Darkest Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “Yeah, maybe... I thought the same.”

  “Thought? As in the past tense?”

  “Well, Doctor, one of my jobs is to think the unthink­able.”

  “And precisely what unthinkable are you thinking?”

  She considered her answer carefully. She knew she ought actually to be talking to Eriq about this, and she planned to, but he had so infuriated her the night before that she meant to steer clear of him today. “If I were relentlessly killing people, Dr. Coudriet, in cold and brutal fashion, I’d need some sort of construct or scaffolding built around me, as a safety measure for my own sanity. You follow me so far?”

  “I... I think I do.”

  “So, I kill and kill and kill again, enjoying the delight I take in robbing others of the most potent and powerful force on the planet—life itself. I feed myself on that loss of life and suffering others must pay me. However, I need a reason, a rationalization for my cruelty and perversion which will in effect wash my hands of guilt.”

  “What has this to do with preserving the girl’s hand?”

  “As a trophy, as a prize, to keep forever or to give in offering to my master and god.”

  “To God?”

  “Not just any god, but the god who talks to me, the god I’ve created who buttresses and shores up the scaffold of my perverse rationale. It becomes an offering, the hand, but it must be as perfect as I can make it.”

  “But it’s perishable, impossible to preserve.”

  “Up to a point, yes... So over the side it goes. It was not released at the same time as the body.”

  “So the shark that swallowed it—”

  “Did not attack Allison’s body to come away with it. It had already been severed.”

  “But the bracelet? He would have removed it, wouldn’t he?”

  “He’s playing at god himself; he’s neither sane nor afraid of us, Doctor. There’s resin—epoxy—residue from Super Glue where he attached the bracelet.”

  “Heartless sonofabitch... But the arm was hacked off by what appeared to be a shark’s bite; you said so your­self.”

  “I wanted to believe the parts matched, and they did. Self-fulfilling prophecy. We go back for another look, a more critical look, we’ll find differently. We do it all the time in our business. Doctor.”

  Coudriet remained recalcitrant, unconvinced, shaking his head. “We can’t possibly hold the body any longer. They want the body released yesterday...”

  Jessica said nothing.

  “But why? Why would this madman sever the hand and embalm it? What possible purpose could it serve?”

  “We’ve got to stop looking for purpose; this bastard’s purpose is totally a construct of his own making, having no validity outside his brain.”

  “No validity save that which his fevered mind has con­cocted...”

  “Precisely, no reason in our world, only his; but if you want my opinion, the hand is just the beginning of an es­calation.”

  “An escalation of what?”

  “His attempt to preserve flesh, to preserve a victim whole... It’s in keeping with how long he has held them in the water.”

  Coudreit didn’t want to believe it, but it shook him none­theless. “Such madness allowed to move about freely out there.”

  “We’re going to catch this monster.”

  “Sometimes... sometimes it makes me wonder where God is in all this. And what about this madness in here, too... The way this investigation is being run, it’s all in­sane.”

  “What do you suggest we do about it?” She was touched by his sudden show of concern, the depth of his feeling. “Look, I have a fax machine in my office and direct E-mail on my computer, should you care to avail yourself.” He dropped a stark photocopy likeness of the killer onto the lab table beside her. “But of course if policy prevents you, I’ll understand.”

  “You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “The hell I don’t. Frankly speaking, Dr. Coran, I never much cared for the politicizing of this office or any murder investigation, and I’m sure, if you are your father’s daugh­ter, you don’t either.” It was a challenge to her, the gauntlet thrown at her feet. She looked from the eyes of the killer in the artist’s com­posite to the soft, even and determined eyes of Dr. Coud­riet. There seemed to be a fresh, new glow about the man today, and he smelled different, like a man who’d discov­ered some new delight in life. “What do you know of my father?” she asked.

  ‘ ‘Are you serious? I learned a great deal from him; read every word he ever wrote on forensic medicine, twice over. I once heard him speak—brilliant man—and once I met him at a gathering in Oregon.”

