Fatal Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  She liked the fact he used the woman's name instead of calling her a body, corpse, cadaver, victim, subject or stiff. He seemed a sensitive man. “Nine hours is a lot of time.” He knew that she understood how grueling the hours spent over a murder victim, especially one so disfigured and dismembered, could be. Her eyes, the only visible feature left unmasked, met his again.

  “There was nothing easy about it, I can tell you,” he replied.

  “Let me have a look,” she said, snatching away the sheet that covered Mrs. Hamner's remains.

  The sheet flew and curled away, sliding to the floor and beneath the table. She found that Mrs. Hamner had been reassembled with sutures across chest and abdomen and encircling the neck. The sutures and the cleaning could not hide the hideous original slashes to the woman's torso, three parallel but jagged rupture lines from breastbone to navel. The murder weapon was as crude as garden shears and as delicate as a surgeon's scalpel all at once, she instantly thought. This meant that it had more than one edge. She imagined a weapon that was double-edged, perhaps serrated, but how, then, the three perfectly formed zigzags at what appeared the same depth? Had the killer performed a kind of ritual pattern drawing across the skin, a New Age swastika?

  “The decapitation?” she asked.

  “After death.”

  She nodded, saying, “Small comfort.”

  Her eyes had at first avoided the ghastly, nauseating sight of the destroyed facial features. She examined them now, the wounds cleaned with an alcohol-based solution, the skin and puckering scars arid, barren of moist suppleness.

  There were no eyes, only empty sockets, like all the other victims. It was surmised the cannibal thought the eyes a delicacy.

  “Initial blow to the head was not sufficient to kill?”

  “ 'Fraid not; that would've been merciful. Just a skull fracture, caused by a blunt instrument, the shape confirming our suspicion of a hammer.”

  “Round-headed?”

  “Ball peen, yes. But she was alive when he tore into her torso.”

  “Splayed her open like she was a marlin,” she muttered, feeling sick at heart.

  “Are you all right, Doctor?”

  She sighed heavily, pushing back the threatening nausea. “Yes, I'm all right.”

  Archer loosened his collar below the gown. “My first Claw victim put me under one hell of a strain, let me tell you. I've seen all six, either as autopsiest or assisting. After that first one, I thought of running out of here, the way Perkins did, but now—”

  “Do you mean Perkins quit?”

  “It appears so, yes.”

  “Then you'll be handling the evidence he gathered at the scene?”

  He shrugged. “Me, the tech team here, yes, unless Dr. Darius returns and wants to handle it himself, which is fine with me, but...” His voice trailed off. “Sorry, I'm boring you, I'm sure... talking too much.”

  She sensed that loyalty to Darius had made him stop short of another word. “It must've been wonderful to train under a man like Luther Darius.”

  “None like him, and yes, it has been.”

  She turned back to the work at hand, her own hands going gently to the wounds and the patchwork of stitches that made Mrs. Hamner look like a Frankenstein monster. In the empty eye sockets lived a deep, disturbing mystery.

  “I would've liked to see her before you put her back together and stitched her up,” she said.

  “I... I had no idea you were going to be here. If I had—”

  “Show me,” she said, “at what areas you found teeth marks.”

  “Several areas, actually, but the best were lifted from the throat, at the voice box. Here.” He pointed with a penlight.

  She stared at the animal markings.

  “Where else?”

  He pointed to marks on the thighs, rolled the body and pointed to tears in the buttocks. “Only partials lifted here; didn't photograph under the electron microscope too well. Computer enhancement helped little.”

  She nodded. The bite marks were discolored abrasions, looking like bruises, easily seen while the blood remained in the body, but not quite so easily seen now, since samples had been carved away for use under the electron scope.

  “The bites,” she began. “Do they come before or after death?”

  “Both. Some showed vital color reaction, others no.”

  “Anything else I should know?”

  “He may've eaten the liver during the attack; chewed fragments were left behind, and he carried the heart and kidney off with him. Police believe he was surprised, left hurriedly.”

