The Face of Death

by Cody McFadyen

  Elaina gives me one of her tolerant-but-loving smiles. A smile that says: I love you, but you are being thickheaded.

  “I appreciate the concern, Smoky, but that will be between Alan and me.”

  “But—”

  A quick shake of the head. “Promise you’ll call me before her release.”

  End of conversation, game over, give it up if you know what’s good for you—but I love you. I smile, I can’t help it. Elaina makes you smile, it’s what she was born to do.

  “I promise.”

  Elaina watches Bonnie during the day (and often the evening) for me. She and Alan have become a part of Bonnie’s family. It works. They don’t live far, there’s no one I trust more, and Bonnie loves them both. I’m fumbling with the problem of Bonnie’s muteness and I know—I know—that I have to address her schooling soon. But for now, this works.

  They were even happy to bow to my fears, without questioning me or making me feel silly about it. Their house had been alarmed (up-the-wazoo style, same as mine), and Tommy had set up a simple video surveillance system. And of course, there was Alan, a giant with a gun, who slept here as well.

  I owe them both.

  “I promise,” I say again.

  Alan had returned. He was busy losing a game of chess to Bonnie. Elaina was in the kitchen making us all a late lunch while I spoke to Callie on the phone.

  “Got the pages all printed out, honey-love. What now?”

  “Print out another six copies. One for Barry, one for James, one for Alan, one for Assistant Director Jones, one for Dr. Child, and one for yourself. Courier Barry, James, Dr. Child, and AD Jones their copies at home. I’ll call and let them know they’re coming. I want everyone to read this. Once we’ve all gotten through it, we’ll compare notes.”

  “Fair enough. What about your and Alan’s copies?”

  I look toward the kitchen and smile.

  “Are you hungry?”

  “Does the wind blow? Does the moon circle the earth? Is the root of a prime number—”

  “Just get over here.”

  I am on the phone with Assistant Director Jones. I have called him at home to bring him up to speed on everything. One of the first things you learn in any bureaucracy, never let the boss get blindsided.

  “Hold it,” he says, interrupting me. “What did you say the name of the guy at the second scene was?”

  “Jose Vargas.”

  He whistles through the phone.

  “Better come see me tomorrow, Smoky,” he says.

  “Why?”

  “Because I can tell you all about Vargas. The trafficking beef? I was on that case.”

  “No kidding?”

  Barry had said it was a federal case. The fact that AD Jones had been a part of it is unexpected. And maybe a plus.

  “For real, as the kids say. Come see me tomorrow.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good. Have you thought about the other thing we discussed?”

  You’re kidding, right?

  “Some.”

  A brief pause. I think he’s waiting for me to fill the silence, to expand on that one-word answer. When I don’t, he lets it go.

  “I want regular briefings. And I want to see that diary.”

  “It’ll be on its way to you within the hour, sir.”

  Callie had shown up not long after I finished the call with AD Jones. Bonnie still played chess with Alan, who was teaching her the finer points of the game. Callie sat down next to Bonnie and the two of them began to play against Alan, who found himself fighting to keep pieces on the board.

  It was during a rematch of this doubles tournament that Elaina managed to maneuver me into the kitchen, in her firm but gentle way.

  “So,” she said. “Are we planning to finish what we started on Saturday?”

  1 for U two 4 me?

  I’m putting a cracker into my mouth as she asks me this, and I freeze mid-bite. I finish up and swallow, feeling guilty and evasive without knowing why.

  “Smoky,” she chides. She grabs me by the chin and brings my face up. “It’s me.”

  I look at her, let a little bit of that patented Elaina-goodness flow into me, womb and warmth. I sigh. “I know. Sorry.” I shrug. “Truth? Of course we will. But when?” I shake my head. “I don’t know yet.”

  “Fair enough. But you’ll let me know?”

  “Yeah,” I mumble around my cracker, feeling like a child. “Of course.”

  “You’ve been doing so well, Smoky, and clearing out that home was a good idea. I want to make sure you finish, that’s all.”

  Then she smiles, baldness and all, an Elaina-smile that makes further words unnecessary.

