“Do you have any theories as to what might have gone on?”
I asked blandly. “Speculations that go above and beyond what you’ve read?”
He leaned forward in the chair, his demeanor dramatically changing again. His eyes got hot with emotion. His lower lip began to quiver.
“I see scenes in my mind,” he said.
“Such as?”
“Things I wouldn’t want to tell the police.”
“I’m not the police,” I said.
“They wouldn’t understand,” he said. “These things I see and feel without having any reason to know them. It’s like Frankie.”
He blinked back tears. “It’s like the others. I could see what happened and understand it, even though I wasn’t always given the details. But you don’t always need the details. Nor are you likely to get them in most instances. You know why that is, don’t you?”
“I’m not sure …”
“Because the Frankies in the world don’t know the details, either! It’s like a bad accident you can’t remember. The awareness returns like waking up from a bad dream and you find yourself staring at the wreckage. The mother who no longer has a face. Or the Beryl who is bloody and dead. The Frankies wake up when they’re running or a cop they don’t remember calling pulls up in front of the house.”
“Are you telling me Beryl’s killer doesn’t remember exactly what he did?”
I asked carefully.
He nodded.
“You’re quite sure of that?”
“Your most skilled psychiatrist could question him for a million years and there would never be an accurate replay,” Hunt said. “The truth will never be known. It has to be re-created and, to an extent, inferred.”
“Which is what you’ve done. Re-created and inferred.” I said.
He wet his bottom lip, his breathing tremulous. “Do you want me to tell you what I see?”
“Yes,” I answered.
“Much time had elapsed since his first contact with her,” he began. “But she had no awareness of him as a person, though she may have seen him somewhere in the past–seen him without having any idea. His frustration, his obsessiveness had driven him to her doorstep. Something kicked that off, made it an overwhelming need to confront her.”
“What?” I asked. “What kicked it off?”
“I don’t know.”
“What was he feeling when he decided to come after her?”
Hunt closed his eyes and said, “Anger. Anger because he couldn’t make things work the way he wanted.”
“Anger because he couldn’t have a relationship with Beryl?” I asked.
Eyes still shut, Hunt slowly shook his head from side to side and said, “No. Maybe that’s what was closest to the surface. But the root was much deeper. Anger because nothing worked the way he wanted it to in the beginning.”
“When he was a child?” I asked.
“Yes.”
“Was he abused?”
“He was emotionally,” Hunt said.
“By whom?”
Eyes still shut, he answered, “His mother. When he killed Beryl he killed his mother.”
“Do you study forensic psychiatry books, Al? Do you read about these things?” I asked.
He opened his eyes and stared at me as if he had not heard what I had said.
He went on, emotionally, “You have to appreciate how many times he had imagined the moment. It wasn’t impulsive in the sense he simply rushed to her house without premeditation. The timing may have been impulsive, but his method had been planned with meticulous detail. He absolutely couldn’t afford for her to be alarmed and refuse him entrance into her house. She’d call the police, give them a description. And even if he wasn’t apprehended, his mask had been ripped off and he’d never be able to come near her again. He had created a scheme that was guaranteed not to fail, something that would not excite her suspicions. When he appeared at her door that night, he inspired trust. And she let him in.”
In my mind I saw the man in Beryl’s foyer, but I could not see his face or the color of his hair, just an indistinct figure and the glinting of the long steel blade as he introduced himself with the weapon he used to murder her.
“This is when it deteriorated for him,” Hunt continued. “He won’t remember what happened next.