Pure Instinct (Instinct thriller series)

by Robert W. Walker

  “Let's go see this guy, then,” replied Ben.

  Alex didn't correct Ben, but rather stared into his tired St. Bernard's face and saw the depth of the other man's fatigue like a mirror of his own. “Tell you what, partner. Tonight we go home, get some rest. We'll pursue this tomorrow.”

  “Yeah, but who's the guy?”

  “Tomorrow. Tonight, we get our minds off it.”

  “But Alex, you were so gung ho before and now—”

  “You were right, partner. It's most likely a blind alley anyway, and it's late, damned late, and you've got a family waiting on you. Go home, Ben.”

  Now the rain-soaked, green and mildewed pine box was being carefully hoisted and loaded into the van here at Cemetery #27, and so much that had happened the previous night seemed a confused jumble. While Alex was pursuing a lead which likely would take him into another black hole to nowhere, he might've been with Kim in her time of need, and for this reason he'd been unable to speak to her or to meet her gaze today.

  But now he did so, and his stare went across a wide gulf as though the moments they'd shared earlier meant nothing. Was it his imagination, or was she simply preoccupied with the business at hand? What did she think of him? Why was it so important to him? When did he fall in love with her? All questions he could not answer.

  Jessica Coran waited for the others to look away while she examined the striations on the top edge of the crypt where the lid had been pried open and forced across it, initiated by machine and completed by hand. She also closely examined the area where the butane torch had burned away the last remnants of the seal. Something seemed awry and odd, but she couldn't quite put her finger on it just yet, and having had no sleep, she couldn't focus her attention on exactly what it was that bothered her about the damned seal. But there seemed an excessive number of striation marks, more than might have been caused here this morning, and this made her wonder about the type of stone used in the area as it seemed unduly brittle; she also wondered, perhaps foolishly, just how old the crypt was, and if it had had previous inhabitants in years past, and if the premium on graveyard space was so great here that a new form of body-snatching in the 1990s was carried on. She caught Kim Desinor's gaze and the two of them, still sharing the secret of Matisak's note, now shared a questioning look.

  Alex's eyes went from Jessica to Kim again, making Jessica wonder what secrets the two of them harbored. Had Kim told Alex about the note, about her intention to go to Metairie Cemetery tonight? Or were the two of them simply feeling queasy and uneasy about this exhumation? Or was it simpler yet? Were the two of them sharing strong feelings for one another and struggling with those feelings? It was impossible for Jessica to know, but she had exacted another promise from Kim to stand back and stay out of the Matisak affair.

  Alex Sincebaugh called to Kim and Jessica to join him in his car or be left stranded.

  From Alex's perspective, Jessica surmised that it must seem that the two women had suddenly grown closer. Of course, shared trauma, such as their predawn experience with the death of Ed Sand and the hideous way in which Sand's killer had chosen to alert Jessica Coran to his presence, certainly was enough to bring the two women around to an emotional understanding of the need for one another—comrades in arms, woman to woman. Hell, the damnable monster now knew where Kim was staying; had followed Jessica to Kim's doorstep obviously; had stood inches away from Kim just outside Kim's door. It was enough to drive the two women apart if Kim Desinor were a weak person, or bring them into extremely close unity as it seemed to have done. It also had the NOPD rethinking the blood message left on the wall at 34 East Canal, but a handwriting expert with Meade's FBI unit had gotten samples of Matisak's handwriting and a comparison showed, no contest, that it was not Matisak's script.

  Jessica and Kim joined Alex, who appeared to want to take them under his wing—quite a stark comparison to the first time they'd met. Now the procession out of the cemetery with Surette's body was filing through the gate and away to Morrison's, a nearby mortuary where they could work under lights in sanitary conditions.

