Psychopath (18 page)

Imagine how violated you or Dr. McCormick would feel if I were intent on cutting short your journey toward healing.

—A Man of God They Call the Highway Killer

P.S.

Kindly forward this card and glass sculpture to the parents of Dr. Naomi Williams of Trout Creek, Michigan.  Their future son-in-law Doug Holt made the shell in honor of their daughter.  He would have wanted them to have it.  So do I.

Naomi should have her lovers’ body.  His soul dwells inside me.

*Michigan, Route 17 East, one mile off Route 45 North

The Behavioral Sciences team met with Clevenger in the situation room.

"It’s a direct threat," Bob White, from the Criminal Investigative Analysis Program, said, looking down the long table at him.  "We should reexamine this whole public psychotherapy idea.  He’s telling us right out of the gate that the risk is too high."

Kane Warner nodded.

Clevenger leaned forward in his seat.  "I certainly don’t like the idea of him threatening anyone," he said.  "But it may actually be a gain, rather than a loss."

"A gain?" Warner asked.

"We’ve interrupted his pattern without printing one response in the
Times
," Clevenger said.  "Until now he’s been targeting strangers, killing at random.  If he’s really starting to circle this close, to attach his rage to me or to Whitney, we may be able to nail him sooner than I thought."

"He’s invisible," White said.  "Just because he comes close — even close enough to kill one of you — doesn’t mean we get much of a shot at him.  He can disappear back onto the highway, more famous than ever."

"Dorothy?" Kane Warner said, looking at Dorothy Campbell, who ran the PROFILER computer system.

"It’s certainly the case that maintaining a dialogue with a subject increases the odds of an arrest," she said.  "That’s been true for everyone from serial killers to hijackers to the Unabomber.  It would have been true at Waco.  The wrinkle here is that we’re dealing with someone extremely intelligent who obviously has insight into the way we work and — at least in Whitney’s case — who we are."

"It’s not like he had to break code," McCormick said.  "The switchboard will give anyone my name.  My photograph is on the Bureau’s website."

"My only point," Campbell told McCormick kindly, "is that there is a danger he’s manipulating us — even you."

"To what end, Dorothy?" Kane Warner asked.

"To drag us in over our heads," she said.  "To get the Bureau deeply involved with him when his sole intention — as Bob already alluded to — may well be to grandstand, to make a name for himself.  The letter to the
Times
certainly fits that paradigm."  She paused.  "So would killing one of the people searching for him."

"He can do that without the
New York Times
," Clevenger said.

"But with the Times" Campbell said, "he brings millions of people along for the ride.  He becomes the most famous serial killer ever.  It’s one thing to taunt the FBI.  It’s another to target agents — or consultants."

"I think this guy is setting us up," White said.

John Silverstein, White’s partner at CIAP, shook his head.  "Maybe he is," he said.  "But I still think we have to stay the course.  We’ve been looking for a chance to accelerate the investigation.  This is it.  We can’t back off when he pushes the envelope."

"I don’t buy the idea he’s dragging us in over our heads," McCormick said.  "I think he’s hoping we back off.  He’s trying to scare us away."

"How do you figure?" White asked doubtfully.

"He’s the one under siege — psychologically," McCormick said.  "If Dr. Clevenger succeeds, then our man is going to face demons his unconscious mind is desperate to keep buried.  The killer inside him is looking for a way to short-circuit the therapeutic process and get on with the bloodshed."

Clevenger thought about that.  It made sense.  "And if we do back off," he said, "he can tell himself he reached out, to no avail.  Nobody would help him.  He can go on killing with a clearer conscience."  He paused.  "I think I should call his bluff and reassure him I’m going it alone, that my goal is to heal him, not get him arrested."

"Which it has to be, for this to work," McCormick said, looking directly at Clevenger.  "If we capture him, it’s going to be because of that healing, not in spite of it.  If you do your job, and we do ours, we’ll get him."

