Bitter Instinct jc-8

by Robert W. Walker

  “So, we can infer, the longer the poem, the deadlier the dose,” Jessica mused aloud, recalling how the poems snaked along the backs of each victim, from neck and shoulders to pelvis. She knew the toxicologist Anderson Turner back at Quantico well enough to guess that he had more thoughts on the poison than was described in his official report. She dialed the number and got him on the line, asking him to tell her everything he had failed to put into the report. “All the good stuff, Anderson. Out with it. I need your input here.”

  “Well, to begin with, selenium is an element of a type we call an 'inhabitant of the seasons.' “Meaning what, precisely?”

  “As in, it waxes and wanes with the moon.”

  “The moon? It's somehow cued into the moon?”

  “Its movements at least, like many minerals.”

  “I see. Anything else?”

  He sighed. “You might find it interesting to hear what it was named for… from, that is.”

  “And it derives its name from?”

  “Selina, goddess of the Moon, who sprang full-blown from the head of Hecate or Artemis, depending on whether you're an ancient Greek or Roman. Each culture had its own version.”

  “I see… I think.”

  “You do?”

  “May tie in with our killer's thinking.”

  “Yeah, I heard you guys have someone in custody already. Way to go.”

  “Hold your accolades, Anderson. I'm not so sure we have the right person in custody.”

  “Bummer.”

  “Yeah, I think so, but we're not interested in locking up the wrong man-person-for the crime.”

  “She's a she-killer, is she? I might've known. Why're you all sitting on that information?”

  “We're not on solid ground with the arrest. You know how that goes.”

  “Yeah, guess I do know about spongy cases; hope this one doesn't turn all mushy on you. Good luck, same to the others for me.” Will do, and thanks, Dr. Turner, for this. We've been working blind too long here.”

  Jessica put the phone down, stared again at the toxicology report, and her mind played over the victims once more, and the poems inked onto their backs, all linked by identical lines and a unifying theme… but exactly what that theme was remained a mystery.

  Still, armed with the new information about the poison used by the killer, Jessica felt somewhat fortified. Now, if they could get a fix on the DNA makeup of the tearstains, the noose would tighten about the neck of the real Poet Killer

  EIGHTEEN

  The greatest poetry does not exist in a physical world, but inside desire and despair.

  — Donatella Leare, Live Poet

  The information on selenium pointed to someone with a background in photography, as the chemical was heavily used in film processing. However, a little more research, and Jessica learned that selenium was also found in battery casings, and the report out of Quantico added that shavings from batteries could have been pounded down and liquefied before being mixed into ink, but it seemed much easier to obtain the substance in liquid form, the form found in vats in darkrooms.

  Jessica recalled the beautiful “photo paintings” on the walls at Darkest Expectations that had turned out to be computer-generated, and realized that their production would not require normal photo processing, and, therefore, would not involve the element selenium. However, she also recalled that Marc Tamburino, the current owner of the bookstore, had bragged about being a photographer; making money at weddings and wakes, he'd put it. Leare had joked about his doing a wake, she seemed to remember. Perhaps Tamburino processed photos on the premises, in which case he would have a supply of selenium.

  She confided her thoughts to Kim, who thought them sound. “Perhaps you and I maybe ought to have another chat with this fellow Tamburino,” she suggested. “Yeah, if nothing else, he could shed some light on just how readily available our poison is.”

  Kim nodded. “Hanging around here isn't getting us anywhere, and you're entirely right about Leare. She's not our killer.”

  “The others would like to believe that it's a woman killer; given the condition of the scenes, it's comforting for them to think the perp belongs to the so-called gentler sex.”

  Jessica and Kim commandeered a car from the pool in the underground lot and were soon on their way to Darkest Expectations in search of more and better answers.

