Killer Instinct Page 4

  “Best guess, Jessica,” Otto said in his most commanding voice, squeezing her hand as if to impress her as to the importance of his deal with Stowell.

  She breathed deeply, allowed a sigh to escape and said, “My guess is—and it is only a guess—that this guy didn't have any interest in her sexually, that is in a normal sexual sense.”

  “Normal sexual sense?” asked Stowell, whose knuckles had turned white on the wheel. She could tell that he had more than just a fatherly interest in Annie Copeland. Had he been carrying on an affair with her?

  “Intercourse.”

  “But I saw you taking a semen sample.”

  She knew what he was fishing for. “Yes, I found semen, but—”

  “Semen's evidence of—”

  “—but it hadn't penetrated beyond the cervical—”

  “You can tell that from just looking?”

  “It was cold in there, and the semen I found was jellied, almost as if...” She trailed off.

  Otto squeezed her hand again and urged her on. “As if?”

  “Like the blood on the wounds, smeared on, after the girl was dead, as if intended for us to find.”

  “Sonofabitch,” muttered Otto.

  Stowell sat in abject silence for a moment before saying, “So whoever did this wanted only one thing from her?”

  “That's right, Mr. Stowell,” she said. “He just wanted her blood.”

  “Thank you, Dr. Coran,” he said before falling into a well of silence again, the green dash lights alone illuminating the wounds on his face.

  Jessica looked across at Boutine where they sat in the rear. Boutine bit his upper lip before speaking. “Stowell's going to do what he can to keep the vampire aspect frozen. At least no leaks for twenty-four hours.”

  She realized that Boutine had bought a little time, and they both knew that the sensationalism of the case would soon overpower the small-town police force, the troopers and Stowell's county office within that time frame.

  “You look like hell, Otto,” she said in a whisper, not believing that the thought escaped her lips. “I'm sorry; I didn't mean to be so blunt. Guess I must look wrecked, too.”

  He had continued to hold onto her hand and now took both of them in his own, massaging them. “Fact is, you look fine, just fine.”

  “Perjury before a witness, Otto?” She pulled her hands away, glancing at Stowell's eyes in the rearview mirror.

  They both needed sleep. Neither of them had had any rest for well over twenty-four hours. She leaned back into the cushioned seat again, closed her eyes and recalled the telephone call at her home that placed her on standby status. God, had that been just yesterday? At the time Otto hadn't a clue as to where they would be flying, except to say that it was likely to be a Midwest destination. He had given her a pep talk about how the Bureau wanted her to get experience in the field and that he wanted her on his team. He spoke of consolidating his team with a clinician, someone who could put the pathology back into a psychological-pathological report on a serial killer.

  So he had put her into the rotation, and after hours of standing by and standing down, she was told to stand to when Boutine had called back and cryptically said, “You ever been to Wisconsin in springtime?”

  “No, never,” she'd replied.

  “Lots of mud, what with the winter thaw.”

  “Is that right?”

  “Got any boots?”

  “Sure, I got boots.”

  “High-tops?”

  “High-tops, low, anything that's required. Is it a go?”

  “Be at the academy gates in half an hour.”

  An army jeep was waiting for her at the gate, and when she got in, it swung out to the airfield, where she was given help with her gear to board a sleek Leaijet with engines piercing the stormy black sky, and her eardrums. In a matter of two hours they'd touched down at a remote airstrip facing a farmer's bean field. She was told they were on the outskirts of Wekosha, Wisconsin.

  The entire way. Otto spent time filling her in on the case as he understood it. As it happened, however, he didn't fully understand it, primarily because it had not been reported in its entirety to him. He'd gotten it secondhand, off a fax. Anxious to prove to superiors that it would make sound sense to combine his psychological profiling team with a solid forensics team under Jessica's leadership. Otto had recklessly—for him—whisked her off to oversee the ' 'trouble” in Wekosha.

