Grave Instinct Read online

  Swantor made up his mind to leave and worry no more about the van. He had a long walk back to where he had left the dingy. He stood from the crouching position he'd taken, thinking of the fantastic computer film he planned on making, when suddenly his shoe slipped on the gleaming, flattened mud, where the van's tires had turned it into a slick spot of earth winking wet-eyed back at the moon.

  Swantor wound up on his knees again, but this time backward, his feet and lower legs extending over the cliff in mid air. He tried to move, but each movement sent him slipping ever so slightly back toward the air and the river. He imagined if he did fall, he might well land dead atop of the van's back doors. Ironic enough, he thought.

  He looked about for anything to grab hold of. Useless hanging tree moss presented itself as if to taunt him. There was nothing, no saving branch, no vine, no swinging rope. He realized how crucial this moment was. He pictured this as one of those moments that came in stark black and white, when the eye pinpointed on the fact that one's life could end or resume based upon something as slight as a single choice. No room for mistake. From somewhere overhead, he heard an owl cooing its eternal question, and he imagined what he must look like to the bird. A man in the position of prayer, teetering on the edge.

  He gave a thought to his two guests back on the yacht, thought of how eventually they would be found shackled there. He wondered what authorities would make of it should he die here like this, while Kenyon and the woman were discovered on his yacht.

  He could do nothing and remain here on his knees, or leap up from the kneeling position and find solid ground or find himself on his way to the bottom.

  He took action, using his knees as springboard. One knee did well, but the other slid beneath him like a tire stuck in mud, landing him on his stomach. But he had managed to gain a bit more land. From there he pulled and clawed himself to safety.

  He ushered the strength and breath to crawl and next to stand. The dark, empty woods around him heard his delighted laughter, but seemed not to care, and the owl had taken wing, disappearing out over the great and silent river.

  DR. Jervis Swantor had made his way back to the yacht by 3:40 A.M. He was mud-caked and so he threw his filthy clothes overboard. He then showered and looked at Grant via the monitor. The other man still lay prone on the bed in the other room, muttering to himself. He turned the volume up to listen.

  The infamous Skull-digger is cursing me! he thought with delight.

  Swantor would send no words or photos out on the Internet that might lead to him. He knew the FBI and other authorities had sophisticated ways of locating a computer's whereabouts, but his machine scrambled such information in hundreds of different directions, thanks to his Anon program.

  For the second time tonight, he spliced the tape to the section he wanted and uploaded it and sent it out to Cahil's website. “Now I'm in your face,” he said to the invisible person manning Cahil's website. He then forwarded the picture to countless other sites, after which he went to the yacht's controls and started downriver.

  After a long couple of hours, he had put some distance between New Orleans and himself, meandering about the canals and anchoring the yacht in a cotton grove. He then retired to his master bedroom for sleep, glad that he had repainted her trim, and now he pulled off the stencils that changed the call numbers and name to a smaller ship kept registered and harbored elsewhere under the name of a dead uncle named Sweet.

  He heard a faint crying out, but it was not a woman's voice. He only dully heard Kenyon's voice from the other end of the boat. A distant tugboat whistle wafted over the water, drifting down from upriver. He closed his eyes on the sound, feeling he had done a good night's job.

  CAPTAIN Emil Hammerski had plied his trade as a tugboat captain for sixteen years along the Mississippi. In the darkness the water and the waterway, the tree-lined, fog-bound earth and sky often played tricks on a man's eyes; but traveling during the early morning hours meant less traffic and fewer problems, if you knew how to avoid the snags and continually developing sandbars. What he stared at now was no sandbar or snag, but it seemed a real enough threat—a huge black square up ahead where it oughtn't be.

  Captain Hammerski knew every inch of the river from Minnesota to the Gulf of Mexico. “I tell you, this here is something foreign to the shoals along Three Forks Bend,” he told his first mate, handing over the night-vision binoculars.

  “You sure have an eye for obstacles, Captain,” replied his first mate. “You think we ought to invest time in it or run round it?”

