Burning Man

by Alan Russell

  We were about to meet in our usual spot, a holding cell called the Lawyer’s Room. The space was bigger than the eight-by-six-foot cells at San Quentin, but not much bigger. When Haines was in the room, it always felt too small.

  San Quentin sits on over four hundred acres of land, much of it bordering San Francisco Bay. The land alone is said to be worth over a billion dollars. Because it’s the oldest prison in California and because the land is worth so much, lots of people would like to see San Quentin razed, with the proceeds going to the state. I doubt whether the inmates would object. Despite being the most valuable prison in the world, San Quentin is still a shit hole.

  The Q’s exterior belies the interior. From a distance, the town of San Quentin looks charming. The homes occupied by staff are inviting and well maintained, and the grounds inside the gate are attractive, with nicely tended lawns and rose gardens.

  From certain angles, San Quentin looks like a castle, with high granite walls and ancient battlements. You can even imagine the bay as its huge moat. Put lipstick on a pig, though, and it’s still a pig. The gardens and the ocean can’t disguise the fact that the Q is a prison with gun towers and razor wire. If you watch any old black-and-white films that have a prison setting, you’ll get a feel for what San Quentin is like.

  Although I’d been making trips to San Quentin once a month for the past year, I was no more comfortable now than the first time I visited. On my calendar I always marked impending visits with a black X, and as the date drew closer the black X always seemed to get bigger and darker, mirroring my own personal gravity and mood. I always pretended the visits weren’t any big deal; Seth Mann knew that wasn’t the case. I suspected Ellis Haines did as well.

  His singsong voice reached out to me again, traveling along the concrete made cold from the damp grip of the bay: “This alone, I was convinced, had driven him out to the edge of the forest, to the bush, towards the gleam of fires, the throb of drums, the drone of weird incantations; this alone had beguiled his unlawful soul beyond the bounds of permitted aspirations.”

  I didn’t answer his, and Conrad’s, madness.

  Ellis Haines wouldn’t talk with the FBI. He didn’t deign to open up to his court-ordered psychiatrist and wouldn’t participate in therapy. Haines refused any interviews that weren’t of his own invention. Many death row inmates solicit correspondence; Haines received ten thousand letters a year and answered very few of them. The warden had told me that in the past year more than five hundred women had expressed interest in marrying Haines.

  He was the “it” serial murderer. There were websites selling Ellis Haines action figures, calendars, and playing cards. To too many, the ramblings of Haines were considered gospel, and there were many people trying to make him out as a twisted prophet. The darkness that was Haines had caught on worldwide. Other killers had tapped into humanity’s collective shadow side, but no one had ever been as popular a sideshow as Haines. His public pronouncements were among the most viewed on YouTube. The world wanted more and more of him; I think one of the reasons he liked seeing me was because I wanted less.

  When I turned the corner, I could see Haines’s face from inside the Lawyer’s Room. He smiled for me; I didn’t return the smile. Haines had been an exceptionally handsome man, but the fire had scarred him. Our burns were on the opposite sides of our faces; his scarring was on the left side of his face, mine on the right. Haines’s scarring gave him a leering look that he didn’t seem to mind. It was ironic that both of us had a matching set of hypertrophic scarring on our faces; in truth it creeped me out.

  “Detective Gideon,” he said, “always a pleasure to see you.”

  I nodded.

  “And I believe you know my posse?”

  There were correctional officers inside and outside the cell. The solitary CO that had accompanied me saw me to the door but not beyond. As usual, I’d be left alone with Haines. Because his hands were shackled, Haines assumed the position for their removal, turning his back to the door and sliding his hands through an opening in the now-locked door. His body language suggested he was the one doing the correctional officers a favor by being in their company. After his handcuffs were removed, Haines momentarily rubbed his wrists before being herded to a seat.

