Pure Instinct (Instinct thriller series)

by Robert W. Walker

  “There's been a major breakthrough in the Sendak case in Georgia.”

  “Really?” she asked.

  “And it came as a direct result of your intervention. Doctor.”

  She stopped in her tracks and stared at the note from Parlen. Back in Decatur, Georgia, Parlen had only had to flash his badge at the right door, and Viola, the long-lost daughter, had crumpled before him, confessing on the way down because the entire enterprise was built on a rickety foundation, a house of emotional cards. Sendak's body had been recovered, and the daughter had fingered the live-in boyfriend, who remained at large, somewhere he felt comfortable and safe, she supposed, like his mamma's place. All Parlen and his men needed to do now was to stake out his known haunts. He'd likely be picked up in twenty-four hours, a few days at the outside.

  “Parlen also sent a dozen roses for you, Doctor,” Tom Benton said with a smile. “I suppose it's his way of apologizing for the doubts.”

  “At least the man knows how to apologize,” she replied, staring up at the elevator lights now. The car was two stories above, someone holding it. “How did Sendak die?”

  “Heat exhaustion and heart attack, they surmise. He was locked in a goddamned storage facility, inside a wooden box built to secure him. You were right on. Doctor.”

  She imagined the suffering of both victim and daughter, not to mention the wife. “I'm on my way to Zanek's office again, so we'll have to talk this out later, okay, Tom?”

  “Sure, sure...what's it now? He doesn't like the brand of tape recorders we're using? The film, the budget overruns?”

  “Leave Zanek to me, okay, Tom? You've got enough to worry about with that test you're running. How's it coming? Am I going to see anything on paper soon?”

  “Sure made a mess of it the first go-round. I'm determined to get it right this time, Doctor.”

  “Don't be so hard on yourself. How could you know about the Y-factor variable? I should've been over your shoulder sooner.”

  “What you did, Doctor, with the Sendak case... well, it must give you a great sense of accomplishment.”

  “Some, yes... but it also gives me a great deal of misery. It's not easy looking into the heart of evil, Tom. And not everyone's suited to doing so.” She stared for a moment at her gung-ho assistant, knowing that he wanted to be able to pull off that kind of psychic hocus-pocus, that he admired her a great deal for what she'd done and that he was proud to be a part of her team, but had little idea of the emotional costs involved, despite all her warnings.

  “Look here, Tom. Someday, you're going to do psychic loops around me. Just give it time and throw in a healthy dose of patience, and don't forget self-protective measures, all right?” She secretly feared that one day he'd scar himself so badly that he'd leave psychic detection completely. It happened to a lot of beginners.

  The elevator arrived and she boarded, Tom waving her off like a dutiful son. Upstairs, she found Zanek's familiar office and pushed through the outer door, her steady gaze meeting Betty's, the secretary another familiar here.

  “They're waiting for you, Dr. Desinor.”

  “They?” Who the hell were they? she wondered. Yesterday she and Zanek had come to something of a Mexican standoff, a way to sever ties in an amenable fashion. She had proposed that her minor and inconvenient little shop of horrors, as he'd angrily referred to it, could be relocated under the Psychological Profiling Division. She'd be a step removed from him, he'd be on safer ground with the powers that be and they'd both see less and less of one another since she'd be reporting directly to Jack Santiva, the new head of the entire umbrella division. She thought he'd agreed and that all was worked out, and she was happy with the proposed arrangement. So what was up now? Was Santiva in Zanek's office now? Had Zanek arranged things?

  “Chief?” she asked, coming through the door. “You want to see me?”

  She assumed the tall man in the tailored suit near the window was Santiva, whom she had never met, but Santiva was supposedly of Spanish origin, and this guy looked anything but Spanish. His hair was red, his face sprinkled with crimson flecks, his skin otherwise a pasty white.

  In another corner, like a boxer waiting to be announced, stood a strikingly tall, auburn-haired woman in a beautiful blue serge suit, her gleaming tan marking her as either a model or a princess, her eyes filled with both a keen sense of awareness and a sadness that seemed beyond her years. Neither of them looked like Santiva.

