Fatal Instinct jc-2

by Robert W. Walker

  “ Rang the intern quarters. He was sleeping in there.”

  “ And he came in and another drug was prescribed over and above the Valium?”

  “ Pentobarbital over Valium in an eleven-year-old child, yes'm.” Her head was held high now, giving her a haughty and angry appearance. “It was wrong and I told Dr. Archer it was wrong and he told me to shut up.”

  Jessica knew that pentobarbital was routinely used about hospitals everywhere for a litany of ailments. Primarily given before a patient's surgery to stave off nervous insomnia, it was also used to control seizures, and little Rodney Bishop was in the hospital for an epileptic seizure and resulting inju-ries.

  “ Did you try to physically stop Dr. Archer?”

  “ We argued and I telephoned Dr. Grisham, who ordered Dr. Archer to the phone, but by then the damned fool had killed Rodney.”

  The use of the boy's name brought a new welt of tears to assail the woman.

  “ And the boy never regained consciousness?”

  “ Went into coma and there was no bringing him back after his heart seized up.”

  “ Did you ever tell anyone about the boy's story of the doctor in the basement?”

  “ I tried… I truly did. But it was dismissed 'long with me. What does an ol' woman like me know 'bout anything? That was the attitude of them doctors. Felt so awful for that boy's people. Terrible thing… just terrible…”

  “ And then you were set up?”

  “ Like Alice in Wonderland in the Queen's court. Hospital was fearful of a major lawsuit. I was coerced, threatened, cajoled, pleaded with and begged, and finally they just plain scared hell out of me. They were going to take my pension, everything I worked for all my life. They left me no choice but to resign. I put it from my mind so long ago, and now here you are.”

  “ I'm investigating some irregularities regarding Dr. Archer.”

  “ Irregularities?”

  “ Of a more recent vintage.”

  Mrs. Hankersen took a deep breath, eyes blinking and said, “Think of it, the FBI, coming to me for information on that man. Saw a picture of him in the papers just the other day. Wanted to burn the thing and stomp on it, but I just put it out with the rest of the trash.”

  “ Do you think that what occurred back in 1965 at St. Stephen's Hospital was an accident, Mrs. Hankersen?”

  “ I got two ways to go with that.”

  “ Oh?”

  “ If the boy's story of a ghoul in the morgue was true, and I have never seen a more frightened child in my life, then it was no accident. If the boy was just fibbing or night maring, then the overdose was likely an accident in judgment.”

  “ You've given it a lot of thought over the years, haven't you?”

  “ When I rang the interns' quarters where they're on call twenty-four hours, I got no answer for four, maybe five rings. That place was like a closet with a few bunk beds and nobody could sleep through a ringing phone, and when Dr. Archer did come on, he was breathing real heavy, like he'd been running. I didn't think anything of it at the time, but yeah, I've had lots of time to think about it since.”

  She left Mrs. Hankersen soon after, but not before asking her to be prepared to one day repeat her story in a court of law. Mrs. Hankersen said she would not dare do so.

  Then she wanted to know what Archer had done that had the FBI after him. Jessica had to decline giving her any information on a “pending” case, but she assured her that one day Dr. Archer would pay for his sins.

  “ That much I already know,” Mrs. Hankersen had finished in the doorway.

  Outside and all the way back downtown she remained silent, Lou Pierce obviously curious, staring over from time to time and asking if she was okay.

  She assured him with little cliches of custom.

  She was fighting a war within her the whole time, however, and Lou was not fooled. How could she bring to light any of the Hankersen story? It was hardly the kind of compelling evidence that men were indicted on. All she had were a handful of questionable hospital statements and the word of a lone nurse to contradict the records. No D.A.'s office in the land would touch such circumstantial evidence in an attempt to topple a man of Archer's growing reputation and position.

  As for going to Alan Rychman with this, she feared that he was coming to imagine her a suspicious bitch by nature, and spiteful where Archer was concerned. But suppose Archer was in the morgue taking a bizarre necrophiliac's desire out over the body of a woman he'd helped autopsy that day? Suppose the now dead Rodney Bishop had seen his vile performance? Suppose Archer had murdered the boy in retaliation, out of fear and panic?

