“How's that?”
“Even in the face of being arrested for these crimes he professed to have committed, well… not believing him, I paid little attention until recently. I tell you, he went out last evening and returned to my house with a young woman, although Leare and I had told him specifically that he must remain in hiding.”
“He came back with a woman, a stranger to you?”
“A young woman. She looks to be another coed, I fear, but I didn't know her. I immediately protested when I entered the room I'd turned over to George, only to find him and the girl writing out poetry on each other's nude back.
“I was assured by George that it was a mere dalliance on his part, and his interest in body poetry had nothing whatsoever to do with the murders, and then he confessed to having lied about his involvement in the killings, telling me his shrink had said he had an insatiable need for attention.
“When I first met him, in my class, he told me about his parents, that he was in fact the living proof of the urban legend that had started the back-writing poetry fad, and now, that is a few hours ago, he told me how angry he was at this killer, whoever he was, to have turned his poetic 'invention,' as he called it, into a horror of death.
“He then lamented the deaths of all those young people; he said he felt great guilt since the killer had obviously been inspired by his invention, but again he insisted that he had killed no one, and that his earlier confessions to me were simply to gain attention.”
“And you believed him?” asked Jessica.
“I wasn't hearing his cry. I know, I was a fool, and I could have prevented so much death.”
“What happened next?” Parry asked.
“Something made me look in on him around midnight. I found the girl and George both dead in my home, victims of the poisoned pen that each had used on the other, just as George's parents had done. I was horrified, so I called you.”
“You did the right thing,” Jessica assured him, Parry agreeing.
“Poor lamentable George,” Locke proclaimed. “And this other creature he duped into his final trap.”
“Forensics is going to have a long night of it,” said Jessica. “Let's get a team of evidence techs over here. I'll need all the help I can get with the two corpses.”
Parry got on his cell phone and made the call.
It appeared to all involved to be over. All the evidence pointed to one perpetrator, to George Linden Gordonn. All the information collected at Locke's house and later at Gordonn's also bore this out. Finally, the city of Philadelphia could breathe again and would hear no more from the Lord Poet of Misspent Time, George Gordonn, the Killer Poet who, bizarrely, professed his kinship with Lord Byron.
At Gordonn's home, a stash of poetry in George's hand was taken into custody and remanded to evidence lockup. Jessica heard about the poems, which had been scrawled longhand into a notebook. Along with this, Gordonn had kept a diary in which he fantasized about helping people to commit suicide in order to leave this world of “putrid flesh,” as he called it.
Still, something nagged at Jessica. The number of his victims, including himself, amounted to far fewer than the number nineteen, which Kim had seen again and again. But it was more than this. Something wasn't right about the timing and the circumstances surrounding Gordonn's death in the home of the famous dark poet Lucian Burke Locke, whose wife and children were conveniently away at the time.
After all the protocol work on Gordonn's remains and those of Ariana Dupree, his final victim, Jessica found a moment to confer with Kim Desinor. Kim had taken time to read through Gordonn's diary and poems, and she'd shown copies to Dr. Wahlbore, who fed them into Rocky. Kim's gut reaction to Gordonn's poetry told her the poems didn't match with those of the killer, and Rocky bore her out. Kim had telephoned with this information, saying she was coming right over to discuss what this meant.
Kim showed up at Jessica's office, slipped into a chair, and exasperatedly asked, “How did the quality of Gordonn's poetry go from the junk I found in the notebooks to what he supposedly wrote on the backs of his victims? Did he somehow sprout poetic wings when he had a back to compose on?”
“From what you and Wahlbore say, I would have to assume, as Vladoc suggests, that Gordonn killed under another personality altogether, obviously one who could write a sight better than his regular self.”
“Sounds ludicrous; sounds like Vladoc's interested in covering his ass, Jess. A dual personality explains away how the good doctor could be treating a man and not know a goddamn thing about him.”