  Ben deYampert had remained uncharacteristically silent throughout the exhumation, this ghoulish business having an obvious and profound effect on him. Sincebaugh drove with Ben beside him. Kim and Alex sat silently in the backseat, like mourners off to a funeral but going the wrong way. Jessica realized that Kim was staring back over her shoulder in the direction of the open crypt, making Jessica also turn to see that the shabbily dressed cemetery caretaker, standing quite alone, was anxiously staring after the parade of officials. The man looked like a large, thin and hungry vulture at standstill, his wings shrouding him. Jessica thought she saw a worry shadow pass like a dark angel across Kim's brow. “Something about that man Gwinn I don't like,” Kim muttered.Their eyes met. Their secret was intact.

  The slab room at Morrison's Funerary Services was commandeered for the occasion, much to the delight of old Enoch Samuel Morrison, who'd been wanting more police and city business for years. He made everything available to Dr. Coran, asking out of the side of his tobacco-stained mouth about the whereabouts of Dr. Wardlaw.

  Jessica and the others now looked down upon the desiccated body of a young male, and she had started to cut away the clothing when suddenly Kim Desinor said, “This... this isn't Surette.”

  “What?” asked Landry. “That's nonsense.” Ben deYampert quickly agreed. “That's right, Dr. Desinor. Alex and me, we were here a year ago when they put Surette into that very crypt.”

  “Yeah, we were near about the sum total of his mourners. Wondered then where his gay buddies were, and Ben's right, it was the same crypt.”

  “Perhaps you're being too hasty, Dr. Desinor. Give it time,” suggested Landry.

  “I think she's right,” Jessica defended.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did Surette have red hair?”

  “Strawberry-blond, he liked to say,” Alex corrected, “but that's pretty close to red, and it has been a year without a perm.” Ben chuckled alone at this.

  “It's got to be Surette. One way to be certain,” Jessica replied. “We'll see about matching the fingerprints, the hair, the DNA, but I gotta tell you, I think we're dealing with a not uncommon problem here with grave sites for the indigent.”

  “I get a sensation that this man's body has been... plundered, but this man was not... murdered,” added Kim. “Death by injury, accidental... automobile...”

  “Maybe the good doctor's having second thoughts about laying on of hands on a dead guy,” suggested Ben deYampert in Alex's ear, shrugging.

  Alex nodded heartily to this, thinking that Ben had finally come to see the light as he had. “Hell, his chest is splayed open and caved in, and I'd be willing to bet that below those sutures his heart's gone. Go ahead, Dr. Coran, cut those sutures and check for a heart.”

  Jessica nodded, agreeing this would be a simple test of whether they were indeed looking down at the remains of the first Queen of Hearts victim or not. She expertly slipped her scalpel below each suture, commenting that they were not at all tough or dried up but surprisingly supple.

  She followed the familiar Y section of the autopsy's viscera cut. “He's obviously had an autopsy,” she commented. In a moment, her rubbered hands pulled back the dried thin shield of the chest and stomach, sending the flaps across each shoulder, and probing with forceps, she located the various organs, but found the heart missing.

  “I guess that little suspicion is cleared up,” said Landry. “Now, can we carry on with the physical autopsy, and once that is done and he's patched again, Dr. Desinor, you can carry on with your psychic autopsy.”

  Alex momentarily wondered where P.C. Stephens and Lew Meade were; he'd imagined that both men wouldn't want to miss the show. He wondered why there weren't any camera crews to film it.

  Dr. Desinor stuck to her guns. “I tell you this is not him.”

  “I'm inclined to agree.” Jessica said, shocking the men. “Based on what?” Landry
was unable to believe what he was hearing. “The man's heart is gone, for God's sake!”

  “Based on the age of those sutures, based on the surgical neatness with which the heart muscle was removed, and based on my faith in Dr. Desinor. And if you want further proof, I'd be happy to compare DNA samples. Those of Surette are on file, I presume, at the lab.”

  “Who'd go to such lengths for such a hoax, Dr. Coran?” asked Ben. “That'd entail paying off a lot of people, and who is this guy if he's not Surette?” DeYampert waved his hands as he questioned her.

  “And who cut out this guy's heart to make him look like Surette? And who switched the bodies and why?” pressed Landry.

  “Gwinn! We better go have a talk with the caretaker,” Alex said to Landry.

  “You're buying into this, Alex?” asked a skeptical deYampert, confused at Alex's sudden turnabout. “Since when?”

