by Edward Lee
Yeah…
“And just more verification as to Campbell’s psycho-sexual, obsessive profile,” Sallee continued.
“But still, it’s Dahmer who’s doing the killing, and I need you to refresh my memory. Whatever that rare syndrome is that could make Dahmer change.”
Sallee fiddled with piles of papers on his desk as he spoke, a fuss-budget. “Yes. A conative-episodic break. I wouldn’t have counted on something like that at all—it’s just so rare. But it’s equally obvious. With Campbell’s assistance, Dahmer is indeed committing new murders, via a new modus, and that new modus can only be explained by an episodic break, or something similar.”
“But what kind of things could cause such a mental break?”
“Chiefly?” Sallee said. “A memory flashback. Sometimes flashbacks are triggered by sudden hormonal imbalances, a readily accessible cause for a personality reversal in someone like Dahmer, someone with an introverted psychological mein. Another incidental that’s interesting is the statistical age-group. Psychopaths and sociopaths who experience this sort of episodic break are almost always in the same age margin: thirty to forty. Dahmer is now thirty-four. And the actual clinical incident is statistically identical too, due to a natural increase in certain neurotransmitters in the brain. Certain mentally unstable persons, due to irregularities in brain chemistry, experience an increase in specific neurotransmitters, whereas a healthy person would experience a decrease due to aging, in particular a neurotransmitter called L-dopamine. This upsurge can effect a sudden memory improvement, often digging up memories previously buried via childhood trauma. One more thing: inadvertent memory flashbacks are sometimes caused by sudden dietary changes, the same kind of change one might experience going from a lifetime of learned eating habits to a pre-designated prison diet. I suppose it’s possible, too, that one of the prison psychiatrists attempted a ‘flooding,’ ‘memory-regression,’ or ‘desensitization’ technique as part of Dahmer’s therapy, and a memory flashback occurred through one of those means. But those are really the only documented instances of a triggering of a conative-episodic break. Some…catalyst… that causes the subject to remember previously buried traumatic experiences from childhood…”
««—»»
—and suddenly he remembers it all. It had been years, hadn’t it, and he’d never remembered his father, and what his father had done to him. Only very recently—a year ago?—when the show he’d seen it on Geraldo, about adults experiencing a resurface of childhood memories, and it had thrown him into that awful trance—
««—»»
“Upon the initial catalytic recollection,” Sallee told her, “the subject often describes a situation triggering a formal memory—a memory buried since childhood—and then experiences a sort of retrogressive trance—”
««—»»
—that brought it all up like pus in a boil. Everything his father had done to him as an innocent, terrified child, and everything he’d said afterward. Like “Fear is power, son. Real men take life by the balls. They take what they need, and they become powerful in the fear they hold over others. When you’re older, you’ll understand. You’ll thank me for this. You’ll see that I’m doing this for you…because you’re the same way…”
««—»»
Helen didn’t remember a whole lot of her abnormal psych from college. “A retrogressive trance?”
“Or a simple trance state, like lucid dreaming, inverse somnambulism, things like that. Something triggers the subject to remember, in the space of a day or even an hour, a virtual lifetime of buried traumatic memories from the formative and preadolescent years. Almost always, Helen, these memories involve sexual abuse perpetrated by a close family member—such as the mother or father—”
««—»»
“Father,” he thought when it all came back. “My own father…
««—»»
“According to the journals, at least,” Sallee drew on, “these are typical catalysts for a previously psychopathic or sociopathic subject who has experienced a conative-episodic effect. And, yes, Dahmer, based on what he told me when I interviewed him upon incarceration—as well as what I’ve read about him since then—is a good or even excellent candidate. In other words, as rare as the syndrome may be, Jeffrey Dahmer’s basic psychiatric profile provides a sound breeding ground, so to speak, for a patient who’s undergone this form of episodic break. And another thing you might find compelling. Many subjects report a history of military service—the service being, at least subconsciously, reckoned as a means of escape from the foundry of the childhood trauma. And such subjects statistically are removed from service early, for any number of reasons—”
««—»»
And the man who was once the boy from Bath, Ohio, remembers now how desperately he wanted to leave, to get away from it all, and how, at age eighteen, he went to the Army recruiter—
««—»»
“—that may be deemed psychoactively pertinent. Dahmer, after all, had joined the Army, and was soon separated from service to due alcoholism—”
««—»»
—but that didn’t last long, either, did it? The Army hadn’t worked out at all—
««—»»
“Dahmer, of course, claimed that his drinking wasn’t excessive at all, claims that the charges were trumped up by his company commander because he’d told a few other enlisted men that he was gay,” Sallee said.
This was all news to Helen. She’d never researched Dahmer’s bio history that well, just the modus stuff.
««—»»
—but none of that really mattered now, did it? No, he thinks.
“Dahmer told me that his childhood was normal,” Sallee continued, when he was growing up in Bath, Ohio. Of course, this was over two years ago, well before the episodic break he’s obviously experienced since then. Yet he admitted that he did indeed kill small animals—sometimes he would even dissolve the flesh off their bones with corrosives he’d concoct from the chemistry set his father gave him for his birthday. This boy was melting the flesh off dogs and birds and hamsters yet he referred to his childhood as ‘normal.’ He was oblivious. He said he did it because he loved the animals.” Sallee tossed his shoulders. “Beyond that, you tell me. We only have clinical criteria to go by, but every subject, in some way, is possessed of patented differences.”
