Bitter Instinct jc-8 Read online

  The police chief introduced himself as Aaron Roth and added, “I am putting all my faith in this team, ladies and gentlemen, and I fully expect to see results soon. Is that clear, everyone?”

  He then introduced the tall, stick-thin woman beside him as Lieutenant Leanne Sturtevante, whose firm handshake, take-charge air, and strong voice made it clear that, as she said, “I am heading up and coordinating the Philadelphia Police Department's task force on the Poet Predator, as the press has dubbed the murderer.” Jessica recognized Sturtevante's need to take immediate control of the situation-not unlike herself-and she knew they would have difficulty working together unless they tried extra hard to be sensitive to each other's rough edges.

  Sturtevante next said, “If you'll follow me, I'll show you our ready room and introduce you to Dr. Shockley, who has had the bodies protocoled.” The detective started away as she talked, setting a brisk pace for Jessica, Kim, and the men.

  “How much does the press know about his MO?” Jessica asked.

  “They know the killer's leaving poems for us to ponder, but they don't know he's cutting the poems into his victims' backs,” replied Sturtevante. “They know his weapon of choice is poison, but they don't know the poison is in the ink. Still… it's only a matter of time before it all comes out.”

  “We're trying to keep a lid on the details for as long as possible,” added Parry, “but the newshounds smell something, and it's impossible to get them off the scent. Everyone in Philadelphia knows we're withholding information at this point.”

  They entered the building's rooftop service elevator. As the door closed, Roth pushed one button, Sturtevante another. “We'll want to see more than the protocols from Dr. Shockley,” Jessica said. “We'll want to see the bodies.”

  “Both of you?” asked Sturtevante.

  “Both of us,” replied Kim.

  “That can be arranged, right, Leanne?” said Roth.

  “Absolutely.”

  Chief Aaron Roth sucked in his gut and nodded to them with a perfunctory smile. “I'm afraid I must rush away to a charity fund-raiser.” Gritting his teeth, he added, “Commissioner expects me to play a part. Keep me apprised every step of the way, Leanne.”

  Jessica saw beads of perspiration forming on Chief Roth's forehead even in the relative cool of the elevator. His breathing sounded like the thrum of a poorly working refrigerator. She also smelled the acrid odor of tobacco that clung to every pore and hair of his body. A heart attack waiting to happen, she thought when the elevator doors opened on Roth's floor. He stepped off and waved an automatic good-bye.

  “It was nice to've met you, Doctors. Happy hunting, as they say.” He then coughed and turned away, puffing down the corridor, dabbing at perspiration on his brow with a soggy handkerchief.

  The others remained in the elevator car and descended deeper into the building as Sturtevante began her briefing.

  “We don't have much of a ready-room display, just some photographs and the poems, of course, which you're all familiar with; nothing unusual or out of place at any of the scenes. Fact is, the crime scenes this guy leaves behind are remarkably”-she searched for an appropriate word-”tidy. Tidy as your grandma's parlor.”

  Parry added, “Not so much as a candy wrapper on the floor. Wine bottles, flowers, candy boxes may have been handled by the killer. We've dusted for prints, but we've come up with zip.”

  “The guy is thorough about cleaning up after himself, and you know how useless a smudged print can be.” Sturtevante raised a hand to her neck and rubbed furiously, apparently at some pain there.

  Parry stared across at Jessica. “Whoever this guy is, he's at the opposite spectrum from Lopaka Kowona.”

  Jessica recalled how horrid the Kowona crime scenes had been, victims hacked to pieces and brutally mutilated. “The guy kept parts of his victims in his refrigerator,” she told Kim.

  Sturtevante turned to Parry. “I'd love to hear about your infamous Hawaiian case at some future time, Jim.”

  “I mean, unlike Kowona, our poet uses no knives, doesn't have a love affair with blood, and he's thorough about tidying up; like you say, Leanne, tidy as Grandma's parlor.” James looked directly at Jessica as he spoke, as if they were the only two in the elevator.

  The bell rang and the door opened on the lower-level floor where a sign pointed the direction to the morgue. They all stepped out into a bare, stark hallway painted an institutional green.

