Chapter 7
Arriving home a little past six, I showered, then slipped into a sundress and sandals. After gathering my hair into a wet bun, I slapped on lipstick, then hurried downstairs. Surprised by the sound of voices, I diverted to the kitchen.
Loitering there were Katy and Ruthie, who’d swung by the Annex hoping to cajole me into joining them for dinner at Southern Pecan followed by a movie. I begged off, saying truthfully that I already had plans to meet with a friend.
A ten-minute drive brought me to a Japanese restaurant featuring open cooking on robata and yakitori grills. Not my first choice. No matter what I ordered, it seemed my bill always came to two hundred dollars.
But the food was good. And I’d told my dinner companion she should feel free to book anywhere.
Hot damn! I scored a parking place right by the door. Stepping from the early-evening brightness into the restaurant’s cool, dim interior was like crossing from a sun-drenched beach into an underground cavern.
A cavern with a vigilant gatekeeper. Before my eyes could adjust to the lack of ambient light, a voice welcomed me and asked if I had a reservation.
Blinking, I picked out a face in the darkness. Below the face, a white ceramic cat on a bamboo-fronted counter.
The face belonged to a blond woman with blue eyes and skin as melanin challenged as the fur on the cat. No name tag, but I’d have pegged her as an Astrid, not a Mitsuki.
I introduced myself and answered in the affirmative. Mitsuki-Astrid smiled and ran a lacquered nail down a list. Frowned.
“I’m so sorry. Could the booking be under another name?”
“Try Kumar.”
“Of course. How lovely. The lady is already seated.”
Entering the main dining area, which held maybe twelve tables and a row of booths along one wall, I spotted a woman waving from a far corner. I wove my way through the room to join her.
“Dr. Temperance Brennan,” she said with a playful sing-song cadence.
“Dr. Adina Kumar,” I sing-songed back while sliding onto the bench seat opposite hers.
What to say about my dinner companion?
Adina Kumar isn’t exactly beautiful. Her nose is a bit large, her eyes deeply shadowed and set too close together. But I’ve noticed that men straighten and stand taller in her presence. Maybe it’s her five-foot-eleven height. Maybe her soldier-on-parade posture.
More important than her appearance is Adina’s brain.
Her work has appeared in every major periodical in her field.
The American Journal of Psychology. The Journal of Applied Psychology.
Frontiers in Psychology. Though these publications don’t exactly fly off the bookstore shelves at the mall, her inclusion in their pages is a testimonial to her brilliance.
Adi and I were Best Friends Forever in high school.
Went our separate ways in college, married, divorced.
Well, she did. Neither Pete nor I ever bothered with paperwork.
Several years back she and I discovered that we’d both ended up in Charlotte.
One coffee, and the friendship had rekindled as though uninterrupted.
The two of us met monthly now, for lunch or dinner depending on our schedules.
Sometimes we discussed our professional lives.
A patient that worried her. Bones that troubled me.
We’d each listen to the other, on rare occasions offer input.
Some was useful. Most wasn’t. It was the airing of concerns, not the advice, that helped keep us both sane.
More often, we talked about mundane matters. Our kids—she had two, both doctors living out of state. Movies, books, clothes, hair disasters. Now and then, sex. Some of Adina’s anecdotes were as funny as anything in the history of comedy.
“So. What’s up in the world of putrefied flesh?” she asked after we’d ordered drinks and edamame and exchanged some small talk.
“My job involves more than decomposed bodies,” I responded, feigning offense.
“Right. I forgot the incinerated.”
I rolled my eyes. “Do we really want to go there?”
“I plan to share the story of a man who eats his wife’s feces.”
“What’s wrong with his own?” I asked.
“He prefers hers.”
“Revolting, but not exactly evil.”
“Ah, evil. What is evil?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Let’s talk about that. How do psychologists define evil?”
“An evil act or an evil person?”
“You pick.”
“The former is easier.”
“Go with that.”
Adina shelled, then popped another bean into her mouth. Chewed, taking time to organize her thoughts.
“First—remember these are just my views.”
“Jesus, Adi. You’re not on the stand.”
“First, the act must be truly horrific.”
“Like kidnapping and torturing a child.”
“I think everyone would agree that qualifies as evil. Second, the act must be intentional.”
“Malice aforethought.” I used the legal expression.
“Yes. The act must be preceded by some degree of planning.”
“Not triggered by sudden emotion, like jealousy or rage. In other words, the violence isn’t impulsive.”
“Exactly,” she agreed. “When did you complete your psych degree?”
“Yeah, yeah.” I circled a wrist for her to continue.
“Third, the level of suffering inflicted must be extreme.”
An image of Bear flashed in my brain. Mercifully, he’d been shot.
“Finally, the nature of the act must seem inexplicable.”
“Incomprehensible to normal people,” I said.
She nodded. “Beyond what the average Joe can imagine or understand.”
“The average Joe.” I picked up on her phrase. “Do you believe that the ordinary person is capable of this type of premeditated violence?”
“Many violent acts are committed by the mentally ill. Nevertheless”—she raised a finger to emphasize her point—“I’d give that a yes.”
“What do you mean by the ‘mentally ill’?” I hooked air quotes around her words.
“Persons with psychosis.”
I looked a question at her.
“Those with schizophrenia, which primarily affects thought processes, and those with manic depression, which primarily affects mood.”
