Blind Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  She ran a computer search for any mention of black wood fibers and the beetle droppings. In both cases, she made hits. All of the victims had all three of these connecting remnant details, and while the dots were tenuous, they were dots in the maze. In fact, Coibby's body had a dead beetle caught in his hair.

  She cursed them all for fools, not forgetting herself. At the same time, she breathed in a deep sense of relief over the fact that they had something, even as minute as it was, to zero in on. That thought filled her with a small hope like a lighted candle. All the victims had had coal dust particles found on their bodies, either in the sticky residue of blood and oil or possibly scraped from their nails, she guessed. It had to be significant, along with the wood and beetles.

  After allowing herself a moment of exhilaration over the new discovery, she earnestly wished to share it with Raehael and Schuller, both of whom were laboring over a series of tests in the Woodard case. In fact, Schuller had ordered a full report on Woodard's health condition before she died—pre­cisely the point Jessica had made in the Burton autopsy. Schuller, a depressed man according to the rumor mill here, a man hurting in his personal life from what she'd been able to gather, took her comments as censure. He meant to prove himself not guilty of negligence or incompetent work in the Burton case.

  Schuller appeared a fragile man this morning, she thought. She worried how he would take the coal dust issue, if it might not be the last straw for him. She struggled with how best to approach the other forensic doctor on this.

  She stepped to within whispering distance of Dr. Schuller, asking, “Can we talk in private, Dr. Schuller?”

  Raehael, beside them, overheard and looked up from his microscope. Schuller promptly replied, “Al-Zadan and I have worked together for three years. Whatever you have to say to me, you can say to us, Dr. Coran.”

  She took a deep breath and said, “It's the report of coal dust findings on the Woodard woman.”

  “What of it?”

  “I did a check back through all the victims, and they all show trace elements of coal dust. I think it significant, sir.”

  “Coal dust and beetles?” Schuller asked with an arched brow, and then he exchanged a long stare with Raehael before he said, “I give you my blessings. Pursue the beetle and the coal to whatever end you wish. It's in the reports, and if and when we can locate a killing ground, then perhaps we will have some explanation for this trace evidence. Use whatever you wish; our lab and our people are at your disposal.”

  Schuller put it in perspective for her, saying loud enough for all to hear, “Coal heating remains one of the primary sources of fuel consumption here, despite every effort that's been made to end its use in the City. Nearly every flat in London has a coal bin below, and the City is liberally dusted with coal. Not to imply that all of us Londoners have coal dust under our nails. But you will be hard-pressed to pinpoint a killing ground in this city with coal dust and mites alone.”

  She tried to salvage something of it, saying, “In America, coal dust particles would have significantly different charac­teristics, helping pinpoint the killer's lair. Are you sure there might not be something worth—”

  “No, forget about it, Doctor. Every city dweller in London has coal dust under his nails. It's miasmatic. It's endemic.” His tone was sarcastic.

  “Making coal dust the most ready substance in the city,” added Raehael with a nearly imperceptible shrug to say he was sorry for Schuller's unprofessional outburst. What had seemed so clearly an enormous clue immediately took on the attitude and character of dust mites—so abundant as to be useless, unless this coal dust had some significantly distinguishable characteristics buried within, like those minute differences found in layers of dirt at an archaeological dig.

  She put the coal dust particle results aside along with her pride. Another bloody dead end, Richard would call it.

  She moved along, searching the results of fiber evidence, hair evidence, blood and serum tests. Everything came up identical to the previously murdered victims. The Crucifier had left no trace of himself behind. Gloves and caution, she surmised.

  One of the few remaining clues as to the Crucifier's identity remained his use of the drug Brevital to control Marion Woodard and the three other victims. It showed up in the blood work, found in large enough quantity to have put her under for some time and certainly to have subdued her, mak­ing her helpless against the god-awful attack she had suffered.

  Schuller then stepped away and disappeared down the hall, a lightness in his step that hadn't been there before.

  “Bastard,” she muttered.

