The rest of what Wesley said was fairly predictable. The killer was from a “dysfunctional home” and might have been abused, either physically or emotionally, by his mother. When he was with a victim, he was acting out his rage, which was inextricably connected to his lust.
He was above average in intelligence, an obsessive-compulsive, and very organized and meticulous. He might be prone to obsessive behavior patterns, phobias or rituals, such as neatness, cleanliness, his diet anything that maintained his sense of con trolling his environment.
He had a job, which is probably menial – a mechanic, a repairman, a construction worker or some other labor-related occupation . . .
I noticed Marino’s face getting redder by the moment. He was looking restlessly around the conference room.
“For him,” Wesley was saying, “the best part of what he does is the antecedent phase, the fantasy plan, the environmental cue that activates the fantasy. Where was the victim when he became aware of her?”
We did not know. She may not have known were she alive to tell. The interface may have been as tenuous and obscure as a shadow crossing her path. He caught a glimpse of her somewhere. It may have been at a shopping mall or perhaps while she was inside her car and stopped at a red light.
“What triggered him?” Wesley went on. “Why this particular woman?”
Again, we did not know. We knew only one thing. Each of the women was vulnerable because she lived alone. Or was thought to live alone as in Lori Petersen’s case.
“Sounds like your all-American joe.” Marino’s acid remark stopped us cold.
Flicking an ash, he leaned aggressively forward. “Hey. This is all very good and nice. But me, I don’t intend to be no Dorothy going down no Yellow Brick Road. They don’t all lead to Emerald City, okay? We say he’s a plumber or something, right? Well, Ted Bundy was a law student, and a couple years back there’s this serial rapist in D.C. who turns out to be a dentist. Hell, the Green Valley strangler out there in the land of fruits and nuts could be a Boy Scout for all anybody knows.”
Marino was getting around to what was on his mind. I’d been waiting for him to start in.
“I mean, who’s to say he ain’t a student? Maybe even an actor, a creative type whose imagination’s gone apeshit. One lust murder don’t look much different from another no matter who’s committed it unless the squirrel’s into drinking blood or barbecuing people on spits – and this squirrel we’re dealing with ain’t a Lucas. The reason these brands of sex murders all profile pretty much the same, you want my opinion, is because, with few exceptions, people are people. Doctor, lawyer or Indian chief. People think and do pretty much the same damn things, going back to the days when cavemen dragged women off by their hair.”
Wesley was staring off. He slowly looked over at Marino and quietly asked, “What’s your point, Pete?”
“I’ll tell you what the hell my point is!”
His chin was jutted out, the veins in his neck standing out like cords. “This goddam crap about who profiles right and who don’t. It frosts me. What I got here is a guy writing his friggin’ dissertation on sex and violence, cannibals, queers. He’s got glitter crap on his hands that looks like the same stuff found on all the bodies. His prints are on his dead wife’s skin and on the knife stashed in one of his drawers-a knife that also has this glitter crap on the handle. He gets home every weekend right about the time the women get whacked. But no. Hell, no. He can’t be the guy, right? And why? ‘Cause he ain’t blue collar. He ain’t trashy enough.”
Wesley was staring off again. My eyes fell to the photographs spread out before us, full-blown color shots of women who never in their worst nightmares would have believed anything like this could happen to them.
“Well, let me just lay this one on you.” The tirade wasn’t about to end. “Pretty boy Matt, here – it just so happens he ain’t exactly pure as the driven snow. While I was upstairs checking with serology, I buzzed by Vander’s office again to see if he’d turned up anything else. Petersen’s prints are on file, right? You know why?”