Bitter Instinct jc-8

by Robert W. Walker

  “Well, Jess, it's largely been because of your findings that the finger points to her and her colleague Locke. You'll be happy to know that in the meantime, we will be watching Locke for his every reaction,” Parry added. “At the moment, whether we like it or not, Leare's our best shot; hell, she's our only shot. If you hadn't noticed, the Poet hasn't left us much to go on. Still, I think I know a judge that will issue a warrant for her arrest on what we do have.”

  He hung up. She felt deflated. Some voice in her head, whether of reason or intuition, told her the others were chasing the wrong person.

  The next day's newspapers would carry the story: Donatella leare, respected teacher and poet, arrested in connection with the second street killings.

  Jessica imagined the fallout. Tensions would ease all across the city as a result of the headline that Leare, local professor and celebrated poet, had been taken into custody as a suspect in the killings. Meanwhile, everyone in law enforcement, with the exception of Leanne Sturtevante, would withhold judgment, and many would be closely watching Lucian Burke Locke's every move, as Parry had indicated.

  Jessica telephoned Kim, bringing her up to date; Kim agreed with her that the Philadelphia authorities were acting prematurely. “They have a twenty-four-hour surveillance on Locke, and this action the team has agreed upon, Jess,” Kim informed her.

  “The team agreed on all this? In my absence?”

  “They knew you were checking up on Professor Leare's handwriting, and they added it to the mix. I tried to be the voice of reason, but they weren't interested. Trust me, there was nothing you could've done at this end.”

  “Meanwhile, we sit and wait to see if, in the next two days, another poor soul will be sent across the River Styx by the gentle killer who pens poems on his victims' backs?”

  “With Leare in custody, eating well on the taxpayers' money and the notoriety and publicity this arrest affords her poetry, book sales are likely to skyrocket.”

  “So much that Locke will no doubt want to join her in the slammer, realizing only too late the marketing power of being arrested on suspicion of murder?”

  “It's worked for others-actors as well as authors.”

  “Then the expected happens. The killer comes and goes again, undetected, leaving yet another murder victim and another bit of verse. This while Leare remains in lockup, and while Locke remains under surveillance.”

  “Should that turn out to be the case, it would effectively exonerate both poets.”

  “I keep feeling that somehow both are connected to the case, Kim. I just don't know how.”

  “Yes, I've been getting that from you.”

  “If in no other way than that their grim poetry has filled the imagination of the killer, whoever he or she is.”

  “We'll have to look closely into the lives of every student that both professors have ever had,” suggested Kim.

  “No, we save time by getting you to hypnotize the two, and we hope something relevant shakes out,” Jessica countered. “You can't use hypnosis in a Pennsylvania courtroom.”

  “We'll use it, not the courts.”

  “You'll have to get their approval, and once Leare's arrested, I imagine she will be pissed off, and as long as Locke is a free man, what possible motivation would he have to submit to hypnosis?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  Jessica knew she had to work fast. Enlisting Kim's help, they contacted both Locke and Leare, asking if they might all meet. It took some powers of persuasion, but with Jessica appealing to the poets' vanity, and the possibility of “major” publicity for their works, she managed to gain their assent to do a hypnosis session with Dr. Kim Desinor in order to jog their memories about the victims they'd had as students.

  When Jessica and Kim arrived at Locke's home, they found Dr. Harriet Plummer in the company of her two colleagues. “Here,” she said, “to lend moral support. I think it wretched and disgusting that you people have badgered Donatella and Lucian in the manner you have,” the dean declared. “Now you've flashed their pictures about and talked to students hanging out at the local pubs, again and again, first creating a sense of guilt where there is no reason for guilt, and then perpetuating it. Meanwhile, you do nothing about looking into Garrison Burrwith. I can't understand you people.”

  They were interrupted by Locke's wholesome, plump wife, who suddenly appeared in the doorway, asking, “Dear, what is this all about?”

  “Never mind, sweetheart. Just a bit of a problem with finals coming up; you know how that is. You know Dr. Plummer; Donatella,” he said.

  Mrs. Locke icily acknowledged both women with a simple nod before turning her attention to Jessica and Kim.