  Frustrated, the police scientists at the Yard, along with Jessica, continued the entire day to sift through the minutia of evi­dence left by the Crucifier, with the result being about as large as the few clues left them. This being the state of the case, Jessica expected that at least Chief Inspector Boulte would feel good—or at least vindicated on his assessment of bring­ing the American Colonist in on the case. Vindicated to the degree that he had been wiser than Sharpe in the matter.

  All the same, a nagging intuition, a kind of , forced her to ask Schuller, “Can we get this beetle that came with the coal dust carbon dated?”

  “Carbon dated?” His wide, questioning, gray-blue eyes told the story of incredulity. “Do you have any idea the expense of time and man hours that will put us to?”

  “Carbon dating is the only precise way to know the age of the specimen, the only exacting method to be precise.”

  “To what bloody end, Doctor? Beetles abound in London, as I am sure they abound in America.”

  “Humor me, Dr. Schuller. Suppose it came with the coal dust, and suppose it suggests—”

  “Carbon dating a beetle found in Coibby's hair.”

  “Don't forget, we found beetle leavings on all the others, in their nails, along with the wood fibers, and the wood fibers appear to be from some ancient structure.”

  His tone clearly indicated the madness of such a time-consuming step. “That would be a waste of our time here. Regardless of what you and Sharpe and the others might think, there are other, ongoing cases that have to be dealt with here. Carbon dating trace elements of beetles, really.”

  “G'damnit, Doctor,” she angrily retorted, “do you have the capability to carbon date here? Or do we farm it out, and if so, where are the bloody forms?” Jessica realized two truths even as she said it. One, she hated the pettiness of having to shout; and two, she'd managed to pick up something of a British accent during her short stay in London.

  Schuller responded by pacing and then exploding, “I will not be ordered about within the confines of my own labora­tory by anyone. Doctor. If you wish to pursue a blind alley in this matter, you will get no help from me!” He stormed out, leaving her to be stared at by all remaining in the lab, most of whom were uninvolved in the Crucifier case.Raehael came quickly over to her. “I will see to the dating of the material.”

  “Carbon dating,” she insisted.

  “I am aware what you wish, Doctor. But such tests, it will take time. Please, allow me to express apology for Dr. Schul­ler. He has been beneath great stress these many days.”

  She assumed these many days meant since the Crucifier had gone to work in London. “Thank you, Dr. Raehael.” She could not read his black, inscrutable pupils. Like a pair of grapes, the seeds glimmered deep within.

  “You see, Dr. Schuller's wife, she is in hospital. Not ex­pected to live too much soon. You unders-stand?”

  Jessica closed her eyes on the revelation. It explained a great deal of Schuller's behavior toward both her and others around him, and it certainly explained his absences and his short fuse.

  “I'm sorry,” she told Raehael. “I had no idea.”

  “He is a stoic man. How you Americans say, a man of stone outside only.”

  She thanked Raehael for the information. He took the beetle debris and particles—so much smudge lying at the bottom of a small vial as to be near invisible. �
�I will personally see over this matter for you. Dr. Coran. And as well, I have DNA tests, which you may now like to see some result?”

  She nearly gasped at the suggestion. “You have some re­sults?”

  He held up a DNA scan sheet that reflected back the over­head fluorescent lights, making the tiny black marks on the oversize slide, like an X ray of minutia, shimmer and dance about before her eyes.

  “What have you learned?”

  “I rule out my own self as secretor. I rule out the investi­gators next, you and Dr. Schuller, of course next, so this will take time. But this ...” He shook the DNA strand that had been scanned and duplicated onto an acetate sheet, and it made a small thunder in response. “I believe we have DNA from heavy secretor, and intuition tell me it is from the killer. Take time to look is lesson you have taught me, Dr. Coran,” he said.

  “I appreciate your kindness in saying so. If you don't mind, I'll also warn you not to smudge what you have there with your oily fingerprints.”

  He smiled. “Yes. I am secretor, too, heavy.” She stared at the smudge of patterns on the acetate sheet now thrown up against a viewing light pedestal. She tempered her hope-against-hope feeling that they were actually, scien­tifically marking the footprints of the killer, that they had indeed come into his cursed wake. Still, they remained a long way from proof and providing that proof to a jury. She must remain cautious, careful.

