What you’re about to read comes from the original proposal for I Hunt Killers. I wrote up a bunch of scenes in order to persuade my editor that I wasn’t nuts and that she should buy this book. (Spoiler alert: She bought three of them, plus two novellas!)
As you’ll see below, I had a vague idea of Jazz keeping a journal, in which he tries to discern whether or not he’s a true sociopath. My editor wasn’t in love with the idea and since it was just a notion I had in the very early stages, I tossed it when her reaction was “Meh.”
Anyway, this has never been seen…until now!
[Chapter 3 will pick up with Jazz seeing the body and then move on from there. After that, I’m toying with the idea of a sort of journal Jazz keeps, titled “Am I a Sociopath?” In it, Jazz lists the various diagnostic criteria for determining if someone is a serial killer and applies them to his own life — trying to determine if he’s a sociopath or not. (DSM-IV dictates that you can’t officially diagnose a sociopath until age 18, so Jazz is trying to get a jump on it.) This next bit is one of those “journal entries.”
If we end up NOT doing the journal entries, then Jazz’s manipulation of G. William in the previous chapter will be made more explicit in the chapter itself. Otherwise, I like the idea of presenting one thing to the reader and then pulling a reveal later.]
AM I A SOCIOPATH?
Today’s Characteristic: Manipulation
Sociopaths don’t care about other people. As a result, they have no compunctions whatsoever about manipulating others into doing things for them, even if it’s dramatically against the self-interest of the person in question.
Example: Billy’s fifth kill. This particular kill was not planned in the usual painstaking detail he would later become known for (and proud of). This was something more akin to a crime of opportunity. Billy encountered Linda Rae Stewart on a train from Pennsylvania to Massachusetts. He was establishing an alibi for his fourth kill at the time.
Since Billy was very charming (SEE: CHARM), it was no problem to strike up a conversation with Linda Rae. By the time Linda Rae’s stop came up, Billy had already decided she would be Number Five on his personal hit parade. He faked an emergency cell phone call and made up a story about a death in the family, a sudden need to get to Chicago. Even though Linda Rae wanted nothing more than to get off the train and get in her car and drive home to her husband, she soon found herself offering to drive Billy from the train station to the airport so that he could catch a flight to Chicago. This was the last decision Linda Rae Stewart would ever make. Her lipstick (a shade called Heroine!) ended up in the rumpus room.
Application: Today, I manipulated G. William into giving me exactly what I wanted, even though under normal circumstances he would never have done so. I wanted to see the body in the Finger case. I needed to. I had seen many of Billy’s victims growing up, but that was when I was still under his control. My mind was still clouded.
I needed to be up close to the Finger’s handiwork, to see what my reaction would be after two years out from under Billy’s thumb. And I knew that there was no way in the world G. William would ever let me do that.
So I manipulated him. I pretended to accidentally let slip that I was studying the Finger, knowing that it would activate G. William’s concern for my mental well-being. From there, it was easy to appeal to his two great desires: His desire to help me and his desire to catch a killer. By tantalizing him with insights into the Finger and then pretending to slip up and tell him my concerns about myself, I manipulated him into offering me the case file. He actually thought it was his idea, even though I practically planted it in his head. After that, getting access to the body was so easy that I hardly even had to ask.
So, the question is: Am I a sociopath?
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