Darkest Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  Eriq finally arrived in an unmarked police car, in the company of Samernow and Quincey, the small crowd making Don Lansing even more nervous about his decision than before, Jessica realizing how like Mafia types the two burly Miami cops and the tall, stolid Santiva appeared. Jessica caught the others outside, out of Don’s earshot, explaining that the only way she could get a flight out was to con this guy into thinking they were running from the law, so she told Quincey and Samernow to get a chopper from the police hangars as soon as the fog lifted and the storm had passed and to take it on a course west along the coast as insurance. She asked Eriq to go along with her, follow her lead, and to pretend that he was a Cuban nationalist trying desperately to get out of the country.

  “You play Bogey?” she asked, the wind now whipping her jacket about her.

  His tie flagged across his forehead and eyes. “I’ll do my best, shh-weet-heart.”

  “Do you have Captain Anderson’s notes and map?”

  “I do, but I don’t know how helpful it’s going to be.”

  She took hold of the route the killer might take if he were to leave Tampa straight for the Caymans. “Okay, let’s get airborne.”

  Lansing was already on the radio to the tower, explaining that there was an emergency need to take off. They weren’t buying it, from the sound of things. Jessica laid Captain Anderson’s projected route before Lansing. Lansing told the tower he’d be back in touch with them, then stared at the proposed flight plan.

  “You said you wanted to go due east. This is south.”

  “Southeast,” she split hairs.

  “That’s a lot of miles in storm conditions.”

  “Don, it’s important we follow this path as closely as possible.”

  “No way we’re going through the Straits of Mexico, not in the given weather pattern. It’d be safer and simpler to go direct for the east coast and south from there, and maybe even a layover in Miami to refuel...”

  Lansing desperately attempted to ignore Eriq Santiva, and he did well, save for the out-the-corner-of-his-eye sus­picious looks. Jessica took Don aside to reason with him while Eriq continued the silent, stony role he’d fallen into, his inscrutable Cuban features befitting the situation.

  “It’s important we get out over international waters as soon as possible,” she told Don.

  He nodded as if he actually understood. “All right... all right. Get your friend out to the airplane, and we’ll be on our way.”

  She went to Eriq and when she turned around, Don was already out the door and on the airfield. When they stepped out, they saw that Don was doing a preflight check of the plane, and he shouted over the wind for them to get aboard. Obviously, Don had made up his mind.

  The wind pummeled the airfield and the people on it. Eriq was pushed into the plane. Jessica’s coat did a wild flap dance about her body as the wind lashed out at her and the small plane, creating a shiver in the aircraft. The skies were just lightening up but remained a gunmetal gray all the same, painted and smeared with the ominous hues of storm clouds preparing to burst. But at the moment there seemed a fortuitous lull in the precipitation. Looking out over the grass, the taxi strip and the small runway now, Jessica saw how slick everything was. But she was determined to go ahead with her plans, climb­ing into the cockpit after Eriq, who’d opted for the back­seat.

  Once inside the plane, Don asked, “What am I going to tell the tower? I take off without talking to them, my butt’s in a sling when I get back here.”

  “But you did talk to them, inside, earlier...” shouted Jessica over the wind. “And they didn’t like it; told us to stay put,” he coun­tered. “Radio them it’s a police emergency,” Jessica countered his counter.

  “They’re going to want to know more than that.”

  “Tell ‘em it’s got to do wid dat, ahh, ahh, whataya-callit case. Dat, uhhhh...” began Eriq, in rare form.

  “The Night Crawler thing?”

  “Right... dat’s it, kid. Tell ‘em dat.”

  “Suppose they want to talk to one of the policemen?”

  “Tell them we’re FBI,” said Jessica. “And if they want to talk to me, tell them I’m Agent Coran and this is Agent John Thorpe...”

  “Thorpe; FBI?” He looked Eriq over as if he hadn’t seen him before. “You think they’re going to believe that?”

  “We’ll give them badge numbers if they ask,” she re­plied. “Let’s get out of here, now.”

