Chapter 37: Dance, Dance, My Doll 01
By mid-November, it had begun to snow in Westland.
The temperature kept plummeting. This city already had a lot of precipitation in autumn and winter, and now it was covered thick and tight by snow falling every other day. As a result, traffic became even more congested, shelters grew fuller by the day, and as darkness fell earlier and earlier, the crime rate for armed robbery climbed by several percentage points.
It was now a cold Saturday morning, and Hestal was standing at the entrance of a small theater that looked rather shabby from the outside. The snow had stopped, but people outdoors still could not escape the illusion of being frozen from the inside out. Every person’s breath came with puffs of white vapor, and a layer of frost had formed on the theater’s steps, only to be trampled into a mess.
Hestal glanced impatiently at his watch: he was running a bit late, all because of the terrible city traffic after the snow.
The shabby building before him, one he wouldn’t normally set foot in, was the fundamental reason Hestal couldn’t catch up on sleep on a perfectly good weekend with no overtime:
Because every Saturday morning, this small theater hosted a meeting of an anonymous support group for survivors of sexual trauma.
—Then again, this was all Olga’s fault.
Hestal hadn’t seen Albanino Bacchus again during this period—or rather, after that sudden epiphany, he hadn’t gone to see the other man. He didn’t have paid leave like the other did; even after the whole business with the hitman Johnny, he still had to go to work every day. Olga still sometimes went to eat with him, but Albanino never appeared again.
“Maybe the serial killers have started hibernating too,” Olga said lightly during one dinner. “Since the Gardener left that skull on your desk, he’s been quiet for a while.”
“His last crime was at the end of September. By his usual pattern, he only committed one murder every three or four months before that.” Hestal pointed out coldly. He could see nothing worth celebrating in the Sunday Gardener’s recent quietness—and besides, he understood perfectly well why things had turned out this way, because Albarino was now living in the city, and an apartment in the urban area was truly ill-suited for disposing of bodies.
“Their patterns are all changing. They’ve been committing crimes much more frequently lately,” Olga said with infinite tolerance.
Hestal gave a dry cough and asked, “For what?”
“For the Westland Pianist,” Olga blinked and replied, “for you—anything is possible.”
For a profiler, a change in a serial killer’s pattern and an acceleration in the frequency of their crimes might actually be a good thing: Hestal had seen too many cases. The more crimes a killer committed, the more mistakes they were bound to make. The more smug they became, the more reckless they grew. Clearly, quite a few serial killers were ultimately caught because they slipped up over exactly this sort of thing.
In any case, for various reasons, the Westland Pianist had to lie low for a while no matter what. That FBI Behavioral Analysis Unit agent who had already left the city was also very interested in the earlier sexual assault case. At a time like this, it was better for him not to take unnecessary risks.
Besides, even setting aside his nighttime side job, the people around him clearly had no intention of letting him have any peace: his partner Holmes had recently taken on a big case, planning to defend a highly publicized female movie star accused of murdering her own husband. The case was far too favored by the media—if handled well, they could stage a live version of *Chicago*. Of course, the entire law firm was run ragged with work. And on the other hand…
On the other hand, right after that dinner where the Sunday Gardener was mentioned, Olga had spent two full hours lobbying him, all to get him to join a psychological support group. Her argument was: “Even if you’re unwilling to see a psychiatrist about the Johnny the Killer matter, you should at least join a support group.”
Herstal had just put down his fork at the time, and he instinctively refused: “I—”
Then he suddenly realized he actually had no good reason to find.
After all, Olga’s words sounded so righteous, and Hestal despairingly realized that as long as he wanted to play the part of a normal person, he simply had no way to refuse this suggestion. He had better not let a sharp profiler realize that the killer Johnny had left no psychological shadow on him at all.
