Pure Instinct (Instinct thriller series)

by Robert W. Walker

  She tried to lighten him up a bit by saying, “When a Creole goes to heaven, first thing he asks Saint Peter is, 'Where's the jambalaya right?”

  He laughed at the familiar saying. “Either that or file gumbo.” But he lapsed back into his somber concern. “We pay homage to the past here; the past is our bread and butter; it's what brings in the tourists, the Old South in all her radiant splendor. The New Orleans port on the Mississippi was once second only to New York, but now it only supports an interest in the arcane and tourism.”

  “The past is a double-edged sword here. That's for sure,” she agreed.

  “Give me that old-time religion and that Old South drowsiness in the shade. Shame that the same mint-julep mentality which gives New Orleans its mystic flavor, old charms and her iron-lace balconies is also the same kind of thinking that has allowed poverty and homelessness to flourish at her core.”

  “But they got religion and Carnivale!”

  “Yeah, Carnival Season... begins shortly after Christmas and winds down with Mardi Gras.”

  “Fat Tuesday, I know, ends on Ash Wednesday.”

  “Then you haven't forgotten New Orleans altogether since leaving?''

  “Not at all. Laissez les bon temps rouler/” He translated for her. “Let the good times roll.”

  “One hundred and fifty years of tradition..”

  “Of spontaneous street parades and displays.”

  They both knew the history well, that in 1857 a group of locals banded together to form the first Carnivale parading organization, the Mystick Krewe of Comus, and that after that other private clubs, picking up the notion, sprouted up, and the elaborateness of the balls which spilled out into the streets and became madcap parades had become a tradition. Kings and queens were still chosen from among the krewe membership, and in some Carnivale clubs, the balls still served as “coming out” parties for debutantes. It all culminated in floats, marching bands, enormous balloons, jazz bands and wildly decorated flatbed trucks. Souvenir doubloons, cups, saucers, painted coconuts and beaded necklaces were tossed to onlookers from the parading masses. All this while in the French Quarter there was the annual costume competition for the best-looking transvestites, who so colorfully and spectacularly jammed the corners of Burgandy and St. Ann Streets.

  “There's no other place like it on earth,” she said.

  Alex nodded, checking his rearview as he pulled into a turn lane on the other side of the bridge. “Shame, isn't it, that such a place, known worldwide for its jazz funerals and tunes like “Didn't He Ramble” and “I'll Be Glad When You're Dead, You Rascal,” and such legends as Louis Armstrong, Buddy Bolden, Joe 'King' Oliver, Jelly Roll Morton, Kid Ory, and... and gaiety—in every sense of the word—has such crime problems as well.”

  She smiled at this, remembering aloud another song title. “ 'If You Ain't Gonna Shake It, What Did You Bring It For?' Goes back to what I was saying before about a victim for every four households, I guess.”

  Alex turned the car into a gravel lot in front of a bright sign announcing “Leopold's on the Wharf.”

  “Shame of it is that in the most technologically advanced nation on earth, in the history of all mankind, almost every single person in America will be the victim of one crime or another in his lifetime.”

  “Yes,” she agreed, “and in spite of strides in forensic investigative techniques, electronic surveillance, colossal and complex fingerprint files and other modern means, the percentage of crimes solved by arrest has remained appreciably unchanged since, what, the early seventies?”

  “Hey, compared to other heavily populated areas of the country, the NOPD's doing a hell of a job.”

  “No need to get defensive, Lieutenant. But the fact remains that New Orleans, like Chicago, L.A., Miami, New York and Atlanta, has actually seen a decrease in arrests made in violent crimes.”

  “Maybe that's because-just-because, as they say.”

  “What's that? Southern-style philosophical equivocation and sophistry to avoid the issue?”

  “It helps when it helps.”

  She laughed. “More of the same.”

  His tone grew serious again. “There's been such an enormous increase in violent crime that it makes me weak to give it too much thought. If that's equivocating, then that's equivocating. I call it gettin' by.”

  “With drugs, child molestation, rape and murder on the rise, public anxiety about the effectiveness of both local and federal police agencies to serve the public has steadily grown, while manpower and monies haven't kept up,” she conceded.

  “That's why everyone's so ready to turn to psychics for help, and thanks in large measure to the media saturation of stories dealing with freaks like Jeffrey Dahmer, John Wayne Gacy, and the Queen of Hearts killer....”

  “You like to think you've got a ready answer for everything, Detective Sincebaugh, all life's problems, don't you?”

  “It helps, but no... not by a long shot do I have all the answers, but I have one for you. People latch onto your kind of magic and voodoo—”

  “What I do is not voodoo or magic!” She raised her voice for the first time.

  “People need you like they need Dear Abby, to tell them it's okay to believe in something that's not present, to hold onto something that's not there. So society appears to be going to hell. It has always appeared to be going to hell and it always will, but conjuring acts aren't going to change that.”

  “Most cops are superstitious, but not you, right?”

  “That's right.”

  “You worked Missing Persons for a long time, didn't you, before you got into Homicide?”

  “That's right, and I don't appreciate your going through my file.”

  “So, it was there you used psychics?”