  “Roger that...”

  Don had gone sullen on her, and his new somberness had begun the moment Santiva had entered the picture, Jes­sica believed. He no doubt had originally accepted her offer in the comfortable male fantasy that a woman alone, a woman like her—vulnerable and in need—could prove to be fun and “rewarding” in every sense of the word to take on as his lone passenger to a Caribbean paradise; that they’d fly off and into a romantic adventure together, a la Romancing the Stone or some such thing.

  The tower, on hearing their FBI numbers read, had no trouble allowing Lansing to take off, but the dispatcher did so with caution heaped upon caution. And the takeoff itself proved to be like rushing into a blinding wall. Unable to see ahead of them, Lansing did a marvelous job of getting airborne in the dense fog.

  Jessica, in the copilot’s position gasped when the plane smashed against the mountain of cloud they were under. With Jessica clutching at her copilot seat and Eriq tucked into the rear, the little plane was buffeted about like a toy in a wind tunnel once lift was reached. With the rush of noise and the engine so near, Jessica saw—rather than heard—Don muttering to himself, likely kicking himself for taking on this job. Only when she placed on the head­phone set could she hear him cursing himself.

  The sky was lighter now, but this was of little comfort. They were still flying blind into an unpredictable wind shear. Still, they rose higher, trying to escape the thermals and the fog, the bumps, grinds and whips, when suddenly they were above the enormous pillow of clouds-—popping free like a bird escaping a cage, flying directly into the brilliant sun, a welcome sign even if it, too, was blinding.

  Lansing leveled the plane out, its roar like a cat’s purr in the infinity of sky, and in a moment the compass indi­cated their heading as due south. They would follow along the western coast of the Sunshine State; only today, there was neither sunshine nor view below them, only above.

  Jessica wondered at the killer’s luck. With this kind of cloud cover, how were they going to go in low over sus­picious boats? How could they possibly ID the suspect sail­ing ship even now, armed with Ken Stallings’s description? Furthermore, the winds would have given the sailing vessel full power to skim over the water. And Allain had six hours on them.

  Eriq seemed settled for the moment in the rear seat, having steadied his nerves after the bumpy takeoff. He ap­peared beat, so dead tired in fact that when Jessica glanced again at him, his eyes were closed. She prayed he hadn’t overdosed on Dramamine. With Lansing beside her, they filled the little cockpit from top to bottom. He seemed a capable pilot. She had given little thought to his skills or possible lack thereof before now, but he’d handled the thermals and the wind well, appearing a capable master of the air. She felt somewhat guilty at having duped the young man. Now that they were airborne, she wondered how much of the lies had been absolutely necessary to get them here. It now seemed foolish to have run such a charade on Lansing to get what she wanted, but telling him the truth now could mean a 180-degree turnaround and a return to the ground—and to hell with that, Jessica quietly told herself, keeping silent counsel as the plane soared southward toward the emerald Caribbean Sea.

  •TWENTY

  -I have eaten your bread and salt. / have drunk your water and wine. The deaths ye died I have watched beside And the lives ye led were mine.

  —Rudyard Kipling

  The wind itself—sometimes called Satan’s leash dog- seemed now to Warren Tauman his ally in escape, for it had risen with the saving fog that masked his escape to now send
him at twice and thrice the speed he would have been making without its help. He needed to conserve on fuel. It was a long trip to where he was going, and he knew his route was at best a circuitous one, no beelines since Cuba lay in his path. Although he felt certain that he had all the time in the world to get to where he was going, since no one knew his plans or his destination, he wished to be out of American waters, and he wished to start over elsewhere, even as he meant to convince the authorities anxious to see him dead that he remained in Florida. He had a plan for that, too. He had paid well to have a final letter delivered to the press. This one would be sent to Florida’s panhandle to throw police and FBI off his trail. When news that the Pensacola Democrat had received an­other letter from the Night Crawler, everyone would scurry to that location, thinking he was headed west along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

  Still, the incident in Tampa had frightened him, and it had put his mind to work. He must do what was necessary, if he were ever to get Mother back, to control her. He probably needed to cut his losses for a while, and he’d done just that. To keep the Tampa area cops on hold, he’d cut loose the dead girl who had been dangling off the aft side. With a body bobbing about in the water during their search, the cops would focus more on it and less on him.

