Smothering would appear to be the cause, pathologist remarks, due to the absence of bruises on the neck.
How smothered? No microscopic fibers present and therefore no way to determine, pathologist remarks. Could have been anything placed over the boy’s face, such as a pillow or even a person’s hand.
Time of death also key point. Pathologist sets time at from twelve to twenty-four hours before body was discovered, placing time of death at between eleven a.m. and eleven p.m. the previous day and night, adding that forthcoming lab tests might narrow time more closely, although remaining within the general time frame. Unusual question at this time from Lt. Dulac, as he asks if there is any way to pinpoint time of death more closely, so that it might be determined if it occurred before or after the newspapers were available yesterday between two and three p.m., to which the examining physician only shakes his head no.
Added question to me from Lt. Dulac: Would such a person repeat his actions by abducting another child?
Reply: Highly possible, even possible that he would do so relatively soon given his apparent state of emotional need. Possible, too, that such a person in the process of psychological stress might become a so-called serial killer until caught and stopped, that the recent history of highly publicized serial murders could be suggestive to such an individual. A key element in this case, I point out, is the fact that the child was kept and cared for for an extensive period of time, which would indicate the need or desire on the part of the killer for the ongoing presence of a child, which would support the logic in his mind of attempting to abduct another child. Also, I add, such things are easier the second time. So a definite possibility, even a likelihood, of other attempted abductions.
Added question from Lt. Dulac: Was there torture? Did the killer inflict pain on purpose or for sexual gratification?
Reply: Not per se, apparently. Rape occurred, certainly, for sexual gratification, but otherwise no signs of torture.
How much suffering did the boy experience?
Reply: A great deal. He was bound, he was raped, he was at the mercy of his captor for some seventy to eighty hours, and he was suffocated. His suffering would have been altogether real. Unbearable. At the same time, there is the evidence of his being cared for, so perhaps his suffering was intense at different times.
Given this feeling of caring, Lt. Dulac asks, why would he be raped, an act of sexual violence?
Reply: In his own mind, killer may have believed he was providing sexual pleasure, as the psychodynamics of nurturing and sexuality are confused in the mind of a pedophile. As a child, suspect may have experienced satisfying sexual experiences with other children, boys or girls, or with adults, and he may have been of the belief that sexual pleasure was being given to the victim.
He isn’t necessarily homosexual?
Reply: Not necessarily.
Any possible association or acting out of pornographic film, Children in Bondage, believed to have been viewed by suspect prior to abduction?
Reply: Children in both instances bound by the wrists, followed by anal penetration, but nothing conclusive in these details to indicate that one was an acting out of the other, since both might be classified as more or less ordinary activities.
Would suspect have been stimulated to pursue sexual activity?
Reply: Very possibly.
Would he have been stimulated to pursue sexual activity of a particular kind, as with children?
Reply: He did, apparently, pursue sex in a gay bar, with an adult male, which experience was frustrating to him, at the same time that he may have been predisposed, prior to the film, and most of his life, to seeking sexual gratification from children.
Most of his life?
Reply: A pedophile is often a person who failed to receive adequate love and attention in childhood; he both develops a sexual fixation on children, as if to make up for the neglect he experienced himself as a child, and also, possibly in a double-edge of motivation, might express his anger and resentment to parents in general, including certainly his own, by depriving them of their child.
It is known, Lt. Dulac says, that the prime suspect attempted to obtain other, presumably hard-core child porn; if he had been successful, would Eric Wells be alive today?
Reply: Studies were believed to have indicated that yes, pornographic materials might absorb such a person’s sexual needs, such studies now in question by some experts. My personal opinion: Like many researchers I believed in liberalization of sexual mores over past twenty to twenty-five years, at the same time that it has become clear that the effects on specific individuals remains unknown and inconclusive. It’s a classic dilemma in which what may be good for many may be disastrous for a few.
Has a new pathology come into existence?
Reply: A new pathology? You mean like a new bacteria strain?