  “It was never my idea to use a psychic on any case, no.”

  “But the Department did?”

  “That's right.”

  “So, you had a bad experience with a psychic, so you now judge all psychics by that one experience, and you say you're not superstitious?”

  He fell silent, the verbal jousting taking its toll on him. After a moment, he said, “I thought we agreed to talk about things other than this bloody case.”

  “Sony, guess we did, but I'm also talking about stressful situations, a stressful job, like a cop's. It brings out a need to tidy up the world, to seek answers, find control amid the chaos, an explanation for the void. A psychic worth her salt wants the same thing, Alex.”

  “If it wasn't for missing-persons cases, your kind would be out of business. You're like bounty hunters, coming in on a case for the money it can afford you.”

  “That's bullshit.”

  “How much're they paying you? My year's salary? For your consulting fee?”

  “I get paid by the day, same as a P.I., and I don't collect the consultation fee if there're no direct results stemming from my participation.”

  “Stemming from your participation, sure...” He let it drop, not speaking his mind. She knew what he was thinking, however.

  “I'm no fool, Dr. Desinor. I know Stephens and Captain Landry aren't fools either, but we had strict guidelines we followed in Missing Persons when we dealt with psychic de-tectives called in on cases. From what I've seen and from what I've deduced, it's apparent to me that Meade, or someone, has provided you with far more than the type of crime, the name of the individuals involved, the dates and items lifted from the scene, like those beads. The sensitive, as we called him then, filed a report immediately on the basis of that scant information alone. You, you've been given access to all the police reports, all the coroner's reports, in essence my complete case file on the murders. Then you expect me to be dazzled when you come out with information you couldn't possibly know?”

  “The more information I have, the more I can learn from the psychometric evidence.”

  “You got that right. Well, you just go right on dazzling deYampert and the others, Doctor. Just don't expect me to fall in line, okay?”
/>
  “Tell you what,” she said, “you're right.”

  “Right?”

  “About my coming in with full disclosure. I won't work a case without it and when... when Landry called me in on the case...”

  “Landry called you in on the case?”

  “He's in charge of it, isn't he?” Yeah, yeah... sure he is.”

  “When he called, I made it clear I wouldn't work blind, that the more I know, the more I can reveal.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  “The Harkness boy's case must've hurt you very deeply. I'm sorry for your pain, Alex, and I can easily sympa—”

  “That's got nothing to do with it.”

  “I can sympathize completely. I had my own such heart-wrenching cases, the Hughes case I told you about.”

  “I remember reading about it,” he admitted.

  “I wasn't much more than a rookie that year.”

  “Ever regret giving up being a cop?”

  She hesitated before responding. Thus far, she'd not had to lie to him directly, and was able to excuse this necessary lie by omission since she was working for the FBI, for Meade. “Yeah, sure...sometimes I miss it, but I've learned I can do far more good as a sensitive.”

  “Let's eat,” he said, and got quickly out of the car.

  She waited to see if he'd open her door, and she was pleased when he did.

  Over dinner she said, “You hate my being here, don't you?”

  “What?”

  “And you're uneasy with yourself, your own intuition, if you wish?”

  “Whoa, whoa, wait a minute.”

  She barreled forward. “You're a tough guy, a former Navy SEAL. You don't have a sensitive bone in your body, or so you want the world to think, but—”

  “Hey, I don't hafta sit here and take this kinda ridicule and verbal abuse, Doctor, and I don't hate your being here, no.”

  “I mean in New Orleans, on your case.”

  He hesitated before answering. “Eat, stay healthy.”

  “You really do make quite a sparring partner.”

  “What's that suppose to mean?”

  “You're very good at deflecting direct questions, Lieutenant.”

  “I've had a good trainer.”

  “Your father.” It wasn't posed as a question.

  “What a surprising and fortuitous guess. How did you ever come up with him, of all people?” Sarcasm had seeped back into his voice. “What exactly are those lovely eyeballs made of anyway? Transylvanian crystal? Or are you just an ex-tremely lucky guesser, huh?”

  “All right, okay, so much of what I do is instinctive, but that doesn't lessen the fact I know what I'm doing. Lieutenant, I'm the best.”

  The restaurant's atmosphere was steeped in a French motif, a sidewalk cafe on a grander scale in a semi-casual and darkened series of rooms with quaint street-comer lamps posted every four feet, the windows overlooking the huge lake. It was in the heart of some smaller town outside the big city, far from Bourbon Street and the concerns of the French Quarter. It seemed a place where a different breed of people dined, natives not of New Orleans but elsewhere. Still, on the menu alongside the traditional French dishes were traditional New Orleans dishes from jambalaya to such specialties as shrimp Creole and Cajun gator tail. Alex was eating the gator, while she'd opted for vegetarian veal parisien.

  He finally said, “I have every reason to suspect you're having us all on, Dr. Desinor.”

  “And you resent the implication that others, seeing me come in on the case, might construe you as a fool?”

  “I don't give a damn what others think, but think they do and the appearance of im-impropriety in a case is as bad as the real McCoy, Doctor. And we both know that your coming in on this high-profile case is going to feather your cap no matter the outcome while making the NOPD look like it's... well, jacking off.”

