“Baniszewski was an anomaly.” Elsie sounds impatient. “Women don’t kill. Not like this.”
“Well, maybe they do but we just don’t know about it yet,” Margot argues. “Maybe we’re not considering that it could be a woman because we don’t give women—we don’t giveourselves—enough credit.”
“Igive myself credit,” Elsie hollers suddenly, and Beverley flinches at the uncharacteristic outburst. “I give myself credit for not killing people. In fact, I find it very easy not to kill people, Margot.”
The other diners are starting to stare, to crane their necks. Beverley knows she has to steer them back on course to avoid a full-blown row.
“Well, he obviously owns at least one car,” she prompts, “or has access to multiple vehicles.”
“Right.” Elsie’s frustration is thankfully subsiding. “Which would fit with the guy I saw at the vigil.”
“He must be relatively fit,” adds Margot eventually. “He managed to catch up to Cheryl. She’s a track athlete.” She takes another sip of her drink. “And he got Emily Roswell into the lake. Chances are, he took Diane, killed her elsewhere, then moved her to the alleyway. This isn’t some old, frail guy. I think we’re looking for someone young.”
“Not necessarily young,” Beverley says, “but under sixty, surely.”
“Do we have any actual statistics? How old are murderers on average?” Margot asks.
“We have some books at work,” Elsie replies. “They say that most mass murderers are in their mid-thirties, and more than half of their victims are younger than that, usually under the age of thirty.”
They all nod, assessing one another, comparing the facts to their own experiences, the people their husbands killed, seeing if it adds up.
“Well, that fits,” Beverley eventually concludes. “Especially for you, Elsie.” Albert was exactly thirty-five when he was put away at San Quentin. And Henry was thirty-six.
“Maybe someone who seems trustworthy,” posits Elsie. “Don’t they think the Boston Strangler posed as a utility guy, a super? That’s why those women let him into their apartments. Maybe our guy does the same?”
“Sicko.” Margot pulls out her cigarettes.
“Do we know anything about other demographics?”
“Just that, overwhelmingly, these killers are white and male,” says Elsie. “At least the ones the newspapers can be bothered to report on are.”
“The world’s untouchables.” Margot takes a drag on her Lucky Strike. “And why do they do it?”
Beverley pictures the long pink room, the stools, the glass—Henry’s gaze burning her skin.
“Did you ever ask Stephen?” Elsie asks, and Beverley is grateful that the focus is not on her.
“I did,” Margot admits, “the last time I saw him before he…” She waves a hand. “Do you know what he said?” She looks at them both. “He said he wasbored.”
Elsie lets out a quick breath of shock.
“Can you believe that? He said he was getting bored by politics, that he needed a challenge.”
Beverley scoffs disgustedly.
“He was too clever for his own good,” Margot concedes. “That’s why he acted so superior all the time. He thought he was better than everyone else. He thought he was owed the power that politics would give him, because people justneededhim to tell them what to do.”
“Okay,” Elsie says after a while. “So, boredom. It’s an odd one but it’s going on the list. What other reasons are there? What else makes men commit mass murder? Why do they kill?”
“Money?” Margot blows smoke from the side of her mouth.
“Financial gain.” Elsie nods, writes it down. “But these girls were college students, part-time models, barely more than children. They didn’t have money. Bev, have you noticed any sort of pattern in terms of motive in the clippings you collect? Anything in the letters people have written you?”
Beverley frowns for a moment, then nods. “There is something, but I’m not sure if it will help.”
Elsie holds her pen aloft, waiting.
“Well, many of them, if you look at articles on killers from here or around the world—Australia’s Night Caller, the Argentine Vampire—they mostly say they did it just for the sheer enjoyment.”
