Bitter Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “Sure, why wouldn't it? You hear anything to the con­trary?”

  “No, no... just asking. I'll check in later, Doctor. Good night.”

  “ 'Night, Chief.”

  “Damn,” she cursed herself after hanging up. Why had she made such a to-do over his question about Parry? She looked around the lab and other offices. “This place is like a morgue,” she gently joked, wanting to hear herself speak. Everyone on the day shift was long gone, leaving the lab area as abandoned as the proverbial country cemetery, and the lights in areas not in use had been dimmed. Jessica felt a sense of aloneness begin to creep into her skin, and again she wondered why she had seen and heard so little from James Parry.

  “We're not making much of a team,” she lamented aloud.

  Kim, too, had confided that she had seen little of Parry in the days since their visit to Maurice Deneau's flat.

  It didn't help matters to learn that Parry and Sturtevante were independently scheduling meetings with the toxicol­ogist DeAngelos.

  She toyed with the idea of calling Jim, forcing things. She lifted the phone, put it back, lifted it again, finally re­turned it. She paced the room, thinking, angry that Parry had excluded her from his lunch meeting with DeAngelos; then she wondered if DeAngelos had called the meeting to “report” on her?

  Jessica looked at the clock, seeing the hour hand inch toward six p.m. She again wondered why she was still in the lab. She knew why. Something nagged at her, some­thing about the deaths and the manner of the killer's writ­ing, something trying to get out, something trying to talk clearly to her, but she couldn't read the garbled signs. She felt so damnably handicapped, as if some vital fact floated just out of reach. All the parts were here, before her, yet they refused to coalesce into a larger configuration, like a puzzle with all of its hundreds of pieces present, but each an ill fit.

  “What am I missing?” she asked herself over and over. Frustration weighed heavy on Jessica's shoulders, while anxiety watched in the background, whispering, “The Poet Killer's going to strike again and soon... very soon, but when, where, how, and why? Why indeed does he kill, and why in such a manner as this?”

  TEN

  Like a fiend in a cloud, With howling woe. After night I do crowd. And with night will go...

  —William Blake (1757-1827)

  Jessica lifted the phone on her desk in the makeshift of­fice that had been provided by the Philly ME's office and asked the operator to put her in touch with Dr. Arnold Heyward. When he came on the line, she said, “Dr. Heyward, this is Dr. Coran. 1 fear I won't sleep tonight without some assurances that—”

  “Thought I was the only one left in the building,” he said, cutting her off. “I mean other than the maintenance crew.”

  “Had some loose ends to tie up,” she replied dryly. “Did you get it all out to Parry's people?” She needn't explain what it was to Heyward, not since DeAngelos had given the order.

  “It's done, Dr. Coran, and might I say that I think your decision to forward samples to D.C. appropriate, under the circumstances.”

  It sounded pretty lame and perfunctory, and well rehearsed to boot, but Jessica simply said, “Thank you, Dr. Heyward. I only hope it nets us some results. I've asked an associate in D.C. to place it on a front burner as soon as it arrives. We've done the same with the DNA samples taken by Shockley. I hope your department isn't taking this personally.”

  “You understand, Doctor, that these things take time. I'm only sorry we could not find any concentrated poison to have been of use.”

  “Yes, well, thanks. Did you test the wineglasses?”

  “We did, of course, and found nothing other than... wine, a Pinot Noir, actually.”

  “Appellation and year?”

  “We're not that good.”

  “Was it the same at every crime scene?”

  “I think our guy brings it with him; certainly it's his preference.”

  “Our FBI lab has a high-tech device that separates out every chemical. Those glasses will be tested for everything conceivable. They're bound to hit on something.”

  “Yes, I've read about the Super-Separator, as they call it, but sorry to say we could hardly afford it at a two-mil price tag.”

  Once again, the economics of death investigation, she thought. She'd heard it in hamlets small and large, and Philly by any standard was a large, complex city, filled with as much crime as any major city in America. “Yeah, I know, Dr. Heyward. People give lip service to fighting crime, but they don't want to spend any money on it.”

