Grave Instinct Read online

  “If he reaches Grand Isle and finds his wife, he'll do the same to her,” Jessica projected. “We need to contact police there. Have someone get the ex—Mrs. Swantor out of there if she's on the island.”

  She shut down Swantor's horror show. She then asked Sorrento to contact this man Potter at Grand Isle and attempt to get word that Swantor was on his way there, ending with, “And warn Mrs. Swantor to leave at once.”

  Sorrento explained that the island was police free, but that it was serviced by a Sheriff Danby Potter, a one-man police force from a small town on the mainland, Lewistown. “Station house is the size of a phone booth. The isle gets mail service from Lewistown, too.”

  “Just summerhouses, recently developed land,” said Quarels.

  Jessica said, “We've got to get the wife's phone number. Warn her he's coming for her.”

  Sorrento got on his phone and contacted Lewistown police, reminding Sheriff Danby Potter of who he was and asking, “Is Mrs. Swantor on the island?”

  “She is ... or was when I went out there yesterday, yes.”

  “We're chasing the Skull-digger, Sheriff.”

  “My Lord . . .” “And we fear Mr. Swantor is involved. I need the phone number to the house on Grand Isle.”

  “I always said that Jervis Swantor was some kind of puddinghead. I'll get that number for you.”

  Sorrento heard Potter ferreting through paper for the number. “I got the number!” He read it off to Sorrento and quickly added, “I'm damn confused by you people. I checked out the place early this morning, a second time. Mrs. Swantor was there, so far as I could tell alone, no sign of that Dr. Swantor or his yacht. You asked me to ascertain his whereabouts, but the missus, she claims not to know or care so long as her check's on time.”

  “We believe he is on his way there now, Sheriff, and to say that she may be in danger is an understatement.”

  “So you fellas suspect Swantor's the Skull-digger now. I can't believe it, but you know, I can at the same time.”

  “Please, listen, Sheriff. It's a little more complicated than—”

  “I know what he looks like. Used to come into town for groceries and the hardware. Maybe I should go back out there to the island and sit with Mrs. Swantor till you—”

  “No, don't go out there alone, Potter. We think she has time to get out, and we're going to call her to warn her from here. We're on a Coast Guard cutter only a few hours away.”

  After he hung up, Sorrento telephoned the number Potter had provided for the Swantor summer home, but only an answering machine responded. He left his name and number for Mrs. Lara Swantor to get back to him as soon as possible—a matter of life and death.

  Jessica took Sorrento aside, saying, “Perhaps we ought to ask the sheriff to organize a few deputies and go out there to the house, cover Mrs. Swantor until we can get there.”

  “She's not answering her phone,” he replied. “Let me give it another shot.” Still no answer. “She must not be there.” “Or she may be unable to answer her phone.”

  He nodded. “OK, I'll call the sheriff back.” He did so, only to get a recording stating that Potter was out and would return within an hour. The tape gave them another number in case of emergency.

  “Damn, I hope that old fool hasn't gone out there alone. He doesn't know what he's dealing with.”

  “Try the other number,” Jessica suggested.

  Sorrento dialed this number, getting the sheriff on his cell phone, the sound of rain splattering a hard surface like static in Sorrento's ear. “Sheriff Potter, it's Agent Sorrento again. You're not to go out to the house alone. If you must go, do so with a team of men.”

  “Ahhh, yeah, I'm getting a posse together right now.”

  “Good . . . good. There's more danger than you realize. Let me set the stage for you.”

  Real static obliterated anything Sorrento might have said. He turned to Jessica. “He's on his way out there. Claims to have gotten help.”

  “Claims or did?”

  “I'm not sure.”

  The cutter made its way deeper into the black shaft of the canal.

