“If you know anything, I’m sure you know that psychopaths are not psychotic. It’s unfortunate these two words are so similar, because this has caused tremendous confusion in the general public. People use the abbreviation psycho to stand for both conditions, but most of the time they use the word psycho as a stand-in for crazy. With respect to psychotics, this is true. They are crazy. They kill because little green men inside their heads tell them to. Psychopaths, on the other hand, are chillingly sane. They know exactly what they’re doing at all times. And why. They just don’t care. They have zero conscience.”
Erin nodded.
“They are also the most manipulative human beings in existence. And the smoothest liars. And they don’t feel fear, or guilt, or remorse, or doubt. If you catch them in the most bald-faced of lies, this doesn’t embarrass them in the slightest—or trip them up. They just switch gears or introduce even bigger lies to cover it up.” He paused. “And they never take responsibility or blame for anything they do. John Wayne Gacy tortured and murdered thirty-three young men and boys and buried them in the basement of his house, but was quoted as saying that he saw himself more as a victim than a perpetrator.”
Erin fought to maintain a look of interest even though all of this information she knew as well as her own name. “Fascinating,” she said.
Apgar nodded. “But getting back to your question,” he said. “The decision as to what type of facility a prisoner is put into isn’t entirely dependent on the crimes they’ve committed, but also their behavior while incarcerated. The ones I was dealing with all started in a maximum security facility, of that you can be sure.”
Erin nodded. If he had but said this simple sentence to answer her question she would have grasped the situation immediately, but she knew she would have to wait patiently while he connected the dots for her.
“Psychopaths aren’t crazy and they can be the most charming and cooperative beings on the planet to get what they want. So they are brilliant at manipulating the system. They tend to be model prisoners. The kind who are eventually transferred to medium security facilities. They enroll in counseling, take classes, pretend to become born-again Christians, anything to play the system. Not all violent criminals are psychopaths. The ones left behind in the maximum security facilities are violent for a host of other reasons, but don’t have the psychopath’s gift for manipulation.”
“I see,” said Erin with a smile. “When you explain it that way, medium security makes sense.”
“But don’t get me wrong, if you’ve never been to a prison, medium security will seem like maximum security to you. Medium isn’t the same as none. You still have the high fences, nasty coils of razor wire, guards, and multiple doors you have to get through to enter the prison.”
“Was it hard to get the psychopaths to participate in your studies?”
He shook his head. “Not at all. We pay them a dollar an hour, but even if we didn’t, they’d be happy to do it. What else are they doing?”
Erin raised her eyebrows. “A dollar an hour?”
Apgar smiled. “We actually debated if this was too much. We pay students twenty-five an hour to participate in studies. But that would be a king’s ransom to prisoners, who are paid more on the order of one to three dollars a day for their work in prison. Which they can spend in the prison canteen or in other ways I’m not sure I want to contemplate. It would be unethical to pay them more, because this would be seen as coercive when we’re asking them to sign the informed consent forms.” He paused. “But boredom isn’t the only reason they’re eager to help. It gives them another chance to be manipulative and try to exploit the system. That’s why they’re so happy to undergo group therapy and any other rehabilitation programs offered by prisons. Believe me, they don’t want to get better. They’re quite happy with themselves, and never question their own behavior, seeing it as totally rational and rewarding. Group counseling just makes them worse, because they’re able to use it as a learning experience. They don’t learn the error of their ways. They learn how to make better use of psychology to manipulate and deceive others. As if they weren’t good enough at this already. Studies have shown that psychopaths who participate in this kind of counseling are more likely to commit violent crimes when released than those who don’t.”
Erin knew that she should act surprised by this result, since it wouldn’t be intuitive that prison programs that had such positive effects on normals would totally backfire on psychopaths, but she was too eager to get back to the subject. “Okay,” she said. “So you enter the prison, pass though the heavy doors and checkpoints, and then what? You go to the semi and a guard brings you each subject according to a schedule?”
Apgar nodded. “Right.”
“I’m trying to picture it. So are their hands cuffed behind their backs? In the front? Are their ankles cuffed also?”
Apgar shook his head and looked amused. “No. They aren’t restrained in any way.”
Erin digested this for a few seconds, looking as though she wasn’t quite sure if she believed him. “So how many guards go with you into the trailer?”
“None,” said Apgar.
“None?” repeated Erin incredulously.
He sighed. “I know you’re picturing Hannibal Lecter in his prison cell wearing one of those scary masks over his face. The kind of psychopath who would kill you if he could get near you for a second. But it doesn’t work that way in real life.” He paused. “At least it hasn’t so far,” he added. “Knock on wood.”
“But these men have committed savage, brutal acts.”
“I have to admit, it took a while getting used to. The first time I was alone in a contained space with someone who was in prison for torture and murder, I was … a little nervous.”
“A little?”
“Okay, I was stressed out of my mind. But it worked out. And other researchers had been alone with these people before, and there had never been an incident. The prisoners have far more to lose than to gain by trying to harm a researcher. They make some good money—at least relative to the prison economy—and they get a diversion. If they pulled anything it would be a one-way ticket to a maximum security facility forever. And a long, long stint in solitary confinement.”