Yes, Lt. Dulac says. A new sexual pathology. It’s been suggested to me by a caller from a university in Boston.
Reply: This person is suggesting a new sexual pathology is in existence?
Exactly. A new sexual pathology.
Reply: Given to what in particular?
As I understand him, it is given to having its way. Simply that. A belief. An attitude.
Reply. You’re asking me if I believe such a pathology has come into existence?
That’s what I’m asking.
Reply: I would say definitely not. In fact, I think your caller—I’ve never heard of the idea—I think your caller may be a fraud or an impostor of some kind. Having one’s way isn’t a pathology, it’s simply a state of mind.
Thanked for my help by Lt. Dulac, I understand I am being granted permission to leave. I do so, to certain relief. Profound relief, I should say. The experience, I know as soon as I am outside, walking to my car, is one from which I will never fully recover. The psychological strain to those persons going on to conclude the task at hand is more, I believe, than I had ever imagined.
CHAPTER 17
MATT IS IN THE MALL, walking. He could not say why he is here, only that he had not wanted to go upstairs to the apartment as the policemen drove away. If his mother was there or not—they had told him she wasn’t—the prospect of being in the apartment appeared impossible. What would he do? Sit there? Wait for his mother to call? Sit and think about Eric? In a way he wanted to be alone with his thoughts about his brother, but not alone in their apartment.
Three truant boys from school come along. In no mood to see them, Matt has no escape. At once they are there, gathering around, for they have heard the news, too, and he has to stand with them and hear their words, although they are not quite friends. Nelson Labrecque, a muscular boy who lifts weights and has a reputation for amazing strength and toughness, says to him seriously, “Jesus, man, how are you doing?”
“Okay,” Matt says.
“Cops know who did it?”
“I don’t know,” Matt says. “They have this suspect they’re after.”
“They’ll never get him; they do, he’ll just get off.”
“Yeah,” Matt says.
“I catch him,” Labrecque says, “I’d cut off his cock and make him eat it.”
There is some laughter; Matt smiles with them, thinking he should not do so, not with his brother dead.
“I’m not joking,” Labrecque says. “I’m not joking. You find out who it is, let me know. I don’t have no little brother, but I have a little sister. Don’t think I’m joking. I’ll kill this guy. That cocksucker. I’ll tell you, he’d wish he’d never run into my ass.”
“The vigilante strikes!” one of the boys says.
“I tell you I’m not joking.”
“Yeah yeah.”
“Don’t fuck with me, man! I tell you I’m not joking.”
“Okay.”
“Don’t think it’s a joke. Everybody thinks everything’s a joke. You fucking jerks.”
“Jesus, take it easy.”
“Don’t make everything a joke.”
; “You don’t have to go off your rocker.”
“Don’t make everything a joke, that’s all.”
“Okay.”
“It’s not funny. It is not a joke. You fucking cowards. Show me that sonofabitch, I’ll show you a joke.”
“Jesus, man, sorry for breathing.”
“You should be,” Nelson Labrecque says. “This guy’s brother has been murdered. His life has been eliminated. That is not a joke.”
“Okay, it’s not a joke.”
The three go on their way, and Matt walks on again, too. Fear is in him now; there seems something threatening all around, and a thought comes to him that Cormac is who he’d like to see. Of all people. They could laugh or smile over practically nothing, Matt thinks, and there would be a feeling at least of something like everyday life in the air. Or Eric. He’d go for seeing Eric, too. Everything was always so easy with Eric. It was funny, when they were out like this, like looking through the Mall, they always got along easily. They only fought at home. When they were out somewhere they seldom fought. They didn’t talk so much, not like when he was with Cormac, but they didn’t fight. It was like they were one person. It was like they were the same person, and he wonders if they were in some way.
CHAPTER 18
DULAC IS RUSHED AND RATTLED. LEAVING THE HOSPITAL, he is headed downtown—he must go there, he thinks—where a press conference has already gathered, is waiting for him to walk into its center. The news must go out. He has to meet the press, do the job. But other things are in his mind and what he wants to do is to slow down enough to figure out what has happened and what it is he has to do.
