Unnatural Instinct (Instinct thriller series) Read online

  “I see. So, how can we help you, Dr. Coran?”

  “I want you to get out to his place and execute a search and seizure warrant, ostensibly to locate Judge Maureen DeCampe. We fear he intends burying her alive—if he hasn't already done so.”

  “Christ... sure, we'll do everything within our power to cooperate, of course. Have you faxed a copy of the warrant to my people here?”

  “Not just yet, but it's on its way.”

  “On its way?”

  “She doesn't have a moment to lose, sir.”

  “Lost my last case in court for jumping the gun on a warrant, Doctor. It's not going to happen again. Best I can do is stay in radio contact while I get some units up there, waiting and poised to go in. But I won't order my men in without paper on the suspect”

  “It's on its way,” she lied.

  “Like I said, soon as we have it in hand.”

  “What about soon as I have it in hand, Chief Gorman?”

  “Don't know...”

  “You can trust me.”

  He hesitated.

  “Minutes are like days on this case. Chief.”

  “I'll send 'em in on your say-so. I'll get them out there soon as I get off the phone. I can promise you that much.”

  “Keep in constant contact with us, sir.”

  “As much as earthly possible, I will.” Chief Virgil Gorman immediately telephoned Iowa City Sheriff Chester Dunkirk, who on learning the news, replied, “I'm going to step back, Virgil. You're entirely in charge here.”

  Virgil Gorman understood. There were a lot of Purdys living in and around the area, and it was an election year. “Do you know Isaiah Purdy? Is he capable of this sort of thing?”

  “I've never made the man's acquaintance. Heard stories when his son was arrested in Texas. All I ever heard was he was devoted to his wife, his son, and his pig farm. But he never spent a night in my jail. You?”

  “Never heard of him before I got that call from the FBI.”

  “Well, since you called, I dug out the likeness the Feds put out on the old man, Virgil.”

  “And what about it?

  “According to a cousin, it doesn't look anything like him. The cousin works for us.”

  “A cousin of Purdy's? Could be useful at the scene. Can you get him out there?”

  “He's not too cooperative, Virgil.”

  Gorman hated to hear this. “Anything? Did he give up anything?”

  “Said the old man's a hermit up there, and nobody has anything to do with him or his wife, and no one's seen either of them in months.”

  “I'll see you at the perimeter, Dunkirk.”

  ELEVEN

  Ruthless as the old devil gods of the worlds first darkness.

  —SIR PHILLIP GIBBS

  Houston, Texas

  INSIDE Judge Raymond Parker's chambers in downtown Houston, Texas, Dr. Meredyth Sanger did not have to plead long for Parker's help. Parker told her a chilling story about how the old man, just after his son's execution, had shown up at the courthouse, ostensibly to talk to Judge DeCampe. He grew somewhat irascible when he learned that DeCampe no longer worked at the courthouse. The old man had then asked for Judge Parker, and so he was brought upstairs by one of the guards to see Parker.

  “And what did he want?”

  “He wanted to know how he might get in touch with Judge DeCampe, said something about closure, how he was glad it had all finally come to a conclusion.”

  “Did you tell him how he might get in touch with her?”

  “Absolutely not, no! I told him I would be most happy to convey that message on to her.”

  “Well, it would appear someone told him she was in D.C. He's suspected of abducting her there.”

  “He didn't learn of her whereabouts from me, but her move was reported in the newspapers, the Chronicle in particular. He could have easily accessed the information.”

  “Then he goes clear across the continent with his dead son in tow alongside an empty coffin meant for her. Amazing.”

  The Honorable Judge Raymond Parker grabbed up a pen and a preprinted form to fill out. “I'll give you a warrant to search the old man's home in Iowa, but for an Iowa cop to serve it, I don't know. It's not always as simple as signing on the dotted line.”

  “I'll take any kind of paper I can get,” she finished.

  While filling out the search and seizure warrant at Purdy's address in Iowa, Judge Parker gave Meredyth more insight into the motive behind DeCampe's abduction. Parker said, “Purdy sat stone-faced throughout his son's appeal months before. The man never said a word. Just came every day and statued himself behind Jimmy Lee.”

