Bitter Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “Any of the victims ever confide in you that they were thinking of having anything like this done?” Jessica in­quired.

  “No... never. It was, I believe, something done on the spur of the moment, like getting it on, getting a tattoo, a tongue, navel, or clit piercing, typically after having con­sumed a good deal of alcohol or having smoked mucho dinero in the form of grass.”

  “ME's not seeing heavy concentrations of either in the victims,” said Parry.

  “Which means these kids went into it with eyes wide open,” added Jessica. “Now, between the two of you, Mr. Tamburino, Dr. Leare, can you tell us anything about these victims in the way of character traits that might lead to such victimization?”

  'Trusting souls, all of them,” said Donatella Leare. “Of course, I didn't know them all, but they're of a type.”

  “Oh, and what type would that be?”

  “Fragile, fragile as wounded birds, their hearts pumping far harder, far stronger than yours or mine, I can assure you, Doctor. No distrust gene. They open up to people im­mediately and deeply, which pleases most people but may well trigger your everyday sociopath, could it not?”

  Tamburino elaborately shrugged, saying, “Victims. They were all perfect victims. I've read about the type. They lay down for anybody, man, except maybe this time it's for good.”

  “Don't you find it odd so many in so small an area would so easily take on that role?” asked Jessica.

  “Mr. Tamburino's crude assessment may not be to your liking, Dr. Coran,” said Leare, “but there is some truth to it. All of the ones I knew personally—that is, through my work—well... they saw life through rose-colored glasses, to say the least, and they are a product of a generation raised in the beliefs that, while beautiful in theory, can be deadly in practice.”

  “Such as?”

  “Such as all mankind has a purity of soul and goodness that need only be touched into life; such as there is no such thing as evil, only the absence of good—that sort of think­ing.”

  “Like there's no such thing as a bad kid?” asked Parry.

  “Something like that, yes. No such thing as a natural-born killer, a bad seed, a killer gene,” added Donatella Leare. “We artists can portray such Utopias in our poems, books, paintings, but if you try to live such a life, you might easily be heading for disaster.”

  Jessica agreed. “You mean these kids saw life like one of these paintings there done by... by...” She could not recall the artist's name.

  “Samtouh Raphael, one of our local artists. It's com­puter graphics, really. She's become so successful that she quit her teaching job at Penn State to devote herself full-time to her painting, moved into a loft apartment here. A local success story.”

  “Derivative of Maxfield Parrish,” repeated Tamburino, “only the brushstroke is that of a Macintosh PC.”

  Tamburino's comment seemed to irritate Leare, who icily said, “Everything is derivative, Marc, if you scratch the surface; even Shakespeare stole plots from Plutarch. What's important is that the artist make his plunder his or her own. Obviously, Samtouh learned to create light in her paintings from Parrish, but regardless, she has found her own vision.”

  “Some of the subject matter overlaps,” he argued.

  'To hell with that; the woman clearly has something unique, quite her own, that has sparked a mad interest in her work, especially among the young.”

  “I do real photography myself,” said Tamburino. “Been relegated to a hobby since I took on the store, but for a time, I was making good money, doing weddings and other tribal ceremonies.”

  “You mean like that wake you photographed?” Leare asked pointedly.

  “Hey, it was an interesting gig, and the customer paid well.”

  She turned to Jessica. “I see you're delving into my work,” said Leare. “Do enjoy it.” She reached out and mas­saged the copy of her work entitled The Eternal Dream of Still and the Dream of Dirth.

  “Interesting title,” Jessica said. “I'm given to understand many of the victims not only took your class but read and enjoyed your poetry, along with—”

  “Lucian Burke Locke's, I know.” She now snatched Locke's book from Jessica, asking, “Which of his titles do you have here, his latest, ahhh, Sex—the Melancholy Dis­tress. The man is obsessed with getting it right—sex, that is—glorifying it to a fever pitch that tries to reach a nirvana of absolute peace—in his poetry, I mean—a kind of death and birth through the penis. The perfect balm for mankind's ills and confusions, sex as the coiled snake, as in the Kundalini myths and religious beliefs of the East. That sort of thing.”

