by Chris Carter
‘Yes, I’m sure,’ Kennedy confirmed. ‘Lucien must’ve kept them somewhere else, or even scattered around several different locations. That wouldn’t surprise me, and that’s something else you must find out during the course of your interviews.’
Hunter’s stare hardened.
Kennedy read it. Tiredness began really showing in his hoarse voice, which was now starting to croak.
‘Look, Robert, there’s no way on earth I approve of what Lucien has done, but if you’re right about him writing down everything he’s done and experienced into notebooks, then it’s already done, and it cannot be undone. If these notebooks do indeed exist, then we might as well have them. For one, they’ll constitute evidence in a serial murder case that I have no doubt will go down in history. Two, the psychological and behavioral knowledge, the understanding that we’ll gain from those notes and texts, may prove to be a game changer in our fight against extreme violent repeat offenders. As a law-enforcement officer and as a psychologist, you know that full well, Robert.’
Hunter had no argument to come back with.
‘Nothing inside the storage facility in Seattle?’ Taylor asked.
‘Nothing but the chest freezer and the severed body parts,’ Kennedy confirmed.
Everyone appeared to have gone into thinking mode for a beat.
‘I checked with the Scott County Sheriff’s Department in Mississippi,’ Kennedy moved on. ‘Jed Davis and his girlfriend, Melanie Rose, were butchered inside the house they shared just outside Forest City twenty-one years ago. They were found by her mother who had dropped by with a homemade apple pie about two days after the incident. No one was ever arrested.’ He paused for effect and to catch his breath. ‘According to the medical examiner, Melanie Rose’s head was hacked off with a kitchen knife. The head was left on the dining table in the living room. That was the first thing her mother saw when she looked in through the window.’ Kennedy looked at Hunter, the expression on his face as serious as a heart attack. ‘He killed her just because she was home, Robert. He killed her for pure pleasure.’
Hunter closed his eyes and pressed his lips against each other.
‘You read the accounts,’ Kennedy added. ‘They were written the day after he butchered them. The narrative and the words are clear and concise, not hysterical or even nervous. We all know that that spells total emotional detachment. As you’ve said, his accounts are like a study into what goes on inside the mind of a vicious killer – how he thinks, how he feels, what drives him – prior, during, and after each attack. Call me selfish, Robert, but I want that knowledge. We need that knowledge. If those books exist, I want them.’
Hunter walked over to the window and had a look outside. Night and rainy clouds had darkened the sky, but it somehow made him see things clearer, understand something that until now he hadn’t. And he cursed himself for not having seen it earlier.
‘I guess you will have them, Adrian,’ he said. ‘Because Lucien wants you to have them.’
Taylor frowned and Kennedy threw Hunter a skewed look.
‘What do you mean?’
‘This was all planned,’ Hunter said.
Taylor and Kennedy’s confused looks intensified.
‘What was all planned, Robert?’ Taylor asked.
‘Being caught.’ Hunter turned to face them. ‘Well, maybe the timing wasn’t one hundred percent there. Maybe Lucien would’ve liked to carry on doing what he’s been doing for a while longer. He could never have predicted the accident in Wyoming that led us to him, but I think that he was always counting on being caught one day.’
Kennedy took just a few seconds to board Hunter’s thought ship. ‘Because what’s the point in writing an encyclopedia on killing and behavioral motivation if no one will read it . . . or study it, right?’
Hunter agreed in silence.
Taylor thought about it for a second but wasn’t as convinced. ‘Yeah, but then why would he want to be caught? He could’ve arranged for the books to be delivered to the FBI, or he could’ve sent them in anonymously, or something.’
‘It wouldn’t have had the same effect,’ Hunter disagreed.
‘Robert is right.’ Kennedy backed him up. ‘The notebooks on their own wouldn’t have had the same “weight” as if we’d caught the perpetrator. It would’ve taken us a lot longer to follow it up because there would always be doubts as to whether the books were a hoax or not. Having Lucien in custody . . . the interviews, him guiding us to the remains of his victims’ bodies . . . it all adds to the whole credibility of the notebooks.’
