Grave Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  Jessica studied the report J.T. held out. “Location is right. Could be him driving a freshly painted van since this involves a body shop. Do we have anyone to ID the killer?”

  “Negative. Witness only saw the van peeling off, headed toward New Orleans. Word is, the guy just executed these two—bullet to the back of each head.”

  “May be our guy, maybe not. He's got to be feeling us on his heels. Look at this.” She extended the computer's hits from the keywords she'd asked for earlier. “Sixty matches.”

  “Wow, that many doctors on a violent-crime list and on civilian tips at the same time? That's kind of scary.”

  “Wonder how many visited Cahil's chat room? Damned AOC gets their way, we may never know.”

  “Eriq's back at the courthouse now, trying to get us what we want,” J.T. assured her. Jessica turned to the computer aide. “Bring up any photos we have of our gallery of rogue doctors and butchers— see if we find any Sweeny Todds. I want to see if any of them vaguely resemble the work of the two sketch artists in Fayetteville and Mobile.”

  “All sixty of them?” Dana Morrill looked at her watch. It read 5:47 P.M.

  THEY worked throughout the evening hours on Jessica's notion, but in every case the level of violence was ruled as entirely out of keeping with the violence done victims of the Skull-digger. Still, since there were two-way match-ups between “doctors” and “butchers,” each conceivably possessing the tools and skills to remove a human brain, Jessica dispatched the information to respective field offices to investigate these doctors.

  One agent complained, “We're already canvassing a list you gave us that's three times as long.”

  “Drop the long list. Use the short list for now. They've been identified as doctors and butchers taken from the long list. One of them might be the Skull-digger.” One of them might be the Seeker, she thought.

  “So, the man being detained is not the Digger?” asked an agent in New Orleans.

  “Jesus. That's for the press. Official thinking, right now, is what you're pursuing, Agent.”

  “Damn, and we thought it was over,” replied the field agent. “You know, a little more cooperation and information sharing, and a little please and thank-you, Dr. Coran, might help.”

  “Yeah, please and thanks.” Jessica's level of frustration felt at an all-time high. She feared that anytime now the Digger would strike again, and still no one knew his identity or whereabouts.

  She called Eriq on his cell phone. No answer. She tried again. When he finally came on, he said he'd had to leave the courtroom to take the call.

  “How's it going with FBI vs. AOC?” she asked.

  “We're going to win this thing, but they're putting up a stubborn fight.”

  “We suspect the real Digger is in and around New Or-leans with a newly painted van. Dark green in color. I believe we should put New Orleans on a heightened-alert status.”

  “How sure are you, Jess?”

  “Fairly sure.”

  “Then consider it done.”

  “And how soon are we going to win the order against AOC?”

  “Like I said, still in the pipeline, but I think it's finally going our way.”

  She replied, “Something has to.”

  TWELVE

  I will make you shorter by the head.

  —QUEEN ELIZABETH I

  Down town New Orleans 9:20 P.M.

  OFFICERS Tony Labruto and Collin Doyle sat idling in their cruiser at Plymouth and Juniper, drinking coffee and eating burgers for their late dinner, when the FBI dispatch came over the radio. They had heard the news once before, at the debriefing before going out onto the streets of New Orleans. Labruto had even joked about it earlier. “Be on the look out for a newly painted dark green van. And, get this, license plate unknown—with a suspicious-looking character in the driver's seat. Suspected of killing two people in Hardscrabble, Mississippi. Oh, and suspect may possibly be the Skull-digger, but the people killed in Hardscrabble didn't lose their brains and were shot with a .38 millimeter.”

  “What more do you need to go on, Tony?”

  “Oh, nothing I s'pose.”

  The cab filled with the crackle of the police radio, a pleasant feminine dispatcher's voice calling out a ten-10, disturbance at a downtown address, skirting Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. Something to do with a fight between two men over a woman. “Hi-ho, Dispatch, this is Unit 112. We're on it,” said Labruto into the mic.

