Shame

love with me.”
    I didn’t do the book right, Elizabeth thought, as if to satisfy a point of honor. The book had made her reputation—and a lot ofmoney—but she had never been satisfied with it. There had been too many unanswered questions.
    Elizabeth took a knife and sliced through some masking tape. She had packed everything up the day after Gray Parker’s execution, had symbolically tied up all the loose ends. Her manuscript had been all but completed, and her publisher was waiting to rush it into print. Only the ending, those last few pages, needed to be written. Her editor had flown into town to babysit her through them. At the time, Elizabeth had no idea how extraordinary that treatment was.
    She tentatively reached inside the box, felt around without looking, then pulled out a picture of Virginia Clayton. Virginia had been one of the later victims. Number fourteen, Elizabeth thought. No, fifteen. An only child. She remembered Virginia’s parents, a mother who never seemed to stop crying and a father who had responded to the news of his daughter’s death by setting his face in stone and never offering another expression to the world.
    I’m looking for a needle in a haystack, she thought, a needle that probably doesn’t even exist. So why was she so afraid of getting pricked?
    Elizabeth removed a pile of notebooks, and then opened one. Over the years the highlighting had faded. She still used the same method, jotting down impressions, musing, and afterward highlighting what might be useful. Reading her old notes embarrassed her. The thinking seemed so sophomoric, right out of Psychology 101. Even the highlighted parts. Especially those.
    Shame
. Think of all the expressions employing the word.
For shame. I thought I’d die of shame. Shame on you. I blushed for shame. It’s a shame. Sense of shame. Overwhelmed by shame
.
    It’s a word with its roots in guilt, false pride, and embarrassment. It’s the opposite of doing what’s right. Shame makes us avert our eyes. Shame makes us shrink. When we feel shame we’ve usually violated some rule or standard, or fallen short somehow.
    The book of Genesis, the springboard of the Bible, is imbued with shame. Exposure before God, the metaphor of Adam and Eve ashamed of their nakedness. Our Judeo-Christian culture starts on that note of guilt. Maybe I should play up original sin and Gray Parker.
    Elizabeth had talked with a number of mental health professionals, had asked them about the emotion of shame and why Gray Parker might have written that word on his victims. They hadn’t run short on theories.
    Men often respond aggressively to shame, Dr. Levy said. Rather than confront their shame, they’re more likely to lash out against it. He theorized the murders could have been a response to that anger, and the writing Gray’s contrition after the act. Shame is an emotion that often lingers, he said. One of the most common symptoms of shame is depression, often severe. Shame can debilitate, causing mental and physical breakdowns. Patients will often do anything to avoid confronting their shame, Dr. Levy said. They’d rather live with the consequences than focus on the shame itself. For them, that’s the easier way out.
    Elizabeth reread the last three sentences. A sense of unease came over her. She couldn’t help but wonder about her own easier ways out.
    Dr. Levy said I should offer myself as Gray’s confessor. He explained that when shame is confessed, people feel better. Sometimes they even feel redeemed.
    Confessor. Elizabeth almost laughed. She had been more Gray’s toy than savior.
    Elizabeth continued flipping through the notebook. The name Sheila Vickers kept appearing, another psychologist she had consulted.
    Sheila said I should make a study of whatever Gray says he doesn’t remember. She said that therein I might find the roots of his shame. Sheila also suggested that I be aware of any patterns of avoidance.
    Elizabeth had tried that for a time, had taken copious notes about everything, until Gray had complained.
    “You make me feel like a laboratory animal,” he had told her. “All you do is scratch, scratch, scratch on that pad. Ever stop to think with all that scratching we’re not doing much real talking?”
    Maybe it was her own avoidance she should have been taking note of. She’d always felt uneasy about the book, as if by writing it she had made a deal with the devil, or come as close to that as humanly possible. But Gray hadn’t