  “More playmates, I see,” she muttered, and disappeared.

  “See to the children, dear,” he called after her. “Wonderful person, really, and the children are my perfect little people.”

  He saw that Jessica was staring at the photos of the children, as she had done on her first visit. He asked, “Do you have children, Dr. Coran?”

  “No; no, I do not.”

  “Why not adopt, as we have? It was a wonderful decision.”

  “Yes, I can well imagine.”

  “Children are the pearls of this universe, really, far more so than any jeweled poem, wouldn't you agree, Harriet, Donatella? They're so magical.” The women agreed with nods and mutterings, but Harriet Plummer wanted again to know, “How can you badger these two wonderful poets so, Dr. Coran?”

  “Both Dr. Locke and Dr. Leare's names keep coming up in our investigation, Dr. Plummer,” countered Jessica.

  Kim tried to soothe the woman, calmly adding, “We believe that perhaps Dr. Locke and/or Dr. Leare may know something, may have seen something, may have some special, inside information on the counterculture of this area and the college, as all the victims held, at one time or another, some ties-even if tenuous-to the university.”

  “That's a lot of may haves,” Plummer grumbled.

  “One or both must know something, even if they do not consciously know that they know,” Kim continued.

  “So reason the detectives,” said Plummer, fuming, “when I've told you repeatedly that if anyone, anyone at the university is involved in these heinous crimes, it can only be Garrison Burrwith.”

  “We've found nothing to link Dr. Burrwith to the crimes, Dr. Plummer. In fact, no one has ever seen him in any of the pubs or coffeehouses save you.”

  “Are you calling me a liar? Tell them, Lucian. Tell them how he insulted us.”

  “I had Burrwith's poetry compared stylistically with what we've taken from the crime scenes. It in no way resembles the killer's work,” said Jessica.

  “He masks himself well, this man,” countered Plummer, still fuming. Locke took her aside to calm her down.

  “By comparison, both Locke's and Leare's poems are far, far closer in imagery and the nuances of tone to what we find in the killer's poetry, and their styles are far closer,” continued Jessica. “I picked up one of Dr. Locke's books, a collection of dark, brooding poems-as are all his books, I'm given to understand.” Three in total,” inteijected Locke, a smug look on his face.

  Jessica recalled how each title said little about the contents of the volume, yet each title was turgid, abstruse, and not a little pompous. The titles, all listed inside the book she had in her possession, were: Oration of the Gifts of Those Angels Who Rule the Four Quarters, Lurkers in the Stillness of the Forest Soul, and Various Jottings-Collectively Known As Folly and Light.

  Jessica had had every piece of information on Locke duplicated and forwarded to her, and she studied it all before coming to see him a second time. She was stuck by the memory of another killer who had wrapped himself in the cloak of civility and science, and she feared making the same mistake with Dr. Locke, who cloaked himself in genteel intellectual pursuits. Should he be hiding a dark and evil secret, perhaps doing her homework might help her illuminate the depths of this man.

  She and Kim exchange
d a look now, as Jessica had shared her suspicions of Locke and the possibility that Locke and Leare were in some sort of twisted collaboration.

  Apparently sensing the suspicion in the room, Locke suddenly burst out, “And just why am I suspect at all? Because I sat on a stool at a number of coffeehouses and bars in the old Warehouse District and on Second Street? What nerve, what gall, what desperate grasping at straws on the part of an inept police department!” He finished with a dramatic wave of the hand.

  Kim assured him, “We're just following leads, Dr. Locke. We suspect that somewhere in your memory banks, some key to this nightmare may reside. If not in your memory, then perhaps in Dr. Leare's.”

  “This is bound to make the newspapers,” said Plummer. “The university can't sustain such bad publicity.” Are you sure of that, Harriet?” asked Leare, smiling. “Think of it: 'Two Noted Philly U Poets Hypnotized to Determine Guilt or Innocence in Series of Murders.' “

  “I'm sure you'll put the best spin on it,” Jessica predicted. “Fact is, it could be good for book sales, Dr. Plummer.”

  Locke managed a wry smile as well. “You see, I'm up for tenure and promotion here. At least, since you are talking to Donatella as well as to me, and you have had Burrwith under suspicion, it doesn't appear as if I am the exclusive target of your probe. That much is good.”

