Eating Glass

Ch. 2

Note: This is taking some canon from the books as well and certain differences are due to that.

"A crime of passion' is defined as 'a crime committed in the heat of passion in response to provocation'"

Will adjusted his glasses so the forty or so eyes on him were out of sight.

"The word 'passion' is normally associated with infatuation, romance, love — a reason somebody rises from the ashes to be reborn." Will clicked his presentation remote.

The PowerPoint switched to an overwashed picture of a woman splayed on a kitchen floor. Her neck had been sawed so deep that she was nearly decapitated. Only small patches of flower print linoleum peaked through the drying pool of blood.

Will leaned back against his desk. "'Heat of passion' is defined as 'a mitigating circumstance that may be raised by an accused criminal, claiming to have been in an uncontrollable rage, terror, or fury at the time of the alleged crime."

Will spoke his next lines as if they were putrid. "Mr. Rowland Floyd was old-fashioned. He didn't like it when supper wasn't on the table before he got home. When Mrs. Floyd finally stood up for herself, he took a hand saw and almost cut her neck in half." Will finally looked up. "Does that sound like passion to you?"

The visitor's cell was humiliating by design, standing like a zoo exhibit in The Baltimore State Hospital for the Criminally Insane. It was supposed to be for "protection and safe interaction." Will believed it was more of a display case — come look at the lunatic.

"How did you get in here?"

"Oh, I told the secretary I was your younger, more attractive sister." Freddie Lounds said as she set her purse next to her chair. "I also think Chilton finds it funny."

Will looked at the cameras.

Freddie set a tape recorder on her lap. She stared at him, basking in the afterglow of being right. "Will Graham, the consulting FBI Agent who was just as twisted as the criminals he hunted..."

"I haven't agreed to any of this." Freddie was right when she said Chilton was having fun. He had wickedly omitted who Will's visitor was.

"Do you believe it was a fusion of Hannibal Lecter's psychopathy and your empathy psychosis that made you so dangerously co-dependent?"

"I'd guess your masturbatory, pseudo-investigation skills have already given you my answer."

"You're claiming Stockholm Syndrome."

"Crawl back from wherever you came from, Freddie."

The journalist made her face straighter than a poker player's.

"That's funny, coming from a man who's killed five people and maimed a fourth." She leaned forward. "You know, those who first experienced Stockholm Syndrome were held hostage by a bank robber. He was comforting, the kind of guy you'd want as a friend if he wasn't about to kill you. One woman had claustrophobia. He let her out on a leash." She looked through Will then, easier than one looking through glass. "You never seemed to be on a leash."

"Barry!" Will shouted for the guard.

"It's not the world's fault we see you two for what you are." Freddie quickly packed her things and buttoned her coat. "I'd say that I hope you like my next article, but you seem a little busy."

"Stop calling us 'Murder Husbands!'" Will shouted at the back of her curly red head. She didn't know the pleasure Chilton had in reading him tattlecrime.com aloud every week.