  Busy at the moment, the captain reminded himself. His tug was pushing a barge filled with metal and wood structures for homes being built in Mobile. He was on the clock, and already running behind schedule. Slowing to look over something he could not identify would mean explanations when he showed up even later at the other end. The company's insurance would go up. He'd be to blame. The crew working the barge wouldn't care for the delay either.

  He decided to ignore it, go on by. “Whatever it is . . . UFO maybe . . . maybe a government secret of some sort. . . some things aren't meant to be seen,” he muttered.

  His first mate, young Bryan Carsen listened to the old man closely. He had learned all he knew of the river from the captain. He stood just outside on the bow, trying to get a closer look at what the old man had discovered. It was not a natural formation, that much was for sure.

  Shrouded in fog and cold, Carsen spoke to Hammerski through the window. “Whataya think it is, Captain?”

  “I just told you, not sure I want to know.”

  “Looks like a black refrigerator. Folks use this poor old river for all kinds of junk, like's as if it were a great big garbage disposal.”

  “Likely somebody's junk, all right, that thing,” replied Hammerski, puffing on his pipe.

  As they neared, the captain asked for the binoculars again and peered through to the strange object. “Damn if it don't look like a huge trunk.”

  The other man took the binoculars from the captain for a closer look. After a long moment of study, Carsen said, “Oh, my God. It's worse than we thought.”

  “What is it, Carsen?” “I think it's the backside of a van that's somehow gotten into the river.”

  “See anyone around it? Any survivors?”

  “No . . . and no telling how long it's been stuck there facedown.” Young Carsen looked as if he might be readying to dive into the water, but they were still a hundred yards from it, and the captain reminded Carsen, “We got a two thousand ton barge drifting under our direction.”

  Carsen looked to be considering this.

  The captain also reminded Bryan, “Remember our first responsibility is to the cargo, Bryan. We can't do anything anyway. No survivors. Possibly only an empty truck. We'll call it in to New Orleans police.”

  “Hell, yeah, we are close to New Orleans. Hell, Captain, radio's been buzzing about how the cops there're looking for a van they think might be linked to the Skull-digger case.”

  “Yes, I heard something about that. Do you think this is connected?”

  “We gotta call it in, Captain.”

  “Yes . . . Will you do it, Bryan? You're much better explaining things over the radio than I am.”

  The first mate went back inside and immediately got on the radio to call the NOPD. The conversation was long and confusing on both ends, but finally, Bryan got his message across. He explained who he was, about the barge and that they could not stop until after they were miles past the van crash site. He identified the location of the van as Three Forks Bend. Finally, he got off the radio, saying, “They're on their way. The guy assured me that if we have seen no one in or around the van, then we are free to continue on.”

  The same morning

  AN FBI vehicle met Jessica at the airport, and a young agent introducing himself as Michael Sorrento pumped her hand and told her how much he had admired her work over the years. “I've read every word you've ever published, Dr. Coran. Real fan.”

 
She thanked him and asked if he'd had an opportunity to check out Dr. Swantor's Grand Isle address. “I have,” he replied, “but it's an all clear. He's not there according to the local sheriff, a man named Potter.”

  “Did he go out to the address?”

  “Said he did.”

  Sorrento was going to drive her to the NOPD laboratory and medical examiner's office. Sorrento told her about the ditched van located in the Mississippi River by a tugboat crew.

  “Get me straight there then.”

  “No . . . it'll take the wrecking crew they have out there hours to haul it out. May as well go on with your plan to look over the bodies of those two officers.”

  “I brought tire and footprint impression photos. I'd like to compare them to anything that may've been found at the scene.”

  “The only prints found, due to the rain last night, were those across Labruto's clothes and his chest. Coroner says one tire ripped open his uniform, the other tattooed his chest pretty good.”

