Bitter Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  It'll be all over the evening news tonight, Jessica had thought. “I see,” she said.

  “I believe I know who your killer is. I believe he... he works under me here at the university.”

  “Do you have any evidence of this?”

  “The poems, the style, and the way they were left, yes. Now, will you come to speak to me, or do I have to come to you?” the dean had asked.

  “A colleague and I will be right over, Dr. Plummer.”

  “I'll change my schedule, put aside all else until we talk.”

  Now, as the dean pounded on the car window, Kim's eyes were alight with the same curiosity about her as Jes­sica had felt during their phone conversation.

  “He's here; in his office. Just so you know, just so in case he sees you and me together, well... I may need pro­tection.”

  Dr. Harriet Plummer had already considered the possibil­ity that something strange might be going on at the U. of Philadelphia. She had pulled the files on three of the vic­tims, all of whom had taken basic-level courses there. The other victims, while not students at the university, the dean had found, were students at other colleges and universities in the area, and furthermore, they were all taking poetry-and fiction-writing courses, some with Dr. Garrison Burrwith, the man she suspected of being the Poet Killer. This they learned all in the time it took to climb the con­siderable number of steps to the miniature castle entryway of the English department. Atop the tallest turret of the cas­tle, a clock tolled four p.m.

  Once they were inside the safe confines of Dr. Plummer's office, she confided, “He is a professor here at the university—our current writer-in-residence.”

  “Writer-in-residence? Really?” Kim looked impressed.

  “His specialty being poetic expression,” Professor Plummer informed them.

  “How did you know we would be coming?” asked Jes­sica. “On the phone you said you were expecting us.”

  “I got my packet from the FBI several days ago, asking if I recognized the poetry of this awful poisoner.”

  “Yes, of course. And you suspect this Dr. Burr... ?”

  “Dr. Garrison Burrwith, yes, but it's awful; you see, he is a member of a prominent Philadelphia family, well known for philanthropy and public service. Dr. Burrwith is something of a prodigy. He's an accomplished violinist, fills in as needed at the Philadelphia Symphony Orches­tra—he's that good. At only twenty-six years of age, he's an acknowledged scholar of the Romantic poets, in partic­ular Shelley, Keats, Byron, and Wordsworth.”

  “And, as you say, you suspect he may be this killer of young people?”

  “The poetry is so... so like his. He's an accomplished poet with a great ability to capture the essence of the ro­manticism of the Byronic era, and I feel much of this mur­derer's poetry does the same. Here, have a look at some of Garrison's work. Compare it with the murderer's work yourself.”

  Jessica reached across to take the volume of poems that Dr. Plummer offered. The book was gilded and exquisitely bound; it must have cost a fortune to produce.

  On the cover she read Oration of the Gifts of Those An­gels of the Four Quarters. Beneath this, Poems to Still the Forest Soul and Various Jottings by Garrison Burrwith III.

  “Old family name, huh?”

  “One of the oldest in Philadelphia. Father is on every board in the city having to do with the arts.”

  Enough to scar any child, Jessica thought but did not say. “Did you find the poems left on the bodies unique, original, Dr. Plummer?” she asked instead. “Yes, quite. Then we may assume they are from the killer's mind and hand, and not something he picked up somewhere?”

  The professor stared back, confused.

  “Lifted, plagiarized,” Kim clarified.

  “As I said, they reminded me of the work of Garrison Burrwith.”

  “So something in Burrwith's style alerts you to call us?”

  “Style and subject matter. Read the page I have marked.”

  Jessica scanned it and then read it aloud for Kim:

  SCORN 'S MISTRESS

  Opportunity happens by

  on soft-soled

  and soft-souled shoe;

  traipsing merrily

  until one stumble

  sends Her

  falling away

  from fortune's prize,

  only to be seized by the middle,

  lifted overhead,

  and flattened

  against all earth,

  scrunched then

  into the dark

  of a rabbit warren. No prize at the end

  of

  rain bows lost in

  tombs

  of

  time...