  7.00 P.M.

  INSIDE the expansive house on Grand Isle, Mrs. Lara Swantor and her newfound lover, James Harris, drank wine and played with massive bubbles in the large, oval bath. They played with one another as well, fondling and kissing, when the phone rang. “Now, who knows I'm here? Who could be calling?” she slurred her words while glancing at a clock that read 7 P.M. Outside the storm shook the house, and its intensity frightened Lara, but James, a psychiatrist, said the best way to overcome such a fear was to enjoy oneself in the midst of adversity. It sounded good, but what he really meant was that he wanted to bathe with her.

  Besides, the latest newscasts had the brunt of the hurricane heading toward Mobile now. All the same, each lightning strike shook her to the bones. Only James's attentions took her mind off the storm.

  When the phone rang, James had said, “Let the machine get it,” as he held on to her, caressing her in the way she could not resist.

  “All right. . . good thinking,” she replied. “Hmmm . . . baby.”

  She heard the sound of someone she didn't recognize leaving a message she could not make out. “What did the man say?” she asked James who, being younger, must surely have better hearing, she thought.

  “Didn't catch it. Likely a neighbor worried about the storm.”

  “Old Mrs. Philbin, I suppose.”

  They continued with their bathing of one another. A second time the phone rang, and James got up and walked naked and bubbly to the phone, but it quit ringing—no message this time. He lifted it off the hook and put an end to it.

  “Get back in here, you!” she called out to him.

  “On my way!” he called back. “Just going to get us another bottle of wine from the pantry. Are you hungry?”

  SIXTEEN

  He cometh to you with a tale that holds children from play, and old men from the chimney corner.

  —SIR PHILIP SIDNEY, 1554-1586

  EVEN in the darkness and the storm, Jervis Swantor had easily maneuvered his yacht, equipped with the best radar and sonar instruments in the land, through the treacherous canal. He had more trouble locating and docking the yacht in the boathouse than he had with the river and the canal. Down below, he'd re-chained Kenyon in his cabin, placing his tools just out of the man's reach. Now all he had to do was find Lara, whose small transport craft was tied to the dock. Once he found her, he would introduce her to his new friends Grant and Philip.

  Knowing that the authorities were extremely close, and that they likely already knew of his final destination, he must act fast. Once the boat was secured, he climbed off and onto the boathouse landing. From there, he could see the house. A light was on in the master bedroom. From all appearances, Lara was home despite her ignoring the phone. Any servants would have gotten off the island by nightfall, especially with such a storm brewing.

  Fighting the driving rain, Swantor made his way up the long flight of cedar steps to the house, lit by the occasional lightning bolt. Soaked, wild-eyed, he stared up at the bedroom light again. Some shadow moved across the room. Lara, he decided, unable to sleep. She had always hated storms.

  Swantor meant to make his way around toward the back of the house. He had kept a key to the rear door.

  “Now, sweetheart, time for judgment day.”

  Her dog, a Jack Russell terrier named Opal, began barking from her doghouse. He went to the dog and strangled it with his bare hands, silencing it. “Never liked that dog,” he muttered to the corpse.

  SHERIFF Danby Potter, fifty-nine, approached the house via the river directly across from the mainland, knowing the dock area well. His uniform covered by a yellow rain slicker, he warmed his insides with the moonshine liquor he sipped at. From what he had gathered over the phone with Sorrento, it appeared that Dr. Jervis Swantor was the butcher that the FBI was in search of. He knew Swantor on sight, and he knew the man's boat. He didn'
t need any pimply-faced young squirt of an FBI cop telling him how to proceed, and when he saw that there was no other boat at Mrs. Swantor's place other than her own, he knew he'd arrived in time.

  He'd tried to telephone her from his cell phone, but he'd been unable to get through, getting a busy signal instead. He had pictured the worse, that Swantor was already inside the house, that he'd taken the receiver off the hook. This worried Potter.

  He put in beside Mrs. Swantor's transport. He'd seen her car parked on the mainland at the marina. Grand Isle was a no-cars-allowed island, serviced by water boats for mail delivery and medical emergencies, and sometimes a medevac chopper was called in from upstate. He wanted to believe that she had taken the phone off the hook herself, perhaps wanting to get some sleep. If so, she'd not gotten the warning from the FBI people. He hoped to find her simply asleep with the phone off the hook.

