“And how would you help me?” Reid asked.
“Unfortunately, from my past behavior, I know too much about people who do ... things to women. Such as those that were done to Beth.”
Beth.Reid controlled his breathing. He had been careful about what was reported in the case. The department had held back certain details of the crime scene, including the fact that lace impressions had been left by the force of strangulation.
“What things were done to her?” Reid asked.
The pink patches on Harris’s cheeks were turning red.Temperature rising: he’s getting excited,Reid thought.
“Horrible things. Rape things,” he said.
“Like what?”
“Being stripped. The strangling with hands. Hands all over her body, then around her neck.”
Reid watched Harris’s hands unconsciously flexing and unflexing, making an oval as if wrapping around a throat.
“Did you do these ‘rape things’?” Reid asked, chilled as he watched Harris’s hands tighten and release.
“Not to Beth.”
“Did you see someone else do them to Beth?”
He hesitated, started to say something, then changed his mind and shook his head.
“It seems to me like you did,” Reid said.
“Not really.”
“Not really? But sort of?”
He sighed. “I dreamed about it,” he said. “My treatment is working; it is, truly. But I can’t help what I dream.”
Truly.“Of course you can’t,” Reid said. “So, what did you dream?”
“I saw Pete doing it to her,” Harris said. “She was on the bed. So beautiful and dainty, wearing her nightie. Pregnant. And how lovely a woman is at that time. There is a glow—I’ve seen it many times. My own wife ...”
Did you want to strangle your own wife too?Reid wondered, watching sweat break out on his forehead.
“Right. So you dreamed of Beth on her bed.”
“And Pete, her strong husband, standing over her, very serious.”
Wives are dainty and lovely; husbands are strong and serious,Reid thought.
“What did Pete do?”
“Well, he hit her, of course. That’s what the bruises are from. And he did this,” Harris said, mimicking strangulation with his hands, consciously this time. “Then he would have taken her panties, which he would have removed after he hit her—I left that out—and then he would have wrapped it around her throat, and, well, you can imagine.”
Reid watched him in silence. During the course of most of Martin Harris’s sexual assaults, he did use ligatures. He would start to choke his victim, then stop just as she was about to pass out. He always wore a mask. He’d never strangled a woman to death; he had always stopped short.
“I really can’t imagine, Martin,” Reid said. “You need to tell me exactly what you’re talking about.”
“Well, after he wrapped her panties around her throat, he would pull them tight. And then, eventually, she would die.”
“That’s what you saw Pete do?”
“In my dream, not real life! Wasn’t I being clear?” Harris asked.