  Parker finished the document with a swirl of the wrist and he said, “So what are you doing here, Dr. Sanger? Why aren't you on the horn to Iowa City, Iowa? Get the State Patrol out to Purdy's farm now!” Judge Parker's order came with his warrant as he pushed it into her hands.

  She thanked him.

  “I'm not waiting for Sharon to have the papers triplicated. Once you call Iowa, I'll do all the busywork. Make the call. Use my phone.” He handed her the phone.

  NOT every cop, but very near every state trooper in Iowa, sat poised and ready for Jessica Coran's go directive, and she knew that every minute ticking by could be DeCampe's last—If the judge is indeed still alive somewhere in the world of Isaiah Purdy, she told herself. An hour and twenty minutes had passed since she'd talked to Chief Patrol Officer Virgil Gorman in Iowa. “Where the hell's that warrant?” she shouted to the ceiling. No one on the task force had an answer for her.

  “Get the guy in Iowa back on the line for me,” she told the civilian secretary.

  Only a few seconds later, she was in contact again with Gorman. “Look,” she said firmly, “if he's already buried her out there someplace on his property, you guys could take hours, even days locating where the grave site is.”

  “Yeah, that's why we brought dogs, Dr. Coran. Once we hit the place, we'll find her and find her quick. Promise you that much.”

  “Can you? This old man is like some devilish fox. I need you to move in on him now.”

  “Then you have the warrant in hand?”

  She hesitated.

  “We can't just go on a man's property and search without some kind of warrant,” replied Gorman. “Despite all your suppositions about Purdy, Doctor, this is still the U.S. of A., not Moscow.”

  “The warrant's a formality. It's in the works.”

  “I have to have it in my blessed hands or at least have a call from the governor. You think you can arrange that?”

  “If DeCampe's not already dead, she's still being mentally and physically tortured by him. She could lose her mind. Damn it, we've got to act.”

  “We've got to have the warrant in hand if we want to nail this bastard. No warrant, and he will in the end get off scot-free,” countered the Iowa lawman. “What's more, you people know that better'n we do out here in the sticks.”

  “I'll get your warrant. Just hold on to this line for a few minutes.” She looked across at the task force members in the operations room. Very near the entire team, including Lew Clemmens, had assembled. Clemmens, who'd brought over his laptop, awaited electronic confirmation from either Judge Parker's office in Texas, the U.S. Marshal's Office, or Judge Pauline Fitshue in D.C. Whoever got the paperwork completed first had custody of Purdy: the federal government, D.C., or Texas. Jessica wasn't particular.

  “I'm not waiting a second longer,” said Jessica to her team, her hand over the receiver. “Fuck it. Lew, send a fax to Iowa now.” 'Telling them what?”

  “That the federal writ for Purdy's apprehension has been ordered by the U.S. Marshal's Office. Do it! Do it now.” Clemmens hesitated only a moment before sending the message. Iowa dispatch, poised and ready, instantly contacted men at the scene just outside a dark little farmstead in the middle of nowhere, outside Iowa City, Iowa. “Go!” shouted Jessica into the phone. “It's a go, Chief!”

  Sirens responded as the Iow
a State Patrol stormed the stark, bleak countryside farm home of Isaiah and Eunice Purdy.

  MAUREEN, her ankles wobbly, her limbs weak, unsteadily climbed to her feet and stumbled into Nancy. They clumsily clung to one another, the stench and the horror of this place overwhelming. “You going to be able to walk, honey?”

  “I... I think so.”

  “Might even have to run. Think you maybe can run with my help?” asked Nancy.

  “I will if it comes to that, yes.”

  “Good girl... good girl.”

  Unsteadily at first, like a baby, Maureen began to regain use of her legs and feet. She dared not wonder at the gangrenous portions of her body. But she felt faint, weak, and she realized only now that she'd been slowly starving and dehydrating as well as enduring the torture.

  Nancy held on, guiding her. “Come on, dear. Let's get out of this awful place.” They made their way to the large bam doors, when suddenly one of them slammed into Maureen and Nancy, knocking Maureen off her feet and stunning Nancy. In the next instant, Maureen heard Nancy's startled scream and the thud like a fallen tree, a dirt cloud kicking into Maureen's eyes. Clearing her sight, Maureen saw the awful cause of the dirt cloud. The force of Purdy's pitchfork had sent the other woman's body to the dirt to be pinned there, twitching and alive.