  As they made their way to the morgue, Jessica's cell phone rang. She took the call from J.T. He apologetically said, “Jess, sorry to inform you but that SquealsLoud guy's PO box in Steeple Top that's registered to a Mark Sweet? Turns out to be a literal dead end, all information on file proving fictitious, the Mark Sweet in question being a dead man.” “Damn it.” She told Sorrento the news, and the agent took it calmly.

  “But we have reason to believe a Saundra Franklin, living in New Orleans, may be worth looking into. She and the Seeker were tight, e-mailing back and forth.”

  “What's the address?” She jotted it down. “Let's get a couple of agents over to check this out,” she suggested to Sorrento.

  “We can do it ourselves. It's on the way.”

  She liked this agent. “All right. Let's do it.”

  They drove to the address. Sorrento quickly located the landlord, asking after the Franklin woman, and they were told she'd relocated in a rush, leaving no forwarding address.

  “How long ago?” Jessica asked.

  “Three days ago, and now suddenly she's real popular.”

  “Whataya mean 'popular'?” asked Sorrento.

  The pudgy little man replied, “A middle-aged guy, too old for her, come looking for her last night.”

  “At what time?”

  “About tenish. I was watching the news.”

  Jessica flashed a copy of Kenyon's photo. “Was this the man?”

  He studied it. “Yeah . . . yeah, that's him, but he looks different: long hair, unshaven, dirty.”

  They journeyed on to the NOPD medical examiner's office. “We're close,” said Sorrento. “I can feel it, Dr. Coran.”

  In the car, she got Lorena Combs's call back and the Florida sheriff verified that Swantor had supposedly left Florida for a trip to Cancun. Nothing had come of it or the Wells connection in Elixir, Mississippi. Agents there could only locate the wife.

  With no other pressing leads, Jessica reasoned that going first to the M.E.'s office made sense. They soon reached the NOPD headquarters and the coroner's office. As they located the elevator from the underground garage, Jessica asked, “How far is this place, Grand Isle?”

  “It’d take some getting to. Most of your daylight hours. But like I said, he's not been spotted there.” Jessica thought young Sorrento an ambitious man. She liked his enthusiasm for the hunt. “Look, if you say he's operating off a boat, then maybe the marina near where we found the van is where we ought to start. There're more boats in Louisiana than there are people,” he exaggerated with a smile.

  They arrived on the necessary floor, and Sorrento escorted her to where the two dead policemen lay under scrutiny while doctors performed simultaneous autopsies. During the autopsies, Jessica stepped into the room where doctors worked over Labruto. They had taken blowup shots of the tire treads imprinted across his uniform. Jessica held up a large file she'd taken from a briefcase, while a white-templed, heavyset man in his late fifties, Dr. Alan Mays, objected.

  “You can't burst into an autopsy, young lady, without proper clothing, gloves, mask! Do you have any idea how many bacteriologic hazards can be floating around in here?”

  Sorrento stepped in, saying, “She ought to know, Doc. She's the M.E. from D.C.”

  “Quantico, Virginia, actually. FBI. . . Dr. Jessica Coran.”

  The man stepped back and examined her, nodding. “Still, you should know better.”

  “I wanted to catch you before you disappeared. I urge you to compare the tire marks left at the kill scene in Georgia with the tire marks left on Labruto's body.”

  “Of course, that can be done, but it will take time.”

  “What time? Just compare the photos.”

  “We don't have a tire expert on staff. Lost him months ago. We'd have to call someone in from outside.” Jessica replied, “I'm just looking for an eyeball confirmation at the moment, something I can do on my own. The experts can verify it later. For that, it's just a matter of putting them side by side below a magnifying glass. I've done it many times.”

  “You're a tire tread analyst?”

  “I've worked closely with the best. Look, we just want to know if it's even close, if we are on the trail of the same man here. There's a possibility we have a second killer mimicking the Digger.”

  “I see.”

  “When we get the van itself out of the Mississippi, then we'll have a three-way comparison. At that point, we can turn it all over to the experts.”

  “All right.” Dr. Mays relented, turned to his assistant with the camera and instructed him to go with Dr. Coran and “appease” her.