  Bookstore owner and sometime photographer Marc Tamburino, somewhat beguiled by Jessica's return to his store, and thrilled by her interest in his photography, was proudly displaying his work. Jessica at once saw the hopelessness of thinking Tamburino their killer; his wedding photos displayed little talent. She could tell that Kim agreed.

  “Do you have any special ones, photos I mean?” asked Kim.

  “Ones you show only to your closest friends?” Jessica coaxed.

  “I keep my best work in my apartment over the store. You're welcome to come up and have a look. About to close up; the three of us could call it a manage h trois,” he joked, but his attempt at flirtatious banter fell flat. Jessica realized only now what a geek Tamburino was.

  “Just show us your photographs, Mr. Tamburino,” she said, “and tell me what you know about the use of selenium in photography.”

  “Selenium?” he asked as he led them up to his apartment. Jessica immediately noticed that the place needed a thorough cleaning. His private collection revealed him to be a competent, avid amateur with aspirations to becoming a professional who had sold a few of his photos for advertising purposes. The portfolio he showed them contained much better work than the wedding photos. He sensed that the two FBI agents were reconsidering their earlier assessment of his craftsmanship, and said, “It's easier to do good work if you're interested in the subject.”

  As they perused his framed photos, Jessica saw a door marked by a red bulb and a sign proclaiming it as a darkroom.

  “Do all of my own processing. A hell of a lot cheaper that way,” he said in her ear, noticing what she had been staring at.

  Jessica asked him about processing, and he walked her back to the rear and the darkroom. “Have a look. Showin's better'n tellin', as they say.”

  Jessica stepped through the door he held open. She saw no evidence of anything amiss here, no photos of the victims lying about or hung up and drying. For that much, she felt grateful, when her glance fell on a tall, cylindrical container marked selenium. Three skulls-and-crossbones indicated the level of toxicity in the liquid they contained.

  Jessica again casually asked about the selenium.

  “Oh, it's a staple in every darkroom.”

  “How do you use it?”

  “With every precaution. It's highly toxic, and deadly if absorbed through the skin. Highly toxic stuff.” She felt for a moment that she was in the lair of the killer, but then realized that she had not seen a single photo of any of the victims anywhere in the establishment. Perhaps Marc Tamburino kept such shots hidden, only taking them out when driven to do so by his other, more deadly persona. All sheer speculation, she silently reminded herself. Still, mightn't he have a secret collection? Perhaps a thorough search of his home was in order, but she found nothing to justify such a search. She had no probable cause, save the selenium drum in the darkroom, and to request a search warrant on this basis alone would be a waste of time. As she asked her questions rapid-fire now, Jessica saw that the young man's eyes were averted; suddenly he looked crestfallen. She realized that she'd burst his bubble, whatever that bubble might have been, and now he was on the defensive.

  “I know what's going on here,” he said.

  “Oh, really?” she asked. 'Tell us about it, Marc.”

  “I know that you… that the authorities are 'desperate' for a whachamacallit, an escape goat-”

  “It's scapegoat, and don't be foolish. We already have a scapegoat in custody, Marc.”

  “I could remark on the official stupidity that has caused Donatella Leare to be arrested for all those killings. Leare's not capable of this kind o
f crap.”

  “What makes you so sure?” she pressed.

  “It'd take a calculating bastard with a strong stomach to talk those kids into suicide.”

  “You discussed this very scenario with Dr. Leare, didn't you?”

  “Do you mean did she know your kind would arrest her and charge her with… with all this?”

  “She did, didn't she?”

  “Yeah, but that's because she'd been sleeping with a Philly cop.”

  This information came as no revelation to Jessica, but she faked surprise, wondering just how many people knew of Leare's involvement with Leanne Sturtevante.

  Tamburino winked conspiratorially, as if he and the agents shared some dirty little secret. He looks like a malicious snowman, Jessica suddenly thought as she watched him walk back to the main room. Myself, I could never, ever take a life, despite my own grim outlook and dark poetry.”

