Basically, I wanted to sit and talk about my marriage, but Carlotta, as she encouraged me to call her, wanted me to lie on the couch and relive my childhood. Since I can’t remember a single problem in my childhood, this seemed a waste of time. Besides, I reasoned, there was always the danger that I might discover some actual childhood problems, which I had no desire to do.
Carlotta told me that I was in heavy denial, a charge I will refuse to accept until the day I die. I stopped seeing her, but we became friends, having dinner once in a while. It cost me just as much, but at least I got something to eat, and I could sit up when I talked.
Edna has made an appointment for me with Carlotta at her office. I show up ten minutes early and sit in the waiting room for her door to open. I know that it will open exactly at the scheduled time, not one minute before or one minute after.
It does open, and one of Carlotta’s patients exits. We of course do not make eye contact; I don’t make eye contact with anyone, and I’m not about to start with a fellow shrinkee. Carlotta follows him into the waiting area and invites me into her office.
Once we’re inside and the door is closed, she says, “I assume you’re not here because of a sudden craving for mental health?”
I shake my head. “Been there, done that.”
I walk toward the couch to lie down, then do a brief turn and sit in the chair opposite hers. “I’m here for your professional expertise, for which I am prepared to pay handsomely.”
I go on to describe the murders and what I consider the unusual actions the killer has taken. I know this isn’t really Carlotta’s forte, and she would never qualify as an expert in court, but I think she can give me some insight.
When I finish, she thinks for a moment, then asks, “Do you know if the victims were strangled from the front or the rear?”
I had forgotten to cover that. “From the rear. Most likely with a scarf.”
She thinks quietly for a while longer. “Andy, what I know about serial killers probably couldn’t fill a good-sized paragraph.”
“Take your best shot.”
She nods. “All right. Let’s assume for the moment that the murders are a result of pathology, not motive. Because if there is revenge involved, or money, or anything like that, what I have to say is of no value whatsoever.”
“Gotcha.”
“The interesting factor to me,” she says, “is the absence of rape, pre-or postmortem. I’m sure you know rape isn’t a sexual crime; it’s a crime of power or dominance. Sometimes when the rapist is intimidated by women, he will commit the rape postmortem, when the victim cannot possibly assert her will.”
“But when there’s no rape? No sexual assault of any kind?” I ask.
“That could suggest a fear of women so powerful that the killer can’t assert dominance, at least sexual dominance, even after death. This is obviously just a guess, but the attack from behind would tend to support it.”
“He doesn’t even have the courage to face women head-on?”
She nods. “Right.”
What she is saying seems to make sense to me. “What about cutting off the hands?”
She shakes her head. “Very hard to say. Maybe he was abused by a woman, and the method of abuse could have involved her hands. Or maybe he feels horribly manipulated by women, and this is a symbolic way to put a stop to it. There’s really no way to tell with the limited information you have, Andy.”
I broaden the conversation to include some nonprivileged information about Daniel, including the murder of his wife. She sees little likelihood that a murder of a spouse for money could fit with the killings we’ve seen these last few weeks. It’s encouraging and confirms my instincts as well.
I thank Carlotta and head home, feeling a little better about things. I’m starting to open up to the remote possibility that Daniel is not guilty. The evidence says otherwise, but attacking evidence is what I do.
Laurie is waiting for me when I get home, on the front lawn throwing a ball to Tara. My two favorite women, waiting eagerly for their man to come home. Can my newspaper, pipe, and slippers be far behind?
Apparently, they can, since as soon as Laurie sees me she sends me back out to bring home some pizza. In Laurie’s case, she orders so many toppings that it’s more of a salad than a pizza. Since I’m a man’s man, I get a man’s pizza, plain cheese. That way I can eat four pieces, eat just the cheese off the other four, and give the crusts to Tara.
After dinner we have some wine. Laurie has opened a rather flinty-tasting bottle, but I decide that sitting in candlelight, minutes before bed, is not the time to lecture or educate her. Instead, she tells me of her session with Richard Dempsey, husband of murder victim Nancy Dempsey.
Laurie did not like him very much at all. On three separate occasions he let slip the fact that theirs was a troubled marriage, comments that Laurie considered inappropriate in light of the subsequent tragic events. “If I had given him the opportunity, I think he would have tried hitting on me,” she says.
“Should that ever happen, use the face-smash-into-the-car maneuver you used on the pimp,” I say.
She nods. “Will do.”
“Do you think he’s involved in this?”
She firmly shakes her head. “I don’t, Andy. The guy’s a little slimy, but a serial killer? I could be wrong, but it just doesn’t fit at all.”
Nothing fits, and it’s starting to get on my nerves. I’m also feeling tired, and what I want to do right now is get into bed with Laurie. The problem is that she seems comfortable on the couch, drinking wine and petting Tara’s head.
My mind races, wondering how to lure her into the sack. I think back to the numerous techniques I tried on women during my fraternity days, but the one thing they had in common was that they never worked.
“You ready for bed?” she asks.
I fake-yawn nonchalantly. “Whenever . . .”
“Then I’ll stay up for a while. You can go on to sleep. You look tired.”
There’s as much chance of me going to bed without Laurie as there is of me crawling into the microwave and pressing High.
“No, staying up is fine. I’m completely wide awake,” I say. “I can’t remember the last time I was this awake.”
She smiles, a humoring-the-pathetic-idiot smile. “I think we should go to bed. You coming?” she asks.
“Damn right,” I say. “I’m exhausted.”
She takes my hand and we go to bed.
I am Andy the master manipulator.
• • • • •
RANDY CLEMENS HAS the same look on his face every time I visit him, and today is no exception. Once again he has a plan, an idea, and he’s positive that his telling it to me will be the first step to freedom. He’s hopeful and enthusiastic, and those feelings are not tempered by the fact that every time he’s felt them before he’s been wrong.
Unfortunately, my job is to always break the bad news. But I secretly harbor my own faint hope, the hope that one day his idea for a new appeal will be brilliant, something I completely overlooked, and will result in his being set free. In a sadistic quid pro quo, it always falls on him to demonstrate that I am wrong, simply by telling me his idea.
He enters the visiting room, and his eyes seek me out from the other visitors and prisoners, talking to each other on phones through the glass partitions. He heads toward me, though pausing to warily eye the others on his side of the glass. Seeming to decide that it is safe, he sits down.
“Andy, thanks for coming,” he says. “I know it’s a hassle.”