Bitter Instinct Read online

  “Miami was a bitch. Sure, I saw the clues left by the killer there. He used lines from that poet who never capi­talized, the British counterpart of e.e. cummings.”

  “Yeah, e.j. hellering's poems. Killer used them to get his point across, but hellering's stuff wasn't what I'd call memorable by any stretch.”

  “This guy's poetry is not maniacal, and it's not filled with anger or hatred, Jess. The crime scenes are bloodless, pristine in fact, and it's all in terrible contradiction to the idea of a ram­page, yet the word keeps insinuating itself on me. Strange. As to the poetry I've seen thus far, it's... it is rather mesmerizing, haunting on some strange level I can't quite comprehend.”

  “Really? It's that good?”

  'To my mind it recalls some of the English-lit classes I endured in college, but the subject matter is modem.”

  “Coleridge, Keats, Wadsworth?”

  “Don't you mean Wordsworth, dear?”

  “English literature was never my best subject,” Jessica replied, “and I found a lot of the old poetry to be a wad of it, so I'll stick with Wfofsworth.” Kim laughed.

  Jessica now asked, “So if not Wordsworth, then who? Shelley, Keats?”

  'Try Gerard Manley Hopkins, or better yet Lord Byron. Again not in style or even form, but something melancholy and haunting about the quality of the mind behind it. Brooding... like Byron.”

  Jessica paused before saying, “Really? Byron. Haven't thought of Byron since I was in college.”

  “I don't mean to say that the poetry is equal to Byron's, or even that it's similar. And as I said, it's certainly not written in the same style. But something about it reminds me of Byron.”

  “Such as?”

  “The Byronic hero—man against the herd, man against establishment—but in this case life itself, being born into this existence is the fiend, the reviled establishment, if you will. And I think, or rather feel, that the Poet Killer is him­self or herself a flawed character in the scene the killer is creating, perhaps wantonly so.”

  “Somewhat melodramatic, isn't it?”

  “Scatch the surface of Byron and what're you left with but melodrama? I'm telling you this poisoner thinks of himself as the lone man standing against the machine of society, the establishment, the human condition, you name it.”

  “That is remarkable. You've gotten all that from the vic­tim photos?”

  “Copies actually, but yes. Eriq faxed 'em to me. But I really need to see the originals, lay my hands on the real deal. Parry's told me that can be arranged.”

  Over the phone line, Jessica heard Kim's hands thumb­ing through papers. “Let me read you what we have so far from the killer. It's known that this fellow left behind flow­ers and wine along with the poems. Some task-force mem­bers think these may be offerings, keepsakes for the de­ceased to take to the other side with them.”

  Jessica took a moment to listen intently to the poetic lines, nodding as she did so. When Kim had finished, she said, “You may be onto something here, Kim.”

  “Aside from the classic feel of the poems, the killer's... I don't know... writing to the gods, the fates, the angels, as well as to the victims he dispatches, but he's not direct­ing a word to anyone in authority, anyone, say, like you or me...

  Jessica asked, “What're you saying?”

  “He's not at all interested in us. His poems are an hom­age to the victims, what you'd call...”

  “Eulogies?”

  “Exactly.”

  “That is a new wrinkle. A guy kills you and then writes your eulogy.”

  “Loves to write your epitaph on your corpus delecti,” Kim quipped. “Really would like to get my hands on the originals.”

  Jessica knew what she meant. Kim was a psychometrist: she “read” information from the objects a victim or a killer handled. She had received vivid images both in the New Orleans case and in the Houston case merely by handling objects belonging to the victims.

  “Want to feel the originals, don't you? But that means lay­ing your hands on the bodies in Philadelphia.”

  “Hands-on, right. One reason I need to go there. I want you to hear another of the poems. Listen to this one, Jess.”

  Kim read the lines the killer had penned, the lines that had killed one of his victims:

  Chance... whose desire

  is to have a meeting

  with stunned innocence . .

  .and to tell it again;

  luminescent green

  is the color of the script,

  and ice-blue hues

  embrace the images.