  “So much for dinner.” Doyle moaned. “Hit it.”

  The lights began to spin and the siren wailed as the cruiser sped for the nearby destination. Labruto thought of his six years in New Orleans. He felt it was the finest force he had ever worked with, barring the military unit he had belonged to during Desert Storm. He liked New Orleans, the home of Cajun passions, great food, Mardi Gras, jazz and the Saints. The city had a throbbing fascination with life and lust, which suited the single cop just fine.

  Doyle, on the other hand, was a family man with several children, and he missed his native home, Chicago. He was continually going on about being stuck in New Orleans. He had come here for higher rank and pay. Tony liked Collin's sense of humor and his skill with a gun, but he'd grown weary of the man's constant comparisons of how much better life in Chicago was than in New Orleans. He exaggerated his idyllic Back-of-the-Yards community and home and how wonderful everything in Chicago had been, from the food to his beloved Blackhawks, Bears, and the White Sox ad nauseam. Still, they managed to get along, and even visited the firing range together, where they competed with each shot.

  As they barreled toward the scene of the incident, siren and lights roaring, Tony complained, “The city ought not to have moved Precinct Ten out of the French Quarter. We needed that presence there at all times, not just in peak seasons.”

  “You'll get no argument here,” agreed Doyle. “Can't figure NOPD sometimes. Not like you can the Chicago police force. Even if you dislike a decision, you still understand it there, even if it is crooked politics behind it.” As Labruto approached the intersection where he intended to turn, a large van came around a corner. Taking it wide, the man's headlights and grill came face-to-face with the squad car, heading straight for them.

  “Son of a bitch!” shouted Doyle.

  Labruto held his breath and stirred. The weaving, shambling van, dark green in color, its headlights waving like two madmen with flashlights, almost rammed them. But at the last minute, it pulled right to Tony's pulling left. The two vehicles missed each other by inches, and Labruto joked, “Did you feel that, partner? Missed by an eye lash!”

  “That was a green van, Tony!”

  “Did you hear the metal constrict on my side? I didn't miss that guy, our unit dodged that last hair all on its own.”

  “No, Tony, that wasn't the car metal constricting to avoid a hit. The noise you heard was my stomach dodging the rest of my organs to jump out my goddamn mouth. Nothing supernatural about it.”

  “Same unit that saved my life three years ago, in that shootout at Nelson's Boat works.”

  “Have it your way, but right now, tell me just what the hell was that flying by us?”

  Dispatch came back on, calling out, “Ten-10 now a possible kidnapping. Perpetrator is on the move, heading east on Grandview, away from the Quarter in a van, no plate ID.”

  “Kidnapping?” asked Doyle, now on the radio. “Dispatch, this is 112. Does the kidnapping involve a green van?”

  “Man on the line says yes. The vehicle is a Chrysler, dark green, possibly a '96 or '97 model.” The dispatch officer added, “Be advised 112. The perp has a hostage and is considered to be violent, possibly armed.”

  Doyle reminded Labruto, “Remember the alert put out on the Skull-digger being in a dark green van?”

  “Course I do. You think it could be the guy the FBI's after?”

  “It’d make us heroes. Turn this can around.”

  Labruto called in their location and added, “We've made visual with the van.
We're in pursuit. Request backup.” He added for Doyle, “We'll just see what this car can do.”

  Labruto violently twisted the wheel, turning the squad car completely around, sending up a scream of burning rubber to give chase, but as they sped up, they could see nothing. The pachyderm of a van had disappeared.

  They peered down side streets as they slowed, searching for anything that resembled their prey, but it was gone. They cruised slowly for several more blocks. “How can he just disappear like that?” asked Doyle, a growing frustration coming over him.

  They continued on in silence until Labruto asked, “What the fuck?”

  Labruto finally said, “He's got to be heading for a safe location.”

  “No cheap hotels around here except for the Plaza.”

