just
slumps. The two arresting policemen enter and one utters an
expletive worthy of the raver: they have forgotten to frisk (could
there be a more inappropriately silly word?) him.
I have to admit to a
perverse and persistent fascination with this little video,
encouraging me to watch and re-watch and re-re-watch the last sad
minutes of another man’s life. It is not bloodlust but rather, as
grand as this may sound, a scholar’s quest for detail, for exposure
to the worst of the worst in order to be able to write about it
with some authority and integrity. It is the casualness of this
suicide that affects me deeply, and I can extrapolate from that to
casual murder as
well. There are some people who can kill, literally, without a
second thought. The deed is done, the victim falls down, and the
killer moves on past on his way home to television or the arms of a
lover or who knows what.
So this is what I am left with as I
attempt to write my book: I don’t want to be so cowed or perplexed
by the facts that I simply lose the will or the desire to complete
the project. I don’t want to be intimidated or disgusted: I want to
be able to stare the details straight in the face, and then write
about the effects of bullets on flesh the same way I would write
about the history of the keyboard. I have to be able to write with
the same ease as that man in the police station shot himself, to
level everything out, to treat murder as if it were just a
collection of empty words.
I have already mentioned, several
times, that there exists a comprehensive and detailed literature on
the subject of murder and its investigation. I have pored over the
bulk of it with what I imagine is the same fervour and
determination that an athlete gives himself to his discipline.
There are days when I “play through the pain,” as I have heard it
described on the sports call-in shows, and there are other days
when I simply let the body and the mind relax. During the latter I
often feel guilty about the time I am wasting while a psycho trolls
the streets, but the guilt is mitigated somewhat by a realization
that this sort of “down time” is essential to the grander scheme.
During the play and the pain, though, I am an animal, relentless,
focussed, determined that whatever small tidbit of knowledge I
learn can only serve to help me in the end. Knowledge trumps
psychosis—I hold that firmly as my credo.
I meet Rachel, the inquisitive
librarian, at the library while she is on a break. Somewhat
distracted still by the images of blood and murder, I struggle to
shake myself down to more pedestrian concerns. She is quite
beautiful, and that helps. I can see pinks and light blues and the
hint of something darker (navy?) in the billowy folds of her dress,
which goes down past her knees. The shoes are very simple and
elegant, much better than the ones she wore the first time we met:
these are white slingbacks, with not a tincture of grime on them. I
wonder whether they are in fact brand new. Her hair is a browny
blonde, also not dirty, and there is a freshness that exudes from
her face.
We sit on comfortable leather chairs,
facing each other. She seems nervous and I set myself the minor
goal of putting her at ease.
“I have a question for you,” I
say.
“Oh?” She laughs lightly, looks down
at the floor, and then up at me as the middle finger of her left
hand starts scratching lightly at the arm of the chair.
“Everyone I meet asks me
this, so I thought I would turn the tables a little: who do you think is the
killer?”
She laughs out loud now, very high
pitched, and then looks around and blushes when she realizes where
she is. There is a supercilious cough from the old man standing at
one of the terminals searching the catalogue.
“Well, I don’t—you’re the expert, I
mean, you’re writing the book on this, right? So maybe you, I
guess, I mean, I guess that’s why everyone is always asking you.”
She stops, scratches more
slumps. The two arresting policemen enter and one utters an
expletive worthy of the raver: they have forgotten to frisk (could
there be a more inappropriately silly word?) him.
I have to admit to a
perverse and persistent fascination with this little video,
encouraging me to watch and re-watch and re-re-watch the last sad
minutes of another man’s life. It is not bloodlust but rather, as
grand as this may sound, a scholar’s quest for detail, for exposure
to the worst of the worst in order to be able to write about it
with some authority and integrity. It is the casualness of this
suicide that affects me deeply, and I can extrapolate from that to
casual murder as
well. There are some people who can kill, literally, without a
second thought. The deed is done, the victim falls down, and the
killer moves on past on his way home to television or the arms of a
lover or who knows what.
So this is what I am left with as I
attempt to write my book: I don’t want to be so cowed or perplexed
by the facts that I simply lose the will or the desire to complete
the project. I don’t want to be intimidated or disgusted: I want to
be able to stare the details straight in the face, and then write
about the effects of bullets on flesh the same way I would write
about the history of the keyboard. I have to be able to write with
the same ease as that man in the police station shot himself, to
level everything out, to treat murder as if it were just a
collection of empty words.
I have already mentioned, several
times, that there exists a comprehensive and detailed literature on
the subject of murder and its investigation. I have pored over the
bulk of it with what I imagine is the same fervour and
determination that an athlete gives himself to his discipline.
There are days when I “play through the pain,” as I have heard it
described on the sports call-in shows, and there are other days
when I simply let the body and the mind relax. During the latter I
often feel guilty about the time I am wasting while a psycho trolls
the streets, but the guilt is mitigated somewhat by a realization
that this sort of “down time” is essential to the grander scheme.
During the play and the pain, though, I am an animal, relentless,
focussed, determined that whatever small tidbit of knowledge I
learn can only serve to help me in the end. Knowledge trumps
psychosis—I hold that firmly as my credo.
I meet Rachel, the inquisitive
librarian, at the library while she is on a break. Somewhat
distracted still by the images of blood and murder, I struggle to
shake myself down to more pedestrian concerns. She is quite
beautiful, and that helps. I can see pinks and light blues and the
hint of something darker (navy?) in the billowy folds of her dress,
which goes down past her knees. The shoes are very simple and
elegant, much better than the ones she wore the first time we met:
these are white slingbacks, with not a tincture of grime on them. I
wonder whether they are in fact brand new. Her hair is a browny
blonde, also not dirty, and there is a freshness that exudes from
her face.
We sit on comfortable leather chairs,
facing each other. She seems nervous and I set myself the minor
goal of putting her at ease.
“I have a question for you,” I
say.
“Oh?” She laughs lightly, looks down
at the floor, and then up at me as the middle finger of her left
hand starts scratching lightly at the arm of the chair.
“Everyone I meet asks me
this, so I thought I would turn the tables a little: who do you think is the
killer?”
She laughs out loud now, very high
pitched, and then looks around and blushes when she realizes where
she is. There is a supercilious cough from the old man standing at
one of the terminals searching the catalogue.
“Well, I don’t—you’re the expert, I
mean, you’re writing the book on this, right? So maybe you, I
guess, I mean, I guess that’s why everyone is always asking you.”
She stops, scratches more
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