The Last Nightingale
Page 25
Perhaps largely due to the effects of TV and film, most people today realize that the reputation for “dark arts” being behind the methodology of modern profilers is simply the result of the startled amazement that often greets a good profiler’s conclusions. The prosaic reality is that the professional profiler merely employs a system of thought created to help investigators think unthinkable things while they do intolerable work, and yet remain focused on their goals and their job functions. The patterns that a profiler is trained to study are the result of thousands of bits of information accumulated over generations of law enforcement experience regarding how criminal behavior tends to work.
The skilled profiler questions how the given criminal behavior (as indicated by the crime scene) served the perpetrator during the commission of the crime. Just as important, the profiler asks how such needs in the perpetrator may have been caused in the first place. Writers of crime fiction have learned to answer these questions also, because modern readers of crime fiction are far more sophisticated about criminal psychology.
Unfortunately, at the same time that public awareness of the profiling field has grown, the use of the word “profiling” in the media has sometimes taken on a churlish political tone. It’s not difficult to see why. Today, that word has been distorted until it covers a range of meanings. It might refer to the specific field of behavioral analysis taught at the FBI academy, or instead to the use of overbroad physical descriptions for targeting a certain group, or it might even describe the sparking point for spontaneous outbursts of stranger-on-stranger violence. Whether or not these uses of the word are accurate in any given example, as an aggregate they have imparted a politically incorrect aroma to the word profiling that the core concept does not deserve. The fact that certain people or media organizations misuse any term or topic does not diminish its value in more earnest and capable hands.
So let’s assume that today, those capable hands belong to you, reader. Let’s hunt for the meaning of the idea of “profiling” as it applies to you and to me, regardless of what the folks at Quantico are teaching their recruits. And why not? You are a reader of mysteries, ready to pursue the answer to a puzzle through a menagerie of dark fantasies, are you not? Thus you may be “profiled” enough to deduce that you employ a number of skills in your reading and in your daily life that you would also be employing if you were to profile someone in the most educated use of the term. Scientific profiling simply provides an experimentally verified structure for utilizing natural insights into human behavior. You, reader of mystery fiction, a born profiler, may have figured that out already.
The old-school name for it was “learning to be a solid judge of character,” or words to that effect. But the skill set starts about as far down the mammalian chain as you care to go. You can pick any single example among all the conscious creatures and still be assured that if that creature gets rudely slapped in the side of the head every time it turns to the right, it will eventually adopt a movement pattern that consists primarily of left-hand turns.
It is self-evident that all living things must be expected to choose behaviors that increase their chances of survival, which they will understand to be those things that help them avoid pain. Pain itself is our most powerful message of Don’t Do That.
So let’s not. Instead, let us assume that there is a constructive purpose to be made of the million little slaps to the head that events and people give us, every day of our lives, and try turning to the left for a while, just to see if anything improves. Profiling, then, is the logical extension of that fundamental survival behavior. While the insights provided by good crime profiling are impressive, the results that those same insights can offer to our personal lives are desirable and real.
The very process of living among others of our civilization will guarantee the constant abrasion of cross-purposes and misunderstandings, but we define our social selves by how we deal with such things. At the same time, those daily conflicts teach us countless mini-lessons about others that we file away, without even thinking about it. They become part of the individual database that we each possess—our private shorthand for making quick decisions under pressure. In the making of those decisions, the countless little flashes of memory work together, with the goal of refining our ability to handle passing challenges with a minimum of pain or danger.
That is why, although we must acknowledge that any given group of four or five large and rowdy young men lounging against the corner of an alley are not necessarily drunk and dangerous, no reasonable person would condemn another individual for crossing the street to pass. If the men really are just a few guys hanging out on a corner and not a threat, then they won’t take offense just because someone quietly avoids them. They will realize that the stranger is simply being cautious. Therefore, those who do cross to the other side and safely pass by can legitimately congratulate themselves; they may not have formed a criminal profile per se, but their natural profiling abilities may well have saved them from an unpleasant, dangerous, or lethal experience.
The problem with profiling, then, is (1) it works; and (2) it is too easy for the general ideas of profiling to be “borrowed,” without having to also acquire the knowledge and skill to properly and fairly apply the principles to the work. We think of young black male de- fendants insisting that they were pulled over by the police on a charge of nothing more than Driving While Black, or Hispanic citizens caught up in a sweep of illegal immigrants. In such cases, we know that it is reasonable to at least consider the possibility of bigotry, otherwise such accusations would fade into the same background static produced at any courthouse full of defendants. Whether or not the arrests had anything to do with bigotry or deliberate persecution, when suspects are incarcerated due to errant attempts at profiling, many emerge from the experience deeply shaken and permanently outraged.