  Haines never went anywhere without at least three correctional officers accompanying him. Inmates were not allowed to approach him; nor were they supposed to speak or talk to him. The prison officials didn’t want Haines dying in captivity, like Dahmer or DeSalvo. They knew that other inmates were jealous of his notoriety, and that his death would be a feather in the cap for anyone taking him out.

  As I sat down at the table, I found Haines’s eyes fixed on me. “Hello,” he said; he wasn’t addressing me so much as he was my bruising.

  The correctional officers filed out. When we were alone I produced a piece of paper with typewritten questions on it.

  “The last time we talked,” I said, “we began to discuss your family.”

  His eyes continued studying my neck. He was like a wino fixated on someone else’s full bottle.

  “Your bruising is recent,” Haines said. “It’s not yet in full bloom. I would guess it happened last night.”

  “According to you,” I said, “you had a perfectly normal childhood, with no physical or sexual abuse.”

  “I don’t believe your bruises are consistent with manual strangulation; I see no telltale marks from prying fingers.”

  “Did you love your parents?”

  “And what you have isn’t the kind of bruising that occurs from a figure-four hold or a carotid restraint, or even a lateral vascular neck restraint. Neither is the bruising pattern consistent with the ligature marks from a tightened stocking, but it was some kind of garrote, wasn’t it?”

  “I’m into autoerotic asphyxiation. Is that something you practiced as well?”

  I was rather proud of my transition into another question. The Feds had actually wanted me to ask him about autoerotic asphyxiation.

  “If I answer that question,” Haines said, “will you answer mine?”

  When I finally nodded he said, “I never practiced, or was personally interested in, autoerotic asphyxiation. What caused those marks around your neck?”

  “An animal-control pole.”

  My answer delighted Haines. “I never considered such an application. What a perfect use. As you know, I prefer the up-close-and-personal techniques, but there were those occasions when having a little distance would have made things much easier. And while I would never perform the coup de grace with such a tool, it could certainly prove useful as a prelude to a kill. Now who was it that wanted you hurt and why?”

  “It was my girlfriend. She was dressed up as Little Bo Peep and I was the sheep. I’m afraid she got a little rough.”

  “I hope you don’t think you’re pulling the wool over my eyes with that story.”

  He wanted a smile, so I frowned. Haines’s initial greeting had summed up only too well where we were: in the heart of darkness. Whenever I visit San Quentin, I have to sign a form at reception that states the prison authorities aren’t responsible for me if I am taken captive and won’t be bargaining for my release. The form also states they aren’t liable for any injuries I sustain and that if I die it’s my own tough luck.

  San Quentin is the only place in the state of California where you can legally kill another human being. The prison has the dubious distinction of having the largest death row contingent in the nation. At last count, almost six hundred fifty prisoners were waiting to die. They once hung inmates at San Quentin, and then they built a gas chamber and gassed them with hydrogen cyanide, but nowadays lethal injections are used on the condemned. The gas chamber—painted in awful lime green—has not yet been retired, though. It is still the death room. The condemned inmates are strapped down on a gurney inside of the gas chamber and lethally injected.

  Most of the condemned inmates live in the East Block, a five-story cage of the damned that is loud
and leaky. Scott Peterson, who was convicted of murdering his pregnant wife Laci, is one of those there. The privileged killers are in North Segregation. No one would mistake North Seg for a country club, but it’s relatively quiet and on a good day wouldn’t be mistaken for a leper colony.

  I was a visitor, but it still felt as if I was the one on death row.

  “Actually,” I said, “one of the reasons I came here was to question you about my attackers.”

  “And why would you question me?”

  “Because my assailants sounded as if they were acting on your behalf. They definitely were true believers, referring to the Prophet. Isn’t that what you’re calling yourself these days?”

  “I have never referred to myself as a prophet. It is others that have given me that title.”

  “These three had all swallowed your end-of-the-world drivel hook, line, and sinker. I heard them talking up your favorite buzzwords like ‘Götterdämmerung,’ and ‘Ragnarok,’ and ‘the twilight of the gods.’ They also said something about settling the score.”