“What're you talking about, Kim?”
“I've seen what was collected at the Gordonn home, and I'm telling you, it doesn't cut the mustard. It's not… it didn't come out of the same mind. “I see. Doesn't compare well with the killer's verse. You think Parry and Sturtevante and Roth and the city are going to want to hear that?”
“I'm only telling you what you already know in your heart to be true.”
“That we've tagged the wrong man for the killings?”
“I fear so.”
“But what about all those psychic hits that had to do with his profession?” Jessica countered.
“They may well have been pointing to this, that one day we'd have the wrong man, a technical film specialist, in custody for murder, only he isn't here to tell us so or to refute it.”
“Have you ever known cases of dual personality-both being writers-but who write in totally different ways?”
“I just don't buy it. Vladoc says Gordonn may have been a dual personality, in which case perhaps one of the personalities was a poet, the other not. I just think it's too pat, too easy a way out.” Kim was adamant about this. “His poetry was not up to the standard of the killer's. Was he then inspired when he wrote on the back of his victims but not before?” She repeated her earlier question.
“Everyone has laid the case to rest. Parry, Roth, and Sturtevante are happy to turn it over to the DA's office.”
“While you and I, dear, remain skeptical,” said Kim. “I just have a gut feeling about it. Call it-”
“Instinct? Combine your gut feeling with mine, and we have one hell of a big gut feeling between us,” finished Jessica
“I hate to think that our killer is slipping through legal hands, and that Gordonn was set up by the obvious candidate, Lucian Burke Locke.”
“We need more to go on than a gut feeling,” Jessica countered. What about warming up your cold hypothesis with this?” a male voice interrupted.
Both Jessica and Kim swung around to see Dr. Leonard Shockley, holding a manila folder overhead and slapping it against the dooijamb where he stood.
“And what's this?” Jessica asked the ME.
His hands slightly shaking, Shockley spread the contents of the folder before her where she sat. 'Take a look.” He gave Jessica time to read the information from his work on the final corpse, Ariana Dupree.
Jessica stood, came around the desk, and kissed Dr. Shockley, while Kim asked, “What? What is it?”
Jessica announced, “DNA… the killer's DNA from the tears… doesn't match up with Gordonn's DNA.”
“Then the last two victims were killed to cover the real killer's tracks.”
Jessica kissed Shockley again and started out on the first step in a long journey, one that now had a specific goal: to nail Lucian Burke Locke, the strange little man with the picture-perfect home and the picture-perfect-but only in appearance-family.
“A closer look at Locke is in order,” she announced.
The closer look into the life of Lucian Burke Locke revealed that he was the product of a home dominated by an alcoholic father who had made life a nightmare for Lucian and his mother. It was Dr. Harriet Plummer who provided this information, all the while defending Lucian to the detectives when they suggested that he was not telling the entire truth the night of Gordonn's death. The police also talked about Locke with Garrison Burrwith, who was only too happy to inform them that he had learned from campus
rumors and word of mouth that Locke had always been fascinated with the urban legend that turned out to have originated with Gordonn's family. There were even students who swore that Locke referred to the story of the Gordonn family deaths in his lectures as an example of the power and influence of the Byronic image nearly two centuries after the poet's death.
“But no one knew at the time that George Gordonn was part of the ill-fated family,” Burrwith explained, “no one except Professor Locke, I suspect. I suspect the boy informed his revered instructor when Locke spoke of the story as an urban legend. George was extremely shy, you know. He would never have announced such a thing in public, no more than he would tell a classroom full of people that he had been the first to disrobe and display a poem etched on his back.”
“Strange that someone you call shy could do that.”
“Some say he did it at the urging of a psychiatrist, who was helping him to face his fears.”
“Vladoc,” muttered Kim.
Burrwith continued, his bow tie bobbing as he spoke. “I suspect the boy told Locke every detail, down to the fact that he was seeing a shrink.”
