Pure Instinct (Instinct thriller series)

by Robert W. Walker

  “There are laws against body-snatching even today, sir,” Jessica said, “and when you failed to come forward to announce the true identity of a murder victim, you were withholding vital information in a murder investigation. And that doesn't sit well with the courts, because you inadvertently contributed to the deaths of other victims of the Hearts killer, sir, and most judges don't take kindly to that sort of behavior, no matter who you are.”

  “Get on with it,” snarled Stephens.

  “We... we'll cooperate in any way we can,” squeaked Mrs. Raveneaux, who'd silently floated back out onto the porch, hoping to fend off trouble, though no one knew how. “Won't we, Maurice?”

  “Yes, I suppose we haven't a choice... not at gunpoint at any rate. Barney,” he spoke directly to his lawyer, “are you getting all this? We're going to have grounds for a hell of a suit against these hooligans.”

  “We quite understand your concerns, gentlemen. Please, do what you have come for,” the frail Mrs. Raveneaux cooed forth in the best tinkling tones of Southern hospitality, as if they'd come for tea or mint juleps.

  Jessica sensed a childishness in the woman, perhaps a feeblemindedness, the sort that comes with having to bury one's only son. There was a warm exchange of looks between the old general and his wife. Jessica unaccountably made her own exchange of glances with Kim, Kim somehow telling her that she'd just had the same emotional response to Mrs. Raveneaux.

  “Then be done with it!” the general shouted. “And then you people, you included, Meade—Stephens, take your entire fucking circus and get the hell off my place!”

  “Why, Maurice, is that any way to speak to visitors!” Mrs. Raveneaux said, bringing him up soundly.

  “Get inside, Coretta. Get to your sitting room, dear. Go now, dear... go.”

  She timidly did as told, leaving them all to stare after her.

  “Alzheimer's... can be so awful,” the general said “yet I must admit her lack of understanding has saved her from any disgrace in this sordid matter.”

  Jessica wondered which matter he referred to, the search, the body-snatching, or the fact their son was gay and had lived under an assumed name. In a window overhead, Jessica thought she saw a sash move against the pane.

  “I think there's someone inside the house,” she muttered under her breath to Kim.

  “Could be servants; they've got to have a houseful to maintain a place of this size.”

  “In that case, maybe we should've come with a larger army.”

  “You kidding? All we need is one good psychic to point the way.”

  Jessica, Landry, Alex and Kim went inside the enormous mansion, finding it lit with expensive Waterford crystal chandeliers in almost every room on the main floor. It was three stories high with sixty-four rooms, large enough for any suspect to hide in for days, if he or she so wished.

  “I want you to ring for all your servants, General,” Alex said. “We have a few questions for anyone in your employ.”

  “This is preposterous.”

  “Just do it now!”

  The general nodded to a frail, thin man now standing beside him, the butler. “Right away, sir,” the butler said.

  “Tell me, General, did your son, Victor, spend much time in the servants' quarters?” Kim asked. “Did he play as a child with any of the servants' children?”

  A slight hesitation preceded the general's response, “No... it was not permitted.”

  “Well, then, did he have any brothers or sisters to play with?”

  “You will not be questioning my entire household or family about these horrid matters,” he insisted.

  “We can do this here, sir, or at the precinct in downtown New Orleans,” Landry stated.

  “Then Victor did have a sister, didn't he? Is she the girl in this photograph?” Kim asked, handing the framed photo to Raveneaux. When Landry had pulled his car inside the gates of Raveneaux, Kim had had a dreamlike vision of children playing on the lawn here at the plantation, and there were more than several children in the vision. It was a peaceful spectral image, until one of the children began badly bleeding from a

  cut. It had occurred so quickly, even in the vision, that there was no telling where the cut had come from, but it had to do with one of the children.

  “Where did you get this picture?” Raveneaux demanded.

  The general's wife had reappeared, and she went to the photograph as if drawn by a powerful magnet.

  “Why, it's little Victor and Dommie,” she said.

