Primal Instinct Read online

“—by which the cops here operate, one for whites, another for any other or mixed race, and now with two Hawaiian cops shot down in cold blood... Well, all hell's ready to break, and Kaniola's paper's right in the thick of the argument. Always has been.”

  “County and state mirror this same public image as the Honolulu Police Department?”

  'To some degree, 'fraid so.”

  She assessed Inspector James Parry, a tall, sand-and-buff-haired man who'd somehow maintained his light features in this sunbathed world. She guessed that he had been bureau chief only a short time because he was still doing things for himself, such as coming to fetch her. He was handsome in a Norse kind of way, clean-shaven, only a loosened tie left unattended, and his charismatic smile, which only fleetingly showed, might be enticing if there was more of it, and if the stakes here were different.

  He pulled from his pocket a series of photos and spread them across a table. They were shots of young native island women, all smiling up brightly at the camera, all vivacious and squinting against the sun rays or the flashbulb. Each had dark, lovely features, frosty white teeth, smooth, tanned skin. One looked as healthy and carefree as the next. Any one of them might be a poster girl for Enoa or any of a dozen other Hawaiian tour companies. There were some nine photos in all.

  “Seven disappeared last year without a trace and then the disappearances just stopped. None of them have ever been located, until now.”

  “So there've been two this year?”

  “Yeah, with the return of the trade winds, 'fraid so.”

  “But you've located one of the bodies, yes?”

  “Well, not entirely, no.”

  “What do you mean, not entirely?”

  “We have a... a piece, a limb...”

  “And”—she took a deep breath—”just what part of the body do you have?”

  “Most of an arm.”

  “Most of an arm?” she repeated.

  “Missing the hand at the wrist.”

  “So you naturally thought of me,” she weakly joked.

  He chewed on the inside of his cheek and lowered his eyes to her cane. “I've been trying to get D.C. to send someone like you out here for a long time, but since we had no physical evidence till now, well, your superiors reluctantly declined.”

  She scratched her forehead, snatched her cane and stood to pace. “Pacing helps me think. Where was the limb found?”

  'The Blow Hole.”

  “Say again?”

  “It's a popular tourist attraction, temporarily closed since the find.”

  “Blow Hole?” she repeated.

  He explained the term and the location. “And it was at this site that Hilani and Kaniola's bodies were also discovered.”

  “Who made the discovery?”

  “Couple of kids who drove up there to park and spark, same night. They reported seeing a car squeal off in the opposite direction, heading toward the city. They weren't paying attention to the tag, nothing distinguishing about the vehicle. Saw the two uniformed men under the lights of Kaniola's patrol car.”

  “Both dead at the scene?”

  “Yeah.”

  “And the arm? These kids find it, too?”

  “No, that came later.”

  Something in his tone revealed everything to her.

  “I see. You found it... during a search of the area?”

  He hesitated. “We fanned out. There was not a trace except for the tire marks that we photo'd. My men combed the area around. I went down along the path toward the Blow Hole. I was thinking this guy wasn't about to leave us a single trace, zip.”

  'Then you saw it?”

  “No, it wasn't on the rocks. I looked down at that exact spot, saw nothing but the geyser, and then I walked back up. I was giving thought to the idea the killer was dumping here, but could tell nothing.”

  “Then who discovered the limb?”

  “It was almost eight by then, and so we cleared out and allowed the first tourist buses to enter the park area.”

  “I see.”

  'Tourists—biggest business on the island, you know, and well, when they went to watch the Blow Hole do its thing... well, you can imagine the rest.”

  “The piece came spewing up?”

  “That's about it. Landed on the rocks alongside. We had to rig up a safety line and get a rock climber to go down on that slippery surface after it.”

  “So the rest of the body, and likely all the others, could well be buried in that cavernous area below the sea at the Blow Hole?”

  “Likely pulverized to Jell-0 by now, but we got lucky this once.”

  She pointed to the photos. “So which of the girls is the most recent disappearance?”

