Portrait of the Psychopath as a Young Woman - Edward Lee.wps

by phuc

  He hand wrote KATHLEEN on an envelope. He put the poem in the envelope.

  I'll give it to her tonight.

  Maxwell Platt, then, grabbed his wallet and keys, and just as he would embark to survey the local jewelry stores, there was a knock on the door.

  (II)

  "The femoral artery," Kohls was saying. With an unlit cigarette, he pointed to an anatomical chart. The artery, in red, and its accompanying inferior vein, in blue, ran just forward of the inside of the thigh, at the groin. "Expertly severed, probably a longbladed scalpel. She knew exactly where to make the incision. Exactly."

  "I should've scrambled a med evac chopper the instant I got the call," Spence regretted. "If there'd been an EMT crew there, the guy might've lived."

  "No way," Kohls countered. Now the unlit cigarette bobbed in his lips as he technically absolved Spence. "The femoral is deep and big a major artery. Like I said, she knew exactly what she was doing. It's too high to tourniquet. Once it's severed, you're dead in five minutes. Fucking Dr.

  Kildare couldn't have saved this guy. You could have had an operating room on the street with you and he would have bled to death before anyone could get in there with a clamp."

  Spence felt a venal relief venal in that it wasn't the victim's life that concerned him as much as what he could've told Spence if he'd survived.

  "Latents?" he inquired.

  "One. A good tip ridge on the edge of the tape she used on that note she left you."

  "One," Spence considered. Then he articulated, "That's fucked up. It's always one or two prints.

  Why? She's obviously taking steps to conceal her latents, but there're always one or two. Not dozens, just one or two. And she knows we've ID'd her. She left her name on the goddamn note.

  It doesn't make sense."

  "She's a crazy."

  "Yeah, but still... What about hairfall?"

  "Same," Kohls said. "Couple of pubes, couple head strands. Fusiformal match with the others, and the hairs we got out of her hairbrush at her crib. The wig was synthetic."

  Spence let a sideglance flit quickly to the bleached corpse on the slatted morgue table. Just once.

  He was sick of looking at corpses minus genitalia. "Dissimilarities in modus? I noticed the mouth..."

  "Sewn shut and then cut back open right," Kohls agreed. "Can't guess why. And she didn't glue this guy's eyes shut, or pop his ears like the others. For some reason she wanted him to hear her, and see her, and talk."

  "But why sew his mouth shut and cut open the stitches later?"

  "My guess, as far as the probable sequence," Kohls offered, "she knocks them out with the Amytal first, then she sews their lips shut, then she brings them back to consciousness with the Desoxyn. She wants them conscious while she's working them over, that's why she's sewing their lips shut first, so they don't make a ruckus."

  Spence's jaw locked as he considered the magnitude of pain, of being conscious as the genitals were cut off. "But wouldn't they pass out from the pain?"

  "Sure. And she keeps bringing them back with the Desoxyn injections. It's hard to pass out when your heart rate's topping 300."

  "What else she do to this guy?" Spence dared to ask. "Why were his knees and ankles bandaged?"

  "Drilled, looks like about a long three eighths inch bit. Right through the joints."

  Again, Spence tried to contemplate the sheer eminence of agony. Drilled, he echoed Kohls. Right through the joints...

  "She also snipped off the ends of his nipples, the very ends, the greatest concentration of nerve endings. And we got what looks like repeated abdominal punctures she was sticking a dissection needle or something similar directly into his navel. It wouldn't kill him, but it'd sure have the guy jumping... And when she cut off this guy's cock, she did a real pro job at cessating the bleeding.

  Johnson & Johnson high pressure bandage, prothrombin coagulant paste. She doesn't want them dying on her before she's had her fun."

  Was that what it was? Fun? Not fun, Spence realized. A catalyst, to keep the delusion real. He remembered what the killer had said to Kathleen Shade, on the tape. It's her power, he thought.

  Kohls opened one of several refrigerators and retrieved a Coke. While the door was open, Spence noticed evidence bags on the shelves; one bag contained a human foot, another bag contained an ear. Still another contained at least what seemed to be someone's forehead, complete with eyebrows. "What the hell's all that?" he asked. "That stuff's not from this case."

