Absolute Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “Whatever became of the sketches the killer supposedly left behind?” he asked Brannan.

  “I've got 'em.”

  “Really? On your wall or under key?”

  “For a long time they kept me mindful of the fact this killer's still out there somewhere alive and living while Louisa Childe is in her grave. When I heard what Towne did in Oregon to his wife, I knew then and there I could stop taking those sketches out and staring at them.”

  “I'd like to see them sometime. In fact, I think the authorities in Milwaukee would like to have them examined side by side with sketches left at the crime scene there—a case, as you know, with some striking resemblances to yours, Lieutenant.”

  “I finally flush this case from my system and now this. You really think Reynolds is onto something?”

  “I trust Jessica Coran's instincts.”

  “Dr. Jessica Coran?”

  “FBI M.E., yes.”

  “The one who nabbed and killed Mad Matthew Matisak in a New Orleans Mardi Gras warehouse after Matisak left a trail of blood throughout the Midwest, the prairie states, all the way to Louisiana? That Coran?”

  “That would be her, yes. Now... there's also a little matter of the authenticated sketches from Oregon and Milwaukee being identified as having been created by the same hand.”

  “Jessica Coran,” Brannan repeated.

  Sharpe kept speaking. “This alone must give you pause. Towne could not have committed this latest murder in Milwaukee as he was serving time on death row.”

  “Whose to say that Towne didn't pay someone to do a copycat killing? You know, just to get leverage to make his case.”

  “Be a pretty heartless bastard then, wouldn't he?”

  “Which one, Towne or the guy that pimped it for him?”

  “Even if that were so, a different man leaves different tracks as surely as a different animal. The striking similarities in all these cases are simply too many to ignore.”

  “You're sure of that?”

  “I tell you, Brannan, in my experience, seeing modus operandi work as it does, whoever is responsible for each of these deaths, he meticulously designed his every move.”

  “All three were precisely, perfectly designed spine thefts.”

  “Despite their having been years apart in execution.”

  “The other two same exact way, the taking of the spine, same modus operandi, you're sure?”

  Sharpe felt exasperation wantonly flirting with him now. He let out a long breath of air with his “Yes, veeery.”

  “Call me Dan.”

  “Richard.”

  “And just how well do you know Dr. Coran? You know, I've read her book on the nature of evil, one hell of a research job. Damn, I had no idea how far back it all went, and how bad it was before the advent of forensic sciences and mass communications.”

  “Indeed, the world has been plagued by murder since before man was man,” agreed Sharpe. “Survival of the fittest animal in the jungle, all that. Murder began as feeding, and little wonder it remains in our genetic makeup.”

  “Then you believe in all that business of what she says about the aggression gene, and brain implanting, and conditioning... Brainwashed and predisposed to murder and that we'd better learn to accept it so we can deal with it, and all that stuff about us evolving from killer apes that damn near wiped out all other species comparable?”

  “I do indeed.”

  “Let's get a cup of coffee. Kick this over, huh?”

  “Perhaps after I've concluded my business in Millbrook. You can get me back to the airport. I saw a little coffee shop there.”

  Brannan nodded affirmatively. “Sure... sure thing. What was the name of her book again?”

  Sharpe didn't miss a beat. “Neuronet Map to Murder— Brain Maps and the Evil Inherent in a Beastial Lifeform. Kind of a reverse Origin of Species or Ascent of the Killer Ape.”

  “Oh, yeah... right. Weird title but it made sense, all of it. And where'd she come up with all that scientific evidence?”

  “U.K. mostly, over several trips. We were first to develop DNA fingerprinting, you know, and now we're ahead of you Yanks on brain mapping. Jessica is pioneering it here and linking it to hereditary issues.”

  “An amazing woman.”

  “And agent. An agent for good, you might say. Listen, do you think we can open up the M.E.'s office here?”

  “You mean like now?” He glanced at the clock which read 2 A.M.

  “A man's life is at stake and the sand is emptying on his life each hour.”

  “Reynolds sure has a crusade going on.”

  “Yes, and it is now the FBI's crusade as well. Can you get the M.E.'s office open for me?”