  A nice guy with an ulterior motive for ratting out his colleagues, Jessica thought.

  “Good gal Leare is, and a fine poet, though something of a Jekyll and Hyde type; I doubt her capable of killing anyone, despite the method,” Locke said, with forced jocularity.

  “Exactly what do you mean by 'Jekyll and Hyde type,' Dr. Locke?” Leare replied archly, playing the game.

  Harriet Plummer quickly interceded. “He means, Dr. Leare, that you are sometimes moody, that's all. Right, Lucian?”

  “Oh, yes, that's precisely what I meant. The woman has, of course, read all my work, and she's won accolades and one of the more important poetry prizes, all on the basis of her last volume, which I gave advice on. Still, that hardly makes it derivative of my own work, although writers do work on the backs of those who came before them.”

  The sexual innuendo could not be missed, nor the reference to the murders.

  “Dr. Leare is working her way up the literary ladder, and her recent success has mitigated her moodiness, wouldn't you say, Lucian? I believe she is working new ground now, aren't you, dear?”

  Jessica could not help but note the sexual tension among the colleagues. Had they all slept with each other at one time or another? Leare obviously swung both ways.

  “New poems?” asked Jessica.

  “Free verse.”

  “Is that 'new ground'?”

  Donatella Leare replied for herself. “Oh, definitely! Aside from no forced rhyming, it changes the pitch, tone, and hue of a work of poetry to cast it in free verse. Frees the mind from petty constraints, you see.”

  “I see I have some studying to do,” Jessica responded.

  Locke interjected. “I would offer you a lesson, but the well's run dry. A bookstore in the Second Street area, quite quaint and out of the way, called Darkest Expectations, carries my book on how to read poetry. Be prepared for a great deal of dust, which I suspect is all you will gain from a hypnosis session, but then, you are the experts.”

  “Shall we begin with you, Dr. Leare?” asked Kim, who had quietly prepared herself for the hypnosis session, which involved holding the hands of the person being hypnotized. This would allow her to do a full psychometric reading of both the poets as well.

  After ten minutes, Donatella Leare revealed little knowledge of the victims who had been her students; she managed only to repeat the cursory information she had already given them. Lucian Locke, by comparison, detailed the study habits of each in cogent specifics, down to what sort of writing tool each preferred. Still, little came of the hypnotic net Kim cast out-certainly nothing revealing enough to uncover the killer.

  “I had thought that between you two, you might have some knowledge of the killer, perhaps not consciously but subconsciously,” Kim apologetically said once the session with Locke had come to a close. “You don't mean to say you're giving credence to Dr. Plummer's batty notion that Professor Burrwith is the Poet Killer, are you?” Leare fairly screamed. “Burrwith hasn't got it in him to kick your ass, Locke, for stealing his woman; he hasn't even got the guts to call your wife on it.”

  “It may be worth pursuing, Donatella,” countered Locke. “I told you how he's been stalking Plummer, how he made a scene at the cafe, and you know very well that Plummer and I have a purely platonic re-”

  “That hardly makes him a poisoner, any more than it makes me a killer,” she replied, pacing Locke's living room.

  “Why do you suspect that we might know this killer?” asked Locke.

  Jessica took a deep breath before replying. “I believe you may know who the killer is on a subconscious level, since his writing has obviously been influenced by both of your works.”

  “Are you quite sure of this?”

  In response, Jessica went to a table and unrolled a computer graphic display she'd held back until now. “This is what the artificial intelligence computer program that examined your work alongside that of the killer's came up with. It's not really close; not a match. Where Locke is bleak, Leare is dark, and the combination is a dark bleakness of style that parallels the style of the killer.”

  Locke and Leare studied the many connections the computer program had found between their poems and those of the Poet Killer. Leare protested, saying, “This is crazy. No computer program can precisely read style and nuance and innuendo and a hundred other tools of the skillful poet. This is so entirely bogus, Lucian.”

  “Remarkable nonetheless, but Leare and I have never collaborated, and to ask a machine to collaborate for us, well, I should think that's some sort of infringement of copyright protection. It is absurd to have machines pointing fingers at us on the flimsy basis of similarities between our styles and that of some amateur who also happens to be a murderer.”

