The Profiler (4 page)

CUNNING/MANIPULATIVE—
Kim told me that she and her coworkers found him manipulative in the workplace and clever about getting around certain tasks.

LACK OF REMORSE OR GUILT—
He always seemed to think he was right, everyone else was wrong, and he never seemed to feel bad about anything he did or didn’t do.

SHALLOW AFFECT—
I could see no depth of feeling other than occasional flashes of anger when he didn’t get his way. He didn’t seem to care about much, including Kim; he seemed to be play-acting most of the time.

CALLOUS/LACK OF EMPATHY—
He seemed indifferent to the horrible murder of the jogger.

FAILURE TO ACCEPT RESPONSIBILITY FOR OWN ACTIONS—
He never apologized or took responsibility for things he screwed up; he blamed others for pretty much everything that went awry in his life.

?
PROMISCUOUS SEXUAL BEHAVIOR—
Well, he hadn’t had sex in seven years, if one believed him, so I couldn’t put a mark there yet.

Walt fit almost the whole list and I hardly knew him. But, I argued with myself, maybe he was just a psychopath and not a killer; he just might be one of the annoying but nonviolent sort—a user, a con artist, an embezzler, or a thief.

I looked at actual descriptions of serial killers. I read that they tended to be psychopathic, male, underachieving (Walt was a twenty-four-year-old male who worked in a mail room and rented a room in
my house), troubled in relationships with women (Kim didn’t last long before she ran away), and to have a bent toward violent ideation. Frequently, there is a precipitating event that makes them feel like losers, causing them to want to commit an act of violence to regain a feeling of power and control. Walt was dumped just before the time of the murder….

I closed the books I was reading. I gathered up the children, helped them check out what they wanted to read, and drove home. I told them to go play, opened the door to Walt’s room, and started up the stairs. I carried along a pair of kitchen gloves. I needed to find out if there was any real evidence in his room that would support what I was now fairly certain to be true. I needed something more than theory to take to the police. If I just told them about Walt’s behavior and my conclusions, I didn’t think they would believe me. I needed proof.

Walt was a bit of a slob, and he didn’t have very many possessions. I put on the gloves and worked my way around the room. I didn’t find much of interest. Then I came to the trash bag by the top of the stairs. There were pizza boxes on top and I memorized how the two of them were stacked so I could put them back the same way when I was finished with my search.

By this time, I was starting to get nervous. It was late in the day and Walt could walk in at any moment. I ran down the stairs and looked down the driveway. He wasn’t out there. I hurried back up and started in on the trash bag. I moved the pizza boxes carefully to the floor. Underneath them was a pile of magazines, at least two dozen of them. As I pulled them out, I saw that every single one was pornographic. I laid them in a stack.

Then I looked back in the trash bag and I saw a shirt. I lifted it out. It was damp and the back of it had been shredded, as if caught on briar bushes, the kind found at the edge of the stream where the girl’s body was found. I held my breath and reached back into the bag. Next, I pulled out a pair of jeans, wet, but in good condition. Why would someone throw his jeans away? Why were they wet? They weren’t dirty, but rather they seemed to have been washed, but not dried. Even if Walt really did wade across a stream on some whim
not connected with the murder, why would he toss perfectly good jeans?

Next I found tennis shoes, again wet, but in perfect condition. I thought again of his story about getting wet in the stream. How many people threw away their tennis shoes because they got caught in the rain one day or stepped in a puddle? Then I came upon three very curious items. The first looked very much like a knife, or a letter opener filed down to a very sharp point. I wasn’t familiar with weapons, but knew right away that it would be dangerous if used on a person. Next I found a package of condoms—two were still sealed up, but the third one was used and placed back in the wrapper. I found this peculiar. I knew that Kim wasn’t having sex with Walt. And he had claimed that he hadn’t had sex since he lost his beloved prom girl. Beyond that, if he did have sex with someone, who puts the used condom back in the package rather than simply tossing it? And why throw two brand-new condoms away?