“If so, Locke would have to know not only Gordonn's secret, but what was going on in his mind-now,” said Kim.
“The diary entries,” Jessica said, thinking aloud. “Gordonn wrote about his fantasy to kill and be killed in the manner of his parents. Said he had recurring dreams about it.”
Kim nodded. “The diary entries alone would likely have ensured life imprisonment, but Locke didn't count on the chips falling as they have.”
“I hope you nail that brash, arrogant SOB,” said Garrison Burrwith, which brought Jessica sharply back from her thoughts. She thanked Burrwith for his time and help.”
“You're going to put him away for life, aren't you?”
“We will if he is our killer, yes.”
“Then you don't believe Gordonn did those horrible things.” At the moment, we are not a hundred percent certain of it, no, but we must ask you to keep this to yourself. Word of our suspicions gets out, and, as we said to Dr. Plummer, anything could happen. We don't want to damage a man's reputation without airtight evidence, you see.”
“Of course, like you people did with poor Donatella.”
They left abruptly then.
“Vladoc isn't telling us everything he knows, Jessica,” Kim said as they located the car in the lot outside the building, a bright Philadelphia sun momentarily blinding Jessica before she slipped on her dark glasses.
“What do you think Vladoc is hiding?”
“I don't know exactly. But something's not right. For one thing, how could Gordonn afford Vladoc's rates for therapy?”
“You think the shrink was using the boy? How and for what?”
“I don't know. I just know that on Gordonn's salary, he could ill afford a downtown shrink like Vladoc, unless they had cut some other deal.”
“Like access free and clear to the kid's story?”
“You mean for a book or something? Who knows?”
“That night at the club, when I spoke to Gordonn, before I knew who he was, when he was videotaping the nude poets…”
“Yes…” Kim leaned over the hood of the car so as to hear over traffic.
“He said he had been hired by the owners of the club, and that he got free copies of the tapes for his own use.”
“Go on.”
“Suppose Vladoc had cut a deal with the owners in order to put George to work doing what George wanted to do, and making money in the bargain. Each video sold to the clubs to create a kind of library, which they could use to create their ads.” Yeah, I've seen a few while flipping through channels in the hotel room. They're enticing in a crude way. And their makers must get well paid.”
“George does the work, George obtains free psychiatric help, Vladoc gets paid-the old barter system at work.”
“I hope that's all Vladoc is hiding.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
They drove to Locke's place, Jessica telling Kim, “We need to get a sample of his DNA any way we can, from a beer glass to a cigarette, anything he has recently touched.”
“You distract him, and I'll filch something.”
“It has to be in plain sight, and preferably something he hands over, to please the court.”
“Sheeeeesh.”
“Obviously he knew of the urban legend long before the night George Gordonn supposedly killed himself and his supposed final victim.”
“Are you going to confront him with it? Tell him we know he shared the particulars of the so-called legend with his students, discussing it as yet another example of Lord Byron's mythic legacy, further evidence of a poetic voice and legend that defy death and the passage of time?”
“Burrwith hinted at a bond between Locke and George Gordonn, after Gordonn had become his student. The bond may well have been the poet Byron.”
“A poet out of time,” said Kim.
“I'm going to tell him that we know that Gordonn had approached him-his professor at the time-that Gordon told him that the story Locke had repeatedly used over the years in his lectures was in fact a true story and not merely an urban legend, as Locke had thought. That Locke became extremely interested in Gordonn as a result. Learning that the legend was in fact true, seeing Gordonn's clippings, and learning that Gordonn had been the forlorn child who survived his parents' suicide, Locke becameobsessed with the why of it all, delving into the depths of Gordonn's mind for answers.”
“I'd certainly like to get my hands on Vladoc's records on Gordonn, see what shakes out there. Suppose out of the goodness of his heart, Locke began to pay Gordonn's psychiatric bills?”
“You're really hung up on the cost of therapy, aren't you?”
