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Alex.
    Inside the black file were aerial photographs of the murder scene—fluffy, green-black patches of treetop, as distant and artificial as an architect’s design sketch.
    Tan laces at the upper periphery—the roads. Capillaries feeding mountains, gullies, the city sprawl beyond.
    Facing the photos was a crisp white letter on FBI stationery. DEAR DETECTIVE GOROBICH correspondence from FBI Special Agent Gail Gorman of the bureau’s Behavioral Sciences Regional Unit in San Diego.
    Gorman acknowledged receipt of the aerial shots, the crime-scene data, and the completed questionnaire, but regretted that insufficient information existed for a definitive profile of the killer. However, she was willing to guess that he was most likely male, white, over thirty, of average to above-average intelligence, nonpsychotic, probably compulsive and perfectionistic, presenting a neat, clean, unremarkable appearance, probably employed at the present, though possibly with an inconsistent or checkered job history.
    With regard to the crime being “sexual in nature,” she repeated the disclaimer of insufficient data and went on to say that “despite the obvious organization of the crime, the lack of sadistic or vicious elements mitigate against a sexual homicide, as does the absence of obvious or covert sexual activity at the scene. However, should future homicides bearing precisely these signature elements show themselves, we would be interested in hearing about them.”
    The letter ended by suggesting that “victim characteristics should be explored further: age, ethnicity, specific disabilities. While this homicide might very well turn out to have been committed by an opportunistic or premeditated stranger, the possibility that the victim knew the perpetrator cannot be ruled out and, in fact, should be looked into, though, once again, this is only a suggestion, not a conclusion. Factors mitigating against victim-perpetrator acquaintance include leaving the body faceup in a location where it would eventually be found. Factors mitigating for acquaintance include the use of diffuse-force (“gentle’) strangulation and other evidence of care and time taken to avoid brutalization and degradation of the body.”
    Average to above-average. Organized, compulsive, perfectionistic.
    That meshed with my first impression.
    A planner—someone who took pride in setting things up and watching the elements fall into place.
    Taking his time—spiriting Irit a mile from the bus so he’d have time.
    It implied a certain relaxation—self-confidence? Arrogance?
    Someone who believed he was clever.
    Because he’d gotten away with it before?
    No M.O. match existed in any of the state files.
    Had he evaded detection by concealing other bodies?
    Going public, now?
    More confident?
    I let my mind dance around the data.
    Someone who craved control because he’d been controlled as a child, perhaps brutally?
    Maybe he was still under someone’s thumb. A worker bee or submissive spouse?
    Faking self-confidence?
    Needing release.
    Employed, possibly a checkered history   .   .   .
    Agent Gorman using sound psychological logic, because psychopaths’ achievements nearly always lagged behind their own inflated self-images.
    Leading to dissonance. Tension.
    The need for release: the ultimate control.
    I thought of a killer I’d met in graduate school.
    A strangler, as it happened, locked in a back ward of County General Hospital, waiting for the court system to evaluate his sanity. A professor who earned extra money as an expert witness had taken us to the killer’s cell.
    A gaunt, almost skeletal man in his thirties, with sunken cheeks and wispy black hair, the strangler lay on a cot, restrained by wide leather straps.
    One of my classmates asked him what it felt like to kill. The gaunt man ignored the question at first, then a slow smile spread across his lips and they darkened, like paper held to a flame. His victim had been a prostitute whom he