  ‘ ‘We... the family was stationed there for some time in the late fifties,” Jessica offered. She noticed that Coudriet smelled of musk oil. Or was it a natural musk odor? That was it. The good M.E. had just come from having had sex with someone. He was aglow in the wash of it, and could no better hide it than he might his red hair.

  “Tell me how you learned about the disagreement be­tween Eriq and me.”

  “News travels fast around here,” he commented, step­ping a little away. “When people learn that this fiend is embalming his victims atop everything else...”

  “That news stays within these walls, between you and me, Doctor.”

  With a solemn bow of the head, he nodded his agree­ment. “Will you then at least do the right thing, Jessica Coran?”

  Damn, she thought, he sounds like my father. “And ex­actly what is that?”

  “I’m in utter and complete agreement with you, Dr. Coran. What little information we have on the killer’s iden­tity and the threat he poses to certain victim types, that all this information be released to our still largely unsuspecting public, many of whom—many of whom—could fall victim to the killer before daybreak tomorrow. My God, he re­leased three bodies to us yesterday. That clearly tells us that he means to replenish his supply.”

  Coudriet was right; the killer meant to start over, she thought but did not say. “I’m not in a position to author­ize—”

  “Damnit, Jessica, someone’s got to authorize it; we can’t wait for the governor or the mayor or the fucking Boy Scouts!”

  “That’s enough!” Jessica weighed the decision for a long moment. She lifted the computer-enhanced image of the killer before her eyes and stared at the dreaded and hated creature, the Night Crawler, known now also as Patric Allain. He was, as Judy Templar had attested, a handsome and alluring creature of dark, mysterious features. The shock of boyish hair over the forehead, the telltale birth­mark peeking from beneath, the thin jaw and even teeth, the somewhat weak upper lip and sensual lower lip. But it was in the eyes that she saw the allure. These eyes of a madman, filled with mystery. “You have E-mail,” she stated. “I do.”

  “I’d like to get in touch with Scotland Yard, an Inspector Moyler there, about the case. Tell him our man speaks with a British accent and uses the name Patric Allain. See if it turns up anything there.”

  “And what about here, closer to home?”

  She breathed in a long breath of air, weighing her friend­ship with Eriq and her loyalty to him as a superior. The whole thing felt like a cracked mirror, a wingless bird, a blind owl, a dolphin without sonar. If she pushed Eriq far enough, he might send her packing; she’d be off the case, possibly up on disciplinary charges. But then, maybe that would give her reason to walk away from Quantico alto­gether, to rejoin Jim Parry in Hawaii...

  “You get me through to this fellow in London, and I’ll release the damned police sketch. But it goes first to the Herald.”

  “Other law enforcement agencies throughout the state, up and down the coast, first,” he countered.

  “That’s been done already.”

  “No... no, it hasn’t, I’m afraid.”

  “What? Damn...” Jessica now saw with certainty that Eriq Santiva would continue in his conservative approach to catching the killer. “The Herald first.” She stood firm.

&
nbsp; Coudriet read her face. He realized that she was stepping out onto a shaky limb. “All right; done.”

  “Let’s get to work then.”

  •TWELVE •

  The pure and simple truth is rarely pure and never simple.

  —Oscar Wildf.

  An hour later, all was accomplished—or demolished; it all depended on how one looked at it, Jessica thought. While Eriq was busy appeasing the big boys, she had taken the dangerous step of crossing him and whatever superiors he was presently kowtowing to.

  To hell with it, she recklessly told herself, a part of her secretly hoping to get into enough trouble to stir the pot. If she was blackballed, if her reputation was besmirched by a healthy bit of insubordination, then perhaps she could trade in her “celebrity” status in FBI circles for a com­monplace job in the agency where she might work in a lab twenty-four hours a day, to never come out to hunt another human monster again. She’d be perfectly happy to do so. Who needed the kind of stress she’d been working under for the past five years? And perhaps a move to Hawaii then would not be out of the question... Now she said aloud, “To hell with it.”