  Kim suggested, “Perhaps we should have a talk with Dr. Burrwith.”

  “You'll find him in his office, down the hall in Room 21-B. Name's on the door. I always thought him an odd duck, but I would never in a million years have taken him for a killer.”

  “Well, Dr. Plummer, we've got a long way to go before we can conclusively prove him to be the Poet Killer.”

  “No, you have only a few yards to go to his office; that is all that separates him from me, and for that I have been living in fear since I received your information regarding the killings.” The frail, middle-aged woman's eyes bulged. “I had not heard that the bodies had been... written on, the poems cut into the flesh. Garrison asked me once if I would sit for such a thing, you see.”

  “He did? He asked you to allow him to write a poem into your skin, on your back?”

  “Along my arm, actually. We... we were seeing each other at the time. He wanted to brand me, I suppose.”

  “I see.”

  She looked faint. Kim asked if she'd like her to fetch some water, but the woman ignored this and went on: Moreover, I had no idea of the caliber of the poetry in­volved until, as I said, I received the FBI's information. I've been living in fear since then.”

  “I'm afraid we will have to reserve judgment, Dr. Plum­mer,” Jessica calmly replied.

  “Reserve judgment until someone else dies? Another poor unfortunate young person?”

  As they left the office, Kim and Jessica heard the dean mutter, “Always knew Burrwith was strange.”

  FOURTEEN

  Darkling I listen; and, for many a time I have been half in love with easeful death, Called him soft names in many a mused rhyme To take into the air my quiet breath...

  —Keats

  Dr. Garrison Burrwith's hand, when shaken, felt like a dead mackerel, but his forthright voice and his pene­trating eyes gave both Jessica and Kim the impression of a man who had nothing whatever to hide. It gave Jessica pause to think that the woman in the office a few doors down feared for her life because of this man, and that the dean had come to this conclusion based solely on the man's poetry. Burrwith struck Jessica as a charming man, all pleasantness and helpfulness, handsome and thin, with perfect posture and perfect skin. When told why they were in his office, Burrwith's crystal blue eyes registered com­plete shock. He swore, “I know nothing of the murders save what I've overheard about the halls.”

  “We're not here to accuse you, sir,” began Jessica.

  “No, I mean I absolutely know nothing of these murders. I'd heard not the least word on them until only this morn­ing. Some colleagues of mine were discussing them in the hallway. The dean broke it up when I came along, but not before Peter Werner told me the news. Dreadful, altogether a dreadful thing, indeed.”

  “Yes, we think so, too, but living in Philadelphia, how could you not have heard something of the news?”

  “You see, I take little notice these days of goings-on out in the world beyond academia,” he said, adding, “no TV, no interest in news anymore. 'Fraid I've botched it so far as my colleagues are concerned. They all come up with such interesting tidbits at the faculty meetings and the oc­casional party, but I have little to say. Puts people off, I know, but I have this dread of dealing with people in social settings, save for the classroo
m, you see, where I can con­fine myself to topics I know something about—poetry and literature and how to unlock the secrets of the masters. I know all their brushstrokes and techniques, you see. All quite cozy, you see. For me, that is; makes my students sweat, I fear.”

  Jessica could see that Kim had been silently sizing up the man. He appeared to Jessica as harmless as a cater­pillar, the one in Alice in Wonderland. No threat in the least, but rather a being completely engrossed in his little corner of the academic world, complete with glasses and bow tie. He looked like a man out of time, a man who had wandered in from the eighteenth century. Even his khaki clothing and vest appeared somehow turn-of-the-previous-century.

  “I know I write some rather depressing and somber po­etry, but I'm hardly an Edgar Allan Poe,” he told them. “But even then, Edgar was never accused of murder, only writing about the act.”

  “Repeatedly and in novel ways,” replied Jessica, “and he had a fascination with death.”

  Kim added, “ 'The Pit and the Pendulum,”Masque of the Red Death.' “

  “ 'The Premature Burial,' “ added a grinning Burrwith, his eyes alight now behind the thick lenses.