  Maureen now stared at the RE/MAX button on Nancy's bloodied blouse, just over her heart. One of the three prongs of the pitchfork had bitten into and through her badge and breast, while the center prong went through her center, and the third through her left breast. Nancy's head slumped melonlike to one side, her now dead eyes staring into Maureen's. Neither words nor sound issued from her now, only a froth of blood and body fluids.

  “Kill me! Kill me, you son of a bitch!” Maureen shouted at Purdy even as she struggled to stand, pulling herself up by the handle of the pitchfork, rocking Nancy's lifeless body in the effort. She tore at the pitchfork, attempting to free it and use it on Purdy. But she couldn't find the strength to pull the thing free before Purdy's hands also grabbed hold of the deadly tool.

  In the darkness, she fought for possession of the pitchfork, but his grasp and tug easily overcame his weakened victim. He toppled her with a slap to the face, and now she backed farther into the bam, backed over Jimmy Lee's decayed corpse, where she fell. Screaming and scrambling from the filthy floor and into a stall, she found a large square of blackness in which to hide. “Can't tell you how much I'm enjoying this little turn of events.”

  The judge's whimpers in the dark were her only response. Just enough for him to home in on her. In the distance, he heard—and she heard—the sound of a siren, and they both wondered if the dead realtor had called anyone before she had arrived. Maureen thought not, but in her confused mental state, perhaps she was wrong; perhaps help was indeed on the way. And fearing this, perhaps the old man would kill her here and now to end this thing before the authorities could.

  It was a thing she could never have ever wished for in her past, but now she wished for death to take her, and yet there remained a residual of hatred and anger for Purdy that made her want to kill him first. But how?

  AN army of black-and-white cars with sirens blaring descended like locusts on the Purdy farmstead, one running down a RE/MAX For Sale sign as they converged on the house and bam. Two teams moved with precision training, each knowing its objective: one to control the house, the other to control the bam. They easily poured into the house, the doors unlocked and one swinging on its hinges. There, Sheriff Chester Dunkirk immediately felt the utter loneliness of the place, the emptiness of the old farmstead, as if the walls shouted its desertion. Still, he called out for Purdy and Mrs. Purdy to show themselves. “No one's going to harm you. It's Chester Dunkirk and Deputy Bailey Dobbins. The State Patrol's got some questions for you, Isaiah, Eunice.”

  Deputy Dobbins added, “Come on, now. You know me. I come only to help you out whenever you got problems over this way. Just come on out of hiding now and answer the sheriff's questions. Just step out now.”

  There was no response, save the pounding of men charging up the stairwell to Purdy's second story. Everyone knew the fierce regard many of the area farmers held about anyone, lawman or not, coming uninvited onto their property and especially into their houses. Every man here understood he could be shot at any moment should old Isaiah come through a door blasting two shotgun barrels full of buckshot at the officers, and given the allegations against the old man....

  One patrolman now stuck his head over the rail and shouted down, “All clear up here, Sheriff! Nobody at all.”

  Others poured into the basement. Again the report came back: no one, not a sign of life and no sign of the abducted judge. “Nobody walking.”

  Sheriff Dunkirk repeated the words in a mutter of frustration. “Nobody walking. Hope Gorman's team's done better out at the bam.”

  Meanwhile, team two had a problem getting into the bam. It appeared locked from inside.

  “Careful, you men! Purdy may be armed and dangerous!” shouted Chief Virgil Gorman, in charge of the second strike force. “Place could be booby-trapped as well,” came another shout. Men poured through the back door now and some had scaled through windows they'd broken out, and one had scaled a rope and was into the loft overhead. They brought flashlights to bear on the expansive bam, searching every comer and inch for any sign of anyone or anything untoward or out of place, or any sign of disturbed earth. Nothing save the pantheon of instruments found in any bam: rusty rat traps, harnesses, ropes, cans filled with nails, stalls standing empty, and a floor of mildewed hay.

  No coffins.

