The Killing Type

by Wayne Jones

  The old chief retreated to obscurity after that: he sold his house and moved to his cottage by the lake, and the truth is that nearly everyone forgot about him. Rumours flew. Some people say that within weeks of his move, he was dead by some circumstance (suicide, drug deal gone bad, police retaliation), and the ridiculousness of these speculations was not confirmed by the absence of a body. Others say that he continued a life of crime in his forced retirement, not only dealing drugs, but knocking over convenience stores for extra cash as well. This rumour, of course, does not merit comment. I carried out some interviews of a more reliable segment of the citizenry of Knosting and environs—supplemented by personal surveillance at his cottage—and what I gleaned was that this sad bear of a man succeeded in his final goal, a simple fading away into the background. He doesn’t quite feel that his entire career was invalidated by what happened in the last few months, but some days he wallows in sorrow, or anger, or indifference when he can muster it.

  The Easley murder sets a new low in sheer cruelty and frankly makes me worried about the state of mind of a man whose repertoire could include such a method. I hasten to add: no murder is acceptable, of course, but some of them are perpetrated with a kind of evil panache that takes one aback. Using a car like that, for example, is an affront to all human dignity, and a crass and disdainful poke at the police. “See,” I can hear the murderer saying. “See, I can drive this noisy vehicle around the streets with a man jammed under the chassis, and you can do nothing about it.” I shudder.

  I wonder how a murder such as this even takes place. Does he pick out a person and then just plow him over? Or, more likely perhaps, does he drive slowly around the darker and less populated neighbourhoods, looking for a weak one which has strayed from the herd, and then strike? I really am not quite sure which one I find the more distressing. The radio provides some solace this evening: no news, of course, but just the uninterrupted strains of Mozart et al. for my savage breast.

  Later that night, somewhat self-wounded by my own ruminations, I head out to the coffee shop with nothing in hand, no book, no newspaper, no computer, nothing to listen to or play with. All the way to the place I keep picturing myself in a dimly lit, undisturbable corner, a locus from which I can see when I might want to but hardly be noticeable myself. I order a dark roast, the desire strong inside me for something harsher than the day, and grab a packet of sugar and a wooden stirrer (splintered, I notice) as I head like a guided missile to the desired corner. I settle into the seat, shrug my coat onto the back of it, and wait for the usually kind server to make an exception and actually bring my coffee to me. Dear boy, he does.

  I thank him with a pinched smile and then slouch somewhat while I watch the steam rise off the top. It is something nice and small and I find I can focus on it for a couple of minutes before I have to shake myself to attentiveness again. I recognize some of the regulars in the room, the sociology grad student with her head bent to her computer, the couple without rings whom I’ve also seen here separately with their spouses, rings all round. I feel a near-literal stab when the door whooshes open and Tony walks in. Like a pimply teenager whose first date was awkward but fascinating, I am tempted to call out to her as much as I am to slump down right to the floor while I await her departure. She turns around after she places her order and my eyes, formerly drilling into the back of her head, are now communicating something or other to her that seems like an invitation. She is at my table in seconds.

  “Listen, I know this is abrupt, and you probably just want to be alone, but would you mind if I joined you, even for just five or ten minutes? Tell me straight out if not.”

  Of course, it’s one of those questions that has only one appropriate answer, like the time I was “asked” to leave Toronto U.

  “Sure, that would be lovely,” I say, and in spite of my dark, morose self I genuinely do mean it. As she walks back to the counter to retrieve her drink, I wonder if she noticed the soft lilt in my voice, nearly pleading for her company, that I was simply not able to suppress. I feel the same jumble of emotions that dogged me all the way through my adolescence, when the desire for connection generally lost out to the fear of rejection. As she strides back toward me, the flaps of her coat fly off behind her and I can see that she has crafted a style that is soigné at the same time as it is casual, what looks like black silk on top and elegant denim below, and a swath of skin in between.

  “Thanks,” she says as she sits, throwing her coat over the back of one of the extra chairs. “I know it’s kind of rude of me to do this and you’re a sweetheart for not saying anything even if you are pissed.”

  “Not at all.”

  The rustling noises which accompany settling in eventually dissipate and we are both left like symmetrical bookends facing each other and holding our cups.

  “We have to stop meeting like this,” she says finally and laughs at her own joke. “And you know, it’s a bit of a cliché, but it’s good to laugh. I mean, it’s good to have some relief from these murders. I’ve spent all day going back and forth between being horrified or surprised or even just frightened.”

  I can see something of a little girl in her eyes, a terror, and her hands as well as her lips are trembling ever so slightly (the trained eye notices these things) as she sets her cup down.

  “So, listen,” she continues, “what’s your story? You told me a bit about yourself at the library there and then at the restaurant, but what do you do when you’re not writing a book about murder?”

  I hesitate, not because I don’t know where to start but because there is nowhere to start.

  “It’s fairly dull actually, if I have to be honest. I mean, my life. Well, not dull, perhaps, but—I suppose what I am trying to say in my own bumbling way is that I do not have too many activities outside of this research, but that I do consider the research to be important, and that does provide me with a kind of solace in my lonely nights.”

