Absolute Instinct jc-11 Page 9

  “Can it be that bad? Really?”

  “Really, yes! All livestock lost to extremely poor planning to say the least at the last emperor's feast I suppose, where he kept a continuous feast going for fifty years, every day of the year, every hour of the day and night for his thousands of honored guests like there was no tomorrow. It's no wonder-”

  “Black market thrives,” she finished for him.

  “No wonder they love to go to the zoos and stare at the animals in the cages, and why they hunt down and eat wild animals like those cats, celts are they called, suspected of carrying SARS?”

  “It's sad really.”

  “Now, except for what you can get on the black market, everyone is served some sort of mystery meat at every meal-a true mystery, my analytical sweetheart. One you could certainly sink your teeth into.”

  “What do they tell you when you ask about the food?”

  “Chicken… everything is chicken or fish. Even the meat with the four-inch bony tail, chicken. Sometimes they get cute and tell you it's the fish that walks on land.”

  They laughed over this and said tender good-byes, blowing one another kisses via the video link.

  “I'll call you from Millbrook when I can!” he shouted and hung up.

  Just like Richard to drop everything to help out, she thought. She knew no other man who'd be so willing to get involved in such a nebulous cause.

  Jessica put away her PCS Vision phone and dropped back on the bed, exhausted and hungry. Still no call from Darwin. She wondered what had become of him when there came a knock at her door. She remained in her terry-cloth robe, her hair still stringy from being wet.

  She went to the door and peeked through the one-way telescopic peephole and found Darwin on the other side with a large room-service cart filled with food.

  “I took the liberty of ordering!” he shouted through the door.

  She pulled it wide, shaking her head at him. “What is this?”

  “I feared you'd be too exhausted to come back out after all you've been through, and I know how I am after my evening shower. Last thing I wanna do is go back out. Just wanna curl up is all,” he spoke as he wheeled the cart into the center of the room.

  “You can be honest, Darwin. You saw a woman dead on her feet and you took pity.”

  “Ahhh… that, too, yeah, so I brought dinner to you, along with the murder books.”

  “You had the casebooks all along?”

  “Trunk of my car.”

  “You do have it all worked out, don't you, Darwin.” She closed the door and grabbed a huge strawberry and dipped it into a small vat of chocolate, chomping down, famished and unable to wait.

  Agent Darwin Reynolds arranged everything on the balcony at the table there, even the two thick facsimiles of autopsy and police reports bound in the covers of what police officials called murder books-all the paper that made up the Sarah Towne murder investigation in Oregon and the Louisa Childe murder investigation in Minnesota.

  “A working dinner then,” she said, accepting the chair he held out for her.

  Jessica lifted the cover off her meal, a steamy chicken marsala with a side dish of spaghetti in marinara. Between bites, once he sat down and joined her, taking up his meal and pouring wine, she told him about Richard Sharpe, who he was to her, and how he was on his way to Minnesota.

  “To do what in Minnesota?”

  “To find whatever blood or DNA evidence might help the cause.”

  “DNA evidence? But authorities in Millbrook told me they had no DNA evidence from the crime scene.”

  “Perhaps there's something hiding in the old evidence lockup. We don't any of us know for certain, now do we? If anyone can inventory the evidence and see beyond the obvious, it's Inspector… ahhh… Agent now, Richard Sharpe.”

  “Maybe this Sharpe fella can rattle their cages. I'll certainly keep my fingers crossed.”

  “Sharpe has indeed rattled a few cages in his time, and I'm betting Millbrook's finest will be no match for a former Scotland Yard investigator.”

  “Those guys in Minnesota who worked the case seemed genuinely concerned and professional.”

  “You want to explain your disappearing act?” she asked.

  “Whataya mean?”

  “Where you've been all this time, if you had the murder books in your trunk?”

  “Phone calls. I still have a life.”

  “I'm glad one of us has, and one day I damn well will carve one out for myself.” Jessica got quickly back to Richard. “Agent Sharpe cares, and he will do a thorough job in Millbrook, leaving none of the proverbial stones unturned.”

