Pure Hate

by White, Wrath James

  “Most serial killers are cowards at heart. They don’t want victims who can fight back. They want the killings clean and easy. But these victims were not knocked out, not drugged, not tied up. They were struggling the whole time, but not one of them survived. This man was supremely confident and extremely sadistic. He wanted them to see it coming, to feel his power. The fact that they all look alike we know is because they were meant to symbolize Reed. He was killing Reed over and over again. The fact that they were all gay men may tell us something about his feelings toward Reed. He probably has conflicting feelings about Reed, kind of a love-hate thing. Most likely, there’s some sexual ambiguity there as well.”

  “That’s good. Keep going. What about the Chaperone killings? What does that tell us about him?”

  “The Chaperone killings add a new element, the women. This is when the violence first escalates to include partial dismemberment and rape. He is feeling confident now with his prowess as a killer, but he’s also frustrated. The fantasy isn’t living up to the reality. He needs more. So he goes after couples. Probably still over compensating for possible gay tendencies. He rapes to feel potent. To feel like a man. But he gets no real sexual gratification out of the intercourse itself. It’s their fear, their pain, their humiliation, that gets him off. He uses his penis as another weapon. Another way of inflicting pain.

  For him, it is interchangeable with his knife. He is a true sadist. He needs to feel in control of his victims. I’m sure he makes the men watch. That’s another way of demonstrating his power and their powerlessness. It’s all about control. He wants God-like power over his victim’s lives. The removal of their hearts is a way to relive the experience. It is a souvenir, a memento of the experience. He uses it to masturbate, to sustain him between victims. Plus, with all the symbolism in our culture involving the heart, by taking the women’s hearts he could be trying to steal back the love Reed stole from him. ”

  “And now, the Family Man.”

  “This is more difficult. We see the same pattern re-emerge. The same male figures again, the overkill stabbing, the rape, the souvenir taking, the same themes of dominance and control. Even the cannibalism is a predictable escalation in the pattern. It must be the greatest high imaginable to literally consume his victims, the ultimate statement of dominance and control. This escalation in violence is consistent with the idea I first put out about him being on a degenerative cycle.”

  “I’m still not sold on that idea.”

  “Well, look at it. He’s escalated the violence, the number of victims. He’s killing more frequently. Even his choice of victims suggests he’s out of control. He’s not killing strangers anymore. He’s killing people he knows, people close to him, Reed Cozen’s family, Renee’ Volare’s family, Paul Cooper. Then he lashes out and murders a guy in broad daylight, in front of dozens of witnesses. He’s in self-destruct mode. He’s making mistakes. He’s got half the cops in the city after him now. This is not the same careful, meticulous killer who did the first homicides. Now, he’s completely lost the plot.”

  James nodded. “Yeah, but up until this most recent spree, he was still careful. He may have escalated the number of victims and the violence, but it still seemed controlled. It still seemed to be following some kind of pattern. Even in the middle of that frenzy of violence, he still took the time to clean up the crime scene, even to the point of vacuuming up all the hair and fiber, and using condoms during the rape. I don’t see an out of control guy stopping to put on a condom. The Cozen murders were the first time he left any kind of evidence at all. That was the first time he seemed to lose control. I mean, all of a sudden we have a messy crime scene full of physical evidence. Before that, nothing. I mean, even the way he killed the kids seems wrong somehow. It seems out of character, like there must’ve been some reason for it that we’re just not getting.”

  “You’re right. The kids don’t fit. It looks like they were killed almost as an afterthought. The way they are killed is almost merciful compared to what he did to the parents. He discarded the bodies face down, sometimes even covered them up. That usually indicates guilt or remorse. He even brought along a gun and shot several of the children to further distance himself from their deaths. None of the sadism is displayed toward the kids. They are simply executed as a matter of course.”

  “So, why does he kill them at all if he doesn’t get off on it? I mean, all that bullshit about Reed aside, these freaks kill because it gets them off. But if the children don’t do it for him, why not just stick to couples? Why does he go after the families?”