Then I found what I considered the most mysterious piece of possible evidence: a clump of mud wrapped in plastic. A clump of mud? Wrapped in plastic? I tried to think of what innocent situation would call for someone to wrap mud in plastic. I had no good answer, but I felt fairly certain that the mud was from the stream bank.

I was now closing in on the bottom of the trash bag. I saw a piece of pink paper and picked it up. It was a receipt for a ring. The price was forty dollars. I laughed. Forty dollars—the lying dog. Then the reality of the situation returned. I ran down the stairs again and looked out the front door. No Walt, but time was slipping by. I hurried into the laundry room and found an empty box. I brought it up the stairs and put all the “evidence” into it: the pants, the shirt, the shoes, the knife, the condom pack, and the mud wrapped in plastic. Oh, and a few of the magazines and the ring receipt. Then I ran back downstairs and grabbed some newspapers to stuff the trash bag; since I had taken so many of the items out, it looked rather deflated. When I had filled the bag out satisfactorily, I placed the pizza boxes back on top. I surveyed my artwork. By now, I had forgotten what I told myself to remember, and I could only hope the boxes were placed correctly.

I ran back down the stairs, tossed the gloves under the sink, and carried the box to the trunk of my car. I went back in and collected Walt’s story and the photo I had of him. Then I waited, counting the minutes until my husband got home. Finally, he drove up.

“I have to go to the police station. I found evidence, real evidence in his room!”

Tony looked at me skeptically.

“I’ll explain when I get back.” I wasn’t up to trying to convince him before dealing with the police. “Do me a favor and boot Walt. Tell him he’s late with the rent and be a jerk about it. Please, I just want him out of here and I don’t want him to think I suspect him of the murder.”

Tony gave me that look again.

“Please, just do it for me?” I didn’t feel like arguing. “I have to go.”

I HAD NEVER
been inside a police station before. I had no idea of what to expect and I felt terribly uncomfortable. By the time I asked to see the detective in charge, I babbled like an idiot with the box in my arms to the officer behind the glass window. He listened to me, stone-faced, and then pointed to a row of plastic chairs on the other side of the room, saying, “Take a seat and one of the detectives will talk to you.” Ten minutes or so passed and a tall, muscular police detective walked out and asked if I had something I wanted to tell him. He didn’t invite me back to an interview room. I had to ask him if we could go to his office, as I needed to speak with him about the recent murder in town. He motioned me into the hallway and I followed him to one of the rooms. He went around to his side of the desk, settled himself into his chair, and gestured for me to sit down on the other side. I took the seat, setting the box on the table.

“So,” he said, crossing his arms on the desk. “You have some information about the Kelley murder?”

“Yes, I have a new renter in my house and he’s been acting strange. I brought you some stuff I found in his trash that I think may be connected to the murder.”

He peered into the box and then settled back into his chair.

“What makes you think he’s guilty of anything?”

“Well, to start with, he calls women sluts, bitches, and whores. He thinks he’s a ninja and he wrote this story about killing people in the park.” I told him all about Walt’s creepy behavior and about the breakup with Kim on the day of the murder, how the murder happened on the path between our two houses.

Then I told him the most important point.

“Walt admitted to being on the path that evening.”

He didn’t seem impressed. I desperately kept talking, explaining what I found in his trash and adding more bits about his habits and history, but the detective seemed completely uninterested in Walt as a suspect. He barely scribbled any notes on the pad in front of him. The interview that I thought would be a slam-dunk was not materializing. The detective was leaning back in the chair with a smirk on his face.

Finally, he asked, “Was your girlfriend white?”

“No, she’s black. Why?”

He shrugged. “Well, the victim was white.”

I stared at him. Was he seriously telling me serial killers only choose victims who look like their girlfriends? Didn’t I just read in one of those library books that this was bunk?

“Maybe you’re misconstruing this fellow’s behavior because he is black.”

Now I was beginning to lose it. “I have a black husband. I have black in-laws. I have black friends. I don’t think I am a panicked racist white lady who thinks all black men are killers.”