  “You got that right.”

  They said their good nights and Jessica saw that it had grown late, nearing seven p.m., almost four days since the discovery of Maurice Deneau's body. Why had James Parry not involved her more in the day-to-day investiga­tion? What had he gotten from the young man's diary and annotations in his books? The idea the chief special agent on the case was avoiding her grew to enormous propor­tions in her mind. Troubling, if it were true. She told her­self that he must be extremely busy, but that sounded like excuse making for him. Still, if he weren't extremely busy, then what? Busy as hell or else... It was the or else that worried her the most.

  She imagined he might be in turmoil over their having to work together, that their being thrown into this situa­tion was more crippling for him than for her. Perhaps Parry felt as much frustration with the case and the fail­ure of the toxicology lab to isolate the poison in the ink as she had felt; in fact, this was likely. Perhaps he had called a luncheon meeting with DeAngelos to take a crack at the self-important ass himself, wanting Sturte­vante in his corner instead of Jessica.

  Perhaps this was reason enough to telephone Jim, tell him she had gotten DeAngelos's department off their asses—and get Jim's reaction. Reason enough, she told herself. Perhaps if she made the first move, this awkward game of hide-and-seek between them might end; in the long run, their not dealing with each other on a profes­sional level was not good for the case. She guessed that he was thinking the same thing.

  Tired and frustrated, she dialed Parry's office, only to leam that he had left for the day, and that she had missed him by some fifteen or twenty minutes, this according to another agent who sounded tired of hearing his ringing phone. “Any messages, Dr. Coran?”

  “No, none. I'll try again tomorrow.”

  When she looked up, Jim Parry stood in the doorway, leaning against the jamb. “Looking for me?” he asked, his boyish grin reminding her of why she had first gotten in­volved with him some four years ago.

  “Matter of fact, yes. Wanted your take on this cheerful fellow who goes around cutting iambic pentameter into the backs of his victims and leaving them dead by poison. And what's up with DeAngelos?”

  “DeAngelos? Had lunch with him today. He's not ex­actly president of your fan club either.”

  “Why do you say that? What'd he have to say?”

  “Says you're pushy.”

  “Oh, is that how he put it?”

  “Close enough.”

  “You mean with your sensitivity to offensive language, you can't repeat such words?”

  “It wasn't that bad.” Parry managed a smile.

  “So have you and Leanne cracked the case yet?” she asked. “It would appear the two of you are working it alone.”

  “That's not fair, Jess, but yeah, sure, with zip to go on we've cracked the case wide open.” He let out a long, ex­asperated sigh and stepped closer to her desk. “This is beginning to remind me of a case we worked in Hawaii in '90, before I met you. Forensics on the case had noth­ing.”

  “Are you telling me that your meeting with DeAngelos today went badly?” She leaned over the desk, a half smile on her face. “Now he's a cheerful fellow.”

  “So, you've been tracking my movements?”

  “Damn straight I have. It appears the only way I can know what's going on around here. You haven't exactly been forthcoming, Jim.”

  “Sturtevante's idea to jump on DeAngelos and shake somethin
g loose from him. Identifying the poison is key to the case.”

  “I should have been asked to the table, Jim.”

  He dropped his steady gaze, nodding. “Yeah, I know, Jess, and I'm sorry. Some mix-up in communications.”

  “A big one, I'd say, since Kim wasn't invited either.”

  “It was a big waste of time. You two would have heard nothing. Trust me.”

  “What precisely did you discuss?”

  “Filled his ear with a lot of questions, but got very little out of him. That is, until he started talking about how you're in his face all the time, how he can't make any head­way with the FBI looking over his shoulder. Said the two of you mutually agreed to have all the test samples for­warded to my office for routing to Washington.”

  “Mutually agreed, huh? He said that?”

  “Yeah, is that how it came about?”

  “Result's the same; no matter. And according to his as­sistant, Heyward, the samples're in your hands now.”