  “It’s as if he finds it a distasteful but necessary chore. Like he has some purpose or cause that includes the kids somehow. Reed may not have made him this way, but that betrayal was definitely the stressor that sent him off on his murder spree. He’s probably been fantasizing about these killings for years, but just needed a push, something to get him started. Reed did that. Now he’s acting out his fantasies and Reed is the star. My God! It can’t be! What if . . . ? No.”

  “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure. I just have this hunch. I think I may know why he goes after families. It all goes back to the fantasy and Reed. It’s almost too sick. I don’t know. I’m probably wrong.”

  “Tell me. What are you thinking?”

  “Look can you do me a favor and interview Malcolm’s mother? I need to talk to Reed again.”

  “I’m going with you. I think we need to do this together. Besides, I have some questions of my own. Let’s talk to his mother since we’re damn near there anyway and then we’ll both head over to Reed’s house. He got out of the hospital today, so he should be home resting.”

  The two detectives drove silently through the bizarre clash of classes that was Germantown. Within eight blocks they’d passed through what looked like the suburbs into a war-zone then into a lush affluent landscape of Colonial Mansions and manicured lawns and back into the urban asylum. They brought the white unmarked police cruiser to rest in front of a narrow, three-story red brick row home adjoined on each side by its twin. About half-a-dozen young kids between the ages of nine and twelve were chasing each other up and down the street, hurling what appeared to be wet newspapers with deadly accuracy at one another’s heads. The loud “Thwap!” of wet paper hitting flesh echoed loudly off the domino-like houses as one papier-mâché projectile after another found its mark.

  Titus leapt from the car and was about to pound on Mrs. Davis’ door like the entire SWAT team had come calling. James grabbed his arm and eased him back.

  “Take it easy. See that car over there? Detectives Vargas and Jones have been staking this place out for days and I can assure you, Malcolm ain’t in there. And if he shows up, they’ve both got our backs. What we don’t want to do is charge in there like the goddamned Gestapo and put this woman on the defensive. You sit back and take notes and try to figure out how what she tells us fits into the profile. I’ll ask the questions. If you have a question, just whisper it to me and I’ll ask.”

  “Why the hell do you get to ask all the questions?”

  James gave Titus a long look of irritation like the ones kids give to their little brothers or sisters when they say something embarrassingly stupid, the look little Jennie Cozen had often given her brother Mark.

  “You’ve got the Ph.D., bright boy. You figure it out.”

  James shook his head in exasperation and knocked on the door. A surprisingly young looking black woman opened the door and greeted the two detectives with a sullen and baleful glare. She wore a tattered red terry cloth robe that was missing buttons and did little to hide the sensuous swell of her cinnamon brown breasts or the long, smooth, subtly muscular legs that seemed to grow out of the bottom of the robe and go on forever or the high round curve of her buttocks. Her face bore the hard lines of a hard life and her wild wooly hair was lightly speckled with gray. Still, she was far from the senescent matron they were expecting. James sized her up within seconds and decided, without hesitatio
n, that she was beautiful and that, if they’d met under different circumstances, he would have already propositioned her. Baltimore thought she was probably a very stunning woman years ago, but, in his eyes, age and a hard life had weathered away her beauty even if her body had survived the storm remarkably well. Though he, too, acknowledged that if given the chance he would probably still do her.

  “What?”

  “I’m Detective James Bryant and this is Detective Titus Baltimore of the Philadelphia Police Department Homicide Division . . .”

  “And?” Mrs. Davis rolled her eyes and tapped her foot impatiently, then focused an accusatory glare at Detective Baltimore. He tried to return the look, but failed miserably and felt it. She smirked scornfully at his failure.

  “You know why we’re here. Just answer a few questions for us and we’ll be gone.”

  “I have no idea where my son is.”

  “I’m sure you do not. I want to ask you some questions about his childhood.”

  “If you know he ain’t here, why are those cops parked over there all day and night? Why are there more cops following me every time I leave the house?!”

  “It’s for your own protection.”

