Investigator’s note: Entries are from 5 March 2009 through 11 April 2009. The victim’s name has been changed for the family’s privacy.

Does anyone need a reason to kill?

I’m a young man, twenty-six, a graduate student, and the question intrigues me. It’s the question that has led to this new predicament.

See, I’m a young man, twenty-six, a graduate student, and I’m bound to a wooden chair, sweat pouring down my shoulders, a dirty towel gagging my pleas.

-*-

Malcolm was a large man and he had a thing for small women—you know, the dainty type that had charm and energy. Youthful little cunts, he called them. He walked into my office on a Wednesday, bald, barrel-chested, imposing. He was the hired muscle you see in movies, or the bouncer with an icy glare.

Can I help you?

I’m here to schedule an appointment.

Office hours are between—

For counseling.

A graduate student in psychology had a choice of concentrations, but it boiled down to two options: theory or practice. I was a theory man. I disliked the messiness of people’s emotions and didn’t believe I was qualified to sort through them. I liked order. Theory was order.

I’m afraid that I don’t…that I’m not a clinical psychologist. I can refer you to others within the department.

He looked pensive. Doc, I understand you’re doing research on psychopaths.

Yes.

A long pause. Deep eye contact. I’m not saying I’ve killed a man, but I want to. Would that make me one?

I swallowed. My mouth was dry. We sat in silence. The room seemed oppressive, as if the walls were closing in on me slowly, and my exit was blocked by a bald hulk who wanted to kill. It’s in these moments that I tend to fold, like cardboard paper. Fight or flight. And I could do neither.

We’d have to administer a psychological profile. My voice did not squeak. It’s about fifty questions long, multiple choice. It would, of course, be confidential.

He nodded. I would like that.

The next day he took the test, showing a thoughtfulness I didn’t believe he had. He spent entire minutes on individual questions, painstakingly going through his memories one at a time, before circling an answer with a sharpened pencil. I examined his behavior. He was a guy who thought he had a problem. He wanted to kill people.

-*-

Oh, and yes, he tested as a psychopath.

-*-

Was I losing my mind? Interviewing a psychopath on a regular basis was dangerous enough; not reporting his crimes to the police was morally bankrupt. But this could make my dissertation. An ethnography into the mind of a psychopath. True, I feared the consequences of crossing Malcolm, but views into the rabbit hole were rare, and they almost always carried risk.

That’s the price you pay. That’s what I told myself. That’s the price you pay.

-*-

Our first session was two days after he took the test. We sat in my office. I took care to shut the door and avoid inquisitive stares from my colleagues. I told them it was research, and I did not lie.

No tape recorder. Just a yellow legal pad, a pen, and my memory.

He was open. He was forthcoming. He killed a cat when he was a young boy and from then he knew he was different. He loved horror movies but not the thrill of fright. He loved the blood, the messiness, the power.

I never learned Malcolm’s profession, what he did for money or what he did at all outside of our sessions. But somewhere along the line, I understood that he wasn’t just a man with psychopathic urges. He wasn’t just a man who felt he needed to fix this ill, to control this desire. He wasn’t just a man who wanted to be understood and to come clean and be forgiven for all he had done. He was something else entirely.

He told me a story:

“When I was sixteen, I volunteered for the local police. It’s amazing all they can do, forensics, DNA, profiling, deductive reasoning, pretty much a whole assortment of tricks to catch criminals. The lead detective in homicide was Russell Grimm. He is to this day the coldest man I’ve ever met. In fact, I think he had a bit of me inside of him. He was purely analytical, like a human computer seeing murders from every angle, as if homicides were simply events that transpired like any other, full of causes and effects and human motivations and emotions. He taught me how to see a situation from all angles, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle fitting together. He was my first test.

“One morning, I saw a young lady returning home from school. She must have been 17 or 18, still in high school, very preppy. I strangled her. I covered my tracks well, wore gloves and a body suit to eliminate DNA evidence, made sure her neighbors and parents weren’t home, used a generic piece of rope that I quickly deposed of.

“He tried to piece it together. Quickly he understood how she was killed, but he never understood why. He tried ex-boyfriends who had grudges. He tried the father, who was reluctant to talk to the police. In the end he had to conclude that the killing was random, done out of lust or insanity or cold blood, and he had no answers for that. The great thing about Detective Grimm was his belief. He believed that anything could be solved through analytical thought. When he failed to find the killer, he was forced to abandon that philosophy. He was broken.

“See, you can kill in more ways than one.”

-*-

How often do you get the feeling, I ask.

To kill?

Yes, that.

Never can tell. It’s like any other feeling—it comes and goes.

Has this—have our sessions—helped?

Are you asking me, Steve, if I’ve killed anyone lately?

The silence envelopes me.

Next time I do, Malcolm says, you’ll join. I think you’ll enjoy it. At least, you’ll learn something.

-*-

I arrive home after my third session with Malcolm. I pour myself a shot of whiskey and collapse onto the couch. My eyes scan the yellow legal pad, complete with my scribbled handwriting in what I hope passes for coherent thought and legitimate insight.

He manipulates people, I realize. The whiskey burns down my throat. He toys with people, instead of just killing them. That’s what separates him.

A note card catches my eye. It’s propped against a framed picture of my mom and sister.

I pick it up and recognize the handwriting. It’s neat, meticulous, as if the writer knew the exact way he wanted to shape each letter.

Cute Girl.

-M

The card floats from my hand onto the floor.

-*-

You can’t touch them. What—do you think this is a game?

Steve, did you?

My chest heaves. He has me. Wh-what do I have to do?

Don’t be afraid. Join me tonight. We can do this together.

I—I—I—

You’re a good man, protecting your mother and sister.

-*-

It’s hypnotic watching him prepare. He showers first, shaving all the hairs off his body. He dresses in black, black boots, black socks, black pants, black turtleneck, black gloves. Petrify the mind and the body will follow, he says. He opens a duffle bag on his bed, then gathers his tools. He lays them down one by one on the bed, like a mechanic about to go to work. Knife. Rope. As he continues, he loads the tools into the bag. It reminds me of an athlete preparing for a big game, the routine of putting tape on a hockey stick or lacing up cleats.

I have to kill him. Me, who has never been in a fight, who dislikes the messiness of emotions—I have to kill him. And he has forced me to do so. But I am frozen in place. I’m far from an unbiased bystander, a researcher observing a subject. There is complicity here, guilt, and finally some panic. It rises within me, slowly at first. My heart rate gains speed, sweat forms on my back and neck, my hands shake ever so slightly.

I make for the door.

He grabs my forearm. With a look resembling sadness, he applies a dish rag to my mouth. Sudden warmth envelopes me and my eyes slide shut.

-*-

Does anyone need a reason to kill?

Bound to a wooden chair, sweat pouring down my shoulders, a dirty towel gagging my pleas, I understand: It really doesn’t matter.