  They could send out all the radar equipment in the world against him in that fog, and with his ship’s built-in radar scrambler, he could just bounce signals right back at them. The authorities had only proven once again how inept and inadequate they truly were.

  He’d heard news reports of how an FBI forensics expert had been put on his trail, how she was supposedly the best in the land; he’d seen the tabloids in supermarkets which claimed that in their frustration, authorities had turned to such nonsense as psychics and handwriting analysis to track him. If that was the best they could do...

  The wind continued at his back even as he neared the northwest tip of Cuba off in the distance. Southward, a hundred miles south of Cuba to be exact, he would come into sight of the Caymans. He’d come through the roughest of the storm, which had moved northward as he had ma­neuvered along the backlash at its southeastern edge to turn into his now southwest course. And with the storm winds around him having abated, Warren switched on the two-diesel engines which powered the boat onward. He turned on the autopilot and finally had a moment’s time to relax. The odor of diesel wafted across the water, but due to a state-of-the-art air filtration system in the cabin below, the odor did not linger as in most sailing vessels.

  He went below, relieved himself in the head, located a beer in the fridge, and although he wanted to lie down, rest, there was too much yet to do. He wished now that he’d kept the body he had forfeited during those first moments of de­cision after killing those two nosy FMP officers. It would have given him pleasure to pass the time with her body now. Still, he knew it had been wise to cut all his losses.

  The speargun killings had been a rush. He hadn’t ex­pected it, but it was true—a real rush. Maybe killing people in any way whatsoever was exciting, stimulating, fulfilling for someone like him, he now thought. The sight of the FMP officer’s blood on deck the entire day recalled to his mind the geyser spray of it at the moment the spear had opened a hole in the big man’s chest. Most of the blood had been washed off by rain, but the original blood loss had been tremendous; it had come spurting out across the Tau Cross. He had never cared for the sight of blood, es­pecially his own; it had always made him nauseous, even a little finger cut, but the speargun killing had changed his mind in an instant. There was something extraordinary about punching a hole in a balloon and seeing the air ex­plode, and so too with the human heart.

  He was no fool; after a brief moment of lying on his back, and a bite to eat, he knew, he must scrub down the boat, erase every inch of blood and other evidence that might link him to murder. He seriously doubted that anyone could put him and his destination together, since no one had all the pieces. Still, there was that someone who could place him on the route he had chosen, there was at least one man who knew about his liking for the Cayman Is­lands—that old fool in Key West. But it seemed highly improbable that authorities would learn of his connection with the taxidermist.

  He now planned to take all the materials he had collected to preserve the bodies of his victims for Mother’s reap­pearance and throw them into the sea. It would be difficult to do so, not only because of the physical labor—cleansing the ship of his secret identity, forever altering Tau’s haven and thereby the Night Crawler’s workplace—but because of the momentousness of the decision as well, asking Tau to wait, asking Mother to wait. But there was no hope for it otherwise. Common sense dictated that he find a new ship and a new killing ground.

  He quickly got together a bucket filled with cleaning flu­ids and ammonia, carried this out on deck and scrubbed away any evidence that the FMP officers had ever stepped foot on his boat. Finishing this, he returned to autopilot check at the controls below. Seeing that his ship was on course, he then returned to the scrubbing, but this time he worked the interior cabin. He scrubbed the floor and the walls where stains from previous kills had remained as memory prompters for his fantasies. It was painful to see all his fondest memories disappear before him, vanish with­out a trace, but his sense of self-preservation was strong, so he scrubbed until his hands became raw, until every stain was invisible to the naked eye.

