Hunter was waiting for his coffee to cool down a little. He’d never been one of those people like Carlos Garcia, his partner back at the LAPD, who could pretty much pour boiling hot coffee into a cup, give it five seconds, and then drink it down as if it were just lukewarm.
Hunter raised his eyes at Taylor.
‘Lucien and Susan, had both just graduated from Stanford,’ he said. ‘For Susan, her college days were over. She didn’t need to be in class anymore. She had no job, no boss, no boyfriend, no husband, no “punching the clock” anywhere, so to speak. Her family lived in Nevada. No one was expecting to hear from Susan again soon, especially because she had already let everyone know that after graduation, she had her mind set on traveling.’
‘So, if she disappeared,’ Taylor said, picking up on Hunter’s line of thought, ‘people would’ve just assumed that she’d really acted on her promise of traveling. No reason for anyone to get worried, at least not for a while.’
‘Exactly,’ Hunter agreed. ‘The circumstances of that particular moment in time made her the best possible kind of victim. The anonymous kind. The unmissed. And Lucien knew that very well.’
A tall and young-looking waitress, with her long dark hair pulled back into a fishtail braid, stepped up to their table.
‘Are you sure you wouldn’t like to have a look at the menu?’ she asked with a hint of an Italian accent. ‘I can recommend the gnocchi with the chef’s special cheese, tomato and basil sauce.’ She gave them a charming smile. ‘It’s so good you’ll want to lick the plate.’
Gnocchi was Hunter’s favorite Italian dish, but he still had no appetite.
‘Wow, that does sound very tempting,’ he said, matching her smile. ‘But I’m not very hungry today. Maybe another time.’ He nodded at Taylor.
‘Yeah, I’m not hungry either. Just the coffee for me today, thanks.’
‘No problem,’ the waitress said. She paused. Looked back at them. ‘I hope you guys work things out,’ she added kindly. ‘You look good together.’ She gave them one last sympathetic smile before moving over to take the order of a small group sitting just a few tables away.
‘Is that the vibe we’re giving out?’ Taylor asked once the waitress was out of earshot. ‘That we’re a couple trying to work things out?’
Hunter had an amused smile on his lips. He shrugged. ‘I guess.’
For an instant, Taylor almost looked embarrassed, but in a flash her game face was back on. ‘Do you really believe that Susan was never part of any of Lucien’s violent fantasies?’ she asked. ‘Do you believe she really was his first ever victim? And that he didn’t rape her?’
Hunter leaned back on his chair. ‘Why do you think he would lie about any of that?’
‘I’m not sure. I guess that what I’m trying to understand is — if Susan really was Lucien’s first ever victim, and he’d never had any “violent fantasies” about her, how come he went for her and not someone else. . a stranger?’
Hunter frowned. ‘I thought we just covered that a minute ago.’
‘No, I’m not talking about that particular night, or even that week, Robert. What I’m talking about is that despite the circumstances back then, giving Susan the quality of “perfect victim”, unless it was all an act, she and Lucien were supposed to be “friends”. From what he said, he even had some romantic interest in her, which suggests some sort of emotional attachment.’
Hunter’s coffee had cooled down enough for him to have a healthy sip. ‘And you’re thinking, it’s got to be a lot harder for a perpetrator to kidnap, partially skin, and then kill someone he knew, someone who was supposedly a friend, someone who he had a crush on.’
‘Exactly.’ Taylor nodded. ‘Especially if that person is his
first ever victim. If Lucien hadn’t fantasized about killing Susan in particular, then why torture and kill a “friend”? He could’ve easily found another anonymous victim — a total stranger — someone he could’ve picked up in a bar or a club, a hooker, I don’t know, but someone who he had zero feelings for, someone he couldn’t care less about.’
‘And to Lucien, that was exactly who Susan was.’
Taylor frowned.
‘You’re trying to look at it with your own eyes, Courtney,’ Hunter said, putting his coffee cup back down on the table. ‘You’re trying to understand it with your own mind. And when you do that, your emotions get in the way. You have to try to look at it through Lucien’s eyes. His psychopathy isn’t victim-centered.’
Taylor held Hunter’s gaze for a long while. Every agent with the FBI’s Behavioral Science Unit is aware that there are two major types of aggressive psychopaths. The first kind — victim-centered — are the ones to whom the victim is the most important part of the equation. The perpetrator fantasizes about a specific type of victim, so everyone he chooses has to match that type, fit the profile. And it usually boils down to physical type. With victim-centered psychopaths, the whole fantasy revolves around the way the victim looks. It’s the victim’s physical attributes that excites and ‘turns them on’. Most of the time because it reminds them of someone else. In those cases, there’s always some sort of strong emotional connection, and nine out of ten times their fantasies will involve some sort of sexual act. The victim being sexually assaulted either before or after being murdered is almost a certainty.
The second major type of aggressive psychopaths — violence-centered — are the ones to whom the victim is secondary. The most important part of the equation is the violence, not the victim. It’s the killing act that pleasures them. They don’t fantasize about a certain type of victim. They don’t fantasize about having sex with the victim, because sex will bring them little, or no pleasure at all. On the contrary, it’s a distraction from the violence. What they fantasize about is torture, about how to inflict pain, about the God-like power that it gives them. To those psychopaths, anyone can become a victim, even friends and family. There is no distinction. Because of that, they achieve a much higher level of emotional detachment than the victim-centered ones. They can easily kidnap, torture and kill a friend, a relative, a lover, a spouse. . To them it doesn’t matter. Emotions simply have no relevance.
‘How do you know Lucien’s psychopathy isn’t victim-centered?’ Taylor finally asked.
Hunter finished his coffee and used a paper napkin to dab his mouth.
‘Because of what we have so far.’
Taylor leaned in slightly and cocked her head.
‘The tokens that were found inside that box in Lucien’s house, remember?’ Hunter elaborated. ‘Not all of them came from women, and the ones that did drastically varied in size. That tells us that the victim’s physical type and even the gender aren’t that important to him. But Lucien also told us so himself. . twice.’
Taylor paused, and Hunter could tell that she was searching her mental record of that morning’s interview.
‘He told us that when he was in high school he dreamed of hurting people.’ Hunter reminded her. ‘Sometimes people he knew, sometimes people he had never seen before. . just random creations of his imagination — not a specific type.
Taylor remembered Lucien saying that, but she hadn’t fully made the connection.
‘Then he told us that when he started fantasizing while wide-awake, the star roles in his violent fantasies usually belonged to people he disliked. Sometimes teachers, sometimes school bullies, sometimes family members. . but not always. No physical attributes, or gender came into play. In Lucien’s dreams and fantasies, who he was hurting made no difference to him. What excited him was the act of murder, itself.’
Hunter consulted his watch. It was time to get going.