  “I doubt he'll find anything useful after three years. What blood they processed all turned out to be the victim's. Don't really see that going there is going to, you know, accomplish anything. Still, I do appreciate his help.”

  She forked up more food, famished from the long day of not eating, of being unable to stomach anything. Wiping her mouth with the large cloth napkin, she said, “Millbrook police are as prone to mistake as any agency, and autopsy folks make errors more often than I care to tell. We're not all as adept and agile as the perky young things on CSI, Darwin. And Richard is trained on the scent that ineptness leaves behind. Trust me. Or rather, trust Richard Sharpe. He has absolutely perfect instincts.”

  Darwin replied, “One of the detectives on the case passed away not long ago. The other guy keeps his cards close to his chest, and he hates it that this case has gone unsolved. Damned angry and defensive about it.”

  “What's your point?”

  “Sharpe is going up against a wall there in Millbrook. I mean I appreciate his effort, but it will be a wasted one.”

  “We don't know that.”

  The sound of the street, like a strangely languorous melody rose up to the balcony where they dined. Jessica asked him what he knew of the medical examiner who had prepared the autopsy report on Louisa Childe.

  “Nothing really. Seems competent enough for a smalltown M.E.”

  “I know him well. Have met him on occasion at conventions of the American Medical Examiners Association. I've heard him speak. He does shoddy research from what I know. It's bound to spill over in his day-to-day. So, perhaps there is something lurking in Millbrook we have no clue about.”

  “And when you need a clue that's not there?”

  “Send in Scotland Yard.”

  The rattle of stainless-steel utensils against dishware diminished and died. They sat looking across at one another, Darwin lifting his wineglass to accept her toast. “May we all be successful in our endeavors, you, me, Sharpe.”

  He drank to this.

  “Then again, you are wise to be skeptical. After all, a two-year-old case gets a lot of cold on it.”

  “Still, it could save an innocent man if we can connect this murder to the other two.”

  “I hope we can find some hard evidence to bolster your cause, Agent. Now, let me read what is before me.”

  “I'll shut up and be patient then.”

  “Thank you.” She sat back and lounged with the first murder book, that of Louisa Childe, propped atop that for Sarah Towne.

  She sipped at her wine as she read. “You can walk me through the reports. I assume you've read both carefully.”

  “Nine and ten times over yes.”

  “And what strikes you as the most salient feature or point of comparison between the two?”

  “The missing spine, of course.”

  “What else?”

  “The control he obviously exerted over the situation in both cases and the killing here in Milwaukee. Cold and calculated, hence the use of the charcoal drawings.”

  “Let me read on through each book.” Her unfocused eyes steadied and met his. “If there's any stone left unturned, we'll find it and exploit it.”

  FIVE

  Demons are among us, and we must learn to spot them before they feed on us.

  — Dr. Jessica Coran

  The same night in Mi
lwaukee

  Giles Ramsey Gahran walked out into the evening air on Loomis Street, going toward Lucinda Wellingham's art gallery. Under a slight, tapering-off drizzle, his thoughts wandered back to his mother. Lucinda reminded him vaguely of his mother, something around the eyes, the curve of the strong chin and the upturned nose, that perpetual half grin. He fantasized at length about Lucinda falling in love with his artwork and with him. Something he had never really ever had: honest, unwavering, unquestionable true love. Even his mother had disliked him, always deriding him, beating him, telling him he was just like his father, but never telling him anything substantive about his father, only nebulous references to his having been a horrible husband, a loser, a callous, thoughtless monster, a major disappointment to all who had known him, a failed artist, a teacher fired from every position he'd ever held, a jobless bum, a disappearing act. He was all of these things, and Mother was ever mindful that Giles looked like him, and so must be like him.