  It’s early evening by the time the day winds down and Bonnie’s yawning tells me that it’s time to go.

  I’d stayed here later than I’d planned, but I needed this. Callie’s jokes and Alan’s mock-anger at being beaten by Bonnie at chess, Elaina’s ever-present warmth and Bonnie’s full-body grins, had all served to recover some of what this weekend had started out as: a normal life.

  Can you give all of this up? Should you? Is Quantico the solution?

  Shush, I tell myself.

  “I’m going back to the office,” Callie tells me at the door. “I’m going to dig through Mr. Vargas’s computer. I’m sure I’ll find many distasteful things.”

  “Don’t stay too late,” I say. “We’re meeting at the office bright and early tomorrow morning.”

  Elaina and Alan each get a hug, as does Callie, first from Bonnie, and then from me. I work with my family, my family is my work, that’s how my life has worked out.

  That’s what you get for marrying the gun.

  I’m in too good a mood to take my own bait.

  17

  “I’M GOING TO READ THIS FOR A LITTLE WHILE, SWEETHEART,” I say to Bonnie. “I won’t keep you up, will I?”

  I have asked her this before, many times. The answer is always no. Bonnie could sleep through an air raid, just so long as she doesn’t have to sleep alone. She shakes her head, smiles, kisses me on the cheek.

  “Good night, honey,” I say, and kiss her back.

  One more smile, and she turns away from me, toward the cool shadows. Leaving me in my small pool of light, to think and then to read.

  I have my notepad pages from the other night. I add some things we now know.

  PERPETRATOR:

  Under METHODOLOGY I add:

  INTERVIEW WITH SARAH LANGSTROM CONFIRMS HE DRUGS HIS VICTIMS.

  HE FORCED HER TO DISEMBOWEL THE ADULT KINGSLEYS AND TO CUT MICHAEL KINGSLEY’S THROAT. (His behavior re: her is specific. WHY?)

  Under BEHAVIORS I add:

  DISEMBOWELMENT IS A WAY OF REVEALING THE INNER “TRUE NATURE” OF HIS VICTIMS. CONTINUES TO SUPPORT THEORY OF REVENGE AS A MOTIVE.

  HE CLOSES THE EYES OF FEMALE VICTIMS PRE-MORTEM BUT HE STILL DISEMBOWELS THEM. THEY MAY DESERVE LESS BUT THEY STILL, IN HIS MIND, DESERVE.

  PERPETRATOR CLAIMS EARLIER VICTIMS, INCLUDING A MARRIED POET AND A PHILOSOPHY STUDENT.

  ARTWORK WITH THE BLOOD IS AN ODDITY. EXTRANEOUS AND UNNECESSARY. WHY DO IT? SUBSTITUTION FOR LETTING SARAH CUT THE VICTIMS?

  MURDER GIVES HIM AN ERECTION, BUT NO VISIBLE ABUSE TO THE BODIES, AND NONE PER SARAH’S ACCOUNT.

  Of course, I realize, it could just be that his scalpel is his cock. The cutting could be the sexual act for him.

  RELIGIOUS OVERTONES. GETTING ORDERS FROM GOD?

  Under DESCRIPTION I add:

  CAUCASIAN OR CAUCASIAN APPEARING.

  APPROXIMATELY SIX FEET TALL.

  SHAVES OFF ALL BODY HAIR.

  VERY FIT, MUSCULAR. “PERFECT BODY.” WORKS OUT (NARCISSIST).

  KEY: TATTOO ON HIS RIGHT THIGH OF AN ANGEL CARRYING A FLAMING SWORD. HE’LL HAVE DESIGNED THIS HIMSELF.

  I add notes regarding the program found on Michael Kingsley’s home computer. If put there by the perpetrator, it points to technical expertise, or access to technical expertise.


  I consider the angel tattoo. It either represents his actions or it represents himself. He seems lucid enough for it to be the former, but the blood art falls on the crazy side, which is strange and unsettling.

  IS HE BEGINNING TO DECOMPENSATE?

