by Tara Moss
“You know it could just be a—” Mike started to say, but he stopped short. Someone flashed a light across the area to the side of the bone Grant had initially seen, and that’s when it became obvious that there was more, what looked like a whole ribcage was poking up through the dirt and the ferns, and it was definitely human. That is, unless the local deer had taken up wearing shirts.
“Let’s get the lights in here!” one of the team called out. “Looks like we’ve got a second body.”
CHAPTER 10
It was evening, and at last Makedde was feeling relaxed. She was curled up on the couch in her modest Vancouver apartment with an out-of-print copy of Psychopathy—Theory and Research by Dr Robert D Hare.
What more could a girl want?
She wanted to scrub up on the subject before the psychopathy conference the next day. The 1970 book was older than she was, but she thought that it would provide an interesting background to the cutting-edge research she would be hearing about during the conference in the days to follow. She was already quite familiar with Hervey Cleckley’s Mask of Sanity and she had read Dr Hare’s classic, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us, a few times over, but in recent months her appetite for information on the subject had been insatiable.
…During periods of relaxation and painful stimulation, the pattern of adrenergic (sympathetic) and cholinergic (parasympathetic) activity is the same for neurotic subjects as it is for normal ones…
A half-eaten bowl of pasta sat on the coffee table beside her.
However, following the termination of the stimulation, the autonomic activity of the normal subjects…
The phone rang, breaking her concentration. Makedde reached across and picked it up without taking her eyes from the page. She was pretty sure she knew who it would be.
“How’s it going, Dad?” she said.
“Fine. And you?”
“Fine as well, thanks,” she replied, and read another line.
Experiments recently reviewed by Malmo (1966) are consistent with Rubin’s hypothesis…
“How’ve you been feeling?” her father asked.
The relevance of Rubin’s theory to psychopathy is that some of the characteristics of the psychopath are more or less opposite to those of the neurotic…
“Have you been sleeping?” he went on, his voice a little louder this time, indicating that he knew she wasn’t giving him her full attention. She took her eyes off the page.
“Hmmm, sleep?” Mak furrowed her brow and looked to the ceiling, making a show of racking her brain even though the only audience she had for her little performance was her house plants. “Oh. Oh, that. Overrated.”
“Makedde—”
She held the phone from her ear as he raised his voice, and with the other hand marked her page and lowered the book into her lap.
“Dad,” she finally said. “Calm down. I’m fine. I’m sleeping fine.” A lie.
“Who do you think you’re kidding?” her father said. “Ann thinks she can help you. She knows all about that stuff. She said she would be very happy to talk to you about it, or perhaps recommend someone.”
“Oh really?”
“I think you should take her up on it,” he said.
“You do, eh? So, when did she get divorced anyway?” Mak asked.
Pause. “I guess they divorced a few years ago.” Bingo. “What has that got to do with the price of tea in China?”
“Nothing.” She wondered just how interested her father was in Ann. “I just saw how you were looking at her. I like her, Dad. She’s nice.”
“Good. Then maybe you’ll consider taking her up on her offer. She wants me to give you her number, just in case you ever need it.” “Okay, go ahead.” He gave her the details, and she took them down dutifully, with no intention whatsoever of calling.
“Now, you got another message from Detective Flynn.”
“Andy?” Oh, damn.
“He left a number for you to call him at Quantico. I think he was afraid to ask for your home number. He said he would only be available on that number until tomorrow afternoon, though.”
“Okay.”
She took it down and stared at the digits after she hung up the phone. The piece of paper in her hand held two phone numbers of people she didn’t really want to speak to. Talking to either of them would only open up a can of worms.
It was too late to call Andy in Virginia anyway. She’d leave it till tomorrow.
Maybe.
That night Makedde dreamt of psychiatrists, FBI agents and psychopaths. And the devil. Right before she woke up screaming, he shot flames from his eyes and Makedde—dressed in her father’s police uniform—fell backwards, her hands still frozen uselessly on the trigger of her gun. Once again the devil violently ripped her mother’s life away before her eyes.
That was at 3.00 am.
She couldn’t get back to sleep after that.
CHAPTER 11
Harold G Gosper PhD, a Professor of Social Psychology, arrived at the University of British Columbia at eight-thirty and chose a seat at the back of the Graduate Center Ballroom. He wore his favourite forest-green cardigan and matching corduroy pants with a mauve button-down shirt. As he scratched at a spot of toothpaste on his pants, he vaguely recalled some protest from his wife when he had left the house, something about his wearing the same thing for four days in a row. But no matter. She’d hardly said a word to him the last few days and he didn’t really care.
He wet the toothpaste mark with a bit of saliva, and once satisfied, pulled his hand away and ran a palm over his slick hair. He adjusted himself in the stiff plastic chair and licked his lips. Professor Gosper had picked a spot in the far corner of the room specifically so that he could leave quietly when things got boring. There were heavy exit doors to his right and his vantage point offered a full view of the room and its occupants. He liked watching people. More than attending psychology lectures that was for sure. He was interested in social not forensic psychology, and the truth was he didn’t have a lot of time for “psychopathy” and Dr Hare’s theories on the psychopathic mind.