  “That's not the way it works; you're supposed to tell me who's on first, remember? I'll provide you with files on each of the women, you match the limb from there, if you can. Wouldn't want to influence your decision. Wouldn't look good in a court of law, and we are going to get this bastard before a court of law— whatever his nationality or color.”

  “What're you saying, that the crimes are somehow related to the social climate hereabouts? That our killer's involved in hate crimes?”

  “What do I know? Social climate, maybe. Physical climate, most certainly. April to August last year with the coming of the trades. As far as that hate-crimes thing... I never understood that redundancy, Doctor. Aren't all crimes crimes of hate?”

  “I suppose you're right, but I meant racially motivated as opposed to sexually motivated or due to some hatred of the gender.”

  “We don't know,” he said simply, staring her in the eye. “Right now, all we've got is the arm, two dead Hawaiian cops, and nine missing Hawaiian girls, some of mixed blood, some Japanese. And we've got an island of jumpy people and the rumor mills are grinding daily along with the newspapers.”

  “So you want the investigation to remain tightly controlled. I understand, Inspector.”

  “I've been here for eight years, two as bureau chief, and I'll be honest with you, Doctor, I don't begin to understand the Polynesian or the Oriental mind, except to say that they respect and understand cold, logical justice, an eye for an eye, so to speak. Well, nine of their women have vanished, and now two of their boys are dead, and so they want justice, and they look to the sailors at Pearl, and they look to the high muckety-mucks on Diamond Head who've pretty well made a fortune a thousand-forty times over by parlaying their lands out from under them, and they look to us white cops for reasons and pretty soon, they'll be looking in the same direction for compensation.”

  “You got someone who can get my bags over to the Rainbow Tower?”

  “Sure.”

  “If so, I'll go with you to have a look at the corpses and the girl's limb. Meanwhile, what're the chances of getting divers into the water and searching the area around this Blow Hole for more body parts?”

  His laugh was without mirth, the laugh of an islander who is trying desperately to understand the logic of a malahini, a newcomer. “Any attempt to go near the Blow Hole could pulverize a diver in seconds. It's a vortex of water, the speeds of which have been clocked at hundreds of miles per hour, and it never calms. There's no way to dredge a volcanic hole in the sea like this one. It was dumb luck we got to the one gift before it was washed back inside.”

  “So there's little chance this hole'll be giving up any more such evidence?”

  “Seriously doubtful. Still, we're maintaining the safety tows and I've got a man out there watching for just that.”

  “And he's also lying in wait for a possible return visit by the killer?”

  “I've got tag teams out there, yeah, but since he left the two dead cops, we're not very hopeful of his return.”

  “Then get me to your morgue. I'll see what I can do to shed some light.”

  “That's all we ask.”

  On the way over to the morgue she assessed Parry. He was as tall as she, with firm-set features and piercing eyes. His facial expression gave little away, ho
wever, no doubt from years of dealing with press and public on sensitive cases. None more sensitive than this, the most delicate of all kinds: a mass murderer about whom the authorities had next to no idea.

  Later that same day

  Thorn Hilani had been shot through the back of the head, the bullet entering at the base of the skull, indicated by a clean, round little hole, and exploding outward at the point of exit, leaving a five-inch circumference between the eyes, the epicenter of the outward explosion making mush of the soft tissues of both the frontal lobe and the man's eyes. He'd died instantly on impact, the large abrasion to his upper forehead and skull an obvious sign that he'd fallen like a tree onto the pavement there at the promontory overlooking Hanauma Bay. At least he'd not suffered.

  Jessica's trained eye told her that the killer knew something about marksmanship and ammo, that he'd intentionally used what was termed on the streets as a “cop-killer” cartridge in a cowboy's gun, a .44 or a ,45-caliber weapon.

  A thorough autopsy offered absolutely nothing more, other than what Officer Hilani had had that evening for dinner on his night watch.