And since he did not want to endure the torment of one hour at a time with a psychiatrist—after all, there was nothing he could tell a psychiatrist anyway. Could he really say, “The reason I was kidnapped by a serial killer is that I was framed, but in any case I also stabbed that serial killer to death”?—then a psychological mutual support group seemed like the best option. At least he could sit in the back row and not have to speak.
So Hestal hesitated for a few seconds, while Olga looked at him with concern and expectation, until Hestal sighed and gave in, saying, “All right, all right, I’ll consider it. Do you know any support groups you can recommend?”
And so, now Hestal really was standing at the entrance of a support group.
This sexual assault trauma anonymous support group was indeed recommended by Olga. Hestal knew nothing about these gatherings, so he simply saved himself the trouble of searching for various websites online. Olga’s exact words were: “The founder of this support group is a friend I met when I was at the Chicago Police Department. The group has an excellent reputation—and you can only attend the meetings if someone recommends you. You never have to worry about the attendee list leaking or anything like that.”
So just like that, Hestal was about to find himself in the miserable predicament of holding hands and reciting the Niebuhr prayer. He genuinely didn’t know whether he would snort with laughter when everyone recited sentences like “accept the sinful world as Jesus did, taking suffering as the path to peace.”
So rather, it should be said: Hestal had no interest in this support group whatsoever—he was only going through the motions. As he pushed open the door of the small theater, he was still drafting in his head the PPT he needed to present at next Monday’s meeting. The dry creak of the hinges was like someone grinding their teeth in their sleep, and the sound quickly drew over a woman with ginger-colored hair.
“Hello,” the woman said as she walked over and extended her hand to him, her voice soft and gentle. “I’m the person in charge of today’s support group meeting. Are you the one recommended by Ms. Molozer…?”
Olga of course didn’t say his name, because this was an “anonymous” support group—how he chose to introduce himself was entirely up to him.
So for this question, Hestal only needed to answer “yes,” and lightly clasp the lady’s soft fingertips. No matter how he reacted, it could be explained away by psychological trauma. The lady led him through the cramped corridor of the small theater, introducing the support group’s situation to him as they walked.
In fact, Olga had already told him most of it beforehand: participants were not required to attend every single meeting of the support group—they could basically come and go freely, and arriving late or leaving early was no problem. But only those who were recommended could join the support group. The recommendation system guaranteed the support group’s confidentiality. According to this ginger-haired lady, it was precisely because of this that their support group had many “sensitive-identity” members join.
Hestal didn’t know exactly how sensitive this “sensitive identity” was, but obviously, if a person was renowned within their own industry, they might not want others to know they had joined a sexual assault survivor support group.
Turning another corner along the corridor, they entered the interior of the small theater. There were perhaps twenty or thirty members of the support group, all now sparsely seated in the first few rows of the small theater’s audience section. A chair was placed directly in front of the stage, and a girl who looked no older than fifteen or sixteen sat there, her eyes red-rimmed as she quietly recounted her experience.
Generally speaking, Hestal did not like being late, but he had clearly missed the beginning of the meeting—he had evidently misjudged the scale of the traffic jam caused by the heavy snow.
By the time Hestal, under that woman’s guidance, sat down at a corner seat in the fourth row of the audience section, the girl had almost finished speaking. She wiped the corners of her eyes and silently slipped down from the stool.
Hestal took this opportunity to observe the support group members: since he was sitting at the very back, he could only see several rows of the backs of heads, but even so, it was clear that the support group was predominantly female. Given the male-to-female ratio of victims in this type of case, such a result was not surprising.
So now he had to face a great many heartbreaking, authentic accounts of sexual assault—certain aspects of this reality genuinely made Halstall uncomfortable; perhaps what unsettled him most was the part where he had to recount his own “trauma” in front of a group of emotionally delicate girls.
—Some people question whether serial killers even have their own moral code. Whether others believed it or not, Halstall did have a moral code, and he abhorred sexual assault cases very, very much.
