Bitter Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “Man, try to keep a secret in this place.”

  She stepped back to the ledge and stared again at the expanse of the government compound, her eyes falling on the twin towers most people here called home—the Hearth, they'd nicknamed it. She had imagined that once Richard boarded a jet and showed up in Virginia, they would share her apartment for a time and then go house hunting through the pleasant, surrounding val­leys. “We won't speak of marriage,” she'd told him. “We'll cohabit, as they say. Play it by ear, one day at a time.”

  It had all sounded wonderful when they'd made plans. Now she wondered what Richard would think of her work­ing in such close proximity to her former flame, James Parry. Would he have a typical lover's response? Richard seldom did the typical thing. She had told him all about her and James's long-term, long-distance, once successful, and now failed relationship; she'd told him she feared the same would happen with them.

  Richard had seemed so understanding. “I mean to love you as you are, Jess, with all that has gone into creating Jessica Coran up to this moment. My own prior experi­ences and experiments have been equally dismal.” He had then kissed her tenderly and warned that her only compe­tition for his time would be his children.

  Working again with James could seriously endanger her wonderful relationship with Richard. Working a case with Parry—just entertaining the possibility of it seemed dan­gerous. Still, a side of her felt a surge of anger at anyone who might stand in the way of her doing her job. “Well, Jess? What do you say? We'll need to give them an answer before long. Mull it over; get back to me as soon as you can.”

  “I'll certainly give it serious thought, Eriq.”

  “Look, I can't do a damn thing about Parry, but you've wanted to work with Kim again for a long time. You two made one hell of a team in New Orleans, and her psychic abilities might be of great use in Philadelphia. So... please consider all sides and let me know by ten p.m.”— he glanced at his watch—”eleven at the latest. Other­wise, John Thorpe can take this one. He did a line job on the Tattoo Man case; call it typecasting, if you will. In any event, the team we put together has to be in Philly by nine a.m. tomorrow.”

  “Give me a little time to think this one through.”

  “Sure... sure. I'll line up JT as an alternate, just in case.”

  She nodded and he rushed off, a thousand and one other duties awaiting his attention. Once Eriq had gone, she stood alone again with her thoughts, but now those thoughts came in a confused scramble. “James Parry in trouble with the Hawaiian Nationalist Party and the State Department again. It figures,” she said to the wind. She clearly recalled how he had covered up an illegal search and seizure on an island reservation where the Bureau had no jurisdiction. It had taken some time, but their indiscre­tion and subsequent cover-up appeared to have come home to roost. She wondered when and if she, like Parry, would face serious reprimands from the Bureau. Or had James been the shining knight and gentleman to the end, taking all the heat for her as well as himself? Not so admirable to be removed from a job as the Hawaii FBI chief to Philly's chief's job, but quite ad­mirable to defend her honor and position... 1/he had... It appeared obvious that no one in either the State Depart­ment or the Bureau suspected her yet of any wrongdoing in Hawaii. If so, there would be no teaming of her and Parry in Philadelphia. That much seemed certain. Had Parry kept her from harm's way, and had fallout from their actions cost him his position? Why had it taken the State Department so long to find the truth behind the Lopaka Kowona case and its aftermath? Breaking a State Depart­ment treaty was no small matter. Had that day and the sub­sequent lie that she'd shared with Parry come back to haunt her?

  It had been the first and only time she had ever hidden the truth on an autopsy protocol, but it had been the only choice left her and Parry, and under the circumstances, the island politicians having trumped them, it had kept peace between the races. At the time, a race war felt as imminent as the next island storm. She and Parry stood on the front line, on the storm's edge. Now it appeared as if Parry had been engulfed by the persistent political problems in the islands, and perhaps someone who knew his darkest secret had leaked information to the State Department.

  Then again, knowing Jim's penchant for rushing in where angels feared to tread, perhaps he had brought down some new shower of complaints over himself. Perhaps his transfer had nothing whatever to do with her. Only one person could tell her the specifics of Jim's problem with the Bureau's high-muck-a-mucks in Hawaii...