  Kaniola was a different story. He'd been shot but not mortally, and a hidden “throwaway” gun was still in its secret holster tied about his ankle. Parry had promised that absolutely nothing had been disturbed about the body of either man, and perhaps he could be taken at his word. It was unusual, however, that other cops, friends, hadn't seen fit to discreetly remove the illegal “throw- down” weapon which cops used whenever they might find themselves in a situation requiring them to quickly place a weapon at the side of an assailant to warrant the use of deadly force; the second gun was also seen as backup on the street, should a cop lose control of his service revolver.

  It appeared from the trajectory of the bullet, which ripped through Kaniola's upper right shoulder, bursting forth near the left shoulder blade, that he would have had a difficult time unholster- ing the second firearm, and if he had reached it, it might have been impossible for him to apply the pressure necessary to fire it.

  The killing wound sustained by Kaniola had come as the result of an enormous blade that had cut an entire swatch of throat from him, severing the jugular and very nearly the head. Without instruments, Jessica gauged the blade to be between two-and-a- half and three inches in width, making the weapon something along the order of a sword or machete. She presented the picture of science now in her white lab coat, her hair tied tightly back. She clicked on the overhead tape recorder and announced the time and date of the autopsy, the name of the deceased and his morgue identification number, followed by her own name before beginning the autopsy on Joe Kaniola's son.

  Momentary flashes of Kaniola's father entered into her thoughts as she worked: the man's leathery face, the folds of his skin like aged crinoline, the rugged wrinkles like caulk lines on an ancient vessel. She imagined him in his late fifties. Most likely he'd worked tirelessly his entire life to better the lives of his children, and now one of them had come under her grim care. Despite what Parry said to her or the senior Kaniola, she had the distinct impression she would see the tough newsman again.

  She continued to meticulously probe now the two major wounds to Kaniola's body. No longer eyeballing it, but taking precise measurements, keeping log on it for anyone who might follow up or relieve her of this onerous case, she began to wonder how long the assailant stood over the uniformed officer, delighting in his helplessness, before sending the pendulum of death across his throat. She wondered if the killer had taken unusual delight in watching the man then convulse in shock and bleed to death. Or did he only take such pleasure with the women whom Parry suspected of being his victims of choice?

  She had yet to do the internal on Kaniola, a big, strapping, proud-looking man, taller than his father. But she first went to his hands, as she had done with Hilani, to explore the possibility of skin fragments or hair below the nails, which would indicate that he had scuffled with his killer, reached up and tore at him. Kaniola's left hand was caked with dark blood, his own, she assumed.

  Describing this finding, she spoke aloud for the sensitive microphone overhead as she worked.

  “Left hand is bloodied; blood may be assumed to be that of Officer Kaniola's, as he likely would instinctively reach up to his wounded shoulder.”

  As she said these words, she heard her father's voice at the back of her head. “When you assume, you make an ass of u and me.” Her father had been the best medical examiner to ever grace a military uniform, constantly warned her that many an M.E.'s hard-won career had gone the way of the toilet on the basis of a hasty assumption, that assumptions were for the public and floundering gumshoes. Suppose the blood covering Kaniola's left hand was that of Kaniola's killer. Suppose he had also been injured in the gun battle. It was a big leap, but only the microscopes could prove it was Kaniola's blood alone on his palm. So far this killer—if it was Parry's Trade Winds Killer—had left not so much as a molecule of evidence to incriminate himself. She could dazzle Parry instantly if Kaniola had got one hand on the monster who'd murdered him.

  Most likely, however, it was the officer's own blood on his hands. Still, Jessica quickly amended her remarks for the record by adding, “By the same token, if the assailant were injured, then the blood on Officer Kaniola's hand could belong to the assailant.”

  She took scrapings for the microscope of both the blood and the matter below the nails, hopeful it would not all be for nothing, realizing once more in her state of fatigue that her father would say, “Thoroughness is its own reward.”