He hadn’t truly been psychologically traumatized by the Killer Johnny incident, but he did genuinely detest certain aspects of it. It was precisely these aspects that constantly reminded him: no one can truly cast off their own past. This sense of helplessness made him extremely unhappy.
Because criminal psychologists’ inferences about the childhood experiences of serial killers were often correct: they truly could never escape the shadows of their childhood for their entire lives.
“Alright, thank you for sharing your story with us, Amy.” At that moment, the woman with ginger hair said in a gentle voice, while Hestal sat at the very back, reaching up to rub his brow. “So, who would like to share next?”
Someone in the front row raised a hand, followed by a low rustle of fabric as the people sitting around that person shifted to make room for the speaker. A dozen seconds later, the new speaker nimbly wove their way onto the stage and stood before the members of the support group.
—Or in other words: when Hestal saw that familiar face of Albarino Bacchus, his head was really about to start hurting.
Hestal stared at the other for a few seconds: Albarino looked no different from half a month ago. Whether those wounds had healed properly was impossible to tell beneath the fabric of his clothes, but the way he lightly leaped onto the stage didn’t suggest he was still suffering any pain.
The hair on the back of Albanino’s head was still sticking up in an especially unruly way, possibly related to the part that had been shaved off to stitch up his wound. Hestal guessed that short stubble had already grown in there, and he could almost trace in his mind the sensation of fingers running through that hair.
It was a long second—one that he wasn’t sure should be classified as shock. Hestal stared fixedly at the stage, and there was no smile at the corner of Albanino’s mouth, but those sharp green eyes swept over Hestal with an unmistakably knowing look.
Of course, Albanino must have noticed him the moment he walked in.
Then Hestal belatedly realized: they would obviously end up in a situation like this—he should have realized it from the very beginning. Albanino would obviously also attend a support group, to maintain his image as a psychologically fragile ordinary person; the Pianist case had drawn far too much attention, and he absolutely could not reveal anything unusual in front of so many police officers.
And he certainly wouldn’t go see a psychiatrist. Lying in front of a psychiatrist once a week was exhausting work. Compared to that, a support group without any professional mental health practitioners involved was of course a good choice.
Since both of them had been inadvertently dragged into a rather surreal sexual assault case, it wasn’t impossible for them to show up at a psychological support group. Not to mention that both of them knew Olga Moroz, and attending a particular support group through Olga’s introduction was naturally perfectly reasonable.
—But running into him at the support group was one thing; Hestal had never imagined the man would actually volunteer to go up and speak. Could this psychopath be not just a psychopath, but also someone with histrionic personality disorder?
If Albanino wasn’t locked up in a mental hospital and his brain sawed open, there was probably no way to ever get a real answer to that question. And the man was clearly sitting in that speaker’s chair right now, concealing his eager excitement in an exquisite manner.
He spoke softly and slowly—almost as if heartbroken—”Hello everyone, my name is Al.”
The other people at the support group of course answered in unison, “Hello, Al,” their voices rumbling and echoing beneath the dome of the small theater. People were supposed to tell the truth in this place, and yet in Albanino’s own story, the line between truth and illusion had already blurred.
Another fact Hestal understood in his heart was that Albanino could actually be recognized by others. When the Bob Landon case occurred, Albanino had been suspected as a criminal suspect, and at that time his photos had been plastered all over the internet. Even though the Pianist case vaguely glossed over the victim, according to reports in the *Westland Daily News*, many people firmly believed that Dr. Bax was the victim of that case.
Anyone who regularly followed the news might recognize Albanino. This anonymous mutual aid group was not truly anonymous at all for Albanino. Hestal, however, had no such worry: the reports on the victims of the Killer Johnny case had not involved photos or real names at all, and no one knew that such a thing had happened to him.
But given the current situation, Albanino clearly did not care either.
“About half a month ago,” Albanino chose to begin his account this way, deliberately lowering and roughening his voice, “I was attacked at home by a criminal.”