  He breathed deeply, and pushing to a full standing posi­tion, said, “Fact is, they're on their way to D.C. as we speak. Your best toxicology team's making it priority one.”

  “Good... good.”

  “Happy?” he asked.

  “Relatively, yes. Very happy, actually.”

  “I mean about the samples getting off in so timely a fashion.”

  “Yes, that's what I'm talking about.”

  “Oh, yeah, of course...”

  “Maybe this idea of us trying to work together, Jim... maybe it's foolhardy to think we can if...”

  “Come on, Jess. What're you getting at?”

  “... if we don't even hear the simplest of words the same way? If every little thing has to be scrutinized and an­alyzed for double entendre, innuendo.”

  “Hey, I only said what I said. No hidden agenda.”

  'Tell that to your subconscious, and I suppose mine. You can't deny, Jim, that a lot of business has gone unfinished between us. And that right now there are at least eight peo­ple in the room.”

  “Eight in the room? I don't recall that many in bed with us,” he replied, smiling.

  “There's the me I think I am, the me I want to be, the me you want to be, the me I really am, as well as the you you think you are, the you you want to be, the you that I want you to be, and the you you really are. He repeated her words. “Eight people between us. How'd it get so complicated? Why?”

  She shook her head, still sitting safely behind the desk, glad it stood between them. “I don't know.”

  He near whispered, “I'm sorry it ended so badly, Jess. Really I am.”

  “So am I.”

  “You deserved more than a telephone good-bye.”

  Her eyes widened. “Well, thank you, Mr. Parry, for that acknowledgment.”

  “But as usual, distance was the demon.”

  “Oh, sure, Jim. Place blame on something other than yourself, some intangible, that poor James Parry could do nothing about, like distance.”

  “Hey, hold on, Jess.”

  “You might've come to London when I asked; we might've ended things better there.”

  “You really think so?” He came closer, a hand outstretched. “You think London would have changed anything?”

  “Maybe, but then we'll never know, since you chose to ignore me there.”

  “Ignore you. I can just see me in a hotel room waiting for you to finish another of your endless autopsies, and you making eyes at this Scotland Yard guy the whole time.”

  “So, you've learned about Richard, have you?”

  “There're no secrets in the FBI community. We leave that for the CIA, remember?”

  “After our last conversation, you relinquished all right to any say-so in my life on any subject, Chief. I owe you my best as a member of the profiling and forensic investigation team on a case we happen to be working together today. But I'll thank you to keep your opinions on my private life to yourself for the duration of this case, unless you see fit to relieve me.”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “I didn't say that.”

  “Imagine the repercussions of that one.” He paced now, staring at the ceiling, waving an arm and shaking his head. “Imagine it. I replace the famous Dr. Jessica Coran on the case, headline news from here to China.”

  She raised her shoulders. “What repercussions? I wouldn't make a single wave over it.”

  He laughed derisively, and when he spoke, his tone was angry. “And with whom do I replace you, Jessica? I didn't ask for you on this case, you know. I don't know whose bright idea it was, but it wasn't mine. I thought you came as a... a package deal with the psychic.”

  She rose to her feet and came around the desk, fists balled, jaw set. “Where did you hear that nonsense?”

  “It appeared to be the case. At any rate, you tell me, with whom do I replace the most famous forensic investigator the FBI's ever known, and—”

  “John Thorpe,” she interjected.

  “—and the media and the people of Philly will have my ass by morning.”

  “You're making far too much of it, Jim.”

  “Making too much of your reputation? Me? Oh, yeah, sure... What can the Bureau do to me that they haven't already done?”

  “I'm sorry about your losing your post in Hawaii, Jim,” she said. “But I've got to know, did it have anything to do with the Lopaka Kowona case? Our final report on the way he died?”

  He brushed this off with a wave of his hand and an un­convincing shake of the head. “No, not so's anyone would notice. Fact is, people have long forgotten what I did for the islands back then. If you recall, dear, you garnered all the accolades for putting an end to the Trade Winds Killer. No, our little secret on exactly how Kowona died is intact.”