  Potter had heard the rumors of just how nasty her divorce from Swantor had gone, and that she was in a bad way. He now tied his launch to the wharf, got out onto the slippery deck and hitched up his britches and gun belt. As he did so, he thought he saw movement in the shadows up at the house, just going around back, followed by barking and then silence. He turned and secured his boat better against the wind and storm. It was a night no one should be out in, he told himself, but then he was the only law for a good fifty miles. He stared up at the house and studied it for any further sign of movement and checked his watch which read 7:05 P.M.

  Must've been the dog, he told himself. Then he heard something odd on the wind, something like muffled shouting. Was it coming down from the house? No, his ear told him it was emanating from the boathouse.

  He stepped inside to find the enormous yacht the Coast Guard was looking for. Dr. Swantor is here!

  He slipped back out into the rain and telephoned the house again. Still no answer.

  Again he heard a voice coming from the interior of the yacht inside the boathouse. It sounded as if someone were hurt somewhere in the bowels of the big boat. He wondered if the sounds might not be Swantor's hostage, the woman he'd heard about, abducted in New Orleans.

  Potter climbed aboard, and made his way into the depths of the luxurious boat when his cellular phone rang, his emergency line. He cursed it for having frightened him, and he shut it down. No one could have a greater emergency than he had right here on his hands, he told himself.

  NAKED, James Harris had kept going down the hallway, despite Lara's objections for him to not leave her alone in the storm. He shouted back over his shoulder that he was hungry, and that they needed more wine, and that she had to confront her fears. He dripped -water and bubbles the length of the hallway and down the stairs and out into the kitchen. Stark naked, he began rifling the refrigerator when he thought he heard a key turning in a lock.

  Looking across the darkened room and through a window on the back porch, James saw someone letting himself in. James grabbed hold of a bottle of wine and positioned himself crouching behind the kitchen cabinets where he felt himself shaking, fearful.

  As he held that frozen pose, James Harris heard the door open and close, heard the footsteps as they neared him, and watched, unable to move or act, as the large man wandered through the kitchen and out to the stairwell, going up, going toward Lara. James didn't recognize the man but guessed that it was the ex. Lara had complained that he had harassed her throughout the divorce proceedings, and here he was, the bastard.

  Then he saw the silhouette of a gun in the man's hand. James silently cursed, wondering what he should do, what he could do, but he was without an answer. One pretends to know what one will do in such a crisis, but one can't really know what one will do until one is in such a crisis, his mind said. Fuck that, he told himself, what do I fucking do?

  He'd never imagined that such a crisis, if it were to come up, would catch him nude, but even if he had clothes on, he suspected he'd be just as paralyzed.

  He held back, trying to muster his courage. Hadn't Lara said the guy had strange and bizarre ideas about getting even with her? What would he do to me? the new lover wondered.

  When he stood up, James gazed out at the storm and down at his naked body. The only way off the island was Lara's transport, and that would strand her, but he could say he was going for help. He imagined sneaking about Lewistown in his birthday suit.

  He took a deep breath of air and turned back to the interior of the house, still clutching the bottle of wine. Not much of a weapon, he thought. What the hell do I do after I hit him over the head with the bottle?

  Then he began searching the kitchen for something to defend Lara and himself with. As he quietly searched for a knife, he lifted the telephone off the wall in the kitchen as well, dialing 9-1-1, but the line was dead.

  SHERIFF Danby Potter moved toward the sound of a man in anguish. As he did so, he passed through the living area on the boat, amazed at what he found. Computer screens displayed a room with a woman who had been butchered, lying chained to a bed, the sight making Potter ill, a healthy fear of the monster he was now chasing coming over him. On another screen, in another room, paced a man chained by one ankle.

