by Scott Bonn
Lundquist’s alter ego has become infamous in less than a week due to extensive news coverage of the manhunt and numerous readings of the letter the guardian sent to Captain Pritchard at the NYPD. Lundquist is enjoying the show. The news media attention given to the guardian, including his self-proclaimed mission to save the souls of teenage girls, is filling Lundquist with pride and a powerful sense of accomplishment.
A jolt of adrenaline surges throughout his body as the CBS news host explains to viewers that the police thus far have no significant clues or suspects in their criminal investigation.
“Of course not, the guardian is much too clever for you. He will always be one step ahead. There is no way that you can stop him,” he says to the TV screen with great admiration.
Lundquist watches the TV news story about the guardian as if he is merely an interested observer—a member of the TV audience—as opposed to being the killer himself. He watches the story unfold on his TV screen from the psychological perspective of an outsider.
Hearing the exploits of his alter ego described on national TV excites Lundquist. He voices aloud his high regard for the guardian’s skills, once again.
“You have never seen anyone or anything like him. The guardian will complete his divine mission, and you are powerless to do anything about it,” Lundquist says with a sense of pride.
Lundquist has an uncanny skill or ability to separate himself psychologically from the guardian. In his mind, the guardian is someone else entirely, rather than being a part of his own personality. Because of this skill, he does not consider the actions of the guardian to be his own.
His ability to separate himself completely from the guardian in his own mind is known as compartmentalization. It is a psychological technique often used by serial killers to protect themselves, and their egos, from their own actions. More specifically, compartmentalization is a psychological defense mechanism used to avoid cognitive dissonance or the mental discomfort and anxiety caused by a person having conflicting values, beliefs, thoughts, feelings or actions within themselves.
Compartmentalization allows conflicting ideas and feelings to co-exist together in one’s mind by inhibiting direct or explicit acknowledgment between separate, compartmentalized self-states or egos. In other words, the conflicting thoughts and feelings of Lundquist and the guardian co-exist peacefully within Lundquist’s mind because he does not explicitly acknowledge their existence.
The chilling result of his compartmentalization is that the guardian is able to commit terrible acts that Lundquist would never undertake himself. Compartmentalization shields Lundquist from their horrible psychological consequences of the guardian’s actions.
Compartmentalization serves another function for Lundquist, too. Because he truly believes that the guardian’s mission is divinely inspired, compartmentalization allows him to observe and appreciate his alter ego’s actions from a safe, psychological distance.
It is now 9:15am on this beautiful Saturday morning, and Lundquist remains fixated on the CBS news story about the guardian. The words of Alex Wagner enthrall him as he listens to the host discuss every nuance of the case and investigation. Wagner states that the NYPD has been exploring the possibility of a connection between the disappearance of Manhattan teenager Melissa Stein and the two girls murdered by the guardian due to the many things the three teenage girls have in common.
Wagner explains that it has been six days since the bodies of Emily Foster and Jenny Keiser were found at the bottom of the East River, and fifteen days since the disappearance of Melissa Stein on the upper west side. The CBS news host further explains that the NYPD began to dredge the Hudson River in search of Stein the same day that police scuba divers discovered the two corpses at the bottom of the East River.
In recent days, the search for Melissa Stein has become a central element of the evolving news story about the unknown serial killer who stalks New York City. Lundquist listens intently as Alex Wagner explains to TV viewers that scuba divers are now searching the Hudson River around the clock for the missing girl.
Lundquist realizes that it is just a matter of time before the dead body of Stein is located.
“The police divers will undoubtedly discover Melissa very soon,” he says aloud.
He pauses for a moment and then proclaims, “That is exactly as it should be. The guardian lovingly baptized her in the river where she now rests. She is waiting patiently at the bottom of the Hudson River. They will find her. It will not be long now. Her time of waiting is almost over.”
Lundquist reflects upon the deeds of his alter ego and exclaims, “The guardian was sent here—a messenger of God—to rescue these girls from misery and corruption. He reunites them with their merciful Creator. When the divers find Melissa’s body, they will also discover that she carries a special message of hope and redemption for an undeserving world from the guardian.”
Lundquist’s compartmentalized mind prevents him from seeing that his alter ego is committing terrible criminal acts and causing irreparable harm to numerous innocent people. He sees only that the guardian’s mission to save innocent young girls from an evil world is consistent with his own desire to help troubled female inmates as chaplain at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility. Lundquist believes that he and the guardian have similar values and beliefs and share common goals. He believes that they are kindred spirits.
In Lundquist’s mind, God has sent the guardian to save innocent girls from the corruption and perils of the material world. He fully appreciates the magnitude and scope of his alter ego’s divine mission. Similarly, Lundquist believes that God wants him to rescue the troubled souls of women like Stacey Sommers at Bedford Hills.
He is convinced that God has sent his alter ego to protect young girls like Melissa Stein and return them to security of heaven before they become tainted and broken like the prison inmates he is desperately trying to save.
