understand.’
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‘I’m not a criminal profiler.’
‘I don’t want you to be. I just want some input, fast. I want to
know if I’m starting out in the right direction.’
She nodded. Swept her hair back off her face.
‘The obvious conclusion is that he was a homosexual,’ she
said. ‘Possibly killed because of it. Or if not, then with full
awareness of it on the part of his attackers.’
I nodded.
‘There was genital amputation,’ she said.
‘You checked?’
‘I moved him a little,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I know you asked
me not to.’
I looked at her. She hadn’t been wearing gloves. She was a
tough lady. Maybe her classroom-bound reputation was undeserved.
‘Don’t worry about it,’ I said.
‘My guess is you’ll find his testicles and his penis in his
mouth. I doubt if his cheeks would have swelled that much
simply from a beating. It’s an obvious symbolic statement, from
the point of view of a homophobic attacker. Removing the
deviant organs, simulating oral sex.’
I nodded.
‘Likewise the nudity and the missing dog tags,’ she said.
‘Removing the army from the deviant is the same thing as
removing the deviant from the army.’
I nodded.
‘The foreign object insertion speaks for itself,’ she said. ‘In
the anus.’
I nodded.
‘And then there’s the fluid on his back,’ she said.
‘Yogurt,’ I said.
‘Probably strawberry,’ she said. ‘Or maybe raspberry. It’s the
old joke. How does a gay man fake an orgasm?’
‘He groans a bit,’ I said. ‘And then he throws yogurt on his
lover’s back.’
‘Yes,’ she said. She didn’t smile. And she watched me, to see
if I would.
WVhat about the cuts and the beating?’ I said.
‘Hate,’ she said.
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‘And the belt around the neck?’
She shrugged. ‘It’s suggestive of an auto-erotic technique.
Partial asphyxiation creates heightened pleasure during
orgasm.
I nodded.
‘OK,’ I said.
‘OK what?’
‘Those were your first impressions. Do you have an opinion
based on them?’
‘Do you?’ she asked.
‘Yes,’ I said.
‘You first.’
‘I think it’s bogus.’
‘Why?’
‘Too much going on,’ I said. ‘There were six things there.
The nudity, the missing tags, the genitals, the tree branch, the
yogurt, and the belt. Any two would have done it. Maybe three.
It’s like they were trying to make a point, instead of just going
ahead and making one. Maybe trying too hard.’
Norton said nothing.
‘Too much,’ I said again. ‘Like shooting someone, then
strangling him, then stabbing him, then drowning him,
then suffocating him, then beating him to death. It’s like they
were decorating a damn Christmas tree with clues.’
She stayed quiet. She was watching me, deep inside her pool
of light. Maybe assessing me.
‘I have my doubts about the belt,’ she said. ‘Auto-eroticism
isn’t exclusively homosexual. All men have the same orgasms
physiologically, gay or not.’
‘The whole thing was faked,’ I said.
She nodded, finally.
‘I agree with you,’ she said. ‘You’re a smart guy.’
‘For a cop?’
She didn’t smile. ‘But we know as officers that to permit
homosexuals to serve is illegal. So we better be sure we’re not
letting a defence of the army cloud our judgement.’
‘It’s my job to protect the army,’ I said.
‘Exactly,’ Norton said.
I shrugged. ‘But I’m not taking a position. I’m not saying this
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guy definitely wasn’t gay. Maybe he was. I really don’t care. And
maybe his attackers knew, maybe they didn’t. I’m saying either
way, that’s not why they killed him. But they wanted it to look
like the reason. But they weren’t really feeling it. They were
feeling something else. So they larded on the clues, in a rather
self-conscious way.’
Then I paused.
‘In a rather academic way,’ I said.
She stiffened.
‘An academic way?’ she said.
‘Do you guys teach anything about this kind of stuff in
class?’
‘We don’t teach people how to kill,’ she said.
‘That’s not what I asked.’
She nodded. “We talk about it. We have to. Cutting off your
enemy’s dick is as basic as it gets. It’s happened all through
history. Happened all through Vietnam. Afghan women have
been doing it to captured Soviet soldiers for the last ten years.