  “Oh, you write poetry?” She practically had to run in order to keep pace with him as he rushed about the room, picking up dirty clothing, discarded magazines and books, replacing them on shelves and tabletops. In a comer stood an opened box marked Ingram. Realizing the word was not an anagram of rampage, Jessica decided she was a little desperate for evidence herself.

  “Matter of fact, I do.”

  “Will you turn some of your poetry over to me?”

  “What, for analysis? Against the killer's handwriting?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Not exactly like asking for a fingerprint or DNA. And who knows, word leaks out, and maybe-”

  “Maybe your poetry is printed on 'page one'?” she asked, smiling. “Couldn't hurt your career as a poet, now could it? You think that's what the Poet Killer is after, page-one publicity?”

  “Amazingly enough, that's what I thought all along, that the killer wanted to publicize himself. I've thought that from the beginning, but the papers haven't printed his poetry. Why?”

  She shrugged. “Just another mystery, I guess.”

  “News guys are cooperating with the cops, right? Cops cut a deal with the press, right, to keep it out?”

  “Can't say. So you really think that's what the killer has wanted all along? Publicity for his work?”

  “That's really sick, man, I know, but it's got to be the reason. What other reason could he have?”

  “You'll let me take a look then at your poems, to compare?”

  “They don't come anywhere near Locke or Leare. You'll be disappointed, Dr. Coran.”

  “Let me be the judge of that.” All right.” He walked them back downstairs, and there he produced a volume from behind the counter.

  “You've sold some of your work? Who's the publisher?” she asked.

  “No publisher. Just had the one copy bound. Gave up on publication years ago, but figured, what the hey, I'll make a single copy, call it my rare first edition, and put it on my shelf. So, you see, I'm over that black depression time when you first realize no one's ever going to buy a single word from you. So I wouldn't make a good rejected Poet Killer, so forget about it.”

  “I see you managed to get hold of a computer,” she said, tapping his monitor. “What about the Internet? You put anything out on the 'Net these days?” she asked.

  “Some, just in the chats. No big deal.”

  “Can I get a copy of your more… recent work?”

  He breathed deeply, then sighed and shrugged. “Sure, I'll run you a disk copy.”

  The moment she delved into the book of poetry, entitled Brain Lizards, Jessica knew that Marc Tamburino could not be the Poet Killer. His work, compared with the killer's, was immature and maudlin, filled with awkward constructions and forced, often ridiculous rhymes.

  She asked if he knew any other people who hung about his store, liked Locke and Leare, and were also into photography.

  “Whaddaya mean? Like you want a list of names?”

  “Yes, that could be helpful.”

  “You want me to be some sort of whaddayacall'ems? A snitch?”

  “Snitches get paid.”

  “Exactly what I was thinking.”

  She located a twenty in her purse and handed it to him. When he balked, she asked him to name a price. He took a moment to consider. “A hundred?” She brought forth two fifties and added it to the twenty. He in turn jotted down a list of names. There were several characters who fit the bill. One of these was Dr. Harriet Plummer, Dean Plummer of the University of Philadelphia.

  The sight of this name hit Jessica like a freight train. She knew now that she must look a great deal closer at Dr. Harriet Plummer.

  James Parry produced a janitor in the last building where a victim had died; the superintendent's assistant, as he called himself, had been persuaded to come forward to ID someone leaving the crime scene. The description was of a young man, not a woman-a young man perhaps in his mid to early twenties, ordinary looking, the sort no one would pay the least attention to. The artist sketch that was ordered resulted in a likeness so generic as to be useless. This did not strengthen the case against either Locke or Leare, who, whatever one might say about them, were not ordinary looking.

