by Edward Lee
“In other words, that’s why he kept the skulls, and the body parts in the freezer?”
“Yes, and that explains the cannibalism too. When a victim died, he’d eat a part of that victim, ‘so that part of him would be inside of me,’ he said.”
Helen tapped her pen on her pad. “Why didn’t you commit him?”
“No responsible psychiatric evaluator would’ve. Our guidelines for incarceration versus institutionalization are very specific.” Sallee quickly slipped a paper-covered manual— State of Wisconsin Parameters for Penal Admission: A Psychiatrist’s Guide—and, without opening it, quoted: “‘The clinician in charge of psychiatric evaluation must never admit a subject to state mental-hygiene custody unless said subject demonstrates verifiable symptoms of psychopathy or hallucinosis.’ What that means is that Dahmer needed to display a clear separation from reality, the ‘Right from Wrong’ tenet. Which he didn’t. I also did the evaluation on Tredell Rosser, Dahmer’s alleged murderer, and a completely different story. The press is charging that Rosser should never have been put in prison in the first place, because he’s completely insane. But they’re completely wrong. He’s a pure-bred Ganser.”
Helen knew the term. Ganser Syndrome was common among prison inmates: faking a psychiatric disorder in hopes of receiving a transfer to a mental hospital. “Rosser was trying to push some sort of religious fixation, wasn’t he?”
“Yes, and he’s quite good at it,” Sallee affirmed. “But not good enough for me. He continues to claim that he’s a thousand years old, and the Son of God, a very well-formed forgery of a systematized grandiose pietistic delusion. I could tell he was lying the minute he stepped into my office, but he’s convincing enough for laymen and even some of the prison officials. Eventually I got the court’s permission to narco-analyze him. He’s perfectly sane, read about Ganser techniques in some book by one of those underground publishers.”
“Then why did he kill Dahmer?”
“For popular status on the mainline. Several of Dahmer’s victims were African-American. Rosser knew that he’d become a hero inside by killing Dahmer and Vander, the latter being affiliated with white supremacist groups. And all this hoopla about as possible conspiracy, that Rosser was aided by detention employees—it’s pure nonsense. He’s the lone perpetrator. By killing Dahmer and, at the same time maintaining his Ganser, he knows he’ll be relocated to a mental hospital.”
Helen surveyed her notes, chewed her lip as she thought. “Now, can you give me some kind of potential profile on the P-Street killer? Is there enough you can draw from based on the crime scene?”
Sallee began to seem bored, fingering a big, blue Stelazine paperweight. A flier top the desk clutter read: What Every Doctor Should Know About Extrapyramidity. “That’s relatively easy. Whoever committed the Arlinger murder looks like a clear-cut X,Y,Y Syndrome. The underpinnings were spiteful, even mocking, totally unlike Dahmer in his day. Dahmer would never leave a body for the police to find; that’s why he disposed of many of the parts in separate parcels, dissolved them in drums of corrosives, etc. His very first victim, in fact, a hitchhiker he murdered when he was eighteen, was disposed of similarly; he buried the separate pieces in the woods behind his house. His entire life from pre-adolescence to adulthood is a prime example of unwavering costive existentialism. Burying pieces of things he was fond of in places he was in proximity to. Dahmer was raised in Bath, Ohio, claimed that his father gave him a chemistry set for his birthday. He’d solicit people in the papers who were trying to give away pets, and he’d take them, kill them, and then dissolve the carcasses down to their skeletons with high-acid and base compounds he’d concoct with the chemistry set. It was his secret, he never told anyone, then or now. Psychiatric labels are very specific; subjects tend to remain very solidly in their categories once they’ve reached instinctive phases. There’s little individuality, in other words. Gacy, Bundy, Henry Lee Lucas all came from totally different backgrounds, were subject to totally different formative upbringings, and executed equally different m.o.s—yet they all had nearly identical IQs—rather high, by the way—and remained subject to the same pathological symptomology. More recent examples are Rene Aulton and Susan Smith—maternal filicists. Mothers who kill their own children all display nearly identical behavior patterns despite totally dissimilar reactive and reflective designs.” Sallee paused for a consideration. “Is this all going over your head?”