  Either way, hardly reason to go to Philadelphia to work alongside Jim Parry, a man who found it impossible to play by Bureau rules. She had done her own share of rule break­ing over the years, but in bringing down the Trade Winds Killer together, they had broken every rule in the book. The only saving grace? They had gotten results.

  Yes, she concluded, she wanted nothing to do with Jim, and by extension, nothing to do with the Philly case. End of story.

  Eriq Santiva could just send someone else. John Thorpe would do just fine. Philadelphia would have to survive without Jessica Coran's profiling expertise and skill with a scalpel.

  Besides, she didn't like the sound of being a third-string liaison for anyone, much less James Parry. She had gotten every one of her scars the hard way. This was no time to play second banana to the likes of James Parry.

  Jessica lay stretched out on her beige leather sofa, lis­tening to Bach on her CD player, toying with the tele­phone, sipping at a glass of freshly uncorked Merlot, and wondering if she should call Richard Sharpe. The wine had mellowed her out, and she knew she could not dis­miss a case simply on the basis of a whim. Still, before deciding to work again with James Parry, she wanted to discuss the awkward circumstances with Richard. But she hadn't told Richard about how she and Parry falsi­fied records to put an end to the unrest in Hawaii. How much of the unsavory affair could she—should she confide in him? What would he think of her falsifying an autopsy protocol, even if it were for the best of reasons? The road to hell is paved with good intentions: she toasted to the old saying, draining her glass, then won­dered aloud, “Is a lie a lie if it is told to keep... to keep what? The peace?” She had not even confided this secret to John Thorpe. She stood and paced the room, phone in hand.

  If Parry had been professionally “flogged” because these facts had come to light, then she, too, might soon be facing the Bureau's wrath, which would affect not only her but also Richard Sharpe, John Thorpe, Kim Desinor, and other close friends as well.

  The sounds of Bach's “Well-Tempered Clavier” wafted through the apartment, and she stepped out onto her bal­cony, still holding the phone. Perhaps I'm making too much of the whole damned thing, she told herself.

  Still, she owed Richard the truth. After all, he had granted her the courtesy of a phone call when he decided to continue with a case in London. Sure, he had already de­cided before making the call, but at least he had been man enough to lay his cards on the table.

  She had to call him, one part of her brain sternly ad­monished her. “Or I might simply refuse the case,” she said aloud to the night sky. She paced back into the living room, relief washing over her at having decided to remain in Quantico. Someone had to nail Lawrence Hampton's cof­fin shut for what he had done to Adinatella. Sure, Hamp­ton was the murderer, but his guilt remained to be proven beyond a doubt. Besides, what was so damnably important about Philadelphia's problem? Screw it. She'd tell San­tiva—in a nice way—where he could stick it. “That's cer­tainly an option,” she announced to the empty room.

  Jessica felt greatly relieved at having come to a decision on her own, without Richard. After all, he certainly did not call her every time he made a decision about a case in Lon­don.

  She didn't know when she had fallen asleep on her plush couch rather than in bed. Still, her sleep was dis­turbed by a recurrent dream she'd had since childhood. In the dream, Jessica saw herself lying in a strange, garishly futuristic room; alongside her lay a little boy—or was it a girl? The chi
ld was wailing. This place felt cold and damp, and Jessica felt the depth of the child's fear. Together, they found themselves huddling within an impossible maze, a labyrinth from which no escape seemed possible, no matter the direction taken. They found every avenue blocked by a force which, while invisible and outwardly benign, was impossible to .overcome.

  Then something new insinuated itself into the familiar dream of frustrated efforts. Jessica's back began to bum, as if she'd been branded. As if her back had been set afire. Part of her psyche chalked it up to the photos Santiva had shared with her. Still, the nightmare had a singular reality and urgency about it as the maze widened to reveal itself as Philadelphia. In her dream, someone was writing out her life in poetic lines across her back. This shadow figure had a gentle touch and an airy presence, as if the child she'd hoped to free from the maze had metamorphosed into a killer. The childlike being gleefully used an ancient pen that dug deep into flesh. Jessica could not make out the poetry etched into her flesh, but remorse and old regrets she thought long ago put to rest became wormlike letters that dug and bur­rowed into her now.