Sure, Dr Hare had his awards and his honorary medals and his documentary specials, and his Hare Psychopathy Checklist (PCL) was widely accepted as the diagnostic tool for psychopaths. Gosper was all too aware of those facts. And of course there was his popular book, Without Conscience: The Disturbing World of the Psychopaths Among Us. He certainly couldn’t forget that. But even so, Gosper found Hare’s apparent guru status a bit hard to take.
In his own mind he was quite convinced that his secret animosity had nothing to do with the multiple rejection slips he had received for his own manuscript.
Perhaps one of Dr Hare’s publishers would be attending the conference?
With his arms folded, Gosper sat back and observed the slowly filling room. A clique of uniformed police officers filed in and eschewed the name tags offered at the entrance. They were from the local Vancouver PD, and they moved in a single pack towards the long tables of Danishes and choc-chip muffins. Upon noticing that the food was still covered with plastic wrap they went for the coffee and ended up hovering around the coffee dispensers with empty styrofoam cups in their hands. Their caffeine fix wasn’t ready yet. They would most likely have to wait until nine.
A number of students came in, dressed in jeans and running shoes, and struck up conversations with the graduates who were working as volunteers giving out the name tags and handouts. A couple of men, who Gosper guessed were plain-clothes cops or Feds, leaned against the long row of coat racks at the back of the room and talked with animated gestures.
As the various attendees chose their seats, an obvious pattern emerged. Eager students and friends of the speakers sat up front in small groupings, and the police and RCMP sat along the back rows in segregated camps. Psych students, with their notebooks and knapsacks, filled up the middle rows.
A young man in casual pants and a dress shirt walked over and sat a
couple of seats away from Professor Gosper. Gosper noted that he had brought his own coffee in a Starbucks’ cup.
The big room was now about half full and people were still arriving. There were students and cops, but still no one who looked like a publisher. The speakers hadn’t arrived yet, either. Gosper kept watching.
At around eight-fifty, a female student walked in who caught his attention. She was quite striking and tall, and a number of other males in the room took the time to glance in her direction before resuming their conversations. She didn’t seem to notice. She wore her blonde hair straight and past the shoulders, and was dressed in black pants and boots and a turtleneck sweater the colour of English toffee. No jewellery. Something about her dress sense, or the quality of her clothes, set her apart from the typical student.
Gosper knew her. Makedde Vanderwall. And a strange name at that, he thought. He had often wondered where someone got a Christian name like “Makedde” from. Was it Irish? Welsh? She looked Scandinavian but he didn’t know of any Scandinavian names like hers. In fact, the closest name he had ever come across was the Japanese name “Makaira”, which meant happy. Her last name—Vanderwall—was, of course, pure Dutch.
Professor Gosper also knew that she was bright and creative; that she sometimes worked as a fashion model; that her Masters was in Forensic Psychology and that she was currently working on her PhD thesis on the subject of the variables affecting the reliability of eyewitness testimony. He knew that she had recently taken a great interest in the area of psychopathy, and he was sure she would be attending the conference today.
Makedde had enrolled in Professor Gosper’s Psych 203 Introduction to Personality and Social Psychology course in her second year, but it was only recently that he had focused on her. Unlike some of the other people around the campus, he was not interested in her obvious physical qualities. His interest was purely professional. He had reason to believe that she would make a very enlightening subject, psychologically. Earlier in the year, one of the university staff had tipped him off about her involvement in a serial killer case in Australia during the previous summer break. Sensational stuff. Seems she’d been abducted by a multiple murderer and only survived because the cops managed to bust in the room and save her at the last minute. She was the only surviving victim of how many? Ten?
Makedde had worked hard to keep a tight lid on it once she returned to Canada. She had the geographical isolation of Australia in her favour, not to mention Canadian media laws that banned the printing of victims’ names in criminal cases such as hers. But it was hard to keep such sensational news a secret for long. He had to admit she had contained it remarkably well.
Professor Gosper wanted very much to sit down with her at some point and discuss her experiences. He wanted to run some tests on her, the Minnesota Multiphasic Personality Inventory (MMPI), the Thematic Apperception Test (TAT), the Pain Apperception Test and the Holtzman Inkblot Technique for starters. Perhaps the Beck Depression Inventory (BDI) and Beck Anxiety Inventory (BAI) depending on what he saw.
What exactly happened? How much could she recall? How was she coping? How much had her experience changed her and altered her perceptions of the world around her? And in what ways? What was the accuracy of her own eyewitness testimony after what she had been through? Perhaps she should examine that for her thesis?
Professor Gosper hoped to publish an exclusive account of her torment and his findings in the professional journals, or perhaps even in a true crime novel. He had already left a couple of notes for her to contact him, but she’d ignored them. Women like that always thought everyone wanted to get in their pants.
Makedde walked in his direction and then veered off down another aisle of seats. He wasn’t sure, but she may have spotted him. Damn. Now she was at least twelve rows away. He watched her struggle out of a shoulder bag and plonk a notebook and pen down on the seat. Her pants fitted her nicely and the toffee colour of her top complemented her fair hair. She was a very attractive young lady.
