Extreme Instinct jc-6 Page 10

  "The man was just apprised of the situation through Lester's office, has had to ID the body of his only child… I feel for him."

  "He could be a real danger to us and the investigation, Jess."

  She looked into J. T.'s concerned eyes, gave him a pat on the shoulder and a fleeting smile. "I don't think so. God, he looked pathetic."

  "He's dangerous, Jess," warned J. T. again.

  "Perhaps… perhaps not. Right now, all I see is a poor, shattered man."

  "Just remember that I was right about the cabdriver from the airport."

  Jessica pulled herself from the wall, took a deep breath, shrugged, and said, "So, we'll remain cautious of Mr. Frank Lorentian."

  "You don't want to be blindsided by him."

  Jessica gave J. T. a wan smile. "Let's go see the secretary."

  "Virginia, yes, for tea and crumpets," he said. "And a list of Chris's friends and associates."

  After gaining Sharon Pierson's address, they found a cab and located yet another area of the sprawling metropolis in the desert valley. The older, run-down section sported broken-down cars and battered, discarded, and neglected trash cans, empty beer bottles, wide-eyed children in dirty T-shirts running shoeless across hard-scrabble lawns, as well as half-demolished buildings long since condemned by the city.

  It hardly looked the place for a spoiled child to run to.

  At the door of a three-story walk-up, Sharon Pierson met them as she was coming out, her purse slung over one shoulder, both hands clutching a single suitcase stuffed wide, bulging like the sides of a rhinoceros. On seeing them at her doorstep, Sharon's eyes blinked a Morse code of dread, which Jessica quickly deciphered despite the red-rimmed eyes that had been given over to a morning's worth of tears.

  Jessica flashed her badge, identified herself as an M.E. for the FBI, and announced who J. T. was, while J. T. offered to give the lady a hand with her luggage. They then waltzed her back inside, J. T. placing the bag in the unlit, cavelike foyer, while Sharon Pierson bolted several latches on her well-sealed door. "Guess I know you two are safe. Read about you in the papers, Dr. Coran."

  "Really?"

  "Guess you're something of a big shot, huh?"

  When finally Sharon Pierson turned on a light, Jessica saw that the place was small, seedy, and unkempt, papers and discarded food trays sitting about, awaiting the roaches. The sink was filled with dirty dishes, and atop the counters lay the remains of half-finished dishes, a casserole here, half a sandwich there, pizza boxes stacked to one side.

  Sharon Pierson appeared drawn, haggard, her skin like leather. Certainly much older than Chris Lorentian had been, she wore what amounted to a perpetual half snarl, as if readying for attack at any moment, her hair dead and stiff-looking from too many colorings and bleachings since her teens. A cigarette in her hand represented a sixth finger, its smoke helping to punctuate her words.

  "I loved that kid like she was my own kid sister. I would've done anything for her," she told them now. "Anything…" Tears flowed freely.

  "Like turn her in to her old man?" Jessica'd had enough with the pious act. "For some trade-off, something about a debt you owed?"

  The green eyes glared at Jessica, sizing her up now. "Everybody in Vegas owes a debt." Sharon's dark red hair-soggy red noodles, Jessica thought-had fallen across one eye, but rather than wisp the hair back, the woman defiantly let it lay. She'd been drinking, and from the scattered bottles and knocked-over ashtray, she'd been doing so heavily. Jessica instinctively sensed an animal fear in her.

  "Tell us what you can about the last moments you saw Chris alive," Jessica said firmly.

  Pierson collapsed into a collection of dirty clothes left on her sofa. ''My heart feels like… like a pair of frozen hands have hold of it," she confided, dropping her head into her hands. "If we hadn't fought, she'd've stayed, you know? She'd've just got on that bus this morning." The cigarette was still, lifeless in her hand save for the smoke now, and now she punctuated each line with sobbing. "She'd… she'd've left this hellhole, and she'd be alive now, having a good time, you know?"

  "Got on what bus?" asked J. T.

  "She was planning a trip." Sharon's head remained buried.

  "Part of her getaway?" he asked.

  She looked hard up at J. T. and Jessica. "Sure, why not?