  “Then Victor did have a sister. Dominique?” Kim pressed.

  Jessica exchanged a knowing look with Kim, and an anxious Alex Sincebaugh was perched and ready to bound up the stairs, to tear open doors to locate Dominique, his heart still harboring a fiery desire to avenge Ben.

  “And is Dominique here now?” Jessica asked.

  The general shushed his wife and answered, saying, “No, no, she's not at present, and even if she were... you see, we've shielded her all her life from any harshness. Even if she were here, gentlemen, she would be of no help to your search.”

  “Shielded her?” asked Kim. “That's right. She doesn't even know about her brother's death. Of... of course she knows of his absence, but we've... I've told her nothing of the nature of...just how Victor died. You see, she's a delicate creature, actually, quite easily disturbed.”

  “Are you telling us that your daughter is retarded?” asked Landry.

  Alex stepped before Raveneaux. “Oh, no, General! No way's she getting off. She knows more than all of us put together. No way is she going to cop a...”

  Kim pushed between Alex and the general. “What precisely do you mean, sir? With regard to your daughter?”

  “I beg of you, she's... she would be of no help whatever to your investigation, please.” The general took Captain Landry aside, whispering, “The girl has never been quite... well... quite right.”

  Landry's piercing look needed no words.

  “She's been in and out of hospitals, has been seen by the best men in medicine. I wish you would not upset her with questions about her brother's death. We've not told her that Victor is dead. It... it could crush her. She

  loved...continues to love him so. We're... I, rather, I have been waiting for just the right time, but so far... things being so delicate with her condition...”

  “What is your daughter's age, sir?” asked Jessica, while Meade menacingly eyed her and Stephens swelled with zealous gasps.

  Alex pressed in. “Do you have a current photo of her nearby?”

  “She's twenty-four, and of course we do,” replied the general's wife, going for the white baby grand piano on top of which perched a bevy of photos of Victor, the general and his wife, along with several of Dominique herself. Returning with one of the photos, she remarked, “Isn't she a lovely child?”

  The girl in the photo had close-cropped hair, her appearance quite close to her brother's, save for the piercing, faraway, yet stern and angry serpent's look in her eyes.

  “Where is Dominique now?” Jessica pressed.

  “She's traveling,” the general said with a restraining hand on his wife's forearm, his body language giving his lie away to the trained detectives. “I couldn't quite say precisely where she is at the moment, since she's doing the Continent... in the company of a guardian, of course.”

  “Europe, you mean?” asked Landry.

  “Then you won't mind if we take a look at your daughter's room?” Jessica asked.

  “I see absolutely no reason why you should be the least inter—”

  “Oh, but we're very interested, General,” corrected Alex.

  “Why, it's a lovely room, Maurice. Let them see how we've decorated Dommie's room. Come...” Mrs. Raveneaux obviously enjoyed playing the hostess.

  By now the servants had assembled, some six on duty tonight, along with the butler, so Landry said, “I'll talk to these folks, Alex, while you look around.” Landry also asked the deputies to fan out.

  “And l
ook for what?” asked Hodges.

  “Anything out of the ordinary, anything unusual.”

  Alex, Jessica and Kim followed behind Mrs. Raveneaux, taking the spiraling staircase for the next floor, the old woman twittering on like a social bird now, talking about Dommie's coming-out party, little Vic's first communion, the time when...

  As they approached Dommie's room, the old woman pointed it out as the last at the end of a long corridor, but just before they got to it, Alex and the two FBI agents heard a strange whine. It sounded like a poorly oiled machine of some sort, like grinding gears or Jacob Marley's ethereal but clamoring chains.

  “—I try to tell the children they mustn't play rough, that their little heads crack easily... but children are full of the devil and they will be—”

  Alex jumped in and cut her off. “Pardon, Mrs. Raveneaux, but what is that noise?”

  “Noise? Noise?”

  “That mechanical grating sound.”

  “Irrrrrk, irrrrrrk, irrrrrrk,” it sounded again.

  “That noise,” Kim said.

