The Killing Type Read Online Free

his microphone like
enthusiasts at a rally. I watched the whole thing only on
television, and I could see the worry in his eyes, not just from
the fact of a second murder, but from the details that he was not
explaining to the masses. That is: it’s unlikely that the two
victims were killed by the same person, because a serial
killer—even one who kills “just” a couple of people—tends not only
to use more or less the same method of killing, but also to use
more tactile methods such as stabbing, and not cold and distant
ones such as shooting. “Serial killers ... avoid firearms whenever
possible because they are such an impersonal way to kill,” as one
of the premier authorities on serial killing and mass murder puts
it (Elliott Leyton in Hunting
Humans ).
    Perhaps I am just contriving the look
on the police chief’s face in my own head. Maybe he is always like
that, a nervous sort, shy in crowds, more comfortable in smaller
groups or in the office, doing the legwork of investigation rather
than acting as a spokesperson. Maybe, as some of the ingrates used
to say about me at TU, maybe I am making too much of a little
thing. Still, among the skills that one learns as a scholar that
are applicable even remotely to what is affectionately known as the
“real world” is a keen penchant for close observation. In the
literary texts which I have edited, for example, I have prided
myself not only on my indefatigable research in both primary and
secondary sources and my resultant comprehensive knowledge of the
particular period under study, but also my attention to the details
of proofreading. At Oxford University Press, some of the production
editors styled me “Comma Man” for my unstinting abilities, proof
after proof, and the series editor (the TU department head, in
better days) touted me embarrassingly in my evaluation,
recommending me without hesitation for promotion from assistant to
associate professor.
    How things change! I have to confess
that I miss the true academic life. It feels crude some days
roiling in the dregs of details about murder and the fear and
upheaval it has caused in this small town. Scholarly research is a
cleaner and much more humane pursuit, and the discoveries
contribute to the fund of civilized knowledge. When you are writing
a book about murder, discovery is a dreadful and dreary process:
details about obscenities inflicted upon bodies, a widow shaking
her head when the reporter asks her “How does it feel?” Sometimes
the quest to dig out the facts and to marshal them into some
comprehensible whole is just too tiring and depressing, even for a
committed researcher such as myself. I flail around (figuratively),
try to distract myself with serendipitously found games on the
internet, or search out specific keywords on anything other than
murder.
    My background research on
Mr. Winton—an orgy of activity entailing interviewing tight-lipped
cops at one end and poring over positively horrific forensic
science texts at the other—left me feeling dazed and pummelled.
Occasionally, during the darkest moments, I wonder whether I have
the stamina for this, the stomach . I remembered how much
pleasure I had at Toronto U. in what now seem like outrageously
innocent pursuits, ferretting out some facts about the watermarks
and composition of the first edition of Samuel Johnson’s Rambler , or studying
parody in the works of Swift. There were frustrations with that
research, too, but they were mostly small things, such as (during
one particularly memorable morning when it was raining) the
absolute refusal of the curator of rare books and manuscripts to
let me view some hard-to-find editions because of the mere
technicality of my expired library card.
    I have to resort to a child’s simple
language in order to describe a few of the basic, ghastly facts
about Winton’s death. First: the hole that a bullet makes when it
comes out of the human body is much bigger than the one that it
makes when it