The X-Man by Brian R. Lundin (100 best novels of all time .TXT) 📕

hands and cleaning his spotless fingernails. The doctor took out a nail file and started cleaning his nails. He wore black pants and a white, heavily starched shirt and a pressed white laboratory coat with a plastic, pictured ID badge clipped to the top pocket.

RINGO
What we got doc?

DOCTOR
Not much, not a lot to tell you about Peggy, she was raped before and after death, she died of manual strangulation: suffocation, same as the others. So far he is sticking to his pattern; victims raped before and after death, propped up in the bathtub, numerous stab wounds and strangulation. In most murders if someone is shot it is remote but strangulation is personal this UNSUB wanted to torture and terrorize his victims. The cuts were per mortem, but made with a slender bladed knife and if I remember correctly the other Vics were cut up with kitchen knives. We didn’t get the body for two days you know, so it was hard to get too much. There were small traces of marijuana in her blood and we sent her handbags over to the lab but we found nothing under the nails or on the fingers. We found sperm which is being examined for DNA and hopefully our unsub, is in some DNA database, if not when we get a suspect we can check to see if there is a match, we’re still trying to determine if Peggy was killed while in the bath tub or somewhere else.

FADE IN:
As the doctor sat down the door opened and Monique Brown, the Department Clinical Psychologist entered. Monique Brown was very dark with keen features and prominent cheekbones, a trait inherited along with her coloring from her maternal great-great grandmother that was a full-blooded Sioux Indian and her great-great grandfather who was a runaway slave. She was witty, charming and most of all smart. She looked like one of the old Regal Theater showgirls, trim and athletic looking with a small waist, shapely legs and the haughty air of an Indian Princess, out of time and place, but royalty nonetheless. Her voice was soft and soothing and still had a charming North Dakota accent. Monique had the disposition of a patron saint and an easy way with people, which accounted for her success as the Department’s first black female clinical psychologist. Her deep black eyes were hypnotic and was rumored that she had hypnotized police officers and suspects. Police headquarters far removed from the Special Crimes Bureau is a combination of veteran police officers, aggressive young male officers and few female officers. It is rumor headquarters. Interdepartmental jealousies were the cause of most of the rumors, when someone started to advance, a rumor would surface to shed doubt on the qualifications of the person and some of these doubts however unfounded could linger in the minds of the most well intentioned officers for years and the rumors that had some validity could linger in the halls of police stations long after the subject of the rumor had retired or died.
Everyone at one time or another in the department was the subject of rumors. Lieutenant O'Shea was rumored to get his promotions because of clout, not accomplishments; Lieutenant David O'Shea came from a family of Irish Chicago Police Officers. His grandfather Sean was a body guard for the late mayor and his father William retired as a Deputy Chief of Detectives. The O'Shea family had always lived in Bridgeport, the democratic bastion of Chicago and the neighborhood of most of Chicago mayors. David lived next door to his widowed father with two daughters and wife. O'Shea was thirty-two years old, overweight and had a ruddy complexion that turned beak red when upset, angry or drunk. He was a little man under five feet eight the height requirement for police officers and it was rumored that he stood on his grandfather and father’s shoulders to meet the requirement. His sparse, thinning red hair was the same color as his scalp and there were deep wringles around his eyes. After graduating from the academy he was assigned to the Crime Analysis Bureau where he worked days, a straight forty hour week and off on weekends, whereas most rookie police officers were assigned to a district on the Ist Watch or midnight shift and never had a weekend off. Department regulations required an officer must have two years on the job to take the sergeant examination, so after exactly two years David took the exam and was promoted to sergeant. Unlike most newly promoted sergeants who are assigned to a patrol district usually on midnights, David was assigned to the Communication Center another soft job, two years later he was promoted to lieutenant and assigned as an administrative aide to the Chief of Detective, Donald Nash. Nash had been an aide to David’s father and was David’s godfather. When the Special Crimes Bureau, under the Chief of Detectives was organized, Nash assigned David as the commanding officer and he hand-picked five Irish detectives as his personal assistants Ringo got assigned to the Special Crimes Bureau because his aunt was a politically connected with a powerful black alderman. Rumors about Monique were varied, as rumors often are; rejected suitors who felt that if a woman didn’t fall for their tired lines she had to be gay, probably started some of the rumors, Other rumors alleged that she had gotten her well paying, soft position by sleeping with some high political or police department official, also never proven. Monique was the only member of the force who could act autonomously and as such was the target of rumors by a few envious women.

