Inside the Mind of BTK

314 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
Tears poured down his cheeks. Touching, really—that is, if one
didn’t understand that Rader wasn’t crying for Paula. His tears were
still exclusively for himself.
I gave him a few moments to wallow in self-pity.
Finally, I said, “No, I don’t think Paula knew anything exactly, but
I’m wondering if she ever saw anything. There’s a difference, you know
...There’s a difference between knowing and seeing.”
“Yeah” was the only word Rader uttered. His gaze appeared to be
focused to the left of the video camera, somewhere front of him. He
appeared dazed, lost inside the world behind his eyelids. I let him have
a few minutes for himself to think things over, to let the seeds I’d just
dropped into his brain take root.
“Anything else you want to tell me?”
I watched Rader double over again, attempting to smear what I
knew to be tears from his eyes. By the time he raised his head back up,
he looked more composed.
“You know, lately I’ve been thinking about what people can do
to protect themselves from guys like me, and I came up with a little
list,” he said. “I guess most of it is pretty obvious, but I’ll tell it to you
if you like.”
“I’m all ears,” I said.
“The first thing I’d suggest for a woman living alone is to get a
security system,” he said.
“I have ADT,” I told him, remembering how Rader once rigged a
home alarm system he helped install for ADT such that if the mood
struck him, he could break in and kill the female occupant.
“You do?” he exclaimed. “They’re a really great company. I worked
for them for years, you know. I really liked that job.”
“I imagine you did,” I replied.
“Back to my list,” he said, aware that the clock was ticking. “For
women living alone, I think the most important thing they can do is
give the impression that they live with a man. Maybe have some
men’s clothes scattered around the house or leave a toiletry kit out in
the open, just in case someone breaks in to scope the place out. It
would also be wise to have two dogs—one outside and another one
inside. And on the answering machine, have a man’s voice on the outgoing
recording. And you know how I used to cut the phone lines of
houses? People should always check their phones whenever they enter
their house . . .”