the panic that followed her action chasing her from the scene, unable to hide anything about her identity as she fled.
“They knew they had to protect themselves,” Grace said slowly. “For someone to move a body indicates a clear head at the time of the crime.”
“Yes, because the crime itself had been . . .” He pointed at the board, eyebrows raised as he silently asked her to finish his sentence.
“Planned,” Grace said.
“And the very fact that it was planned speaks volumes of our killer,” Thornhollow continued. “Years of talking with killers has not only been for conversational purposes, I assure you—although in one or two cases it really was quite pleasant. In speaking with other researchers like myself we’ve all discovered certain patterns that arise so consistently it is hard to explain away.”
The chalk flashed out words in a column on the left side of the board as he went on. “An organized killer is usually intelligent, has a skilled job, is socially competent—indeed, most of their acquaintances deny it could be them based on how normal they are.”
“Yet these are all things in their present,” Grace said. “What of your claim that the past has defined them?”
“It has. As I said, certain themes arise when experiences are compiled. And I can tell you with some certainty that a killer who plans and executes their crime with control of their emotions is an older sibling or only child whose father had a stable job throughout their childhood.”
“And how does that help you catch them?”
“In so many ways, Grace. The simple fact of identifying whether the crime was planned or impulsive informs us that we are looking for an intelligent person with a steady job—and by the way, since our fake killer dumped the body it also tells us he is probably familiar with that area. These seemingly small facts narrow the populace of an entire city down to a neighborhood.”
“And then you can use the assumption that they are an only child to narrow it down still further?”
Thornhollow clapped his hands together, producing a cloud of chalk dust. “Exactly. Much of what we do can be described as exactly that—a narrowing of the possibilities.”
“Until we are down to one,” Grace said.
“Yes. And that process begins with deciding whether our killer is a planner or impulsive. The meticulous nature of the planner can be misleading. If you have a killer who, say, drains the blood from all their victims, or removes the left hand consistently, the untrained want to say they are insane. But the definition of insanity—an inability to use rational thought—immediately precludes that they must, in fact, be sane.”
“Not an easy thing for the average person to accept,” Grace said. “Most would want to believe that a fellow human being would have to be out of their mind to do such a thing.”
“But they’re not. Far from it, in fact. Simply using the words sane and insane is a way for the population to draw a safe line through humanity, and then place themselves squarely on the side of the healthy.”
Grace’s hands went to her temples, where her scars shined brightly. Thornhollow had taken the wrappings off a few days earlier, and the nakedness of her skin against the air had been a relief as well as a shock when she glanced in the mirror. The scars were a price she was willing to pay, but the evidence of the payment had set her back when she first saw them.
“They will fade,” Thornhollow had said quietly.
But she knew she would always carry them, and her fingers traced the thin webbing of smooth skin on her temples that would forever mark her as one on the wrong side of that line.
“So are we really that different? The healthy and the ill?” Grace asked.
“I would argue there is no difference at all,” Thornhollow said. “To me the insane are simply people who have chosen not to participate in the world in the same manner as the majority, and there are days I wonder if they’ve got the right of it.”
“You make it sound as if hardly anyone is insane with a definition as narrow as that.”
“Quite the opposite; my definition is too broad. I think we’re all quite mad. Some of us are just more discreet about it.”
“Surely there is such a thing as true insanity?”
“There is,” Thornhollow said reluctantly, “but I would argue those cases are much fewer than most suspect. These walls exist for a reason, but there