  “ 'Telltale Heart,' “ Jessica said. “Poe, like your poetic voice, seems fixated on death at a young age, premature death, burials in vaults and walls—being buried alive.” There is no writer worth his weight who has not ex­plored death as a theme in his or her work, including the ostensibly staid recluse Emily Dickinson. Kafka's work is all about death or a living death. Would you have him or Miss Emily drawn and quartered for their work?”

  “Of course not. We can't confuse the author with his characters, can we?” said Kim.

  “Perhaps, most assuredly in fact, Poe lived with a death wish, born of a broken heart; he was, after all, a man born into a world he loathed, and it took from him the one ray of love and life he asked for, his little cousin whom he wor­shiped. It's a cruel world to any who are sensitive, and for Poe, this realm proved a world he could not embrace or long abide, and one which did not embrace or abide him— at least not in his own time. Although he's been all the rage for well over a century now, in his own lifetime he was re­garded as a lunatic. Tragic fellow all around, I'm afraid, a kind of dark angel himself.”

  Kim asked, “What are you saying, Dr. Burrwith? That... Edgar Allan Poe ought to've been put out of his misery by someone?”

  “Do you have any idea of how literary America rejected the man? Perhaps suicide was in order, as apparently no one would do it for him. So he turned to alcohol for the an­swer.”

  “I know he courted death, given his lifestyle,” countered Kim, but Burrwith cut her off immediately.

  “The man was clinically depressed and was likely a manic-depressive, all ailments that his time had no cure for, save the poppy-seed sensation and alcohol. Regardless of his dark tales and poems, he was a hopeless romantic. And neither you nor I can begin to conceive the torture he must have endured.”

  Jessica leaped in, asking, “What about our killer? Do you think he may have a Poe complex? ”I would have to study the poems, which I understand he left somehow on the bodies?”

  “You've not seen them?”

  “No, sorry, but I have not. I've heard a rumor that the dean has copies of them, but she hasn't seen fit to share.”

  “I see.”

  “The dean and I have not been on the best of terms, ever. She might share them with someone else in the department but certainly not with me.”

  “What does she have against you?”

  “Oh, I can't say, but it has always felt like professional jealousy of a sort. I routinely publish, while she can't seem to find a place for her own poetry. And I once made the mistake of becoming emotionally involved with her. Fool­ish move for me, really.”

  “Does every professor and administrator here write po­etry?” Jessica asked.

  “Not all, but many are wannabe writers, yes.”

  “Here's some of the killer's work, sir,” said Kim, pulling forth copies of the poems she had first seen in Quantico. “Would you read them, appraise them, tell us what your sense as a professional poet and scholar tells you about the author?”

  Burrwith bit his lower lip, frowned, and considered this for a moment. “Before I answer that, would you two care for a cup of tea? I have jasmine, mint, and green tea here.”

  It seemed a peace offering. The two detectives took it, and soon the trio were sitting in the semi dark of Burrwith's office sipping at tea, steam curling from each cup. Having read the poems with interest, Burrwith finally cleared his throat, began to pace, and said, “Certainly brooding, but the poems you've shown me, the poems are... well, re­markable in their depth and passion.”

  “Remarkable in depth and passion. Can you be more specific?” asked Jessica. “Why, they're beautiful, evocative jewels, in my opin­ion.”

  Jessica thought the thin, pale, and sensitive man before them sincere; he appeared more ordinary and appealing than the misguided Byronic hero of these writings, who, she believed, thought himself to be releasing his victims from the suffering and agonies of this life. That being the killer's motive, the man before them simply could not be the author of this work. Burrwith, for all his brooding po­etry, came off as a man who was on the side of life, not death.

  “Despite my scribblings,” he began, pointing to the book Jessica had borrowed from Dean Plummer, “the idea that I could conceive of such murders and carry them out—it's laughable.”