“Well, yeah,” Helen admitted, looking down at the technical gobbledegook on her notepad.
“Psychotic killers as well as borderline sociopaths tend to display irrevocable pattern behavior. My point is, to put it more simply: Dahmer never strayed from his demential purview; what he did in Milwaukee in 1991 was merely an emblematic amplification of the same things he was doing as a boy in Bath, Ohio. Any forensic psychiatrist in the country will tell you the same thing. Despite the outward similarities on P Street, the perpetrator clearly displays a different profile. He’s nothing even close to Dahmer; instead, he offers a different mental state: semi-delusional, aggressive, hyper-violent. By leaving the body and the note for the police to find, he’s challenging the authorities, something Dahmer would never have done. Only a full-stage episodic break could account for someone like Dahmer committing the crime at P Street. Your perpetrator merely copied the most simplified aspects of Dahmer’s atrocities, while ignoring the actual psychological imprint.”
“One of the first things I’m going to do is run a computer break-down of recently released mental patients and convicts,” Helen said.
“And you should, but don’t be disappointed if you come up with nothing,” Sallee countered. “Arlinger’s murderer is quite crafty—the note, for instance, and his avoidance of being seen entering the motel. If he committed crimes like this in the past, he probably hasn’t been caught.”
“So where do I start?”
“Obsessional contact is usually how this kind of killer is launched into an active crime-phase.”
Helen didn’t get it. “Obsessional contact?”
“The letter left at the P Street Motel was undoubtedly written by Dahmer some time before his death. But Dahmer was in lockup, so we can safely assume that the P-Street killer was in contact with Dahmer during his incarceration. Look for a ‘Killer Groupie,’ someone drawn to Dahmer via his publicity. It’s either someone he was corresponding with, or someone in close contact in the prison.”
Helen complimented herself on having already essentially discerned that. “At least that’s an easy lead.”
“Of course. I’m sure the prison keeps a log of all correspondence leaving the facility, for legal reasons.”
Helen’s hand began to cramp, she was writing so fast. But at the end of the manic scribbling, she felt satisfied that she had what she needed. “This is great, Dr. Sallee. This’ll help me lot.”
“And as for our good friends with the newspapers, feel free to quote me. You can even direct them to me personally if you like.”
“Thanks.” Helen felt winded after the influx of information. She put away her pad and began to get up. “I guess that’s it then.”
“Oh, no it’s not, Helen,” the psychiatrist contradicted. “You still have some other things to tell me, don’t you?”
Helen knew full well what he was driving at. Immediately, and without conscious forethought, she began rubbing her locket between her fingers. Just as immediately, her previous job-related zeal collapsed.
And all of her fear swooped down on her.
“You’re an ostrich, Helen.”
“A—what?”
Sallee looked at her. “You bury your head in the sand. Right now the sand is your job. But eventually, you’re going to have to take your head out of it, aren’t you?”
She knew exactly what he meant. She was avoiding her problems, not facing them. Eventually she’d be right back to Square One, right back in the jaws of all her inadequacies: her mood swings, her pre-menopausal fears, her complete lack of persona
l security…
“You’ve got a lot to be proud of, don’t you?” Sallee suggested.
Her response was bitter as turpentine. “Like what?”
“You’re among the most decorated officers in the history of Wisconsin law enforcement. Your arrest-versus-conviction rate is phenomenal. And you’re the only female on the force who’s ever been up for deputy chief. Aren’t those accomplishments you can be proud of?”
“Not really,” she mumbled in admission. “I’ve never felt very driven. I think it’s been mostly luck.”
“That’s foolishness, and you know it. You refuse to give yourself any credit at all merely because you’ve never had what you perceive of as a successful relationship with a man. That’s irrational and wholly illogical.”