  She now arched her long legs and back, yawning over the slab, stretching, feeling too tired to go on. Her assistant, a man named Dr. Elwood Warner, was several years her junior, a pathologist with Honolulu General on call for the state; a second pathologist for the county had also turned up somewhat late, and apologized, asking Warner to duplicate any samples he'd be taking for him. This fellow, Dr. Walter Marshal, was also affiliated somehow with the military at Pearl Harbor, the military having taken a decided interest in the case of the two dead Hawaiian cops—”boys” Marshal had called them. He was particularly interested in the blood samples, obviously convinced that the two cops were involved in drugs and anxious to prove it so, thereby extinguishing any future kanaka complaints coming out of the community about Pearl sailor involvement in the deaths.

  It was obvious that Marshal and the Pearl brass wanted to tell the community that the two cops had flirted with a cobra and that the cobra had bitten them; no one's fault but their own. It seemed neither the military, the state nor local cops knew as much as Parry, and that perhaps Parry was alone in his suspicion that the dead cops and the missing “prostitutes” as she'd heard them called were connected.

  But the big discovery at the Blow Hole had some people hanging closely onto Parry's shirttail now, not to mention hers.

  The Honolulu City Medical Examiner, Dr. Harold Shore, had routinely stepped in as M.E. of record for FBI cases when called to do so here on Oahu, and he had a fine reputation; however, he'd recently undergone open-heart surgery and wasn't expected back soon. Jessica, in effect, was standing in for Shore. If he could drag himself from his bed, no doubt, Shore would have been on hand today as well, to represent the city and the HPD. The deaths of the two cops had stirred up a lot of agencies, opened a hornet's nest of festering wounds and reminded people here of hurts both real and imagined. “If you're too tired to go on, Dr. Coran,” said Dr. Marshal, “I should be happy to take over for you.”

  Jessica's eyes were instantly boring into Marshal, but below her mask she gave him an easy smile. “I'm fine. Doctor, and I'll finish.”

  Two autopsies? In a single day? Seems grueling even by military standards, Doctor. As professionals, I think we can all recognize that?”

  She recognized militarese when she heard it. Marshal liked being in command, and he no doubt felt ill at ease playing second fiddle to a female M.E. “Yes, well... just the same, as the representative of the Federal Governme
nt here, I think I'd best continue as lead here, if you don't mind.”

  “We both work for the same boss. Doctor,” he replied coolly. “And with Dr. Shore unable to be in attendance, I'm also here on behalf of the Honolulu Police Department.”

  Marshal seemed like a man who might have walked out of a thirties film with William Powell and ZaSu Pitts. He never let an expression cross his face, and the military bearing with which he presented himself didn't necessitate a uniform. The military showed right through his white gown.

  “You obviously wear a lot of hats here, Dr. Marshal.”

  She continued with the scalpel in her hand.

  Warner, the junior here by comparison, seemed a boy, anxious to be done so that he might return to a date on the beach where he'd spiked and left his surfboard; Jessica even pictured him in a bathing suit, stretched out with a buxom friend. A pair of dark glasses dangled around his neck even in here. Moon-doggy, she thought.

  It always annoyed her that everyone at an autopsy wanted more than just a “piece” of the corpse, that each man in particular had to jockey for a position of authority over the deceased. She remembered a similar scene two years before in a small Midwestern city where an exhumation had caused every petty official in the state of Iowa to jump. The exhumation had moved her closer to catching a killer who collected human blood the way a vampire bat might, but this killer here in Hawaii was quite a different breed. He didn't collect blood, but rather marveled in spilling it, bathing in it as it cascaded from the bodies of his victims, if Kaniola's corpse was anything to go by. She imagined the so-called Trade Winds Killer using his enormous knife like a deadly phallus against his female victims.

  She continued with the autopsy, making the familiar Y-section cut to the chest and abdomen, laying bare the viscera, and with Warner's help they lifted the organ tree whole and intact, leaving the carcass hollow. The eerie silence was quick to fill the void of inner space left by the awful dredging of the body, leaving the room even more deafeningly still than before. Only Jessica's voice seemed strong enough to overcome the silence.