  Landry looked from the two women to his two detectives. “Go ask the man the hard questions. If the SOB's lying, you'll know it, and if so, haul his ass downtown and let's dig for the rest. Meanwhile, Doctors... you'd better be right about all this.”

  “All right, Captain, we'll go talk to the caretaker and his guys, but if you want my advice, you don't want this one getting around the stationhouse,” cautioned deYampert.

  Alex agreed. “Yeah, Big's right about that, Carl.”

  Big Ben looked apologetically down at his captain and rushed to keep pace with Alex.

  “What the hell goes on in your frigging cemetery at night when nobody's around! Where're your records on this crypt? Goddamnit, man, what kind of business are you running? Tu-lane University pay you for cadavers, what?” DeYampert's voice reverberated around the interrogation room. If he couldn't frighten a man with his NFL-lineman features, no one could.

  “I ain't done nothing like that, ever... ever, Detective. I'm telling you the truth. I wasn't nowhere near the place last night. I don't go out there much after dark. Gives me the willies...”

  “Just great,” wisecracked Alex Sincebaugh, coming off the wall where he'd been leaning. “A cemetery man who's afraid of the dark, and you got a guy taking up space in a plot, but he's in the wrong apartment, but you don't know jack-shit about how he got in there or what happened to the other guy before him. Now an expert's telling us that Victor Surette's body was removed and replaced, Mr. Gwinn... says she can prove it by the way the seal on the crypt was cut not once but twice in the last twenty-four hours. Now do you want to come clean?”

  “Do you really think you know more than the doctors do?” pressed Big.

  “We got your attendants next door, and they're going to give you up, Mr. Gwinn. So, maybe you'd best tell the truth,” added Alex. “Don't know nothing... saw nothing... can't help you with nothing...”

  “We're going to walk out of here, Mr. Gwinn... going to have a break, maybe a sandwich, some coffee, make a few phone calls. You want anything, Mr. Gwinn?”

  “I want to call my wife.”

  “Sure ... we'll get a phone in here when we come back.”

  “Thank you.”

  “And maybe some Nautilus, a whirlpool, a juice bar,” added Alex.

  Outside the interrogation room, Ben once more objected to what they were doing, reminding Alex that they still had to follow proper procedure, that Gwinn had asked for his phone call and earlier he'd asked about a lawyer, but that Alex had convinced him he didn't need a lawyer. “It doesn't do any good if we nail this guy for whatever the fuck he's done with that body, if it gets thrown out on one of those damned technicalities, pal, and you know it. Besides, at the moment, we got no definite proof that a crime's been committed by Gwinn, or anyone else for that matter. Whole thing could just be a foul-up. I mean, hell, they sure all seem adamant, Alex.”

  “Hey, man, I'm just following orders. This Gwinn character was shaking in his boots when we returned for him. He's hiding something. We both know that.”

  “Yeah, maybe he's renting out space for friends, but I don't think he's intentionally hiding Victor Surette's body from us. Come on, what motive would he have?”

  “You remember that rumor that always circulated about Surette, I mean before he was killed?”

  “Rumor...what rumor?”

  “That he came from a wealthy family, possibly an old-money New Orleans family?”

  “Okay, maybe I heard something about that, so?”

  “Money can buy anything or anybody, Ben. We've both seen it a thousand times in this life. And suppose money bought silence on Surette's killing.”

  “You mean from the beginning?”

  “From day one.”

  DeYampert thought long and hard about this, going to the coffee urn, pouring himself a cup and then returning to Alex. “Whataya saying, Alex?”

  “I'm saying I think my instincts about Frank Wardlaw were right on from day one. No wonder he didn't put Surette's death down as a Queen of Hearts killing. He was gotten to.”

  “By whom, Alex?”

  “The family... the freaking family. They didn't necessarily want Victor's body back, but they damned sure wanted to keep the family name unblemished, so—”

  “Whoa, wait up, hoss... unblemished? This day and age, who gives a shit if you're nephew's a homo or if your niece's a lesbo? Get real, Alex.”

