The Killing Type (3 page)

A week ago a man named Steven Winton
was discovered dead in the front seat of his red 1995 Acura Integra
(“the one with the 160-horsepower VTEC engine,” as a newscast put
it, appealing to which segment of the potential viewership I have
no idea). He had been shot twice, or, rather, a gun had been shot
into his car twice: one broke the driver’s side window, just missed
the headrest, and lodged in the cushion of the back seat; the other
entered the top of the left side of his head right at the border of
his hairline and his forehead, proceeded down through his brain,
and came out through his ear—and the puzzle is that the police
can’t find that second bullet. At least, that’s the rumour I heard
from the raver: the investigation is, as they say (and said),
“ongoing.”

The police are starting to
do the obvious math, and it’s not adding up right in a small town
like this. Here’s what the chief of police said at the news
conference yesterday: “We don’t get many murders here and so we’re
going on the theory for now that these two were committed by the
same person.” He looked nervous there on the dais, fidgety, perhaps
not used to quite so many reporters, maybe thirty little tape
recorders crowded around the base of his microphone like
enthusiasts at a rally. I watched the whole thing only on
television, and I could see the worry in his eyes, not just from
the fact of a second murder, but from the details that he was not
explaining to the masses. That is: it’s unlikely that the two
victims were killed by the same person, because a serial
killer—even one who kills “just” a couple of people—tends not only
to use more or less the same method of killing, but also to use
more tactile methods such as stabbing, and not cold and distant
ones such as shooting. “Serial killers ... avoid firearms whenever
possible because they are such an impersonal way to kill,” as one
of the premier authorities on serial killing and mass murder puts
it (Elliott Leyton in
Hunting
Humans
).

Perhaps I am just contriving the look
on the police chief’s face in my own head. Maybe he is always like
that, a nervous sort, shy in crowds, more comfortable in smaller
groups or in the office, doing the legwork of investigation rather
than acting as a spokesperson. Maybe, as some of the ingrates used
to say about me at TU, maybe I am making too much of a little
thing. Still, among the skills that one learns as a scholar that
are applicable even remotely to what is affectionately known as the
“real world” is a keen penchant for close observation. In the
literary texts which I have edited, for example, I have prided
myself not only on my indefatigable research in both primary and
secondary sources and my resultant comprehensive knowledge of the
particular period under study, but also my attention to the details
of proofreading. At Oxford University Press, some of the production
editors styled me “Comma Man” for my unstinting abilities, proof
after proof, and the series editor (the TU department head, in
better days) touted me embarrassingly in my evaluation,
recommending me without hesitation for promotion from assistant to
associate professor.

How things change! I have to confess
that I miss the true academic life. It feels crude some days
roiling in the dregs of details about murder and the fear and
upheaval it has caused in this small town. Scholarly research is a
cleaner and much more humane pursuit, and the discoveries
contribute to the fund of civilized knowledge. When you are writing
a book about murder, discovery is a dreadful and dreary process:
details about obscenities inflicted upon bodies, a widow shaking
her head when the reporter asks her “How does it feel?” Sometimes
the quest to dig out the facts and to marshal them into some
comprehensible whole is just too tiring and depressing, even for a
committed researcher such as myself. I flail around (figuratively),
try to distract myself with serendipitously found games on the
internet, or search out specific keywords on anything other than
murder.

My background research on
Mr. Winton—an orgy of activity entailing interviewing tight-lipped
cops at one end and poring over positively horrific forensic
science texts at the other—left me feeling dazed and pummelled.
Occasionally, during the darkest moments, I wonder whether I have
the stamina for this, the
stomach
. I remembered how much
pleasure I had at Toronto U. in what now seem like outrageously
innocent pursuits, ferretting out some facts about the watermarks
and composition of the first edition of Samuel Johnson’s
Rambler
, or studying
parody in the works of Swift. There were frustrations with that
research, too, but they were mostly small things, such as (during
one particularly memorable morning when it was raining) the
absolute refusal of the curator of rare books and manuscripts to
let me view some hard-to-find editions because of the mere
technicality of my expired library card.

I have to resort to a child’s simple
language in order to describe a few of the basic, ghastly facts
about Winton’s death. First: the hole that a bullet makes when it
comes out of the human body is much bigger than the one that it
makes when it enters. Have you ever seen that high-speed photo of a
bullet shot through an apple, the one taken by Harold E. Edgerton
at MIT in 1964? The effect in a human head is even more pronounced
than that: a tiny hole more or less the size of the bullet on
entry, and a large “exit wound” on the other side. The reports in
the media always tend to underemphasize, if not studiously avoid,
this kind of information, a practice I have never quite understood.
Expose people to the filthy practicalities of violence and soon the
culture would not be inured and complacent, but would raise its
voice and enforce justice on the perpetrators.

The letters in the
Gazette
tend towards anger
and sadness instead of fear. The focus of most is on the widow and
nine-year-old son that Winton’s murder left behind: “My heart goes
out to Cecilia Winton and her little boy Jack. I just can’t
comprehend what monster would do something like this. How can there
possibly be a reason for this? And why haven’t the police been able
to track this person down?” There was also: “Society is really
starting to break down when there are killings at all, one human
taking another’s life, but when that is done with apparent
randomness, when there is no ‘reason,’ if one can say something
that heinous, then we must truly be in the end days.” And then the
topper, from Ryan, also nine: “Jack was my best friend and now I
don’t get to play with him any more. My Mom and Dad, who I love
very much, tell me that there are bad people in the world, people
who hurt other people, but I don’t know why anyone would want to
hurt Jack’s Dad because he was a really nice man and took us for
walks along the lake and then bought us ice cream.”

