He drained his Jack Black on the rocks and sighed.
“And now it’s maybe three girls he’s killed.”
He slid the glass on the table. It stopped beside a large bowl of cashews. Another bowl next to it was almost empty of its stick pretzels. Also on the table was a collection of glasses and bottles, the latter consisting of one each Old Bushmills Irish Whiskey, Famous Grouse, Jack Daniel’s, and Concho y Toro Shiraz wine.
“We don’t automatically jump at the term ‘psychopath,’” Dr. Amelia Payne said.
“I do,” Byrth said. “Among other choice words that my manners do not allow to be repeated in such polite company.”
Amy, holding a half-full glass of red wine, said, “The reason we don’t is because psychopathy is the most severe condition. It’s found in only one percent of the population.”
Byrth said, “Doc, with all respect-if it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, it’s a damned duck.”
Amy stared at the Texas Ranger, clearly considering her next words.
Before she could speak, he added, “That, or it’s la folie raisonnante.”
“What the hell is that?” Matt Payne said, reaching for the bottle of wine.
“Impressive,” Amy said, nodding appreciatively.
She smiled at Byrth.
Holding the bottle by its bottom, Matt poured more of the Chilean Shiraz into Dr. Amanda Law’s glass.
Amanda silently mouthed the words “Thank you.”’It was somewhat exaggerated, and Matt saw that it caused the tip of her tongue to linger between her lips for a long moment. His pulse raced.
How do I get a taste of that particular fine vintage?
After a moment, Payne heard his sister clearing her throat, each time more noisily. When he looked in her direction, he saw that she had her arm stretched out and was impatiently rocking her now-empty glass at him.
The Black Buddha, holding in his ball mitt of a hand a golden-colored Bushmills martini, chuckled deeply at the sight.
Matt reached over and refilled his sister’s stem.
Jim Byrth explained, “In 1801, Phillippe Pinel described his patients as la folie raisonnante.”
“Okay, and that means…?” Matt said, returning the bottle to the table and picking up his glass of Famous Grouse.
“ ‘Insane without delirium,’” Byrth explained, looking at him. “Pinel found his patients were not necessarily impaired mentally. Yet they still committed impulsive acts that were harmful to themselves. So he called it ‘insane without delirium.’ ”
Byrth looked at Amy.
“We had a serial killer loose in Texas a few years back. He traveled around by hopping trains, killing near tracks all across the state. I did some research on psychopaths during that, and afterward. Fascinating stuff.” He paused. “I know just enough to be dangerous, Doc.”
He smiled.
She smiled back.
Then she asked, “Would you like me to give you my version?”
“I certainly would,” Detective Anthony Harris said. “But please try to use little words for young Matthew’s sake.”
Dr. Amanda Law laughed out loud.
Matt mock-glared at Tony. With the glass resting in his right palm, he held up his drink in a salute-the middle finger and thumb extended-and said, “Et tu, Brute?”
Harris grinned when he saw that Payne was giving him the bird.
Payne then took a healthy sip and put down the glass.
Amanda reached over and squeezed Matt’s left wrist. “I’m sorry. I really wasn’t laughing at you.”
“Apology accepted,” Matt said, looking in her eyes and smiling.
And as long as you keep touching me, any and every other of your transgressions shall be immediately forgiven.
She pulled back her hand.
Damn!
Amy said, “I’m afraid that’s going to be difficult, Tony, but I’ll try.”
She looked at Matt and feigned a sweet smile. Then she made a toasting motion toward him with her glass, and sipped from it.
Matt felt a vibration in his pants pocket. He pulled out his cell phone and saw that he’d received a text message from Chad Nesbitt.
It read:
SOUP KING
Not now, Chad!
What text?
He replied: can it wait till later?
Then almost immediately after he hit SEND, his phone vibrated again.
The text message read:
Then Matt’s phone started to ring. Its screen flashed: SOUP KING-1 CALL TODAY @ 1848.
Later is not now, dammit.
Matt pushed and held the 0/1 button.
Oh, look, Chad-my phone just “died.”
His phone screen went dark and then the phone turned off.
“Okay,” Dr. Amelia Payne was saying, “what often is confused with psychopathy is what’s called dissocial personality disorder. In concept, the two share the same criteria. But in reality there are distinct differences, ones that determine who truly is a psychopath.”
“What are these shared criteria?” Jim Byrth said.
“Behavior that is delinquent and criminal.”
“Well, our boy meets that criterion in spades. As my grandfather used to say, he’s meaner than a rattlesnake in a red-hot skillet.”
The Black Buddha chuckled.
“Furthermore,” Amy said, “prison studies have found that up to eighty percent of those incarcerated meet the criteria for dissocial personality disorder. But of those, only ten or so percent are in fact true psychopaths.”
“To borrow Jim’s word, that is fascinating, Amy,” Washington said. “Are there any precursors to the condition?”
She nodded, then took a drink of her wine.
“In the early 1960s,” Dr. Payne explained, “J. M. Macdonald came up with three indicators that pinpointed psychopathy in children. Those are bedwet ting, starting fires, and torturing animals.”
“The Macdonald triad,” Jim Byrth said.
“Exactly,” Amy Payne said, her face showing she was again impressed.
Byrth then said, “Well, I can’t speak to whether or not El Gato wets his bed. But he clearly has a history of torching and torturing.”
Everyone was quiet for a moment.
“Perhaps worse,” Amy then added, “it’s been found that a psychopath is untreatable.”
Byrth nodded. “The best you can do is incarcerate them-in solitary confinement, away from the general population, unless you want more deaths-and throw away the key.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Matt said, and did.
The Black Buddha sipped thoughtfully at his Bushmills martini, then said, “Amy, it’s been some time-I won’t date myself-since I sat in a Psychology 101 class. Would you mind going over what causes such a sickness? What makes them different than any of us?”
Matt looked at Tony Harris. “Don’t even think of saying what you’re thinking, Tony.”
Harris grinned, then downed his Bushmills on the rocks and reached for the bottle for a refill.
Amy looked at Matt and shook her head.
She then said, “Of course, Jason. It’s fairly familiar ground for all of us. It goes back to what Freud said. He wrote of das Es, das Ich, and das?ber-Ich.”
She took a sip of her wine, then said, “As you’ll recall, that translates, respectively, as the It, the I, and the Over-I-or the Id, the Ego, and the Superego.
“The Id is the part of our personality that acts on pleasure, on immediate gratification. It is absolutely unashamedly amoral.”
Byrth saw Payne and Harris exchange glances. The three of them then grinned at the thought of what the other might be thinking.