  Potter recalled the phantom figure he'd seen up at the house. The man on the screen, alive and in pain, was not Jervis Swantor. Potter had seen Swantor at such places as the Piggly Wiggly grocery store on the mainland on more than one occasion. He had heard rumors that Mrs. Swantor had taken a lover, and he had seen a man slip from sight when he had visited Mrs. Swantor the day before to ask after her husband's whereabouts. Potter now wondered if the man chained on the boat might not be Mrs. Swantor's lover, and he bloody figure in the other room with half a face, poor Mrs. Swantor.

  He realized now he had stepped into a horror house, and he needed backup. He saw that the call he'd cut off had been from the FBI on the Coast Guard cutter who had called for Mrs. Swantor's number. He hit return dial to reach them. Meanwhile, breathless, he'd made his way toward the cabin to help the man there, stopping at the door when he got through to Sorrento.

  He told Sorrento where he was and what he had found. “I need you people to get here as fast as you can. I think Swantor's inside the house. Phone line to the house is dead now. Think I'll be safe till you get here. It's too late for his wife. Located her mangled, disfigured body on the yacht, and he's chained her lover here, too. Can you get here before daybreak?”

  Sorrento shouted back, “No, I mean yes, we can, but Potter, you need to get off that boat and to a safe distance. And whatever you do, don't touch anything on that boat or release—”

  “He's already killed his wife! Cut her head open here on the boat.”

  “No, that's not the wife, and the chained man—”

  But Potter wasn't listening. “And he's got some poor guy locked in a room down here. I'm going to get him free. Get him to the mainland, and we'll wait to hear from you there.”

  “No, no, Potter, don't go near the other man! That's—”

  But Potter had cut Sorrento off. He pushed open the door and said, “Don't worry, son. I'm going to get you out of here.”

  “The leg iron,” said Kenyon. “This maniac plans to cut me up like he did the woman. There's a key. Find the key.”

  Potter rushed back to the living room area, frantic and searching everywhere for the key. He finally located it in a drawer below the computer, and looking up, he again saw the mutilated body on the screen but he could not look too closely at the horror. He grimaced and then rushed back to Kenyon. His phone began ringing again, but he ignored it for the moment.

  “Swantor's a madman,” said Potter.

  “Hurry! He could come back at any moment,” said Kenyon. “That maniac wants me to suffer before he kills me,” he continued as Potter worked the ankle bracelet off Kenyon.

  “My name's Potter. Sheriff from over on the mainland,” he said, still stooping, tossing the ankle chain away when he grabbed for his ringing phone. As he opened the line, Potter's phone was drowned out by the sound and pain of the bone cutter
that split open the back of his skull, the thing sinking its teeth into the old sheriff s brain.

  Potter went down like a stone statue, his every fiber stiff, his eyes thrown wide open.

  Kenyon said to the dead man, “Thanks old-timer. Now, where's that motherfucking Swantor?”

  Kenyon soon stood on the boat deck staring up at the mansion with its lone light. Bone cutter in hand, his angry features were lit up when a lightning bolt streaked across the sky overhead. “Swantor,” he muttered, staring up the long flight of stairs that spiraled their way up the hillside and to the house.

  He began his long walk up the steps, thinking of what Swantor had done to him, how the man had ruined his plans, how the man had exposed him and used him. The bastard had displayed Kenyon cutting open a woman and feeding on her still-warm brain. Grant had had no control to stop Phillip at that moment, and certainly Phillip had had no control over himself once Swantor provided the venue to feed after withholding Selese from him for so long. By then, the hunger had again taken over, and the Seeker had no resistance once she was within his grasp.

  By now the murder video was being beamed worldwide. Even if he could escape the FBI, he could not hide anywhere in the world, thanks to Swantor.

  He had only one thought now. He wanted to kill Swantor and feed on his brain as his last act before being apprehended. Until then, he would remain here on this island to await the inevitable end.

  JESSICA impatiently paced the pilothouse as Captain Quarels's ship moved against the storm, the small crew pushing the cutter to its limits. Every man aboard had heard the news of what had happened on the computer screen, and a healthy hatred of their prey—both Kenyon and Swantor— had welled up inside them all.