  Kohls popped his Coke. "No, just various shit. D.C.'s already exceeded last year's murder rate, and it's only August. Each year gets worse. Got druggers machine gunning each other every day.

  Last week this 34-year old woman is driving her three kids to school, and she gets caught in a 9mm crossfire Uzis, for God's sake, and MP 5s. Her head burst right in front of her kids; most of the triggermen got away. Same day somebody took one rifle shot a dum dummed 7.6 deuce at a Metrobus. Hit a teenaged girl in the neck. She was gonna be in the Olympics or some shit, now she's quad. Couple of players on dust took down a KFC in Southeast, cleaned out the registers, bagged every wallet in the joint. Before they split one of 'em decided to push a customer's face down in the deep fryer. 7th District Tac picked him up a couple hours later; they asked him why he did that, and you know what he said? He said ‘For the hell of it.'"

  For the hell of it, Spence thought. For the hell of it.

  "GW student, theology major," Kohls ambled on, "comes back to her apartment one night about eight, and there's a guy waiting for her. He beats the shit out of her, sodomizes her 'til midnight, then shivs her with a carving knife, nicks her aorta. She's only got a couple minutes before she bleeds out, right? She crawls outside ‘cos the rapist trashed the phone before he left, and her neighbor's coming home from work and he sees her crawling out of her apartment, and it just so happens the guy's a paramedic. He does an open heart cut down on her right there in the fucking parking lot, with the neighbors holding flashlights so he can see and she lives. That's great, right?

  That's beautiful. Two days later, the rapist reads about it in the paper; he goes to the hospital where she's recovering, walks right into her ICU, cuts her throat, and walks out. Nobody sees him, no ID, no nothing. Beautiful world, ain't it?"

  Fuck the world, Spence thought. He wished the world would crack open and suck everybody down into its magma. Why bother living? Why bother trying to do anything? he conjectured. The world wasn't worth it. Just suck everybody down, good and evil alike. Let God start all over again.

  "Be right back," Kohls said. "Got a photo mass spec coming out the hopper on this guy." As the technician disappeared to another room, Spence, in order to avoid looking at the prostrate and quite dead Jonathan Duff, flipped through a copy of Washingtonian magazine that lay on Kohls'

  desk. BEAUTIFUL, ANGELIC ASIAN LADIES, read one classified. Friendship/marriage! Free brochure! Another one read DOMINANCE & SUBMISSION The Black Mask is a caring support network featuring lectures/workshops focusing on safe, sane & sensual relationships.

  "What the hell..." Spence muttered. CROSS DRESSER SERVICE Confidential, experience total feminine image transformation. "You've got to be shitting me," Spence muttered. Next page: HOLISTIC MASSAGE, GREAT MASSAGE, EUROPEAN MUSCLE MASSAGE, ICHIBAN

  MASSAGE, DYNAMITE PRO MASSAGE. There were dozens of massage ads. In the worst recession since the late '70s, how good could the massage business be?

  "Same old, same old," Kohls said, appearing with a Canon medical spec printer readout. "Got DMSO, Amytal, and trace isopropanol in the bloodstream. And isopropanol all over his back.

  She's wiping their backs off with the iso."

  "Why?" Spence asked.

  "Prints, I guess "

  "Wait." Spence held up a hand. "The DMSO carries stuff into the bloodstream through the skin, right?"

  "Yeah."

  "And if the isopropanol is in his bloodstream, and it's also on his back, then that means he had the DMSO on his
back first, right?"

  Kohls considered this, rolling the unlit cigarette in his fingers. "Yeah, I guess so."

  "But he's also got Amytal in his bloodstream, right?"

  "A truckload. What are you getting at?"

  "What's the physical nature of DMSO?"

  "Stock pharm? It's a colorless, oily liquid."

  "A colorless, oily liquid," Spence repeated. He was thinking of the massage ads. "Would DMSO

  carry barbiturates, like Amytal, into the bloodstream too, through the skin?

  "Sure," Kohls affirmed.