  “I'll call Krueshach. He's the only one who might authorize it at this hour.”

  SHARPE followed Dan Brannan into the building where they traveled through a maze of corridors to locate the M.E.'s office. As they did so, Sharpe complimented Millbrook on its resources. Brannan replied, “Still, it's never enough to wage the war we're in, is it, Sharpe? You wouldn't know it to look down our quiet, well-manicured streets lined with red maples and chestnuts that this town harbors a hotbed of lunatic drug dealers, pimps and prostitutes, but we do. We get the spillover population of crap from the Twin Cities.” Brannan had called and gotten the M.E. out of bed to meet them here.

  “Right-o... I'm sure.”

  “You can bank on it.” Brannan banged open the interior lab door and announced himself with his enormous bulk alone until he shouted at the local M.E., “Like I warned you, Herman, we've come to have a look at a two-year-old sandwich and Louisa Childe's frozen fingertips.”

  “The fingertips were returned to the body, buried with it, Dan. You know we scraped them for anything useful but found nothing. Since we didn't need the actual fingertips, I saw to it they got back to Miss Childe, to take to eternity with her.”

  “And you found nothing under her other nails?” asked Sharpe.

  “We didn't bother with it. She was lying there stiff with her right hand clutched around one of the sketches. You remember, Dan, and the super said she was left-handed, so I assumed if she had had a chance to scratch her assailant, it would be with her empty left hand.”

  “I see,” said Sharpe, trying to follow the man's logic and finding it questionable at best. Perhaps rationalizing away anything that might cast doubt on the Millbrook police.

  Sharpe knew that Jessica would explode if she heard that last line about not bothering to scrape the nails of one hand belonging to the victim of a brutal mutilation murder. “Well, then, I guess I've come a long way to see a two-year-old sandwich.”

  Brannan smiled at this. Herman Krueshach said, “ 'Fraid I have to disappoint you there, too. Remember, Dan, it was sent over for orthodontia forensics for that partial bite mark we had, and some idiot there forgot to put it away, and a night watchman discovered it... and I'm afraid the man ate it.”

  “This before any tests were run?”

  “Well, we did get a plaster cast of the bite mark.” “But no DNA tests? So you really don't have any DNA on file for this guy?” Sharpe fought to contain himself, fought back what he wanted to shout. Calm, Richard... stay calm, old man, he silently warned himself.

  “ 'Fraid not, but we know his distinctive bite marks. We have the cast taken from the sandwich bite mark.”

  “Like fingerprints... without a suspect to match the bite to... fairly useless,” Brannan said.

  “The marks could be compared to Robert Towne's bite. Were they used when you sent them to authorities in Oregon?” Sharpe's tone grew in intensity with each word, and from the look on the M.E.'s face, Sharpe read a disturbing truth. “You never sent the impressions to Oregon, did you?”

  “They never asked for dental impressions,” replied Krueshach. “Tell him, Brannan. It wasn't our case or jurisdiction.”

  “But Reynolds must have asked you do so.”

  “Reynolds is not the Oregon State Prosecutor's Office or the
defense team up there.” Krueshach now merely shrugged as if he'd won a point in a handball match.

  Brannan, ever the skeptic, added, “Not likely those little marks'd convince a jury of his innocence.”

  “But it might help the governor to decide. Still,” continued Sharpe, pacing now, “we really hoped for a DNA sample to be absolutely conclusive, but you failed to take nail scrapings on the right hand.”

  “ 'Fraid so.” Krueshach obviously knew to say as little as possible on the subject.

  “I want it done,” said Sharpe, “and I want it done immediately.”

  “What? What can be done? What do you want us to do?” asked the befuddled M.E.

  “Take scrapings from the right hand.”

  “It's been two years, Sharpe,” Brannan uselessly reminded him.

  “Look, it makes no sense for the killer to've cut off the fingertips of her left hand if there was no DNA evidence to be found there. You said the man was meticulous about leaving no clues, that he seemed up on what we do nowadays with electron microscopes and scientific investigation, and yet he slices off only the woman's left fingertips which carried no DNA from him, so why? Why?”