  Get away from Frank, from Vegas, all the crap. I told her it was a wonderful idea, and it was. Hell, she wanted me to go with her, and for a while, you know, I thought about it, thought about taking her handouts. Not like I ain't done it before, but this… this would've been a lot of money, and it'd mean I'd have to go against Frank's wishes, and…"

  She abruptly stopped herself, realizing that she'd strayed into deep waters. Jessica finished her thought for her, saying, "And maybe he'd forgive his little girl someday, but not likely he's going to forgive you, right?"

  She bared her teeth at Jessica. "I told Chris I couldn't leave my job and go traipsing off with her. We argued, she left. It's as simple as that."

  "Where was she planning on going after she left you?"

  "See the sights. She loved nature, you know. She wanted to be by… with nature. Poor young thing… When I think of what that bastard did to her…"

  "Her father?" asked J. T.

  "No, the fire psycho!" She lifted a newspaper and tossed it toward them. It landed on the floor with the bold headline reading: pyromaniac burns local gambling czar's daughter to death. A subtitle read, fbi on trail of phantom torch killer.

  She stared across at them, saying, "It's all my fault she was killed."

  "No, Sharon," disagreed Jessica. "It's not your fault. We're dealing with a psychotic sociopath here, someone who is deadly and uncaring."

  ''Someone who is as predictable as… as an earthquake or a tornado," added J. T.

  "I should've made her stay. I could've! I shoulda sat on her."

  "And you're afraid that Frank's going to come around to the same conclusion," suggested Jessica.

  New tears welled up from the redhead. "If he ain't already, you know, and when he does… I–I-I can't be here. I gotta get outta this town." Her eyes fell on her suitcase.

  "Did Chris buy you a ticket out?"

  "No, I wouldn't take it. Wish I had now…"

  "Listen to me, Sharon," insisted Jessica, lifting Sharon's head and directing her eyes to her own. "No one, not even Frank Lorentian, can sensibly blame you for what's happened to his daughter. Fact of the matter is, he blames me."

  "Yeah, sure… and isn't that crazy?"

  "Believe me, he's not blaming you," Jessica insisted.

  "How do you know what's in Frank's head? Nobody does. Besides, since when has Frank ever been sensible where his little girl's concerned? He likely blames everybody, the whole fucking world.."

  "He knows it's the work of a violent killer who… who very likely simply took advantage of an opportunity; in a sense a.. a random act of violence." Jessica knew she was not entirely certain of the killer's motives, his method of abduction, or his mind, but she meant to say anything possible to get the Pierson woman to focus off herself and onto the night of Chris's disappearance.

  The frightened woman merely shook her head and said, "If you can put 'Frank Lorentian' and 'sensible' in the same sentence, Doctor, then you don't know Frank Lorentian, and when he reads the papers, he's going to be upset, not just with me, but with you."

  This made Jessica look down at the Vegas Morning Star. J. T. lifted it from the rug and examined it more closely. "Damn it, Jess, they've got the whole bloody story here.

  "What?" she asked.

  ''How the bastard contacted you… how you heard the murder in progress over the wire, all of it."

  "Damn that Osborne."

  "Lester wasn't the only one who heard the story."

  "Repasi?"

  "And what about the firemen, the photographer? The crime scene was full when you told Repasi. And it was all around the convention floor. Could've come from any number of sources, includ
ing Frank Lorentian."

  ''No way. How could Frank Lorentian have known the details of the death before we told him?"

  "From what I hear, Frank Lorentian pays well for information, Jess. What I'm saying is-"

  "Anyone at the crime scene might've sold the information to Lorentian?"

  "Or used it to pay off a debt."

  Sharon Pierson looked on, a glint of pleasure spreading across her face. Jessica guessed it was the feeling of comfort that the younger woman had gained on learning that someone else shared her position on the field-that she was not the sole target of Frank Lorentian's anger and revenge. Jessica refused to give in to the Lorentian phobia, but she felt her own anger welling inside. She wanted to slap herself for having acted so unwisely the night before at the crime scene.

  She turned to J. T. and muttered, ''Damn it. I ought to've known better than to shoot off my mouth." Jessica paced in the tight apartment room and reproached herself. "I wanted to tell Santiva the details personally."

  "I thought you called him last night."

  "I did, but I had to leave a message on his machine. I couldn't go into the detail I wanted."