  “If he is the Digger, he's going to kill her in the van. Isn't that the word on the guy? How he operates?”

  “That's right.”

  “Then he'll be looking for a remote location to dump the body.”

  “Old Harbor walkway, along the Miss. That's the closest deserted rat hole I can think of.”

  Turning off the siren and the overhead lights, Labruto eased the car around and headed back toward the river and where they had lost the van down any number of small streets and alleyways. New Orleans was dotted with small arteries, most one-way. The guy in the van could have turned down any one of them, but aside from a few vacant lots and construction sites, the broken-down Old Harbor walkway was a good guess.

  They drove through the once-thriving business area, now a den of ghost saloons for long-gone and long-dead bikers. Isolated like an island amid the city palaces and pinnacles around it, the old place bordered an access street to the interstate. If the van had slipped onto the interstate, there would be no catching him without the help of the highway patrol, but they had no license plate number.

  “Can't believe we lost the fucker,” said Labruto.

  “The interstate would be the smartest move for the guy,” replied Doyle, pointing to a sign that led to the exchange.

  “Who said the creep was smart?”

  “If it's this brain whack-job, then he's evaded officials in what, six states already?”

  Scanning ahead as they neared the interstate, they saw no one on-ramping in the grim area.

  “Take the ramp! Take the ramp!” shouted Doyle.

  Labruto instead pulled beneath the interstate, winding through a bevy of pylons with bridge overpasses high above, following the ancient, cracked blacktop to its end, and onto a pitted, weedy path toward the river and the old warehouse district and the wharves. Doyle, realizing that Labruto was familiar with the area, lightly joked, “So, this is where you take your dates?”

  “Area's too creepy now, but yeah, in the old days.”

  A light silver drizzle dappled the windshield. Lights off, the cruiser rolled almost silently toward its destination, both men squinting in the darkness for their prey.

  SELESE Montoya felt cold and clammy, her skin bristling, and she could not think straight. She felt helplessly tossed about like an object inside a bottle, but she felt no pain, only a dull ache against her left wrist. She felt disoriented, confused. What is it? she wondered. Something to do with her head, she imagined. Yes, her head, which felt like a spongy dull pumpkin. And while, from time to time, she felt a cold, weighted piece of steel against her left wrist and she heard the sound of a chain rattling, she did not connect it to the tug on her left wrist. Instead, she tried to think clearly about who she was and where she was and what had happened to her.

  Her eyes—as if independent of her will—blinked, opening and closing on images passing the windshield. Images that went from dark to light, reflecting signs, telephone poles, bridges, buildings and an array of wide, staring windows.

  “I wanna go home.” She moaned, unsure if her words had traveled any distance beyond her tongue. In fact, the words seemed imprisoned in her head.

  She only recalled having said good night to her employer at Farley's Whiskey Hole and walking out of the bar where she kept the records. She didn't serve or hustle drinks, not even from behind the bar; she didn't sell anything. She didn't sing in the band, and she didn't do floor shows. She maintained her own hours, working when she wanted on Farley's books, and she pet the cat from time to time.

  She had plans to save enough money to move to California, tired of New Orleans and its tourists-crowded streets. In California, she meant to find a quiet place to live, far from any crowds.

  She was alone and glad of it. Carl had proven a great disappointment in the end, and she hadn't any desire to get involved with another man, so she had kept herself immune to any overtures men made toward her. Ironically, since she had sworn off the opposite sex, they turned up everywhere. Farley had waved good night to her from the bar, and a few of the regular stiffs shouted her name as she left. She had a small dog at home to see to. Maybe she'd pick up a treat for him on the way, along with her much-needed cigarettes and gum. That's right. I was on my way home when something happened.

  As she'd walked the familiar streets of the French Quarter, going toward the quieter apartment area to the north, she ran through her mind for anything else she might need at the little corner store near her house. She also thought about her sister in Texas who should be having that baby soon, her third. Selese wondered if she would ever have kids. She wanted to, but not now. Not the way things were.