He’d said it all a thousand times, but it never really mattered. It was impossible for her to feel any other way.’
“Still having nightmares?”
She gulped and nodded. “The pale figure chasing me.”
“Any other dreams?”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Any sexual implications?”
The question didn’t even embarrass her any more. “No, I— Oh, wait I did have a different dream, just before—” But the memory stopped her from continuing, lopped off the rest of the recollection like a knife through a carrot on a butcher block.
Sallee’s tone never changed. “Just before what?”
Her fingers rubbed frantically against the locket. “Just before I woke up and heard Tom talking on the phone…to another woman.”
The doctor nodded as if unimpressed. “Tell me the dream.”
“There was a—a fire or something. I was rushing to put it out.”
“Were you naked?”
Helen popped brow. “Yes.”
“And you weren’t particularly afraid or the fire, were you?”
“No, no I wasn’t. But how did you—”
“Go on.”
Flustered, she tried to remember. The water hose… “The fire was burning, so I ran to get a hose to put it out, but when I turned it on, no water came out.”
“And the fire continued to burn,” Sallee said rather than asked.
“That’s right.”
“But I must say, Helen. That’s a very sexual dream.”
Her eyes squinted up. “How so?”
“Look at the symbology and then look at yourself. Your greatest fear is that menopause will kill your sexuality, and hence make you less attractive to men. The fire in the dream represents your sexual self—a woman still quite sexually capable, a sexual yearning that needs to be quenched. Fires are quenched by water, correct? But you couldn’t get the water to come out of those hose… Correct?”
Suspiciously, she nodded.
“And let me guess,” Sallee went on, “sometime previously you’d had sex with Tom. You were excited, even orgasmic. Am I on track?”
Now she actually blushed. “More than you realize.”
Sallee held a finger up, in further postulation. “But Tom himself, he experienced some sudden sexual dysfunction.”
He lost his erection, she shamedly remembered. He couldn’t come. But Sallee’s “guesses” began to mildly infuriate her. It was as though he was picking her brain against her will. “How can you possibly know that?”
“It’s a terribly common dream, Helen,” Sallee replied and nearly chuckled. “No water came out of the hose, symbolic of Tom’s inability to complete the act. It’s a dream of clear paranoia: Tom gave you pleasure but experienced none himself, so, paranoically, you blame yourself, you feel you failed in being able to satisfy him as he satisfied you, so know you’ve developed this ideation that he’s cheating on you, that’s he’s seeking some other woman.”
Helen threw her hands up. There was no use. “But that’s where you’re wrong. I’m pretty sure he is seeing another woman.”
“Pretty sure? Not totally?”
“Well—” She faltered. “Not totally, but—’
Sallee cut her off yet again. “And even if he is, Helen, there’s no relevant reason for you to blame yourself for every incompatibility, is there?”
“No, but…that’s just how I feel, I guess,” she admitted, now fighting to hold back tears. “I can’t help it.”
“Of course you can. You can by acknowledging yourself before others, Helen. That’s the root of all your problems. You judge yourself by over-reacting to the people close to you, which, in turn, creates an erroneous judgment. We’ll continue to work on it, okay?”
Her eyes remained on the floor as she nodded.
“And another thing I think you should do is go and talk to Tom. You just said yourself that you don’t know for sure that he’s seeing another woman. More than likely, you’ve jumped to conclusions, like you frequently do.”
“I know,” she peeped.
“So go and find out, go talk to him. You’ll regret it if you don’t, and you may very well be surprised if you do. Are you going to do that?”
“Yes,” she agreed.
“And I want you to come and see me again, okay?”
“Yes, I will.”
“All right, then. Try to feel good about yourself, because you’re a good person and you should feel good. And quit rubbing that damn locket.”
Now, at least, she was able to spare a smile.
“I’ll see you soon, Helen, and good luck with the case.”
“Thank you,” she said and got up. Her mind swam, she knew he was right. I am a good person, goddamn it! Why can’t I get that into my thick head?
