Solitude Creek (Kathryn Dance 4) - Page 48
"Oh, hard to say. I don't know what happened. It's a mystery. I'm sorry."
Though he was apparently no more perplexed by it than he was contrite.
"What's this all about?" asked stolid Carol Allerton of the DEA.
Dance reminded her of the debate about releasing the description of their perp. As she spoke she kept her eyes on Foster.
"It made the news?" Carol Allerton asked. "Ouch."
"It made the news," Overby said, with a wrinkly mouth.
To Foster, Dance said, "Why would you even discuss it? With anybody in Sacramento? It's a West-Central Division investigation. Our investigation."
He wasn't used to being cross-examined.
"You mean a Monterey Sheriff's Office investigation."
"I mean not Sacramento's." Her lips grew taut.
"Well, sorry about that. I told somebody; they talked to the press. I should've told 'em to keep the lid on. It was a fuckup. But, bright side: I'll bet somebody's already spotted some could-be's. And'll call it in. Anytime now. You may have your boy before sundown, Kathryn."
"This morning Michael and I had every mobile unit on the Peninsula start sweeps of venues that might make good locations for other attacks. All day long. Shopping malls, churches, movie theaters. I don't know what they're going to be looking for now. If our perp hears the same news show I did, there's not going to be any brown-haired man in a green jacket to spot."
Foster wouldn't back down. "That presupposes that your unsub's going to try this again. Is there any evidence to that effect?"
"Not specifically. But my assessment is it's a strong possibility." And she certainly wasn't going to take the chance that there'd be no other attack.
Foster didn't need to reiterate his opinion of Dance's ability to make assessment.
He said, "It's probably moot. He's a thousand miles away by now."
Chapter 20
Antioch March had changed majors four times in three years at two schools.
Distraction, boredom and, truth be told, the Get kept him jumping from department to department (and finally drove him out of both Northwestern and Chicago altogether, without any degree, despite his nearly perfect academic record).
Still, he'd picked up some insights in various classes. He was thinking of one now, recalling the neo-Gothic classroom overlooking the north shore of Lake Michigan. Psychology. March had been fascinated to learn that there are only five basic fears.
For instance, take the fear of sharks, one that particularly interested him. That's merely a subcategory of the fear of mutilation: having part of our body damaged or excised. More broadly, fear of injury.
The four other basic fears: of physical death, of ego death (embarrassment and shame), of separation (from Mommy, from the drugs we inhale so desperately, from our lover) and of loss of autonomy (from claustrophobia on a physical level to being abused by a parent or spouse, for instance).
March remembered the cold November day when he'd heard about these in a lecture. Truly mesmerizing.
And now he was about to put several of them to good use. Fear of physical death, of mutilation and of loss of autonomy, all rolled into one. A movie theater would be his next target.
He had parked his car in a strip mall about a hundred yards from the Marina Hills Cineplex, just off Highway 1 in Marina. He was walking toward the theaters now.
Don't we love the comfort of the lights going down, the trailers coming to an end, the film starting? Waiting to be exhilarated, amused, thrilled--laughing or crying. Why is a theater so much better than Netflix or cable? Because the real world is gone.
Until the real world comes crashing in.
In the form of smoke or gunshots.
And then comfort becomes constriction.
Fear of physical death, fear of mutilation and, most deliciously, fear of loss of autonomy--when the crowd takes over. You become a helpless cell in a creature whose sole goal is to survive, yet in attempting to do that it will sacrifice some of itself: those cells trampled or suffocated or changed forever thanks to snapped spines or piercing ribs.
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