In Death 17 - Imitation in Death

at a computer all day. He had a good face, handsome without being soft.
     
     
"Blaster!" the boy called out as he spotted Eve's weapon under her jacket. "Zappit!"
     
     
Breen laughed, flipped the child off his shoulders in a rapid and smooth move that had the kid squealing in delight. "Jed here's a little bloodthirsty. Runs in the family. I'm just going to set him up with the druid, then we can talk."
     
     
"No droid!" The kid's face went from angelic to mutinous in a heartbeat. "Stay with Daddy!"
     
     
"Just for a little while, champ; then we'll go out to the park." He tickled the boy into giggles as he charged up the steps with him.
     
     
"Nice to see a guy handle a kid that way, and enjoy it," Peabody commented.
     
     
"Yeah, Wonder what a guy, a successful guy, thinks about pulling in a professional father stipend, dealing with an offspring, while the mother's being a busy exec at a major firm every day. Some guys would resent that. Some might think the little lady's pushy, domineering. Maybe his mother was the same-Breen's mother is a neurologist and his father went the professional parent route. You know," Eve added, looking up the stairs, "some guys would build up a nasty little resentment of women over that kind of setup."
     
     
"That's really sexist."
     
     
"'Yeah; it is. Some people are."
     
     
Peabody frowned up the steps. "It's some brain that could take a nice, homey scene like we just witnessed and turn it on its head into a motive for murder."
     
     
"Just one of my natural-born talents, Peabody."
     
     
Chapter 9
     
     
Breen set them up in a roomy office just off the kitchen. Two large windows faced the rear, where they could see a kind of tidy patio skirted by a low. wall. Behind the.wall were leafy trees.
     
     
With the view, they might have been in some quiet suburb rather than the city.
     
     
Someone had put pots of flowers on the. patio, along with a couple of loungers. There was a small table shaded by a jaunty blue-and-white striped umbrella. ,
     
     
A couple of big plastic trucks lay on their sides, along with their colorful plastic occupants, as if, there had been a terrible vehicular accident:
     
     
Why, Eve wondered, were kids always bashing toys together? Maybe it was some sort of primitive cave-dweller instinct that, if things went well, the kid outgrew or-at least restrained into adulthood.
     
     
Jed's father looked civilized enough, sitting in his rolly chair that he'd scooted around from his workstation. Then again, he made the bulk of hiss living writing about people who restrained nothing, and rather than outgrowing any destructive instincts, had bumped it up from plastic, toys to flesh and blood.
     
     
It took, Eve was very aware, all kinds.
     
     
"So, how can I help?"
     
     
"You've_ done considerable research into serial killers," Eve began.
     
     
"Historical figures, primarily. Though I have interviewed a few contemporary subjects."
     
     
"Why is that, Mr. Breen?"
     
     
"Tom. Why?" He looked surprised for a moment. "It's fascinating. You've been up close and personal with the breed. Don't you find them fascinating?"
     
     
"I don't know if that's the word I'd use."
     
     
He leaned forward. "But you have to wonder what makes them who they are, don't you? What separates them from the rest of us? Is it something more or something less? Are they born to kill, or does that. need evolve in them? Is it a single instance that turns them, or a series of events? And really, the answer isn't always the same, and that's fascinating. One guy spends his childhood in poverty and abuse"he tapped his index fingers together-"and becomes a productive member of society. A bank president, faithful husband, good father, loyal friend. Plays golf on the weekend and walks his pet schnauzer every night. He uses his background to springboard himself into something better, higher, right?"
     
     
"And another uses it as an excuse to dive into the muck. Yeah, I got it. Why do you write about the muck?"
     
     
He sat back again. "Well, I could give you a lot of jive about how studying the killer and the muck he wades in gives society insight into how and why. And understanding, information, is power against fear. It would be true," he added with his quick and boyish smile. "But on another level entirely, it's just fun. I've been into it since I was a kid. Jack the Ripper was the big one for me. I read everything about him, watched every vid ever produced, surfed