  Mother had no education. Mother knew nothing, only her prejudices and hatred of men, all men, including her own son. Moments before she died, she pointed a finger at Giles, and that bony worm shook before his eyes for the last time as she spoke in broken words. “You've a c-curse on ya, Giles Gah-ran, God and I know. I've pro-” A cough threatened to shut her up but she fought past it. “Pro-tec-a-ted ya from it, fr-from y-your very na-nature… all these years.” More coughing gave Giles hope she'd shut up before saying another word, but it was no use. She meant to say it all with her dying breath. And some part of him wanted to hear it all again, to absorb it, take a morbid pleasure in her choking on it, her own creation tale of how he came into being one night when she got drunk with the Devil and spread her legs for Satan himself.

  “But w-with me g-gone, you'll succumb to your base n-nature to become him again-that monster that spaw-spawned you. Spawn as in the Devil's own seed.”

  She found voice now, taking sail on it, adding, “You have his eyes, his face, and his genes. He's in your core, boy, your every cell, your DNA.” She'd then grabbed his hands in her cold, bloodless, knuckle-ugly grasp. “You ought do yourself and the world a favor, son, and come to eternity with me here, now. Take your life. Drop out of this existence now, before it's too… too late. Trade your ugly soul in for anything but what you are!”

  Fucking bitch for a mother, he thought now. Louisa Childe had looked something like Mother. Joyce Dixon-Olsen and Sarah Towne to a lesser degree.

  Mother had left him with a dust-laden box as well, telling him that everything about his father resided inside that box, and if he did not believe her ever before about the awful nature to which he was heir, that he need only open that ornate antique box.

  He had all these years never opened the damn box, several times taking it as far as the incinerator to burn it, but never going through with the destruction. Instead, he had placed the box back in its keeping place beneath his bed, unopened.

  Lucinda had said to meet her at her art studio in downtown Milwaukee only blocks from the museum at seven-thirty, and that they would go to the Orion exhibit at the museum together. Lucinda was both young and wealthy, a patron of the arts who enjoyed nothing more than discovering new and unique talent. After all, she had discovered Keith Orion, now the toast of the elite of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, his work on display at the Living Art Gallery inside the Hamilton Museum just down the hall from the masters, da Vinci, van Gogh, Rembrandt, Matisse, Chagall, Picasso, Monet and Manet-all of them. Just off a room filled with exquisite sculptures from Donatello to Rodin to Moore.

  Tonight Giles had been invited by Lucinda herself to see Orion's so-called magnificent oil paintings on display at Milwaukee's Hamilton Museum's Fine Arts Center, popularly known as the Living Arts Gallery. Giles thought Orion mediocre at best and did not understand all the to-do over his oils. Lucinda's taste in art swung left, right and center, and her shows had been known to fail miserably, but she had hinted at the idea that Giles's own discovery, his “breakout breakthrough” loomed close at hand.

  Giles had dressed for the occasion, all in black, no tie or tails, only his leather coat and sleek shirt and pants along with fake Gucci shoes. He hopped onto a downtown bus to get to Lucinda's gallery near the arts center.

  He recalled the day they had first met. He had a letter of recommendation from an art promoter in Minneapolis, Minnesota, that she simply could not be impressed by. Nonetheless, she looked over the portfolio he'd brought in. Still, she remained cool to his work. Even the photos of his two best sculptures-his finest work, requiring years to complete-hadn't impressed Lucinda, and he quickly began to feel she had no taste for what was truly unique and authentically from the heart. But perhaps he could win her over, if only she would come to his studio flat and see the two finished sculptures, and his work in progress. So he pleaded that day with Lucinda to come and have a look at his most recent works.

  Back in Millbrook, he had shown one of his sculptures- his best work-to another art exhibitor, Cameron Lincoln. The man had claimed to love it, that it was world-class work, that it could easily fit into any gallery in the nation or the world stage, and that together they could make a fortune selling such works for Giles. But he told Giles that he needed more like it, a grouping, he called it, of at least six or seven “related” sculptures to be a part of a show he wished to promote. Giles showed Cameron his other works, created long before his master work, but Cameron's reaction was as tepid as cold soup to the work that “had no backbone.” Cameron Lincoln absolutely loved the “unique and inspired use of the spinal vertebrae as artistic metaphor” in the sculpture.

  “If you can get a grouping together before next April,” Cameron had promised, “I can put your work on display alongside Minneapolis St. Paul's finest artists.”

