“Well,” the beautiful one said, “you don’t look like a serial killer.”
“Bennis, for goodness sake. What does a serial killer look like?”
“Charles Manson,” Bennis said firmly.
“Alexander Mark,” Alexander said. “And I’m not a serial killer, although the police suspected me of being one or said they did. Mr. Demarkian helped me out of that. I just, um, there’s something I needed to talk to him about.”
“I know who this is,” the fair one said. “You’re Chickie George’s friend, aren’t you? He came to the Ararat and told us all about it. You poor man.”
“I’m really quite all right,” Alexander said.
“I’m sure you are, now,” the fair one said, “but at the time. You were away, Bennis, but I remember all about it. Chickie George was spitting bullets.”
“It’s about one of the other men who were suspected of being the Plate Glass Killer,” Alexander said. He was beginning to feel the need to be very, very patient. The pregnant woman seemed a little scattered. Wasn’t there something about pregnant women going crazy from the hormones, or something like that? He couldn’t remember. “It’s about a man named Dennis Ledeski. Because of Saint Augustine.”
“Saint Augustine?” Bennis said.
“Saint Augustine was a Manichaean,” Alexander said. “The Manichaeans believed there were two gods, not one. There was a good God, and an evil one. And history, all of history, was the story of the war between these two gods. And the purpose of every human being’s life was to pick one side and fight for it. Good and evil. Do you see?”
“Sort of,” Bennis said cautiously. “Are you sure you don’t want to talk to Father Tibor? He tends to be the one who deals with theology.”
“When Augustine converted to Christianity, he kept most of his Manichaeanism untouched. He abandoned the belief in two gods, and he got rid of the idea that the outcome of the battle was undecided. But he kept the idea of a choice. Every man had to make a choice between God and the devil. Do you see?”
“Not really,” Bennis said.
“Augustine is one of the doctors of the church,” Alexander said. “His theology is an integral part of Christian doctrine. And that was the problem. I’m not an Augustinian theologically. I don’t like the dualism. I don’t think life is like that for most people. Good and evil. Black and white. Even most people who choose to do evil don’t think of it as choosing to do evil. They think that what they’re doing is good. They think that it’s the best thing they can do, or that they have to do it because of circumstances, not that they’re deliberately going out to do wrong. And, you see, that’s where I was stopped. I couldn’t think of anybody, not even Dennis Ledeski, as going out to do wrong deliberately, knowing it was wrong, doing it because it was wrong. Don’t you see?”
“No,” Bennis said.
“It was because of the pedophilia,” Alexander said. “Most pedophiles convince themselves that what they do is good for the children they do it to. They have elaborate explanations and excuses for the activities they engage in. But on some level, you see, they know that the excuses are just excuses. And that haunts them.”
“And the Plate Glass Killer is a pedophile?” the blonde one asked.
“Maybe,” Alexander said. “Dennis Ledeski is a pedophile. That’s the thing. I know that. I think even the police know that, they just haven’t been able to catch him yet. But I started to wonder, you see, if it was possible that somebody could become a serial killer as a way to act out the conviction that he was evil to the core. Do you see what I mean?”
“No,” Bennis said.
“Mr. Demarkian will see what I mean,” Alexander said. “I’m probably putting it very badly, but it really makes a lot of sense. And that was how I started looking into the other victims. The other Plate Glass Killer victims. I’d always assumed that Dennis was just in the wrong place at the wrong time, and that was how he’d ended up being picked up when Elyse Martineau was found dead. But what if that wasn’t the case? What if he really had killed Elyse Martineau? What if he’d known some of the others?”
“Some of the other victims?” Bennis asked.
“That’s right,” Alexander said. “Some of the other victims. What if, in this case, everything we know about serial killers is wrong? What if he isn’t picking on strangers? What if he’s picking on acquaintances or even friends? It would explain a lot of things, wouldn’t it? It would explain why the women are all strangled without any sign of a struggle, or at least one that anybody ever hears about. It would explain why there’s no rape. He doesn’t want sex with older women, he only wants death. He wants sex with boys.”