  Meanwhile, Jessica pursued information about Harriet Plummer, all to a dead end, but she did learn that Plummer held Locke in great esteem, and that the poet had not, until recently, produced any significant new work in years. Plummer and Locke had an ongoing affair, much of which was devoted to her efforts to bolster his ego. Locke and his wife were estranged, although he continued to live with her and the children. He and Plummer maintained an apartment on Second Street. Again the PPD brass sent undercover teams into every pub and coffeehouse in the area, flooded already by people who'd read about the murders and wanted a glimpse of the grisly “scene” from which so many had “disappeared.” Jessica found this morbid curiosity ironic and yet typical of human beings. Open-mike night brought everyone out, and it brought on as well a party atmosphere as one by one the young performers stood up, pranced to the stage, and raised their arms in the gesture of a winner even before they began to read their poems. Some used well-placed mirrors to read the poems on their bodies, while others relied on their sponsor poet. Often the performer was the actual poet.

  To the last, every poem depicted a dismal future for mankind, and their utter grimness and grayness felt disturbing. None of them were as good as those on the backs of the murder victims; none were so well conceived or executed as the killer's, and none so hopeful. For the killer's words spoke of a new beginning for the deceased. In the coffeehouse poems, many of the lines were bursting with violent words. Some sounded like rip-offs of Clive Barker and Stephen King themes, what with devils roaming the earth in search of just the right woman to spawn a son, while others, far more personal, were geared to push all the right buttons on a listener who was undergoing teen angst at age twenty-seven.

  Most of the night's poets had used erasable Magic Marker on their backs, but some had had the words cut into their flesh. These, Jessica had been told by those in the know, were the true artists.

  Jessica had informed everyone to be on the lookout for anyone with a camera, anyone overly interested in photographing the poets on display or the other patrons. “Detain for questioning anyone doing so,” came the order. Meanwhile, they looked high and low for George Gordonn, the photographer they'd met the last time they'd come down to the Second Street coffeehouses and bars, the young man who'd been hired to film the night's activities, but he was nowhere to be found.

  While the other investigators listened, trying to distinguish the truly disturbed from the merely troubled, Jessica kept vigilant for any photographer/poet matching the general description given them by their lone, admittedly weak witness.

  Jessica realized now that their killer could be someone behind the counter at the Brick Teacup, where she and Kim had wound up this night. Kim agreed, saying, “Someone in a position to see these poetry shows each night, and to learn the likes and dislikes of the poets, down to finding out where they lived, down to weaseling
into their homes, seeing the layout, and continuing to weasel into their lives until the young people felt at ease with the wolf at the threshold.”

  “They paid in the end with their lives.” Jessica sipped at her coffee, trying to stay awake.

  After an hour of listening to what amounted to, in her estimation, drivel and brain snot purporting to be art, Jessica wanted to run out screaming; she felt absolutely certain that she could easily kill a few so-called poets herself.

  To add insult to injury, the few people detained by the police tonight, from bars up and down the Second Street area, netted them nothing new. In fact, now that Leare was in custody, the police presence had slackened considerably, and the reasons for arrests were far more mundane than seeking out a serial killer.

  The following day, Jessica and Kim again canvassed the pubs and coffeehouses along Second Street, and Jessica, knowing now of Locke's apartment in the vicinity, felt an eerie sensation of being watched from the many windows that looked down on the strip.

  In each closed business establishment they badgered their way into, the women asked after anyone coming in to do photo shoots of patrons, or attempting to lure people away with promises of a professional photo shoot. Most of the leads turned out to be “photo-shoot Casanovas,” but not a one of them could be linked to the killings. The day's work then led to several weak leads and zero arrests, and Jessica knew that the longer Leare remained in lockup, and the longer the killer remained silent, the stronger Leanne Sturtevante's conviction that her former live-in lover-as Leare turned out to be-was guilty of premeditated murder by poisoning.

  “Whoever the guy is, he must blend into the walls. No one knows anything; no one has seen anything,” Jessica told Kim as they once again pored over the files on each victim. “Frustrated at every turn,” she added from her seat at the desk they shared. “I'm at my wit's end.”