  “We were both there when the cameras rolled, Jim.”

  “Yeah, but you won in the end, and I'm here now in Philly, put in my place due to some nasty bit of political palua so convoluted I didn't see it before I was blindsided and pushed out. Nothing to do with our mutual friend Kowona or any­thing we might want to keep buried. Trust me.”

  She breathed deeply at this. “That much is... is good.”

  He advanced on her, and now they stood staring into each other's eyes, a pencil's width apart, each smelling the other's tension. His cologne reminded her of their parting in Rome a year ago, a parting she had not known would be their last, a parting that ended their four-year-long love affair. It had been the longest relationship with a man she'd ever had—or ever managed, as her shrink would likely put it.

  He reached out and pulled her to him, roughly kissing her, his tongue searching her mouth with a fire she had not felt since their last time together.

  She allowed the kiss to last a moment too long, but then pushed him away, hard, and nearly shouting, “Damn you, Jim! Damn you, get away from me. Get out. This isn't hap­pening.”

  “Sweetheart, Jess—”

  “No, no! I'm not your anything, Jim!” She pulled from his grasp again. “I said get out!”

  “We could have what we both wanted before; we could have it now, Jess. Now that I'm in Philadelphia... we're close enough now so that we can try for a real relationship.”

  “There's no we any longer. I put you out of my head, out of my heart. I love Richard now.”

  He stepped back, his face going hard and cold, as if her words had frozen him. Looking crushed, he fell into a leather chair, his head in his hands. “I've tried fighting it, Jess; didn't want to grovel at your feet, anything like what just happened. Kept away for that reason. Same time, I've... I gave it a lot of thought.”

  “Please, James.”

  “How we both wanted the same things, a family some­day, a stable life, and how neither of us could give the other anything resembling stability, and now—”

  “It's over, James, truly over now.”

  “—that I'm looking at making my home so close to Quantico, and you're so near now, that... well...”

  I
ronies all around, she thought but did not say. She re­turned to stand behind the desk. Safe distance, safe barrier, yet long ago, when he walked out on her long-distance fashion, she had built up in her mind an impenetrable bar­rier against James Kenneth Parry. She had had enough therapy to know herself, to acknowledge that she didn't “do” forgiveness, not well and not genuinely.

  “Forgive me for saying so, Jim, but you were the one who ended our relationship. You had your chance, but now it's over. Long over. I'm in love with Richard Sharpe.”

  “Sure... sure. Lot easier to love a guy who's an ocean away. You found that out with me, and now with him. Makes sense for a woman like you, Jessica.”

  She glowered at him. “An ocean away and content that way, James Parry. Now, I told you before, and I'll tell you again, get out!”

  “You can't say there's nothing left between us, Jess. I won't accept that.”

  She gnashed her teeth, unable to respond to this, and re­peated, “Nothing. Nothing whatever. I'm finally free of you altogether, James. I guess your coming here tonight made me realize that; for that favor, I thank you.”

  He continued as if not hearing her. “Now that I'm here, now that we finally have a real chance to commit, you have another man in your life. Timing is impeccable. A little too impec—”

  “Please, Jim, just go... please.” He pushed himself up from the chair as if his body fought to hold him back. Standing now, looking beaten, he made his way to the door. “Think maybe it was a mistake to attempt to work this case together, but now we're in it, we've got to make the best of it, Jess. Think we can do it?”

  “I can if you can, Jim, but no more talk of us.”

  “That can be arranged, I'm sure.”

  “Jim, there is no us in that sense any longer. I've grieved a long time for what we had, and that grief and despair gave way to a new hope, one that doesn't include you.”

  His lip quivering, he nodded. “So much has happened since we first met. Hard to let go of it all, Jess, especially now, after seeing you again.”

  She said no more, allowing him a silent, dignified exit.

  When Jessica heard the elevator door mechanically open and close, she began to sob. She cried for her pain, and she felt it was a good cry, the cry of someone who has finally let go of the past.