  What did that make Archer? Besides a cannibalistic ghoul, like the Claw, a murderer of the innocent. And if he was capable of killing a helpless Rodney Bishop, why not an equally helpless Luther Darius? And if he was capable of necrophilia and cannibalism and of killing such innocents, why not, by extension and with the help of an accomplice, infirm, aged and weak women he found on the street?

  Had Alan's words of the night before been meant simply to appease her? She had told him in no uncertain terms that she distrusted Archer, but to now go to him with these allegations? He'd likely think her mad.

  Still, she had to present what she instinctively felt about Archer. At any rate, he was guilty of conspiracy to subvert the medicolegal evidence being compiled against the killer known as the Claw. Alan must at the very least accept this, and he must know that Archer's reasons for doing so may've gone far deeper than earlier thought. Like an onion, one layer peeled away only revealed a denser layer beneath.

  Lou's radio crackled with the dispatcher's signals, 10-1 Is and 10-12s mostly, vandalism, minor disturbing the public, domestic violence. Lou's unit signal was 10–55 and he immediately picked up his transmitter and called into it, saying, “10–55 here. Go ahead.”

  It was late, almost 7 P.M. Alan Rychman's voice came over, asking Lou if he knew of Dr. Coran's whereabouts. Lou looked to his right where she sat alongside him in the patrol car, and when she nodded, he said, “She's right here with me, Captain.”

  “ And where's right here?”

  “ Let me talk to him, Lou,” she said, taking the transmitter into her left hand.

  “ Captain Rychman, if you'll meet me at the Marriott, I have some things to discuss with you before I leave for Quantico.”

  “ Fine, but where've you been?”

  “ We'll discuss it over that dinner you promised me, remember?”

  “ Very well. See you then.”

  Lou returned the transmitter to its cradle and sped through the tunnel for Manhattan. “You and the captain seem to have hit it off, Dr. Coran.”

  “ We have a great deal of respect for one another, Lou, a good basis for a relationship, wouldn't you say?”

  “ I would indeed, ma'am. He's a good man and you, well, you've put a spring in his step, I can tell you.”

  She smiled across at Lou, who had earlier confirmed the nature of the rumors that went around about Archer, but Lou, like most, shrugged it off as “normal morgue bull” as he colorfully put it. She wondered what Rychman would call it; wondered how far she dare go in revealing her ugly suspicions of Simon Archer.

  Perhaps it was too farfetched to say that Archer not only covered up evidence of the Claw but was the Claw. Perhaps Alan would choke on the notion. She knew she must temper what she said, so that Alan would take her seriously.

  She leaned back into the cushioned seat, the weight of the day coming down on her, fatigue threatening to overtake her. She closed her eyes and recalled the tearful features of Mrs. Felona Hankersen, and she once again imagined a wide-eyed little black boy named Rodney who may have been the first person to have had an idea of the true nature of one Dr. Simon Archer.

  Rychman met her in the lobby and they walked to a restaurant nearby, a place called the Social Contract. The ambience was surprisingly one of flora and fauna and jungle sounds, everything bringing up the image of Africa, and some of the dishes were mos
t exotic. After a drink and after laughing over some of the items on the menu, she ordered chicken and he opted for the “rhino steak” after learning that “rhino” referred to the size of the thing.

  After a moment's silence, a toast; Alan promised that he would soon break away and visit, for the first time in his life, the nation's Capital, “Now that I've got my own personal guide,” he'd finished.

  “ If you make a promise to me, mister, I expect it to be fulfilled. I hope you know that.”

  “ Count on it.”

  “ I'll count the days.”

  “ Soon as we put this Claw thing to rest for good.”

  She looked off into the distance, chewed a bit on her “tiger-striped” grilled chicken and then dropped her head.

  Rychman, reading her body language, asked, “What's troubling you, Jess?”

  “ Nothing.”

  “ Nothing or everything?”

  “ All right, Alan, I still think Leon's only half the equation, and I think… I think…”

  “ And you think everybody else is rushing this thing over the falls? Is that it?”