  “What's going on, Paul?” Kim asked.

  Zanek, a tall, well-built man some years her senior, was showing silver streaks through his dark hair. He cleared his throat, pointed toward the pasty-skinned stranger and began introducing everyone.

  “Dr. Desinor, this is New Orleans Police Commissioner Richard Stephens, up from Louisiana.”

  Surprised, she lifted a hand to Stephens and they shook, her eyes never leaving his, her mind still wondering where Santiva was and what this meeting had to do with her. Outside the window behind Stephens, she could hear a man barking orders at recruits who were doing their morning calisthenics on the parade ground.

  Zanek continued the introductions. “Mr. Stephens came here specifically to see you, Doctor, and this”—he indicated the tall woman now extending a hand to her—”well, this is our own famous Dr. Jessica Coran, pathologist in the Psychological Profiling Division, you know, the division you're aspiring to join.”

  “Jessica Coran... I mean, Dr. Jessica Coran?” she asked, astounded, while images of Coran diving in Maui and bringing an end to a killer in Hawaii swirled amid visions of Richard Stephens's New Orleans that came racing in at her boulder like, knocking her off balance. New Orleans had been home to her in a childhood she'd tried desperately to put out of her mind, and what she knew of Dr. Jessica Coran could fill a textbook on forensic science and investigation.

  She felt foolish, and tried to recoup the words even as she repeated herself. “What's... going on here?”

  After shaking her hand vigorously, Dr. Coran offered her a seat, which she accepted. “I read Bulletin 131, FBI Protocol, your monograph on the use of psychology and psychic tools in law enforcement, Dr. Desinor, as has Commissioner Stephens here, and I was greatly impressed in how you related psychic ability to this thing you call the blue sense, the talent most investigators possess. Anyway, it struck me immediately that we need your help in New Orleans.”

  “You no doubt have read about our Queen of Hearts murders,” Stephens added.

  “Is that what this is about?” She looked across at Zanek as she asked the question.

  “Right... yes, it is.”

  “I was impressed with your record for psychic hits,” Jessica Coran said.

  “She made a real believer outta this guy Parlen in Georgia I told you about,” declared Zanek, fingering a photo of his wife and kids atop the large steel and glass desk. “Converted him to her religion, you might say. Led him right to the culprits—the ones who killed Sendak.”

  Kim Desinor, staring directly at Zanek now, said, “She— the daughter—Paul, was just a frightened and cornered kid. She was in a desperate no-win situation that got out of control, and she didn't know how to fix it.”

  Zanek nodded. “You've heard then from Parlen?” Zanek had had the information the day before, but had chosen to withhold it at the time.

  “He sent flowers. Anyway, Sendak's illegitimate daughter—despite all the evidence—agonized over what she'd gotten her biological father—a stranger to her—into. The boyfriend had a powerful control over her; he was the domi-nating force in her life. But it was through her overwhelming remorse, guilt and agony that I was able to perceive the events in the manner I had. And if we weren't working with a KGB/ CIA mentality, I could give Parlen a deposition to that effect which might help in the daughter's defense.”

  Zanek was unable to respond for a moment, trying to understand exactly what Kim was saying to him. “Parlen shared this information with you?”

  “No. It came to me in bits and pieces after the
psychometric reading of the other day. It's information I could share with Parlen, if you're willing.”

  He considered this a moment. “Well, we're not in the business of defending the guilty here, but... do you hear what she's saying here, Stephens? Isn't she everything I've said, Commissioner, and more?” He followed this pep rally up by coming from behind his desk and half-leaning, half-sitting against the edge in a show of friendliness, a kind of male peace offering. Once she pretended to accept the peace offering, he continued. “Kim, Dr. Desinor...”

  “Yes, Paul?” she insolently asked, forgoing his title.

  “P.C. Stephens and Dr. Coran both want you to accompany them to New Orleans.”

  She looked hard across at Zanek, puzzlement and anger fighting for control within. “You mean to physically go there?”

  “That's right.”

