Pure Instinct (Instinct thriller series)

by Robert W. Walker

  “Somebody want to ask me if I want to do this?” Kim finally asked.

  “You are getting paid well for your services,” said Landry with a grim poker face.

  “There would be very little disturbance to the grave or the coffin,” countered Jessica, “since we're talking New Orleans, where everyone's buried aboveground; we merely have to unseal the crypt, and I don't truly see that family would be involved since he was buried in a paupers' yard, right? Why would there be objection now, a year later?”

  “Dr. Coran is right,” added Landry, defending the move now with surprising enthusiasm, though Kim quickly realized he was happy with the consternation he was getting out of the other solid citizens in the room, including a nervous Dr. Ward-law.

  Wardlaw cleared his throat and jumped into the fray, saying, “But also in New Orleans, Doctor Coran, death—the grave, rather—is viewed as final and sacred. You will find opposition, family or no.”

  “Either way, there's no guarantee,” said Kim.

  “I say we give it our best try, Dr. Desinor,” countered Landry, seemingly anxious for the event. Or was he simply enjoying himself now at the expense of Stephens and Meade before the mayor's man?

  God, Kim thought, now they're calling for an exhumation of an earlier victim, long since deceased and decayed, and Jessica, along with a supporting cast of Stephens and Landry, was suggesting that Kim could perform her “magic” over the exhumed corpse. Was Jessica Coran being catty? Was she trying her best to undermine Kim, believing that a poor result in such an endeavor was virtually assured? Should Dr. Coran get her way, Kim might easily be sent packing, and Jessica could take over full rein on the case. Was that what she wanted? From what little Kim knew of Jessica Coran, she assumed that getting her own way was what had made her so invaluable to the FBI.

  Kim tried to imagine the unimaginable, no doubt a first for psychic investigation: a psychometric reading over a body long since gone cold in every sense of the word. Could anything come of it? It was one hell of a lot of trouble and turmoil to go to for what might well be nada it was also one hell of a challenge engineered by Jessica, who obviously had thrown down the gauntlet.

  Kim felt certain that such a “show” would result in nothing save a handful of theatrics she could call on. The results would be pitiful at best. Psychic impressions left in the wood of old haunted houses was one thing; psychic energy might linger for years where spirits roamed, but what sort of ghostly impressions might remain in a decayed and entombed body or the porous concrete of an aboveground tomb? It was the ultimate challenge, as when the famous Pierce Reeves had psychically “attacked” the mummified remains of Tutankhamen, the boy king of Egypt, never recovering from his encounter and dying a disheartened and shriveled man in his late thirties. That event, which had fueled the fire of the infamous curse of King Tut for yet another generation, was still fresh in Kim's mind as she considered the ultimate disturbance of a body in its grave.

  She was hardly certain that she was up to such a task, nor had she had any idea that she'd be boxed into such a position.

  It was one thing to read the body of the recently deceased, but to snatch a corpse from its long slumber... The very idea repulsed and unnerved her, and to some degree—old habits dying hard—went against the few teachings of the Church she yet believed in, about the sanctity and piety of the grave.

  Jessica Coran, by comparison, was eager to go ahead with an exhumation. It was scientifically a logical step, to ensure that what the NOPD had perceived as indeed a series of killings by the same man was in fact correctly dated to its inception.

  According to an inner logic which Jessica herself followed instinctively, seldom were things as they seemed on first glance. But for the moment, Kim almost believed that Jessica was delighting in the psychic's discomfort.

  She hadn't had time to fully assess Dr. Coran, or why her own presence here in the coroner's domain should make her antsy and uncomfortable, but uncomfortable was precisely the word for Jessica now. She could see that Jessica's usual sea-blue aura—the fiery glow that encircled the cranium to flutter about all living forms—usually a serene moon-glow aquamarine around her, was now shooting off orange sparks of blood red, a sure sign Jessica was upset.

  Still, Kim realized that her form of magic made a lot of people—most people, in fact—uncomfortable. In almost every case, she made men and women, and people with iron wills and concrete world views in particular, unsettled in their beliefs and generally unhappy as a result. It was the nature of the beast, as Detective Alex Sincebaugh so exemplified.