He noticed the young man in the next seat give Makedde a long appraisal.
“Look out for that one,” Gosper said.
The man turned to him with a friendly smile. He was a good-looking lad, probably in his late twenties. “Why’s that?” he asked.
“Ice Princess. Way too much baggage,” Gosper said. “She’s like Katharina from The Taming of the Shrew.” It gave him great satisfaction to say it.
The man laughed. “Nice…” he said, exaggerating the “ice” in nice.
He looked Makedde’s way again and Gosper followed his gaze. She was reaching into her bag to get something. When the man finished admiring her, he turned back and said, “I’m Roy Blake, nice to meet you.” He extended his hand and the professor shook it.
“I’m Harold Gosper, Professor of Social Psychology.”
Roy wasn’t a student at the university as far as Gosper knew, and he didn’t look like he was visiting from Simon Fraser or one of the other universities either. He was a little too clean-cut. Maybe a plain-clothes cop, Gosper decided.
“I just started with campus security,” he said, answering Gosper’s query before he even had to ask it.
“Oh really?” That was interesting.
UBC had recently beefed up security but as far as Gosper was concerned, it was little more than a political move designed to appease the public.
“There’s all that terrible business with the Walker girl, I suppose.”
“Yeah,” the man agreed. “Really put a scare into everyone. Then of course there was that poll—”
“That poll about the assaults on campus?” Gosper cut in. He was familiar with it. “They blew that story out of proportion on every bloody front page. It’s crap.” He shook his head with disapproval. “The numbers were totally exaggerated. They took the figures on sexual harassment, date rape and everything else and rolled it into one nasty-looking package. It made it look like we were hitting girls over the head with our clubs and dragging them by the hair. This campus is as safe as any. Safer than most.” Gosper turned to find the security guard nodding absently. He was looking in Makedde’s direction.
“I’m sure it is,” the man said, “I’m sure it is.”
CHAPTER 12
Sergeant Grant Wilson hated mobile phones. He’d rather wear a pager or an archaic walkie-talkie or even a satellite dish than one of those damned devices. He was convinced that the stupid things would give him a brain tumour, but his daughter, Cherrie, said he was just a Luddite and he should get over it. But he needed one now.
He was leaving McDonald’s weighed down with a foam tray supporting an English McMuffin, hash browns and a tall Coke when the pesky thing rang. “Bloody hell…” he muttered, then hurried towards his car so he could rest his breakfast on the roof and dig around in his pockets for the phone. He didn’t consider any call on his mobile to be a good sign, especially in the morning. He figured that either Amanda was having some sort of trouble, or else Mike had something dire to tell him. He caught it on the sixth ring.
“Wilson,” he answered gruffly.
“Grant…we found another one,” came the voice on the other end. It was Mike.
Grant closed his eyes and leaned heavily against the side of his cruiser, nearly tipping the big Coke over as the vehicle shifted with his weight.
“Oh, Christ.” He exhaled and the rush of air made a strange sound in the phone. “Hang on, Mike, I’m just getting in my car.”
Grant pinched the phone between his shoulder and ear while he fished around in his pockets a second time, this time for his car keys. When he had unlocked the car and got in, he asked, “Same spot?” without really wanting to know the answer.
“Well, not exactly. Close by though. Within a coupla hundred metres. It’s a woman as well.”
“A woman,” Sergeant Wilson repeated. His eyes rested for a moment on the little laminated wallet-sized photo of he and his wife, Amanda, taken a few years earlier, before she got sick. He kept it propped up o
n his dashboard.
“The dogs found her,” Mike was saying. “She’s only a few weeks old, they figure. So that places her before the Walker girl but well after the other Jane Doe.”
“No identification?”
“She wasn’t wearing too much in the way of clothes considering the weather. Just jeans and a T-shirt. Couldn’t find anything in the pockets. She was a real mess.”
“I see,” Grant said. Since Susan Walker, they had discovered another two bodies. How many more would there be? “We need an expert,” he mumbled.
“What?” Mike said.
“I said, we need an expert. This is going to get uglier. I can feel it.”
CHAPTER 13
Makedde popped the lid on a bottle of Visine artificial tears and tossed her head back. She raised the little clear bottle over one eye—plop—and then the other, and her aching dry eyes accepted the liquid gratefully.
Must sleep. Must sleep.
She wanted to be alert for the conference, and she cursed herself for not being able to get some good shut-eye the night before. There was no time for napping now—it’d have to be the trusty caffeine hit once again.
“Excuse me…”
Mak looked up. Liz Sharron, one of Dr Hare’s assistants, was standing at the lectern at the front of the room, talking into the microphone. She had been in charge of some of the organisation of the conference. She was smiling, and her red corkscrew hair bounced as she spoke.
“Dr Hare and a couple of the other speakers are running a few minutes late,” she announced. “Traffic.” Liz rolled her eyes, ever the entertainer. “ We expect them in about twenty minutes. Sorry for the delay.”
Yup, coffee break, Makedde decided. She went to stand, but one of her black boots stuck unexpectedly to the carpet when she got up from her seat. The corners of her mouth turned down. Something tacky was wedged in the rubber treads.
