautious. He’ll use a condom in a rape and wash down the body afterward, even cleaning under the fingernails to minimize the evidence he leaves behind. Overall, the scene will feel less … chaotic.”
A bee flew in through the open window and landed on Professor Perry’s hand. He gently blew it off and said, “If I translate those two categories into psychological diagnoses or psychopathologies, then it sounds like disorganized killers would tend to be psychotic — schizophrenic, delusional, or paranoid. But organized killers sound more psychopathic, like they’d probably be diagnosed with antisocial personality disorder.”