  Back rubs, Spence thought. The oldest come on in the book. All of the victims had been young, physically formidable men. The average man in most cases could easily overpower a strong woman, yet these guys were all being tortured to death. How was the killer getting them shackled down against their will? How was she getting them to do that before they got wise and could take physical steps to fend them off? Spence thought again of the ads. Back rubs, he thought, and then he thought about what Kohls had just told him.

  And then he said, "I think I know how she's knocking them out."

  | |

  Chapter 28

  (I)

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MANBURGER

  The dimethylsulfoxide comes in a caramel colored 120cc glass bottle. The Amytal is made by a company called Abbot, and the iv version comes in 100 mg vials. You mix four vials with about 2 ounces of the DMSO, and shake it up in a plastic bottle that reads NORD, SWEDISH

  MASSAGE OIL.

  "What's that?" he asks.

  "Massage oil," you say. You show him the bottle. "Turn over so I can give you a back rub."

  You're rubbing his back now. He didn't see you slip on the surgical gloves. You have to wear the gloves or else the DMSO will carry the Amytal into your own system. "Is that good?" you ask several times, and he always murmurs back "Yeah," as your hands rub the liquid into his back.

  He goes unconscious in a matter of minutes, and you sew his lips shut with the pretty violet suture. Then you bring him back with an i.m. shot of Desoxyn. You don't glue this one's eyes shut, and you don't rupture his eardrums with the Skeele curette. You need this one to see, and to hear. It's comical how he's moaning and trying to talk with his mouth sewn shut, especially when you show him the Bruns serrated plaster shears. The whites of his eyes instantly hemorrhage to the color of tomato juice when you cut off his

  «« »»

  Kathleen stopped reading. She felt broached, sour. The small, neatly typed words seemed to project something between their lines that threatened to deplete her before she even read them.

  Was it foreknowledge? Or simply tone? The manuscript had arrived again, via Express Mail just minutes ago. Just minutes, she thought, and already the despair was dragging her down. It appeared larger than the previous manuscripts, more pages that promised to be full up with atrocity...

  It's the sound they make that particularly excites you, the closed off scream, the explosion with nowhere to go. And the way their faces lengthen against their stitched shut lips. When the lovely Bruns shears close, this one's entire body arches up like he's being levitated by a magician, and the only thing that keeps him from sailing away are the stainless steel Peerless detention cuffs clasped to his ankles and wrists. But you need this one to live. There's still something you want to do. So you quickly apply the coagulant salve to the gushing wound, then strap the white pressure bandage into place. He goes into shock for a few moments but the Desoxyn brings him back. It always does. Usually you don't care if they die at this point. But this one must live. You still have plans for this one. That was beautiful, your mother says. "It was, wasn't it?" you say.

  When he's fully conscious again, you hold it up for him to see, and you watch his eyes while it dangles from your fingers in the light. Suddenly those tomato juice eyes are so wide you think they could jump right out of his face like a cartoon. He knows what you've done now. He realizes what you've taken away. You smile in the light. "See?" you say, jiggling it at him. "See? It's not yours anymore. It's mine. But if you're a good boy, I might give it back to you. Are you a good boy? Is Johnny a good boy today?" Make him do it, your mother says. She's standing by the window. Behind her you can see The Cross. He won't want to, so you're going to have to make him. "I know," you say. "I know Johnny will do it because he's a good boy. And good boys always do what they're told." He's groaning now. The initial pain has settled down enough for him to think. You're always very interested in what they think once they realize what you've done to them. You're ready now. You're all ready for the rest. "By the way," you say. "Did you like the back rub? I told you I give good back rubs." Then you walk across the room to the dresser where you've set it up. The wood floor feels warm beneath your bare feet. Your whole body feels warm.