  They make skin

  crawl with miniature

  electric devotions,

  huddled and yearning,

  hushed whispers waiting

  on the shadow of a flickering light.

  “Whew... pretty heavy shit,” Jessica remarked, unsure what to say. “The Philly detectives think the killer is working out of some sense of pity for his victims. Maybe he sees his mur­ders as an act of mercy.”

  “Yeah, I got that much from Eriq. But this sounds like a type of mercy killer we haven't seen before.”

  “Mercy killer, maybe... that is, we only know that Philly PD has characterized him as such. Seems the fellow kills his victims after sharing wine, cheese, and a laying-on of a deadly pen.”

  “Wine and cheese I get, but what kind of pen is he using?”

  “Something around the turn of the century or a couple, few years before. Definitely dips the thing, as he's left drops of poisonous ink stains on bedclothes and floor. From the depth of the cuts, it's been surmised that the delivery system is sharp.”

  “ 'Cutting edge' long before high tech adopted the word?” suggested Jessica, wincing. “Sounds painful.”

  “Not if you're knocked out on booze. Bread and wine. wine and cheese, sometimes pizza; point is, they spend a long and pleasant evening together, killer and victim, end­ing with a bit of poison—a poison, by the way, that con­tinues to defy analysis. No one seems to be able to agree on its properties or give it a name. And as a final touch, his victims appear to sit for the poetic writing, er... killing, willingly.”

  “Persuasive guy, this Shakespeare. What kind of profile do they have on him?”

  “Mixed bag. Not even sure he's a he; could just as well be a female killer, given the choice of weapons. As to the victims, two women, one man, all young, all into New Age thinking and beliefs, all living in an area that's gone ape-shit for this new craze of 'living poetry,' and curiously enough no other tattoos or nose rings or tongue piercings found on the vies.”

  “Conservative about how they used their bodies, but all talked into doing the body-writing thing,” Jessica mused.

  “Save for that, their ages, the fact that they appear to have been easily beguiled, and their close geographical proximity to one another and to the clubs, they have little in common.”

  “Sounds like an unusual victim type.”

  “Well, this guy in Philly—or woman—his or her poetics are different.”

  “Do you get a sense that maybe it's a woman, Kim? And what exactly do you mean by different, huh? How so?”

  “I don't know for sure, but one thing's certain: it's a gen­tle person, feminine, I suspect, in many ways. At the same time I'm getting this singularly masculine word insinuat­ing itself on any reading I do.”

  “What word is that?”

  “It's paradoxical, just the opposite of femininity.”

  “What's the word, Kim?”

  “Rampage.”

  “Rampage? As in kill spree rampage?”

  “All I know is the word keeps coming through loud and clear.”

  “Hardly a gentle, feminine word.”

  “Precisely... so... how am I to be sure of the gender of the poet?”

  “Maybe it's coming through from somewhere else? The victims, maybe?”

  “I don't know... yet. But rampage keeps forcing itself into my readings.”

  “Maybe it has some symbolic
meaning, then?”

  “Maybe it's a quiet rampage, like a personal quest.”

  “Rampage... quest...” Jessica muttered. “You think?”

  “The word quirk or quark is also coming through, along with a number.”

  “What number?”

  “Nineteen... means nothing in and of itself, but I get it strong and clear.” Jessica bit her lip. “Let's hope that's not a preset num­ber of victims he's planning to sacrifice .“I can't say one way or the other, not really.”

  “What do you think of the poetry itself?” asked Jessica.

  “I believe the poetry is original. Nothing else like it in my experience, and the killer is definitely sending a mes­sage of some sort.”

  Jessica thought of her parting words with Eriq Santiva earlier. He had left the ball in her court, saying she must decide by eleven p.m. and that hour had come and gone. Now Kim sat perched on the phone with her, doing all she could to persuade her to take on the case. Had Santiva sicked Kim onto her? Kim's words even sounded like Santiva's, as she ended with, “So, Jess, are you in or out? Do you want to have a look into this or not? I leave the decision up to you.”