  “ Damn straight that's it.”

  “ Everybody's got their teeth into this, Jess.”

  “ And that means the bite's on you? I know how important being commissioner is to you, Alan, but this isn't the way to do it.”

  He stared coldly at her, his anger rising. “I haven't cut any deals on that score with anybody, kid, and you can take that to the bank.”

  “ Have I said that?” She backed off a bit, sorry for getting into this the night before she planned to leave.

  “ No, but it's what you're thinking. You give me something other than a lot of suppositions and questionable circumstantial evidence, and I'll move on it, Jess. You know that as well as I do.”

  Frustrated, Jessica sipped at her wine, shaking her head, saying, “I know that, Alan… I know.”

  “ You're some kind of holdout, Jess. You're the only one who still thinks that Leon had an accomplice.”

  “ I'm not the only one who thinks so.”

  His eyebrows rose. “Who else thinks so?”

  “ Forget it.”

  “ Who?” he demanded.

  “ A nurse,” she said. “A nurse who knew Archer when he was interning at St. Stephen's Hospital in '65.”

  “ All right, tell me the whole story.”

  She took Alan carefully through the paper trail that led to Felona Hankersen. She told him how impressed she'd been with the woman's sincerity and how unimpressed she was with the hospital's paperwork, citing odd discrepancies. Finally she told him about Rodney's story, of his fear of a doctor he'd seen in the morgue, feeding on a human heart wrenched from a cadaver.

  “ Okay, Jess, is that it?” he said in a tone that spoke of fatigue and disappointment. “The secondhand story of a dead boy from a sad old woman fired from her job? You know what you can do with that kind of evidence. And what're you saying here? How've you gone from Archer's being a petty and jealous assistant to Darius, trying to make himself look good, to a… to a cannibal… to Leon Helfer's accomplice… to being the Claw? It's just too outrageous, Jess. No one would believe it.”

  “ Least of all you,” she said coldly.

  “ Look, if you had anything corroborative, any hard evidence-”

  “ Felona Hankersen isn't the only one who thinks he's a ghoul. You've heard the hallway gossip about Archer.”

  He shook his head, saying, “Don't you think I've heard the same about you, especially since word's out we're seeing each other?”

  This took her aback and she shook her head repeatedly. “Word's out how?” she wanted to know.

  “ Damned if I know, but it is, and so every jerk in the department wants to know what it's like, seeing… someone like you… after hours. Point is I've heard the same nasty crap about you as I've heard about Archer: about how you like cutting thin slices of organ meat for a quick sandwich over the autopsy table. All crap, Jess, and you know it.”

  “ Just the same, Felona Hankersen's not the only one who thinks Simon Archer is a fiend.”

  “ And just who else is there, Jess? The night janitor at the lab?”

  “ Never mind. Guess I've said too much already,” she whispered in her whiskey voice, leaning back into the cushion of the booth.

  “ Who else?” he insisted.

  “ Never you fucking mind. It's no one you'd approve of, anyway.”

  He stared in dismay and she muttered, “Not sure I do myself, it's just… Well, the more I learn about Archer, the more twists and turns I-”

  His eyes lit with an unexpected fire she could not at first fathom. He looked about to explode, about to smash the table with his fists.

  “ Christ, it's Matisak again, isn't it? I thought you wrote that bastard off? What can a madman in a cell hundreds of miles away possibly know that we don't, Jess?”

  She took in a great breath of air and shivered as if a draft passed over her. “I don't know how he does it, Alan, but Matisak has shadowed my every move, my every hunch on this case.”

  “ He's just got you spooked.”

  “ He's creepy, all right, uncanny.”

  “ Bastard's just got you confused, Jess. You must see that.”

  “ Confused? Hysterical is what you mean, isn't it?” She looked sternly up at him, her eyes fiery. “That's so convenient for you, Alan: chalk my suspicions up to those of a hysterical woman. Damn you.”

  “ I'm just saying that this creep's gotten into your head, maybe.”

  “ That's bullshit, Alan, pure-”

  “ All right, all right,” he said, trying to calm her. “So you harbor doubts. Tell me about them. Talk to me, Jess.”