  “First, rule out the DNA of anyone and everyone who has come remotely near the body, including the ambulance people and anyone here in the lab, including Dr. Schuller.”

  “He won't like it,” warned Raehael.

  “He understands the protocol.”

  “Heavy secretor,” he repeated. “Very most likely to be, in any case.”

  They both knew that approximately eighty percent of the population secreted blood type indicators in their body flu­ids—saliva, semen, and perspiration. Not even soap and water could completely wash secretions away. A match could be made to the killer in all probability, if they ever made an arrest. Jessica recalled Martin Strand's having wiped his brow twice in her presence, but she swiftly dismissed this as any kind of evidence. Still, she wondered why she so easily and quickly put the words heavy secretor and Strand together. Luc Sante had dabbed his brow in his office, too. The place had felt stuffy and humid the entire time Jessica spent in the cathedral offices and corridors. The windows weren't exactly fashioned for AC units. For that matter, she had seen Sharpe and Copperwaite each break out in perspiration at the scene of the last murder. Secretions in perspiration were, in effect, everywhere.

  “I will complete work of ruling out the investigators and doctors. Later, if we find some unusual markings, matches,” said Dr. Raehael, his clean-shaven chin in hand, “then all will depend on arrest. If we find a match, this man will be the Crucifier.”

  Jessica watched Raehael's small, deft fingers nimbly place possibly the only single bit of evidence of the killer into its glassine slip. Raefael then found a home for it in a manila file folder and labeled it with the case number.

  Jessica lifted the phone on the desk that had temporarily become hers, and she telephoned Quantico. While she had little to report, Chief Santiva had been leaving messages that he wanted to know any progress on the case. The case meant much politically to his career. It also meant an opening up of relations between the two most famous and powerful law-enforcement agencies in the world, the FBI and Scotland Yard.

  Jessica, with little to add to the picture for Santiva, embel­lished what they had on the Crucifier and spent a good deal of time telling Santiva about Luc Sante, saying, “What a re­markable find he is! You really must consider putting him on as a consultant, Eriq. Our man in Britain. He's really top drawer.”

  Eriq Santiva expressed only his interest in the case, and how it was going. He was upset with her for not having kept him apprised. She'd failed to answer his last communique. He began to rave somewhat, when she stopped him, saying, “I've had my hands full, Eriq.”

  “Well, from here on out, I want a full report every other day from you, Agent Coran.”

  “Why're you so angry, Eriq? And why all the formality?”

  “Short of that, e-mail me here. Do you understand. Agent Coran?”

  She realized now that he was not alone, that he spoke for an audience there in his office, all likely on the speakerphone. Damn him and his bosses for their little dishonesties. “Nasty business here, Chief, really,” she played to their audience. “No significant clues left by the killer. A diabolically clever fellow intent on our not having the least lead. But just this morning we've uncovered some new evidence.”

  “Fill me in.”

  She told him of the coal dust, the wood fibers and the beetle, and he hemmed and hawed over this for some time, saying only, “Interesting ...”

  “I'm having the beetle carbon dated, and analysis should show us something. We've also found the killer does some­thing unusual to his victims' tongues.”

  'Tongues?”

  She had them. She told them all about Mihi beata mater, informing them she'd tried to keep the exact wording in-house, but that authorities were not cooperating with her de­sire to do so. “If you can apply any pressure along those lines, it would be greatly appreciated.”

  “Remember, e-mail or phone, but keep me informed,” Eriq finished.

  I don't have that kind of time, Eriq, she wanted to scream but dared not. “Absolutely,” she lied.

  “I want constant updates on this one, Jessica.”

  “All right,” she grumbled into the phone. “Can you put me through to John Thorpe in the crime lab now?”

  “Sure. And Jess, be careful over there.”

  “Thanks. I will be.”

  “Wouldn't want to lose you to Scotland Yard, either.”In a few moments, John Thorpe came on the line, saying, “Yes? This is Thorpe.”