  On the plane with Otto, she was given the impression the case involved murder, but she wasn't told that it involved the ninth level of torture, blood-taking. She wondered how much Otto had known, and how much he had kept from her when a sudden, jarring pothole in the city's pavement brought her back to the present.

  They had to first go by the city police department, where all the evidence was placed under lock and key, Otto and Stowell witnessing, as a matter of protocol. From there Stowell had a deputy drive them to the Wekosha Inn, where they had rooms awaiting them. As soon as the deputy was away, Jessica hurried inside, anxious for a shower and some well-deserved sleep, but Otto stopped her at the desk the moment she had her key in her hand, taking her aside.

  “There's something you're not telling me, isn't there?” he said.

  She stared into his eyes, wondering how he had ever gotten so smart at reading people. “Nothing I can prove, yet.”

  “What is it?”

  “Aside from the bastard's having carted off most of her blood?” she asked.

  “Carted off?”

  “Stowell said she had been missing for two days. From the stage of rigor that I saw, I'd say she died the first night of her disappearance. Now, the guy could have hung around all night, but I don't think so. And no one can consume that much blood at one sitting. I don't care if he thinks he's a vampire or not.”

  “So he took the blood with him?”

  “Most of it, yes.”

  “Some of the local idiots are trying to make a case for the Copeland girl's getting into a little B&D, or maybe auto-erotica getting out of hand.”

  “That's bullshit, and you know it. She was tied by her heels to the rafters and her blood syphoned off. If it had started out as some torture turn-on, there'd be whip marks, bite marks, small wounds and bruises, and like I said the sperm was smeared inside her along with the blood. She was not a party to her own death.”

  “Only insomuch as the way she lived her life,” he replied sadly.

  She understood his meaning. Many a victim “invited” attack; many people were perfect victims.

  “Stowell says they got a tire print. Not a great one, but—”

  “You made sure that guy Stadtler's not to embalm her before I get a closer look at the lab?”

  “Taken care of, I assure you. Meanwhile, 1 want you to get some solid rest. God knows, you've earned it.”

  She started away with a “good night” trailing after, but stopped at the elevator and said, “One thing, Otto.”

  “Yes?”

  “Whoever this fiend is, he showed amazing control.”

  “Amazing control?”

  “Of the blood flow. Given the body's position, there would have been tremendous pressure against the arteries leading to the cranium, the jugular in particular.”

  “The kind of pressure that should have sprayed the place with her blood.”

  “He knew that himself... has thought this thing out... thought about it a lot.”

  “Fantasized about it, or has actually done it before, maybe,” he suggested.

  “And the bastard's come up with a way to staunch the flow, control it and contain the blood.”

  “Suggest a medical background, possibly.”

  “Also suggests an organized mind at work.”

  They both knew the literature—if it could be called that—on the organized versus the disorganized murderer. A disorganized killer left a disorganized crime scene behind: weapons, footprints, fingerprints, personal articles and other giveaways to the police, usually in haste to run from
what he had done. An organized killer only left carefully chosen clues, evidence that he wanted police to find, often in an attempt to send them down a blind alley; other reasons ranged from fetishes and fantasy rituals concocted in a fevered brain to a sick desire to taunt those who came in to clean up his filthy work.

  If Jessica was right, they'd turn up no murder weapon, and all the suspects hauled in by the locals would likely be poor substitutes for the real thing. The local response in such killings was to chalk it up to the work of lunatic impulse. In fact, they counted on it and on moving quickly to incarcerate someone for the crime.

  But they both knew that while all this would happen for the community's sake and for the newshounds, the real killer would be all but invisible. An organized killer would have returned home, gone to bed, slept the peace of the innocent, having relaxed his biting urge to take blood, and wake refreshed. He was not about to show up at Stowell's office dazed, disoriented, blood dripping from his mouth, to give himself up in order to quell a brain in turmoil over having fed on the life of another human being. Whoever this man was, he felt no remorse, pain or empathy with his victim. Instead, he likely had a place in his garage for the cutting tools he'd used on Candy Copeland, and he most likely had placed each on its respective nail or shelf before turning in for the night.