  She calmed, dabbed with her napkin at a spot of wine she'd spilled and said evenly, “I still think there's something to this Dr. Casadessus at the Street Hospital you got a line on. Where has that led you?”

  He scratched his head and said apologetically, “Nowhere, I'm afraid. The guy disappeared like smoke, without a trace.”

  “ So you've given up?”

  “ I still have men working on it.”

  “ Have you ever considered the not so remote possibility that this Dr. Casadessus might be someone close to the case?”

  “ You're back to Simon Archer.”

  “ I am. Alan, you realize it was rather a convenient coincidence for Archer that Jim Drake was killed by a hit-and-run?”

  “ Drake's death is still under investigation.”

  “ Have you checked Archer's car for recent repairs?”

  “ We have, and it led nowhere.”

  “ Then maybe he's got two cars?”

  “ You're reaching, Jess.”

  “ And what about Dr. Darius?”

  “ What about him?”

  “ His so-called suicide. Also overseen by Simon Archer.”

  “ Jess, you sound like… like-”

  “ Don't say it, Alan.”

  “- like you've got some sort of vendetta against Archer.”

  “ My vendetta is against the Claw, Alan, and in my book a Leon Helfer isn't capable on his own of the damage done by the Claw. He's told us that he fashioned the murder weapon while under the spell of this other man, and that it was designed by the other. He was very specific. He told us that the killer had two claws made but used only one, normally, reserving the kill for himself.”

  “ Nobody, Jess, believes what Helfer has had to say.” He put his hand over hers and added, “I know how hard you took Darius' death, but to think that Archer actually helped him out that hospital window, Jess… Well, there's not one speck of evidence to support that contention. I know you got close to Darius. Maybe it's clouded your judgment-”

  “ Clouded, confused woman, huh? So we're back to that.”

  “ You do admit to being human, to being emotionally involved?” She did not answer this, stubbornly persisting in her own questions instead. “So what're you saying? Helfer killed his boss and his dentist as well?”
>
  “ It seems much more likely that Helfer did these men than Simon Archer, Jess. Look, I'm… we are continuing investigations into both Parke's and Malthuesen's deaths. We have good reason to believe both were murdered, but that leaves Leon as prime suspect in these deaths, and this morning, Leon confessed to both murders.”

  No one had bothered to tell her, and she was caught off guard. “Leon'11 confess to anything anyone puts to him now, so long as you promise to keep him safe from the Claw; but tell me this, Alan.”

  “ Yes?”

  “ Has he confessed to being the Claw?” Before he could answer, she added, “Look at this,” and took from her purse a manila envelope, spreading its contents before him: two electronic photos of Archer's hair which she had taken from the lab.

  “ What is it I'm looking at, Jess?”

  “ This was taken a few hours ago, and this was on file. It's a strand of Archer's hair.”

  “ Does this mean something?”

  She explained how she had gotten the first strand, her belief that it was lifted from the body a good seven minutes before Archer arrived on scene.

  He looked over the two photos for some time, his features not giving anything away, but his eyes showing a dubious and steady blink, the big hands folding about the photos. “You sure that you labeled it correctly?”

  “ Yes! Dammit, I knew you'd say that.”

  “ Even if I believe you, Jess, it's slim evidence at best. Do you have anything else on the man?”

  She couldn't hide the look of disappointment on her face.

  “ D.A. wouldn't touch this. It'd be your word against Archer's, and Archer could make a case for your having a longstanding poisoned relationship that-”

  “ Forget it,” she said abruptly.

  “ Wait a minute, Jess.”

  “ Just forget it, Alan.”

  The waiter arrived to clear their dishes, and they fell silent.

  After he left, Alan began, “Jess, it's not that I don't believe that you believe-”

  “ I won't bore you with any more of my doubts, Alan.”

  “ Come on, Jess. That's not fair.”

  “ I wouldn't want to bring you down from that high you've been riding since Helfer was cuffed.”

  He tossed down his napkin and leaned in across the table. “That's bull, Jessica. I'm not railroading this creep. He's as guilty as guilty gets and-”