  Giles could hardly believe his luck, but he could not possibly put together that many sculptures in so short a time. It had taken him a year to complete the sculpture that Cameron so admired, not to mention the time involved in getting together all the parts. As a result, Giles proposed a grouping of six or seven oil paintings with similar motifs in which spines figured heavily, one his snake pit of spines, all alive and hissing and writhing. Others were paintings representing sculptures he had dreamed up-plans for similar sculptures as the one Cameron so admired. Giles had already sketched these in charcoal, and he had rushed them to Cameron.

  Cameron had stared at each sketch, finding them fascinating. “The attention to detail, even in black and white is remarkable, Giles. Christ, you know every bone and cusp in the backbone, don't you, boy?”

  “Some people call the spine the Devil's tail.”

  “Really? I'd never heard that.”

  “Says it explains why men are evil.”

  “Women, too. They got backbones so they hafta be just as devilish, huh?”

  Ignoring the question, Giles had replied with a question of his own. “If I do these sketches in oil, can you exhibit the paintings alongside the finished sculpture?”

  Cameron had again stared at the sketches or rather into them. They pulled him in, and he felt mesmerized by them. Giles worked so beautifully with the human form, creating fired clay images of women in various poses, birds and animals at their sides. In the spinal sculpture that Cameron so admired and in the sketches, the human vertebra shone through the back as if to tell a story of courage and fortitude, as if the skeletal snake had a life of its own. Uniquely done, the faces were filled with pathos. Life-sized, everything stood in proportion, except that the spines lay outside the otherwise natural, peaceful body, floating overhead like the bony wings of angels. Cameron said, “It is the disarming, stark imbalance that creates a reaction in me that I must believe others, too, will-must-feel. At the center coils the knotty, snakelike cord painted a daring, hellish red. I love it, Giles… love it, love it, love it. So, we've gotta get more done and quickly.”

  “It takes time to build a bridge.”

  “Giles you've accomplished serenity alongside human misery, no small ta
sk for any artist.”

  “Sounds like you really like it. Do you? Really like it, I mean?”

  “I love it, Giles. We can do the exhibit as oils. I will be terribly surprised if they do not evoke a great response,” added Cameron.

  However, before the exhibit ever got under way, the show fell through when Cameron was arrested for art theft and fraud. Sometime afterward when Lincoln was out on bail, Giles, in a fit of artistic rage and frustration killed Cameron.

  Giles's bus now arrived in Milwaukee's downtown area, and he stepped from it and onto the pavement. He walked east on Milwaukee Boulevard the two blocks to Lucinda's gallery. She was locking up, readying to go without him. Sometime during the evening, he must ask her again if she could find the time to come to his loft to see his work in progress.

  She turned from the door and gasped at his sudden appearance. “Oh, Giles! You frightened me. You made it after all.”

  “Sorry I didn't mean to scare you. Running late, I know. Glad I caught you.”

  “How've you been, Giles?”

  “Fine and you?”

  “Have you been working?”

  “You know I'm always working, always.”

  “All work and no play,” she chided.

  “When are you… Are you going to come see it?”

  “Oh, absolutely!”

  He stopped and she stopped with him, and he stared deep into her eyes. “When absolutely?”'

  “Oh, I'm sorry, Giles. I don't want you to think I'm just blowing you off like that, no!”

  “Then just say when.”

  “Sheeze, you can be pushy for a shy guy. All right, as soon as ever I can find time. Now you mustn't become a pest about-”

  “What about tonight?”

  “Tonight?”

  “After the Orion exhibit. Come back with me. Promise me.”

  “I can't promise you it will be tonight, Giles. Perhaps sometime tomorrow.”

  “Promise? Really.”

  “I give you my word, but you know how busy my schedule is, so please don't be disappointed if… Oh, don't pout. Now you've learned my secret horror! My word is worthless!” She laughed nervously and patted his hand. “I will get there, soon. Not tonight but soon, I promise, Giles. OK? Tell me it's OK. I'll just die if you don't.”