  She bit back a snide smile and shook her head. “If the hand fits, Alex.”

  “Very clever, Doctor, but nothing's changed.”

  “Oh, I think a lot has changed. And it's about time you called me Kim.”

  “Such as what has changed, Kim?”

  “How we view one another for one, Alex. I think we can work together and not at odds, if you will just give me a chance. Your partner Ben's willing to, Jessica Coran, P.C. Stephens, your own Captain Landry.”

  “Yeah, so why do I get the feeling I'm the last holdout in The Invasion of the Body Switchers? Ben's got a wife and children to go home to. He can turn the case off when he wants, he's gotten so used to partitioning off the separate lives he leads. Me, I'm on my own, so maybe the case is a little more important to me than—”

  “Is it importance or self-importance and a little obsession thrown in for good measure?” she asked quickly, stopping him.

  “I'm no more obsessive about my work than most cops.”

  “Bullshit. You're as bad as... as... as Jessica Coran. You're a workaholic from what I can see.”

  “There are worse things in life.”

  “Your father's nearby. Why don't you spend more time with your family?”

  The muscles of his jaw tightened. “That's really none of your business, now, is it?” He wondered from whom she had learned that tidbit of information with which she thought she could astonish him.

  “He's a former cop. Someone you could share your thoughts and feelings with on the case.”

  “I got Ben for that.”

  “And that's enough?”

  “It is.”

  She nodded. “Your father hurt you very badly, didn't he.”

  “What the hell's with you, lady? I'm not in the market for psychoanalysis, not even your brand, so let it go.”

  “My father hurt me very badly too, when I was young. He pretty much destroyed all faith I had in him. Took me a long time to get over it, and I'm still not sure I am. Over it, I mean. He gave me up to the state for safekeeping. How do you like that?''

  Alex dropped his gaze and said, “I'm sorry to hear it.”

  “You can rationally rid yourself of a thing like that, but emotionally it's like a growth or a virus that's still very much within, biding its time, waiting for you to slip and when you do, it'll be there to take you into the depths of pain stored up over the years. Out of sight but not out of mind, or is it stored in the human heart?”

  “My problem with my father is not the issue here, Kim, nor is it a matter for discussion, do you understand? And while we're on it, my every waking moment isn't predicated on how I view my relationship with him, understood?”

  “Perhaps...perhaps I do understand more than you know.”

  He stared across at her and felt her eyes probing into and through him. “You don't understand anything about me.”

  “I understand your anger, your frustration and even your fear.”

  Now he gritted his teeth and pulled back, as if physically severing the eye contact between them would help his cause, before he said, “I'm not afraid of a damned thing. Lightning doesn't scare me; dying doesn't scare me. So, what's left? I've faced death in a goddamned jungle a world away from home, and here on the streets as a cop. No, there's nothing I'm afraid of.”

  'You're afraid of the small things.”

  He shook his head and frowned, pushing away his plate.

  “Dark spaces from which you cannot retreat?”

  “You're crazy, you really are.”

  “Relationships from which you can't hide.”

  Shut up—his thought leaped but did not cross the table, yet she caught it as if on some sort of telepathic tractor beajn, yanking it into her.

  “I'll shut up, Lieutenant, when you aecept me for what I am, and while you're at it, accept the fact there are black holes in everyone's mind.”

  “Exactly what you count on.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Both as a shrink and as a snoop.”

  “Touche. If we could leave it at that. But the dark little holes into which you tumble and lose your way and all contr
ol, these need to be explored, not run from.”

  Christ, he thought, she's been talking to Ben deYampert, but then he realized that not even Ben had knowledge of the exact nature or details of his recurring nightmares of recent months. He'd had nightmares for years as a child, and now again, awakened in him by the first Hearts victim, Surette. And here was this all-seeing, all-knowing being staring through him, revealing him to himself here over table scraps.

  “Waiter! Clear these dishes away, will you?” he called out, his thoughts tumbling on. It was as if Kim Desinor had climbed inside his head and had watched a film there, a film about his agony, as if it were being played over and over for her private screening. The feeling was one of invasion which sent a shiver through him, making him add one more item to his fears—fear of her.

  The waiter rushed their dishes away, asking about dessert, which both of them declined, Alex calling for the bill. Then he turned to her and said, “How... how the hell could you—”

  “You're surrounded by parasites, Alex, on all sides. You even see me as a parasitic creature, someone or some thing that's come to chew away at you and your precious case, someone who will eat you alive if you're not careful. Then, of course, you've got Ben, Frank Wardlaw, Landry and IAD, Meade, every one trying to siphon off a piece of you in order to feed themselves.''

  “This is all nonsense. You don't know what the hell you're talking—”

  “But I do. Men like you, men who have so much strength bottled within, so powerful... people gravitate to your power, your confidence, wanting to touch it, Alex. They want to touch me too, all the time. People like you and me... we're appealing on many, many levels. Think of the old saying, Alex, how two separate people with differing worldviews look at a glass of water.” She placed a forefinger on the glass before him, which was half full.