The Mask of Sanity by Jacob M. Appel

Author:Jacob M. Appel
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781579625245
Publisher: The Permanent Press
Published: 2017-02-08T16:00:00+00:00

THE IMAGE of the security camera had been emblazoned indelibly upon Balint’s consciousness. In hindsight he realized that trawling the streets for a suitable target had been the height of madness. He’d gotten lucky three times—first in Cobb’s Crossing, then with Kenny McCord, and finally outside the church—but only a fool would rely on luck with the stakes so high. Now he determined to be far more prudent. Rather than choosing his victims on the spot, he decided to scout for them in advance—to identify promising individuals long before he actually approached them. His initial idea had been to use the hospital’s brand new electronic medical record system to look up promising patients at Laurendale-Methodist’s affiliates in Nassau County. He’d intended to check the records from somebody else’s account—accessing a public computer after a nurse or social worker forgot to log out of the network—in order to identify vulnerable candidates who lived alone. Then he realized the flaw in his scheme: once he’d killed these people, their bodies would likely be transported to the same affiliate hospitals, where internal security might later screen for unauthorized access to their charts. The IT probe would be looking for inappropriate access by curiosity seekers, bored technicians, and medical students seeking the inside scoop on an Emerald Choker victim, not for suspects. Yet the computer folks might inadvertently notice his own hospital’s electronic fingerprints and launch an inquiry. The odds of that happening were exceedingly low—but exceedingly low was not the same as zero.

Balint ultimately decided to cull his victims from the obituaries. He’d once caught the tail end of a radio call-in show where a female participant “of a certain age” explained that she found her boyfriends by combing the death notices for recent widowers. So why not use the same info to help select murder victims? The process entailed a small risk: he had to look up the various Nassau County newspapers online at the Pontefract Library, so it was theoretically possible that his trail might be traced. But in this case, the danger truly did approach zero. The only real risk was being seen by Bonnie Kluger once again—but what could she possibly do? Lots of people visited libraries every day, and few of them were cold-blooded killers.

He proceeded with caution. His optimal target, he decided, was a widow over sixty whose husband’s obit didn’t list any other survivors. It was also essential that she live in a freestanding dwelling, either a private home or a duplex, because apartment buildings contained meddlesome neighbors and superintendents and hidden security monitors. To his surprise, and frustration, very few notices met these criteria. Eventually, he recognized why: an actual human being had to place a death notice—and to pay for it. If you died with survivors, particularly adult children, this increased the pool of persons who might arrange for such an announcement. Solitary widows apparently preferred to save the money and the effort.

So days elapsed with no optimal candidate, while life in Laurendale continued all around him.

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