Unnatural Instinct
( Jessica Coran - 9 )
Robert W. Walker
Robert W. Walker
Unnatural Instinct
PROLOGUE
Love is impatient; love is unkind and envies everyone. Love is ever boastful, or conceited, or rude; ever selfish, and quick to take offense. Love keeps scores of wrongs… There are some things love cannot face; there are limits to its faith, its hope and endurance. Love will always come to a bad end.
— From a prison letter by Jimmy Lee Puroy to his parents, a bastardization of the biblical lines of I Corinthians 13:4
From an extremely limited vantage point, her head duct-taped to the face of a dead man's cheek, the slightly overweight woman could only see her left hand-tied as it was-to the right hand of a decaying corpse.
Pounding of someone's heart so loud in her ears. Her own heart… pounding itself against the chest wall. Her gasp flowing into the open mouth of death to which she is lashed.
She studied the width and texture of the brown orange leather tie that bound her-wrist to wrist-to the deceased.
Her heart sent out a surge of power all its own.
The ties wound several times around in figure-eight fashion between the two wrists-live wrist to the dead wrist.
Strange mix of commingled pleasant odors of earth, hay, and sweet pine with the unpleasant: urine and feces, and decay. Sensation of large space wrapped about her, but all senses overpowered now by the pounding heart that threatened to wake death beneath her, where it lay cold and unresponsive.
A lengthy, flesh-cutting rawhide strip allowed only her fingers to rise off the dead man's skin. She could feel but not see that her right hand was likewise lashed to the dead man's left hand. Her torso had been wrapped about the corpse in what felt like larger, wider bands of rawhide, and she felt cold and nude against the ties. She and her dead executioner both nude, strapped together at the midsection.
Her heart wanted to explode to find silence.
Nerve endings in her feet told the same story for her other extremities. Someone had lashed her feet to the dead man's feet, her right to his left, her left to his right, all in an obscene gesture of lovemaking, her atop him, him facing up. She guessed the dead body to be that of a man by the size of the single hand she could view, that and the size of his blunt nails. An aroma of burned flesh filled her nostrils as well.
Heart now like a crazed, frenetic bird fighting to break free from its cage, all flutters and palpitations.
“ Jimmy Boy said it best, said he wanted to fuck you till you were dead… said it in open court, didn't he?” When had she heard this grotesque question that now coiled about her brain for a voice, a face, and features to go with it? She remained drowsy, as if she had been drugged, but her heart insisted she pay attention. It also continued its own threat. She sought relief from the insistence of her heart, her lungs, her very breath. She recalled once having made a trip across country with Miss Wiggles-her cat-named for her inability to sit still. She had doped up the animal on advice from a vet friend. Bad idea, for the animal had gurgled and moaned and bitched all the way, every night, not allowing Maureen any sleep.
Maureen… that's my name. Now where the hell am I, and what the fuck am I doing lashed to a dead guy? This is too much to bear, too much for anyone to bear. God in heaven, help me or kill me, but put me out of this misery. And what's become of Miss Wiggles? Who is going to feed Wiggles?
“ Ogod-how'd-Iget-f-f-f-uck-king here'n dis wretch-ed- estate-aaah,” she moaned under the duct-tape gag, unable to enunciate.
There was a stir of a response like soft feathers being punched from a pillow. Someone heard her mangled plea. Then silence, save for the telltale heart. Then a deep, guttural laugh from a male diaphragm and voice box, coming from the darkness somewhere out of her vision. A laughter filled with derision at her plight yet mysteriously in sync with her drumbeat heart and tortured circumstances. The bastard monster who had done this to her had also been listening to her churning and vexed heart.
A deep, abiding hatred began to build and replace bewilderment and agitation inside her heart and soul, when suddenly the unseen figure standing overhead plunged a three-pronged, rusty pitchfork into the earth inches before her eyes. Simultaneously her body rippled in response, animating the body lashed to her.
“ Kinya dig it?” he asked and paused to spit a wad of brown syrup from his mouth to her face-chewing tobacco. “My granpap always said a chaw of tobacco could cure any hurt. Course he never reckoned on anythin' like this.”
“ Youuu-summa-bitch'll payfar'isbygad,” she cursed under the gag.
“ Dancing with death takes on a whole new meaning for you now, don't it little dear?” He again erupted in an ugly derision of sound, a twisted laugh.
Still feeling the effects of whatever drug he'd used on her to keep her submissive, Maureen thought she recognized her abductor's voice. Could it be the old man? Jimmy Purdy's prune-faced, skin-puckered father? From halfway across the country?
He spat another mouthful of dark liquid, and it slapped her bare behind, trickling down between her legs. “Jimmy always liked a good chew. Prefers Cherokee Red. He'll like my spicing you up for him, so's he can take whiffs of you- all up through eternity.”
“ Fut you-you-you motherfutt-king-sonofa-hog's-pussy!” she cursed beneath the gag, knowing that all the withered, old creep heard came out as a single, angry animal keening. She also knew that it was exactly the response he'd wanted. She tried desperately to hold on to her sanity; she did so by thinking of her adopted son, two daughters, her granddaughters, and mentally chorusing 1 Corinthians 13, perhaps the loveliest attempt ever to define love. She must hold on to her love. Love is patient; love is kind and envies no one…
Already he had stripped her of any similarity to the woman she had been. She must hold on to her mind and soul.