  “But still left nothing of himself behind?”

  “Nothing but the teeth imprints. He's cunning.”

  “Anything else?”

  “He may've been shocked to learn she had only one kidney, one of the items he made off with, we theorize.”

  “Only one kidney?”

  “Old suture wounds and her medical history reveal she'd donated her other one to a better cause, donor for her sister.”

  “Did Perkins diagram the crime scene? Where were the disemboweled organs and the head in relation to the body?”

  “Perkins didn't do much of anything, I'm afraid.”

  “That's a crime.”

  “Ought to be punishable, but—”

  “What did his report say about it?”

  “Intestines yanked out, coiled alongside the corpse rather neatly. No, no, that was an earlier victim. Perkins said the intestines were looped about the body and limbs.”

  “Looped.”

  “You know, like rope.”

  “Around the waist, legs, neck?”

  “Head was severed, remember?” A note of annoyance had filtered into his voice. He looked dead tired, up all night.

  “Bites taken out of the intestines again?”

  “Several.”

  “So what have you on the murder weapon?”

  “The twenty-four-thousand-dollar question?”

  “Come on, you've got to have made some conclusions.”

  He nodded, stepped away from the body, and she pursued. “I believe it is some sort of serrated scissors or tool. Handheld, honed razor-sharp, to be sure.”

  “A common pair of scissors?”

  “Or something damned close, maybe garden-sized?”

  She glanced back at the silent body of evidence which wasn't giving up its secrets. “I've seen enough,” she told Archer, and with her cane she returned to the adjacent room, where she discarded her mask, gloves and gown.

  She was feeling a little faint. The emotional response brought on by the sight of Mrs. Hamner's devastated body, like a timed fuse, began to burn down. She rushed into an adjacent washroom, aware that Dr. Archer had entered the area to discard his own surgical garb, and that he was watching her until she closed the door behind her. How much weakness had he seen? she wondered from inside the claustrophobic washroom. She went to the basin and washed cold water over her face, fighting the rising tide of fear and loathing, desperately seeking the control over herself that her shrink had told her she was capable of maintaining.

  It was all Matisak's fault, his doing. He had crippled her not only physically but mentally as well, robbing her of something more precious than the easy use of her legs.

  And now she was in the city where the Claw lived and preyed on women not unlike her, women who lived with fear every day of their lives. He was not behind an unbreakable wall. He was at large. He had risen from bed this moming and had likely scanned the papers for an account of himself and what he'd done to Mrs. Hamner. He was nearby.

  He was the same kind of maniac as Gerald Ray Sims and Matt Matisak, perhaps both of them rolled into one. She stammered to her reflection in the mirror, “Bastard... bastard thing.”

  Six

  The night had passed without incident related to the Claw, the poised city like a bride relieved to have been stood up. Getting in early to his new office, Rychman felt, would give him time to get organized, to prepare for the d
ay, gird up for the inevitable surprises. He'd gotten Dr. Archer's less than helpful forensics report on the Hamner woman, had sat up with it, searching for something—anything—that might lead to a breakthrough or at least a direction they might take. But there was nothing new, beyond the beheading. Why'd the creep add that?

  He'd avoided reporters by driving straight into the underground garage, where he now had a parking slot. He had purposefully avoided reading the morning news, knowing it would be filled with a lot of trash about the case and the department, none of which helped. Why didn't they print the facts? Literally thousands of suspects had been hauled into custody, questioned and released; more man-hours had gone to the case prior to the formation of a task force than any in the history of the department. The cops were doing their job. Maybe the formation of the special task force to which he was assigned would get the press off their backs, at least for a time, but he doubted it.

  He'd successfully led task forces before and was responsible for the white-collar crimes of Charles Dean Ilandfeldt coming to light. He had routed the Lords of Satan biker gang before that, infiltrating as a fence for automatic weapons. They had so come to trust him that they'd allowed him to film a bit of “biker justice” from inside the walls of the L.S. hideout. He'd never witnessed such cruelty before, but the work of the Claw made the L.S. guys look like a Girl Scout troop.

