Sociopath (5 page)

THOMAS FISCHER

“Thomas?” she yelled out from behind me. I ignored her.

I sat at the
laptop out on my balcony overlooking Park City and read about Jon Stanton. The man the media said was called out by the FBI to help in the murder investigation of Tiffany Ochoa.

I was curious
who the FBI turned to when they needed help. That’s how a local crime blog described him: the FBI’s go-to guy. He was … interesting.

He held the record for the mo
st officer-involved shootings at the San Diego Police Department. Several websites claimed he was a psychic and that he’d provided clues and proof of his supernatural prowess throughout the years. He had a higher clearance rate on murder cases than any other detective in the police department’s history, and one blog claimed, in essence, that it takes one to know one. How delightful that was.

One of the most interesting bits was that a former partner of his, Eli Sherman, ha
d tried to kill him after Stanton discovered that he’d been murdering young women, using his badge to pick them up. Sherman escaped custody and was still on the loose. How stimulating it would be to meet him.

I read a few
more blog posts, most of them discussing the beautifully gory details of various cases he had handled, and then closed the laptop and sipped my whiskey as I looked over the city below me. I had no neighbors and was surrounded exclusively by pine trees on the slope of a mountain. The parcel had cost me quite handsomely, but what was money for after all.

“Thomas,” the woman said behind me
again, “are you coming back to bed?”

I looked up to the setting sun that was
blood-red and the pink clouds burnt by its glory and grinned to myself. How fortunate she was. Not just to be with me, but that I did not have any urges currently other than base sexual ones.

I rose and went inside and grabbed her by the hair, kissing her hard and biting her lip. She was wearing a pink rob
e and her blonde hair danced on her shoulders. I held on to it as I spun her around and bent her over my desk. I spanked her several times and she yelped with pleasure. I lowered my pants to my knees and lifted her robe over her waist, revealing a perfect ass. I did nothing at first, simply admiring it, before leaning down and biting it.

I then entered her and thrust violently. So much so that she began telling me to slow down and go easy. When she did this, I would thrust harder and slap the back of her head. At one point she began to cry.

I came over her back and left her there. As I walked to the bathroom I threw a towel to her and it hit her in the face. Her humiliation was so palpable that I couldn’t move. It was mesmerizing. She looked at me as she wiped her back with the towel and then dressed and headed out the door. She feigned anger but she would be back if I called her. I would need a few simple words and she would be back. How odd it was that women always believed apologies.

After a shower, I dressed in black slacks with loafers and no sock
s, a blue button-down shirt and gold cufflinks. I had a party of sorts to attend and a date I was excited about. I regretted now having intercourse beforehand as I wasn’t as motivated, but I knew I would be able to perform again shortly.

I checked my Mariner Rolex
, which revealed I had an hour until I was meeting my date. I went down the stairs to the basement. The door was locked and I used a key to get in and locked it behind me.

It was pitch-black
, a type of darkness that was rare, someplace that no light penetrated, not even a crack underneath the door. I pressed my hand to the wall and gingerly felt around before flipping a switch and flooding the room with lights.

Carpeted
white and with a bearskin rug with fine wood furniture, it was a sanctuary. I had read somewhere that Jack Kennedy had such a room, a reprieve from the world in which he only brought those who were worthy to enter.

I sat down
at my desk and glared at the wall a moment. I then reached into a drawer and came up with several large, glossy photos and spread them on the table before me. Tiffany Ochoa was weeping as I cut her. In one photo she was looking directly into the camera and I couldn’t help myself. I opened my zipper and began to masturbate.

When I was finished I realized I had nothing down here to clean up with and I placed the photos away to go upstairs and change. How foolish I
was not to film the scene. I could still hear her screams in my ears and they were like candy. They had flavors, textures. And I hadn’t thought to preserve it.

This was my first. I would correct it next time.

JON STANTON

As Melissa and I drove down the mountain to Park City, I noticed that her nails were chewed down to her fingers. At the base were flecks of color and I knew she attempted not to bite down on them but couldn’t stop.

“So,” she said, “you think the dealer had something to do with it?”

“No, not really. I just want to see what he knows.”

“He’s as likely a suspect as anyone else.”

“I don’t think so. Not for this type of offense. We’re looking for someone with specific traits. Tiffany was chosen, she wasn’t random or desired just because she happened to be nearby.”