  “No one has said—”

  “I suspect that Dean Blowhard Harriet Plummer put you onto me; I suspect she thinks I could be this horrid killer.” He laughed a hollow laugh, then apologized. “Look, as an expert in romantic poetry, I, too, received a copy of the FBI packet Dr. Plummer has in her posses­sion, but I have simply been too busy, you see, to look into it. Had I done so, perhaps I could have headed Har­riet off at the pass, knowing how flighty and downright susceptible she is to suggestion.”

  “And exactly what did you do with our serious request for help, sir? Our tax dollars at work,” said Jessica, frown­ing.

  “I wish for the life of me that I hadn't put the packet aside. It's just as well. In any case, I know it has led to your coming directly to me, and I also know the mailing from the FBI was enormous. For Plummer to assume I was not on the FBI's list of experts tells me a good deal about my future here, or lack of one.”

  “Dr. Plummer thought you might be of help to us.”

  “Nice try. For Plummer or anyone to think me the killer, well, it's preposterous, but ludicrous or not, it makes me uneasy all the same. I must wonder what she's told the rest of the faculty.”

  “Makes you uneasy because of the gossip it no doubt will cause?” asked Kim.

  “Oh, and why is that?” he asked. “Many an innocent man has been sent to prison or the gas chamber on prepos­terous evidence.” A timid knock at the door interrupted them. “Look, ladies—do I call you ladies or officers, agents or doctors? Look, I have a student conference scheduled. My young man is likely in the hallway now, waiting. Allow me a moment to reschedule, please.” He then stepped outside, leaving the two FBI agents alone.

  Kim began investigating the items on the professor's shelves, from books to knickknacks, a stuffed armadillo to a puppet raven, a dartboard to a calendar of Waterhouse prints. “Remind you of anyone?” she asked, pointing to the calendar.

  “Maurice's place was decorated with Waterhouse prints, but they're in vogue nowadays among the young and the romantic.”

  “Perceptive fellow; knows the dean's out to get him.”

  “You think she just hates him so much she'd sic us on him for no other reason?”

  Kim whispered, “He hardly seems a madman. Maybe she's the sick one?”

  “But the power of the sociopath is to blend in, and he certainly blends in here.”

  “And at the pubs and coffeehouses frequented by the various victims?”

  “Reminds me of a mad priest I once put away, a man wh
o had been civilized and charming to a fault.” As crim­inal profilers, both Kim and Jessica knew that the greatest skill of the sociopath was his gift for disguise and guile. The charming mad priest put me under his spell, even as he put people to excruciating deaths. Strange, isn't it, how Bunwith looks and acts the very antithesis of the self he created in his artistic work.” Again Jessica wondered about the dean's dark suspicions of the man. “Setting aside what he looks and sounds like, to your psychic sense, what does he feel like to you, Kim?”

  “Feels as harmless as he looks to me.” Still, she shook her head. “But then, perhaps his dark side, the Poe within, is channeled into his art, his poetry, and so he shows only his light side to the universe.”

  “According to him, he's not even a part of the universe outside these hallowed walls. Are you suggesting that he has it in him to murder people, that he's perhaps a dual per­sonality?”

  “I don't believe our killer sees his acts as murder,” said Kim, brushing hair from her eyes. “And neither do you. This guy we're after kills allegedly for the sake of the victim, you see—any means to the end. Murder, no; assisting them to reach another world, assisting them over—■”

  “Like poetic euthanasia?”

  Kim frowned. “Perhaps, but I didn't get a whiff of it on 'reading' him when I shook his hand.”

  “Yeah, some handshake, huh?”

  “If you can call it that.”

  “Dead fish...”

  Bunwith returned, all obviously insincere apologies. A tone of contempt and annoyance filtered through each word he spoke now, as if he were angry that he'd had to send a student off merely to bother with the two FBI detectives. “All right, now that I'm free, I can give you the rest of the day. Fire away with your questions. Would you like me to go downtown with you? Take a lie-detector exam, what?”

  “No need for a lie detector, Dr. Burrwith,” said Kim. “I'm a walking, talking he detector.”