That wasn’t entirely true, because clearly he hadn’t even closed the door, staying up all night waiting for that criminal to come to him.
Hestal’s gaze scraped across his cheek like a knife, but Albanino, unlike most people with psychological trauma, did not lower his head to avoid others’ eyes. When he swept his gaze over the crowd, his eyes paused on Hestal with particular depth for two full seconds.
Hestal still remembered the look on Albanino’s face when he had walked in that night—the other man sitting in the armchair by the fireplace, turning slightly, his chestnut curls gilded with a hazy golden halo by the firelight. The suggestive smile on his lips at that moment, the fruity aroma of white wine filling the air.
That strange grape—
“Are you sure you don’t want a taste, Pianist?”
And at this very moment, the crowd held its breath in anticipation. Most victims of cases like this were attacked in dark alleys, or else it was a home invasion robbery—but Albanino’s story was exceedingly rare.
He was saying: “I was attacked because I’m a… uh, you can understand it this way: I’m a law enforcement officer, and then a criminal who had a grudge against me attacked me, just to get revenge on me.”
Hestal was simply scoffing at this: that was no ordinary “criminal with a grudge,” because that grudge was mainly due to Albanino inducing the killer Johnny to kidnap that “criminal”—but what was truly exasperating was that if this story were told, it would really be far too insane.
“…The police haven’t caught him. I imagine he’s still at large right now,” Albanino was saying—how on earth did he manage to work a vivid, lifelike choke into that sentence? “I don’t understand why that criminal would choose to treat me in such a—manner—” Here there was a suspicious pause, one easily mistaken for grief beyond bearing, “…Sometimes I think he might as well have just killed me, and everything would have ended painlessly, just like that. But…”
Hestal still remembered the sensation of his fingers closing around the other’s neck—so warm, so soft. He wanted to kill him, wanted to slit his throat open and watch the blood surge out from beneath the scarred skin. Human desire was so shallow and straightforward, and yet that undying smile in Albanino’s eyes would forever strip such imaginings of their original meaning.
It was a reminder that Hestal was still deeply trapped in the other’s snare. And if that was the case, then killing him was meaningless. It couldn’t count as a true victory—only the crude method of a loser flipping over the chessboard.
Which meant that the process of violating him, of killing him, had all but lost its original aesthetic. Everything was nothing more than Albanino watching a butterfly struggle at the center of his web.
And right now, at this very moment, Albanino was vividly describing to the others the agony he had faked and the inner struggle that had never truly existed. Albanino cared about what had happened to him, cared about his scars, and cared about the fact that he had been displayed naked before all his colleagues—no more than he cared about a fleeting lover. Those emotionless eyes and that clever silver tongue were weaving a lie sufficient to move his audience to tears.
He said, “He shattered me—it was as if a part of me left me forever.”
In his heart, Hestal almost wanted to sneer at those words. He did not believe he could truly take away a part of Albanino, especially not the part related to the “heart.” Their discussion in the hospital about the Sunday Gardener’s heart had ultimately ended without conclusion—perhaps they simply had no way of proving that the organ in the literary sense truly existed where Albanino was concerned.
Perhaps it was precisely Albanino’s slow, sorrowful narration that, in some way, fueled his madness, because next Hestal did something he should never have done—he let his mind wander for a few seconds, lowered his head, took out his phone, and sent a picture to Albanino.
Albanino’s phone number had already been changed after the last incident, because obviously, after the Pianist attacked him, he had used his own phone to take a whole pile of photos of him, and after setting up the crime scene, he had conveniently taken his phone away with him as well.
From then on, Albanino’s old phone card was never used again, and of course, Hardy and the others could not use the phone card’s signal to locate the Pianist. They all believed that Albanino’s phone must have been thrown by the Pianist into some sewer somewhere—and that was indeed the case. The phone was now in the sewer, but before Hestal threw it away, he had copied the photos inside it.