  “But like the computer artist, he appeals to the young, yes?” Jessica asked.

  “Why don't you talk to him about that? He's back, too. We made the trip to Houston together. Got back late due to an accident at the airport, huge delays. Only saving grace was that the conference was better this year than last.”

  Jessica picked up the photos of the dead, telling Dr. Leare, “Please, you will make yourself available to us, Dr. Leare, should we have further questions.”

  “Absolutely.”

  The poet made her purchases and said her good-byes. At the door, she hesitated. “I dearly hope you catch this fiend and stop him before anyone else is harmed. It's terribly up­setting for all involved, the academic community and the young people who populate Second Street.”

  'Trust me,” Jessica returned, “it's just as upsetting for law enforcement.”

  The tall, domineering Leare, her gait that of a regal if somewhat ostentatious-looking bird, disappeared through the door. Jessica retrieved her books and photo file, and she and Parry bid Tamburino and his little shop of curiosities good-bye.

  SIXTEEN

  To him the book of Night was open 'd wide, And voices from the deep abyss reveal 'd A marvel and a secret.

  —Lord Byron, “The Dream”

  A call from headquarters sent them next to the home of Lucian Burke Locke. The poet had telephoned in when he learned that he was being sought for questioning in the case of the Poet Killer. On their previous visit to his home, Parry had left his calling card. FBI dispatch informed Parry that Dr. Locke wished to cooperate in any way pos­sible, and he'd left word that he would be home for the rest of the evening.

  They drove back out to Locke's home, a pleasant, ram­bling two-story Victorian in need of some serious repairs to the exterior walls and the porch, but otherwise in good shape, well landscaped and the lawn well lit by light that spilled out of the huge, open windows. The place felt cozy and large at the same time, and the atmosphere felt wel­coming. Lucian Locke met them at the door, urging them inside, into a spacious living room decorated in subdued grays and beiges, with blond Scandinavian furniture that starkly contrasted with oaken beams in the ceiling, and yet somehow it all worked.

  To Jessica, the man appeared a strange mix. While his hands and feet were oversized, his body was dwarflike, re­minding Jessica of Peter Flavius Vladoc, only Locke was shorter still, and a decade younger. In an otherwise hand­some face, one eye fixed on the person he spoke to, while the other eye wandered, as if staring off into another realm. Jessica stared back curiously, then suddenly realized that what she was looking at was a glass eye.

  Locke noticed her noticing and immediately said, “Had it put out by a mangy lover when I was only seventeen; wore a black patch to impress the ladies thereafter, until the piratical look grew tiresome. That's when I had the glass eye put in.”

  “Sorry, I didn't mean to stare.”

  “But of course you did. Aren't we all fascinated with the maimed, the damaged, and the twisted, if not consciously then subconsciously? It's not a character flaw, but a part of our common human nature to find the freakish of great fas­cination. Hence the geek shows, and their legacy, TV and film.”

  Jessica attempted another apology, but he shrugged it off with a wave of the hand and asked them, “May I offer you tea, coffee? Anything to drink?”

  Jessica replied
, “Coffee sounds good,” while Parry de­clined.

  “You live here alone?” she asked when he returned to the living room with two cups of coffee and a small pot.

  “No, no! I have Evelyn, my angel of a wife, and my chil­dren, Beverly and Robert, six and seven respectively. They're off on a trip up to the country to see Evey's par­ents. Back soon, I expect.”

  Jessica now saw the photos of wife and children atop the piano. She'd hardly had time to study them in detail when Locke asked if she played.

  “No, not a note, but I love to listen. Do you play?”

  “That's Evey's gift, not mine. She learned as a child, growing up in her homeland.”

  “Oh, and where was that?”