MONIQUE (WALKING IN FRONT OF THE GROUP)
I just received a fax from the FBI’s Criminal Profile Unit and it might interest you, they wired me a telex with all kind of qualifying statements, but what is interesting is that they interviewed fifteen sexual psychopathic serial killers deemed criminally insane and lust murders, and the most striking thing about most of their cases were the explosion of sadistic violence that went far beyond just raping their victims; carving symbols into their bodies, removing parts of the body and mutilations. They concluded that our Mr. X-Man is probably a sexual psychopath which, they defined as an individual that receive uninhibited gratification in criminal, sexual or aggressive impulses and the inability to learn from past mistakes, he is also a quiet, isolated individual with a schizoid personality and is charming, intimidating and use sex and violence to control others to satisfy his selfish needs. There are more questions than answers in this type of psychoses; some research blame it on genetics, others blame it on trauma, brain damage, but nobody knows for sure but what is known is that this type of personality is lacking in conscience and feels no empathy for his victims. He is probably black and can blend in with the neighborhood, in his early twenties and a bookworm. Psychopaths are glib and superficially charming, and many psychopaths are excellent mimics of normal human emotion; some psychopaths can blend in, undetected, in a variety of surroundings, including the corporate or business environments. There is neither a cure nor any effective treatment for psychopaths; there are no medications or other techniques which can instill empathy, and psychopaths who undergo traditional talk therapy only become more adept at manipulating others. The consensus among researchers is that psychopath stems from a specific neurological disorder which is biological in origin and present from birth; this may explain his fascination with women underwear and the use of panty hose as his kill tool. He probably had an intensive period of bedwetting way past the preschool age, enjoyed torturing and killing small animals and probably had an extensive juvenile record for petty crimes; shoplifting, truancy and violence towards other children and he may have had a problem establishing a sexual identity. He more-than-likely appeared immune from punishment and nothing probably seemed to modify his behavior so I would guess that the foster parents finally gave up and he was sent to another foster home and his behavior worsen. He has no real father to identify with and who knows what his foster fathers were like. He probably went through a period of being a peeping tom - a voyeur, maybe looking at the other foster girls as they dressed and undressed or he could have a testosterone imbalance like that sicko Richard Ramerez, the so-called “Night Stalker,” who raped and killed a lot of young women in the eighties. As he got older he may have had an unpleasant sexual experience with a prostitute, but here is what interesting, an older woman or young girl may have raped him at an early age and maybe he found a girl that he liked and thought she was interested in him, but only to find out later that she only felt sorry for him. This would have happened in his late teens or early twenties. He had a lot of guilt and tension developed around his sexual identity or lack of it and it has been building. He may have tried homosexual affairs that also went nowhere. So he dedicated himself to reading erotic magazines and books and became an insomniac, he may be hearing voices and/or misinterpreting reality, he lives in his own made-up fantasy world, where he is all-powerful and sexually potent. It might be helpful for you to know what kind of person you are dealing with and maybe helpful in catching him, which, I know you will, our guy thinks he’s super clever like that character in Silence of the Lambs, but he’s not as sharp as you guys. If this unsub is a sexual psychopath, which I think he is, rather than a psychotic, remembered he could be very charming especially to young impressionable women. He could be very attractive and is probably a pathological liar, a Ted Bundy type and has a grandiose sense of self- worth and importance. He is probably impulsive and is very, very angry and receives erotic satisfaction by killing and raping the women. He probably hates himself; he is willing to abandon his job, family and any friends if he has any. From the reports I’ve read he mutilates the bodies, carving an x into their chest and poses and props them up, he could be getting off from the act of killing itself. You’re searching for a very dangerous and sick individual that needs help, and I don‘t think he‘s going to stop killing. The sexual psychopath is one of the most fascinating and distressing problems of human experience. For the most part, a psychopath never remains attached to anyone or anything. He lives a “predatory” lifestyle and feels little or no regret, and little or no remorse - except when they are caught. They seek relationships, but see people as obstacles to overcome and be eliminated. He sees people in terms of how they can be used, he use people for stimulation, to build their self-esteem and we invariably value people in terms of their material value. A psychopath can have high verbal intelligence and have multiple personalities disorders, but he typically slacks "emotional intelligence," he can be expert in manipulating others by playing to their emotions . The lack of emotional intelligence is the first good sign you may be dealing with a psychopath. A history of criminal behavior in which they do not seem to learn from their experience, but merely think about ways to not get caught is the second best sign.

RINGO
Evetta in all of the killings you sad there were no indications of forced entry; no broken windows no kicked in doors, no fingerprints, no trace evidence, no nothing, correct?

EVETTA
That’s correct sir, this unsub is very, very careful