  “Do you have anything on the killer's choice of weapon?” Jessica asked Sturtevante as they made their way toward a sign over a door that read ppd medical examiner's office. “What've you so far on the poison he's using?” She wondered if Sturtevante sensed her need to ignore James's eyes for the moment.

  “It hasn't yet been fully identified, and as for the killer, we know about as much as the proverbial schoolroom dunce.”

  “Not fully identified?” Jessica shot back.

  “It's base is black India ink, possibly purchased at a specialty shop in the vicinity of the murders.”

  “Specialty shop?” asked Kim.

  “Nestled amid our target area, along Second Street, there's a bookstore called Darkest Expectations that sells it, as well as a stationery store named Ink, Line amp; Sinker. Upscale, hip shops. Only blocks from where we found the last victim.”

  “No hemlock, no arsenic, no strychnine traces?” asked Jessica.

  Sturtevante shook her head. “Whatever he's using, it isn't your run-of-the-mill poison.”

  “I'll want to talk to your toxicology guys. What about you, Jim? Have you got a team of toxicologists working on identifying the poison?”

  “We do, but it's the same with our lab. They don't know what they're looking for. It's been one hell of a problem.”

  “If we can ID the poison, it might say something about the poisoner,” said Kim. “Behaviorally speaking, that is.”

  “It might well be a hybrid poison, some sort of designer drug,” Jessica suggested.

  “Chief Parry holds the same belief. Meantime, our people are thinking it's something new, like you say, possibly a hybrid.”

  “Have they ruled out coldfire, then?” Jessica thought of her young victim in a morgue drawer back in Quantico.

  “Tryptootilin? Yes, we've had our share of cases involving coldfire, and yes, they have ruled it out,” replied Sturtevante.

  “Spanish fly? Azaleas? Rhododendrons? Other plants and flowers? I mean, doesn't this guy come with flowers and candy in hand?” Jessica asked.

  “They have looked at all the usual suspects. You know how many poisons exist in the world?” Sturtevante asked in a strained voice.

  Jessica realized only now that the detective had been offended by her tone. The two stood in the glow of light filtering through a glass door on which was lettered dr. Leonard w. shockley, me. The two women sized each other up, their eyes locked.

  Jessica said evenly, “I have a dictionary-sized book on the subject of poisons.”

  “That you've no doubt read, so you have some idea what our lab people are faced with… and how do you test for what you don't suspect? There's no way to test for everything, and everything on earth, if-”

  “If used in excess, kills, I know,” finished Jessica.

  Kim, sensing the hostility between the other two women, jumped in. “It would appear no one's seen the like of it before, whatever this poisoned ink is. They're sure to have tested for mercury, right?”

  “Right,” Sturtevante echoed.

  “Let's have a look at the victims,” Jessica suggested.

  “Step inside.” Sturtevante opened the door. “You're expected; all has been arranged.”

  “We aim to please,” added Parry. “I knew you'd want to take a hands-on approach, both of you. And it's as good a place to start as any.”

  His deep-set blue eyes reminded Jessica of the Hawaiian nights they'd spent together, and a sudden weakness in her knees made her wonder if she could handle this. She wondered as well if she could work al
ongside this man as if nothing had ever happened between them. His eyes seemed to mutely ask her the same question. Jessica wanted both to be alone at this moment and to be alone with him; they had so much to say to each other, so much clearing of the air to do.

  Jessica again heard her father's voice from deep within telling her to be strong as she unconsciously clutched at the heavy steel scalpel in her breast pocket. Somehow her father's gift gave her the strength and resolve she needed.

  On entering the morgue's outer corridor, she saw a white-haired Dr. Leonard Walter Shockley through what seemed a series of prisms-glass office windows, rows of them. He looked to be conducting some test on a gas chromotographer no doubt, attempting to separate out various chemical substances in order to make some scientific determination about some evidence. He looked like a ghost, a very busy and preoccupied ghost. As they came toward him, he didn't show the least interest in them and didn't even look up from his work.

