Love in the Time of Serial Killers(8)

He was also up late most nights, almost as late as I was, if the lights in his windows were anything to go by. I knew it was none of my business, but that didn’t stop me from becoming obsessed with figuring out the answers to things like What does he do for his job? or What Myers-Briggs type is he? I almost wished another package for him would be mistakenly delivered, just so I would have the opportunity to go over there again. But wonder of wonders, he’d actually taken my advice and stuck vinyl numbers to the side of his mailbox.

Regardless, I needed to buckle down and focus on my dissertation rather than the psychological profile of my neighbor. I owed another chapter to my advisor by the end of next week.

It hadn’t been easy to convince the English department to let me study true crime in the first place. I still remembered the first time I’d ever stepped onto campus, for an interview and informational tour before I was technically accepted into the program. The grad student showing me around had explained the coursework for the first few years, the way you branched out depending on if you were on a literature, rhetoric, or technical communication track, then the terror that was comps exams. After that, she said, her eyes lighting up, you could basically “study whatever you want.”

What they’d really meant was you could study the emasculation of Hemingway’s wounded characters or Faust allusions in Lolita or the intersection of composition and creative writing pedagogy.

But true crime was a genre like anything else, with conventions and expectations. It was nonfiction but never wholly objective, always instead reflecting trends or cultural reactions or public desires. I’d been fascinated with it since I was thirteen and had read Helter Skelter for the first time.

Which, incidentally, was the book at the heart of the chapter I was working on. I’d decided to focus on the relationship between author and subject in true crime, with sections on professional, personal, and familial relationships. When I’d first read Helter Skelter, a book subtitled The True Story of the Manson Murders, it hadn’t even occurred to me to doubt any of its information or second-guess the author’s motive in writing it. As the lead prosecutor, Bugliosi had practically been there, after all. It was still an amazing book, but you gotta think about the inherent bias of a dude writing a book literally defending the job he did in putting the criminals away.

My current problem was that I absolutely could not find my flagged, underlined copy I’d been working from. I tore through every box I’d brought from my apartment, double-checked that I hadn’t put it in my backpack to keep it that much closer to my heart, but came up empty.

There was a chance I still had my childhood copy in my room somewhere. I’d brought a lot of that stuff with me when my mom and I moved out, of course, but I’d kept enough stuff at my dad’s to keep me entertained when I’d had to spend weekends there. A quick search of my bookshelves showed that I’d left all three books in the Emily of New Moon series and a giant tome on Rasputin I’d loved to lug around but never read, but no dice on the only book I needed.

I knew I could order another copy through some fast-delivering capitalist website, but something in me balked at spending another fifteen dollars on a book I’d already owned multiple copies of in my lifetime. I brought up the county library’s online catalog and confirmed that they had the book sitting at my local branch. If I was going to be stuck here all summer, it would make sense to apply for a library card anyway. I went ahead and filled out all the information, using my dad’s address as my own.

I’d just submitted the form when I heard a loud clatter outside. If this was the start of some Golden State Killer shit, it was probably not a great idea to go to the window to check out what it could be. But then again, presumably a serial killer would be a little more slick than going around neighborhoods dropping suitcases of wrenches or whatever that sound had been.

I tweaked the blinds to see Sam, emerging from his open garage. He was barefoot again, and holding his arms awkwardly out from his body. They appeared to be covered in . . . what was that? It was liquid, but in the darkness it was impossible to tell color. Could it be red? Could it be blood?

He went to open the door of his truck, then stopped when he realized his hands were covered in the liquid, too. He just stood there for a moment, the set of his shoulders expressively conveying the curses he was probably muttering under his breath, before turning to head back to the garage.

It was eleven o’clock at night. What the hell was he doing?

He emerged again, seeming cleaner this time, and using a rag to open his truck door. No fingerprints. Savvy.

(Although if the handle was too clean, wouldn’t that look more suspicious? Since it was his own truck?)

When he pulled a roll of plastic dropcloth from his truck, I let the blinds fall closed and stepped away from the window. This was too weird. I knew I was a little jumpy, given how marinated I’d been in matter-of-fact descriptions of brutal crimes over the last year, but all I could think was how this scene would play out in the Forensic Files reenactment and it wasn’t good. I hoped at least they cast a fat actress to play me. Representation was important.

Before I could think too hard about it, I dialed Conner’s number, breathing a sigh of relief when he picked up with his usual cheerful hello.

“What do you know about this neighbor,” I said, not really a question, as I tweaked the blinds again. Sam was nowhere in sight, but the light from his garage still spilled over his driveway. That had to be a good sign. He wouldn’t be working in his Dexter room of plastic for the whole street to see, right?