The Last Victim (3 page)

My mother couldn’t get enough of “slasher” books. Ever since I was little, I’d seen her hunched over them, shaking her head
at their grisly contents. As far back as I can remember, our kitchen table was stacked with books featuring lurid covers and
even more graphic photo sections.

Usually, the books were obtained from the public library, a regular destination for my mother and me. I’d get lost in the
long, endless aisles while she searched for titles that interested her. Eventually, we’d both end up in the back reading room,
which had been designed for toddlers to comb through picture books. I have vivid memories of walls decorated with large pictures
of rainbows and oversize happy-faced suns.

In the very back of the room, there was a table close to the wall. Even after I was older—but before I’d reached the age where
going to the library with your mom was no longer considered cool—the two of us would sit at that table and talk about our
selections.

On one particular day—I was thirteen at the time—she plunked her books on the table and exclaimed, “Jason, you won’t believe
this one!” She pulled a volume from the middle of her pile and, with an I’ve-got-a-secret grin on her face, began leafing
through the pages.

“What’s it about?” I asked apprehensively. I knew what was coming next.

“You’ll never believe it. Wait until you hear what this one guy did. It’s so disgusting.”

So why are you telling me about it? I wondered. Still, I knew better than to challenge her. The library was about to close,
so only about half the lights were still on. The muted light lent the room a spooky atmosphere that made me feel even more
on edge.

“Aw, Mom, let’s get outta here.”

“No, not yet,” she said. “I want to show you this.”

“Come on . . .” I said, rolling my eyes.

“This will just take a few minutes. There’s this guy who would take the skin off the women he’d kill and save it. He was trying
to make a suit of real human flesh. He wanted to be a woman.”

Why couldn’t my mother read cookbooks or something? I tried to interrupt, but she was on a roll.

“He kept a whole box of women’s vaginas,” she said. “He made a belt of human nipples. He had lamp shades made of human flesh.”

Now, although it was certainly my life’s ambition to see a real-life vagina, to date I’d never had the pleasure of a viewing,
and I had great difficulty imagining a whole box of them. And what on earth did someone do with a belt made of nipples?

“That’s great, Mom, but I really think we need to leave. They’re closing the place soon. Look, the lights are going out.”

“Wait. Just a minute. You have to see this.” She opened the book to some glossy pictures.

“Isn’t it gross?” she asked me. “The police found it when they entered the killer’s house.”

My mother pointed to a photo of a female corpse, hanging upside down from a wooden beam. The woman had been decapitated and
her body was sliced down the middle from her throat all the way to her vagina. All of her major organs had been removed.

“Jason, you
really
should read this book.”

“But you’ve already told me all the good parts,” I dead-panned. She couldn’t tell if I was kidding or not.

“Do you want me to check this book out or not?”

“No!” I said adamantly. “I don’t want to even
hear
about this sick stuff. And I’m gonna tell Dad about all this crap you’re reading.”

My mother started looking around, embarrassed by my outburst. We both realized it was time to get out of there. I was so angry
I could barely talk. As usual, my mother had no idea what I was so upset about.

Although that day my mother’s enthusiasm had rubbed me the wrong way, eventually I
did
become intrigued with the books she was reading. Over the next year, she continued to tell me about crime stories she’d heard
or read about. And pretty soon I was reading them, too. Reading them voraciously.

I was amazed by the power these killers wielded—not just their physical power in some cases but their power to stun a nation.
I was intrigued by how they could terrify even the most unflappable and cause armies of law enforcement officials to scramble
madly in search of them. Even as these predators disgusted me, I envied the public attention they commanded. Too, against
my better impulses, I found myself admiring the artful way many of them stalked their prey and eluded detection.

Eventually, as a kind of self-dare—one intended to relieve teenage tedium more than anything—I began pretending to
be
the person I was reading about. I know that sounds weird, but I really wanted to figure out why and how these people could
do what they do.