  “What’s that?” asked Coudriet, still in an unusually up­beat mood, like a kid pulling a high school prank and en­joying the exquisite moment in which his plan comes together.

  “Nothing... never mind,” she replied.

  “You know you’ve made the right choice; you’re doing the right thing here,” he told her. He was about to shut down his E-mail when a message for Jessica came over. “Something for you here... from London... that fel­low Moyler.”

  Nigel Moyler said that he was sending a fax over, a de­scription and police sketch of the man who had terrorized the White Chapel District for four years only to suddenly cease, desist and disappear last year.

  “It should be coming over your fax there any moment now. Sorry it took so long to get back to you there. Took some time to locate the file. It had gone to our dead file office. But now here it comes, and I daresay you will find it of peculiar interest.” He signed off as Insp. Moy., Scotyd.

  The fax machine began a staccato chorus of cranks, churns and beeps, the paper crawling ahead like an inch- worm, too slow for Jessica’s patience. “Come on... come on,” she nursed it along before ripping it out.

  The likeness was remarkable, stunning and stark.

  “Send Moyler a message. Tell him we are ninety-nine percent sure that his man is here. Ask him to find out what he can about a Patric Allain over there. Anything on file— police record, prints, anything at all.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Going to find Santiva, tell him what I’ve done and in­form him that this bloody case has greater jurisdictional boundaries than he imagined.”

  “Yeah, right.” Coudrient chuckled lightly. “What’s so funny?”

  “Santiva... He may just want to get the Queen of En­gland’s fucking views on the case before he steps on her bleeding toes.”

  “Hey, just a minute, Dr. Coudriet,” she brought him up short. “It’s not Santiva’s fault that your local politicians are more concerned about the blight on their tourist trade than the lives of the victims. Or that only Allison Norris, of all the victims, counts!”

  “What are you saying, Dr. Coran? That it’s hardly so simple as all that?” Coudriet was being facetious now, still on a high.

  “If Eriq hadn’t had his hands tied by others, that elec­tronic wanted poster we just sent would’ve gone out twenty-four hours ago.”

  “You think for a moment that he’s going to place the safety of prospective victims of this madman ahead of his own ambitions? Think again. I used to be him. I know. It comes with the territory.”

  “That’s not Eriq.”

  “Power seeks out power, corrupts the soul and—”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Doctor, so please be silent!” She stormed from the laboratory offices and took the elevator to the top floor, where she got out, located a stairwell and climbed to the roof. There she breathed in the night air and stared into the blinking eyes of the black firmament overhead. She felt tears welling up—tears for the victims, their families, Judy Templar, her­self—and she wondered little why she’d so easily and readily sided with first Donna LeMonte and now Coudriet against Eriq Santiva. Still, she felt a wave of remorse flow over her, and she silently wondered, Why am I being so self-destructive? But neither the stars nor the land or sea or sky gave her reply………..

  Early the Next Day in Coudriet’s Office

  Women all over Miami and the state of Florida were now being more cautious, for the Miami Herald and the six o’clock news had carried Patric Allain’s likeness into the homes of anyone whose newspaper subscription hadn’t lapsed or who owned a TV set. Armed with the knowledge that Allison Norris, Tammy Sue Sheppard, the more re­cently identified Kathy Harmon and others like them were abducted through chicanery and charm at local seaside res­taurants along the Intracoastal Waterway, police officials had stepped up their surveillance of the area and had gone in with a vengeance, questioning bartenders, employees and frequent patrons of such establishments. Jessica Coran had contacted Inspector Nigel Moyler again, only to learn that there was no record of a Patric

  Allain, and that the closest match was an arrest record of a Patricia Allain, an alias for a prostitute whose real name was Madeleine Tauman. She electronically asked Moyler if his killer had used a boat for his deviant operations.

  Moyler’s response came up on the computer screen as “Never any killing ground located; however, it was theo­rized killer used a boat of some sort, yes.”