  Sincebaugh was obviously threatened by her, and so too was Jessica, perhaps to a lesser degree. Paul Zanek, for a number of reasons, had been terrified of her, not that he would ever have admitted it, not even to himself. The other men in this room, while not particularly believers, were desperate, all save Landry, and they had already made up their minds that they would go to any lengths for a breakthrough in the Hearts case, so why not a seance over a corpse?

  Apparently, she had stepped into a hotbed of political intrigue that P.C. Stephens and Lew Meade had conveniently not explained to either her or Jessica. Either man had had plenty of opportunity to catch them up on Wardlaw's flaws, for instance, and on Sincebaugh's reticence and reluctance, on the politically charged environment—the shaky situation with respect to the detectives working the case who were ready to explode. Even Meade, who was supposedly on their side— their FBI man in New Orleans—had failed to inform either of them, but why had he failed to do so?

  Was it because Meade and Stephens didn't want her to know what kind of shit she was about to step into? Was Stephens or Meade fearful that she would pull out at the mention of any trouble? Or was it more basic than that? No doubt the duo of Stephens and Meade wanted her to stay focused on the case, and not the peripheral nonsense surrounding the case.

  “Will you do it, Dr. Desinor?” pressed Landry. “If we get the order to exhume? Will you do a... a reading?”

  “We'll be happy to meet your price,” added Jessica, like some cheerleader with ulterior motives now. “Whataya say?”

  At that moment Wardlaw chose to leave the operating room, calling out that he wasn't feeling too well. The other men exchanged knowing looks, aware that Wardlaw was fighting off the d.t.s, doing all in his power to keep off the booze, and now was further upset by talk of an autopsy of the Surette body. No M.E. wanted to admit to a single oversight, much less the possibility of a series of errors.

  No one stopped Wardlaw's retreat, which was followed by an assistant coming into the room to wheel the body of the latest victim away once more. Meanwhile, Captain Landry, who'd so recently become awed by Kim's insights over the Lennox affair, only stared across at her.

  She swallowed hard, wondering how much she might trust Landry, remaining upset at his having earlier withheld the Lennox information from her. She realized now why the Lennox corpse on second reading had so abruptly ended communication with her. Its need to communicate had been ended long before, and they had all known this in advance of coming into the morgue today—Jessica included.

  “You've done very well here, so far, Dr. Desinor,” said Fouintenac. “What an enormous gift you have to offer law enforcement. Now you must do whatever's necessary”—he meant the exhumation, which he no doubt would skip—”to help us locate this maniac who's feeding on our city.”

  “All right,” she abruptly agreed. “If it can be done in a sterile, well-lit environment, okay?”

  “That's the only way to go with an exhumation,” Jessica commented.

  “We'll arrange everything,” assured Landry, who seemed suddenly to be in control, running the show.

  Stephens quickly put in, “All you need do is be here.” It was, after all, Stephens's show.

  “Good... good,” agreed Landry, who seemed to have boxed Stephens into a corner. “Then I'll begin the paperwork for Victor Surette's exhumation.”

  “Surette?” countered Meade. “I still think we sho
uld do the Stimpson body or the Lawton body, at very least the Trent Fischer body, since...”

  Stephens waved Meade down, took him aside and explained things to him in a whisper the others could not hear. Meade erupted once with: “Who the hell is Surette? We're not even sure his death is related to the case.”

  “Surette is very possibly the first victim, Chief,” Landry explained again. “First victim, says who? Alex Sincebaugh? I still say Kenny Stimpson was the first.”

  “New evidence on the Surette homicide has recently surfaced,” began Landry. “We have reason to believe that the killings date back at least as far as Surette.”

  “New evidence has surfaced regarding the Surette death?” asked a surprised Stephens.

  “What kind of new evidence?” Meade pressed.

  “We'll know more after the exhumation,” Landry assured the other two men. “Suffice to say that Surette was known by the other victims.”

  Stephens and Meade exchanged a look of surprise before Stephens replied, “You'd better have something a hell of a lot more compelling than the fact these fags knew one another, Carl.”