  “Our guy's a tidy man,” said Otto there in the dimly lit hallway, as if reading her thoughts.

  “Fastidious about himself and his things,” she agreed, “and I don't think he wanted to get any blood on his clothes. If he tried catching her blood in a bucket, it would still be all over that cabin, and all over him. He'd gag and wretch if he tried taking it all in at once through a hose of some sort. No, he'd have to do it in a very clean, neat way.”

  She was busy in her head with the image of the monster, silhouetted in the dark against his victim, working meticulously over her before tearing into her dead body with the mutilating tools in an attempt to hide his finer work.

  This time neither of them said good night. Both of them knew that sleep, if it did come, would not be without disturbing images.

  FOUR

  When she got into her room, she turned on all the lights, and seeing the big double bed, she stretched out across it in her clothes thinking she'd just lie here for a moment. Then she was in back of Stowell's car with her hands in Otto's. She felt safe with him and she nestled in against him there in the crooning car, finding warmth in the crook of his arm, a curved, protecting cove. All around them the dismal, black Wisconsin landscape transformed into an oceanside lit bright with sunshine where they drove along a winding road above the escarpments. It was as if they were transported to Scotland, she thought, a place she had long dreamed of seeing, since her roots were there.

  The ride was lovely and Otto's voice was as caring and gentle as the soft breezes coming in at the windows. He asked after her comfort. She next heard him say something about love, but it was as if he were suddenly far away and she looked up to find herself alone in the car, a roiling black cloud having turned day into night, and the car was now a hearse, and the driver was no longer Stowell, for in the rearview mirror she made out the eyes of Candy Copeland as she said, “Just sit back, missy, and enjoy the ride.”

  Jessica started from her sleep with a jerking motion that almost sent her off the bed. Sitting upright, panting, she surveyed her surroundings. The dream had been so real... so real... When the bleeding had stopped, it was almost three in the morning and he was alone with the corpse and his own mind again. He hated this moment. It brought on panic and guilt and sick feelings in his head and in his stomach, and so to push it away, he relived the moments leading up to his quenching the burning thirst inside him.

  He hadn't made love to her in the usual sense, yet he loved her far beyond any physical bonding, for with her life's blood literally his, literally inside of him, they had become one.

  Candy, she had called herself, and she'd had the dull look of a simple schoolgirl bored with life, when he had first approached her at the bus stop. She wasn't too bright, but it wasn't brains he was after. Her speech patterns told of a meager upbringing. It was obvious she was unread, that she did very little thinking beyond what was between her legs and who was the current teen idol. She was perhaps eighteen, maybe more, and she had the hard look of a girl who liked to drink and party whenever she could find it.

  She smoked fiendishly.

  He must have looked strange to her, grand in a way, certainly not what she was used to. He was much older, dressed in a suit and tie, driving a nice van. He was old enough to be her father. In a sense he had made her his, hadn't he?

  She was foul-mouthed, and she dressed like the teen idol Madonna, which made her look like a tramp. She did dope whenever she could get it.

  He had certainly broken her of all her bad habits in one fell swoop...

  When he had fooled her into taking that trip with him, she had said, “I'll help you, if you'll help me.”

  She'd wanted a ride and a smoke, preferably grass. She got the ride and something a great deal stronger than weed. Then she got something she never bargained for, something that would make her live forever, so long as he chose to go on living forever. She is dead now, but still some blood trickles down the long, tapering neck, catching at the upside-down chin where it drips from the arched Adam's apple... and he catches the blood in his hands... uses it like holy water, rubs it into his face. Feels it against his skin, the smell of it—her essence—eases his tense nerves. He wants to remember the moment... but it's fast fading, the images weakening with every hour that passes.

  He wanted to go back to that moment.

  Preserve Candy and that moment in his mind.

  He reached over for the Nikon shots that he had snapped of Candy—before and after shots from every angle, catching her in the pose that fed him.