The next day, a bright
Saturday when I awaken at 10:45, but eventually deteriorating to
cloud and coolness and rain by the time I have finished chores and
latte—the next day I seek a kind of solace among simple people
doing simple things. A man is dead, a second murder victim, but
there are still fake-tanned older mothers selecting extra-old
cheddar at the outdoor market. I wonder if they are as shocked as I
am, as
assaulted
,
and hope to right themselves by at least pretending to be living in
a normal town on a normal day. I am not having much success: no
matter how much I walk, no matter how charming a little
corner
I find on whatever
historic bench with just the right amount of shade and dappled
sunshine, I am not able to shake a pervasive nervousness, a tension
which gripped me when I read the first headlines and got worse as I
absorbed more and more details. A sense of longing develops,
builds, subsides, rises again with added strength, a longing for
simpler times as an obscure academic in a big anonymous city. I
feel too exposed here among the merchant selling emu products, the
farmer still in her dirty jeans and knee-high rubber boots, the
father walking slowly to his illegally parked minivan with just
enough berries and other goodies to suffice for dessert after the
evening’s barbecue. I fear that the killer with that same gun could
be headed my way, headed for this entire group. I have a frisson of
realization that he may be primed now to move from one-at-a-time
serial killing to mass murder, giving up the soliloquy for the
crowded bloody stage. I tremble next to the display of LPs already
shot through and now reduced to a dollar each.

There has been a rough choreography of
extreme emotion over the past few days, on the radio and
television, in the newspaper, on the street. The snippets that I’ve
witnessed are mostly anger and fear, which, as any psychological
quack with the slightest of B.A.’s will tell you, are both the same
thing. Just as the macho man with the illiberal views and the
tendency toward personal vigilantism is a weak little simp on the
inside, many of those who are ranting angrily are really doing so
out of fear. I do not criticize this fear, of course, but have to
admit that the anger can be wearing. Sincere emotion tends to come
from the deep, quiet centre of a person, and is manifested with a
dignity and integrity which the media “personalities” do not even
approach.

As I pass by a table of overdone
turquoise jewelry, I hear my name called. I flinch that it might be
the raver, but it turns out to be an attractive, husky-voiced young
woman whom I can’t quite place.

“Yes, hello.”

“My name’s Rachel. From the public
library, you know, the main branch. I’ve helped you with some of
your research.”

“Oh, yes, I recognize you now,” I lie.
“Please forgive me: I guess it must be seeing you out of context.”
I smile at her to indicate something friendly. I do remember now
that she was in fact quite helpful, steering me away from false
leads, and introducing me to sources of information that I hadn’t
been aware of.

“It’s scary,” she says.

“Scary?”

“The murders.”

“Oh, yes, right. Yes. Though I guess
the police ...” I let the sentence trail off, suddenly realizing
that I am not quite sure what I wanted to say about that. Are the
police on the verge of arresting someone? Are they
incompetent?

“I don’t think they’ve caught anyone,
right?” she asks, saving me.

“No, that’s what I hear on the news
anyway.”

She smiles awkwardly, as if the tidbit
of information, only this side of polite conversation, is somehow
disturbing. A car goes by and it startles her. She squeals in a
very appealing fashion.

“I’m sorry,” she says. “A little
nervous, I guess. This thing has got me spooked.”

“It’s understandable,” I say. “People
have been killed.”

“What do you think it’s all about? I
mean, who’s doing this?” She laughs nervously.

“Well, if I knew that, my book would
be very short and I would go to the police right away.” She laughs
again, this time more relaxed.

“I guess maybe I just lack
imagination or something,” she says. “I mean, I work in a library,
and I read a lot of books, mysteries even, but I can’t even begin
to imagine who the killer is, what kind of man—what kind of
person
, I guess—what kind
of person would do something like this.”

I finally have a chance to examine her
more closely as she looks around, as if for her next halting
sentence, as if for the murderer, and the thing that strikes me is
that she is a jumble of contrasts. An elegant black jacket, but
shabby shoes; a bad haircut, but makeup applied with subtlety and
meticulousness.

“Listen,” I say, sounding more
imperious than I intend. “Are you going to be in on Saturday, at
the library?”

She nods.

“Perhaps after my research we could go
get a coffee or something and discuss the case. Not that I know
anything in particular, but I think that it might be interesting to
exchange thoughts.”

“That would be wonderful.”

I look at my watch, crudely, I am
afraid, and for no particular reason, and she takes the unintended
cue.

“You’re busy, but it’s been nice
talking to you and I’ll see you on Saturday. I’m there from nine to
four.”

She walks away resolutely at first,
determined, but after about ten metres she turns to see whether I
am still there, still watching her. Her eyes go down to the ground
then and she turns back around very quickly and makes her way down
the street. I sense an odd—what to call it?—victory, as if I have
won this particular battle.

Chapter 4

I take a break from this
necessary but awful research, and walk along that same lake where
Ryan and Jack used to walk in more civilized times. It’s early
evening and the water is an unnatural shade of steel grey, calm and
ominous. Novice jogger with flabby legs and bad technique. A couple
whispering to each other on a rock. A family gathered around a
woman in a wheelchair, some respite from whatever she is being
cared for at the hospital across the street. There’s enough wind
blowing to keep those gaggles of flies from gathering, but not
enough to make me cold as I stride with some purpose. Not that I
really do have anything to do or anywhere to go, but I always feel
awkward when I am seen to be strolling
alone
, when I am obviously not
accompanied by anyone (no friends, no girlfriend, no family
visiting me) and so appear to be doing this for exercise or for
lack of other useful activity to be devoting myself to (“Honey,
let’s go to the lake, it’ll kill some time!”).