  Captain Landry nodded, his large jaw firmly set, allowing his cocksure expression to do the talking for him.

  “I know what's going on here,” Meade said. “Landry here seems to think that his Detective Sincebaugh has some sixth sense about this case, don't you, Carl?”

  “I'll take Alex Sincebaugh's instincts and stack them against anyone you've got in your whole damned agency, Lew.”

  “It's on then. Let us know when and where, Carl,” Stephens declared with little enthusiasm for the idea.

  Meade gave Stephens a menacing look, and Stephens fired back a volley of words in reply. “I have other reasons to see this through, at least to determine if there ever was a...connection. Lew.”

  Kim knew that Stephens had been made curious over the Surette case due to what he'd seen her do in Virginia when he'd placed the Surette case in as a decoy, only to learn it was, in her professional opinion, related. She wondered why he had chosen the Surette case to use as a decoy when he'd visited Zanek's office in Quantico; had it been merely coincidental, or had there been motivating circumstances that she was unaware of?

  Jessica Coran stepped between the men and said, “From what I've examined of the Surette case file, one which Dr. Wardlaw only reluctantly revealed to me, I had the immediate impression that there was a connection which Dr. Wardlaw at the time, for whatever reasons, chose to overlook.”

  “Overlook?” Stephens was incredulous.

  “The report claimed that the heart had been dug out by animals and taken off, that the body had been in the woods for weeks and was maggot-infested, but other, more easily accessible organs and parts of the body showed little to no sign of animal contact, only the extremities where rats, field mice and -perhaps raccoons had got at the decaying fingers, hands and toes. It seemed odd to me that only the heart was removed from the viscera. That runs counter to logic.”

  “Since when are animals logical?” asked Meade. “But even if you're right, why? Why would a respected M.E. of Wardlaw's obvious, ahhh, caliber...” Meade was cut short by Stephens, who jokingly told him that his final argument would lose his case.

  “Perhaps the idea that someone cannibalized the heart, or took it off for some other perverted pleasure, simply got the best of Dr. Wardlaw,” Jessica replied. “Or Wardlaw had other reasons not yet before us.”

  Kim quickly added, “There's no accounting for what turns a normally functioning adult human being into a child filled with fright—psychologically speaking, that is. For some of us it's the touch of a spider's leg along the ankle, the sight of a snake, a maggot pool. For others it can be an odor associated with some long-ago hurt. Or a few words which conjure up a reproaching parental voice threatening us with God's divine punishment.”

  “What're you saying, that Frank Wardlaw's ready for the funny farm?” asked Meade.

  “No, no... not at all,” Kim replied. “I'm telling you that for some people...well, the very idea of... of, say for instance, a murder victim's hands being severed at the wrists becomes a torture to contemplate, much less work over, examine and touch. Such a terrible trauma came for a colleague of mine in Chicago once, and perhaps... just perhaps the idea of a man's heart being ripped from his chest might not put you into an emotional tug-of-war, Chief Meade, but it may've found some long-protected chinks in Dr. Wardlaw's armor, possibly placing him in an emotional upheaval which you and I only can guess at by comparison.”

  “Well,” began Jessica, “suffice it to say that Dr. Wardlaw obviously was in no state of mind to want to deal with what his eyes were telling him at the autopsy. Call it human error, frailty, emotional turmoil, oversight if you like.”

  “Bullshit. The man's a cutter himself,” said Meade, obviously impatient with the psychoanalysis of a friend.

  Stephens stepped in. “Just do whatever's necessary, Dr. Coran, to get that exhumation order on this...what's his name...”

  “Surette,” added Landry a bit impatiently, knowing full well that Stephens knew of the suspicions that had cropped up around the Surette case.

  “You run into any goddamned problems or red tape, Doctor,” Fouintenac said directly to Jessica, his eyes blazing now, “and you just have the asshole who gets in your way give me a call, or you may call me yourself at this number.” He extended another expensive-looking embossed card.

  “Carte blanche? I like doing business with you, Mr. Deputy Mayor, Commissioner Stephens, Chief Meade.”