  “I see.” She told herself, I really do see, Paul. Just farm me out to New Orleans, allow things to cool here while I'm working a field office as far from you as you can arrange. What's the matter, no murder sprees in Alaska this season? The bastard had found his solution. “But we're going to be too busy here, what with—”

  “Your duties in New Orleans will in no way curtail your work here, Dr. Desinor,” Paul began, “as it's only a...temporary assignment and while you're gone, we'll find a suitable replacement.”

  “But what about the move over to Santiva's division?”

  “Santiva's just getting accustomed himself. A big shake-up like that... well, let's just give it time, okay, Doctor?”

  “This has all been set up for some time now, hasn't it, Paul?” she said, challenging him.

  Stephens opened his hands and waved, a gesture he felt awkward with, along with having to plead. “Dr. Desinor, please, we desperately need your help on an unusual and most important case.”

  “It's to be the test case, Dr. Desinor, for the future of psychic detection within this agency,” Zanek drove home his point.

  Stephens's red hair was so thin it looked blond, but his scarlet eyebrows were thick. He looked of Irish descent. She knew by now that Stephens must surely have had a careful look at her background via Zanek's information on her, so he must know that her own olive skin and dark features were those of a Creole native of Louisiana. Abused and abandoned by a stepfather after the death of her mother, she'd been a product of a strict Catholic upbringing at St. Domitilla's School for Troubled Children. She'd long since renounced all formal religion as a result of her years there, calling herself a reformed and recovering Catholic. Others might call her an Indoctrinated Ingrate. Either way, she'd find her faith in her own way, and coming to this decision had felt right; it had felt as if the shackles of religion had been lifted from her with this decision made the year she graduated high school from St. Domitilla's in New Orleans.

  She'd managed a state scholarship, had spent two years at Louisiana State, going on to Trinity College in New Orleans. From there she'd joined the Florida Department of Criminal Investigation as a psychologist. Unable to fit in “properly” there, she'd entered the police academy, and on graduation, she'd bounced around from one Florida police jurisdiction to the next as a working cop, before she'd returned to psychiatry. Her work had been somehow and almost fatefully noticed by Paul Zanek of the FBI, who'd encouraged her to apply for the FBI Academy. Zanek had brought her along ever since. Little wonder that, when he began to pay attention to her as a woman, she'd responded so completely, allowing her heart to be snared and lost and finally broken, all within the span of a few short years.

  “I suggested you for the case two weeks ago, Kim,” Zanek said, coming off the desk he'd been leaning on. “It's a chance for us... for you... to test your theories in an ongoing investigation, show everyone what psychic detection is capable of, including Santiva. It'll take it out of the realm of the laboratory. It'll be more than an exercise for a film. You've got to welcome that.”

  She knew that Paul had been preparing a paper on the effective use of psychic investigation in the right hands, in the hands of the Bureau, and that she was his secret weapon. For his theories to work, he needed to go beyond research grant money and into mainstream budgeting, to put psychic detection on the FBI grid. These were all aims and goals she herself had wanted along with him, goals they had worked for side by side.

  Dr. Coran's whiskey voice filled the room. “You'll have a perfect opportunity to help demonstrate in an ongoing investigation how effective collaboration might be between our usual scientific techniques and your own psychic techniques.”

  Still suspicious of Zanek's motives, Kim wondered just how much of this show was a put-up job; were Dr. Coran and Paul Zanek close enough to have discussed his desire to rid himself of her for a time? Did Dr. Coran know about Paul's ultimate ambition to become head of the FBI someday? What did Jessica Coran think of Paul's dabbling in the “black arts” in order to get ahead? Was she among those who joked that Zanek was actually on the trail of how to turn ordinary tin into gold through the alchemy of Dr. Faith's mysterious laboratory?

  When Kim failed to answer, Jessica Coran said, “No better place to prove a theory than in the field, Dr. Desinor.”

  Or have you forgotten that you're an agent first? Kim flinched, filling in the trailing thought behind Jessica Coran's dare.

  “What's in it for me, Paul?” Kim asked. “Do I get that budget adjustment I've been requesting for the past year?”