  Decompensation, at its simplest, is the act of something going from a stable state to an unstable one. It’s not universal among serial killers, but it’s a common phenomenon. Ted Bundy spent years as a careful, clever, charismatic assassin. Toward the end of his “career” he spun out of control, and this helped lead to his capture.

  Dr. Child, one of the only profilers I really respect, talked about this subject to me once, and what he said comes to me now.

  “I believe,” he said, “that all violent serial offenders are, to some degree, insane. I’m not referring to the legal definition of insanity. I’m proposing that finding joy in the murder of other human beings would not be the behavior of a sane individual.”

  “I can agree with that,” I’d said. “Guilty by reason of insanity, so to speak.”

  “Just so. Serial murder is a behavior precipitated by a lifetime of prior stressors. It’s an act that generates further stress. It demands paranoia, it’s always obsessive, and the most important factor: It is not under the individual’s control. Regardless of the possible consequences—the probable eventuality of capture—he not only will not stop—he cannot. Inability to halt a behavior even when one knows that behavior is destructive to self is a form of psychosis, yes?”

  “Sure.”

  “This is why, in my opinion, we see decompensation in so many serial offenders, be they organized, disorganized, or in between. The pressures, internal, external, imagined, real—build up and eventually break down the already damaged mind.” He’d smiled, but it wasn’t a happy smile. “I think the same raving lunacy sits there in all of them, latent and waiting to bloom. Provide enough stress and you can bring it to life.” He’d sighed. “The larger point being, Smoky: Beware of trying to put the monsters into easy boxes. There are no rules here, only guidelines.”

  The point in the present being: The blood art is not important. Revenge as a motive makes sense, and will help lead us to him. His treatment of the children is important, and will help lead us to him. The tattoo? Pure forensics. I need to concentrate on finding the artist, not figuring out its significance. Whether he feels he’s like the angel or is the angel is, for now, just mental chatter.

  I take the page with the notes I’d written about Sarah. I correct her name now.

  SARAH LANGSTROM:

  BEEN WITH THE KINGSLEY FAMILY APPROX. ONE YEAR

  Then I’m stumped.

  What else have we really learned about her?

  Two things come to me. I write them down because they’re true, although neither is particularly significant.

  SHE’S A SURVIVOR.

  SHE’S LOSING HER MIND. SHE’S SUICIDAL.

  That’s an impetus at least.

  More unresolved, but that’s okay. Everything is about unceasing forward motion. Look, examine, deduce, posit, evidence, evidence, profile. We have a physical description of the perpetrator and we have a basic understanding of his motive. We have a living witness. We have a footprint. We know this perp keeps videos as trophies and when we catch him those videos will hang him.

  We also have Sarah’s diary and I need to read it and see where that leads. The victims are the key to him, and from what I can see, she is his favorite. The point of it all.

  I set aside the notepad pages and examine what Callie gave me.

  The pages are white, blown-up, larger than the originals, easy to read. Sarah’s flowing black cursive beckons, and she begins by speaking to me directly.

  Dear Smoky Barrett,

  I know you.

  I guess what I really mean is that I know about you. I’ve studied you in the way you study a person who could be your last and only hope. I’ve stared at your photograph until my eyes were bloodshot, memorizing every scar.

  I know that you work for the FBI in Los Angeles. I know that you hunt evil men, and that you’re good at it. All of that is important, but it’s not why you give me hope.

  You give me hope because you’ve been the victim too.

  You give me hope because you’ve been raped, and you’ve been cut, and you’ve lost the things you love.

  If anyone could believe me, I think—I think—it would be you.

  If anyone could make it stop—could want to make it stop—it would be you.

  Is that true? Or am I just dreaming when I should be slitting my wrists?

  I guess we’ll find out. I can always slit my wrists later, after all.

  I’ve called this a diary but that’s not what it really is.

  No.

  This is a black flower. This is a book of dreams. This is a path to the watering hole, where the dark things go down to drink.

  Like that? What I mean to say is: It’s a story. Here on paper, that’s where you’ll see me run. The only place you’ll see me run. Here on the white and crinkly, I can really move. I’m more of a sprinter than a runner, as I think you’ll see, but the point is, ask me to explain what I’ve written out loud and I’ll struggle, but give me a pen and a pad or a computer and a keyboard and I’m going to go, go, go.