  As for his new duties, Rychman didn't mind an interesting change, but Police Plaza One—and his new, upscale office— were going to take some getting used to.

  He tried to get comfortable in his new, temporary office, switching on the soft-rock channel, playing now a Gordon Lightfoot medley which ended with his favorite, “If You Could Read My Mind.” It made him wish that he could read the Claw's mind, and the mind of Dr. Jessica Coran, for that matter. Did she really think she could see into the killer's mind? Perhaps she'd just gotten lucky in the Mad Matisak case in Chicago; coincidence and luck often played a large part in detection and police work, after all. “Son of Sam” Berkowitz was caught because some beat cop wrote him a ticket for illegally parking, a stroke of dumb luck. Then again, Rychman believed that when coincidence struck, most people failed to recognize it for what it was, because most were not tuned in, were not observant, especially of the commonplace and everyday. Perhaps this female M.E. Coran was tuned in. She certainly seemed observant.

  He thought for a moment about how pretty she was, the radio now blaring out the traffic report, promising the news soon. He'd begun to take a cursory look at his correspondence and several files that cluttered his desk when Lou Pierce came in, an odd look on his face. Rychman and Lou had been together now for nearly seven years, and he knew when Lou had to shake off to the can and when he had a toothache, and when he had bad news.

  “Something in the Times you ought to see, Captain.”

  “Not so sure I want to see anything in the Times, Lou. Not yet, anyway.”

  “This won't wait, Captain. C.P.'s on his way, and the mayor's been up all night.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  Lou slumped down in the chair across from him and dropped the paper in front of his captain all in one languid movement. He seemed to be melting into his chair, shutting his eyes, feigning sleep. “Been reading up on self-hypnosis techniques, Captain,” Lou said. “Everywhere you look, everybody's saying how important relaxing is—to the health, the body, the soul, I mean...”

  Lou kept his eyes closed tight as he spoke and as Rychman scanned the story on page one. The byline was that of a now familiar reporter, Jim Drake III.

  The headline was scorching: “6th Claw Mutilation Murder—Police Without a Suspect, Leads or Clues.”

  “Just heard it on a talk show the other day, 'Donahue.' Had a lot of doctors on and they all stressed the same thing, about learning how to relax,” Lou prattled on. “Say if you can't relax, you'll wind up with bleeding ulcers, a heart condition or in a mental ward, or all three.”

  Rychman wasn't relaxing as he read down the column, his anger rising with each printed word. He was now at the center of the story where he was, named as a questionable selection to head the special task force put together by the city to end the terror.

  And the bastard actually brought up a bar fight that was sixteen years old, along with Rychman's controversial and nasty divorce.

  “Christ,” he muttered, “Jesus Christ.” He imagined Dr. Jessica Coran in her hotel room reading the story over her coffee.

  “Consider the source,” said Lou cautiously.

  Rychman stood up, knocking over his coffee, cursing and slapping the paper down so hard that papers flew in all directions. “Lou, I'd like to consider the source. I'd like to hang the goddamned source. I want a fucking gag order on this whole damn building, you got that, Lou?” And as he spoke, the door burst open and in walked the mayor, his Commissioner, Eldritch, and Dr. Jessica Coran.

  So she's an early riser, too, he thought as he stared across the disheveled desk at them, Lou trying desperately to pick up the loose papers and dry up the still-dripping coffee.

  Rychman made no attempt to hide his anger. Everyone must know that the press seemed to be stalking Alan Rychman. But he calmed long enough to say, “I guess you've seen the papers.”

  “Making us look like idiots, this bastard,” said Commissioner Eldritch.

  His Honor the mayor, Dan Halle, came right to the point, his style, which Rychman liked. Halle was concerned about the image of his office and the police department, but he seemed also genuinely concerned about the realities of the situation. Alan Rychman had learned on earlier occasions that His Honor had studied the facts and details of the Claw slayings. He knew what they were up against. “Alan, I'm very concerned that we make some kind of break in this bloody case. We've got to show some progress. That's why we called in the FBI, and that's why they sent Dr. Coran, here.”