  "Guess he's likely gotten all the details by now."

  "Along with all the wire services."

  J. T. began talking to himself. ''A flash fire in a five-star hotel, a gambling princess burned alive, all the makings of a Movie of the Week. Press's having a bountiful time of it…"

  ''Stupid, stupid me. Damn, just what this phantom fire nut likely wants, too."

  There came a loud, firm knock at the door.

  Sharon Pierson, her print dress smudged with cigarette and drink splotches, went for the door a bit shakily, wary, her mind filled with notions of how the powerful Frank Lorentian might wreak revenge on her for Chris's demise.

  "Who… who is it?" she asked.

  "LVPD, ma'am, Detective Sternover. Mrs. Pierson?"

  "You the cops?" she asked.

  "Homicide investigation, ma'am. Like a few words with you about Chris Lorentian, when you last saw her, ma'am; help us with a number of unanswered questions, ma'am."

  "Why don't you guys get your act together?" she asked of Jessica and J. T., frowning before she pulled the several latches from her door. She now peeked out and insisted on seeing ID with the new intruders. Finally, she waved two men inside, this time not bothering with the locks. "Guess I ought to feel pretty safe with the cops and the FBI on my doorstep, shouldn't I, Dr. Coran?" she asked. "But I won't bank on it."

  Jessica introduced herself and J. T. to the local investigators, the one calling himself Sternover nodding appreciatively, introducing himself and his partner, Ned Gaites. Sternover stood a head taller than Jessica, a giant of a man, while Gaites stood perhaps five-nine. Both men were in their mid- to late thirties, but while Sternover was graying at the temples and dressed neatly and expensively, Gaites looked like a dark-haired college kid with no regard for fashion. In fact, he wore a Hawaiian shirt, white tennis shoes, and khaki pants, completely clueless. Perhaps he was doing some undercover work, Jessica decided. Sternover was a stovepipe, Gaites the stove.

  "Been reading about you, Doctor," said Sternover. "Also, Gaites and me, we were looking for Chris Lorentian as a Missing Persons case."

  "Really? How long?" Jessica pretended amazement.

  "Right, for the past forty-eight-odd hours," sputtered Gaites.

  Sternover added, "Didn't know we'd find you here, one jump ahead of us. Guess you're as good as they say."

  Gaites's lip curled just enough to tell Jessica that these men had arrived in so timely a fashion thanks only to Frank Lorentian's influence. Obviously, Sternover and Gaites had had the apartment and Sharon Pierson staked out for some time, too.

  Sternover was most likely Frank's friend on the force, but Sharon Pierson obviously did not know this. She also didn't know just how right she'd been about Frank Lorentian's interest in her. Perhaps Miss Pierson was in danger. Perhaps she ought really to heed her first instinct to survival. Perhaps the only chance Frank Lorentian had at a full recovery might be through his innate nature, via a kind of global vengeance Jessica and the others could only guess at. Certainly the man's influence was being felt here, now, like some primordial octopus with multiple tentacles. "We'd like to ask you some questions, Miss Pierson," began Sternover, his mustache twitching and feeding into a large creased wrinkle on either side of his mouth. He'd have a hell of a time as a diver, Jessica thought, for with such a smiler's wrinkle positioned as it was, no mask made could stop the leaks. She thought he resembled Glenn Ford in all the old Westerns.

  "Are you here in your official capacity then, Detective?" Jessica asked.

  "That's a strange question, Doctor. Just what're you implying? What other capacity would we be here in, Dr. Coran?" Sternover's thick mustache twitched.

  Gaites interceded, saying, "We're here just like you, for the same reasons."

  Sternover verbally shunted Gaites aside, saying, "Just seeking to stomp out the ignorance that plagues us poor working cops; just here to open ourselves to the fire of truth, so to speak."

  Gaites laughed at his partner's philosophizing words. "Damn, Ted, listen to yourself sometime. Can you 'magine being next to this guy all day, Doctors? Tellin' you, it's enough to make a good man go bad." Then Gaites turned serious. "We're here because some psycho's out there with a blowtorch, and according to you, Chris Lorentian may not be his first…" His words made Jessica wonder where they were getting their information. Nothing had been said by fire authorities about previous fire murders in the area; nothing had indicated any sort of previous pattern. There'd been none of that in the newspaper accounts either.

