Bitter Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “That boring Cessna is just fine with me, Jess.”

  “But you want to know you're flying, don't you?”

  “Flying's one thing, hovering Peter Pan fashion in some­thing like a spinning top is quite another.”

  “No, it's more like a magic carpet ride or a floating plat­form. Come on, you'll love it. I think they've got clear­ance.”

  “Why do we have a Soviet helicopter?” Kim asked.

  “Part of the struggle to fight boredom, the struggle to stomp out ignorance, all of it. We swapped ours for theirs. Happens all the time. They have our technology, we have theirs, everyone's happy, and no need for the spy busi­ness.”

  “With the Russians? We do this with the Russians?”

  “KGB, Russian military, sure. Look at this machine, will you?” Kim glared at the thing like an angry cat.

  Jessica, ignoring this, said, “I've only had the privilege of flying in her once before. She's decked out with lounge seats and a Bureau VIP bar—at a cost government watch­dogs must never know about.”

  “So, I see you've already met the pilot and crew, as usual. Are you staking a claim?” Kim knew of Jessica's love for flying, one of her many passions. In fact, Jessica had earned her pilot's license some years back.

  “Staking a claim? I'm spoken for, remember? Richard Sharpe. You're not still sore about New Or­leans, are you?” Jessica recalled how on first meeting Kim, she had behaved badly. Not in the best frame of mind, knowing she was being stalked by an escaped convicted bloodsucking killer who had fixated on her, her nerves shot, Jessica had drunk too much on the flight, and she had flirted with the pilot. She recalled how wrong that first meeting with Kim had gone, and how patient Kim had been with her, showing her great understanding and giving her the benefit of the doubt several times.

  “All I know is that every time you fly off someplace, you cozy up to the pilot or you wind up at the controls of the plane.”

  “Come on. I wasn't at the controls for more than ten minutes.”

  “Or you land yourself a new bureau-chief boyfriend, or a boyfriend who happens to be Scotland Yard. I'm so im­pressed!” She did a mock curtsy right there on the airstrip.

  “You make me sound like a loose woman on the prowl!”

  Kim laughed. “Not at all. Liberated, a role model for oth­ers all over the globe who have succumbed to the stereotype of barefoot and pregnant and in the kitchen.”

  “Please, give it a rest, Kim. What about your love life? You still seeing Alex Sincebaugh, or has he uprooted him­self and returned to New Orleans?”

  “He's holding on in Baltimore, but he hates his situation. I'm not sure how long he's going to fight it.”

  “You can take the boy outta the bayou, but you can't—”

  “I see him most weekends and holidays. Some truth in that old saying 'Absence makes the heart grow fonder.' “

  “That's crap and you know it; only works for a while be­fore the charm of the distance between you wears off. I know from experience.”

  “The alternative, cohabiting, is just as impossible, if not more so.”

  “What's a girl to do?”

  Boarding the wide-bodied helicopter, Jessica patted her inside suit pocket to be certain she hadn't forgotten her special scalpel; her father had given it to her the day she'd told him she meant to go to medical school. Nowadays, she never left home without it. In fact, she felt downright su­perstitious about having it near at hand.

  Jessica and Kim looked at each other in the modified, VIP interior of the monster chopper. While they worked to­gether at profiling sessions in the same building and in the same unit, each saw surprisingly little of the other. “Pity the bar's not open,” Kim lamented.

  “And what would you do with an open bar this ungodly time of morning?”

  “Not the bar, the bartender, dear. You like pilots, I have a weakness for bartenders.”

  Jessica laughed. It felt good after the tension of the day before. “Here, have some coffee.” Rolls and coffee lay on the table between them. “Eriq's so thoughtful.”

  After they sat down, Jessica watched Kim gulp back stomach bile instead of the rich coffee as the churning blades suddenly roared to life. An attendant young enough to be Jessica's daughter quickly secured the coffeepot and soon they felt themselves slowly rise above the airstrip. With a sudden, violent jerk, the helicopter veered to the left and sped diagonally upward.

  “What the hell's that pilot doing?” Kim shouted over the thrum of the MiG.

  “His job!” Jessica smirked.