  Jessica breathed easier talking to J. T., knowing she could fully trust him. She told him about her conversation with San­tiva. J. T. grumbled one single word, 'Typical.”

  She again brought J. T. up-to-date on the killings in Lon­don. “Whoever this lunatic is, he's giving away very little of himself,” she finished.

  “Sounds dire,” he replied, “and you sound tired. Getting any sleep? How's that insomnia problem?”

  “I'm bearing up. What news in Tattoo Man's case?”

  “Some progress. Some surprising twists, in fact.”

  “Really? Go on.”

  “I met with one of the so-called giants in the art, at a con­vention in Memphis, Tennessee. Since he was such an expert, I showed him the artwork, you know, the autopsy photos, in an attempt to nail down the artwork and the artist it belonged to.”

  “And?”

  “And turns out our boy, Horace, paid big bucks for his

  BLIND INSTINCT illustrated body. The guy knew the artist, admired his work. We were right—a disciple of H. R. Giger.”

  “Congratulations, John.”

  “The actual artist who worked on Horace lives in New Jersey. I'm driving to see him tomorrow. He keeps records in his head, though, so keep your fingers crossed.”

  Jessica replied, “Will do.”

  “So, where do you go next on the Crucifier case?”

  Again, Jessica found herself speaking more about Luc Sante than the case. She filled J. T. in on the man and his theories, using J. T. as a sounding board, and then apologizing for it.

  “Don't be silly. If you were here, or I were there, we'd be bouncing ideas and thoughts off one another, wouldn't we?”

  “Right you are. Strange how many seeming parallels there are between the two unrelated cases,” she now said.

  “Such as?”

  “The amount of preparation the killer goes to, for one. Quite medculous attention to detail, wouldn't you say?”

  “Absolutely in my case. Whoever prepared Tattoo Man for murder went through a great deal of ritual, and at any point along the way might have backed out. Imagine the p
atience required to infect six dogs, then the safety required to handle them.”

  “Murder is easy to talk about, a great deal harder to carry out,” she agreed, “especially if your murder requires elaborate stage props and preparations. Believe me, our two killers have a good deal in common, at least on that score.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Our killer here is into preparations, to say the least.”

  J. T. found himself being paged, another call coming in. “Could be about the case, Jess. Best go. You take care, and get in some R & R while you're over there.”

  “Gee, I hadn't thought of that,” she joked before saying good-bye and hanging up.

  -THIRTEEN -

  We may easily fail to pity the sociopath and psy­chopath for their ghastly evil, but we must surely pity them for the unremitting lives of apprehen­sion they lead.

  —from the casebooks of jessica coran

  The following Monday, Jessica joined yet another general meeting called by Chief Inspector Boulte, this one limited to Scotland Yard detectives alone. Every single detective on the force had long before been put on alert regarding the case of the Crucifier, but now with the additional information con­cerning new findings in the autopsy reports brought about by Dr. Jessica Coran, findings which could not be ignored, Boulte wished for his entire team to be “well-versed and fur­ther enlightened by Dr. Jessica Coran herself.”

  Why am I getting the idea Boulte hates my guts? she asked herself. At Sharpe's request, the man had contacted her su­periors in D.C., who had in turn contacted Quantico, who had in turn contacted Eriq Santiva, who had contacted her. Ob­viously, Boulte saw her competence as a personal rebuff to him. In his zeal to demean her, he had pushed professional courtesy to its limits. Either that or worse. Perhaps he'd gotten wind of the budding personal relationship between her and Richard and he didn't like it. Worse still, he saw it as an opportunity to hurt Richard.

  Still, Boulte remained in charge when he now asked Jes­sica, “Will you share further profile information, anything de­veloped by you and Sharpe, for instance, with the rest of us.” His tone made clear that he knew the two of them had slept together, and somehow she'd become yet another prize in the continual battles of the two men. Just how Chief Inspector Boulte knew remained a mystery, but Jessica suspected Erin Culbertson. Damn her.