  The commissioner was not so straightforward, and while Coran was nodding, saying they'd met, Carl Eldritch said, “That's why you were selected to head the task force, Alan.”

  Rychman knew a lie when he heard one. The C.P. wanted to remain the C.P., and Alan presented a real threat to him, and they both knew it. Eldritch knew that it was a make-or-break case, and he also knew that the department was coming up empty at every turn. He was gambling that Rychman and company would be as inept as the press painted them. He continued, his tongue greased, Rychman believed, so that he wouldn't choke on his own lies. “I'm sorry I couldn't have been in two places at once yesterday when Dr. Coran arrived. The mayor had hoped to be here, too, but circumstances—”

  “Circumstances being as they are, I fully understand,” Rychman said with an edge to his voice. “Not to worry, everything's in hand. The ball's rolling, right, Lou?”

  Pierce had remained silent and had slipped toward the door. He was about to disappear when Rychman asked the question.

  He inched back through the door, saying, “Absolutely... everything is under way. And might I add, sir, that everyone associated with the task force is enthusiastic and hopeful.”

  “Good, good,” said the mayor, “we need all the enthusiasm we can muster for this heinous work.”

  Lou finished his disappearing act.

  Rychman exchanged a look with Jessica Coran. Lou had turned off the radio, tidied the mess Rychman had made, and had done so like a doting servant or faithful wife.

  “It must be good to have such a loyal aide,” she said.

  “I insist on loyalty.”

  “So,” interrupted the C.P, “what're your plans at this point. Captain Rychman?”

  “Plans?”

  “For the apprehension of this... this Claw character.”

  “We are proceeding as quickly as we can, but the task force was just begun yesterday; if you remember, sir, I suggested such a special team two weeks ago, but—”

  “Two weeks ago there were only a few deaths, one victim a prostitute,” countered the C.P. “Allocating a fortune in city funds to this madman—at that time—�
��

  “—would have reflected badly in the papers, I know,” Rychman finished. “Now we've arrived at the same destination. So tell me honestly what sends you gentlemen here, besides this?” He punched his large forefinger at the copy of the Times.

  “It's not just the press, Captain Rychman,” said the mayor. “It's everyone, the clergy, the PTA, the Rotarians, for Christ's sake, the whole city, the community.”

  Alan put up his hands. “You think I don't know that everyone is on us?”

  “We need to make an arrest.” The C.P. finally got around to what the visit was actually about.

  “Arrest, huh?” he said, muttering under his breath, “Jesus.” Rychman began to pace like a large, caged bear, then stopped before Jessica and coolly stared her in the eye, asking, “That'd look good? Calm the community brain? Do you agree with this... thinking, Dr. Coran? That we ought to make a wholesale arrest?”

  “No one said wholesale arrest, Alan,” interrupted Eldritch.

  But neither Jessica nor Alan Rychman heard him, so intent remained their attention to each other. She said calmly, “No... no, I don't believe an arrest for the sake of an arrest will, in the long run, serve any purpose.”

  Rychman's face brightened, but he quickly squelched his smile when he saw the confusion in Eldritch's eyes. Eldritch had apparently believed Dr. Coran was sold on the idea.

  She stood up and paced, her cane tapping out a soft requiem. “Gentlemen, detaining and questioning your thousands of MSDOs has already cost more time, energy and paperwork than you can afford, creating several thousand paper trails that will likely lead nowhere.”

  “We can't stand idly by a moment longer!” shouted Eldritch.

  She met his eyes. “This killer is not your usual sex offender; he's not a rapist; he's in no way a typical killer.”

  Mayor Halle asked her what she was driving at.

  “This maniac is the rarest of murderers. A man who has acquired a taste for female flesh and female suffering. He kills women because he hates women; he is a predator, and people of my sex are his prey.”

  “Is that how you see it, Captain?” Halle asked.