drove downtown.
Why did that sound so familiar?
Then I remembered—the car that had passed the house as I sat on the porch.
Gray, battered, and a Volvo.
“Wonder if he makes snake deliveries,” I muttered.
MONDAY MORNING I STOOD OUTSIDE THE OLD CHAPEL as students and a few local residents filed to the memorial service for the slain young women. I estimated the crowd at two hundred inside, another fifty outside.
Stu Gilman, doing a Richard Nixon imitation, lurked near the end of the queue. He wore an expression intended to convey sorrow. It looked more like a scowl with a five-o’clock shadow. The man was facially challenged, and doomed to live life looking like a presidential crook.
Steve Weld nodded as he walked past. I watched him avoid Gilman.
I recognized most of my students. Dawn Kramer and Amy Clay walked together. Sara Brenner stood behind Gilman. Amanda Squires held a young man’s arm.
Jaworski’s officers videotaped faces and license plates. Other cops, armed with Stanley Markham’s mug shots, surveyed the crowd.
The ceremony inside the chapel was for the living, in remembrance of the dead. The photographs viewed by those in attendance were of three smiling young adults. They were the focus of the memories, the sad thoughts, the prayers.
The women in the photographs that I studied wore no smiles.
Jaworski spotted me and approached from the parking area. “I was looking for you,” he said.
“You getting it on tape?”
“Not that it will do much good.”
He felt no guilt. When he had exhausted his rage, he felt nothing.
“He’s here,” I said, watching the faces move slowly by.
Some internal conflict… what was it? It was not a startling experience to feel nothing.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
You created a design for murder, prepared the kit, slipped into the apartment. You controlled the scene, but you reacted to it.
“He’s here because he knows we can’t see him. We can capture his image on tape, but we can’t know him.”
“It ain’t one of these things where he’s here to get himself absolved, is it?”
“He doesn’t need absolution. He feels justified in what he’s done.”
Jaworski stared at me. “Don’t imagine he’d stand out in that crowd.”
Stragglers shuffled into the chapel. “He belongs here. He fits right in.”
I looked at Jaworski. “You have his picture now.”
He had not left much of himself at Crescent Street, but he had left enough. The crime scene’s nuances, the killer’s behaviors, even some of his thoughts, had sunk their roots in my mind. I did not know how many times I had invited a killer in, but I knew the torrent of images and dreams and dialogue that was coming.
You want me to believe that you’re Stanley Markham.
“This why you quit?” Jaworski asked, nodding at the chapel.
“No.”
In twenty years as a crime shrink, I had worked nearly two hundred homicides. I remembered victims’ names, faces, funerals, family members, and their horror. They did not haunt me. With few exceptions, I maintained the clinical distance necessary to complete my work and move on. I quit because tossing out a red carpet for killers, welcoming them into my mind and looking at their worlds through their eyes, drove me to the precipice too often.
“I reached a space where there was no room for me,” I told Jaworski. “I didn’t like that feeling. Anything new at your end?”
He removed his cap and ran his hand through his hair. “Jesus. I nearly forgot. We got a ballistics match on the gun.”
“Oh?”
“Looks like our boy used the same twenty-two to kill a man in Portland. The P.D. down there ran a comparison check same time we did. Pure luck they matched up, but they did.”
“What have you got on the case?”
Jaworski shrugged. “He was killed in his apartment, like our three. That’s all I know. I figured I’d drive down there in the morning. You want to make the trip?”
“Definitely,” I said.
I STOOD ON
Why did that sound so familiar?
Then I remembered—the car that had passed the house as I sat on the porch.
Gray, battered, and a Volvo.
“Wonder if he makes snake deliveries,” I muttered.
MONDAY MORNING I STOOD OUTSIDE THE OLD CHAPEL as students and a few local residents filed to the memorial service for the slain young women. I estimated the crowd at two hundred inside, another fifty outside.
Stu Gilman, doing a Richard Nixon imitation, lurked near the end of the queue. He wore an expression intended to convey sorrow. It looked more like a scowl with a five-o’clock shadow. The man was facially challenged, and doomed to live life looking like a presidential crook.
Steve Weld nodded as he walked past. I watched him avoid Gilman.
I recognized most of my students. Dawn Kramer and Amy Clay walked together. Sara Brenner stood behind Gilman. Amanda Squires held a young man’s arm.
Jaworski’s officers videotaped faces and license plates. Other cops, armed with Stanley Markham’s mug shots, surveyed the crowd.
The ceremony inside the chapel was for the living, in remembrance of the dead. The photographs viewed by those in attendance were of three smiling young adults. They were the focus of the memories, the sad thoughts, the prayers.
The women in the photographs that I studied wore no smiles.
Jaworski spotted me and approached from the parking area. “I was looking for you,” he said.
“You getting it on tape?”
“Not that it will do much good.”
He felt no guilt. When he had exhausted his rage, he felt nothing.
“He’s here,” I said, watching the faces move slowly by.
Some internal conflict… what was it? It was not a startling experience to feel nothing.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
You created a design for murder, prepared the kit, slipped into the apartment. You controlled the scene, but you reacted to it.
“He’s here because he knows we can’t see him. We can capture his image on tape, but we can’t know him.”
“It ain’t one of these things where he’s here to get himself absolved, is it?”
“He doesn’t need absolution. He feels justified in what he’s done.”
Jaworski stared at me. “Don’t imagine he’d stand out in that crowd.”
Stragglers shuffled into the chapel. “He belongs here. He fits right in.”
I looked at Jaworski. “You have his picture now.”
He had not left much of himself at Crescent Street, but he had left enough. The crime scene’s nuances, the killer’s behaviors, even some of his thoughts, had sunk their roots in my mind. I did not know how many times I had invited a killer in, but I knew the torrent of images and dreams and dialogue that was coming.
You want me to believe that you’re Stanley Markham.
“This why you quit?” Jaworski asked, nodding at the chapel.
“No.”
In twenty years as a crime shrink, I had worked nearly two hundred homicides. I remembered victims’ names, faces, funerals, family members, and their horror. They did not haunt me. With few exceptions, I maintained the clinical distance necessary to complete my work and move on. I quit because tossing out a red carpet for killers, welcoming them into my mind and looking at their worlds through their eyes, drove me to the precipice too often.
“I reached a space where there was no room for me,” I told Jaworski. “I didn’t like that feeling. Anything new at your end?”
He removed his cap and ran his hand through his hair. “Jesus. I nearly forgot. We got a ballistics match on the gun.”
“Oh?”
“Looks like our boy used the same twenty-two to kill a man in Portland. The P.D. down there ran a comparison check same time we did. Pure luck they matched up, but they did.”
“What have you got on the case?”
Jaworski shrugged. “He was killed in his apartment, like our three. That’s all I know. I figured I’d drive down there in the morning. You want to make the trip?”
“Definitely,” I said.
I STOOD ON
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