  Part of this, I think, is because of the brightness of my mother’s soul. She was an artist and some of it seems to have rubbed off. The rest of it, I think, is because I’m going crazy inside. Loony as a goony. The white and crinkly is where all the crazy comes out, unfiltered and screeching. A big black batch of mind-crows.

  I have a rhyme for it (a crazy-rhyme of course): “A little bit of dark, a little bit of light, a little bit of shimmy-shimmy makes it just right.”

  I think about what I feel, in other words, and I write you a path to the watering hole.

  I started writing about two years ago, in one of the schools I went to. The English teacher, a very decent man named Mr. Perkins (and you’ll find out in a minute why I know he was a decent man), read the first story I ever wrote and asked me to stay after class. He told me, when we were alone, that I had a gift. That I might even be a prodigy.

  For some reason that praise brought out The Crazy. The Crazy is one of the creatures that drinks down there at the watering hole, dark-skinned and big-eyed and goony. The Crazy is angry. The Crazy is mean. The Crazy is, well, crazy.

  So I grabbed Mr. Perkins’s crotch and said: “Thanks! Want a blow job, Mr. P?”

  Just like that.

  I’ll never forget the two things that happened. His face fell and his cock got hard. Both at the same time. He pulled away and sputtered and walked out of the room. I think he was afraid, and I can’t really blame him. I also understand that the first of the two (the falling face, the dismay) was the real Mr. P. Like I said, a very decent man.

  I walked out of the classroom, fevered and grinning and heart hammering. I walked out of the school and around the back and I pulled out a lighter and lit that story on fire and cried while it burned and blew away in the breeze.

  I’ve written a lot since then, and I’ve burned it all.

  I’m almost sixteen years old now, as I begin writing this, and though I find I kind of want to burn it too, I won’t.

  Why am I telling you this? For two reasons.

  The first one is a broad one, bigger than a breadbox. I want you to know that my sanity has become something I can see inside myself, like a white line or a vibration of light. It used to be strong and constant, but now it’s weak and flickers a lot. Dots of darkness fly around it, like a swarm of sluggish death-bees. Someday soon, if things don’t change, the dots will overwhelm the light and I’ll be a goner. I’ll sing forever, and never hear a word.

  So if I hiccup sometimes, if my needle jumps the groove, understand: I’m hanging on with my fingernails here. I spend a lot of my time watching that white line of light, because I’m afraid if I look away, I’ll look back and it’ll be gone, but I won’t remember it was ever t
here.

  The Crazy is down at the watering hole, and it’s a short walk from that bad water to me saying or acting in ways I shouldn’t, okay?

  Okay.

  The second reason is because of what comes next on the white and crinkly. I could have done a diary, I guess, a nice, dry, factual recounting. But come on—I’m GIFTED. I’m a PRODIGY.

  Why not tell a story instead?

  So that’s what I’ve done.

  Is it all true? That depends on your definition of truth. Could I read my parents’ minds? Do I really know what they were thinking when The Stranger came for them? No.

  But I knew them. They were my people. It may or may not be what they were thinking, but that doesn’t make it untrue because it’s the kind of thing they would have thought. That’s the point, don’t you see?

  The truth is that I don’t know.

  The truth is that I do know.

  That’s what recorded history is all about: three-parts truth to one-part fiction. The truth is in the time and place and the basic events. The fiction is in the motivations and the thoughts. Since history only exists if we remember it, is it really such a bad thing to fill it out with a little humanity, even if that humanity is imagined?

  They were my parents, and I loved them, so I wrote them as characters, and I filled them with thoughts and hopes and feelings and then I read what I wrote and I cried and I said:

  Yeah.

  That was them.

  I dare anyone to tell me otherwise. Actually, I don’t, because if they did, The Crazy would come running, you can bet on that. I’d probably slap them till they bled and scream at them until they went deaf and I went hoarse.

  And no, they never told me about their sex life, but fuck you, they were people, they were my people, and I want you to feel them living and sweating and laughing so you’ll feel it when they’re hurting and screaming and dying.