I imagined what it would be like to stalk and kill. I put aside all I’d been taught about right and wrong. I tried to pretend
I was someone without a conscience. I tried to get to that level of consciousness where one exults in being truly evil.

It was terrifying to be in that dark, remote place. A place where sanity is experienced as something
outside
. I’m not sure I ever fully got there. I am, after all, a sane person, a moral person. But the attempt to reach “the other
side” was exhilarating.

• • •

As I shifted in the car seat to work out the stiffness from my kickboxing lesson, I spied my driveway up ahead. The suburban
house we lived in was, for that area, pretty much standard issue: red tile roof, white stucco walls. It had been a comfortable
place to grow up in, and, as I was already coming to learn, it could be a welcome refuge from the pressures of university
life.

As I turned off the engine, I once again glanced at my new books. What sort of house had the Killer Clown grown up in? I wondered.
Was it a place from which sanity had fled? A dark place? Or a place much like mine?

O
ur house had the lived-in look you’d expect, knowing that two teenage boys were in residence. There was enough room for my
mother, father, fourteen-year-old brother, and me to each have our own space, but increasingly I felt closed in, and I resented
more and more the constant monitoring of my activities. Lately, it seemed like whatever I did drew criticism, especially from
my mother.

“Jason,” I could hear her yell from out in the garage, just as I’d settled in with one of my books. “I’m back with the groceries—get
out here and help me.”

“Just a minute,” I grunted, frustrated that she was obviously in one of her “moods.” It never seemed to take much for us to
end up in a fight, but lately, we were butting heads all the time. When the two of us went at it, my brother and father gave
us a wide berth.

We all loved each other and, most of the time, supported one another, but I seemed to end up in the middle of any disagreement.
My father was really a nice guy, kind and always supportive, but he deferred to my mom a lot, letting her make most of the
decisions. Whether by choice or circumstance, she became the disciplinarian—the one who made sure my brother and I did our
schoolwork and took care of our chores. She also threw up roadblocks whenever I wanted to do something that deviated from
the straight and narrow.

I’m a fighter myself, unwilling to give in without a battle, so we were constantly going at each other while my brother and
father stood on the sidelines. It’s legend in our family, and maybe it’s true, that my mom and I continually get in each other’s
way because we’re so alike. That theory seemed borne out this particular afternoon when she found me reading at the kitchen
counter.

“Jason,” she said in exasperation, walking into the house with an armload of grocery bags, “I’m not carrying in all these
bags by myself. Didn’t you
hear
me?”

“Sorry, Mom,” I meant to say contritely, but it came out sarcastic. “I was doing something important. Do you expect me to
drop everything and come running every time you come home?”

“Yes. And make sure to put the milk in the fridge.”

While I was busy unloading the car, my mother discovered what I’d been up to. “Hey, you’ve got some great books here. When
can I read them?”

“You
can’t,
” I told her, reaching up to put a can on the shelf. “
I’m
reading them now. Besides, you shouldn’t read this kind of stuff. You can’t handle it.” To punctuate the last remark, I slammed
the cupboard door.

“You’re the one who can’t handle blood,” she teased. “I hope you don’t pass out while you’re reading.” My mother loved to
make fun of me because I had a weak stomach for any sort of blood or gore. Some of the favorite stories in my family were
of me fainting.

Ignoring her, I went back to my book about the Killer Clown, John Wayne Gacy.

“Isn’t that one about the guy who tortured and killed all those boys and then buried them under his house?” my mom asked,
noticing the cover.

“Yeah,” I answered, hoping she’d go away.

“Then you’d better leave it alone. You’ve always been afraid of clowns.”

Leave it to my mother to get in the last word. Even
she
couldn’t get to me that day, though.

I was fascinated by Gacy’s story—it was such a strange tale. Here was this guy making $300,000 a year, in 1970 yet. He’s got
this successful business. He’s head of the Jaycees and volunteers his time to help sick kids. The book even had a picture
of him standing next to Rosalyn Carter, wife of the president. Incredible!