"I think you should reconsider," Warner told her.  "You’re overestimating how amenable sociopaths are to psychotherapy of any kind, let alone therapy that unfolds in the public eye.  And you’re underestimating the personal danger involved."

"I don’t think we have a better idea," McCormick said.  "And I don’t think the public trust is well served if I focus on keeping myself safe, at the expense of the next victim."

Warner took a deep breath, let it out.  "I don’t see Director Hanley vacating his original position without a unanimous request from the team."  He made eye contact with Bob White, who shook his head in dismay.

"Don’t pin this one on me," McCormick said.  "Jake Hanley’s door is never closed.  Anyone who feels strongly we should pull the plug on this should go to him."

"
I
don’t have that kind of pull," Warner said.  He winked at her.

John Silverstein winced.

Dorothy Campbell cleared her throat.

McCormick lost her game face.  "What’s that supposed to mean?"

"Nothing," Warner said.

"You actually think Jake Hanley follows my lead?" McCormick asked.

"I’m not trying to get under your skin, Whitney," Warner said.  "But I’m not going to pretend the playing field is level on this one.  The McCormicks are very important to the director right now.  If you don’t want to believe that, that’s your own business."  He gave her an arrogant shrug of his shoulders.  "I didn’t mean any disrespect."

"Of course you didn’t," she said.

The room fell silent.

Warner started collecting the papers in front of him.  His cell phone rang.  He reached inside the breast pocket of his suit jacket, took it out, and clicked it open.  "Kane Warner," he said.  A pause.  "Very good.  I’ll make sure Dr. Hiramatsu is notified."  He snapped the phone shut.  "The state troopers in Michigan found Doug Holt’s body," he said, "right where our man said it would be.  They’re bringing it in by helicopter."

The silence in the room grew heavier.

"Does anyone have anything else right now?" Warner asked, looking around the table.

A few people shook their heads.

"Very good, then," Warner said.

*            *            *

"What was that about?" Clevenger asked McCormick as they headed back to her office. 

"My dad," she said.  "Dennis McCormick."

"
The
Dennis..." Clevenger said, but stopped himself when he saw that the answer was already on her face.  He was surprised at himself for never making the connection.  Whitney McCormick’s father was a top FBI agent, turned U.S. congressman, turned political fund-raiser.  He had helped crack the Night Stalker and Son of Sam cases before leaving to run for office.  More recently, he had helped elect conservative Republican candidates across the country.

"Kane thinks my father has the power to influence decisions at the Bureau.  He also thinks my father got me my job."

Clevenger said nothing.

McCormick stopped and faced Clevenger.  "Go ahead.  Ask."

"Okay," Clevenger said, looking into McCormick’s eyes.  "Can your father influence Bureau decisions?"

"I don’t know," she said.

"Sounds like an honest answer."

"You didn’t ask the tough part of the question."

Clevenger hesitated.

"You won’t hurt my feelings."

"Did your father get you your job?" he asked.

"I don’t know," she said.  Her shoulders seemed to sag slightly.

"Another honest answer.  Now can I ask you the only question that matters?"

McCormick nodded.

"Do you deserve your job?  You’re, what, thirty-five?  Chief forensic psychiatrist for the FBI?  You really that good?"

Something new came into McCormick’s face — a mixture of amused pride and fierce determination.  It answered the question without her having to say a word.

"I think so, too," Clevenger said.  "I’ve worked with the best forensic psychiatrists in the country.  You don’t take a backseat to any of them."

She smiled.  "Does that mean I have carte blanche to edit your letters to the Times?"

"Definitely not."

"Didn’t think so."

f o u r

On Thursday, April 3, 2003, the New York Times ran Clevenger’s letter to the Highway Killer word-for-word, including an assurance from Clevenger that he would not work directly with the FBI.  On April 5 they received the Highway Killer’s response, sent Federal Express from a drop box outside an office building in Rogers City, Michigan, on Lake Huron, near the Mackinaw State Forest:

Dr. Clevenger:

My earliest memory (changed only slightly to avoid jogging the memories of others) is of a birthday party given me by my mother when I turned four.  It was held at a little park near my home.  A sunny day in May.  Green grass.  Flowers.  A gentle breeze.  A swingset and slide.  A jungle gym. 