  "… and it certainly, certainly won't be his last victim," finished Gaites. "So, if you Feds'll stand aside and allow us to do our job…"

  "We're not interested in doing your job for you," countered J. T.

  "There a problem here?" asked Sternover, pushing his bull weight and size forward.

  "Just one," Jessica returned, holding her ground, staring long into Sternover's cold eyes, a pair of purple grapes in the dim light, no seeds at the center to reflect back light.

  "And what's that?"

  "How much are you in for?"

  ''In for?'' Sternover pretended ignorance.

  "How short are the strings Lorentian's got over your head?"

  Gaites stared hard at his partner, either a fine actor or a man amazed. ''Ted, is that true?'' asked Gaites, grabbing his partner by the lapels.

  "All right, all right… enough with this machismo crap," said J. T. in an attempt to quell the sudden animosity. He then proceeded to offer up what little they had gotten from Sharon Pierson, finally telling the detectives, "We'd hoped to get more, but Miss Pierson obviously knows very little that might help in the investigation."

  "Listen," Jessica told J. T., waving the newspaper story, "I'm going to let you three men coordinate information on this, okay, J. T., and I'm going to get back to the hotel, put in a call to Eriq Santiva before he hears what's going on without my input."

  "Sure, sure," agreed J. T. "We can manage here."

  With that, Jessica beat a hasty retreat, glad that she had conveyed to Sternover that she knew exactly whose payroll he was on. He didn't dare rough up or harm Pierson, not now.

  Jessica flagged a cab, and in the ride back to the Flamingo, she stewed about all that had happened and all that she felt must happen in the next few hours. She needed to coordinate with local law enforcement through proper channels, and this meant she needed Quantico's okay and support as well as their manpower. She also very much needed a psychological profiling team assigned to this fire phantom. Most of all, she needed Quantico's immense storehouse of knowledge, its computers, to search for like killings that might be tied to the Phantom.

  And she needed to get to Eriq before the news services did, if she weren't already too late.

  Jessica's phone call to Eriq Santiva at Quantico Headquarters netted a good feeling of backup. Wh
ile Eriq had the physical evidence of the crime in his hands, and he had gotten bits and pieces of what had gone on in Las Vegas, at the time of Jessica's second call, Eriq had not gotten all the details of how the killer had chosen Jessica as his conduit to authorities until now, until she told him. She also told him that the newspapers had jumped on the story there in Las Vegas, calling the killer the Fire Phantom.

  Eriq assured her that FBI would put all of its powerful machinery into motion at Jessica's request for assistance, and Eriq meant to personally see to the back-shelving of other important cases in the bargain. "Quantico is at your disposal, Jess. Anything you need. I'll put the red flag on the locals and the field office there. You need it, you got it."

  "Thanks, Eriq." She thought, He's now a good and tried friend and associate.

  "If you say the word, Jess, I'm on the next flight there."

  "That's not necessary."

  "Then you're all right?"

  "Yeah, I'm dealing-"

  "As usual? There's nothing usual about this business, Jess. My concern is not just for your physical safety. I'm also concerned about your emotional state. This kind of thing, the way this guy is toying with your head, Jesus, I mean how?"

  "How?" she asked.

  "How did this… this fiend behind the pyromurder of Chris Lorentian know where you would be staying?"

  "Easy enough. Convention's been in the papers here and it's centered at the Hilton."

  "Still, how'd he so effortlessly orchestrate this foul scheme-much less think it up?"

  She sensed that Eriq's fear barometer, along with his concern, was also on the rise. And Eriq, as long-winded as he was, managed to ask all these questions in quick, fluid, Latin-accented succession. It made her think of their work together in Miami, where together they tracked the trackless Night Crawler all the way to the Cayman Islands. "You should be getting a request for a nationwide fingerprint search through the Vegas branch office, and my friend Chief Warren Bishop."

  "We'll give it first priority to be sure. God"-he stopped to gasp-"I mean, it's truly sick, and the notion that this detestable monster's in a suite not three floors below yours when he contacted you, allowing the smoke and fire of his flaming victim to mask his movements. It's sheer horror."