“Who do you picture when you see her killer?”

“White male, thirties, no history of sexual offenses. He’s too intelligent to be caught for the minor ones. But as a juvenile he may have racked up some voyeurism charges. Peeping into neighbor’s windows at night, things like that. Probably arrested or caught at school with violent pornography as well.”

“Intelligent, huh?
David thought he was disorganized and careless.”

“No, this was purposeful. Everything about it was purposeful. I don’t think he’s sloppy except for one detail and that
’s the arrow. He could have dug that out and deprived us of it. But he didn’t. I think he might have been interrupted or gotten frightened and finished earlier than he anticipated. And I think the initial profile was wrong about his being an underachiever. Someone with these types of impulses that goes his entire life without acting on them until now has incredible self-control. There’s a well-established correlation between self-control and intelligence, as well as social and financial success. I think we’re looking for someone that’s probably a professional of some kind.”

“That’s assuming you’re right about this being the first time for him.”

“He didn’t cut through the thumb, though he wanted to. He was rushed somehow. Something wasn’t anticipated and he ran. That’s panic. As a sociopath like this progresses in his ritual, he panics less and less and is calmer and more collected. This one had mistakes caused by alarm. He’ll correct his behavior next time.”

She was silent a moment. “We don’t have Behavioral Science in this field office. I work fraud cases, primarily mortgage fraud.
” She looked to me, embarrassed, but I showed no reaction. “I’ve always been fascinated by what the agents in the BSU do, working with sociopaths. I looked you up online. From what I could tell you’ve made a career chasing them.”

“A small percentage of them. Most
sociopaths are actually high functioning. They’re likely to be CEO’s and politicians and doctors and lawyers. A CMO I profiled once during graduate school was known as the Terminator. He enjoyed going into a town and firing twenty-five percent of the staff at factories and plants. He would joke with them as he did it as people cried in his office. He couldn’t relate to the emotions he was seeing and he found them humorous.

“That’s
most
sociopaths. There’s a disconnect between their amygdala and frontal cortex that prevents them from feeling empathy. The type I used to chase, and probably the type that killed Tiffany, is a sexual sadist, the most dangerous type of sociopath. He has the amygdala dysfunction of the typical sociopath but violence and sex have become linked in his mind, and unless his sexual partner is feeling some sort of pain or humiliation, he won’t be able to climax. But it takes a while for that connection to solidify. He’ll daydream about the violence, sometimes for years, and when it finally happens it’ll overwhelm him at first. That’s why I don’t think he could perform with Tiffany. I think her sheer terror surprised him and impotence followed. But he’s daydreaming about it now, and it arouses him. He wants to experience it again and this time he will be able to perform. And it’ll be more vicious.”

She took a deep breath. “Wow. I’m kind of glad I didn’t get assigned to BSU.”

I grinned, though I didn’t find it funny. “My first assignment in law enforcement was the DUI squad in San Diego. And I was happy to be there. When I was made detective I thought about the major cases I’d be working, the types of people I would deal with that most of society doesn’t know exist among them. That seems like a lifetime ago now.”

“I’m sorry about the way Adam treats you. It’s not fair.”

“He’s just scared.”

“Of what?”

“That what happened to David could happen to him. Federal agents are the elite of the elite in law enforcement and to think that your badge and gun and the power of the federal government can’t protect you from a single cracked person is terrifying.”

“Yeah,” she said absently.

I looked to her. “Sorry, I didn’t mean—”

“No, you’re right. It
really frightened me when I heard about David. You don’t hear about federal agents dying very often unless it’s overseas. And to think it happened in a hospital with thirty people inside….”

The trees were a lush green and the street was wide with canyons and streams on either side. The rushing water was pleasant to listen to and I rolled down my window the entire length and stuck out my
arm and let the wind hit me.

Park City was small
, but the most expensive place to live in Utah, even though the homes varied from colossal mansions in Jeremy Ranch to small shacks filled with ten people near Main Street. The city council had banned billboards and it added a beauty to the scenery that was difficult to find in most states. The only comparable places I had been to were Ketchum and Sun Valley, Idaho. But the fact that Hemingway killed himself there always gave it a darker tone.

