The Apprentice

So this is what I remember. The startling bursts of pain. The sound of my own screaming. And above me, the white skin of Mairead’s throat as she cranes forward into my crib to deliver a pinch or a jab to my tender skin.

I don’t know if it’s possible for a child as young as I was to hate. I think it’s more likely we are merely bewildered by such punishment. Without the capacity to reason, the best we can manage is to link cause and effect. And I must have understood, even then, that the source of my torment was a woman with cold eyes and a milk-white throat.

Rizzoli sat at her desk and stared at Warren Hoyt’s meticulous handwriting, both margins neatly lined up, the small, tight words marching in a straight line across the page. Although he had written the letter in ink, there were no corrections or crossed-out words. Every sentence was already organized before his pen touched paper. She thought of him bent over this page, slender fingers poised around the ballpoint pen, his skin sliding across the paper, and suddenly she felt the almost desperate need to wash her hands.

In the women’s rest room she stood scrubbing with soap and water, trying to eradicate any trace of him, but even after she’d washed and dried her hands, she still felt contaminated, as though his words had seeped like poison through her skin. And there were more of these letters to read, more poison still to be absorbed.

A knock at the rest room door made her stiffen.

“Jane? Are you in there?” It was Dean.

“Yes,” she called out.

“I’ve got the VCR ready in the conference room.”

“I’ll be right there.”

She looked at herself in the mirror and was not happy with what she saw. The tired eyes, the look of shaken confidence. Don’t let him see you like this, she thought.

She turned on the tap, splashed cold water on her face, and blotted herself dry with a paper towel. Then she stood up straight and took a deep breath. Better, she thought, staring at her reflection. Never let them see you sweat.

She walked into the conference room and gave Dean a curt nod. “Okay. Are we ready?”

He already had the TV on, and the VCR power light was glowing. He picked up the manila envelope that O’Do

Only three weeks ago, she thought, unsettled by how fresh these images, these words, would be.

She sat down at the conference table, pen and legal pad ready to take notes. “Start it.”

Dean inserted the tape and pressed PLAY.

The first image they saw was the neatly coifed O’Do

The TV flickered to black; then a new image flared onto the screen, a face so abhorrent to Rizzoli that she rocked back in her chair. To anyone else, Hoyt would seem ordinary, even forgettable. His light-brown hair was neatly trimmed, and his face had the pallor of confinement. The denim shirt, in prison blue, hung a size too large on his slender frame. Those who had known him in his everyday life had described him as pleasant and courteous, and this was the image he projected on the videotape. A nice, harmless young man.

His gaze shifted away from the camera, and he focused on something that was off-screen. They heard a chair scrape and then O’Do

“Are you comfortable, Warren?”

“Yes.”

“Shall we start, then?”

“Any time, Dr. O’Do

“All right.” A sound of O’Do

“I tried to be complete. I think it’s important that you understand every aspect of who I am.”

“Yes, I appreciate that. It’s not often I get the chance to interview someone as verbal as you. Certainly not anyone who’s tried to be as analytical as you are about your own behavior.”

Hoyt shrugged. “Well, you know the saying about the unexamined life. That it’s not worth living.”

“Sometimes, though, we can take the self-analysis too far. It’s a defense mechanism. Intellectualism as a means of distancing ourselves from our raw emotions.”

Hoyt paused. Then said, with a faintly mocking note: “You want me to talk about feelings.”

“Yes.”

“Any feelings in particular?”

“I want to know what makes men kill. What draws them to violence. I want to know what goes through your head. What you feel, when you kill another human being.”

He said nothing for a moment, pondering the question. “It’s not easy to describe.”

“Try to.”

“For the sake of science?” The mockery was back in his voice.

“Yes. For the sake of science. What do you feel?”

A long pause. “Pleasure.”

“So it feels good?”

“Yes.”

“Describe it for me.”

“Do you really want to know?”

“It’s the core of my research, Warren. I want to know what you experience when you kill. It’s not morbid curiosity. I need to know if you experience any symptoms which may indicate neurologic abnormalities. Headaches, for instance. Strange tastes or smells.”

“The smell of blood is quite nice.” He paused. “Oh. I think I’ve shocked you.”

“Go on. Tell me about blood.”

“I used to work with it, you know.”

“Yes, I know. You were a lab technician.”

“People think of blood as just a red fluid that circulates in our veins. Like motor oil. But it’s quite complex and individual. Everyone’s blood is unique. Just as every kill is unique. There is no typical one to describe.”

“But they all gave you pleasure?”

“Some more than others.”

“Tell me about one that stands out for you. One that you remember in particular. Is there one?”

He nodded. “There’s one that I always think about.”

“More than the others?”

“Yes. It’s been on my mind.”

“Why?”

“Because I didn’t finish it. Because I never got the chance to enjoy it. It’s like having an itch you can’t scratch.”

“That makes it sound trivial.”

“Does it? But over time, even a trivial itch begins to consume your attention. It’s always there, prickling your skin. One form of torture, you know, is to tickle the feet. It may seem like nothing, at first. But then it goes on for days and days without relief. It becomes the cruelest form of torture. I think I’ve mentioned in my letters that I know a thing or two about the history of man’s inhumanity to man. The art of inflicting pain.”

“Yes. You wrote me about your, uh, interest in that subject.”

“Torturers through the ages have always known that the subtlest of discomforts, over time, become quite intolerable.”

“And has this itch you mentioned become intolerable?”

“It keeps me up at night. Thoughts of what might have been. The pleasure I was denied. All my life I’ve been meticulous about finishing what I start. So this disturbs me. I think about it all the time. The images keep playing back in my head.”

“Describe them. What you see, what you feel.”

“I see her. She is different, not like the others at all.”

“How so?”

“She hates me.”

“The others didn’t?”

“The others were naked and afraid. Conquered. But this one is still fighting me. I feel it when I touch her. Her skin is electric with rage, even though she knows I’ve defeated her.” He leaned forward, as though about to share his most intimate thoughts. His gaze was no longer on O’Do