  The mayor's man made a feeble attempt to impress Jessica further, looking as if he were on the verge of asking her to dinner when he instead said, “You'll find us all here in New Orleans most cooperative, Dr. Coran... Dr. Desinor. If the FBI's best can't hel'p us, then God he'p us all.”

  “Just keep those good wishes flowing our way, Mr. Fouintenac,” Jessica said for both Kim and herself.

  “Will do... will do, ladies...”

  Kim saw that Jessica's tone was mild but that her aura was a pulsating flare and her eyes, boring into Kim now, were driving home spiked shards, projectiles of uncertainty. Something was nagging at the other woman, something like a shadow that crawled up from inside Jess and took up a position along the wall, camouflaging itself there, waiting with infinite patience to snatch her whenever she might be alone.

  And she was clumsily, awkwardly seeking help from Kim, yet unable to negotiate the uncharted waters, having no practice at asking for help from anyone, especially from a psychic, thanks most likely to her upbringing. Jess worked heroically, tirelessly at being the professional that she was, but she was also working overtime at keeping the shadow at bay, but it climbed up out of her at times—even here—casting a pall over her eyes, and deep within those shadow-cast eyes lay the most fathomless and nameless emotions Kim had ever seen.

  Kim suddenly grabbed Meade by the arm, saying, “Let's have a private word, Chief Meade, now!”

  19

  I hear it in the deep heart's core.

  —Yeats

  Meade followed Dr. Desinor's march through the heavy double doors and out into the two-tone yellow tunnel—a perverse twist on the road to Oz, leading as it did to the autopsy room. “I want to know just what the hell is going on, Lew.”

  “What're you talking about, Doctor?”

  “Hey, the mayor's guy, the P.C., you, a captain... who's next to take an active role in the case? The goddamn governor?''

  “As it happens, the governor has taken an interest in the case, as have two senators.”

  “Why? Is this going to be an election issue?”

  “I believe the governor's genuinely interested. I think it's the heart thing ... just like what you said with Wardlaw before... simply got to him. I don't know. Maybe a lot of us are squeamish about the heart. All I know for sure is that he wants to see a quick, speedy resolution to the problem.”

  “So does the Chamber of Commerce, I'm sure.”

  “Well,
hell, yes! Tourism's the biggest industry in the city, and this kinda thing's no good for tourism. Not to mention a pending government contract that'll bring in jobs if—”

  “And that's what propelled Stephens to come see us in Virginia in the first place, isn't it?”

  “Don't trivialize our concerns here, Doctor. We all want to see an end to this before it gets any worse. Nobody in that room”—he pointed a chunky finger—”nobody wants to see another murder. It's as simple as that.”

  “I see. Then it is electioneering. Can't start too soon, right?”

  “It's not about politics, Doctor.”

  “Could've fooled me. Besides, everything's about politics in our business, isn't it, Lew?”

  “In a manner a speaking, I 'magine, yes, but—”

  “The tension in Wardlaw's lab, the fact Frank Wardlaw's out before we're in... just doesn't sit well. We... Jessica and I didn't come here to take a scalpel to people's lives.”

  “Wardlaw's been on the bottle; he dug his own hole long before you arrived here. Let it go at that.”

  She gnashed her teeth together, sighed and leaned heavily against the wall.

  “We all have our reasons for wanting a speedy resolution to this madness in our city, but that doesn't lesson our concern for the victims, their families or future victims, Dr. Desinor. And I can tell you this Surette nonsense is just going to waste everyone's time. It's a Landry-Sincebaugh ploy to throw us all off, to give Alex and Landry more time.” More time to do their jobs? she almost shouted. “What's so damnably wrong with this Lieutenant Sincebaugh being allowed to pursue leads, Lew? Are we all at odds here, Lew? I want to know the truth.”

  “Sincebaugh's a rebel and a bastard. And he doesn't play well with our office, never has. He gummed up a case for us a year ago that we're still trying to untangle. Hadn't been for him, we could've screwed over this drug czar working out of the Quarter a long time ago, but Sincebaugh likes to play cowboy, so he ran his own scam and it blew up in our faces; some innocent people got hurt. I didn't want you running the same risks.”