  Jessica wondered how Shockley might react to her and how she should treat him-professional to professional or as the daughter of an old friend. Shockley had known and worked with her father many years before, and had in fact attended Jessica's graduation from medical school. Jessica rarely saw him anymore, since the death of her father. She already felt surrounded by people she must prove something to, and now she feared another was about to be added to the list.

  FIVE

  Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends.

  — Nathaniel Hawthorne

  As Jessica stared at her surroundings-the Philadelphia PD's Crime Lab Unit and adjacent medical examiner's office-a feeling of deja vu swept over her, and for a moment, she thought she might be returned to a time when she was chief medical examiner for the District of Columbia. The place could not be more identical. Perhaps designed by the same architect in the mid-fifties? Like hundreds of other such places, Philadelphia's crime lab appeared as busy as any in the nation, and just as understaffed.

  As they entered the main lab, Lieutenant Sturtevante said to the coroner for the city of Philadelphia, “Shocky, it's time for the show.”

  A stoop-shouldered gnome of a man with a greenish tinge to his skin turned from the cadaver he was scrutinizing with forceps, probe, overhanging magnifying glass, and the intensity of a medieval alchemist or some aged wizard in a fairy tale. Dr. Shockley stood, feet planted, rubber-gloved hands on hips, staring as if he were stumped by a complex mathematical problem, his eyes wide behind bottle-bottom glasses. Suddenly allowing a smile to spread across his wizened features, he said in a delighted tone, “Well, if it isn't the last of the female studs, Stud-e-vant! Have you caught yourself a man yet? Can't catch a man, how're you supposed to catch a murderer?” He laughed at his own jokes, and it was clear that the two were following a familiar routine.

  “I've got you, Shocky. All the man I can handle at one time.”

  “If there was ever a woman I couldn't satisfy, I suspect it'd be you, dear.”

  “That's enough of that, Shocky. Let me introduce-”

  He waved Sturtevante off, going directly to Jessica, peeling away his rubber gloves, fluids and pieces of tissue flying as he grasped her hands in his, eyes twinkling as he heartily pumped her arm as if hoping for water to spout from her mouth. His grip felt like steel, stronger than she had imagined, as he nearly shouted, “So, Sturtevante, our two famous detectives have arrived, Dr. Coran and Dr. Desinor. Been so looking forward to it, ladies. Around here, the more the merrier. As for you, Jessica, I feel a hug coming on.”

  “Really? And it's wonderful to see you, too, Uncle Leonard.”

  “Uncle?” asked Sturtevante. “Not by blood but by affection,” said Jessica. “One of my father's best friends.”

  “One of? I was your father's best friend, sweetheart,” he countered.

  “Sorry, Doctor. I meant-”

  “Never you mind. It's just wonderful to have you here and on the case with me.”

  “Do you really mean that, or are you just being polite?” she challenged the old man.

  “Unlike many of my associates here in Philly, I'm not afraid to say it. I need all the help I can get!” He took Kim's hand next and shook it as heartily as he had Jessica's.

  Shocky, as Sturtevante had called the ME, had gotten their names and faces right, explaining, “I recognize you, Dr. Desinor, from your pictures, and you, little Jessica, how you've grown.”

  “Dr. Shockley and my father worked in the military together for a time,” Jessica told the others.

  “Well, this is like old home week for you, then, isn't it, Dr. Coran?” asked Sturtevante, letting on that she knew about Jessica and Parry's past involvement. No doubt Jim had told her, but why? Did he have some burning need to confide in another woman, someone safe? Or did he feel he owed it to Leanne Sturtevante to give her this deep background knowledge, for the good of her case?

  Shockley continued, oblivious to these undercurrents. “I remember seeing you in L.A., too, at the convention, but then you disappeared. I learned only later that you'd gone off after yet another maniacal killer.”

  “Yes, a sociopath whose murder weapon was a blowtorch,” said Kim.

  “Not near so subtle in his MO as this fiend you're dealing with here,” Jessica told Shockley.

  “Yes, we have one hell of a subtle monster roaming our streets, Jessica. A most perspicacious SOB, to say the least, one too swift for local authorities to net. The newsies are having a field day with Sturtevante's supposedly inept handling of the case. Right, Leanne?”