Lundquist is still watching the CBS morning news program when Alex Wagner completes her news report on the manhunt for the guardian. As he watches, Wagner introduces a new story involving the long-term environmental effects of global warming. Lundquist has no particular interest in this news story, or in watching television any longer, so he turns off his flat screen TV with a remote control device. He sits quietly on his sofa.
Lundquist relaxes on his leather couch and enjoys some more of his favorite Colombian coffee. His feels wistful and introspective. He silently ponders what lies ahead for his alter ego.
Lundquist says aloud, “There is much more work for the guardian to do before he is finished.”
He pauses for a moment and then continues, “There are so many beautiful young souls in the world that must be saved. God has so ordained it. Time is precious and fleeting. It is a sin against God to waste time. I believe the guardian will go back to work very soon. Yes, very soon, indeed.”
Chapter Sixteen
At 3:15am on October 17th, as Stacey Sommers lies sleeplessly on the hard bed in her six-by-eight-foot cell at Bedford Hills Correctional Facility, she thinks about the man who has become the center of her universe behind bars. She is in love with the prison chaplain, Charles Lundquist. There is no denying it, and her amorous feelings for him comfort her in the loneliness of her cell.
Her mind flashes briefly to her terrible experiences on the streets of New York and the abuse she suffered there at the hands of men like her pimp Little Anthony. Those dark days and the agony she suffered now seem so long ago, although they were just last year.
Thankfully, she thinks to herself, those days are over. It occurs to her that no one in twenty years of life on Earth has ever shown a sincere interest or demonstrated kindness toward her the way that Lundquist has here in prison. He is patient with her and teaches her things.
She loves Lundquist so much, and she wonders if he feels the same way about her that she does about him.
“Do you think about me when we are not together?” she asks herself.
Stacey desp
erately wants to be a better person because of, and for Lundquist. She would do anything for him. Anything at all.
Stacey fantasizes about kissing Lundquist and making passionate love to him behind the closed door of his small prison office. She wants the chaplain to undress her, fondle and kiss her large breasts, and penetrate her deeply on the desk in his cramped little office.
It would be so wonderful to have his hard, erect penis inside of her, she thinks. “I want to feel all of you inside me,” she says to herself and wonders if it will ever happen.
As she fantasizes about making love to Lundquist, she is lying on her back and staring at the ceiling of her tiny cell. Light from outside penetrates her cell door and creates ominous shadows on the ceiling and walls which look like monsters to her in the semi-darkness.
Despite the loneliness and perils of her current circumstances, her troubled past, and the uncertainty of her future, Stacey feels oddly calm and serene while lying in her prison bed.
“My guardian angel will protect me,” she says to herself, as she touches herself and thinks about Lundquist.
Chapter Seventeen
It is Monday, October 18th at 7:47am, and James Pritchard is physically and mentally exhausted. He has been sitting at the desk in his office for the last twenty-four hours scanning through reports filed by members of his task force. He has been working almost non-stop ever since Commissioner Bratton put him in charge of the serial killer manhunt seven days ago.
In order to save time, given the incredible urgency of his new assignment, Pritchard has been staying at a hotel in lower Manhattan for the last seven nights rather than commuting from his apartment in Freeport. He is still drinking alone late at night in his hotel room, but his daily intake is down to less than half of what he was consuming prior to receiving his new assignment. His morning hangovers and jitters have lessened in intensity as a result.
Pritchard is sitting wearily at his desk with a mug of lukewarm coffee in one hand and a half-eaten chocolate doughnut in the other when his office telephone rings. After putting the doughnut down onto his desk, he picks up the telephone receiver and abruptly says, “Pritchard here.”
The voice on the other end of the line sounds anxious and breathless.
The caller says, “Captain, this is Sergeant Collins. I have news, sir. Our scuba divers have just found a body in the Hudson River near 130th Street. The body was located on the bottom of the river about thirty feet from shore.”
Pritchard takes a long, deep breath and says, “I see. Please describe the deceased to me, Collins.”
The sergeant replies, “Well, sir, they just took the body out of the water, but it is definitely a young white female, and she has long, reddish or auburn hair. It’s a wrongful death, murder—a homicide for sure, Captain.”
“Was she found tied up with ligatures and weighted down like the others?” asks Pritchard.
The sergeant says, “Yes, Captain. She was tied up with blue cord before being put into the river, and there is a heavy metal cross around her neck, just like the two other girls. Her body is completely nude, and from the look of things, she has been in the river for some time. Her body is really in bad shape, Captain. They are taking her corpse to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner now for an immediate autopsy and forensic tests.”
“All right, thank you for the call, Sergeant. I will see you back here at the office. Goodbye,” says Pritchard.
After hanging up the telephone, the homicide captain stares straight ahead, motionless and expressionless, as if in a trance. He is deep in thought. It is clear from the information just provided by Sergeant Collins that this new body is the latest victim of the serial killer he is hunting.
Pritchard feels a sudden jolt of adrenaline shoot through his entire body. It excites him. At the same time, however, he also feels a twinge in his stomach that makes him feel nauseous. Based on how and where the new corpse was discovered, and its description, including gender, age, race, and hair color, the homicide captain quickly concludes that it is the girl who has been missing on the upper west side for more than two weeks.
