Esther’s head and win her over. It wasn’t exactly uncharted territory; it had been done before. All he needed to do was to learn enough about her psychological deficits, worm his way into her confidence and engineer a transference: a Rasputin thing. It was a fantasy that rode him to sleep on many a dreamless night.
“Give me your impressions, Irving,” Mallory entreated. “In the first place, do you think that the boy is still alive?”
“Not a chance, Rick. I’m in agreement with the FBI psychologists; the boy was abused and murdered within the first 24 hours of his abduction. The killer fits snugly into the power-assertive category. He stalked them like a hunter does his prey. There was never any doubt that he was after Robbie Stallings from the start, the youngest of the group. The killer was likely the recipient of some kind of trauma in his youth—probably a member of a large family who had been abused by either his father or older brother. The magnitude of degradation was so great his subconscious could never successfully repress the episode. His conscious mind assisted by imposing a psychopathic pattern of behavior; an extremely prototypical pattern, I’m afraid. The initial trauma is re-enacted, a phenomenon known as imprinting, followed by a series of ritualistic acts that sublimate the guilt⎯often the victim is tortured. The killer then returns to his normal routine until the trauma re-emerges.”
“More murders,” Berg interjected.
“Precisely,” Pincus affirmed. “ Sooner or later the storm clouds gather again and the process repeats itself.”
“So you’re saying that Robbie Stallings was the victim of a serial killer?” Mallory asked.
“Yes. That is my opinion.”
“Then I shouldn’t pursue the case. It would only serve to strengthen Mrs. Stallings hope that her son is still alive. Not to mention the public perception that I would be taking advantage of her for the sake of publicity.”
“No, quite the contrary. I think you should pursue it,” Pincus responded.
“Why’s that, Irving?” Mallory wanted to know.
“A couple of reasons. The first is that I am willing to wager against long odds that your perusal of the situation will at least shed some new light on how it went down. I don’t know how you’ll do it, but I know you will. There’s a psychopathic killer at large; who knows how many unsolved murders he may be responsible for. Unfettered, he will likely strike again and again. Perhaps you might succeed in bringing him to justice.”
“And what’s the second reason?”
“From a psychological perspective, the mother is searching for some kind of closure, some way to live the rest of her life. The last eight years have been a living hell for the woman. If you can give her something tangible . . . something she can grab hold of . . . it would put her mind at ease. When it’s all over she’ll have the feeling that she’s done everything that was possible.”
“She claims to have a psychic link with her son.”
“You believe that? She’s distraught, disoriented and distracted. She’s conforming to a syndrome called schizophrenia scalia, a kind of reverse Stockholm syndrome.”
“Stockholm syndrome?” Mallory repeated.
“Yes. A number of hostages taken at a bank robbery in Stockholm about fifty years ago came out of the situation sympathetic to their captors. Their behavior had been so conditioned by their harrowing experience, they had effectively been brainwashed. In contrast, schizophrenia scalia is a behavior pattern in which the absence of a loved one that has been kidnapped, forces an individual to construct a reality in which they envision the loved one as safe and sound. If unchecked, the condition can lead to a full-fledged case of schizophrenia. Most likely, that is what has happened with the Stallings woman. Her inability to let go of her son has forced her to eschew psychoanalysis and the appropriate drugs that would allow her to come to terms with reality. She no doubt goes into seclusion and believes she’s conversing with him on a daily basis. In the meantime she’s falling further and further into the clutches of her mental illness. “Mr. Berg,” Pincus said, turning toward Berg while addressing him formally, “I implore you not to write a story on this subject . . . I implore you for Mrs. Stallings sake. It would only serve to extend her paranoid obsessions and schizophrenic delusions.”
“Ice won’t go with the story until I provide him with facts,” Mallory interjected categorically.
“No, I wouldn’t do that,” Berg concurred. “Notwithstanding what you might think of me doctor, I regard myself as a professional.”
It was Pincus’s turn to roll his eyes.
Chapter 3
Anthem of the Whistling Wind
Out here in the North Dakota foothills, the long prairie grass sways gracefully in a gentle wind that never ceases. Little, if anything, ever changes; no heavenly or earthly force potent enough to challenge the supreme authority of time. The Arapaho indians who roamed these planes for centuries, hunting bison, believed the shifting grasses were messages from Yaponcha, their wind god. But if these hills could really talk, they would tell us the fate of Robbie Stallings, the young boy who was snatched in an instant of unimaginable horror, by a dastardly kidnapper, last Monday afternoon; an instant of horror that looms in stark contrast to the background of this barren landscape; an inscrutable enigma, cast against the impenetrable barrier of the infinite prairie. Neither rhyme nor reason, nor trail to follow. . . just an anthem of the whistling wind . . . and a vast expanse of nothingness.
The police have been combing the region, scouring every inch of every road in every direction in search of the black Cougar. But as every native of this area knows, if the kidnapper made it to the Black Hills, there’s little or no chance he will ever be found. Crazy horse hid there for decades. Roads give way to trails, trails to paths, and paths to forests. Fog covers the region like a shroud for all but three hours a day. For now, the fate of Robbie Stallings remains a mystery. But the motive seems clear: investigators are going under the assumption that the abductor was a sexual deviant who stalked his prey with cunning precision. Once the trap was set, the young boy’s fate was sealed. In well over ninety percent of such cases, the child is never found alive. But, for Dr. and Mrs. Stallings . . . for the Stallings family . . . there will always remain that faint glimmer of hope, that somehow, someway, Robbie managed to beat the odds and is still alive. All that matters to the family is to find the boy. Perhaps at some point in time they will look back at this nightmare and regard the incident as something that united them, made them stronger. For now, they can only fight back against their doubts and the mocking epithets of these ancient sand hills. From Pickens Bluff, this is Melissa Compton reporting for KNEB news.
Mallory paused the video, freezing Melissa’s picture on the screen. She had a raw beauty back then. Her almond shaped eyes glistened with the confidence of youth. A veiled innocence in her voice conveyed an inherent belief in the order of things. She wore her honey-blond hair in a loose pony-tail, bangs resting above her eyes with perfect symmetry. A lot had changed since then. It could all be seen in her expression. The rose colored glasses were off. New York was no doubt the culprit. The big city had transformed her into a sophisticate with a jaded countenance, with eyes that seemed to look through men rather than directly at them. Her face was fuller, her lips broader, her tone decidedly more cynical. Mallory’s trend of thought was interrupted by the phone.
“Rick?”
“Good to hear your voice,” he answered. It was Esther, his partner and fiancée.
“I’m staying for another two days.”
“We miss you around here?” His voice conveyed his longing.
“What do you mean?”
“Rudy’s away. We’re short handed.”
“I’ll clean up the mess when I get back.”
The intercom buzzed. “Melissa Compton is here,” Lilly informed him.
“In a moment, Lilly,”