  The old woman was truly befuddled or deaf. “I don't hear any noise.”

  “Seems to be coming from behind Dom's door.” Alex imagined the bestial blond woman slicing up hearts in super-thin sheaths behind the pearly white door, using a butcher's electric cleaver.

  Kim felt her own fear rising. “Why don't you step over here with me, Mrs. Raveneaux,” Kim suggested, seeing that Jessica and Alex were about to burst through the door.

  “It's the dumbwaiter,” Mrs. Raveneaux announced, as though on a TV game show. “Of course, it is.”

  After a perfunctory knock, Alex barged through the door, followed immediately by Jessica, their guns drawn. Inside, they found a child's room, filled with frilly lace, white all around, with marching blue-and-red-suited soldiers on the wall, dressed in British colonial uniforms, beating out a cadence in the pattern with big, wide drums, each displaying a cross-like pattern about the chest where each wide white cross-belt met. Kim had seen the marching crossbelts in her visions.

  The marching wood. The drummer boys were not real in appearance, but rather intentionally drawn by the artist as so many Pinocchio lookalikes.”Marching crosses, marching woods afire,” said Jessica, recalling Kim's prediction.

  “I don't see any fire,” replied Alex.

  “You'd have to be Dominique to see the fire,” answered Kim from the doorway, her arms protectively enfolding Mrs. Raveneaux. The drone of the dumbwaiter continued, alerting them to the adjoining room, where Alex easily located a small elevator meant to bring trays to and from the room, obviously connected to the kitchen below. The dumbwaiter was large enough for a person of Dominique's size to squeeze into.

  “Yeah, right, traveling the Continent,” muttered Jessica.

  “She's in the kitchen!” cried Alex.

  “Oh, Dommie loves the kitchen. She loves to cook,” replied Mrs. Raveneaux, her hands and arms waving. “Cooks for Daddy and me all the time; makes her own recipes, and she's got the best red bisque you'll ever want to taste, my dear.” She was speaking almost exclusively to Kim now, feeling uneasy with Jessica, who began wildly digging about the closets for anything incriminating, such as a heart in a jar atop a closet shelf, the weapon Dominique used in her attacks, anything. But nothing was forthcoming, not here.

  “What's the quickest way to the kitchen, Mrs. Raveneaux?” Alex pleaded.

  “Little Dommie used to take that dumbwaiter up and down when she was a child. Still is a child in my eyes... always will be...”

  “Stay here with her, Kim, Jessica,” ordered Alex. “I'm going to check out the kitchen.”

  “Not on your life,” replied Jessica over her shoulder. “I'm in this to the finish.”

  “Then find me some damned useful physical evidence here! Keep looking!”

  Kim was speaking to Mrs. Raveneaux at the same time, asking, “Then Dommie uses the kitchen often?”

  “Why, yes... yes...”

  “But how does that make your cook feel? Isn't she underfoot, a nuisance?”

  “Oh, we fired the cook some time ago, after Dommie returned home from her... her travels.”

  “Really?”

  “Dommie just insists on preparing our meals. We tried to tell her how unseemly it was, but she'd taken courses, you know, with the best European chefs, and she simply insisted until Daddy just had to give in!”

  Jessica went tearing through shoe boxes and hat boxes found in the closet, and when she turned to face Kim and Mrs. Raveneaux, she frowned her annoyance and called after Alex to wait up for her, but he was gone down a back stairwell, descending quickly for the kitchen, where he hoped to find Ben's killer waiting for him.

  “Jess, slow down,”, pleaded Kim when Jessica rushed for the hallway. “Landry and the others are downstairs. Let Alex handle it from here.”

  “He may need backup.”

  “Back stairs'll take you down if you want to find Dommie,” said Mrs. Raveneaux. “Come along... I'll show you the way.”

