Inside the Mind of BTK

326 INSIDE THE MIND OF BTK
The yard was large and comfortable, roughly the area of two tennis
courts laid side by side. Tall, leafy hickory trees bordered much of
the perimeter of the yard, but in the center the sun had baked the
ground into hard clay. When I spotted Rader’s empty, battered aluminum
storage shed, I poked around inside, searching for something
I figured I’d know when I saw it. But the shed had long since been
picked over—no doubt by the police or someone looking to make a
few bucks on eBay. I made a note to myself to check the Web site to
see if any of his belongings turned up there.
Rader kept his fishing gear back there in that shed, a source had
told me, but it was gone now—except for a few hooks scattered on the
floor, a couple of sinkers, and a tiny ball of knotted-up nylon fishing
line. Standing there, it occurred to me that this was perfect fishing
weather, and I found myself wondering if Rader was standing at the
window of his prison cell, looking out across the prairie, thinking this
exact same thought.
I recalled another story I’d heard from Casarona about Rader that
happened on a day similar to this one. He was gazing out his cell window,
daydreaming about God only knows what. He noticed a prison
employee picking up trash in a stretch of grass near one of the many
fences that encircled the facility. Rader’s attention turned toward the
man’s slow, languid movements as he picked his way across the tough,
wind-burned blades of grass. His head was fairly quiet. Rader wasn’t
thinking about much of anything, but suddenly everything turned to
shit, just the way everything did in his life. Because when the garbage
man turned and spotted the familiar-looking visage of Dennis Rader
staring at him through one of the prison’s thick bullet-resistant windows,
it was clear that he didn’t like what he saw one bit.
In the time it took Rader to blink his eyes, the garbage man held
up his middle finger, flipping Rader off. This rubbed Rader the wrong
way.
Who the hell did that guy think he was? Rader heard himself think.
That idiot is an employee of the state’s Department of Corrections. His
behavior certainly isn’t the type of conduct taxpayers should tolerate. It’s
not only disrespectful; it no doubt violates some sort rule of conduct for
state employees.
So Rader turned away from his prairie vista and put out a call for
a guard. When the guard arrived at Rader’s cell, Rader told him what
had just transpired and how he didn’t much appreciate being flipped