As they passed a row of small antique stores while searching for the Interstate, Kim replied, “At one-fifty an hour, I'm telling you, Gordonn could not afford Vladoc. Perhaps the video thing paid for a portion of his bill, but it couldn't have covered all of it.”
Jessica picked up the radio and asked dispatch to put her through to Dr. Vladoc. When he came on the line, she held nothing back, telling him they were onto Locke, and then she asked, “How did Gordonn pay your rates on his salary and go to classes at the same time? Did Locke have anything whatever to do with George's therapy?”
“I can only tell you that when… after his bill became too high and I cut him off from any further sessions, he came to me with the full amount and then some, asking to continue his therapy.”
“Did he empty his bank account, cash in annuities, what?”
“He never said. He would have the money in an envelope, white and unmarked, but all the money ready and up front after that.”
“You never questioned him further about his newfound income?”
“He once said that he'd gotten the money from the Lord Poet of Misspent Time.”
“Who was…?”
“I swear to you, he never said.”
“Did you have any suspicions?” About Locke giving him the money? No, not until now. They knew each other, passed one another in my office when I would take a breather. One going out, one coming in.”
“What were sessions with Locke like?”
“A pain, a real headache. A man with an ego the size of Pennsylvania. He liked to hear the sound of his own voice, and he liked taking over the sessions, in a sense doing all the work he paid me to do. As to his subsidizing or floating George a loan, I can't be sure, but I was sure that Locke had a special-how would you put it? — attraction for the boy, yes, he acted hopelessly attracted to George and George's story.”
“His family history?”
“That and how George had so heroically pulled himself out of the state of depression which for years had engulfed him.”
“And the videotaping for the club owners, Dr. Vladoc; was that your idea or Gordonn's?”
“Ah, well, it was Gordonn's.”
“Was it Gordonn's idea or Locke 'si If we dig a bit more, will we le
arn that Locke owns a half interest in one of the clubs? Or will we learn that you, sir, do?”
There was a long pause filled with a bit of static over the police radio. Then Vladoc said, “Silent partner; it was an exciting investment. That's all.”
“And Locke?”
“Also a co-owner.”
“He had a special reason to be at the clubs, just as you and George had a reason, so much so that you all became fixtures, and no one took much notice of you after a while. WTiy didn't you inform us of this sooner? Why have we had to pry it from you?”
“He… Lucian is… well, my brother.”
Jessica was silent for a moment, taking in the revelation. “Your spiritual brother?”
“No, my actual brother. He changed his name the day he turned eighteen. Parry's doorman saw a short man, and he assumed him a boy.”
Jessica recalled the bartender at one of the coffeehouses telling him of a man of extremely short stature, an older man, who had left with a young woman on his arm. Jessica had figured it was Vladoc, when, in fact, it might well have been Lucian Locke.
Kim, hearing all this, yanked the receiver from Jessica's hand and shouted at Vladoc, “Are you blinded by the fact that he's your brother? Go over your records for Gordonn's psychiatric care, and compare them to what you know of your brother's problems, why he comes to you. There will be innumerable correlations between Gordonn's fantasy life and your brother's real life. Your brother has been acting out Gordonn's fantasies, and both men at some point knew this, and in the end-”
It was as if Kim's outburst suddenly startled her into silence, and Jessica completed her thought. “Gordonn so trusted Locke that he believed Locke knew what was best for him, and so he allowed Locke to take him from this life without argument, as did most of the other victims. They so trusted him that it did not matter what the ultimate result might be.”
“I… I had thought George was doing remarkably well. It came as a shock to me when I began to suspect that he could be doing the killings, but I confronted him with my suspicions, and he laughed in my face, said he only wished he were capable of taking such action, but that he could not, that it wasn't in him to take another life. Years of therapy had brought George around to a level of acceptance of what had happened to him as a child, and to this day I believe that the boy's progress toward mental health simply admirable.”
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