  “Surette was a 'showgirl,' remember? He was a headliner in the Quarter. He was no quiet, closet homosexual who picked his lovers out of magazines that came in a brown paper wrapper.”

  “So?”

  “So, they take the body a year after the fact because they hear of the amazing talents of a psychic detective named Desinor who could well blow the lid off their dirty little family secret.”

  “And future victims of the Queen of Hearts killer be damned in the bargain?”

  “Don't know about you, but the rich, the filthy rich I've had occasion to deal with, they don't care about our problems, Big.”

  “Christ, Alex, that's one hell of a leap from where we're at.”

  “Maybe... maybe not. Keep pressing Gwinn in there, and I'll see what I can shake loose from his employees.”

  “If we accept what Coran and Desinor are telling us about the body being snatched, Sincy... well then, somebody's been a busy boy.”

  “Someone with a lot of clout and influence had two bodies moved recently on the q.t. One from a recent fatal accident, likely a John Doe whose heart was used to save someone else.

  The other a year-old corpse. Now tell me, Big, who do you know who has that kind of clout?”

  “You really think Frank Wardlaw is that bitter?”

  “Frank may be just the tip of the iceberg. Hell, whoever's behind this, Ben, our Mr. Gwinn in there is scared silly of. Don't need a psychic to tell me that much.”

  “But when and why and who, goddamnit, and what would it take to make such a move? That section of the cemetery is city property, filled mostly with John and Jane Does. At least with Surette, he had a name and records, so what gives? His own family consigns him to a John Doe's grave while some fresh new John Doe takes his place?”

  “Only after Frank Wardlaw makes the final cut, taking the heart. Did he really think he could get that past Dr. Coran? Wonder where Frank is now?”

  “If what you're saying is true, he might well be out of the country.”

  “I'll ask Malloy to run him down, see if Frank'd be willing to come in for questioning.”

  “Sure, do that, Alex. I'd better get back to our friend inside.”

  “See you later then, Ben.”

  “Guess that Kim Desinor really is psychic, huh, Sincy?”

  “Yeah, better watch out for her, pal. Can't hide much from that one.”

  Ben's nervous laughter went with him back into the interrogation room, and Alex made a detour for the squad room. As he went, he thought of how great a partnership he and Big had. They seemed to complement one another perfectly, and Ben kept him on target, humble and laughing. They'd been through a lot together, but this body-snatching thing was some
thing new, and it obviously gave Ben the jitters. They both sensed behind the snatching one big mother of a hand.

  Alex looked around the squad room and found Grant Malloy, and asked him if he and his partner would do him a favor.

  “Sure, Alex. What's up?”

  “Seems Frank Wardlaw has disappeared. Can't locate him in or around his lab, the courthouse. Could you guys locate him and bring him to us?”

  “Wardlaw?”

  “It's in connection with a sensitive matter.”

  Malloy smiled appreciatively. “Ahhhh, and how're you and the sensitive Dr. Desinor getting along, Alex? Heard you got your hands on her last night.”

  “She's light as a feather, Grant, and we're doing pretty well, thanks. How 'bout finding Frank for us?”

  “Sure thing.”

  When Alex returned to Interrogation, he found that Police Commissioner Stephens along with FBI Chief Lew Meade and Captain Carl Landry were on the inside with Gwinn and deYampert. When Ben saw Alex coming through the door, he pushed his partner back into the hallway, and the two of them were followed out by Landry, who informed Alex loudly, “Meade was notified about the situation by Dr. Coran and he's tearing to get at these boys. Says he'd like to scare shit out of 'em by placing them in FBI custody. Tampering with graves is a federal offense, he's telling them.”

  “What're you saying, Carl? That we just turn these yo-yos over to Meade after all the time we've already invested on this?”

  Ben explained that the caretaker's assistants, like Gwinn, weren't giving anything up, at least not yet; it seemed that they were more concerned about what might happen to them if they talked than if they remained silent. “This'll give us a chance to pore over the caretaker's records. Somebody's got to do it. Besides, these guys are asking for lawyers now. Not any more we can get from them.”