  Yes, Kim sounded as if she were reading lines from Santiva's script. “Eriq put you up to this phone call, didn't he?” Jessica wanted her to admit it. If she did, then perhaps there was no cause for alarm; if she denied it, then there must surely be.

  “What, I can't call a dear friend and beg her help?”

  Both women knew that if Jessica took on the case, it would be for two reasons: her unquenchable curiosity as a forensic scientist, and the need for closure on a long-term relationship.

  “Well, all right, Jess. Eriq and I discussed it from top to bottom, and we both feel that you're the best person for the task, and frankly, I'm not sure I'm going without you.”

  “I'll see you at the airstrip at six a.m. tomorrow, Kim.”

  “Good... good. Would you like me to inform Eriq?”

  “That's your call.”

  “My call?”

  “Thanks, yes.” Decision made, Jessica hung up, still wondering when and how she would tell Richard of her new case and its connection with James Parry.

  The Poet Lord liked the apartment dimly lit, and so the thickly embroidered, burgundy-and-gray tapestry that cov­ered the larger windows pleased his eye on waking. Music of another period poured from the CD set on continual play. The poet had slept to the music of an Italian opera. Incense filled the room with a delicate sandalwood scent, and the tapered candles had burned down to stubs, creating tentacled stalagmites of the cooling wax over the arms of the candelabra at his bedside.

  The poet clawed toward wakefulness, somehow touch­ing foot to floor and staggering through the apartment, clicking on the coffeepot and showering for the day.

  The apartment walls stared back at the poet. All the eyes watched from all the paintings, prints he'd gathered as cheaply as possible, framed and placed at increasingly smaller intervals around the rooms. In fact, the wall could hardly be made out for the prints. Max field Parrish, Ed­ward Burne-Jones, Waterhouse and his disciples, Hieronymus Bosch's visions of heaven, an assortment of enchanted visions of paradise, some depicting it as another realm entirely, others depicting it—or its closest approxi­mation—as a place here on earth. All the poet's paintings spoke of lost times and lost souls. Each of his victims had seen this shrine, and all had shared his taste in art, music, and literature. None of them had the least interest in Beanie Babies, makeup kits, inflation, or current events. None had watched a TV sitcom in years, and none of the one's he'd helped to pass over even knew firsthand what a skin blemish was. Prerequisite to having the poet sponsor someone as a living poem.

  With coffee in hand, The Lord Poet Messenger of Mis­spent Time did what every Philadelphian did on a Monday morning: he struggled to consciousness. He staggered about his small castle like place with its black-sky ceiling overhead, its earth tones all around, and its stone-tiled floor selected specifically for its old-world appearance.

  The staggering was a dance performed each morning, but it was particularly acute after pulling an all-nighter with someone special, someone not of this world, someone chosen to be sent over.

  After a pot of coffee and a roll, he located the remote and scanned the news channels for any mention of the body's having been discovered. Nothing, nada, zip, not a word. He imagined that the body would be found before long. The poet would keep an eye out and an ear open. While it mattered little to him what authorities thought of his work, he wished to stay informed and to remain above suspicion so that he might carry on with the necessary labor. After all, he had a universe to save. A crusade had been taken up, and this crusade to stomp out ignorance, eradicate fear, and end the poverty of impoverished souls—this had become the true calling of the poet.

  But for now, it was off to work, a taxing, energy-draining job, the nine-to-whenever grind.

  Still, the poet paused to think of each of his lovers, the ones he had chosen for the ultimate journey. He pictured his first victim, Micellina Petryna. She had been so beauti­ful in her purity and naivet6. There was an angelic quality even in her self-deprecation. The most worthy never know their worth, he thought now. She had attracted the poet the moment she stepped into view, and when she received the first love sonnet the poet had written to her, she had not been frightened off, but rather touched.

  They met for coffee on several occasions, talking mostly—of poetry and literature, the classics and the mod­ern classics. Each flattered the other on their choices of the best lines ever penned by man-or womankind. She was hungry for the attention he lavished on her, and easily led as a result, and the very qualities that made her angelic also made her vulnerable to the lies, lies necessary to carry out the mission.