  The young male assistant gave her a half smile and said, “Come with me then, Dr. Coran.”

  Dr. Mays's assistant took Jessica and the camera down a long corridor. “I'll rush developing, and we'll see if this will help,” the eager-to-please assistant said.

  A half hour later they placed the tire treads side by side beneath a high-powered microscope. While Labruto's marks were far smaller and less defined, curving away with the contour of his body, Jessica found significant markers to indicate the tread writing was from the same tires. “Now a real expert can go to work identifying the tires to manufacturer and lot number and serial number.”

  After this, she and Sorrento drove past the Federal Bureau of Investigation offices in New Orleans. The NOPD and local bureau offices were in close proximity, and everyone in the city who wore a badge of any sort seemed bound together by this manhunt. By now everyone had learned that a tugboat crew pushing a huge barge had reported seeing a van trapped in the river. She had brought a laptop computer with her, wishing to remain in direct contact with J.T. for any further developments at Quantico, but also wishing to have the capability of logging on to Cahil's website for any new digital film of her prey.

  The unmarked FBI car now bounced along on a back road of dirt and sand that followed the contours of the Mississippi—a winding, twisting path that was at once treacherous and beautiful and strangely fog-laden under a dull gray sky. It was ten in the morning. She imagined how dangerous it must be along the narrow road at night. The rains of the night before had pitted the dirt road, and each turn of the tires threw up mud as they neared the site of the van crash.

  “Harbormaster at the marina where Swantor may have been says a guy named Swift, booked through the week and disappeared overnight without leaving a manifest,” said Sorrento. “He may be your Dr. Swantor.”

  “Wait a minute. You've already been to this marina?”

  “Like I said, it was down from where the van was found. And you mentioned Swantor to us, and that he might have a marina address, remember?”

  “Yeah, right. Look, the boat didn't happen to be named Lands End, did it?”

  “You got it.”

  Jessica again recalled how the computer video of Grant Kenyon had bounced, as if on a boat sitting atop choppy water. “It's time I told you something, Michael.”

  “I knew there was something you're holding back. W
hat is it?”

  She informed him of the computer images sent to Cahil's site back at Quantico. “It's why I've brought my laptop, in case he contacts us again.”

  “We've got the Coast Guard looking for his call numbers, and they've tried to hail him on the maritime frequencies, but no response. Here I was thinking that Kenyon clubbed the guy, buried him with the van, and took his boat.”

  “He's either harboring Kenyon, or he's holding him hostage for reasons only he knows. Either way, Kenyon has been drugged.”

  They sped along the river road, sirens wailing.

  “Interesting . . . brain-eater meets wanna-be. They have a falling out, and it looks like Swantor has the upper hand, but where is Selese Montoya?” Sorrento wondered aloud.

  “She's likely going to be found, that is most of her, in the van.”

  “Guess we'll all know more when we dredge up that green monster from the muck.”

  They drove on and Sorrento asked, “Have you ever visited New Orleans for fun? Not the job?”

  “A convention once, two murder cases now. No, I guess not.”

  “You don't remember me, do you?” asked Sorrento.

  “No ... I mean, maybe. You do look somewhat familiar,” she lied.

  “You don't have to spare my feelings, Dr. Coran.”

  “I just mean that I speak at countless bureau functions and teaching situations involving hundreds if not thousands of would-be law-enforcement people in and out of the bureau each year. Maybe we met briefly at—”

  “I met you your last visit to the city, Dr. Coran.” He swerved the car and for a second, she thought he meant to kill them both. “Sorry ... a turtle in the road.”

  “You're taking me back a few years, when I cornered and killed Mad Matthew Matisak here.”

  He lifted an index finger and replied, “And helped end the career of the Queen of Hearts killer as well! Don't sell yourself short. I was on the Hearts case but then so was every eager young agent in the bureau,” he reminded her. “Just relocated from Iowa at the time. So I was pretty far down the totem pole, certainly not in the spotlight like you. Not sure I ever want to be.”