  “I don't follow you, Sharpe,” said Krueshach.

  Brannan said, “Why did the killer cut off her damned fingers to begin with if... yeah, Herman, think about it. He wanted the nails off and incinerated along with everything else he threw down that garbage shoot. He had to've been scratched by her. He wanted the nails off.”

  Krueshach's only reaction to Brannan's sudden excited state was another shrug. Is the man suffering Tourette's syndrome or a bad case of palsy? Sharpe angrily wondered. Finally, the M.E. said, “But there was nothing under the nails.”

  “So... so he got confused as to which hand she used. That's what Agent Sharpe is driving at.”

  “He disfigured the wrong hand,” said Sharpe. “Like the rest of you, he was thrown off by the sketch she clutched.”

  “Do you think she knew what she was doing?” asked Brannan.

  “I don't know... I don't know how clever she was. But if she did scratch off some cells and blood, we've got the DNA then. But fuck, it's inside her coffin with her.” Sharpe heaved a sigh and raised on his heels, rocking a bit. “Look, the two of you, I understand she had no relatives, so there's no one to stand in the way of an exhumation.”

  “That's rather extreme,” Krueshach argued.

  “It's the last hope of a man on death row, and it may be Louisa's last hope of resting in peace. If you don't arrange it, Brannan, Dr. Krueshach, then I'll arrange it through our field office here and take the case entirely out of your hands.”

  “You know what, Sharpe? You do that. You just fucking do that,” Brannan shouted.

  “Where are the sketches?” “My desk. I've looked at them every damn day since the murder. That is, all but one.”

  “All but one?”

  “The one she was clutching in her fist the day I walked into that room and found her with her back splayed open like a melon. Louisa took that sketch into death with her, and I believed she wanted to take it to the grave with her, and I saw no reason why not. I put it in her hand just before they lowered her.”

  “The road to hell is paved with good intentions. Will you arrange for an exhumation today?”

  “The earliest would be tomorrow morning,” said Dr. Krueshach. “But the order must come from the chief of police recommended by the principal detective on the case. Other than that, you'd have to go through your federal channels.”

  “Then that is what I'll do.” Sharpe pulled out his cellular phone and dialed Eriq Santiva to wake up and get a court order. He was in mid-sentence, having awakened Eriq, when Dr. Krueshach waved Sharpe down, protesting.

  “All right! All right, I'll sign off on an exhumation.”

  “Then do it,” he said to Krueshach. Turning to Brannan, he stated, “Detective, are we agreed?”

  “All right, all right if Herman's going to sign off on it. We don't need to involve a lot of people. I'll make the necessary phone calls.”

  Krueshach had gone to his file cabinet and pulled out a blank document. “Here's the exhumation order. You'll need to sign alongside my signature.”

  Sharpe took the form and signed it, handed it back and thanked him. “I'll see you at the exhumation.”

  Dr. Herman Krueshach nodded but said nothing. A man of few words, Sharpe thought, or a man with a guilty conscience. Jessica would call him incompetent to lose so much in the way of evidence.

  Brannan said he'd awakened the mortuary and cemetery people who would meet them at the burial site on the out skirts of Millbrook. Together Brannan and Sharpe exited Dr. Krueshach's office.

  As they climbed into Brannan's Oldsmobile, the Millbrook detective softly excused Dr. Herman Krueshach with something about incompatible software systems, horrible budget cuts, little assistance, and no incentives.

  Sharpe didn't want to hear it.

  EIGHT

  Infernal or heavenly, divinity itself is transitory.

  —GERALD MESSADIE

  Milwaukee, Wisconsin Same night

  A shadow moved across the page she sat reading. Looking up, Jessica found Reynolds staring down at her in a kind of silent examination. “I'm sorry to interrupt you, but I was hoping we'd have come to some conclusions about what next.”

  “What next?” He seemed awkward, his white shirt open, the linen contrasting sharply with his black chest. “Where do we go from here.”