Helen let the slew of words sink in. “But subjects like this, like Dahmer, or like anyone else with the background. Once they experience the flood of back memories, once they remember all the bad things that happened to them—is it common for them to go on killing sprees?”
Sallee sat poised, the thin blond hair gleaming on his balding pate. “Not only is it common, it’s nearly exclusive. As the old saying goes, opposites attract. People who suffer a conative-episodic break go from one opposite to the next—in personality, I mean. They’ve always been killers, yes. Dahmer killed animals as a child, a hitchhiker when he was eighteen, and seventeen other people before his apprehension. But its the perception of murder that changes. Introversion to aggression. Symbolic murder to murder based in a sense of retribution and revenge. A passive personality form which quickly changes over to an aggressive one. What we’re talking about here is a complete metamorphosis of character, and there is no doubt now that Jeffrey Dahmer experienced this metamorphosis quite recently, and used that new aggression, based on his resurfaced memories, to devise an intricate means to escape his incarceration and continue his murderous acts on a shining, new plane.” Sallee looked at her. “Jeffrey Dahmer’s only compulsion right now is to resurrect the power he once knew. And kill.”
««—»»
“Kill,” he thinks now.
In fact, that’s all he ever thinks about now.
Kill.
««—»»
Helen, in spite of her fatigue, tried to compute all of this at once. It wasn’t hard. “I think I understand it all now, Dr. Sallee. But let me ask you one thing. You mentioned that the episodi
c break is founded on some aspect of abuse from childhood, some—ideation? Is that the right word?—founded in the symbol of fear equaling power. Dahmer’s crime-scene letters have said the same thing. ‘Feel the fear.’“
“Yes. Exactly. So what’s your question?”
“I’m wondering about the absolute base-structure of this ‘fear.’ I mean, the locality. Dahmer’s heyday was in the city of Milwaukee—that’s where he thrived on his fear. But now he’s killing people in Madison. To retrieve this sense of power, I’d think he’d return to Milwaukee, his virtual hunting-ground of fear. Why the change of locales?”
“That’s simple,” Sallee said. “Dahmer’s already done Milwaukee. Now he wants someplace new. A new locale, new fuel for his power. New meat.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER NINETEEN
The darkness damped the room to perfect silence. Her lover slipped beside her into bed.
Helen gasped, in passion.
His hand gently molded the contours of her breasts, then slid lower. It touched her with such precision—the hand seemed to know her. A blurred face lowered, lips touched her lips and kissed. The room’s warm dark hid her lover’s face like a veil.
What’s…happening? Helen lamely thought. A tightness spired at her loins like an over-wound spring—any moment it might snap. The hand continued gingerly to investigate her.
“Darling,” Tom whispered.
Helen lay in a momentary shock. A cloud passed the window, letting winter moonlight fall into the room, beaming on Tom’s face.
Tom…
Short of breath, Helen moaned. Tom had come back to her… She pulled him naked atop her. Her nipples swelled so thoroughly they ached; she felt the veins beat in her breasts. She sensed an earthy purgation, a primal flux of feelings that demanded to be loosed.
But had she ever felt so overjoyed? She looked up into Tom’s face, saw his unmistakable smile and the familiar love in his eyes. The clean sweat of passion made his flesh shine, his big bright eyes gazing right back into hers.
“I love you, Helen.”
“I-I…love you too.”
There. Is wasn’t so hard to say, was it? She knew she loved him, it was just that she’d said it so infrequently, it seemed uncomfortable.
“I’m sorry things got so messed up between us,” he whispered.
“Me too.”
“We’ll work them out.”
“Yes. I want to.”
And she did, she did. In spite of all the things that had happened, and all the things she didn’t understand—she wanted to work things out. She needed to.
The feel of his weight on her, and its immediacy, parched her voice. She opened her legs, pulled him tighter.
“Make love to me,” she pleaded.
“Mm-hmm.”
Helen winced. The voice was different now, and then came the impact: the stench, so familiar from being in Tom’s lab—
Formalin. Disinfectant. Embalming fluid.
Helen screamed.
The face was plain in the moonlight, despite its broken-toothed smile and crushed facial bones.
It was no longer Tom who lay atop her. It was Jeffrey Dahmer.
The paralysis of nightmare locked her down on the bed. She squeezed her eyes shut, so not to have to look at this abomination, but dead fingertips plucked them back open.
“Look, look. See?” the morgue-cold corpse said.
The corpse-face was gone, its ravagement smoothing over, its bruises and contusions dissolving like white sand pouring, until it had blended completely into the face she’d seen so many times in the nightmares of her of past. A blank white face smooth as a featureless mask. Then the knife-slit mouth leaned down to kiss her, the vaguest tip of a grub-white tongue slipping between the lips…
Helen awoke thrashing, shrieking soundlessly. The winter moon remained in her window, the room remained warm and dark as the dream. Was it really over?