“It seems the term ‘psychosis’ covers pretty broad territory.”
“Indeed. It’s kind of a catchall for any condition that disturbs one’s grip on reality.”
Our food arrived, tempura and sushi platters. We fell into a companionable silence as we dipped and ate.
Adina broke it.
“Don’t get the wrong impression, Tempe. Most mentally ill people go their whole lives never hurting anyone.”
“Are you and your colleagues able to predict who among the mentally ill might become violent?”
“There are known risk factors.”
“Such as?”
Adina thought a moment. “Command hallucinations.”
“Hearing voices that urge violent acts.”
“Yes. Also, delusions of persecution.”
“Thinking someone is out to cause them harm.”
Adina ticked off points on her fingers. Which were sticky from handling the nigiri.
“Fantasies of revenge. Alcohol or drug abuse. Paranoia. Antisocial behavior. A history of violence. The recent purchase of a weapon or camouflage gear.”
She froze in mid-tick and her dark eyes narrowed. “What gives? Are you dealing with someone who fits the bill?”
“Maybe.”
“Spill.”
“Okay,” I said. “You asked for it.”
I told her about the animal remains being found nailed to trees. The pilfered body parts. Finished with the most recent case, Bear.
She was quiet for a very long moment. When she spoke again her tone was grim.
“Let me tell you about John. Not his real name, of course. I interviewed John as part of my thesis research. Unimposing guy, looked like anyone’s uncle.
“John had a normal upbringing. His father was strict, but not abusive, his mother timid and unassertive. Early on, John began exhibiting troubling behavior.”
“Troubling?”
“In lower school he started setting fires and torturing animals.”
“Always endearing qualities in a kid.”
“He’d capture random pets, kill them, then bury their bodies in his backyard.”
“Must have made him popular with the neighbors.”
“It gets worse. Though John dated in his teens, his peers described him as creepy. He abused drugs, especially grass and LSD. He was impotent. A high school psychologist thought he had serious issues but stopped short of recommending hospitalization.
“John grew more bizarre as he moved into his twenties.
He lost interest in his appearance. He nailed his pantry door shut, thinking aliens were living behind the shelves.
He presented at hospital ERs with strange complaints.
Once, he said that his right lung had been stolen.
On several occasions, he claimed his heart had stopped beating.
Though he lived with his mother, he repeatedly insisted that he was being poisoned.
“Thinking his impotence was due to insufficient blood, John drank that of the animals he killed. He’d catch rabbits, eviscerate them, and eat their innards raw. He tortured dogs, cats, squirrels, even a horse.
“Eventually, John escalated to murdering and disemboweling humans, at first women and children, since they were easier prey. Ultimately, grown men. He’d shoot some, stab others. He’d cut the nipples from some and stuffed them into the vics’ mouths.”
“Doing his vampire thing in hopes of curing his sexual dysfunction.” I couldn’t keep the disgust from my voice. Didn’t really try. “Did John rape his victims?”
“Not always. And in those cases, only after the victim was dead.”
“So these weren’t considered classic serial sexual homicides,” I guessed.
“True.”
We stopped talking as the server cleared our dishes and brought tea.
“Murder and necrophilia,” I said, when she’d gone. “John’s behavior would probably classify as evil in anyone’s mind. But what’s your point?”
Adina bunched and tossed her napkin onto her place mat. Leaned back and asked a question that had occurred to me, too.
“Though seemingly not sexual in nature—nonhuman vics, no posing of the body, no semen present, et cetera—could there be a sexual component to your animal displays?”
“Nothing’s off the table.”
“You should mention the possibility to the detective working the case.”
“I will.”
I would. Despite knowing Slidell’s tendency to become channeled on theories that appealed to his narrow view of human nature.
“Though I suspect Slidell will be contacting you directly,” I added.
“Happy day.”
We exchanged wry smiles.
“One other thought,” Adina said after a pause. “Driven by some sick perversion or not, from what you’ve said, your doer is escalating, I suspect.”
“His prey are getting larger.”
“Which means he’s growing bolder.”
“Or more skilled.”
“Or that,” she agreed.
I felt a low buzz in my chest. My friend agreed with the unsettling suggestion I’d made in my conversation with Slidell. My friend with a doctorate in psychology from Harvard University.
“Shall we thirty-second volley this dolt?”
Adina referred to a sparring game we often played, a shotgun back-and-forth using the known facts of a case.
“You start,” I said.
“The perp is a psychopath driven by feelings of inadequacy and rage.”
“By a sense of powerlessness in controlling factors in his life.”
“That powerlessness makes him angry.”
“But he can control animals, so he takes that anger out on them,” I said.
“Or she does.”
I raised a palm, acknowledging Adina’s correction, the same one I’d made to Slidell. “For some reason, that feeling of powerlessness is escalating.”
“The perp sees life spinning out of control.”
“Might this nutcase follow a trajectory similar to John’s?” I asked.
“Nutcase. Nice gender-neutral term.”
“Thank you.”
“My professional opinion?” Adina floated both brows.
I nodded.
“That’s already happening.”
“Do you think he or she might move up to humans?”
“I believe that’s highly likely.”
A moment, then the shadowed eyes locked onto mine.
“If this ‘nutcase,’ as you call him, isn’t stopped, I fear people may die.”