  Her mind had wandered. She needed to concentrate on the grocery store. Something had happened at the grocery store. But she didn't know what had happened. Her senses were not communicating with her. A broom flashed back and forth in her mind's unfocused eye. Something to do with a fight, and she had been in the midst of it. How unlikely. It had to be the rantings of her dream state.

  Then she saw the broom flash across her mind's eye again, but it faded with every thought, as she settled into a blank, featureless sleep of nots: not hearing the siren behind them anymore, not feeling any tug on her wrist anymore and not feeling the pounding of the van as it yo-yoed into narrow spaces. Not caring who sat alongside her, not understanding the depth of her own terror as the death van bumped and maneuvered over potholes.

  GRANT still had the young woman secured in the back of the van where he had parked it behind and between dilapidated old buildings along a weed-infested backwater section of the Mississippi in the center of New Orleans. A large, verdant levy loomed over the van like a giant, sleeping dragon. He could hear boat whistles blaring in the near distance.

  It had been a close encounter with authorities, too close. He thought them still in hot pursuit when he approached the interstate ramp. He had two ways to go, the interstate or the old wharf area. If they'd picked up the plate on his van, he could be spotted by other radio cars. If he drove into the backstreet area along the wharf, he would be dead-ended. It was a gamble either way. He stared ahead at the interstate ramp, but instead of taking it, he tore into the remote area that he had planned to use all along.

  Things had become quiet after that. The siren that had been chasing him was silent now. He felt relatively safe that he had outfoxed his pursuers. Still, he sat for some time, listening to his drugged victim's heavy breathing, and staring out his rearview. Deciding that no one was following, he felt reasonably safe to continue with his work.

  When he had first arrived in New Orleans, he had hoped to meet with a woman named Franklin, one of the contacts he'd made on the Internet, but Saundra Franklin, aka Sweet-touch had moved out, according to the landlord. Frustrated, Grant had begun cruising the old lamp-lit, famous French Quarter for a victim. When he saw the young woman who stepped from a Bourbon Street bar alone, he pulled into a side-street parking space and made his way on foot beneath the city lights to a corner store she had stepped into. Inside, he arranged to inch up to her side, and he whispered in her ear, “Hello there. My name's Phillip. I'm a professional photographer.”

  “Is that supposed to interest me?”

  “She's perfect,” Phill
ip said deep within Grant. “We must have her.” I take shots for a new magazine called Slinky.” He sported an expensive camera about his neck, a ruse he'd successfully used before. He handed her a card specifically created for such occasions.

  “Slinky? Never heard of it, but the name sounds appropriate for you. What is it? Another Viagra-endorsed male hormone magazine? Is that supposed to interest me?”

  “When I see a beautiful woman”—he tipped his Nikon at her—”naturally I think she must know the best local hot spots. That's what I'd like to photograph, the best local hot spots—and you, of course.”

  “I'm not interested, and I'm not that beautiful.”

  “Oh, but you are beautiful.”

  “You men. Do you really think lying is a turn on?”

  “Look, I'd pay you well.”

  “I have a job.”

  “Working for minimum wage?”

  “That's none of your business.”

  “Look, I'm new in the city and—”

  “Do you ever need a new line.”

  “—and I don't know where to begin to find someone to show me around, to party, you know? I can see you know your way around.” He dared not tell her he'd been watching her since she stepped out of the bar on Bourbon Street.

  “I am not that someone,” she firmly told him.

  “Of course, as I said, I can pay you well.”

  She hesitated a moment. “So you said, but I am not interested.” She was interested, if the pay helped her get out of New Orleans, but she didn't want him to think her over-eager.

  “When I say party, I mean with some good stuff, sweetheart.”

  “Oh? Really?” She showed a moment's interest, purchased her things, conversed with the grocer who had been staring at the two of them, listening to their talk.