She nearly fell out of bed reaching for the lamp, then nearly knocked the lamp over turning it on.
And there she lay in the sweat of her own horror, her nightgown glued to her skin as she waited for her heart to beat down.
She didn’t sleep for the rest of the night.
««—»»
“I buy it,” Jan Beck said the next morning in the lab. Helen had just explained her theory: that Campbell was, without a doubt, the man who arranged Dahmer’s escape. “Can’t see why Olsher doesn’t, but you got to admit, he’ll never win any awards for speculative thinking. He’s brass. Brass can’t think past their noses.”
I’m brass too, Jan, Helen thought in response but said nothing. A tabloid lay on the counter; DAHMER WAS WRITING A COOKBOOK! the header boasted. Helen felt a quick twinge. “It’s still got plenty of missing pieces, though, and the only way I’m going to find them is to—”
“Find Campbell, sure,” Beck agreed. “No easy task either. You running his name?”
“I just started. It’s going to take a while. There are over 30,000 people in the state of Wisconsin named Campbell. I’m cross-reffing with prison and mental hospital releases going back three years, plus a general search on anyone named Campbell with a rap sheet for any sexually related crime. I haven’t got my hopes up, though. Sallee says guys this smart, and with this profile, probably haven’t been caught.”
Beck removed a bottle of Snapple from the lab fridge. “You run the name against hospital records, especially this hospital?”
“That’s the first thing I did—here and Columbus County General, where Dahmer’s so-called body was first taken. It came up zilch. There are two Campbells working here, and one there. None fit the mold.”
“At least you’ve got things cooking. You got a DF on North, and that will probably give you more leads down the road, you’ve got Central Programming running Campbell’s name. And while all that’s going on—”
“I have too fill in the holes,” Helen muttered, staring absently around the lab. She felt like she hadn’t slept at all, which was essentially true. The nightmare had bitten her deep. I’m turning into on of those proverbial obsessed cops. No life outside of the job. The case takes over everything, even your dreams. “I think that’s the main reason Olsher’s not taking me seriously. My theory doesn’t explain how Dahmer was positively ID’d via fingerprints. Repeatedly, his prints matched. One, after the beating at the prison, two, on arrival at Columbus County General for the first official pronouncement of death, and, three, after transport here. Three times those fingerprints matched, but then we dig up the body, and it’s Kussler.”
Beck shrugged as she tended a peripheral printer connected to a spectrographic point-processor. “Those prints matched because the guy being transported was Dahmer. He was switched with Kussler’s body after he arrived here. I don’t see any other explanation.”
Helen blinked at the hypothesis. It just sounded too far-fetched. “But the same body ID’d as Dahmer was pronounced dead repeatedly, Jan. The prison physician, the chief of ER at Columbus County General, and several more doctors here.”
“And Tom too,” Beck reminded off the top of her head.
Yeah, Tom too. The name soured her mood at once.
Beck drew on, “In other words, you don’t understand how Dahmer could’ve been pronounced dead when he was really alive? That’s the easy part.”
Helen peered at Beck. “How is faking death easy?”
“You’re forgetting one of this case’s most unique constituents, Captain. Succinicholine sulphate.”
“A deadly poison.”
“A deadly poison is certain doses, yes. But the doses Dahmer used on Arlinger and Dumplin weren’t high enough to be fatal. I’ve already explained that in my tox reports. Those two guys died as a result of torture and extreme physical trauma. It wasn’t the succinicholine that killed them. All that did was paralyze them.”
Helen listened hard, strained her perceptions. “I don’t think I’m following you.”
Beck looked exasperated.
“Captain, that’s the key word here—paralysis. Dahmer’s paralyzing his victims with a neurological agent. It stands to reason that Dahmer used the same neurological agent on himself, to feign his death after the beating at the prison.”
“Would that…work?”
“With succinicholine sulphate? Of course it would work. The right dose would lower Dahmer’s respiratory rate and pulse sufficiently enough to fool a standard check for vital signs.”
Helen hadn’t thought of that. “Wow,” she muttered. “You’re right, it does make sense. But that would mean someone would’ve had to procure the succinicholine previously—”
“Sure, Campbell,” Beck suggested. “He had to have been the one who ripped it off from that ambulance jacking.”
“But the jacking was more than twelve hours after the beating?”
“So? By then the plan was already in motion; Campbell was stocking up on it for the murders he knew he and Dahmer would soon be committing. He probably already had stolen a sample previously. Jackings are commonplace. This was obviously something they were planning for months, or even since Dahmer’s initial incarceration in 92.”
Helen nodded to herself. “And it had to have been Kussler who snuck the succinicholine into the prison, on Campbell’s orders. Campbell was using Kussler the whole time, exploiting the love affair with him in order to manipulate him through his job at the prison.”
“A job which gave him direct access to Dahmer. Trading notes back and forth so Campbell and Dahmer could maintain correspondence, and planning the whole scheme from start to finish. It was more than likely Kussler himself who injected Dahmer with the succinicholine directly after the beating. A phony clinical death solid enough to fool any stethoscope.”