“He runs his bookstore by himself?”
Marino asked.
“It’s a small operation. No other employees. The store is closed on Mondays. It’s been noted that when there isn’t much business he just sits behind the counter and reads, and if he leaves the store before closing time he either closes early or puts a sign on the door that says he’ll be back at such and such an hour. He also has an answering machine. If you’re looking for a certain book or want him to search for something out of print, you can leave your request on his machine.”
“It’s interesting that someone so antisocial would open a business that requires him to have contact with customers, even if the contact is rather limited,” I said.
“It’s actually very appropriate, ” Wesley said. “The bookstore would serve as a perfect lair for a voyeur, someone intensely interested in observing people without having to personally interact with them. It has been noted that William and Mary students frequent his store, primarily because Spurrier carries unusual, out-of-print books in addition to popular fiction and nonfiction. He also carries a wide selection of spy novels and military magazines, which attract business from the nearby military bases. If he’s the killer, then watching young, attractive couples and military personnel who come into his store would fascinate him in a voyeuristic fashion and at the same time stir up feelings of inadequacy, frustration, rage. He would hate what he envies, envy what he hates.”
“I wonder if he suffered ridicule during his time in the navy,” I conjectured.
“Based on what I’ve been told, he did, at least to a degree. Spurrier’s peers considered him a wimp, a loser, while his superiors found him arrogant and aloof, even though he was never a disciplinary problem. Spurrier had no success with women and kept to himself, partly by choice and because others did not find his personality particularly attractive.”
“Maybe being in the navy was the closest he ever got to being a real man,” Marino said, “being what he wanted to be. His father dies and Spurrier has to take care of his sick mother. In his mind, he gets screwed.”
“That’s quite possible,” Wesley agreed. “In any event, the killer we’re dealing with would believe that his troubles are the fault of others. He would take no responsibility. He would feel his life was controlled by others, and therefore, controlling others and his environment became an obsession for him.”
“Sounds like he’s paying back the world,” Marino said.
“The killer is showing he has power,” Wesley said. “If the military aspects enter into his fantasies, and I think they do, then he believes he’s the ultimate soldier. He kills without being caught. He outsmarts the enemy, plays games with them, and wins. It may be possible that he has deliberately set things up in such a way as to make those investigating the murders suspect that the perpetrator is a professional soldier, even someone from Camp Peary.”
“His own disinformation campaign,” I considered.
“He can’t destroy the military,” Wesley added, “but he could try to tarnish the image, degrade and defame it.”
“Yeah, and all the while he’s laughing up his sleeve,” Marino said.
“I think the main point is that the killer’s activities are the product of violent, sexualized fantasies that existed early on in the context of his social isolation. He believes he lives in an unjust world, and fantasy provides an important escape. In his fantasies he can express his emotions and control other human beings, he can be and get anything he wants. He can control life and death. He has the power to decide whether to injure or “Too bad Spurrier don’t just fantasize about whacking couples,” Marino said. “Then the three of us wouldn’t have to be sitting here having this conversation.”
“I’m afraid it doesn’t work that way,” Wesley said. “If violent, aggressive behavior dominates your thinking, your imagination, you’re going to start acting out in ways that move you closer to the actual expression of these emotions. Violence fuels more violent thoughts, and more violent thoughts fuel more violence. After a while, violence and killing are a natural part of your adult life, and you see nothing wrong with it. I’ve had serial murderers tell me emphatically that when they killed, they were just doing what everybody else thinks of doing.”