  “Austria.” After the initial shock of discovering Locke to be a short gnarled man with a glass eye, Jessica found herself fasci­nated by him. There was something extraordinary about the man. She wondered if he was not one of those people who, from birth, have to strive extremely hard to overcome what nature has done to them.

  During the time she laid out the photos of the victims, and while Parry asked him the same questions they had asked of Dr. Leare, Jessica caught herself staring at the queer little gnome of a man. His face in the light revealed pockmarks, and he looked as if he'd had his features re­shaped by a plastic surgeon after an automobile accident or a fire. His nose appeared to be the size of an onion. The look of a deformed cherub, she thought, her eyes going over the stubby, swollen hands, and yet at first sight he did not appear quite so grotesque. How could that be?

  Locke caught her eye with his one good one, smiling. He knew she could not help staring at his physical short­comings.

  Embarrassed, she pulled her eyes away.

  “I am somewhat familiar with these two, but the others, no. None of the others I've seen in my classes. They all have a similar emaciated look, though, don't they. Micellina Petryna, now she was a lovely, lovely young woman with a boundless spirit, although subdued. Caterina Mer­cedes quite the same, really. Loved poetry, everything to do with it, particularly the English Romantics.”

  “And were they enamored of your work, sir?” asked Jes­sica.

  “Not so's it would go to my head, no, but they were fans. Either that or both were smart in another way. Both flat­tered me by coming to my recent book signing at that strange little shop on Second Street—Darkest Instinct or something.”

  “Expectations,” said Parry. “Darkest Expectations.”

  “Yes, well, they came fawning for my autograph, osten­sibly, but it would be more accurate to say they came hop­ing to improve their grade, I'm quite sure.”

  “Did it work?” asked Jessica.

  “Flattery to a gnome like me always works, but it's never believed, my dear.”

  Jessica could not for the life of her fix the man's age, but his speech and manner and formality suggested he was Don­atella Leare's senior by at least a decade. He led them to a screened-in pool that looked out over a lake. It was a beau­tiful setting. “My little slice of heaven on earth,” he said, shrugging. They each found seats. Locke's backyard lights lit up an array of plants and a flower garden as well as a children's toy land. A lantern-styled fixture hung on the dock, revealing a small boat.

  “Is there anything you can tell us, anything at all, that might shed some light on who might have, so to speak, 'written' these people into early graves?”

  “I wish I could help you, but no. Not a thing useful comes to mind. Such a waste, I know—first these chil­dren's lives, and now you're coming all the way out here to talk to me—just as much a waste. I do wish I could be of more help.”

  Jessica once again collected the photographs. She and Parry stood to leave.

  “You've got to do whatever you can to stop this monster, Dr. Coran, Chief Parry. It's horrible, and I can only imag­ine the enormity of the pain inflicted on the families of these children. I mean, if such a death came to one of my children... well, I would simply go mad.”

  Jessica's eyes fell on a photo of Locke with his two chil­dren on his lap. Neither child looked like their father, and one was clearly Oriental. Jessica guessed that Locke and his wife had adopted the children. She wanted to ask, but she felt it too prying a question, and it had nothing to do with the investigation.

  On the ride back to the hotel, Parry told her, “I can't imagine such a strange little man as Locke capable of con­vincing a tortoise to move, much less convincing young men and women to lay down and die.” He then told her that Sturtevante's people had been all over everything they had gathered from each victim, and his own time spent on Maurice Deneau's diary had “netted nothing specific; certainly no rendezvous dates with any mysterious poets.”

  “Are we continuing to watch the pubs and coffeehouses along Second Street?”

  “They arrested a number of perverts and mashers in and around Second Street, and we've had half a dozen so-called confessions to the murders—none of which can be given credence—so no one has been held for long.”

  Jessica said good night to Parry and retired to her room. She imagined that Kim had probably wondered where she had gone off to, but it was far too late to knock at the other woman's door. She went directly into her room, stripped and showered, allowing the hot spray to relax her and free her mind of all but this moment's experience. Her shrink had always said, “Live the moment.” Easier said than done, she now mentally chided herself.