  “I’m his mama! Malcolm would never hurt me!”

  “Ma’am, I know this might be hard for you to accept, but Malcolm is out of control and is seriously in need of help. I don’t think you or I really know what he might do in this state. I’m sure you believe you know your son. No parent wants to admit that they don’t really know everything about their own children. But did you know that Malcolm would murder that man’s family or that guy in the gym or any of the other people he’s suspected of harming?”

  Mrs. Davis’s strong defiant face began to crack, first with the trembling of her bottom lip, then with the tears that began to slowly weep from the corners of her eyes and slide along her pronounced cheekbones.

  “Honestly detective, I’m sorry to admit it, but I’m not surprised by any of this.”

  “May we come in?” James placed a hand gently on Mrs. Davis’ shoulder and guided her back into the house.

  The living room was small, paneled with fake wood that was starting to peel away from the sheetrock and sparsely furnished with an old green leather lounge chair and ottoman, an eggshell white sectional sofa, darkened in spots by sweat and dirt, and a natural pine coffee table. The centerpiece of the room was an ancient Magnavox color TV set with the knobs missing. A pair of pliers sat atop the set, presumably to change the channels. The rug was a bizarre burnt orange that was gnarled, matted, and nearly bald, like the fur of a dog with a serious case of mange. The first thing James noticed was the lack of dust.

  For such an old house with old rundown furniture, it was impossibly clean. Even the old Magnavox was free of dust and seemed to shine as if it had just been waxed. Titus instinctively looked at the old woman’s hands and noticed that they looked raw and pinkish. From scrubbing, he assumed. Obsessive-compulsive behavior. He wondered if this behavior began before or after she found out her son was a murderer.

  “Tell us, Mrs. Davis, why aren’t you surprised by Malcolm’s . . . uh . . . outburst?”

  “You can call me Wynona. No one calls me Mrs. Davis except my supervisors at work and I hate those arrogant little peckerwoods.” She didn’t even acknowledge the “peckerwood” that sat uncomfortably on the other end of the sofa. James couldn’t help the little smile that crept onto his face. He wondered if Baltimore still wanted to be the one to ask the questions.

  “Okay, Wynona, tell us about Malcolm.”

  Wynona took a long, deep breath and rubbed the back of one dry hand across her forehead. When she spoke, her voice was strong and steady, and all the tears had left her eyes. She was once again the strong, poverty-hardened woman that greeted them at the door.

  “Malcolm’s had a hard life. Jerome, his step-dad, used to beat him and put him through these military exercises.”

  “Military exercises?”

  “Yeah, he wanted him to be tough in case there was another war. See, Jerome was a Vietnam vet.”

  Detective Baltimore instantly thought of Dr. Medoff’s comment about the man who’d killed the bodybuilder having some military training. He whispered to Detective James to ask Wynona about it.

  “What went on during these exercises?”

  “Mostly just calisthenics. Lots of push-ups and jumping jacks, but sometimes he would teach him hand-to-hand combat stuff, teach him how to throw knives and even to shoot guns. Sometimes Jerome would get a little carried away and beat Malcolm up pretty bad. He said it would make him tough. They would stick fight full contact and Malcolm would come in the house bleeding with lumps and bruises all over him and Jerome wouldn’t even let me take him to the hospital. Once he even stabbed him.”

  “Stabbed him?”

  “He didn’t mean to. They were doing some kind of knife fighting drills and it got carried away. Malcolm got stabbed in the shoulder. Had to have thirteen stitches, but Jerome had him back out there the next day. Tore open all the stitches and Malcolm had to go right back to the hospital.”

  Titus and James looked at each other at the mention of knife fighting. The pieces were all coming together. Some people might be born bad, but most are made.

  “How did Malcolm feel about his step-dad? Did he resent him?”

  “Oh no, Malcolm loved Jerome. They were inseparable. Until . . .”

  “Until?”