Kennedy paused as a new realization finally hit him. He looked at Hunter. ‘And that’s why he asked for you.’
Hunter breathed out and nodded.
‘Because you add even more credibility to Lucien’s character,’ Kennedy said. ‘You went to college together. You shared a dorm. You were the best of friends. You know how intelligent he is and he knew that you could vouch for that.’ He walked over to the other side of his desk. ‘I bet that he’s counting on you remembering the conversation you had about the “killing encyclopedia” idea. He knew you would remember Susan Richards. You were always a major part of his plan, Robert.’
‘So now that his credibility is more than established,’ Taylor cut in, ‘why not just ask him for the notebooks? If you’re right, and the idea from the beginning was for the Bureau to get those books, he should be forthcoming with the information.’
‘No, he won’t be,’ Hunter said. ‘Not yet.’
‘And why is that?’
‘Because he’s not done yet.’
Sixty-Two
Hunter managed only three and a half erratic hours of sleep. He was up by 5:00 a.m. By 6:30, he’d already been for a five-mile run, and at 7:30, he and Taylor were back down in sublevel five.
Like the previous day, Lucien was sitting at the edge of his bed, right leg crossed over his left one, hands clasped together and resting on his lap, calmly waiting for them.
Hunter, Taylor and Kennedy had decided the night before that pushing Lucien to talk about the notebooks now, if they indeed existed, wasn’t the best strategy. His victims’ remains were still the priority.
‘I was wondering if you’d still be here or not, Robert,’ Lucien said as his interrogators took their seats. ‘I thought that maybe you’d want to see Susan’s remains for yourself. I thought that you might be halfway to Nevada to see her parents by now.’ He studied Hunter’s expression but got nothing. ‘You did find her, didn’t you?’ The question sounded unconcerned.
‘We found her,’ Taylor confirmed.
‘Ah, but of course,’ Lucien said as he’d just remembered something. ‘Tests and more tests. You know that it’s her, don’t you, Robert?’
No reaction.
‘But the FBI won’t move a muscle until they have lab confirmation. It’s protocol. Contacting her parents without being one hundred percent sure that you have Susan’s remains is careless, and potentially very damaging for both sides. That’s very understandable.’
‘Are there any other victims buried in the vicinity of the house in La Honda, Lucien?’ Hunter asked.
Lucien smiled. ‘I did think about it. It’s a great location. Hidden from everything. No neighbors. No one to sneak up on you.’ He shook his head. ‘But no. Susan was the only one in La Honda. This is a huge country, Robert. Similar places aren’t that hard to find. Anyway, after Susan it took me a long time to get my shit together.’ He cracked the knuckles on his hands against each other. ‘We’ve all heard and read about the “cooling-off” period between serial murders, but let me tell you . . . it can be one hell of a dark time.’
Hunter wasn’t very interested in hearing Lucien’s personal accounts of how he felt, and though he knew Lucien would want to stretch every interview as much as he could, he still pushed for the information he wanted.
‘So give us the name and the location of another victim, Lucien.’
Lucien carried on as if he’d never heard the quest
ion.
‘On the days, weeks, months, after Susan, as the “killing drug” effect wore off –’ he had drawn quotations marks in the air with his fingers – ‘I was as sure as I could be that I’d never do it again. But as time went by, all the urges started to creep up on me again. And they came back stronger, more demanding. I missed the transcendent high. I missed the feeling of power that I had that night with Susan. And I knew that my body as well as my brain were dying to experience it again.’
‘How long was it?’ Taylor asked. ‘The cooling-off period? How long between Susan Richards and your second victim?’
‘Seven hundred and nine days.’
Lucien didn’t even have to think about the answer. The number was etched in his brain. Every detail about everything he’d done was etched in his brain.
‘I was already at Yale,’ he proceeded. ‘Her name was Karen Simpson.’
Hunter frowned.