We came in through a back road and past Park City High School
, turned left toward Main Street and the GPS led us to a series of condominiums tucked away behind some older homes. Parking was difficult so we went across the road and parked in the stall of a city government building.

We
crossed the street and went past the homes to the condos. Melissa got a phone call from Adam who was in Salt Lake at the crime lab following up on the prints and rushing the ballistics through. She spoke curtly in “yes” and “no” answers and hung up without saying goodbye.

“He doesn’t like me, does he?”

She glanced back to me. “He told Kyle he could handle this and Kyle told him he couldn’t, that he was bringing in an expert. David was Adam’s ASAC when Adam first started with the Bureau.”

We went up a path between several condos and came to the address listed in the GPS on her phone. The condo was azure
-colored with a small white porch. A table sat in front with a few chairs and two ashtrays filled with cigarette butts. One of the butts had lipstick on it and I stared at it for longer than I should have. The red glistened and the smears appeared like blood sliding down the side of the brown tube.

“You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said. “Sorry. Did you knock?”

“Yeah. No answer.”

I took a few steps back and looked into the upstairs window. I saw it move just slightly, as if someone had been peeking out through the blinds and then pulled away.

“FBI,” Melissa
shouted. “If you do not open the door I will be forced to apply for a warrant and come back with SWAT.”

Melissa looked to me and grinned.

A few moments later the door opened and a skinny man with red-rimmed eyes stood at the door. He was wearing a blue tank-top and a silver chain dangled from his neck into a puff of blond chest hair.

Melissa pulled out her badge and flashed it before replacing it. “We need to ask you some questions about
Tiffany Ochoa.”

The man’s eyes went wide. “I don’t know who
dat is.”

“Fine,” she said, “you’re under arrest for the murder of
Tiffany Ochoa.” She grabbed his wrist and spun him around. “You have the right to remain silent, anything you say—”

“
Yo! Murder, what! I ain’t done nothin’, man. I ain’t done nothin’.”

“You’re not being honest with us. It’s easier to just arrest you and deal with you at the precinct.”

“Nah, man. I’m on parole, man. Don’t do me like this.”

Melissa let him go. I asked him, “What’re you on parole for?”

“Burglary, man.”

“Then tell us the truth and this visit stays between us,” I said. “You sold weed to
Tiffany Ochoa. How often did you do it?”

“Couple times a month, man.
Nothin’ big.”

“
How did you know her?”

“We went to high school together.”

I paused. “You heard she died, right?”

“Yeah, I heard, man. And it
fuckin’ sucks. She was a good chick.”

“Did she have any enemies that you knew of?” Melissa asked.

“Nah, man. She was cool. Everybody liked her, you know. She used to be in this band with like six black dudes and there ain’t that many black dudes up here. But she would take ‘em back to her house and her mom would cook ‘em dinner and they’d play music, man. She was like that. Kind ta everyone. For real.”

“When was the last time you saw her?” I asked.

“Few weeks ago, man. She bought a dime-bag from me.”

“Was she into harder drugs?”

“Nah, man. Not if yous in Heber. You wanna just chill, you don’t wanna be all tweeked out’n shit. People’ll know.”

I glanced back to the cigarette with the lipstick. It was in the middle of the ashtray with several others on top of it, suffocating it. Black-gray ash dotted the table and the cement underneath. A few cigarette burns were on the cushions of the chairs.

“I saw her closet. She had nice clothes.”

“What
’s that?” he said.

I looked to him. “She had a lot of nice clothing. But our information says she was unemployed. Was she working for you?”

“She wasn’t like that. She wouldn’t ever sell to nobody ‘cause she’d feel bad if they got hurt or somethin’. She worked as a waitress, under the table’n shit. Didn’t have no papers.”

“Waitress where?”

“Café right here, man. Café Molisse. It’s down on Main.”

I looked to Melissa, gesturing if she had anything else.

“Don’t leave town.”

“I can’t,” he said. He put his leg out and revealed a blinking ankle monitor.

“What do you think?” she asked, when we were back in the car.

“He’s telling the truth. I need to go to that café.”

“I’ll head down.”

“I’d like to go by myself if that’s okay.”

“Oh. Sure. I guess.”

“I’m about to confront her employer and reveal that he’s a tax cheat. I think it’d be better alone without law enforcement there.”