This was a rather crazy idea. As he had said, most serial killers fail because of arrogance and conceit, which was also the main reason Hestal never collected souvenirs from the dead or returned to the crime scenes. By all reason and logic, he should not have kept those photos, because even the WLPD only had scans of the printed sheets he had left at the scene. The person who possessed the original versions of those photos was the Westland Pianist—this was a logical deduction even a child could make.
So, after copying the photos, he still felt it was inappropriate. Over the following days, he destroyed most of the files in scattered batches, erasing them so thoroughly that even the police department’s technical division could not recover the data.
But as of now, there was still one photo left on his phone—a photo that the Westland Pianist had not even printed out and pasted on the wall at the crime scene: the photo showed Albanino lying on the ground, his eyes tightly closed, his lips and skin drained of color, his hair disheveled, most of it messily piled over his forehead.
That photograph hadn’t captured any particularly private body parts, not like the kind of humiliating composition the Pianist left at crime scenes; the bottom edge of the photo’s frame only caught Albanino at the hip bone, the focus was actually primarily on Albanino’s face; the nighttime lighting and shadows emphasized the elegant curves of those well-exercised muscles, the interwoven, mottled shadows of the rainy night, and the blood smeared across his skin like oil paint.
When Hestal was staging the scene, he ultimately hadn’t printed that photograph. He felt that its composition seemed to expose too much of himself—he had a strange worry, a pure, unfounded sense of anxiety telling him: Olga would see something in it. Although he didn’t know what that something was, Olga would definitely see it.
Now, he had sent that photograph to Albanino.
Less than two seconds later, everyone heard Albanino’s phone vibrate once.
The victim sitting in the center of the stage apologized softly to the others, took out his phone, and casually glanced at it—then Hestal saw Albanino’s eyes widen slightly, an expression of disbelief. Such an expression did not seem out of place on the other man’s face, yet it was genuinely something to be treasured—he said nothing, and revealed no other superfluous expression, only quickly putting the phone back into his jacket pocket.
When he began speaking again, he was calm as though nothing had happened.
But the truth was obviously not so.
Because Albanino stood up, deliberately injecting traces of agitation into his body language. He spoke to everyone hesitantly: “There is another reason I find it hard to move past this incident: because I know that criminal does not want me to forget. That criminal will remind me at every moment of what happened to me, and for the rest of my life, I will have him as my companion.”
He paused, took a deep breath. The tone in which he said this was almost sincere—but only “almost.”
“He left some… indelible marks. I’ve been running from this reality, but… that seems unfair. I should face that final outcome.” Albanino said in a low voice. He even bit down on his own lower lip—Haastal saw his teeth sink into the lip, biting that soft flesh until it went white. “I wish I had enough courage, then I could—suppose I could show—”
Here Albanino paused with a hesitation. The others probably hadn’t expected what he was about to do, so when he did it, people burst into a small, startled exclamation.
Albanino was wearing a jacket, and underneath it a soft pullover with a loose hem. After this hesitation, disguised so vividly and lifelike, he simply reached out one hand, grabbed the hem of his clothes, and lifted it up.
For the first time since the thirtieth of last month, Hestal saw the string of scars on Albanino’s abdomen.
The letters formed by those interconnected knife marks had probably had their stitches removed for nearly a week now, yet they were still swollen and bright red. Thirteen cuts, an insulting word, the stitches neat yet still appearing twisted, the newly formed delicate skin gleaming under the light due to its lack of texture.
Hestal would always remember the sensation of the blade sinking into skin, how blood flowed along the gaps between his fingers; when Albanino’s eyes glazed over in agony, those traces of a smile seemed to finally fade, yet still stubbornly lingered in place.
“This is what he left on my body,” Albanino said in a low voice.
Note:
[1] The title of this piece comes from a fairy tale by Andersen.
[2] The Serenity Prayer: A prayer commonly used by many psychological mutual-help groups, beginning with “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.”