  Next the chopper pilot poured on the speed, plastering them to their seats. “Like a carnival ride,” Jessica shouted.

  Kim felt every cell in her body tug outward. “I feel like a piece of cargo being tossed around in the hold!” This despite the seat belt she wore. “What did you tell the pilot, Jess? You didn't tell him that you wanted a wild ride, did you? You did, didn't you! Tell me you didn't!”

  Jessica's smiled and her eyes lit up. “Doncha love it?”

  In a moment the helicopter leveled out. The noise of the rotors took on a new pitch, the sound a whisper by com­parison. Next the helicopter took on a new feel—that of a bird in flight, smooth and controlled.

  At this point, Jessica unfastened her seat belt and said, “Maybe I'll just have a word with the pilot.”

  “It's a little too late to tell him to take it easy on his joy­stick, wouldn't you say?”

  “I won't be but a minute.”

  “You're incorrigible, you know that?” Kim protested as Jessica made her way to the nose of the helicopter. “Why don't you tip him?” she shouted, knowing the sound of her racing heart and the rotor blades only drowned her out.

  Kim opened a briefcase she'd carried on board and drew out a manila folder. She was opening it just as Jessica re­turned with the coffeepot. Jessica again saw the three vic­tim photos that Eriq Santiva had shown her earlier, but included in this group were blown-up shots of the backs, the rust-colored, near-red lettering left behind by the killer. “Damn but this looks like something out of an Edgar Allan Poe story.”

  “And the narrator of the tale, this Killer Poet, has to be as mad as one of Poe's narrators,” Kim agreed.

  “It's likely a selective madness, one he controls when in the company of others. He's got to be some kind of sadist beneath it all, a true sociopath.”

  “Maybe not, Jess.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Read the poems. They're hardly sadistic or evil in in­tent; our boy or girl is—at least inside his or her mind— doing good, perhaps doing God's own work.”

  Jessica recognized the one poem as the eulogy that Kim had already read to her over the phone. The other two began with the same three lines about chance meeting in­nocence.

  “Read 'em through,” said Kim. “Familiarize yourself with the style, the voice, whatever you want to call it. After a while the poems get a little scary and... and something else, but I'll let you decide.”

  “Scary?”

  “I don't know... disturbing, like they have a life of their own. This murdering poet writes some truly engaging stuff; it catches you up so much that you actually forget that it was used as a murder weapon.”

  “I'll have another look.” Jessica read the two poems she hadn't yet seen or heard. The first read:

  Chance... whose desire

  is to have a meeting

  with stunned innocence...

  is a humming that wells up

  In silver moonbeams appearing

  to the eyes like twin specters

  softly caressing the drapes,

  trembling, yet unafraid,

  languorous and expectant

  of a touch in return.

  Beneath it all: a bed

  of fibrous dictation.

  I am drawn forth, found out

  brushed with the feather

  of your glance.

  Speaking to a mirror

  sparkling with never-


  before phrases,

  all against the marble

  life flickering.

  Strangely sonorous stuff,” offered Jessica, nodding. “I see how you might get caught up in it, but not enough to allow someone to Etch A Sketch on your back.”

  “The poetry is so... melodic and obtuse at once, so that while I'm not always sure what's intended, I don't much care so long as I can hear the music.”

  “You mean it's kind of like reading Carl Sagan on the universe?”

  “Maybe.” Kim laughed. “I mean that while he's difficult at times to follow... what a way this guy has of lullabying you into thinking sound makes sense, huh? And I'd hardly call it pathological or the words of a lunatic.”

  “Maybe it all makes sense to the killer, Kim. How many times have we seen a killer create rationalizations for actions that led to murder? Whether it looks like the ravings of a madman or not, he may well be channeling voices in his head that ultimately tell him to kill.”

  Jessica next studied the blown-up shot of the second deadly poem. Again, the torn flesh looked like blood-orange script on a clay tablet, but this was poisoned ink written into human flesh.

  She read the second poem:

  Chance... whose desire

  is to have a meeting

  with stunned innocence...

  is drawn up and perched

  to fall into the mirror pool,

  through meshes of metaphor

  to disentangle and leave behind

  unbound fingers of touch.