  “Go to hell, Shockley,” replied Sturtevante.

  “All right, then let's talk about Las Vegas, dear Jessica, shall we?”

  “Vegas?”

  Shockley guided her away from the others. “It was so very disappointing to learn that your session at the conference on rebuilding the crime from a single desiccated forearm-as you managed to do in Hawaii-had been turned over to Cyril Hanley.”

  “I heard that Hanley did a first-rate job,” Jessica protested.

  “Hartley's a good forensics man, yes, but he lacks something… hasn't the fire you have, Jessica, not even a spark of it. Besides, you're a good deal easier on the eye than Cyril, even in his best plaid shirt and bow tie.” He finished with a hearty laugh, his impish face inviting them all to laugh with him, but no one did.

  “Cyril has had problems with the fashion police before. Thank you, Dr. Shockley. I'm sorry you were disappointed at missing me in Vegas.”

  “Never you mind. There will be other conferences. Besides, who else could have put an end to that madman you trailed all across the west?” He turned to Sturtevante, adding, “The vile maniac turned perfectly good people into toast, using a torch! Yes, we are most certainly fortunate to have Dr. Coran and Dr. Desinor here, on this far more beguiling case.”

  Sturtevante remained impassive, simply saying, “Yes, we are indeed fortunate, and in the meantime-”

  “In the meantime,” Shockley repeated with a leering smile. “Yes, yes, yes… in the meantime, we have our own peculiar murder to deal with. One wonders if the killer does it tongue in cheek.”

  “Really? I sense no humor in the poems he leaves behind,” countered Kim.

  “I refer to his method! Such flare is usually reserved for the magicians of story-mystery writers. Imagine it.”

  Jessica did so; she imagined the panache, the flamboyance, the staging and the theater that went into the murders. She imagined the care with which the killer must procure his victims, while Shockley's words mirrored her thoughts. Shockley finished with, “Yes, he's a showman, this fellow, and he likely thinks long and hard about his deeds, rationalizing them away. Still, I suspect he spends at least as much time with his chemistry set, mixing his poisonous concoction, which we're still in the dark about.”

  Kim, hands behind her back, said, “I understand that the poison was taken in at the cuts created by the pen on their backs.”

  “What could be simpler?” Shockley asked with a grin. “Come, come t
his way. You'll find our first victim in good repair, all the autopsy protocol in shape as well. You two suit up. You'll find everything you need through there.” He pointed to a door marked ladies.

  After quickly donning blue medical garb, masks, booties, and surgical gloves, Jessica and Kim returned. They then followed Leonard Shockley toward a second autopsy room where the body lay.

  Shockley spoke as they walked. “I suppose you're curious about the victim type?”

  “I do have some concerns along those lines,” said Jessica.

  “The detectives have surmised that the victims willingly submitted to the killer's pen, but it's unlikely they knew what they were in for. What's unusual is the absolute care the killer took with each victim to preserve their environment and their bodies.”

  Jessica nodded. “No hacking, no mutilation, no disarray of the rooms, I've heard.”

  “Exactly. Rather the opposite. He is meticulous with his victims.”

  “Lovingly meticulous, I understand.”

  “For God's sake, Jessica, the bastard provides a pillow, a blanket, a careful placement of the arms and legs. Comfort is key. The body is not only given a gentle send-off, but the condition of the body is near perfect.”

  “Perfect health, you mean?”

  “No sign of anything whatsoever to check out, no.”

  “So, although he's giving them this peaceful kind send-off-”

  “He has certain standards.”

  She squinted at the old ME. “Standards?”

  “None of the victims were in pain or suffering or ill health, no.”

  “What about mental state, depression?”

  “Every kid this side of the Mississippi is depressed.”

  “Any history of depression in the victims?” she persisted.

  “None that I know of, but it may be a viable line of inquiry,” agreed Shockley, opening the door to the room where the cadaver awaited her inspection. He stopped her before the sheet-covered corpse. “But, Jess, I'm talking about the killer's victim type-someone in perfect physical and I suspect mental condition. Perfectly healthy and young. That's what our killer wants.”