  After showering, she wrapped herself in one of the thick terrycloth hotel robes, curled up in bed, and began reading Lucian Burke Locke's volume of poetry. She skimmed most of the selections, just getting a feel for the voice and style. Then she settled on one or two poems, slowly read­ing them through after being enticed by their titles. Locke's work was grim and passionate in the depth of its dark and brooding imagery, she felt. She mentally com­pared his work with the killer's. There was an odd sort of fit, but she refused to consider Locke a suspect just yet. She next lifted Donatella Leare's volume. She skimmed it as she'd done Locke's, and becoming intrigued by cer­tain titles, she read a few in their entirety, but soon her eyes could no longer focus, and her mind ceased to process the language. She didn't know when she fell asleep.

  Now her experience of the moment became a dream—and a dream to run screaming from. She found herself, figura­tively speaking, in bed with both Locke and Leare, finding both poets equally disturbing in appearance and actions. Each reached out at her, tearing at her with clawed hands in vulture fashion. Each poet, dwarf and lesbian, spouted words as meaningless and confused as any jabberwocky she had ever heard until the words crystallized into somber, grim, dreary, and scary. Although it was Locke who had won the more prestigious awards, Leare's haunting look and work proved to be the darker and more sensual of the two poets.

  Marc Tamburino, the store-clerk-turned-owner, a fan of both “artists,” as he'd called them, now stepped into Jessica's dream to say, “I find that Leare is, in the end, the stronger of the two poets. Leare's images... they don't go away.” Jessica felt a disturbance at her core, and images of a dark, empty world filled her mind, but the images both poets had created were not of another world—they ex­pressed the awfulness of this world—in the past, present, and future. While horror writers and poets of horror gener­ally depicted the supernatural as frightening, these two de­picted the real world that way. The surreal horror of reality, or, as Geoffrey Caine described his work, “reality-based horror.”

  A small voice, rational and firm, deep within her kept denying that either of these poets could be the killer she and the task force sought. Whereas the work of both tore at the reader with a raging anger, the words of the Killer Poet joined a gentleness to the dark themes. That's what the poi­soning poet had left as an indelible signature to his crimes, a most gentle touch, that lethal gentleness of hand and word, a quiet horror played out on the backs of the victims.

  She awoke with a start of recognition at this notion, ac­cepting it as a gift of the unconscious, and asked herself what sp
ecifically had so bothered her about Leare and Locke? Was it that these two and many another dark poet since Poe had caught the fevered imagination of whole generations of children and young people? Or was it the nature of the cult that followed their work? Was the killer a part of this cult, and did he choose his victims from its ranks? Or was he himself one of the lionized poets, or an­other poet of similar stature, who decided to exploit the adoration of his or her fans? What young, impressionable kid could say no to an accomplished, well-respected poet like Leare, or for that matter Locke?

  With these thoughts swirling about her brain, Jessica again sought sleep.

  The following day

  With the core members of the task force assembled, Jes­sica discussed her suspicions that all the victims read Locke, Leare, and other poets of this strange dark school, and while Kim and Parry considered the idea important, Sturtevante was quite vocal in her opinion of the opposite.

  During her reading of Leare's volume, a few poems had struck Jessica as especially relevant to the case. “ 'Arche­types of Desire and Hatred: A Verse Dialogue at the End of the Millennium,' “ she read aloud, and paused, adding, “and that's just the title. Listen to this one entitled 'The End of Thought.' “

  You 're the evil that flogs my welted back and I'm the one

  who must overcome.

  So nature made her judgment

  on our vows—

  when you touch my hand,

  all I feel

  is your blood

  running down my fingers,

  dripping onto the ruined street

  where we were wed.

  “Let's kill each other.

  Here's my knife; please,

  I want to feel you twist inside me