  “I had nothing to do with the attack on you.”

  “Their leader said my death would debunk the very notion that there is such a thing as good and evil. That sounds like your blather.”

  “I find all of that interesting.”

  “That’s all you have to say?”

  “Do you blame Christ for his many so-called followers that have killed in his name?”

  “I’d be more comfortable if you compared yourself to Adolf Hitler.”

  “My point is that if these want-to-be disciples were trying to act in my name, they were not directed by me. I am very selective in the followers I choose.”

  “What? They need to have a pulse?”

  “Many are called but few are chosen.”

  “I am going to nail my attackers,” I said. “The ringleader had some distinctive tattoos. You better hope he doesn’t implicate you.”

  “I am guilty only of being a visionary.”

  “Spreading ignorance doesn’t even make you a false prophet.”

  Haines continued to stare at the bruising on my neck. “I suppose I should be flattered that they tried to avenge me as well as pay homage to my handiwork.”

  “When you strangled your victims, were you playing out some kind of bondage fantasy?”

  “Is that one of the questions those Quantico miscreants prepared for you?”

  “Is that a yes?”

  “Why do you shill for the Behavioral Science Unit?”

  “Since you won’t talk to the FBI, I ask questions on their behalf.”

  “And you think that serves a purpose?”

  “You were a meteorologist.”

  “I am a meteorologist.”

  “You studied weather patterns. For a time your specialty was hurricanes. You worked on trying to understand what caused hurricanes to form, and when they did form you tried to predict their paths. The profilers are doing many of the same things you did. They accumulate data and try and figure out why certain individuals act as they do.”

  “So, I’m a hurricane, is that it?”

  “Don’t flatter yourself. The similarity starts and stops at a lot of hot air.”

  Before my partner and I captured Haines, he had been known in the media as the Santa Ana Strangler. After he was arrested a new nickname had caught on, one that was proving more popular than the original. Most people now called him the Weatherman, a nickname Haines detested. While it was true that he had been a weatherman on television for two years, he thought the title demeaning. As Haines was quick to point out, he was a trained meteorologist with many years of experience in the field.

  I liked it that the nickname of the Weatherman nettled him. At his trial, he had helped bring the name upon himself. After his guilt was pronounced by the jury, Haines had stood up and sung the song “Stormy Weather.” He didn’t quite do the Billie Holiday version, choosing to alter the lyrics to suit his own situation, but the effect was absolutely chilling. As the judge tried to regain control of his courtroom, Haines assumed a weatherman persona, complete with hand gestures and facial emphasis. Pointing to an imaginary screen, he said, “You can see we have an intense low-pressure area forming all over the Southland, and with it you can expect killer winds. If I were you, I’d shut your windows and lock your doors, because the big, bad wolf is about to blow.”

  And then, even as the bailiff was dragging him away, Haines did his imitation of the wolf blowing down a house, which caused more screams in the courtroom.

  He was always a good meteorologist, though. Later that day there were heavy winds throughout Los Angeles: Haines knew his stormy weather.

  Instead of being put off by my comments, he said, “The FBI brain trust would like to establish that I was a bed wetter, started fires, and abused animals, their famous holy trinity for serial murderers. You can cross those three questions off your list, as none apply.”

  “When did you first start to have thoughts about killing women?”

  “Why do you ask? Are you troubled by such thoughts?”

  “You keep projecting onto me. We’re nothing alike. You remind me of the kid who murdered his parents and then asked for mercy from the court because he was an orphan.”

  “Is that what passes for wit among gendarmes these days?”

  “No, what really makes us laugh is seeing pictures of you behind bars.”

  The behaviorists at the FBI would have been aghast at my interviewing technique. They had given me courses on how to “engage” Haines. I was supposed to be stroking his ego, not putting pins into it. They had stressed how I couldn’t be judgmental or challenging, and that the best way to proceed was to quietly listen. Tough shit.

