“You’re batshit crazy, Behr,” Lisa Mistretta said, “and I love it.”
Behr was sitting somewhere he hadn’t expected to be again anytime soon—certainly not this soon—and that was at the island of Mistretta’s kitchen. He’d told her about his community outreach meeting scheme and asked for her help.
“I am so in,” she said. “Honestly, the way you ran out the other night, I thought I’d seen the last of you.”
“Sorry about that,” Behr said, “I’m not in a real clear place.”
“Who is?” she said and turned her back to him and her attention to the sauté pan where she stirred delicious-smelling Asian food. “Wha-cha!” she said, flinging in a dollop of garlic chili paste that crackled as it hit the heat.
“How good of a cook are you?” Behr asked.
“I suck.”
“That shrimp pad Thai looks pro.”
“Don’t check my garbage can, where you’ll find the Siam Square containers. I’m just heating it up,” Mistretta said. “And, as promised …” She handed him a thick stack of printed pages held together by a binder clip. “Good timing. This might give us a better idea of who we’re looking for. That is, if you really think the guy will show?”
“I have no idea,” Behr said. “But I have to try something.”
“You read, I’ll cook and drink,” Mistretta said, putting a bottle of Thai beer by his elbow. “We’ll eat once you’ve gotten through it.”
Behr nodded and started in on the pages, which were an abstract psychological profile written in a straightforward, quasi-clinical style:
Subject in question is male, organized/disorganized sadistic-lust serial predator engaged in restraint, torture, picquerism, and vivisection. Race probably Caucasian. Not possible at this time to predict identity, age with any degree of accuracy, but if suppositions regarding related cases are correct, sixteen-year span indicates subject is likely in middle age.
Subject likely sustained head injuries, among other abuse, as a child. Likely to have engaged/been forced into traditionally masculine activities such as boxing-wrestling-hunting by dominant male figure (likely that father was not present in home) as a child. Signs and symbols of wealth, authority, and greater masculinity in this male role model would likely have diminished subject’s sense of self.
Subject’s mother was likely overprotective and overbearing. Likely drank or abused pharmaceuticals/narcotics. Physical abuse at her hands likely.
Subject likely a lonely child. No siblings, or poor relationships with siblings. No or few friends or poor relationships.
Subject likely injured or killed family pets/neighborhood animals as a gateway to blood lust.
School records will likely show a poorly adjusted individual, but one within bounds of normalcy at that time.
Subject will have potentially exhibited diminished capacity to experience anxiety or fear as a child. (Note: these qualities are some of the building blocks of developing a conscience.) Likelihood of cortical under-arousal, high testosterone, extra Y-chromosomes. (Extreme physical strength a potential by-product of these conditions.)
By young adulthood subject would recognize that hurting animals was waning in attraction/no longer satisfying. He would have moved on to fantasies of sexual control and violence with humans and then graduated to ideation phase.
Extent of ideation could have included collection of prurient visual materials, weapons and implements of restraint, torture, i.e., “murder tools.”
Various indeterminate factors will have led to first “act.” Act could have entailed abuse, restraint, or sexual assault of human, most likely female. First act will have rendered mere fantasy phase no longer sufficient to satisfy. First murder likely disorganized, sloppy, poorly planned, resembling a “crime of passion.” (Mode will have grown more refined over time, while being affected by likely real-world variables.)
Aftermath of first murder. Once individual has found the key to acting out deepest fantasies, individual likely continued murdering to repeat sensation.
Second murder often deemed the “most important/exciting” to individuals thus categorized. Transformative nature of initial murder complete, killer has fully “become.”
Likely that subject tries unsuccessfully to re-create this “becoming” with each murder. Results in declining satisfaction, dissipating excitement. However, left with no suitable alternative stimulation, subject carries on.
Souveniring a likely part of activities.
Subject is likely a religious man, or considers himself one, or at least attends organized religious services.
Behr broke off from the report and looked up with a question on his lips. “Religious man?”
Mistretta didn’t even turn from what she was doing on the kitchen counter. “What is religion if not a struggle between sanctification and defilement? That’s what our man is engaged in. More specifically, the idea of the resurrection. It’s at the very core of Christianity. His killings ape or mock the notion of resurrection, or at least show a complex relationship with it.”
Behr chewed that over and went back to reading:
Subject is extremely intelligent and/or potentially ex-military or ex–law enforcement officer. (This indicated by lack of physical evidence on scenes, i.e., he likely knows protocols.)
Alternate theory: subject is of diminished intelligence/did not finish high school. This view would entail a subject unable to hold regular jobs, relationships, devoid of trappings of “regular society,” yet possessed of feral abilities.
There was a handwritten note in the margin that read: “Behr, I don’t think this ‘diminished intelligence’ version is our type, but included it to be thorough.” The report continued:
Subject potentially contracted HIV or STD, perhaps while in the military, potentially from a prostitute, and is potentially “cleansing” the world of fallen women.
Behr read on, a few more pages filled with countless potential psychological details. If he’d hoped for a clear picture of a man he’d recognize walking down the street toward him, that wasn’t the case. But he had a lot of tangible ideas to consider.
On the last page, written in purple ink, was a note:
Behr: biggest mistake we make in trying to figure out why these people act like they do is that we look at them through a normal prism. But they are not like “us.” They’re just not.—Mistretta
“This is impressive,” Behr said, closing the pages and turning in his chair. “What’s with the note?”
Mistretta had plated the food and moved to her dining room table behind him. She was drinking tequila on the rocks.
“I wrote it when I wasn’t sure if I’d be handing that to you or sending it through the U.S. mail. Just trying to make you see something that’s hard to see. Want a proper drink or you gonna stick with beer?”
He saw she had a rocks glass full of ice next to his place setting.
“You think it’s a good idea to get the tequila flowing?” he asked, moving to the table, beer in one hand, pages in the other.
“You decide.” She shrugged.
“So we set up on the community meeting. I get pictures of all attendees, license plates on all the cars. You sit back watching behavior, checking for red flags against your profile,” he said, then sipped his beer.
“Deal,” she said. “But Behr, our guy isn’t going to be reading this.” She patted her report. “He’s going to keep on doing what he wants, the way he wants—the way he needs to—according to whatever’s broken inside him. We may not recognize him.”
“I get it,” he said.
She seemed far away and miserable for a moment, and he realized the toll her job took. She spent her time mired in human horror, spent her energy becoming utterly expert in it, and once she had, she saw too clearly the worst in people walking all around her. It was unavoidable. And most of the time no good came of it at all. “It’s not easy, is it?” he asked.
“If it was they’d call it ‘fun,’ not criminal psychology.”
“Even if you get it all right, you don’t get to go catch ’em.”
“That’s what I have you for,” she said, coming back from wherever she was. “Eat.”
Behr dug into his food. “Damn, that’s good. Spicy.”
“That’s how I roll,” she said, the smile back in her eyes.
He had a feeling he knew where the night was going to end up.