  Jessica sent a reply immediately: “It’s almost a foregone conclusion here that our killer is using a boat as his killing ground. Please, see what you can learn about Patricia Al­lain. Long shot, but we haven’t much else to go on here.”

  “Right, and good luck. End transmission.”

  The moment she ended the E-mail transmission with Moyler, Eriq Santiva entered Coudriet’s office. Livid, Eriq repeatedly slapped a copy of the Miami Herald into the palm of his hand. ‘ ‘Just who the hell gave you the authority to release this information, Dr. Coran? It’s all over the wire services, on every damned network in the nation now. Are you crazy or just an egoistic—”

  “So shoot me, Eriq.”

  “Don’t tempt me! What were you thinking? I gave you a direct order to stand down on this information until you heard otherwise from me. You know this is going to hurt us both, and you in particular, in Washington.”

  “So I’ll bleed some, but maybe in the interim, we’ve saved a life?”

  “Don’t count on it. Damnit, you might’ve at least con­sulted with me first.”

  “We did consult!”

  “Again then! This going over my head, looks... looks...”

  “I’m sorry if it makes you look bad, Eriq. If it hurts your male ego. That wasn’t my intention.”

  “It makes it appear that we’re at cross-purposes, Doc­tor.”

  “Well, maybe we are.”

  He stared hard at her, fighting to control his emotions, gripping at the back of a chair, his knuckles white against his Latin skin. “Appearances are important, Jessica. You know that, I know that. I asked for a day, a lousy day, and you stab me in the back?”

  “Damnit, Eriq, it isn’t about you; it isn’t about me. It’s about the truth and the out there”—she pointed to the win­dows—”remember? Remember our obligation to the truth, and to people outside these walls?”

  “Nice sentiments, Jess, but—”

  “—And it’s about saving lives,” she continued without a blink, her hands raised to him. “Besides, you led me to believe that the composite would at the very least go out to authorities up and down the coast.”

  “Save your crusading, Doctor. We both know this will likely send our man into hiding, possibly never to be seen again.”

  “We don’t know that, and I don’t believe it—not this guy. He’s too interested in com
municating with us, and he’s out of control.”

  “You don’t know what’s going on in this madman’s brain; you can’t know it. You’re not psychic and you’re not inside his head, Jess.”

  “I know he’s still got two more verses to write.”

  “What?” Santiva was incredulous.

  “The e. j. hellering poem; he’ll have to complete it. He’ll contact us again, and he’ll go on killing.”

  “So, now you do believe you’re capable of reading his mind?”

  “Maybe... maybe...”

  Santiva’s pride had obviously been badly bruised, but he was fighting to keep his calm and rational exterior intact. To this end, he now paced like a caged lion back and forth, holding his grinding teeth tightly together. Jessica appre­ciated this great effort.

  To keep him focused, she began telling him what was in her mind. “I’ve struggled to hold up a mirror to this ma­niacal killer, to see him at close range, to understand him, as I’ve understood other monsters I’ve had to cope with over the years, and believe me, doing so is no simple or easy task. In fact, it costs me a great deal of sleep. Makes a person no longer at ease with herself to think like this creature, but it’s the only damned way I know to catch such a monster. You’ve got to go through the looking glass.”

  “And so... what does your mirror tell you?”

  “It’s cracked, spiderwebbed, difficult to see through, but if you want proof we’re on to the right man, take a look at this.” She held up the faxed copy of the sketch that Moyler had forwarded. “I faxed what we have to Scotland Yard. You’ll want to see what their response has been.”

  She now laid out all that Inspector Nigel Moyler had shared with her.

  “Coincidence, maybe? Most likely?” he wondered aloud as his eyes played over the information.

  “A big coincidence, if you’re asking me. Look, Eriq, if it’s the same killer—”

  “Big if. To go along with your big coincidence. Crap like this happens in the movies, on TV, in novels, Jess, but like this, laying it all right in our laps? Hardly likely.”