  Sensing sounds in choruses

  of falling water crashing

  on nearby rock,

  I hear harmony touching

  my hand where gazes

  fall into place.

  The breath that exhales

  across the candle fails,

  and so it remains, flickering.

  “And so, and further thoughts?” Kim asked. Jessica breathed in as much air as she could and slowly exhaled. “It's definitely the work of the same person. Along with the one I read before, and the one you read me, it feels almost as if...”

  “Yes?”

  “As if these weren't three separate poems at all, but—”

  “Go on, but what?”

  “But one long ongoing...”

  “Dirge, yes. I agree.”

  “Like a lament.”

  “A death march,” agreed Kim.

  Nodding, Jessica added, “Over in London they'd refer to it as a threnody.”

  “Yes, a hymn, a requiem, all one piece. I just wanted someone else to tell me I wasn't crazy.”

  “You think they follow in a sequence?”

  “I'm not sure. I mean I've transcribed them and put them in the order of the killings, but there seems to be something... I don't know... missing, as if the killer doesn't know all the pieces yet himself. Or perhaps it wasn't meant to be written in order, because—”

  “Because the missing parts haven't as yet been com­pleted.”

  “Which likely means more bodies.”

  “Exactly.”

  The chopper began its descent. Jessica strapped in once again. Kim had never loosened her belt.

  Jessica stared out the window. She knew Philadelphia well, having lived there for a time with her military family. She now pointed out the banks of the Delaware and, in the distance, Burlington, New Jersey. Then she pointed to an­other river. “That's the Schuylkill River.”

  “School-kill? Is that anything like road kill? What a strange name for a river, but it seems to fit with the chaos of the modem age,” replied Kim.

  “It's pronounced 'school-kill,' but it's an Indian word. Oh, look.” Jessica pointed again. “Scullers on the river.”

  Both women watched the machinelike rhythm of flash­ing oars in the hands of competing crews. The oars looked like blades, and their smooth, deft movement through the water was perfectly synchronized, giving boat and crew an appearance not unlike that of a gliding animal in its natu­ral haunt.

  Jessica and Kim made out the roofline of Colonial coun­try houses and villas, and next the looming dome of Memorial Hall, a remnant of the Centennial Exposition. Soon they were over Boathouse Row, the Fairmount Wa­terworks, and the best view of the skyline of modern Philadelphia and the promenade leading up to the Museum of Art, the stairway made famous by the movie Rocky. The streets here, lined with parkways and universities and mu­seums, reminded Jessica of Washington, D.C.'s Pennsylva­nia Avenue.

  The city was famous for both its Quaker roots—hospital­ity and brotherly love—and for the ease with which people could get around, thanks to William Penn's surveyor general, Thomas Holme. Holme had laid out the city streets in 1682 on a grid quite visible from the air. The resulting rectangle, two miles long and one mile wide, enclosed approximately 1,280 acres between the Delaware and the picturesque Schuylkill River.

  “East-to-west streets are named for trees,” Jessica told Kim. “North-to-south are numbered.”

  “How... efficient.”

  “Quaint, too, but there's a catch.”

  “Naturally.”

  “Early settlers counted back from both rivers, requiring each street to be additionally identified as Schuylkill Sec­ond or Delaware Third, and so on.”

  “You're putting me on.”

  “Actually, city fathers put things right around the turn of the century. The numbering now begins on the Delaware River side and moves westward to the city limits. Makes cab hopping a lot easier.”

  “I should think.”

  “If you'd like, Dr. Coran,” came the helicopter pilot's voice over the PA system, “I'll take you over the city first. We can pass the air station field for a helipad at Police Precinct One downtown. This'll cut out the need for a cab, and you'll have a nice view of the downtown area.”

  Jessica put on a headset resting on her chair and spoke. “Thanks, Pete! That would save us a lot of hassle.”

  Center Square with its massive Colonial-style city hall then came into view. When it had been erected in 1901, Philadelphia's city hall stood as the tallest and largest public building in the United States. “This area is the true heart of the city,” commented Jessica. “Philly is a walker's city.”

  “A walker's city?”

  “Down here it's impossible to get lost, given the layout, and in any direction you're going to run into an oasis with a park bench.”