She stopped at the door to gaze over her notes one last time, a police instinct. A final check to see if she was forgetting anything. And one of the last lines snagged her.
“There was one thing you mentioned,” she said. “Something about a break. Let’s just say for one minute that Dahmer is alive and that he did get out of prison and murder Alringer on P Street. What could account for the change in his behavioral profile?”
“Oh, yes, but that’s a very rare and obscure syndrome,” Sallee told her. “We call it a conative-episodic break. Its the only clinical phenomena that could account for an existential costive like Dahmer to enter into an X,Y,Y-like mental state.”
Helen highlighted that part in her notes. “But what are the actual chances of that?”
Sallee belittled the possibility with a brief snort. “The chances of that happening, Helen, are literally one in a million.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER NINE
“Is that real scripture you’re quoting, Mr. Rosser,” Helen asked, “or are you just making it up?”
“What’choo think?”
“I think it’s genuine scripture that you’ve memorized in order to fake a religious delusion.”
“‘Mercy and truth shall be met together.’ ‘God’s truth shall be my shield and buckler.’ ‘Thou trusteth in the staff of this broken reed.’”
Helen peered at the man. She tried to avoid looking at him too closely, but found she couldn’t resist it, like trying to resist running your tongue over a chipped molar.
“What do you do here all day, Mr. Rosser?”
“Read in my cell, watch TV. The bulls they lets me watch TV in the day room a couple hours a day.” The convict’s grin shined bright as the tungsten light. “Wearin’ these, a’course.” Then he clicked up on his cuffs, which were linked to a heavy-duty Peerless waistchain.
Tredell Rosser, County Correctional Ident # 255391, presented a shocking visual contrast. He sat, shackled and waistchained, in a stark-white precaution cell, a white floor and white ceiling, four white walls. A white blanket atop a white-sheeted cot, and a white porcelain sink and toilet to the right. White fluorescent light glared down.
Rosser himself, sitting on his cot, was dressed appropriately: baggy white in-patient pants and a sleeveless white t-shirt. The obsidian darkness of his skin made him, at first, appear disembodied—two black arms and a black face hovering in this cold, w
hite scape.
Three psych orderlies and the security guard—all very big men—had led her down the central hall of the wing; Helen felt like a quarterback behind a flying wedge. A quick glance into a wire-glass med station showed several female nurses bickering back and forth. Several patients in blue robes and sponge slippers stared dully at television in the day room; two more patients played ping pong with the dexterity of zombies. A sign hung at the end of the hall: PREVENTION OF ELOPEMENT IS EVERYBODY’S BUSINESS. Then:
A security plaque warned, CLASS III PRECAUTION, DO NOT ENTER WITHOUT ESCORT, beneath which was mounted a tiny slide sign with Magic Markered letters:
ROSSER, T.
Helen’s energy hadn’t waned even by 9 p.m. She’d driven straight from Dr. Sallee’s to St. John the Divine’s Hospital. Might as well make good use of my time, she reasoned. She wasn’t the least bit tired, despite having had almost no sleep last night. Tredell Rosser had been court-ordered to the psych wing at the hospital the day of Dahmer’s death. The state’s Special Prosecutor’s Office had fought like dogs to prevent this, but to no avail. Since then Rosser had repeatedly waived all rights to counsel and had confessed to the bludgeoning murder of Jeffrey Dahmer no less than four times. Helen wanted to have a talk with him, feel out his mental state, trip him up if possible.
The psych wing—2D West—had a jail unit for violent offenders pending evaluation and “precaution transfers”: inmates suspected of being suicidal. Rosser himself had been admitted for re-evaluation. If Sallee was right—in his conviction that Rosser was actually a Ganser faking delusions—then hopefully the psych unit staff would determine this and send him straight back to Columbus County Detent. But if he beat the wrap, he would serve the rest of his sentence in a state mental facility. Either way, though, Rosser won. Back to prison and he’d be a cellblock hero.