  “I agree with you, I mean about the fact that the book will do some good.”

  We both sip and I take the mental opportunity to try to fathom exactly what she is trying to glean. I do realize the possibility that she may be completely integrative, that she may be genuinely interested in a scholar’s work, or in a live version of how a crime gets investigated and solved. But a doubt nags in my gut, one of those undefinable feelings that I have trouble articulating or explaining but of which I am as certain as I am of anything.

  “I’ve said too much,” she says. “I tend to pry.”

  “It’s quite all right.”

  There are always turning points in conversations just as there are in relationships. Something is said or done or—in a memorable moment I had with one of the toadyish assistant professors at TU—thrown, and then subsequent interactions are irrevocably altered. During the rare quiet evening at home when I am too fatigued for research or reading, I’ve turned on the radio and heard the most execrably mawkish songs bemoaning the same phenomenon (“baby done done something or other,” and so on). Alas, I suspect this fate has befallen Tony and me, and no manner of cajoling or explanation can revive us. I would like to tell her that I don’t mind her questions at all, that I don’t consider them intrusive, that in fact I welcome the platonic attention of any human whom I find intelligent and witty.

  “Well, I should get going anyway,” she says predictably.

  “Oh, so soon?” As blackly doomed as it is, I do still entertain a glimmer of hope.

  “Yes. Though maybe we can, like, hook up some other time?”

  “I would like that very much.”

  She gathers up her coat and with something part way between a smile and a grimace of regret, she is gone past the counter and out the door. I watch her out on the street as she flips her collar up around her ears and looks up the one-way street before she crosses on the red, no looking back.

  It does occur to me that I have misinterpreted this entire exchange, that Occam’s razor applies, and that perhaps she was simply happy to se
e me for a short time, did not want to overstay her intrusion, and genuinely would like to meet again. I try to convince myself of that as I settle back into my seat and try to forget everything bad.

  Chapter 8

  It was exactly 24 hours after the Easley murder that I received the following email message:

  Your research project will not end happily. More people will be killed, the papers will prate, but I will not be found out and your book will build to no denouement or climax or cataclysm of resolution, the murderer dragged away before an angry, jeering, relieved crowd while the police do their best to fight the temptation to just throw the trash to the dogs. Instead, your words will simply fall off, beginning from nothing and leading nowhere, and while your desperate readers skip to the conclusion in which nothing is concluded, I will be driving slowly out of town, or lounging about in the comfortable quarters to which I am accustomed and entitled.

  How does one deal with something like that? My first reaction, objectivity and detachment and the rigour of the scholarly mind for now assuaging and distracting the emotions, was to find out where this came from. How does this person know about what I am doing? How can he be so confident that he will not be caught and that I will not succeed? How can he be so callous and brazen about the lives of innocent people? I am catching a slight hint of naïveté in my voice, and I worry whether I am in way over my head. A conscienceless psychopath wanders the streets and a hapless quasi-academic thinks he can do something about that, even if it is just to document the rise and fall.

  I go for a drive, hoping the cool August evening air will do something to help. While I am stopped at a light on Brock Street, I hear voices coming up behind me. Ignore them, I tell myself, ignore them. A cab full of students, all men (or approximations of men), pulls up beside me, and one of them says, calmly, as if he is simply reciting a fact he has memorized for one of his summer classes, “Hey, buddy, you’ve got a piece of shit car.” The cab proceeds when the light turns green, but I hold back, scared for some reason, beaten down, feeling unaccountably vulnerable. I care nothing for cars and yet for some reason this dismissal of my trusty vehicle—relatively old, but very reliable—bothers me. I don’t understand it. I feel as if my feet have been taken out from underneath me, as if things I could always count on, I can no longer count on. This car is not what I thought it was, this town is not full of dedicated students who are respectful of others and have better things to do than to cruise around in cabs making unprovoked, frivolous statements about—the whole thing is silly, of course, but it reminds me how precarious my own security of self is, how easily I can be diverted from the quiet confidence of a trained scholar to the blubbering idiocy of a consumer who is starting to wonder whether he should trade up to a newer model.

  I drive home quickly, park the (old) car, and walk slowly to my room. I lie down on the couch and just stare up at the ceiling. The silence and solitude help. Short bursts of thought still assail me, but with decreasing frequency. Minutes pass and I feel myself starting to forget the details of the incident in the car, and beginning to concentrate on those of the email. I parse the words and phrases, rearrange, recombine, reconstruct. The trick is knowing just how much attention any thing or event deserves. Is there something in this message other than the obvious—the killer claims he will kill again and will get away with the whole series? Should I reread to the power of ten? Or should I just forward the bit of crude and shabby confidence to the police, and let them bumble away at trying to track the person down?