  “Enough with the arcane science lesson, huh?” she replied. All the wine was gone, but she tipped the bottle anyway, studying it as if to have some focal point. “I think to bed is where we go.”

  “What?”

  “I'm sorry. I meant to sleep, to sleep.”

  “Oh, yeah. What time is it anyway?”

  “Three, three-ten in the A.M. Not even conventioneers... not even God is awake at this hour,” she lamented.

  “Let's just go over the Sarah Towne killing one more time.” “I can do it in my sleep, I promise you, Darwin.”

  “They're still taking orders at room service. I can get us another round of drinks. Whiskey sour, right? Jack Daniel's with a lime, lemon, cherry and an orange slice.”

  “You are a quick study, Detective. Know just how to tingle a girl's backbone all right, but no, no, and no.”

  “I'll just order that right up.”

  “Along with your gin and tonic.”

  “Hold my seat.”

  “Will do.”

  With his return, again dropping into the chair opposite her on this cool night, Jessica again noted how tall and imposing a man Darwin was. She watched him grab his shirt for an invisible pack of cigarettes. “Trying to give it up,” he muttered.

  Somewhere from another balcony, a piano player made beautiful music, reminding her of Billy Vaughn. Whoever this imposter was, he proved extremely good on the ivories, now playing “Danny Boy.” No doubt a music student.

  Whoever he or she was, the pianist slipped unnoticed into an equally beautiful rendition of “I Can't Help It (If I'm Still in Love with You).” The melody made Jessica think of how far apart she was from Richard.

  “I wonder why the hell I'm here in the beer capital of the world chasing yet another monster,” she confided in Darwin. “I'm not sure I have the stomach for it any longer, Darwin—the process necessary to locate, capture, and put an end to the career of a man bent on ripping out people's fucking spines. Maybe this is a job for younger—”

  “What the fuck is this, why-me-whine-fest time?”

  The fatigue and the booze conspired against her having any reply to this.

  Darwin firmly added, “You are here, Dr. Coran, to teach me, remember? And because you're needed.”

  “You have any idea how tired I am of chasing down these fucking freaks, these inhuman humans? And in the chasing, how often I've lost myself, my own soul, Darwin? And you keep at it this way, you'll join me in hell.”

  “How can you
say that with your record of—”

  “The price is high, Darwin. No winning. You lose even when you win. You lose repeatedly. Repeatedly you lose a larger and larger portion of yourself—”

  Darwin stared, momentarily stunned at her admission.

  “Along with family, along with lovers, along with any chance at happiness, two point five children, a white picket fence, a lapdog, a home and roots?”

  “Sure, I understand, Dr. Coran.”

  “The hell you do.”

  “You got so close to evil, close enough to touch it, and the closer in you get, the closer you are to... to accepting it as... as normal.”

  “Then maybe you do know something, young Xavier Darwin Reynolds.”

  “I know what I've read in your books.”

  “As normal... the things you begin to accept as normal as Mom's apple pie—evil plunked down and hunkered like a gargoyle right in our faces, but it is all verboten for us to fathom why because it's all part of God's grand schematic plans. His unknowable design, and so the sickest most twisted things man can do are all in the human makeup, and so this is indeed normal. And then it gets scary.”

  “Scary? You want scary go to the neighborhood I grew up in. Come on, Doc, maybe you've had a little too much to drink.”

  “I see it in myself, you see it in yourself, in our species, Darwin, in our race, and in our self-of-selves, where we can't hide... And, yeah, we see it in our cells, our collective, unconscious DNA cells, and so I give you particularly scary.”

  Room service arrived with additional drinks. Darwin saw to it, tipping the bellhop. When he returned with her drink extended, he said, “Perhaps, Dr. Coran, we both ought to call it quits on the alcohol after all and get some sleep. We have the follow-up postmortem scheduled for eight-thirty sharp.”

  “Sharpe, how I miss Richard Sharpe.” Jessica was beyond exhaustion now. She only grunted and sipped at her whiskey sour. Darwin's eyes lingered over his glass, then at her as he sipped at the ice tinkling at the bottom of his glass. He next exchanged it for his new drink.