  He recalled how, on that last night they'd spent together, he'd told her how much he both admired her and helplessly loved her in that special spiritual way reserved only for the most intimate of souls, those souls who miraculously did what most could not. “And what is that?” she'd asked, star­ing into the poet's flaming eyes.

  'To both locate and then hold on to the gift of a soul mate.”

  They had closed down the little coffeehouse where they'd met. She'd so opened up, revealing every detail of herself and the horrors of her everyday existence. She'd been molested as a child by a stepmother, and she had sought therapy for the emotional scars. Now she promised,

  “I'm working on relating to other women more and more, but I gotta tell you, it's not easy. You... you're so under­standing, so gentle and caring. I've never met anyone quite like you. There's a fire in your eyes when you're listening to me talk, and that's so cool, so attractive.”

  She was right about the poet; he was the most gentle being she would ever encounter in this world. His eyes blazed with the light of attentiveness whenever someone bared his or her soul, as Micellina, Caterina, and Anton had all done before leaving this world.

  True enough, a fire burned behind the poet's eyes, the fire of a crusader, a person on a quest for the holiest of spir­its on this plane. The Holy Grail was not a thing, not a chalice, not an object, but a soul, a rare soul indeed. It mat­tered not a whit that some sordid and polluted moment ex­isted in their pasts on this plane, or even if they were presently sleeping with someone, for they remained inno­cent of their own true natures, innocent of the power they wielded, the power of their souls when taken by the angels. And while none of the chosen had been old enough to have committed any great sins against God or man—none had been cheats, liars, whores, none had practiced prostitution or promiscuity of either the worldly kind or the ethereal kind that characterized so many so-called experts on art and creativity. Certainly, no one in this life remained pure. People didn't long endure on this plane without smut at­tracting to them. Only the children of the angels, chosen by the poet to go over, remained pure of heart and being.

  This had certainly been the case with Caterina Mer­cedes, the poet thought, groggily g
etting up and searching for something to wear to work this morning. While Micel­lina had been easy to lead, Caterina had been a holdout. It had taken a great deal more persuasion to convince her that it was in her best interest to have a private moment with the poet. When she finally acquiesced, it proved almost as hard to get her to meet with him a second time. She had serious reservations about seeing him privately, and she had seri­ous doubts as to his intentions, almost up to the end. But the poet's dexterity with words, both spoken and written, finally won her over. In the end, Caterina, like Micellina, felt a joyous and heartfelt obligation to carry out the poet's plan—to write her into eternity. They had both, in the end, willingly gone over, first believing they would achieve a kind of immortality among their peers for displaying the poems on their backs, but in the end knowing that he had a greater immortality in store for them.

  Then came Anton Pierre, a beautiful young man, not un­like the two women who had preceded him in physical beauty and mental purity.

  The poet stepped from the modest apartment, located the elevator, and with his valise in hand soon stood on the avenue fronting his building. A penniless man with a squirt bottle in hand asked if he could hail a cab for the poet. He nodded, indicating that yes, he would like the beggar to help him, but to remain at a safe distance. As he waited for the cab, he felt a wave of revulsion wash over him at the sight of the derelict. When a cab pulled over, he threw a five-dollar bill at the homeless man and rushed to enter the cab, glad to be speeding off.

  It wasn't every day he took a cab to work, but it looked like rain again, and he'd left his umbrella in the stand, the one with the Victorian hounds that stared out at the poet, hounds whose eyes burned with a fire to match the poet's own.

  FOUR

  We must not make a scarecrow of the law, Setting it up to fear the birds of prey.

  —William Shakespeare

  Dr. Jessica Coran stepped from the soupy Virginia fog that enveloped Quantico Naval Air Station to greet Dr. Kim Desinor. Taking her by the hand, Jessica said, “The boys at the hangar have a new toy to play with, a Soviet-built MiG tactical helicopter. It's not exactly new to us, nothing like a big mystery, but they're incredible ma­chines. I think I've convinced them to transport us to Philadelphia in it instead of in that boring departmental Cessna Citation.”