The sonofabitch is here! he keeps saying to himself, even as he stops and starts at intersections. He’s in Portsmouth! He may be in his classes! He may be going on like nothing has happened! He may return to the cottage! He is here, somewhere! He’s been here all along!
He has to have another car, Dulac thinks. That white van report. That must be it. But there’s the report of a gray coupe, too. Did he switch plates? Did he switch plates and stay low and manage to slip around without being noticed?
Dulac accelerates as a light changes, decides again not to use his siren. Oh, it isn’t the killer so much that is in his mind, he suddenly admits to himself. It isn’t him. It’s the small boy back there on the table. It’s the small boy and the awareness within him—it is a kernel, a pebble, in the center of his heart—that he had a hand himself in his death. Had he done one thing or another, or done some one thing differently, it might not have happened. They might have won. No one was likely to blame him. Still, the truth was, he was the loser. It was his game, and he was the loser. Yesterday at this time the boy was probably alive. He was alive all day Sunday, all day Monday. All that time. Then, yesterday sometime, or last night, he was killed. As the cop on duty, he wasn’t smart enough, wasn’t good enough, and he came in a loser. He had a chance to bring him in and he hadn’t been up to it. If they had won, everyone would have shared the credit. But there was only one loser. And it was the person running the show.
Did he hold his hand over the boy’s face? Dulac wonders. Is that what he did? Did he watch him die? Feel him die?
Why the pedicure and manicure? Why drop the body off where it would be so quickly found? Was he taunting them? Was he arrogant? What kind of person were they dealing with? Should they get an alert out to keep a close eye on all children? Did they have some oddball child-killer on their hands, some twisted character who was going to imitate the serial killings that had been going on around the country? Here in their small, out-of-the-way town?
Dulac’s jaw is tight and he is squinting some as he pulls around the corner before the police station. He waits for a car to pass “before turning in—he glimpses a young man standing on the sidewalk across the street; they are everywhere, he thinks—and makes his turn, thinking then of the packet of death photos in his shirt pocket. Polaroid shots, they include pictures of Eric Wells’s face, his sunken eyes, the bluish dehydrated pallor over his skin, the wound in his skull, the faint tie marks on his wrists and ankles, his ruptured rectum. He calls into effect his personal mechanism for controlling anger and outrage. For what he’d like to do is show the pictures to the press. Have them played on television. Here you have a dead child. Notice the faint bluish color of his skin. Notice how it blends into that yellowish tint. These are the colors of death. They are the colors we tolerate.
The white laundry truck. Where in the hell can you get to in a white laundry truck? It has to be spotted soon and either cleared or implicated. Could more than one person be involved? Was it really this Vernon asshole? Was he working alone? What if the reporters turn on him now? What if they charge him with being ineffective?
There is Shirley, intercepting him on his way to the squad room. She takes him aside. It’s the first time he’s seen her since he dropped her off early that morning; she is a little worn, not as pretty as she used to be. “Gil, several things are happening,” she says, “The father, Warren Wells, called from New Orleans. Someone has been keeping him up on the news. He wants to come up here for the funeral and wants to know if charges will be brought against him.”
“Jesus, is it our jurisdiction?” Dulac says. “I don’t think it is. He should ask his ex-wife. Or talk to a lawyer. I think it might be up to Claire Wells. Did he give a number?”
“No, he wouldn’t do that. He’s going to call back. He sounds like a guy with a lot of problems. Money. Booze. Claire Wells called too, by the way, but I did not tell her about her former husband calling. She’s got some kind of problem, too. She won’t say what it is. The only person she will talk to is you. I don’t know for sure, but I have a feeling there was no insurance on the little boy. And of course she doesn’t have any money at all. I think the world may be crashing on her.”
“Oh, God, okay,” Dulac is saying. “Call her back, will you? Tell her I’ll call her as soon as I can.”