“Still. I’d think you’d want at least one guard.”
“I did. Believe me. Especially in the beginning. But you can’t. The work is conducted under researcher/subject confidentiality. So no guards, no video monitors, no audio. Just me and a violent psychopath. And this works out for the best. You’d be surprised how many of them, knowing I can’t repeat anything they tell me, will boast about other crimes they’ve committed. Rapes, murders, robberies—the works. I can’t repeat it, but made anonymous, this information helps enhance my research results. They wouldn’t say a word if a guard were present.”
“I have to admit, this is something I would have never considered.”
“They love the fact that I’m sworn to silence. This is carefully explained to them at the outset. Unless they tell me of someone in current jeopardy, or talk about a prison break or a violent act they’re planning to commit—in the future—I’m sworn to secrecy.”
Erin tried to imagine what it must be like to sit in a trailer in the middle of a prison alone with these inmates, and felt her skin crawl.
“And they truly are incredible at manipulation,” continued Apgar. “You think you’re prepared, but you’re not. Even researchers who have studied psychopathy their entire lives get taken in.” He shifted in his chair. “Early on, there was an inmate I interviewed before I saw his file. He had me absolutely convinced he was falsely accused—had just been the victim of circumstance. He spent an hour telling me what had happened in incredible detail. He fell in love with this girl who told him she was twenty. But she was really seventeen. The father found out and was totally unreasonable, making sure he was prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for statutory rape. The father had connections, so he made sure this poor guy had the book thro
wn at him.”
Apgar paused, remembering. “It’s difficult to explain how convincing he was. Unless you were there. How articulate and persuasive. At the end of the session, I was ready to march into the warden’s office and fight for this guy’s freedom. Become his personal advocate. But then I checked his file.” He shook his head, and a troubled look came over his face. “The guy had raped and beaten three girls under the age of fourteen. There were photos in the file.” He shuddered. “He had cut them with a razor and their faces looked as though they had been at the wrong end of a wood chipper. It’s a wonder they survived.”
Lava-red hatred flashed across Erin’s eyes, but only for an instant. Not long enough for Apgar to detect, even if he had been paying close attention.
The professor leafed through a stack of papers on his desk and pulled out a single sheet. “I felt like the biggest idiot in the world to have been taken in, but I’ve swapped stories now with many others in the field, and it’s happened to all of us. That’s why when you’re dealing with a psychopath, you can’t let your guard down for an instant.” He handed her the page he had been holding. “This says it about as well as anything I’ve read. I use it in the graduate course I teach, Psych 850.”
Erin looked down at the sheet and began reading.
Good people are rarely suspicious: they cannot imagine others doing the things they themselves are incapable of doing. Then, too, the normal are inclined to visualize the [psychopath] as one who’s as monstrous in appearance as he is in mind, which is about as far from the truth as one could get … These monsters of real life usually looked and behaved in a more normal manner than their actually normal brothers and sisters; they presented a more convincing picture of virtue than virtue presented of itself—just as the wax rosebud or the plastic peach seemed more perfect to the eye, more what the mind thought a rosebud or a peach should be, than the imperfect original from which it had been modeled.
Erin finished and turned her gaze back to Apgar.
“Any idea who wrote that?” he asked. “Where it’s from?”
Erin had recognized it instantly. It was from The Bad Seed, by William March. She faced Apgar and shook her head. “No idea.”
“It was written by William March, author of The Bad Seed. The novel was turned into a film and a Broadway play. You should see it sometime.”
No thanks, thought Erin. “Yeah, maybe I will,” she said.
“Anyway, I know most people are fascinated by the idea of working with psychopathic killers. Believe me, when I was doing this research and it was fairly well known, I was a big hit at cocktail parties. Like you, everyone is interested in what happened after I entered the prison. But after I made my discoveries on the differences in their brain structure compared to normals, I’ve turned to other research projects. I haven’t studied psychopaths for six months now.”
For the next thirty-five minutes, Apgar went on to describe several other research projects going on in his lab, and his plans going forward.
Erin asked a polite question or two along the way, but mostly waited patiently for him to finish. She had known from the start she wanted to join his lab. The purpose of the entire exercise had been to get a feel for his personality, and she liked what she saw. Not that she even needed to like him. It was only necessary that she not hate him. And she had decided he would be a pleasure to work with only a few minutes into their discussion.
When he had finished describing the last of his research projects she leaned forward and stared at him intently. “Professor Apgar … Jason,” she corrected. “How would you feel about taking on another graduate student? I’d love for you to be my thesis advisor. If you’re okay with that, I’m willing to commit to Arizona immediately.”
“I’m flattered,” he said. “And I’d welcome the chance to take on someone with your impressive background. I have six grad students in my lab now, but I have ideas for enough projects to occupy fifty of them. In which research area would you see yourself working?”
Erin took a mental breath. “I’d like to revisit your work with psychopaths. Further define the differences in their brain structure. Test how their brains react to various other stimuli. I’d want to devote myself a hundred percent to this area.”