The blood and heartbeat thrumming madly through her calmed in her ears, and she gasped and fainted into an oblivion she'd earlier prayed for.
ONE
Carut thou not minister to mind diseas'd, Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow, Raze out the written troubles of the brain, And with some sweet oblivious antidote Cleanse the stuff d bosom of that perilous stuff Which weight upon the heart?
— William Shakespeare (Macbeth)
Dr. Jessica Coran, FBI medical examiner, had almost forgotten that the letters M.E. followed her name. The two months off since Richard Sharpe's arrival at Dulles International Airport had been a godsend-and amazingly enough, no calls from the office or the lab. Nothing but a blissful opportunity for her and Richard to orient themselves in a new life that would change and align their futures, most certainly for the better, Jessica believed.
Richard had relocated from England to be with her. As a former police detective at New Scotland Yard, with expertise in working with Interpol, the largest crime fighting organization” in the world, Sharpe had looked into and gotten consulting work with the FBI. He had told her in no uncertain terms, “I have been self-sufficient and independent since my divorce, seven years now, and I have no intention of becoming Mr. Jessica Coran, M.E., thank you.”
“ I can accept that,” she'd told him, laughing in response.
They had had a wonderful reunion after he had landed. They had wined and dined at Anatole's Riverfront, and he stayed the first week with her at her Quantico apartment, but since then they had been house hunting, both of them knowing they needed far more space than the apartment provided. Jessica's and Richard's books alone would need an additonal room.
“ I have known relationships and marriages that have overcome great obstacles and painful hurdles,” Richard had told her, “but none can overcome shoulder-to-sho
ulder crowding.”
Richard's height rivaled her own, and they seemed so well matched in so many other ways; they both loved the theater and their taste in music proved to each admirable, and they both held a keen sense of right and wrong, justice and injustice. Both had devoted their lives to law enforcement, and while he was twelve years her senior, she had long ago accepted the fact that she found older men far more to her liking and far sexier than men her own age.
So they had spent these past few weeks house hunting, and they had come upon the perfect place: a lovely little farmstead with tie-ups for cows and horses in a well-lit barn, and the house itself something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. It was within a half hour's drive to Quantico, Virginia, where both of them now worked. It appeared and felt too good to be true, down to the white fence that ran the length of the forty-acre ranch-style farmstead. Already, Jessica was trying to determine a good name for their home. “It reminds me of Donegal, Ireland, a place I always planned to retire to, until I fell into pursuit.”
“ Pursuit?”
“ Pursuit of you… pursuit of real happiness. Real happiness is never about a place; it's something we can only derive from the one we love, and only then if one is loved in return.”
Jessica dared to believe that here, finally, stood a man who could give and give, and the well would never be empty; in fact, it seemed the more he gave, the more he had to give. She could hardly believe that the one thing she could never fully achieve with anyone, the idea of complete and true passion in its most literal sense, could be hers.
She had kissed him then and told him, “We'll name our home Pursuit then, so that neither one of us ever forgets that we're in this for the pursuit of happiness.”
“ Lovely,” he replied. “Then it's done. Now we can take our time and populate the place with some livestock. I love horses and riding.”
“ So do I, but I was thinking of populating the place with children.”
“ Children… at my age?”
“ And why not?”
“ Good show. We'll all ride together, you, me, the children.” He smiled. “Yes, all of us in pursuit at Pursuit.”
Their laughter drifted over the valley and down to the realtor, who had patiently allowed them an opportunity to walk the entire property. The house itself was expansive, with six fireplaces. It was built to last in the 1880s.
To celebrate their sharing the first down payment, they went out for an elegant meal in nearby Washington, D.C. There they dined at Cressida's, a fine restaurant with Greek cuisine.
In the middle of the finest Greek lobster she had ever eaten, a waiter placed a phone at the table and plugged it in, saying, “Dr. Coran, there is a phone call for you.” He placed the phone before Jessica.
“ I don't want to take this call,” she said.
“ We both knew it was coming; only surprise is that it didn't come sooner.”
“ How the devil does Eriq Santiva know I'm here?”
“ He's been good to us, Jess, and we've had a wonderful run.”
She sighed and took the phone from its hook. “Hello,” she barked.
“ Jess, it's John Thorpe.”
Jessica pictured Thorpe, her right hand at the lab, with whom she had shared years of confidences. He knew more about her than anyone at Quantico, so his tracking her down, even here, didn't surprise her. “I've been calling everywhere for you. It's urgent, otherwise-you know I'd never interrupt love, not for the world.”
Jessica imagined her best friend's tortured countenance. John Thorpe and she had worked for a decade side by side. They had seen some of the most bizarre criminal cases in recent history. “All right, John, what's got you all fired up?”
“ It's Judge Maureen DeCampe.”
“ Not that bitch.”
“ Listen, Jess, she's been abducted.”