  “Since you’re trying to get Brownie points from the FBI,” Haines said, “here’s a little tidbit for you. My lawyer is putting together an appeal. His claim is that I suffer from seasonal affective disorder. As has been well documented, all of my excesses occurred during Santa Ana conditions in the late fall and winter. He believes I became depressed because of the lack of light, and that this resulted in my temporary insanity.”

  My cough into my hands sounded amazingly like the word “bullshit.”

  “If my lawyer has his way, I’ll be reclassified from a serial murderer to a seasonal murderer.”

  “I could do without that weather report.”

  “You don’t like the forecast?”

  “Not when the climate doesn’t agree with me.”

  I looked down at my notebook and read another one of the FBI questions: “Did you suffer any physical injury, or was there a traumatic event that occurred, prior to when you first murdered?”

  “Oh, that’s right. You want a precipitating event that prompted my fall from grace. Why, yes, as a matter of fact something did happen. I attended my prom and some nasty girls dropped a bucket of pig’s blood on me.”

  I deviated from the prepared questions: “Do you enjoy horror novels?”

  “No, I detest stupid questions. However, I will offer an answer to your FBI handlers that might help them crack the Haines enigma: rosebud.”

  I gave Haines a hard look. It just made his smile grow.

  “Do you wish you’d killed me?” he asked.

  “No. If I had, my partner would have died.”

  “I was prepared for anything with two legs. It was the four legs that got me. How is my friend Sirius?”

  “Do you put bullets in all of your friends?”

  “Haines nodded. That happened in the heat of battle, Detective. And I still bear the scars where he put the bite on me. But none of that matters. Something happened to all of us that day. We bled together and burned together and came out on the other side together. I am convinced there was an amalgamation of beings.”

  “Do you hate cats now like you hate women?”

  “Whatever gave you the ridiculous idea that I hate women?”

  “Maybe I’m wrong, but eleven murders suggest just an itsy-bitsy bit of
antipathy toward them.”

  Haines waved away my theory and said, “We’ve had enough of this charade, haven’t we? Why don’t you put away your prop?”

  “It’s called a piece of paper, not a prop, and on it are the questions I came to ask.”

  “It’s called your excuse to come and see me. We know why you’re really here, though.”

  “We do?”

  “We’ve been dancing around the subject for months, but you’ve been afraid to bring it up. I’ve watched your struggles. Do you fear it’s your Pandora’s box?”

  “I think you’re confused. This isn’t the confessional.”

  “Isn’t it? We shared something in that canyon, didn’t we?”

  “We probably don’t see eye to eye on this, but I wouldn’t call being shot by you sharing. That’s kind of like passing on an STD and referring to it as sharing love.”

  “Do you have your own name for what occurred?”

  “In police parlance it’s called an arrest.”

  “You know that’s not what I’m talking about.”

  “So what is it that you think happened to us?”

  “We were surrounded by fire, and the smoke was everywhere. It was so hot our flesh was burning right off, but then in a blink of an eye everything changed.”

  “The wind shifted.”

  Haines shook his head. “I have studied weather patterns for all of my adult life. What happened cannot be explained in meteorological terms.”

  “We got lucky.”

  “You decided on our route based on how to get to Neverland. And right after that the light showed us the way; a silver path opened up for us.”

  “It was probably a random pattern of embers falling from the fire.”

  “Embers?” He put his incredulity on display. “And I suppose that what we did was merely fire walk over those embers. Those were strange embers indeed. They gave off light but they didn’t burn.”

  “I’ll tell Tony Robbins he should get some of those for his next fire walk.”

  “We escaped death by walking on a silver pathway that went straight through the fire and allowed for a way out.”

  I thought of Sister Frances. She had experienced a miracle. I didn’t want to think that I had. “Maybe the fire had already burned through. Maybe it blazed a trail for us.”