“She’s distraught. She’s at her friend’s; she won’t even talk to her friend about whatever it is.”
“Well, tell her not to worry. Jesus. Tell her not to worry. Are the pictures here? Did the pictures come in?”
“Oh, yes. The pictures are here. It’s a high school graduation picture. In color. Of course, he doesn’t look like a murderer. And,” she adds, lowering her voice, “something else is here. The secret witness. He came in. He confirms the picture, by the way, but that’s not why he’s here. He said, this is what he said: He couldn’t stay away. That’s what he said. He’s a little upset, I think. What happened between you two? He came in, gave me his name, like he’s coming out of the closet or something.”
“He’s where?”
“In your cubicle. But staying secret doesn’t seem to be a big thing to him anymore. Or anything at all.”
“Okay, I’ll talk to him.”
Dulac goes along the hall. He doesn’t know what he is thinking. Nothing seems willing to hold in place long enough for him to learn from it when, without titles or seams, something else is playing on his mind’s screen. Claire Wells. The long-absent father. The white laundry truck. Shirley. Coming around the corner into his cubicle, he sees the secret witness, Martin, sitting in a chair. On a glimpse, Dulac had seen the reporters, photographers, TV camera people filling the squad room. “What’s the deal?” he says. “Is something wrong?”
“Lieutenant, please, listen—”
“You can’t stay away?” Dulac says.
“It’s the truth. I—”
“You’re going to get identified, you know?”
“I don’t care about that. It doesn’t matter. My God, I sell real estate. I know who your wife is.”
“You might care tomorrow.”
“So I’ll cry tomorrow. Sometimes you have to do things. I have to do this. I have to be here. I want to help, it’s more important to me—”
“Okay,” Dulac says, patting his pockets to be sure he has his lighter and cigarettes to take with him into the wolf’s den. “O
kay. Anyone asks you anything, say you’re working for me. Tell them to see me.”
“Lieutenant, thank you. You have to know how much respect—”
“Okay, okay,” Dulac says, again holding up his stop sign, as Shirley appears in his doorway. “White truck’s been found and cleared,” she says. “Hampton Beach. It’s a delivery van, not a laundry truck; driver had legitimate business there.”
“Who checked it?”
“DeMarcus. He’s still checking it, but he says it checks out.”
“So it was the gray car,” Dulac says. “He’s driving his own car.”
“It looks that way,” Shirley says.
“I can’t understand why no one is coming in with that car. Could he be cagey enough to be using another gray car?”
“I’ve got the pictures,” Shirley says. “You want me to pass them out in there?”
“Yeah, good idea. Let me have one.” Dulac is on his way then, taking from Shirley, as she removes it from a manila envelope, one of the five-by-seven color photographs of the face of a graduating high school senior. Turning into the squad room, his presence creating a response followed almost immediately by the beginning of a hush, Dulac keeps looking down at the face in the picture, seeing something there, trying to see something there, trying to understand what it is he is seeing, as he makes his way along the side to the head of the room, still thinking as he looks back at them, as he starts climbing up on a table, what is it? What in the world is it? Is it really some kind of new pathology?
CHAPTER 19
VERNON IS STANDING ON THE SIDEWALK. HE WALKS A FEW steps, stands awkwardly again in the middle of the sidewalk. A woman pedestrian steps around him, goes on her way. For something to do then, he walks to the corner. He pauses and looks around. He doesn’t know what to do. He doesn’t know if he wants to go or stay, or if he wishes to sing or cry or step into the street in front of a car. Whatever it is that is within him, he wants it not to go on. If it is a snake family within him in place of his intestines, he wants them to be still. If there is a small monkey there reaching to squeeze his heart, to make it shrill with tidal currents and messages like his testicles being squeezed, he wants it to stop. They refuse to do so. And they sing into his ears. He walks, and stands, and needs or seeks or desires resolution, or confrontation, or conclusion.
The True Detective Page 40
