Cody McFadyen

It occurred to me recently that one of the hazards of writing crime novels is the tendency to search for the bad in the benign.

The thing about writing (at least for me) is that you never really stop. As I go throughout my day, doing the usual, some part of me is always watching, noting, filing away.

Example: since I am such a big wimp, I get my dental work done under IV sedation whenever possible. The thing that amazed me from the first about this is how powerful those drugs are. I remember the first time I had it done, the anesthesiologist put the needle in my arm and then attached the heart rate monitor. I was nervous, so my heart was going at about 160 beats a minute. He raised an eyebrow and said: "Hm - let me help you with that." He injected something into the IV and the next thing I knew... sixty beats a minute and pure, unfettered bliss. 'Go ahead,' I thought, 'pull 'em all, no big deal...' Then he gave me the real stuff and the space inside my head exploded into a bright white light. I started making memories again hours later, when I woke up on my couch.

That's all well and good, problem is, I had a moment for one final thought before oblivion and it was 'this would be a hell of a tool for a serial killer...'

Another time I was in a hardware store. It was a Sunday and I needed an extension cord. I was trying to keep my head down, get what I needed and get out. Then, I saw him. He was about six feet five and he hunched forward a little over his shopping cart. His lower jaw jutted forward a bit and he seemed to be wearing a permanent scowl - until he found the garden shears, that is. He held them in his huge hands and scissored them a few times. His eyes lit up, followed by a tremendous, toothy smile of pure pleasure. 'Who's waiting in your basement?' I thought. Then his daughter ran up to him. She looked to be about four, and she giggled as he scooped her up in his arms. 'Stereotypes,' I thought, chastising myself. But then I frowned... after all, BTK was a family man, too...

Anytime I'm driving down the highway and I see a flat-panel van, I have to wonder for a moment what the cops would find if they took a close look with an ultraviolet light.

Heck, even my brother gets in on the act. He was renting a house once and we went down into the basement. He was using it as a music room and I noticed that the walls had been sound-proofed. He'd only been there for a month, so I commented that he'd worked pretty fast to put all that sound-proofing up. 'Oh,' he said, 'that was already here when we rented the place.' I looked at him, he looked at me, and he nodded. 'Yep,' he said, reading my mind, 'I thought the same thing. He probably used it as a kill-room.'

Then we laughed, and took turns playing the guitar. It was a great evening, but before I fell asleep that night, I took a moment to wonder:

Kill-room?

Nah. Probably not.

But not impossible...