“ Abducted?”
“ From the underground garage, when she was going to her car.”
“ At the g'damn courthouse?”
“ Right outta the garage!”
“ Wait a minute. Are you telling me that somebody abducted the judge from the courthouse parking lot?”
“ The judges' parking section doesn't have a firewall between it and the public section, Jess. And at night, it's a cave. Damn place was always a crime waiting to happen, so it's no surprise when you think about it.”
“ J. T., what are you saying?”
“ All the fried brain cases and psychos those judges in D.C. deal with on a daily basis? Are you kidding?”
“ Jeeze, an appellate court judge abducted.” She said it loud enough so that Richard and everyone in the place might hear. This kind of news would be headlines in an hour. “Any ransom demands, any notes?”
“ Nada, so far. Not a word.”
“ Where's Eriq Santiva?”
“ On another phone, searching for you.”
“ Why me, John? Why not half a dozen other capable forensic experts in the organization?”
“ Eriq's got marching papers to get his number one person, Jess, and you know who that is. He's covering his ass, though.”
“ Meaning?”
“ He's called Kim Desinor in as well. She's already walking the grid at the parking lot. If you want, just say so, and I'll tell them I couldn't find you. I know there isn't any love lost between you and DeCampe.”
“ She pissed a lot of people off-and not just the criminals. Remember the Van Lefler case? Remember the McGregor case? Manslaughter my ass.”
“ The media will have the story spread across the continent in an hour, Jess.”
“ Imagine if the media put as much effort into every Missing Persons case.”
“ She's an important cog in the judiciary system of a major American city, that's for sure. A year ago, she was profiled on a 20/20 episode called 'America's Most Ambitious Women.' Like it or not, Jess, it's going to be a high-profile case if ever there was.”
“ Don't I know it.” Jessica now looked across the table at Richard. She stared for a moment, saying nothing.
“ I quite understand, Jessica. It's your work; it's what you do. Go.” Richard lifted his glass of Merlot and toasted. 'To the only woman that the FBI cannot do without.”
Jessica laughed in response. Then she said into the phone, “Send a car for me, J. T.”
“ On its way.”
She hung up, reached across the table, and took Richard's hands in hers. “Are you going to be able to put up with my being gone for long periods of time, Richard?”
“ It'll only make me want you more.”
“ They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but I wonder.”
“ I'll not be that far from you, dear. And don't forget, in a week, I start teaching that class on international cooperation among law enforcement agencies at Quantico myself. Of course, I will miss you… terribly, despite my being awfully busy. But as far as tonight, I want to stay with you. I'll look over the crime scene with you.”
She moved around the booth to be near him. She kissed him, and he returned the kiss. “No kissing at the crime scene,” she said in a tone clearly playful and warning.
“ I promise.”
“ It's been such a wonderful interlude-this time we've had, free of everyone and everything. I despise its ending.”
He pulled her to him and nestled into her. He followed with a kiss to her throat that then traveled to her mouth.
“ Yes, it has been rather amazing,” he whispered.
“ Rather,” came her breathless reply.
Jessica's success rate over the past several years with high-profile cases had proven nothing short of phenomenal. Still, she had twice had ill-fated run-ins with Judge Maureen DeCampe over Jessica's so-called bending of the rules- seen as a misstep in the chain of evidence protocol or simply some blunder with regard to the rights of the accused. While the problem remained behind closed doors, not for public record, everyone in the FBI family seemed to know. As J. T. had put it, there was no love lost be
tween the now-missing judge and the M.E. Jessica had repeatedly butted heads with the liberal judge, whom she thought a closet libertarian.
Any hard feelings had to be put aside, however, and their roots, while well established, needed plucking for the time being.
Riding in the back of the Washington PD squad car sent to pick her up, she asked Richard, with a cocked-eared Patrolman Stanley Hanrahan listening in, “J. T. says they don't know exactly how long the woman has gone missing. But why all the suspicion that she has been abducted if it's only been a few hours or not even that?”
“ She logged out at just after midnight,” said Hanrahan from the driver's seat. “I hear she had a routine on Thursday nights to work late.”
“ So she never made it to her car; so it was sometime just after midnight. And why still no ransom note, no phone call to the family, nothing?”
“ The vic's simply disappeared.”
“ How awful,” Jessica whispered into Richard's ear, “to have your sum total self reduced to the abbreviated form of victim.”
He squeezed her, and Hanrahan watched via the rearview mirror. Richard said, “What do we know so far? A D.C. appellate court judge has vanished from a downtown parking lot, and whoever has the judge apparently cares nothing for money and-”
“ And even less for the suffering of loved ones.”
“ And there's a major push on to find her.”
Jessica nodded at this. “Authorities have wasted no time in pursuing this as a suspicious disappearance. Any number of other disappearances, police-and most certainly FBI involvement-would take twenty-four hours before beginning a manhunt.”
“ This DeCampe must be well connected,” he volunteered.
She laughed hollowly. “Firmly entrenched in the top levels of society here in D.C., even though she's not been in the city for long.”
“ Oh, really? And just how does one pull that off? By spending money?”
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