  My epiphany comes about the same time that I shift my weight on the couch, squirming to a more comfortable position. Selfishly perhaps, I see a battle, one against one, the trained scholar who is trying to write the book and the killer, the subject matter, who is brazenly mocking the utility of my enterprise. “Your book will build to no ... resolution.” I see the challenge in these hateful words: my book may not build to anything (so says he) but I may still confront him and solve the crime. Am I reading too much into this? The book not succeeding but the crimes in fact being solved? I picture the kind of showdown that I don’t really want to happen, the hunted criminal turning on the hunter writer just when I am unprepared, bending down to brush that bit off my shoe, and then he has stopped and when I right myself he is no more than about three metres in front of me, and I know that this is either the time that I die, or the time for some extraordinary intervention on the part of God or evasive and direct action on my own atheistic part, an existential man alone fighting—

  But I’ve gotten away from my point, viz.: The killer wants to goad me, brandish the failure of my book as an incentive for me to keep on looking, to make a liar out of him. I have to admit that I am concerned about my own personal safety. Granted, this is a small town and so the activities even of a modest scholar are perhaps relatively easily sniffed out by anyone with a modicum of interest, but I do wonder what else this killer knows about me. Email address, yes, also easy to find out, but does he know where I live as well? Does he know my habits? I hesitate to give myself airs, or to encourage pathetically grandiose comparisons, but I heard a news report on the radio recently, the gist of which was that one of the main ways to prevent a terrorist assassination is to avoid a regular schedule. Take a different route to work, get your morning coffee at various places, “mix it up,” as the consultant with the brilliantly white shirt and impeccable moustache put it.

  I admit to not doing that: I am, sadly, a creature of habit. I like my coffee just so, and always at the same time, and certainly always at the same place. I scour my memory now, trying to find the obvious stalker during the course of my days, but my thoughts devolve to outrageous comical clichés: a man reading a newspaper but lowering it as I pass by, a woman smoking at a street corner, hiking up her collar and activating to pursuit when I cross, another man ... but you get the idea. Alas, even in the midst of the cartoon a worry still tingles: am I likely to be tracked down by a man who obviously lacks a conscience and who would not hesitate to kill?

  I am much less frantic the next day, quite giddy with a joie de survivre in fact, and I carry out the regular morning rituals with a measured luxuriousness that I generally do not have time and patience for. The razor plows its way through soapy white stuff while a distracted scholar tries not to smile and ruin the next pass. My mind starts doing a calculation not only of the amount of time that we humans spend every day on these activities, but also of the order in which they are done. From casual conversations that I have had with friends and acquaintances through the years, I know that there is a great deal of variation. The young philosophy prof at Toronto U. shaved while he was in the shower, for example, and it saddens me that I remember that the head of the English department insisted on brushing his teeth before doing anything else in the morning. My own sequence, then as now, is: floss, brush, mouthwash, shave, shower. I derive a certain comfort and security from this order for these rituals, and when some circumstance or other occasionally forces me to diverge from them

  —well, I feel quite disoriented and a strong insistent urge keeps distracting me from my current engagement and reminding me that I should go back to perform the one I’ve missed. This morning I am perfect but just on Sunday past when those damn dogs across the street had done their regular rounds of yapping and defecating at around 7:30, and the owners laughed heartily at something or other, all combining to get me out of sleep and out of bed much earlier than I had anticipated and needed—and the end result was a cranky and inattentive Andrew who stumbled into a hot shower before he had had breakfast or done any of the other necessarily precedent actions. The day was just not right after that.

  As I am stepping out of the properly ordered shower this morning, the phone rings and for an instant I consider drying quickly and rushing to give a subservient answer. I change my mind just as quickly, continuing in my leisure. In a moment of insanity a couple of weeks ago, I gave my phone number to the raver to just shut the poor man up and give myself some peace. The details es
cape me, but I think the circumstances were that he was promising to keep me up to date on some facts or patterns associated with the murders—he’d discovered a website or a blog or some such thing, and he characterized the revelations as “very interesting.” He asked for my number and I was as surprised as I was reluctant to give up this simulacrum of privacy that I fancy I entertain in my little room, unreachable by both the unwashed and the civilized.

  It’s coming back to me now, though, my conversation with him. He was particularly voluble on his own background, how he came to Knosting, even why he’s ended up so angry all the time. I was shocked to hear him speak so forthrightly, frankly because I never thought him capable of such introspection. He arrived here from Calgary with his family, a wife and an infant girl, about five years ago. I can’t recall now whether his employer had transferred him or downsized or just outright laid him off for no particular reason, though I do recall that he was categorical about being wronged in some way. He worked for less than a year before he lost his job here as well, and then there followed a few years of odd jobs, under-the-table work, hard labour and the like while he was often forced to be collecting welfare as well. The story turns into something of a country song after that: his wife has an affair with the owner of the garage where he happened to get work as a mechanic, and after he argues with her—and, unfortunately, hits her—she gets a restraining order and takes their child to the other end of town. Through some circumstance which seemed to make him more livid than the loss of his family, the wife ended up with his truck as well. “That, and I have to pay the fucking bitch three hundred dollars in fucking support every month,” he said in that charming way of his.