  Your skin is tight and shining. Your breasts feel hot with blood. He continues to groan behind you, the muffled noise like a machine buried deep in his throat. You have a machine too. You hope he likes it. "Yes, I've decided that you're such a good boy that I'm going to give it back to you. Okay?" Wait a minute, honey, your mother says. I "I know," you say. "It's okay. Daddy made you that way, you can't help it." Just a minute, it'll only take a minute. You don't need to watch her. You've watched her enough times. Most of the veins in her arms have collapsed. Once Daddy had tied her up for a friend, and he'd tied twine around and under one of her breasts 'til a vein had swollen near her nipple and he'd injected the heroin into that and then released the twine. Okay, I'm ready now. First you get the gun out of the dresser, Daddy's big revolver, and you make sure it's loaded. You've read a lot about the famous serial killers like Dahmer and Ed Gein and Henry Lee Lucas and Albert Fish, and you've read about their cannibalism. But this never appealed to you. In fact it disgusts you. You would never want anything from a man to be inside of you. But you have your own idea now, a much better one. You turn on one of the cone lamps so he can see what you're doing. It's very important that he sees what you're doing. He must see everything, exactly. You take out the little plate. You put your hand on the crank.

  "See?" you say. "Do you see what this is?" He's craning his neck. He's looking. He sees. The machine on the dresser is an old Roto King meat grinder. Then, "See?" you say, and you hold up the severed cock and balls. "Do you see what this is?" He groans again way down deep in his throat. "Watch," you say. "Watch what I'm doing now." You push it all into the round steel hole looking over your shoulder and you turn the crank. You grind it all up, and after only a few cranks it falls out of the little chute onto the plate. The plop of meat looks pale like the ground chicken and turkey you've seen at the Giant. You bring the plate to the bed. "I hope Johnny's hungry," you say. With a pair of Heath double curved suture scissors you snip open the stitches in his lips. His mouth falls open to let out the low, gurgling groan. You cock Daddy's big rusty revolver and put the barrel to his head. In your other hand is a spoon. You take up a spoonful of the ground meat and bring it to his mouth. His mouth snaps shut. "Open!" you say. "Open your mouth!" His eyes squeeze shut and you can see that he's actually biting his lips closed and he's shaking his head no no no no and you nudge his temple with the gun, saying "Open your mouth and eat it! If you don't eat it I'll blow your head off!" but he keeps shaking his head, his entire face squeezed shut. "I'll blow your brains out! Open your mouth!" No no no no, he keeps shaking his head. Make him! your mother yells. Make him eat it! But you can see that he isn't going to.

  You've got a gun to his head and he doesn't care. For a moment this intrigues you. He doesn't care anymore. He wants to die. He's not going to eat it and he wants to die. He wants you to kill him. Make him! your mother keeps yelling. You put the gun down and plug in the Black & Decker. "Okay, if Johnny's going to be a bad boy, he'll have to be punished." The drill screams but then he's screaming even louder when the carbon steel bit grinds smoothly through his left ankle and then his right. "More?" you ask. "Does Johnny want more?" You give him more. His scream doesn't even sound human
this time, when you drill through his knees. Weird smelling smoke drifts up, his blood and cartilage cooking in the holes you've made in his joints. "Has Johnny had enough? Is Johnny going to be a good boy now?" He's fading out, tremoring. "Don't you die yet!" you yell and throw ice water in his face. You give him another shot of Desoxyn and start slapping him hard in the face over and over again 'til your hand begins to hurt and you grab him by the hair and shake his head around 'til he revives. You press your palm against his forehead. You hold the spoonful of meat before his lips. "Are you going to eat it now?" you ask.

  "Are you going to be a good boy now or do I have to give you more?" He's barely sensible now but he looks at you with those shiny red eyes and he croaks, "Fuck you." "Okay, okay," you say.

  "If Johnny wants more, then Johnny gets more." In the castered stand you keep all of your things.

  You rummage around until you find the Gracey periodontal curette, a long pin sharp needle set in an aluminum handle, and you stick it right into his navel. Once, twice, three times. Each needle stick makes him make a sound like a big dog barking. A few more times, stick, stick, stick, right into the navel, and his chest is heaving and he's still making that barking noise and his breath is grating and mucus is pouring out of his nose, stick stick, stick, a few more times, and then he's finally nodding like his head is on a paint shaking machine, nodding yes yes yes yes, and you stop. You poise the first spoonful over his lips and say, "Open," and his mouth opens. "There,"