  “You must admit that there appears to be a close tie,” said Jessica.

  Locke's good eye seemed to double in size, and his glass eye looked to be in danger of rolling out of its socket. “Are you suggesting that we two, together, somehow compose the Poet Killer?” he asked, his dwarfed body shaking with laughter and a gleeful sort of astonishment. “Leare, imagine what such nonsense will do for our reputations and book sales! This is remarkable, wouldn't you say, Donatella?”

  “Most assuredly so. In fact, it may be remarkable enough to send us to prison, Lucian.”

  Just then a pounding on the door and shouting from outside indicated that Leare's arrest was now imminent. “Damn,” muttered Jessica.

  “What the devil is all this?” asked Locke.

  “I think I know, Lucian,” said Leare. “I believe they have come for me, not you. Sturtevante's behind this, isn't she?” she asked Jessica.

  “I… I couldn't say.”

  “Couldn't or won't?”

  “Just know that I was against it.”

  “Shall I thank you now?”

  Locke answered the door, protesting, but the uniformed police, followed by Parry and a pair of his agents, rushed in with a warrant for Leare's arrest. On seeing Jessica and Kim, Parry said, “I thought you had more sense than to get in the way, Jessica.”

  She pulled him aside, whispering, “And I thought you had more sense period, Jim. You know this arrest is not warranted. You haven't enough to hold her.”

  “She's a photographer as well as a poet, Jess, and Quantico just came back with our killer poison, something used in photo processing and filmmaking.” They isolated it?”

  “Selenium.”

  “Selenium.” Jessica repeated the word.

  “Highly toxic concentration of it in the ink, and it's used by photographers in developing film. It's one more nail in the proverbial coffin.”

  Parry step
ped away from her and walked toward the uniformed men, one of whom had just finished reciting Leare's Miranda rights to her. 'Take her to PPD headquarters for interrogation,” he barked.

  “This is pure, unadulterated madness!” Locke shouted after them as his home emptied of police and FBI agents.

  Distraught, Harriet Plummer swooned and fell into an overstuffed chair. Jessica and Kim took their leave.

  “I want to see the lab report Quantico came up with on the poison,” Jessica told Parry as he rushed away from her.

  “Copy will be in your mailbox.” He climbed into his car and sped away.

  True to his word, James Parry had the report waiting for Jessica the following morning. “Happy reading,” he told her on his way out, “and quite revealing of our killer.”

  “Oh, and how's that?”

  “Like I told you yesterday, she is into photography as well as poetry; the poison derives from a chemical used quite heavily in photography work.”

  “That still doesn't make Leare the Poet Killer, Jim.”

  “It will suffice until a better choice comes along, Jess.”

  She gritted her teeth and watched him waltz off, smug and secure in his and Sturtevante's action. She turned her attention to the folder he'd dropped on her desk. 'Time to read up on selenium,” she told herself.

  The toxicology report from Quantico read: H/2SeO/3-Selenius acid-colorless crystalline poisonous acid, formed by oxidation of selenium to easily yield the element by reduction. Selenite is a salt or ester of selenius acid. A brick-red, water-soluble powder in one form, a brownish, thick glossy mass in another, a metallic crystalline mass in a third form; mixing with ink for the purpose of “writing “ into a victim's epidermis requires liquid form, a form readily available for a number of industrial jobs as well as a staple in any photographic darkroom.

  The substance bums with a bluish flame, and in its metallic form, it conducts electricity much more readily in light than in the dark. In fact, the higher the intensity of light, the faster it burns. It is used in photoelectric devices such as movies, photometry, and in coloring glass and enamels red.

  As to symptoms when ingested/injected: a reddish rash is caused, tingling at the extremities, dizziness, a sulfuric smell, and a metallic taste in the mouth, followed by stomach cramps. Eventually leads to delirium and heart failure, as well as a shutdown of electrical impulses from the brain. Harmless in small doses, lethal in large doses. Some might mistake its actions for those of sodium cyanide, as it appears extremely similar both in chemical makeup and the physical symptoms it induces.