Pritchard thinks, “It certainly appears that Melissa Stein has been located, but the medical examiner will be able to confirm the identity of the corpse soon enough. I better call the commissioner,” Pritchard tells himself.
Before making the call, Pritchard says aloud, “Fuck the guardian!”
He grimaces and rubs his bloodshot, burning eyes as he reaches for the telephone. His personal assistant—that is, police officer Judy Schmidt, has just arrived at her desk outside his office, and she picks up her telephone when it rings.
Schmidt cheerfully says, “Good morning, Captain. What can I do for you?”
Pritchard responds curtly with instructions to call Commissioner Bratton immediately and to tell whoever answers the telephone that it is urgent.
In less than one minute, Pritchard and Bratton are speaking to one another on the telephone.
“What have you got for me, Jimmy?” asks the commissioner.
Pritchard tells Bratton about the discovery of the dead body in the Hudson River, as well as the strong likelihood that it is the corpse of Melissa Stein.
Bratton says, “The news media are going to be all over this like a pack of wolves. We have to move quickly in order to control the flow of information and facts to the public. We do not want the media to fuel the fear that already exists in the city about this killer.”
Bratton tells Pritchard that he is going to call the Chief Medical Examiner, Dr. Barbara Sampson, and ask her to perform the autopsy on the dead girl as soon as the corpse arrives. He instructs Pritchard to head straight to Dr. Sampson’s office and wait for the body. He tells Pritchard to oversee the procedure and then report back to him with the results.
Bratton says, “I want you to call me the moment the identity of the dead girl is confirmed. I will have a press conference all set up and ready to go here at headquarters. We have to manage the public relations process with great care so that we do not allow the news media to cause widespread panic. Get moving, Jimmy.”
Pritchard replies, “Yes, Commissioner. You can count on me. Goodbye, sir.”
Chapter Eighteen
Several minutes after his telephone conversation with the commissioner, Pritchard is en route to the medical examiner’s office amidst heavy morning traffic. The siren in his unmarked police car is blaring loudly. The officer driving Pritchard’s car completes the two-mile trip from One Police Plaza to the Office of Chief Medical Examiner, located on First Avenue at Thirty-first Street, in just under seven minutes.
The homicide captain and the body of the dead girl arrive simultaneously at the medical examiner’s office. It is almost as if their arrivals had been coordinated in advance of the trip. In reality, the simultaneous arrivals were due to coincidental timing and traffic patterns. The vehicle carrying the corpse had a significant head start on Pritchard, but it had to travel a much longer distance in order to get to the medical examiner’s office.
The deceased was coming from Harlem on the upper west side of Manhattan, a distance of approximately seven miles from the medical examiner’s office that is located in midtown on the east side. Heavy, morning rush hour traffic coming into the city from Queens via the midtown tunnel significantly slowed down the vehicle carrying the dead body.
Immediately upon his arrival, Pritchard goes through the building’s security screening process. A security guard escorts him to the office of Dr. Barbara Sampson, the Chief Medical Examiner of the City of New York. Dr. Sampson is a well-known expert in the field of forensic pathology, and she is the first woman ever appointed to her position.
After receiving a call from Commissioner Bratton, Dr. Sampson was expecting Pritchard. The two exchange the customary greetings with one another. Then Captain Pritchard, Dr. Sampson, and her support team enter an autopsy room where the female corpse is waiting for them. Due to the high-profile nature of the guardian serial killer investigation, a n
umber of interested forensic scientists, law enforcement authorities, doctors, and even medical students are there to observe the proceedings from a gallery located above the autopsy table.
The room goes silent as the team of experts gets started with the autopsy. The corpse is bloated, distended, decomposing and unrecognizable after being in the Hudson River for seventeen days, similar to the bodies of the two girls recently discovered in the East River. This body was found completely nude, similar to the other girls. There are bruises, nicks and small cuts on the body, some of which appear to have occurred post mortem.
“The body was no doubt damaged by making contact with debris along the bottom of the river which explains the post mortem lacerations,” announces Dr. Sampson.
The body of the dead girl is bound tightly in blue nylon cord that appears to be identical to the cord discovered wrapped around the first two corpses. As a medical assistant removes the ligatures binding the dead girl’s arms, Dr. Sampson explains that additional forensic analysis is required before they can determine if this cord is the same type and variety found on the first two victims.
Pritchard’s pulse and respiration escalate as he watches the proceedings. He nods as Dr. Sampson examines a metal cross that is tied to the dead girl’s neck. The guardian has left his signature once again, Pritchard thinks to himself.
The religious cross looks heavy, and it appears to be made of cast iron like the ones discovered with the other girls. Dr. Sampson carefully removes the cross from the body and an assistant weighs it. It weighs exactly five pounds, just like the others.
With the iron cross removed and out of the way, Dr. Sampson locates major contusions on the neck of the deceased which she concludes were inflicted while the girl was still alive. The pattern of bruising around her neck is consistent with manual strangulation, similar to the bodies found eight days ago. The marks of the killer’s fingers are clearly visible on the neck of the deceased.