THERE’S A SERIAL KILLER UPSTAIRS . . . and other dark meanderings of a mystery writer’s mind

Wed--Kwei

For some 19 years, I lived in a single-family home in Pasadena, CA. Having sold it this year, I’m temporarily renting an apartment as I ponder what to buy and where to live next. There are some advantages to living in a rental property. For example, you don’t pay anyone for maintenance or no-fault repairs, and the plumbing or electrical guy could be at your service in less than an hour.

The view from my balcony

However, for a person like me who relishes complete silence, apartments are noisy: baby crying, dog barking, wheeler luggage going down the corridor, the maintenance cart clattering along the hallway. In a single-family home, there are some disturbances from the neighborhood—e.g., the sanitation trucks on Thursday mornings and the infernal leaf blowers. Still, these are, by and large, predictable and limited, whereas apartment noise is random.

Things that go bump in the night

For several weeks, I’ve noticed heavy footfall from the tenant in the apartment directly above me. The floor plan is the same as my dwelling, so I can pinpoint where they’re walking: from the bedroom to the bathroom and then back to bed, or from the bedroom to the sitting room or kitchen multiple times, back and forth.

Added to this are the sounds of furniture scraping and being moved about and drawers or cabinets repeatedly opening and shutting. Occasionally, there’s a clatter of some kind of hard object on the floor. On Saturday morning last weekend, I was startled to hear explosions from the apartment. It took me a few seconds to realize that the upstairs tenant was playing a video game with a powerful subwoofer speaker at max volume. 

For most normal people, this would merely be a nuisance of living in an apartment setting. But to me, the murder-mystery writer, it’s far more ominous. The tenant—for argument’s sake, let’s assume it’s a male—is, in fact, a serial killer moving dead bodies around, hence all those banging sounds. The loud music on Saturday mornings is to drown out the victims’ screams. The offender likely has a large deep freeze in which he hides the chopped-up body parts. Remember how Dahmer’s neighbor kept telling the police something was up? Well, don’t say I didn’t alert y'all when you hear about it on the 6 o’clock news.

My Bimodal Imagination

Like other murder-mystery writers (you know yourselves), I spend a lot of time figuring out story plots for whatever the current novel is. To do that, we must look at a crime from the murderer’s perspective. How would a killer access the victim? How would the killer escape and cover their tracks? What are the motives and opportunities? 

Then, we must put ourselves in the shoes of the victim. What was their life like? Where were they when murdered? With whom did they make enemies or argue? What were their secrets? 

Life imitates art—and vice versa.

The reason I imagine there’s a serial killer above me is that my line between fiction and reality is--how should I put it?--somewhat indistinct. 

• While seated in a restaurant, I prefer to face a window onto the street in case someone sketchy is approaching with malicious intent, and I often look for an alternative exit route in case something kicks off. 

• Every rusty camper vehicle I see has a dead body in the back, without a doubt. 

All manner of evil lies therein (Image: Shutterstock)

• I love the woods; a corpse or skeleton from a cold case is just around the next tree. 

Murder is indeed everywhere (Image: Leonardo AI)

• All rivers have at least one dumped body that will become a floater before long. 

• All hotels have a fair number of guests engaged in extramarital sex while away from home. 

• Dark, crumbling old buildings are suspicious, as are dark storerooms. Once, when I visited Denmark’s Kronborg Castle, featured in Hamlet, I somehow found my way into a dimly-lit, Authorized Personnel Only area that was off-piste from the typical tourist’s path. And then I discovered the door I’d come in had locked behind me. Oh, crap. I began to sweat. I’m in big trouble. Fortunately, I located another door that allowed me to exit. Phew! One of the guards spotted me and asked what I was doing there. “Um, I got lost,” I muttered and bolted.

Kronborg Castle, Denmark: No way is it not hiding a beheaded skeleton
(Image: Pinterest)

• At the airport, I don’t rule out that the little blue-haired granny ahead of me could be wired with explosives. Which way should I run when she opens her jacket? Even when I'm not spotting criminals, the airport is a good place to make up stories about passengers scurrying back and forth—where do they come from? Do they gamble? Is that perfectly benign-looking guy with a lovely wife and kids talking to his secret lover on the phone?

"Look, I told you, don't call me. I'll call you. Bye."
(Image: Leonardo AI)

My diagnosis

As a physician, I categorize and name everything. So, I asked Chat GPT to give a professional opinion about my state of mind as a mystery writer. This is what it said about me:

A clinical term for this phenomenon could be “fantasy ideation” or “narrative immersion.” However, if it becomes excessive or causes distress, it could overlap with a recognized psychological concept called maladaptive daydreaming.

In the context of a mystery writer, this could simply be considered a heightened form of creative visualization or immersive imagination, which are common traits in creative professionals. It’s only when these thoughts interfere significantly with daily functioning that they might be considered part of a psychological condition.

If you’d like a more literary spin on the term, you could consider “fictional transposition syndrome,” reflecting the blending of fiction and reality in a writer’s mind.

So, now you know the workings of my dark mind. Bouchercon might never have me back.