  “Well, we never told Malcolm that Jerome wasn’t his real dad and when Malcolm was about eleven he found out. It devastated him. All of a sudden he just seemed to withdraw. He would sit at the dinner table and stare at Jerome. Some of the most hateful stares you ever saw. They still wrestled and stuff in the backyard, but it didn’t look very friendly anymore. Malcolm was getting bigger and Jerome was getting older. Sometimes Jerome would come in the house as beat up and bloody as Malcolm. I tried to tell myself it was just normal male competitiveness, but those looks Malcolm would give him. Then Malcolm started trying to kill Jerome.”

  Both detectives lurched forward at the same time and stared at Wynona, trying to make sure they’d really heard what they thought they had.

  “Malcolm tried to kill your husband?”

  “Oh, he ain’t my husband no more. He ran off one night, couldn’t take it. He was scared of Malcolm. He made Malcolm into some kinda psycho with all that Vietnam shit and then he ran off and left me to deal with it. One night Malcolm crept in the room with one of those sawed off broomsticks they used to fight with and tried to beat Jerome to death. Jerome had to knock Malcolm out to get him to stop. The next night, Malcolm came at him with a knife. Cut him up pretty bad before Jerome managed to get the knife away from him. Jerome was about to turn the knife on Malcolm, but I threw myself between them to break it up. That’s when Jerome turned around and walked out the door. He never came back.”

  “And that’s why you think Malcolm’s guilty?”

  “Not just because of that. Because of the fire.”

  “Malcolm tried to burn down your house?”

  “Not this house, the old folks home over on Johnson Street. The one that used to be over on Johnson Street. I can’t prove it, but I just know it. The day before it happened, two staff members from the old folks home called the police on Malcolm, accusing him of sneaking onto their property and peeping in at the old ladies when they were dressing. They said he exposed himself to one of them. When the cops picked him up and I had to go down to the station to get him, I was so embarrassed. I was absolutely furious! When we got home I took off my belt and tried to beat him half to death.

  “See, I was a single mother now, dealing with the responsibilities of both mother and father and that meant being the disciplinarian. It was ridiculous really. I mean after all the stuff Jerome did to him. What the hell was my scrawny little ass going to do? But Malcolm seemed to take that beating really hard. He cried like I never remember seeing him cry. I couldn’t take it. I stopped and hugged him to me an
d promised him that we would get him help. He kept saying he was sorry over and over. I told him that I loved him and everything would be all right.

  “The next day the old folk’s home was burned to the ground. The Fire Marshall said it was arson. Someone had thrown a Molotov cocktail through one of the windows. Five people died, including two of the women that Malcolm was accused of harassing. The cops questioned Malcolm. He denied everything and the whole thing just kind of went away. But I knew what he’d done, just like I know what he’s doing now.”

  James asked Mrs. Davis more about Malcolm’s childhood and learned that he had wet the bed until age twelve, a humiliation for which he was badly beaten by his step-dad. He had been caught mutilating cats in the basement. Malcolm said he was interrogating them. He was beaten for that, too. In school, his freakish size and poor hygiene made him a target for the other kids to pick on until he, in his mother’s words, “turned mean.” Right after he chased off Jerome, he put a stop to the teasing by breaking the school bully’s leg. Malcolm became the new school bully.

  The two detectives thanked Mrs. Davis for her time and left quietly. They were no closer to finding Malcolm, but they were a lot closer to understanding him. They sat silently, absorbed in their own little worlds, processing all that they’d heard as they drove out to the Northeast to question Reed.

  “Arson, bed-wetting, torturing animals—this guy has all the typical warning signs of the classic serial killer.” Detective Baltimore muttered, talking more to himself than to his partner.

  “You know, I still can’t believe that this is a black guy doing all these murders. I would’ve never imagined the Family Man was black. Even the FBI profile said we’d be looking for a middle-class white guy.”

  “Yeah, the fact that he targets white families is what threw them off. Serial killers usually stay within their own race. But Malcolm has demonstrated a lot of atypical behavior. The killing of both men and women is unusual. Though that could be attributed to bisexuality. The killing of both adults and young children is highly unusual . . .”