  No one tied to a post.

  No blood or bodies dangling from rafters.

  A few scurrying mice.

  A lieutenant, who had deferred to the town sheriff's rule at the house, had rushed out to Gorman, shouting, “Nothing up at the house. Beds are made; place is neat as a pin, like it hasn't been lived in for some time.”

  “Son of a bitch!” shouted Virgil Gorman, a sixth- generation Iowan policeman, who purely hated it when an Iowa man broke the laws of man or God. He had never met Purdy, but he knew the area around Iowa City and the Falls; the area harbored Purdys up and down the roads. He'd have to have his men fan out and talk to every goddamn one of them about this man Isaiah Purdy, see who knew what, and if anyone might be harboring him. He tried to imagine anyone cruel enough to conceal and shelter Purdy while the man buried this poor woman alive.

  “Fan out with the dogs! By daybreak, I want every inch of this property scoured for anything smacking of freshly dug earth! You got that!”

  A chorus of yes sirs responded. Like a well-trained machine, the men broke into teams.

  Gorman shouted at the Iowa City sheriff, Chester Dunkirk, saying, “Chester, you sure we got the right farm here?”

  “This is Isaiah's place, all right. Don't rightly know where his wife's got off to. I expected to at least find her up at the house, but she's nowhere to be found. The house is strange, like someone's lived there just yesterday but no longer. Cups, saucers, food scraps, but no people, and no feeling of people.”

  “Now what?” asked one of the patrolmen, his hat in his hand.

  “Now I gotta tell these people in Houston and in Washington, D.C., that their information was wrong and their warrants useless.”

  The young lieutenant standing by said, “Suppose maybe Purdy's still on his way back here, Chief? Sir?”

  “Maybe... but we can't take that chance. Search high and low. And Marty, put a cruiser out on 1-80 and one on that old dirt road that runs betwixt here and Three Comers. Only roads he can take down through here. Watch for anything smacking of the vehicle the Feds put the APB out on. If he is still transporting this judge, we'll get the damned old fool.”

  “Right, Virgil. On it.” Virgil Gorman stared Dunkirk down and said, “I gotta call this lady doctor in D.C. and this fellow Stonecoat in Houston with the bad news. Keep everyone looking for anything outta the ordinary, Chester. Don't tak
e anything for granted.”

  At the same instant, someone shouted out, “Grave site! Gawl-darn grave site here!”

  Everyone converged on the shouter and the circle of light his flash beam made over a mound of freshly dug earth. “Break out your shovels, boys!” shouted Gorman. Many of the officers had by order brought their shovels along for the grisly work, and they set the spades to working now, the dirt flying like a black water spray.

  Still, they could not work fast enough for Gorman, who wanted this nightmare not to be happening in his rural jurisdiction. “Get that damned generator and field light out here. Get some of them damn car lights on this spot!” he ordered. “Get it dug up, you men! Now! Now! Now!” shouted Gorman, pushing past Dunkirk and the others. “Dig her out!”

  The younger, stronger men bent to the work, tearing at the recently disturbed earth. The excited young officer who had first discovered it dug ferociously while saying, “The dogs first picked up animal tracks around it. Told me animals been sniffing around here. Then my light picked up the fact the dirt here 'bout didn't look pat, you know. All stirred up, you know, darkest patch in the moonlight.”

  A field light came suddenly on, flooding the grave site and the men working at the gruesome task of disinterring the body were suddenly surround by their own giant shadows.

  Someone handed Virgil Gorman a cellular phone, saying, “It's that Texas cop, Virgil. He wants to know what's happening. Told him only you could say.”

  Gorman snorted like a walrus at this, took the phone, and spoke into it. “Stonecoat? We got bad news and—whoa... hold on... and on top of the bad news, we got more bad news. First off, Purdy is not here and nowhere to be found. Second, we've discovered a single grave site and are in the process right this moment of shoveling it empty for a look- see. You understand?”

  “Gotcha, Chief.” At his end, Lucas Stonecoat conveyed the bad news, a chorus of despair replying and filtering through the line all the way to Iowa.

  “I want to stay on the line until you ID Judge DeCampe, sir,” Lucas said to Gorman.