  Beside him, on the floor, stood the icebox and the mason jars. He went about the business now of packing the overflow away. His home freezer needed stocking, and thanks to Candy, it was looking much better.

  A neighbor's dog was barking, causing an eruption of other dogs to pierce the evening sky with their howls. There was a bright moon out and the dogs saw shadows moving everywhere. His was a quiet area, peaceful really, the backyard barbecues rusty from their long winter's wait, fences crumbling with age and neglect. It was an older neighborhood, to be sure, the houses in the district erected in the late sixties. Still there weren't a lot of pestering little ones about the front yard and the street, and while the houses looked their age, only an occasional salesman showed up at the door.

  Inside, he had all the comforts he required, mostly medical books and magazines. He even had a copy of Gray's Anatomy published before the days when such a masterpiece could have been mass-produced on flimsy paper at a reduction in print size. The book had been a prized possession of his grandfather's, a man he had never known.

  He must be certain that absolutely no trace of Candy's blood be found on the tools of his trade. The blood itself, if packs in the icebox, would not long be in his possession. Melanie's was already depleted to a final pack, and Janel was soon to follow.

  He was careful with his jars of blood. In the morning, he would transfer the blood into plasma packs, boxes of which he kept on hand. The stored blood would keep better that way and take up less room in his freezer.

  For want of a better name, he labeled his jars Candy, so as not to be confused with Melanie, Janel or Toni, three earlier contributors to his supply. He kept one jar of Candy in the door of his refrigerator, some to fill his A.M. appetite, some for slides. In the morning, he'd have a microscopic look at Candy's blood, in order to determine its finer qualities, or if it possessed any unwholesome aspect. During the heat of conquest, such concerns could not be contended with.

  His work was near done. He securely placed each jar atop the other with a little glass clink, unloading the cooler labeled Specimens. He had brought it in from the van. He'd waved at Jonstone down the street as he
carried in the stuff. Jonstone was an insomniac, and it wasn't unusual to find him walking his dog even at three in the morning.

  From the bottom of the cooler, he now lifted a small vial with a cork top. This he placed in the sink to be sterilized and reused later. Staring at the vial, it reflected the light over the sink, and he mused on its having been heated earlier by him, using his Bic lighter. He had stared through the flame at the dangling carcass. Alongside the slender tube resting in suds in his sink, he now placed an array of sullied items: a thermometer, a surgeon's scalpel, a pair of probes, a clamp, and a device he had only recently given a name to: the spigot.

  Now he went to the case of fine steel knives and instruments gleaming in the weak light. He hadn't remembered wiping them clean, but he had. He now closed the cooler and the case, and he began to feel a little fatigued. He had driven a long way to get home. He went into the bathroom, peeling away his shirt, revealing a broad, hairy chest and a stomach that spilled over his pants top, the navel buried within flesh, unseen. He'd been dieting, watching the fried and fatty foods whenever he was on the road, but it seemed to be doing nothing for the midsection where all his extra weight appeared one day when he woke up and examined himself closely and critically. He wasn't terribly obese, just enough to cause a bulge all around him and to strain the buttons of his shirts. He'd taken to wearing oversized ties to business meetings to cover the area at his navel, but there was only so much that could be covered.

  His face, too, was overlarge, the cheeks ballooning out, his jowls inflated to the point of hiding his better features, the distinct, dark crystal-blue eyes. He'd never had so large a head before. Why now? What was he to do about it? The only parts of his anatomy that seemed untouched by his sudden weight gain were his sinewy, taut limbs. The weights he lifted helped out here. And the blood diet was helping curb his appetite, he believed.

  The years had taken their toll on his complexion as well. He was ashen, the graying hair making him even more ashen in appearance. It made doing business harder, both in the daylight hours and at night. He was a colorless man, had always been a colorless man, with a low opinion of himself on account of how lowly he was regarded by just about everyone he came into contact with. Most people treated him as if he were a filing cabinet, and an empty one at that. All his life. But he was a great deal more interesting than anyone suspected.