My mother had rented a carousel with brightly painted, carved wooden horses for me and a dozen friends to ride.  She laid out a banquet of peppermint-stick ice cream, cotton candy, and cookies.  Party favors.

These were rare extravagances.  We had very little.

I loved that day.  I remember feeling overwhelming pride.  This was my birthday.  These were my friends.  They doted on me, brought me Hot Wheels cars, stuffed animals, books, paints.

But even more than my birthday and my friends, there was my mother — pretty, vibrant, above all else kind and gentle.  Riding my carousel horse, I would catch glimpses of her smiling, laughing, blowing me a kiss.  Snapshots of an angel.  She gave me a special gift that day which I keep with me even now, a trinket that reminds me I was once pure and vulnerable — a loving child who had not hurt a soul.

My friends and I played for hours.  I walked my mother home, feeling like a conquering hero, carrying my booty, my head spinning with what wonders might await a boy as old as four.  I was on the cusp of learning to read, of tying my own shoes, of riding a two-wheel bicycle.

The door to our house was open.  My mood fell.  My father was at home.  He came at us the moment we walked inside, backhanded my mother to the floor, ranting that he ’d told her there was no money for the ‘little bastard’s fucking party.’  I stepped between the two of them, and he backhanded me.  My vision blurred.  I fell to the floor.  I tasted blood in my mouth.  My front tooth wiggled in its socket as my tongue moved against it.  I saw ripped pages from my books, torn pieces of my stuffed animals, my Hot Wheels cars rain down around me.  Then I watched as he crushed his heel into each and every one of the cars.

My mother cowered in the corner, weeping.  I wished I were older, bigger, stronger, able to defend her.  She held a single finger to her beautiful lips, warning me to stay quiet, then blew me another kiss.  And even with the taste of blood in my mouth, I felt safe and secure, even victorious over the monster who called himself my father.

I was victorious, with blood in my mouth
.  At four years old.  Does that account for the calm I feel tasting the blood of others?

Or is the better clue the helplessness I felt that day, the absolute impotence to help someone I loved.  Because in killing, as in sex, there is an undeniable potency, an overtaking, a terrible and final triumph.

There is also union.  Did my mother and I die a spiritual death together in that little house of horrors?  In embracing a dying man or woman am I returning to her arms, as I sometimes long to do?

Without addressing your direct questions about my immediate family (which might contribute to identifying me), suffice it to say that my father is dead in my life.  My mother will always be alive for me.

To answer another of your questions, I believe my anxiety attached itself to school only because I was separated from the person I adored.  Perhaps I worried about her safety at home.  I cannot recall.

I do remember how the anxiety felt.  I was dissolving.  There was no physical pain, rather a sense of utter disorder.  Entropy.  Panic that my reality, my self was adrift and might drift away.  Forever.

I feel that same anxiety when my impulse to take a life is greatest.  But now physical pain is a major component of my suffering.  Terrible headaches.  Jaw pain.  Palpitations.  Shortness of breath.

After killing, all these symptoms abate.  I experience profound peace.  Perfect unity with the universe.

I have tried alcohol and marijuana to quiet the Highway Killer, to no avail.

What to call the frightened boy inside me?  How ought my healer address the part of me that swallowed blood on the floor of my parents’ home or wept for my mother in the school yard?  That good child?  Call him Gabriel, a messenger of God, an echo of my innocence.

To give you the final resting place of every body would be premature.  Our relationship has only begun.  But I do understand the importance families place on bodily remains.  All will be returned in time.  To begin, search the first fifty yards off Exit 42, Route 70, near Moab, Utah.