Apgar’s eyes narrowed and his face scrunched up in disapproval. “I thought you were asking questions about this for the same reason everyone does. I had no idea you were thinking of actually doing this sort of work yourself.”
Apgar leaned back and rubbed the back of his head absently. “You do realize you’d have to go into a prison like I did—a lot. Frankly, that’s why I didn’t pursue this project any further, even though there’s clearly additional fertile soil to till. It’s just not exactly the work environment I wanted to spend any more time in.” He grinned. “Not exactly the tweed jacket and pipe existence I envisioned for myself as a professor.”
Erin laughed. His personality couldn’t have been further from this stereotype.
“Are you really prepared to be left alone, one on one, with a psychopathic murderer?” said Apgar, serious once more.
“Yes,” said Erin, but it came out far more timid and uncertain than she had wanted. “Yes,” she repeated, stronger this time. “I can hardly wait,” she added wryly, raising her eyebrows.
He studied her for several long seconds. “So why so interested in psychopathy?” he asked. “I mean, when you ask young women what they want to do when they grow up, working with psychopathic killers doesn’t usually make the top of the list.”
Erin lowered her eyes, trying to conceal the intense emotional pain that had flared up in response to this question. So what would she tell him? That her family was brutally murdered by a psychopath while she watched? That she had been emotionally crippled by the experience for a long time? That she had only managed to regain a semblance of equilibrium by vowing to devote her life to studying the evil that had rained down on her and her family?
Would she tell him she had had spent year after year training her mind and body so that she would never feel helpless again, becoming an expert in multiple martial arts and with multiple weapons?
No. Of course she couldn’t. She knew Apgar’s history well. He had pioneered brain-imaging techniques and had mapped the brain and studied emotional reactions extensively before he had conducted his studies with psychopaths, an obvious extension of his work. He hadn’t begun with an interest in psychopathy. His impetus to study this condition was purely intellectual. While hers was a tad more … visceral.
So acknowledging the role her past had played in her current interests was out of the question. Apgar might question if she wanted to settle a vendetta rather than push back the frontiers of human knowledge. Instead of being worried about what an inmate might do to her, he would worry about what she might do to them.
Numerous scientists had found their calling in response to personal tragedy. Researchers who had devoted themselves to finding a cure for Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s after having watched a parent or grandparent suffer from these horrible afflictions. How many oncologists had chosen this field because they had been helpless to prevent cancer from slowly and horribly choking the life out of a loved one? Erin’s devotion was no different. And maybe Apgar would see it this way.
But maybe not. Many would view her passion to study psychopathy quite differently than they would view the passion of an oncologist who had lost a loved one to cancer. Apgar could be one of them. So she wasn’t about to give him an honest answer and take this risk. Fortunately, the records of what had happened, and her subsequent counseling, had been sealed. This was a secret she was prepared to take with her to her grave.
So instead of the truth, she responded to his questions with platitudes about coming across his work and recognizing the breakthrough nature of it. Of always having been fascinated by psychopathy after seeing The Silence of the Lambs and other such movies.
When she was done, he studied her for a few seconds longer and then said, “You do rea
lize that movies and the media sensationalize the condition. Just so you know, while up to one percent of the population can be classified as psychopathic, a very, very small percentage of these are the Hannibal Lecter type. Vanishingly small. Even among the prison population.”
“Yes, but even the ones who can fool the system—the doctors and lawyers and politicians—are almost always engaged in cons, or white-collar crime, or unethical behavior. And they leave endless shattered lives in their wakes.” Seeing Apgar’s eyes widen, Erin hastened to add, “I mean, you’d have to guess that, wouldn’t you? At least I would. Or am I wrong about that?”
“No,” said Apgar with an amused look. “Good guess. I couldn’t have said it better myself.” He sighed. “Will you at least let me try to convince you out of this?” he asked.
Erin shook her head. “I’m afraid not,” she replied, and then with an incandescent smile added, “like you said, this is the kind of stuff that’s endlessly fascinating to people. So I may be in what you might call a … hostile … work environment, but at least I’ll be a hit at cocktail parties.”
Apgar couldn’t help but laugh. But he still wasn’t entirely convinced. “Look, let me preface this by saying I’m happily married and not hitting on you or anything.” He smiled sheepishly. “But you must know you’re a beautif … that you’re, ah … quite attractive. There haven’t been any incidents with this type of research, for the reasons I explained. But psychopaths have poor impulse control. And the ones you’d be interacting with will all be men, after all. Men incarcerated in an all-male prison year after year after year. Sending you alone into an enclosed room with them would be tempting fate. You have to be aware of your effect on men. I’m not sure I’d feel comfortable sending you alone into a room with normal men, who have great impulse control.”
Erin frowned deeply. She had a flawless complexion, a figure a bikini model would envy, and a grace and agility that had arisen from years of training in martial arts and other forms of self-defense. Her hair was a deep chestnut-brown, and glowed with health and vigor, and her features were strong but delicate.
The Cure Page 3