  THREE

  The world is a perpetual caricature of itself; at every moment it is the mockery and the contra­diction of what it is pretending to be.

  —Charles Dickens

  Jessica had had such dreams since earliest childhood, and a stint with Dr. Donna Lemonte had helped her to deal with the dreaded feelings of entrapment, near escape, and failure represented in the dreams. While the setting changed from dream to dream, the goal and the outcome always remained the same: escape attempt fails. Once the maze proved to be a concentration camp; another time it was a children's camp by a lake; another it was an opulent mansion yet a prison nonetheless, in which a trapped little boy/girl ran in circles, attempting to escape. Jessica would then appear from out of nowhere, like a guardian angel, assuring the little one that s/he had nothing to fear, that there was a way out, and that the adult knew how to find it. All the child needed was to take her hand and follow her lead; the entire time Jessica told the child repeatedly that she knew the way, that she had just come back that way, and that it was within their combined grasp, just around the next confusing turn.

  Yet it always eluded the child and Jessica, leaving her with an overwhelming sense of futility, not fear, just a quicksand of hopelessness.

  The dream, always lavish with color and extravagant with emotion, filled Jessica with both a sense of awe and a shar­ing of the child's enormous belief in the uselessness of their attempt to find freedom and happiness.

  The worst part of the dream was the elaborate nature of the construct in which the boy/girl always found him/her­self a prisoner, and the notion that the adult could unlock its secrets. Even as she promised her charge escape, the es­cape routes she knew so well always changed from mo­ment to moment, inevitably leading back into the prison. Mazes within living mazes, undulating like the living poems on the backs of the victims in Philadelphia. The mazes came to life, reconstructing themselves like snakes in a pit, even as she led the freedom-starved child toward an exit.

  The little boy/girl always grew impatient and horribly afraid that the maze master would find out about the es­cape attempt, and worse, that s/he had been betrayed by Jessica, that s/he could not trust her after all. The dream followed this cycle, turning back on itself, tripling in in­tensity, never reaching resolution.

  Jessica had thought the dreams at an end; Dr. Lemonte had skillfully led her to realize that the fearful child in the dreams was none other than her own inner child, her inner self and soul. Donna—shrink to the FBI women, the shrink others had encouraged her to see—had explained, “In our dreams we often change sexes, especially when dealing with small children. You are, in effect, in the dream, sub­consciously attempting to free yourself, and you are failing to do so. You are no hero to your inner child if you can't free him/her from what you've become.”

  Jessica's only chance at healing, according to the psy­chologist, was to deal with her inner child, talk to her true self, nurture a healthy and trusting relationship between Dr. Jessica Coran and the child she had buried within her so many years before, at a mazelike military base, be it in the Philippine islands, in Germany, or in Washington, D.C. Giving time to be the child she had imprisoned in stone within herself must take precedence in her life now, she had been told.

  All the various prisons came to represent that dark little place called a military base, the squares and rectangles of an artificial village, all neatly set off, each with its own four-by-four garden, all the blurred places where she, as a military brat, had grown up. And it all made sense, and all the child faces she saw, all pleading with her for escape, all came to represent her. It had all made perfect sense, like the pieces of a puzzle finally located and fitted to­gether.

  So why had the dream returned here and now, after so long? And why had it thrust upon her a sense of desola­tion, fear even, that she had in all this time accomplished nothing for her inner child and the relationship between her adult self and her child? Was it the same dream or a new one? Did it represent something real or imagined? Had it to do with the Philadelphia case, the one she had so cavalierly tossed aside? What of the dead or the soon-to-be dead—the next victim engulfed by the enticing words of the Poet Killer? Why did she feel so absolutely, emo­tionally cold?