Lucien looked at him and nodded. ‘That’s right, Robert, Karen was real, with all the tattoos, the lip and nose piercings, the left ear stretched to a full centimeter, the Bettie Page-style fringe . . . I met her at Yale, just like I told you, but I did lie about something. Karen was never a drug addict. That was just something I made up because it fit the story I wanted to tell you a couple of days ago. That’s something I learned along the way. If you’re going to lie, then use as many true facts as you can – real people, names, descriptions, locations, time frames or whatever. They’re easier to remember, and if you need to retell your story at a later date, you reduce your chances of being caught out.’
Hunter knew the theory.
‘Like I told you before, Karen was a very sweet woman. She was also doing a PhD in psychology. We used to study together. In fact . . .’ Lucien gave them a goofy smile, one that said, ‘I know something that you don’t.’ ‘Both of you have already made her acquaintance.’ He gave Hunter and Taylor a challenging look.
‘The other framed tattoos down in that basement,’ Hunter said.
‘That’s right, Robert,’ Lucien agreed. ‘The cranes.’
One of the framed human skin pieces found in Lucien’s basement had a colored tattoo of a pair of cranes. The design had been taken from a painting called Cranes on a Snowy Pine, by the artist Katsushika Hokusai.
‘She had it tattooed on her upper right arm,’ Lucien said. ‘Now, despite Karen being only my second victim, I decided to get adventurous.’
Sixty-Three
There was something in the way Lucien phrased his last words that seemed to freeze the air for an instant, as if evil had been waiting around the corner all this time, and was just about to make its presence felt.
‘As I’ve said,’ Lucien continued, ‘the urges started coming back to me a few months after I left Stanford, but they didn’t become unbearable until much later. At first, I thought I could deal with them. I thought that they’d be easy to curb, but just like every repeat offender eventually finds out, I was wrong.’
Lucien used both of his hands to rub the back of his neck while closing his eyes and tilting his head back. After several silent seconds, he breathed out.
‘There was a difference this time. Like I said before, I had never looked at Susan as a potential victim until the night it all happened. This time, I knew Karen would be the one. I’d known it from the day I met her.’
‘What guided you toward that decision?’ Taylor asked. ‘What made you choose Karen?’
Lucien pulled an impressed face. ‘Very good question, Agent Taylor. Looks like you’re learning.’
The tattoos, Hunter thought. Even if physically, Karen didn’t resemble Susan at all, the tattoos would’ve reminded Lucien of her. And as he’d already admitted, he was chasing the same high. A new victim also carrying large tattoos meant that Lucien would’ve been able to partially skin her just as he’d done with Susan. By repeating the same methods, the same MO, most perpetrators believe they can achieve the same feelings and highs as they have in previous murders.
Lucien looked as if this was the first time he had actually thought about the reasons behind choosing Karen.
‘I guess the first thing that guided me toward Karen were her tattoos.’
Hunter didn’t even blink.
‘You’ve got to remember that large, colored tattoos weren’t as popular twenty-three years ago as they are now,’ Lucien said. ‘Especially on women. They reminded me of Susan.’ His words were dry as bone. They seemed to suck all the moisture out of the air. ‘I began having dreams about them. I began fantasizing about skinning those drawings off Karen’s body just like I’d done to Susan. And that was when I realized that another theory was proving true.’
Lucien nodded at Hunter as if they’d had some sort of secret bet all those years ago about which theories would prove true and which ones wouldn’t.
‘Subconsciously, my brain kept on going back to the same MO as I had used with Susan, and we all know the reason why, don’t we? Though it had been nowhere near perfect, I knew I’d feel more comfortable going back to an MO I had used before and knew it worked. Familiarity, Agent Taylor. That’s why repeat offenders rarely change their MO.’ He pointed to her notebook. ‘You can write that down if you want.’
Lucien got up, poured himself a glass of water from the washbasin, and returned to the edge of his bed.