  Kim and Jessica saw the greenery of George Washing­ton Park, David Rittenhouse Park, Benjamin Franklin Park, and James Logan Park, each flanked on all sides by traffic.

  “Rush hour looks like hell,” commented Kim, pointing out a long snake of snarled metal on the street below.

  “It is. Streets look quaint and narrow from up here, don't they?”

  “Yes.”

  “Fact is, the streets are quaint and narrow.”

  “A quaint pain in the ass for those poor devils stuck in gridlock,” muttered Kim, breaking into a laugh. “While we blithely fly above it all.”

  “Yeah, like winged goddesses.”

  “Goddesses; really, Jessica,” Kim replied in mock amazement. A moment of static gave way to the pilot's voice over the PA again. “Doctors, welcome to Philly. Home of the Fly­ers, the 76ers, the Eagles, cheese steak sandwiches, Mum­mers, funky South Street, gateway to the Jersey Shore, the Liberty Bell, and don't forget soft pretzels.”

  The chopper pilot worked his magic, aligning the ma­chine with what looked to Kim Desinor like a postage stamp—the helipad atop the building. Jessica smiled at how calmly Pete brought the huge Soviet-made monster into the center of the X on the helipad marker. But her smile waned on seeing the people awaiting them at Philadelphia's police headquarters. Pete had called ahead, alerting officials of their arrival.

  An uncharacteristic quiver could be seen in Jessica's jaw as she made out Area Special Agent in Charge James Parry, his broad-shouldered form standing beside what appeared to be the chief of police and most likely the detective in charge of the Philly task force, a towering dark-
haired Sigourney Weaver look-alike.

  Jessica saw that behind his resolute stance, Parry's nerves must be somewhat frazzled, the quiver in her jaw being matched by the clenched fists. He appeared as anx­ious about the prospect of working with her as she was with him.

  “He knows you're coming, Jess,” said Kim, as if reading her mind. “He likely wants closure on this relationship as much as you, so just go easy.”

  Jessica sat silent, unable to respond, her thoughts racing. She flashed on all the extremely happy moments she'd spent in James's presence, all the trips they'd shared, all the passion, and all the heartache.

  “You okay, Jess?” Kim had reached out a hand to lay over her friend's. She had not missed Jessica's narrowing eyes and gritted teeth on seeing Parry.

  “It's been a hell of a ride getting here,” Jessica replied, “but it's going to be even more hell seeing this through, I fear.”

  Kim said into Jessica's ear, “But nothing you can't handle.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence. I'm not so sure.”

  “You've faced far worse foes. This will be a Cakewalk for Jessica Coran.”

  “I'm not at all sure.”

  “Hang tough, girl.”

  “You sound like my father.”

  “I'll take that as a compliment.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The helicopter touched down and the blades began to slow. To Jessica, the big Soviet chopper's last groan felt like her insides, and it sounded like the final breath of a di­nosaur. She steeled herself to get up, step out, and meet anew her former lover, James Parry, special agent in charge of the Poet Killer case. “God, I feel like I'm going to stumble or say something stupid,” she confided in Kim.

  “If you stumble, just be sure not to fall into his arms.”

  “You'll catch me, then?”

  “Count on it.”

  “Thanks, Kim.” Jessica clamped onto her friends hand and squeezed.

  “Don't mention it. What're friends for?”

  When she looked directly into James Parry's eyes, Jessica felt her knees weaken with the memories—vivid, precise, and unbidden—that flooded her mind, memories of the most intimate, most delightful moments on holidays they had spent traveling around the globe. James's sandy-brown hair now had a liberal dusting of gray, making it appear lighter, but otherwise he looked the same. A tall, handsome man with broad shoulders and a winning smile, he stood as straight as an oak. She wondered how she would ever com­pletely free herself of him, but then she wondered if it was worth the energy even to try. The sadness and pain of her memory of James would be a part of her forever. After all this time, after all she and Richard Sharpe now meant to each other, one part of her mind fought to hold on to her and Jim's love, or at least to the spirit of that love. At the same time, another part of her fought to pry it from memory. She felt like a wounded wolf wanting to chew its paw off to free itself from a trap.