Nothing changes the fact that in the wrong hands, stereotyping that is inaccurately called profiling can be used as a tool of bigotry, and that any tool can be turned into a weapon. The fact that the profiler’s tools are powerful should only assure that they are handled with care. There is too much of value there, to avoid it. In our daily lives, profiling skills allow us to extend our universal right to avoid pain or danger by employing our experiences to help predict future actions. A million tiny slaps to the head—each one a single bit of the data used to sort out the angels from the demons, the talkers from the doers, the safety from the danger.
The commonsense elements of wisdom, old as civilization, are plain to see in the standardized thinking of professional criminal profilers. Consider the fundamental concept behind modern profiling in the United States, today: the categories of Organized versus Disorganized crimes. These terms can pertain to the crime scene itself as well as to the perpetrator(s), and the FBI teaches this fundamental division of crimes and crime scenes to its trainees. Under this system of observation and conclusion, our unknown perpetrator or perpetrators immediately give away a great deal about themselves, simply by leaving the crime scene in a state that must inevitably fall into one category or the other. The result is a delineation that not only works for crime investigation, but one that is the logical extension of insights that ordinary people have used for centuries to spot potential trouble with others.
THE DISORGANIZED CRIMINAL
When these emotionally driven types go through a crime scene in a frenzy, they reveal a lack of self-control that is fundamental to who they are. These killers will be careless about potential evidence while they are lost in the act of the crime, while the sensations of the moment overwhelm any concern for consequence. That trait will also extend throughout their lives. Once captured, this person’s physical and social life will undoubtedly reflect an inability to sustain normal habits and a sociable disposition. These perpetrators are generally shown to be persons of lesser intellect, or those whose lives are not dominated by the use of their mind. They can seldom provide a credible character witness who will speak up for them.
Meanwhile, back in ordinary life, we all employ the rudiments of the same insights every day. They are simply more basic versions of those same insights that prompt profilers to expect that a Disorganized crime scene indicates a perpetrator who will display a marked lack of discipline and self-control throughout the rest of his non-crime life. We know that if friends or relatives begin to detach, to become emotionally unpredictable, to let their personal appearance slide, that we are watching someone’s stability crumble. The wild beast that anyone can become under the right combination of stressors will loom closer to the surface as their personal stability collapses. We need no police training to feel deep concern for any loved one who begins to show signs of deterioration in attitude, in conduct. We see such things and hear internal warning sirens going off in the background.
THE ORGANIZED CRIMINAL
An Organized crime scene may not display obvious signs of “organization” as we think of it around the home or office, but the entire scene will tend to display strong and obvious signs of a constant decision-making process that was carried out by the perpetrator throughout the commission of the crime. With the Organized perpetrators, there is seldom if ever a point during the commission of their crimes when they are so out of control that they lose themselves in the moment and do stupid and self-incriminating things. Once such a perpetrator is captured, experience also shows that they will usually live an otherwise “normal” and acceptable life. They hold workable positions within their level of society. They will have a peer group. The general structure of their lives, in addition to the crime scenes they leave behind, can be said to be organized. The fact that they are less likely to have a criminal record than a Disorganized perpetrator results from their ability to sustain relationships and to put down roots in their community.
But a close look at the human relationships of even the most self-disciplined Organized killer will reveal them as uniformly superficial. Since an individual does not fundamentally change from one situation to the next, even if one’s social behavior skillfully adapts to what is expected, the Organized killers maintain only superficial relationships in life because they do not have the time, energy, or motivation to invest much of themselves into anyone else. The obligations of honest and open relationships are too complex for this kind of person to handle. The risks of sustained contact and actual intimacy guarantee that sooner or later, something would give it all away and reveal untellable secrets.
They are able to maintain the visage of sanity for the world, so long as nobody looks too closely. This chameleon effect is how they hide in plain sight.
We read about them while knowing that the same dark energy that drives such people to their nightmarish deeds also exists in many other areas of life. Those other areas will, from time to time, present themselves to each of us.
For those bound by conscience, it is not deviance itself that has the power to titillate and thrill; instead, the compelling aspect of crime is that underneath the things we find undoable runs an unending series of glimpses into ourselves. The salient detail of difference being that, unlike the serial killer, we may think destructive thoughts, but we do not act them out. Provoked, we may feel rage, but the physical attack mode is not activated. We are restrained by religious faith, or by spiritual morality, by the desire for an ethical life. We hurt over the knowledge of the pain we might inflict, especially upon the innocent, and so we withdraw from thoughts that never become plans, from plans that never become action. Our own private journey to the brink of our breaking points is set in relief for us by witnessing the extremes of humanity, whether they are deduced from a crime scene by a trained profiler or manifested in the pages of crime fiction.
