During our chat, Bill even freely admitted that “Tranquility Garden” was about him, about his lost love. But, when I brought up the letters he’d sent to Teryl’s parents—“I am dead now. I am alive, but I am dead.”—he swore he didn’t remember writing them. He wasn’t denying their sentiment—he actually paused to think about it and then agreed that this was probably an accurate assessment of his emotional state back at that time, but it perplexed him that he couldn’t remember having expressed it to anybody, let alone written it down and mailed it off. In any event, he insisted that he didn’t feel “alive but dead” now, he simply felt alive and misunderstood. Then he quickly and nervously changed the topic to his favorite reading and his latest writings. Science fiction, fantasy, swords and sorcerers—he was a huge fan of the “Pern” fantasy books written by Anne McCaffrey, and he was just beginning to write just such a fantasy book based on a dream he’d had.
He explained that, like me, he stayed up late writing every night, and he suffered from insomnia, so he often had waking dreams. I told him that waking dreams were what writing is all about. He then went on to detail the “Pern” stories for me, since I was unfamiliar with them—he would later give me his copy of The Complete Guide to Pern for my edification. He’s always been insistent that these sorts of dreams and fantasy worlds are crucial to him and should be crucial to my understanding of him, but I have to say that I don’t believe him. While I do firmly believe that he fantasizes constantly, that a barren pockmark on a desert map could be a lush “Tranquility Garden” or a frothing cove at the beach could be a “Temple of Doom”, I find Bill’s formalization of fantasy worlds to be his least responsive writing. As you will see in “A Whisper From the Dark”, his fantasy/adventure story, he’s cribbing rather than giving. When he admits to fantasy, it’s usually someone else’s, some other writer’s that he believes will be acceptable to his readers without really revealing anything deep about himself even though he is always ostensibly the protagonist/hero and even though that character always has a stated history drawn on Bill’s own. His admitted fantasies are very artificial, too perfectly constructed, obviously manipulative, designed to help the next jury believe that if the evidence points to his guilt, then maybe he should be excused because he’s insane. Of course, up until his conviction, Bill wouldn’t even admit to the possibility of insanity. Like Don, he was strident in espousing his perfect mental health. But now, with a death sentence hanging over him, Bill’s open to other defense strategies. Maybe. And, if he’s not, wouldn’t you have to call him insane? Wouldn’t it be insane not to do anything and everything to save yourself from lethal injection?
The fact is that, as a matter of law, Bill Suff is insane, but not necessarily in a way that will get him off Death Row. He does know the difference between right and wrong, and he knows damn well what he’s doing when he does it. It’s just that there is absolutely no way in this or any world that he can stop himself. We will delve more into this later, but suffice it to say that Bill’s terror is feeling that he’s out of control, and so he kills to convince himself that he’s in control, even as the very act of killing is proof positive of his lack of control. This is the orbit of horror which Bill’s world circumscribes. Maybe I feel I can see this because I used to watch my schizophrenic ex-wife walk over to the afghan on our bed, tug it even, turn around, then step back to it and tug it even again, and then repeat the process endlessly until I yelled at her and frightened her only momentarily into stopping it because it was making me crazy. “I’m sorry,” she would whimper, voice hollow and dry, eyes wide and unfocused, all pupil and no identity, making me feel sad and guilty beyond belief, “but I just have to do this,” she’d say.
And then she would edge up to the afghan and do it again and again and again and again. It was the only way she could impose order on her chaotic universe, maybe hoping that she could silence the voices in her head by abiding rather than fighting them, or maybe the voices themselves were fictions that survival chemicals and neurotransmitters conjured in order to make sense of the senseless, irresistible impulses.
And where I come down is in believing that, while there are truly evil people in this world, the insane are by and large good people who, when they commit evil deeds, should be taken out of circulation to prevent further harm to the innocent, but should not be put to death. In a confined world, the insane have a chance at consistent productivity, periodic lucidity, and final atonement. I am not going to tell you that Bill Suff isn’t evil, but I am certain that he is not going to kill or even threaten anyone at anytime in prison. And, regardless of him, we should not diminish ourselves by the delusion that we have the right to determine life and death even as we condemn others for exercising that same prerogative.
The “Pern” discussion with Bill led to anecdotes about my writ-ing for Star Trek: The Next Generation and for M.A.N.T.I.S., as well as other science fiction scripts and stories, although I don’t read much sci-fi and haven’t read any fantasy since a collegiate summer addiction to H. P. Lovecraft long ago. I explained to Bill that with science fiction and fantasy it’s too easy to get caught up in the extrapolation, the “what if” sizzle, even as you distance yourself at warp speed from the emotional chords, the meat and potatoes, that bring real power and connection to storytelling. As my friend Gene Roddenberry had lectured me before he hired me, “Star Trek” is not science fiction—the stories are “people stories”, timeless and real, which could be placed in any universe. As fans of the series know, Gene had created Star Trek as “Wagon Train in space”, not some high-tech, whiz-bang hardware store.
Meanwhile, Bill was suddenly on cloud nine now that he knew somebody who’d had Gene Roddenberry at his last wedding. Bill was like a little kid, barely able to contain his excitement, wanting to know more, wanting to make sure I knew that he’d be watching the reruns to look for my episodes,
I had to laugh. I’d wanted to become Bill’s hero in order to have power over him, but I’d figured that would be because he’d view me as a lawyer and writer who could champion his cause in the public forum—instead, it was because I could tell him “inside” stories about Star Trek.
Now that I finally had Bill’s attention, I used Star Trek to turn our conversation to the real matter at hand: serial murder.
‘“Elementary, Dear Data’—you remember that episode, Bill? That was mine. Data plays Sherlock Holmes on the holodeck, only he makes the mistake of ordering the computer to create an opponent who can defeat him. So the computer comes up with a Professor Moriarty that has real consciousness. A hologram that is more human than Data, the android. That’s how you defeat Data’s perfect capacity for deduction, not by programming but by emotion, not by logic but by the illogic that defines us as human beings. What we’re about is the fact that we do things we shouldn’t do, things that make no sense, things that are against our own self-interest. So this Moriarty believes he’s real, knows he’s real, and that belief in himself allows him to take over the Enterprise, to cross from the holodeck and into the real world.” I took a breath and smiled to myself, and then: “Where he’s willing to kill in order to become truly alive.”