  She snatched at invisible covers and gave in to the fears of the child residing deep within. She allowed his/her fears full vent, as she had on so many other occasions, having promised her former child self that she would never desert it again. Giving herself over to her child, experiencing the childhood dread, was supposed to work. But she felt pow­erless against the overpowering sense of dread and futility. How could she help the child she was supposed to have been, the one she had hidden from the world, if she could not free herself from fear today, in the here and now?

  The fear proved too great. Nothing Dr. Lemonte had told her was working. An FBI forensic specialist in need of a shrink. Even Jessica found it laughable. What would others think of it?

  Suddenly the phone came alive with its purring noise. She lifted the receiver, wondering if Richard had somehow read her thoughts from an ocean away.

  “Jessica?” came the female voice at the other end. “It's me, Kim.”

  Kim Faith Desinor was the FBI's psychic specialist and a psychiatrist with the Behavioral Science Unit, the same unit Jessica worked for. A scientist of the paranor­mal, Kim was usually used by the Bureau as a last resort in a high-profile case. Kim had most recently helped local police on a case that involved child torture and murder. Using her psychic detection ability, Kim Desinor solved the Child Snatcher case in Houston, working with the infamous Texas Cherokee Detective Lucas Stonecoat and a police psychiatrist named Meredyth Sanger. Kim had confided to Jessica that working with Stonecoat had been like riding with John Wayne or Clint Eastwood in a nitroglycerin-carrying covered wagon with bad shocks.

  Jessica had worked with Kim to solve the case of the Heartthrob Killer in New Orleans four years before.

  “Kim, how're you doing?”

  “More to the point, how're you doing, kiddo?”

  “So you've heard?”

  “Regardless of the popular image, the FBI is actually a fairly close-knit community, sweetheart. Some of us care about your welfare.”

  “So, everybody now knows about Jim and me possibly working a case together again?”

  “Including Jim, yes.”

  “Like old times, and I'm the last to know...”

  “Not quite like old times. There is the matter of your new love, Richard Sharpe.”

  “You think I shouldn't do it?” Jessica sipped at her wine between words.

  'Talk to Donna Lemonte.”

  Lemonte had gone from being Jessica's shrink to one of her most trusted friends. “God, lately that's everybody's answer to everything I say.”

  “Why not see what Donna has to say about it?” pressed Kim.

  “I want your o
pinion. Woman to woman, friend to friend.”

  “Okay, do it.”

  No hesitation in this woman. “Why? Why should I take on this kind of... crap?”

  “Closure, that's why.”

  “Closure?”

  “Every relationship that ends really ought to have clo­sure, especially one that ends badly, say, like... over the phone!” Kim's last words hit home.

  “Exactly what I would say to a friend in my situation. Still... shit, I don't need this, Kim.”

  “I know you better than that,” Kim persisted. “A rela­tionship without closure is as lousy as... as a mystery novel missing the last page. Nothing gets settled, emotions are in turmoil, and it lingers on endlessly without your knowing the final why.”

  As usual her friend made sense. Still Jessica said nothing, thinking of the dream she'd been yanked from.

  “Go with me to Philadelphia, Jess. I'll help you any way I can.”

  Jessica knew Kim meant that she would help her with any personal turmoil involving Parry as well as the case. “Thanks,” she muttered.

  “Meantime, we have a unique case in Quaker City.”

  Jessica felt a bit foolish. She hadn't given the case half the thought she'd given to James Parry. No doubt psy­chiatrist Donna Lemonte would have made great gobs of critical gravy over her failure to scrutinize the case with her usual fervor, all due to James Parry. Jessica hadn't been seeing Donna professionally for years. Although she was now more of a friend than a doctor, perhaps a talk with Donna was in order.

  Kim asked, “Do you know that the killer in Philadelphia is leaving poems at each crime scene? Etched into the vic­tims' backs?”

  “I know. Do you recall the Night Crawler in Miami?”

  “Sure... who forgets the creepiest of the creeps?”

  “He did the same—left poetic lines like crumbs wher­ever he went. His poems were filled with venomous hatred toward women. It's not unusual. We learned a great deal about the bastard from his handwriting.”