Meanwhile, he’s torturing his victims for hours, even days, at a time.

I read about one unlucky guy, about
my
age, who was picked up at a bus station while he was waiting for his scheduled departure. Gacy brought the guy home and then
raped him repeatedly before he began torturing him, playing Russian roulette with a loaded pistol and then submerging his
face in a bathtub full of water to the point where he passed out. Then he violated the kid again with various objects around
the house, all the while screaming at him that he was going to die.

The more I read, the queasier I started to feel, and yet I couldn’t put the book down. Gacy’s victims were the same age I
was. They even
resembled
me physically. I couldn’t help but wonder what I would have done if he’d tried to capture
me.
I may have been a weight lifter and kickboxer, but it was clear that each of these strong, athletic guys Gacy preyed upon
was somehow tricked into submission. I thought to myself, I’d just love to see Gacy try that stuff on me. Well, maybe not.

It was at that moment that the vague idea that had tugged at the edge of my consciousness in the bookstore began to clarify
itself. I wondered what would happen if I wrote Gacy a letter. I read that he was still on Death Row waiting for his scheduled
execution. I figured he was probably pretty bored and in need of diversion.

For me, the question wasn’t why I’d write someone like Gacy, but why anyone wouldn’t be curious about what made him the way
he was. Was the act of killing for the thirty-third time any different from the seventeenth? How could this guy excel at maintaining
two separate lives—community leader by day and murderous predator by night? It seemed to me that these were questions anyone
would want answered.

The more I read about serial killers, the more convinced I became that the so-called experts—the police and forensic psychologists—weren’t
exploring all possible avenues of inquiry. Surely, what was needed was more than having captured killers fill out questionnaires
and submit to interviews. I wondered what kind of effort had been made to debrief the
victims
—those who’d lived to tell the tale.

In a burst of inspiration, I considered what I might learn if I approached someone like Gacy in the guise of one of his victims.

Of course, most kids my age—or adults, for that matter—would never even think about taking on a project like this. But I’d
done some pretty crazy things in the past, and, to tell you the truth, I needed to divert myself with something that wasn’t
school-related. After going to college for a week, I could tell that, in many ways, it was going to be an extension of high
school. I was living at home, and I desperately wanted some excitement in my life. Further, I hoped for a job in law enforcement
someday, maybe even one with the FBI. For that dream to happen, I knew I’d have to distinguish myself in some way.

If gaining the trust of a serial killer didn’t get the Bureau’s attention, what would?

A
t dinner a few nights later I decided to float my idea. My father and mother were talking about work, as usual. My dad works
as a salesperson in a department store, my mom as a cashier in one of the local casinos. Both are usually tired at the end
of the day after dealing with demanding people. Still, they make the effort to schedule a family meal each night.

My younger brother, Jarrod, was eyeballing me while our parents yakked. I smiled and made a funny face to entertain him. I
was waiting for a break in the conversation.

“Hey, wait until you hear my latest idea,” I finally said, interrupting my parents’ chatter.

“Mom, can I have some more spaghetti?” my brother asked.

“Jarrod, I’m
talking,
” I said, giving him a look. After a moment of silence and an intake of breath, I began: “I’m going to write a letter to John
Wayne Gacy, maybe even to Jeffrey Dahmer or Charles Manson.”

My brother choked on the bread. My parents just sat there, saying nothing.

“Did you guys hear what I said? I’ve been reading about these serial killers. Several of them are still alive. They’re on
Death Row, waiting to be executed.”

I could see my mother roll her eyes. She got up from the table to get more pasta and sauce. My brother and I could really
put away the food.

“Dad, did you hear me?” I looked directly at him. “Don’t you think that would be cool? What if they wrote back? That would
be awesome. Don’t you think?”

“Sure, I guess,” he answered noncommittally, and buried himself in the pasta.