‘But I decided that I wasn’t looking for comfortable. I wasn’t looking to do something I’d already done. That wasn’t part of what I had planned in my head. So I started to think about what I’d do differently. Even before I met Karen, I knew I would do it again. There was no doubt in my mind anymore. The urges had become too great for me to resist them. I knew that it was just a matter of time, and finding the right victim. So the search for a new hidden place began.’
‘Where is she?’ Hunter asked.
‘Oh, she’s still in Connecticut,’ Lucien confirmed. ‘Actually, not that far from New Haven and Yale University.’ An otherworldly feeling appeared to radiate out of Lucien, like a fatal sort of calm that could creep out just about anyone.
‘Where exactly?’ Hunter pushed.
More for effect than anything else, Lucien hesitated, moving his head from side to side as if half in doubt.
‘I’ll tell you, but let me ask you this first.’
Taylor was attentively observing Lucien. She would never forget the evil smile he threw their way.
‘Do you know what a LIN charge is?’
Sixty-Four
Lucien had met Karen Simpson right at the beginning of his second year at Yale University. Karen had just transferred from some place in England, and was still settling in. Lucien had never forgotten the first time he saw . . . no, heard her. That was what caught his attention at first, her voice . . . her British accent.
It was right at the end of a rather boring lecture in Investigative Psychology and Offending Behavior, when Karen put her hand up to ask a question. Lucien had already gathered his books together and was ready to leave when the sound of her voice made him stop. There was something in the calm and unconcerned way in which she pronounced every word. There was a charming cadence to her sentences that was almost hypnotizing to the ear. The icing on the cake was the way everything was dressed up in the most charismatic British accent.
Lucien’s eyes found Karen sitting at the other end of the lecture hall, almost hidden away among the other students. She couldn’t have been any taller than five-foot-two, Lucien guessed. He took a step to the side to get a better look at her. Her makeup looked quite different – heavier, more Gothic than most. She was wearing a dark T-shirt with ‘The Cure’ written on it and a photograph of someone with messy dark hair, heavy black eye makeup, and badly applied red lipstick.
But what really grabbed his attention was the large colored tattoo on her right upper arm. As he caught sight of it, it made him hold his breath for a moment or two. All of a sudden his memory was slapped with images of Susan and what had happened that night just over two years ago. Images of h
im carefully slicing the skin off her arm. The memories brought with them a tremendous head rush, something he hadn’t felt since that night, and for an instant Lucien felt light-headed and almost lost his balance.
What is that? he thought as he recomposed himself, squinting his eyes at the tattoo. It looked like a couple of large birds, but from where he was standing he couldn’t be sure. What he was sure of was that Karen Simpson would never graduate from Yale. Her fate would be much, much different.
It didn’t take Lucien long at all to befriend Karen. In fact, it happened later that same day. From a distance, he’d followed her around campus for the next couple of hours, until a perfect opportunity presented itself during mid-afternoon. Karen had just stepped out of the Psychiatric Hospital building, just south of the old campus, when she paused, seemingly looking for something inside her rucksack. She rummaged through it for about two minutes before giving up. After letting go of a deep, exasperated breath, she allowed her eyes to circle around her, looking a little lost.
‘Everything OK?’ Lucien asked, recognizing the opportunity and tentatively approaching her. The expression on his face was pleasant, innocent.
Karen smiled shyly. ‘Yes, everything’s fine. I just seem to have lost my campus map, which is not the best thing to do on your first week in a campus this big.’
Yale University is spread over 837 acres of ground, with over 11,000 students.
‘That’s very true,’ Lucien agreed with a sympathetic chuckle. ‘But you might be in luck. Give me a sec,’ he said, lifting a finger in a “wait” gesture before reaching into his own rucksack. ‘Here we go. I knew it would be here somewhere. Have this one.’ He handed Karen a new campus map.
‘Oh!’ Her eyes lit up with surprise. ‘Are you sure?’
‘Yes, of course. I know my way around quite well. I just never really cleaned out my bag, so that map’s been there for a while.’ He gave her a “What can you do?” kind of shrug. ‘Anyway, where do you need to go just now?’
