It is white. Bone. Off-white. Cream. Lines and shadows and angles the only coloration against the textures of wood and wall and countertop and ceiling and floor, all unsullied by marquetry or faience. Unaccessorized and denuded of what we think of as the human touch, the furnishings and bric-a-brac and gee-gaws and gimcracks one associates with a room one lives in. This is not a room you associate with the presence of an occupying humanity.
The color of the line has been carefully chosen, sculpted to reflect the essence and purity of 1915's L'Ex-position Internationale des Arts Décoratifs et Industriels Modernes. And the absence of color is but illusion, to soften the screaming angles and wildly, sweeping planes and dizzyingly perfect curves that are at once deco and post-modern, simplistic and complex, pure, white, and cold.
He keeps the austere room very cold. Icy in fact. Throbbing, dripping, central air capable of British Thermal Units that will lower this baby to a meat locker hums away unseen. And he breathes deeply of this chilling purity, here in the room that is his shrine, this hidden sanctuary where no outside influence can intrude.
Buckhead Station
The Major Crimes Task Force normally reached out for Eichord only when there were four or more related murders, their yardstick for serial killings, or when the attendant publicity on a homicide reached a certain noisy level. In another city the Hoyt murder might not have reached Jack's desk, but here on his home turf, Buckhead Station, it was a major homicide case, and he was asked to focus all his energies to solving it.
“Operator,” he said, “I'm on long-distance calling for Doug Geary, please.” A woman's voice, presumably the local operator's, had suddenly asked if anyone was waiting on this line. Someone was.
“One moment.” The long lines to Arizona buzzed, hard plastic nestled against Eichord's left ear.
“Dr. Geary's office."
“Yes. This is Jack Eichord calling long-distance for Doctor Geary, please."
There was another wait.
“Jack?” the doctor's voice crackled down the line.
“Doc?"
“Can this be the legendary Jack Eichord?” The man's high, squeaky voice made Jack smile. He considered Doug Geary a good friend.
“'Fraid so, old pal. Me again.” He laughed into the phone. “I didn't know if you'd remember me after all this time."
“Sure. How are ya? What's up?"
“Fine. Doug, I'm on a case, of course. In Buckhead. But it goes back a number of years to a series of killings that took place in Texas.” Jack told the doctor about the homicides from the crime reports he'd obtained after his reporter friend had sent him the old news clippings. Between MCTF and Amarillo he'd amassed quite a file. “They were called the Iceman Murders by media. Do you recall ever hearing about them?"
“Ummm.” The doctor thought for a moment. “Nope. I don't remember hearing about them."
“These are homicides from roughly twenty years ago. But I think the recent killing here in Buckhead is the same M.O. I just need a few minutes to get some basics from you. Do you have the time?"
“I'll make time, Jack. Sure. Go ahead."
“Just the basic stuff. I have so much trouble retaining the psych stuff. Okay. I'm trying to get some background that will help me understand what I'm dealing with.” And he began telling him what little he knew about the Tina Hoyt killing. The oral penetration. Semen trace in the decedent's mouth. The icepicklike weapon—how it had been used. The medical examiner's hypotheses.
“Go over those penetrations again, Jack,” the doctor said. “The old homicides. You said strangulations and then the icepick killings?"
“Right."
“Precisely where were the entrance wounds made? You said something about the one being stabbed in the eye?"
“Yeah. Right. One in the temple. One in the ear. One in the eye."
“Have you considered that maybe this perpetrator has bad aim. What if he had been aiming to get the eyes each time, and the victims move or his aim is bad? You see, when you talk about an icepick into the eyeball, you're painting the classic M.O. of somebody who has low self-esteem—such as a badly disfigured person. Somebody who sees himself as ugly to women for whatever reason."
Dr. Geary began speaking very rapidly without seeming to choose his words. “The personality distortions that all of us have inside are potential explosions and the stress of daily life is the catalyst. Three types of unacceptable social behavior can take place as a result of these explosions: happenstance misbehavior, fleeting or chronic. Let's say you act from the stress of severe economic pressures—what we might categorize as a normal reaction. Or from accidental happenings that place you under unusual momentary stress. These types of reactions differ from the reaction of the chronic misbehaver. This category includes the so-called hair-trigger temper, the individual who has no feeling of belonging to the society with which he must compete, a society that frightens him."
“Why does such a chronic misbehaver kill? Because he's afraid of those around him and wants to get rid of them?"
“No. It's more complex than that. There are all types of chronic offenders whose distorted personalities lead them to kill, as you're well aware. Hysteroids and epileptoids and schizoids who may kill out of hostility, or fear, or frustration, or disorientation. But the kind of chronic killer you have to deal with as a serial murderer is making statements. He's saying to that frightening society, You don't scare me; I scare YOU. I am more frightening than you are. This is the extreme of disturbed behavior, and obviously that sort of killer can think he has a million different reasons for that action."
“Can you draw any kind of a general profile of him with respect to the rest of his personality?"
“It's too general a category of disturbance. For instance, that same guy who kills in that reaction mode may only be galvanized to murder when a given stress factor is present and motivates him to reach such a state of emotional duress and psyche distortion. He might, in a very general sense, be the sort of character who normally—at least for him—gets through life by ‘getting over’ on his fellow man. Stealing from him, perhaps by some clever and sophisticated scheming that is acting as his substitutive ego-satisfier. Again, another statement: I am more clever than you, so I do not have to compete within the ordinary social structure."
“Is this guy, this general-profile fellow, is he going to tend to be very smart or very stupid?"
“No way to say. He could be a genius, although that would be rare indeed. He could certainly be cunning. He could have extremely developed superficial social skills—be an actor, in other words. Or be in between, somebody whose situational awareness is sufficiently acute that they appear normal. They get by and do not appear to become unduly imbalanced by the stress triggers. Or at the other end of the continuum, you could have a mentally deficient, low-IQ offender who is so aggressively hostile, or afraid, or ego-sick that he could fit the same profile. Your classic sadist, for example."
“He could be anything,” Eichord whispered.
“Absolutely. Schizzy, paranoid, sex psycho, cyclothymic, phobic, an—"
“Whoa. Speak English, Doc."
“Yeah, okay. Schizoid—remember—the guys who know they're inadequate. They can't cut the mustard physically or mentally or emotionally so they tune out. Become reclusive, turn inward, and build whatever peculiar set of defenses they need to protect themselves from the pain of being self-consciously inadequate. The aggressive ones become paranoid—get the superego working for them. Create a psychotic make-believe world to explain their frustrations or failures or fears. The cyclothymic, he is in perpetual unbalance. Gigantic mood swings. Loves his mother one minute and kills her the next. Ecstatic today, suicidal tomorrow."