Isn’t there praise deserved by all who expend the energy to push the depths of their own levels of human insight? Surely we have a solid majority for the idea that it’s better to have more wisdom going around than otherwise. This remains true whether insight is employed via a recognized profiling technique, or simply through an evolving personal life—one that is composed of an ever-deeper understanding of cause and within ourselves.
So where does that leave you and me: we, who dare to love reading crime fiction in a world of interactive video games?
For one thing, it leaves us with the assurance that we cannot help but sharpen up our personal profiling skills in addition to pleasantly passing time. The nature of a story can combine with the author’s manner of portrayal to take us on a tour through the mysteries of human nature, deeper than we ever get to go in everyday life. We know that a book has been a satisfying read when the insights employed in the story stick with us after we finish it. We enjoy a double payoff. First there is the initial pleasure of sitting with the book for the first time and following the story, becoming engrossed by the characters. Then there is the lingering pleasure of spontaneously recalling moments from the book later, when we are somehow reminded of them in daily life. Our own way of perceiving the world around us will be altered by the insights instilled in the unfolding of a good story. Our understanding of others is broadened, stretched by the characterizations that we follow throughout the book. Most of all, our understanding of ourselves is nudged open another notch or two, every time we recognize within ourselves that point in a character’s actions where we would never go along—or, just as instructively, where we would . . . With luck, we walk away feeling a bit smarter about the world and ourselves.
Readers of crime fiction love more than the twists and turns of a good mystery; they love to pit their individual sense of right and wrong against the driving ethics at work in the story. These readers employ the basic elements of the profiler’s skills while they match their own predictions against the plotline. Whether they are right or wrong in the outcome, the rewards to be had for sharpening up one’s personal profiling skills are there for any of us. Every time we finish a book with a net gain in our understanding of human nature, we bring another contribution to society in that our decisions are then filtered through those same profiling skills that we have so recently sharpened. Everybody gains from that, except perhaps for the victimizer types, which means that it all works out fine.
All of this leaves us with one question begging to be asked, and that question is not why we love a good mystery; rather it is why anyone who doesn’t, doesn’t. Don’t they realize that every work of crime fiction that furthers our understanding of others and of ourselves adds to our individual power to move well through this world, through this life?
Maybe some people simply find that accumulating insight into human nature is even more painful than to just hang back and continue to endure those million tiny slaps to the head.
Now there’s a mystery for you.
SELECTED REFERENCES
Douglas, John and Mark Olshaker (1999). The Anatomy of Motive. New York: Scribner.
Egger, Steven A. (1998). The Killers Among Us: Examination of Serial Murder and Its Investigation. New Jersey: Prentice Hall.
Harrison, Shirley (1993). The Diary of Jack the Ripper: The Chilling Confessions of James Maybrick. London: Smith Gryphon.
Holmes, Ronald M., and Stephen T. Holmes (1996). Profiling Violent Crimes (2nd edition). Thousand Oaks: Sage Publications.
Stout, Martha, PhD (2005). The Sociopath Next Door. New York: Broadway Books.
Turvey, Brent E. (1997). CP101: An Introduction to Criminal Profiling. Course notes. Available from: www.corpus-delicti.com. (Material cited here was found at: www.crimelibrary.com/criminal_ mind/profiling/profiling2/7.html.)
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sp; ANTHONY FLACCO is a 1990 graduate of the American Film Institute, where he won their Paramount Studios Award for Writing. Immediately upon leaving the A.F.I., he was hired as a feature screenwriter by the Walt Disney Studios. He later published his first of several books, A Checklist for Murder (Dell Books), in 1995. He has since done other books, including the internationally acclaimed Tiny Dancer, as well as true-crime documentary screenplays. This is his first published novel.
A Ballantine Books Trade Paperback Original
Copyright © 2007 by Anthony Flacco Dossier copyright © 2007 by Random House, Inc.
All rights reserved.
BALLANTINEand colophon and MORTALISand colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.
Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Saint Louis University
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Flacco, Anthony.
The last nightingale : a novel of suspense / Anthony Flacco.
p. cm.
eISBN: 978-0-307-48698-1
1. Police—California—San Francisco—Fiction. 2. Orphans—Fiction.
3. Serial murderers—Fiction. 4. San Francisco Earthquake, Calif., 1906—
Fiction. I. Title.
PS3606.L33L37 2007
813'.6—dc22 2006101090
www.ballantinebooks.com
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