  He planned, once he reached the Caymans, to purchase some marine paint and paint over all these areas as well. As it was, all he had was a partially used, small can of black stenciling paint, and he planned to use it to paint over the name of the boat and rename her, which he’d begun doing last night only moments before hearing the siren and seeing the approaching strobe light of the Florida Marine Patrol boat.

  After a brief respite from the intense work, he got a little sun and sea topside, lying out on deck. He seldom partook of the sun, but he wanted to appear darker-skinned, to ac­centuate the beard he’d begun to grow. Returning to the controls below, Warren next checked his course against the maps he used. He had another job to do which couldn’t wait for tomorrow. He set the ship on her own once more, the two diesels pushing the craft over the glassy surface of the Caribbean easily and smoothly now. Then he went about collecting up all the items aboard that could implicate him as the Night Crawler. He tossed trinkets taken from his victims into a single box. He added to the box as he moved about the cabin, collecting all the skinning knives and loose rope and embalming fluids he’d collected over the months and months since he’d left England. Going now up the stairwell deckside, he went directly to starboard, where he dumped boxful after boxful of incriminating ev­idence, the sea gobbling it all up.

  When he reached the Caymans, Warren planned to sell the boat or trade it in, get a new one, something less of an attention-getter. Then he might more easily fade into the background and out of the light. The light was his enemy, and he normally slept during the day, ill at ease with the brutal sun here, his eyes sometimes so swollen as to be shut, so irritated were they by the wind and sea air. But he needed the tan as part of his new disguise, so he worked shirtless in shorts on deck, looking over what needed doing next.

  Over the side went the recent additions to his chemical col­lection, what the taxidermist shop and the funeral home in Na­ples he’d broken into had profited him, including a huge bottle of what was labeled’ ‘Perma Glow,’’ fluid which was pumped into the dead to preserve the body for the wake, organs intact. He had been mixing chemicals, trying to find the exact right solution, like an alchemist in search of gold. His chemical gold would have to wait until better days. There would come a time; there would be other opportunities.

  With so much daylight left him, he decided to complete the look of innocence he wanted for his ship and himself when he went to sell her. So he worked under the intense sun behind his dark glasses to repaint the registration num­ber on the ship and to give it a new name, using stencils and paintbrush. All of this he did while the ship contin
ued relentlessly forward, no small feat in itself. He first oblit­erated the original registration numbers and the name of the boat. He then taped on the stencils with care, changing the registration numbers, the port of origin of the ship and fi­nally the name. The work took well over an hour and a half. He went to check the con panel from time to time, resetting his course as necessary while he worked. Later on, he’d do the necessary paperwork.

  Once finished with the painting, he tossed the near-empty bucket of paint over the side, got painfully to his feet and made his way below deck again. There, with a cold beer at his side and using his computer, he worked on creating new documents of ownership of the boat. He had purchased an official-looking seal from a street vendor in Cayman which was in fact a seal of government inspection from Grand Cayman, where ships were built. His ship’s registry now was George Town, Grand Cayman Island. He figured he’d have no trouble bartering there.

  Once finished with the serial numbers and the boat name, which was now Smiling Jack, he began again to maniacally scrub away at Manley’s blood, seeing a tint of red, like a twelfth shade of gray, clinging to the deck. Angered by the spot, having to go back for more scrubbing materials, he began to mutter to himself now as he scrubbed anew. “Taught that nigger cop a lesson that he won’t forget. Oh, he’s dead... I guess that he won’t forget in the next life?” He laughed at his own crude, little joke.

  Now he scrubbed and scrubbed at the blood on deck, but the deck was made of a porous material into which the blood had soaked. Oh well, he told himself; fish blood had stained the boat before, and this pinkish-gray hue looked no different.

  He continued to scrub nonetheless, his fingernails break­ing, his hand rubbed raw by the force applied to the brush. “Soap, water, ammonia,” he kept repeating like a mantra, “soap, water, ammonia... best way to a clean the rascal,” he added, recalling one of his mother’s more favored say­ings.