  He ignored this. “What's the alternative scenario, Kim?” Zanek now pressed the issue. “You sit here in Virginia, waiting for the case to go stale and cold like that damned Decatur mess? Then they bring it all to you in a shoe box? Come on, Kim, this is your big chance. Don't let petty concerns stand in your way.”

  She took in a deep, long breath of air, still unsure of his motives and feeling slightly off balance with the others in the room. If he had made the suggestion to New Orleans brass two weeks before, then it was before Paul had decided to go back with his wife. Still, Paul could be lying about when he'd first contacted Stephens about her.

  “You're probably the best psychic detective working in America today, Dr. Desinor.” Stephens's attempt at flattery fell flat.

  “But nobody else of consequence outside the Bureau knows that, Kim, not yet,” Zanek continued. “And while we're determined here at the Bureau to keep our association with psychism a secret for the time being, there will come a day....” He turned to Stephens and explained. “The FBI isn't prepared to go on record as proponents of psychic detection just yet, you understand, so, sir, you'll have to honor our agreement on that score. She enters as a private citizen engaged by the NOPD to help shed light on the case.”

  “Maybe after the twenty-first century the Bureau will show some balls,” Jessica Coran snickered.

  Zanek gritted his teeth, a glare slicing across at Jessica which he quickly covered. “Still, we don't deny the needs of law-enforcement agencies today,” Zanek continued in his most officious voice.

  “To help in your decision, Dr. Desinor,” Stephens countered, “please have a look at these items I brought for your... inspection.” Richard Stephens's well-manicured hands now reached for three brown metal-clasp envelopes. He laid them out on Zanek's desk. Two of the packs were neatly creased and lay flat, while the third bulged with what appeared to be and sounded like metallic objects—likely a junk collection from a New Orleans police property room, Kim decided.

  Stephens then tore open the first envelope and displayed its flat contents: an array of horrid police photos, one after another, of murdered young men, boys really. Two of the photos displayed bodies in remote, heavily wooded areas, their backs to the lens, faces turned away, features lost. The additional two dead teens lay on brightly colored, silken sheets, lying on their backs, their torsos half covered in bloody bedding. The fifth and sixth victims had actually been beheaded.

  “Can you, from these photos, tell me anything at all about these cases?” pressed Stephens.

  She inched closer, on the edge of
her seat, staring down at the photos now, the others watching her intently. She lifted each photo one at a time, her eyes closing now while her fingers wandered lazily across the placid and glossy surfaces. Something about such crime-scene photos touched people in a mysterious, dark corner of the brain, giving the mind over to the same sensation as when viewing a supposed UFO photo or a so-called ghost captured on film, but here, in a real photo shot of a real victim of violent crime, there seemed to be an aura about the corpse.

  “They are all victims of the same killer... except this one.” She discarded one of the two photos of boys found beheaded and lying in a forested area. Stephens's bushy eye-brows danced in response.

  Jessica caught the unconscious body language and saw that Kim didn't miss it either. She quickly grabbed the second photo of the other beheaded boy and tossed it aside as well, saying, “This one too.”

  “Parlor tricks,” remarked Zanek. “Now try her on something substantial.”

  “The others are all related. At least the NOPD believes they are all victims of the same killer,” Kim continued, her eyes closing now, her fingers still reading the photos. “There is some awful common denominator which ties these victims and their killer together. He takes their vitality... their energy... identity... eats from their wounds... if not literally, figuratively feeds on them. I see strange crosses... black, rising birds...”

  “Then he's cannibalizing them?” asked Stephens.

  “Crosses?” asked Jessica.

  “I see large crosses, marching crosses... living crosses ablaze with fire.”

  Stephens's eyes lit up. “What're you saying? That the KKK has something to do with the Queen of Hearts slayings?”

  “I just know what I see... crosses marching.”

  “Anything else?” asked Jessica.

  “These four were brutalized... sex organs amputated, and their hearts were cut out. Killer left his calling card, a queen of hearts.”

  “All information known to the public,” Stephens said, a little disappointed.