  Captain Carl Landry's questioning of the servants in the presence of General Raveneaux, P.C. Stephens and Lew Meade had also revealed the fact that Victor's sister, Dommie, had in effect become the chief cook in the house. Like Alex, Carl had put two and two together and gone to search the kitchen. He'd actually gotten to the kitchen a few minutes ahead of Alex, and had snatched open the walk-in freezer door, fully expecting to be greeted with what he now looked at—full slabs of meat, sides of beef and venison dangling from a series of hooks—when from somewhere behind him he heard or felt someone there. Half turning, he saw the glint of a huge carving knife as it dove into his upper left quadrant to the hilt, barely missing his heart, hitting the bone at the shoulder. Like a man watching a film from some distance away, he saw himself fall backward from the impact, the freezer door slamming and locking on cue in front of him.

  Inside the chilled room, he staggered about, unsure of the wound's depth or the extent of blood loss. Since it was so cold in here and his body temperature was rapidly decreasing, the blood was quickly coagulating. In fact, the freezer temperature might save his life, up to a point.

  He fought to regain his feet and his vision. Then he fought with the door, but there was no escape from this side. He began to scrape away at the frost covering the small window, and through the trails left by his broken fingernails he saw her, recognizing her from her picture and Alex's description. She was lying in wait, a cornered animal with a maniacal leer and a huge carving knife still painted with Landry's blood held against her ear. She seemed to be slobbering on the knife, talking to it, listening to its whisper. She was anxious for her next victim to step into her high-tech lair.

  The kitchen had every modern convenience and was as large as many of the other rooms. She'd been hiding in one of the cupboards below the six-foot preparation table at the center of the room when Landry had poked his nose into the freezer.

  Now she moved toward the front of the kitchen, having heard someone approaching from that direction. Landry had to do something and fast.

  He tore out his gun, but his hands were already freezing and the heavy object slipped easily from his grasp. He went to his knees with much pain and trembling. Others were counting on him and this thought made him grasp the gun and hold firmly to it, despite the cramping in his hand and body. With his left hand, he pulled himself back up, using a shelf for counterweight, but suddenly the shelf gave way and objects began raining down on him, frozen food as heavy as bricks.

  He opened his eyes where he lay propped against the wall now, and he saw several bulging, red eyes poking through the cakes of ice lying at his feet. From their fist-sized shape and hue, Landry knew he was looking at the evidence which would put Dominique Raveneaux into the gas chamber or an insanity ward for the rest of her life.

  The hearts of her victims continued to wink up at him through the ice that covered them.

  He snatched up his weapon again and from his prone position, began firing a
t the glass in the door.

  34

  All lovers live by longing, and endure: Summon a vision and declare it pure.

  —Theodore Roethke

  Alex crashed through the door on hearing shots fired from a direction he could not determine. He went directly for the stone tile floor, skidding across it and coming up on his knees, his own weapon extended and ready, when, from behind a metallic cupboard door, she suddenly appeared. He saw her too late.

  Her knife embedded in him, caught up in the metallic web of the bullet proof Kevlar vest which Landry had insisted they all wear under their jackets emblazoned with the word POLICE. The vest allowed for little penetration. Still, the impact and shock from the sheer force his attacker put into it jolted Alex over and onto his back.

  At the same instant, madly determined to finish what she'd started, she'd snatched the knife back, and it came flashing down at Alex again.

  Alex's gun had fallen, and he was dazed when the knife entered his body a second time in his upper left quadrant, just shy of his heart, but the Kevlar vest again proved its worth.

  Alex grabbed onto the knife hand and felt the enormity of Dominique's power as Emanuel. She was reaching for some other weapon even as she fought him, tearing at something above Alex on the oven. Her hands extended like the claws of a bird of prey, she only half-grasped the boiling pot above her, and it came crashing down around them, burning Alex's unprotected arm and sending spikes of hot liquid toward his eyes, but he instinctually arched away, the fiery brew bringing welts to his neck and chin instead.

  Stewed tomatoes and mixed vegetables in a thick gumbo sauce had made the tiles beneath the killer slick, so now she was having trouble keeping a firm footing and a hold on him, but once again she was reaching upward for some hidden weapon atop the chopping block. The stench of the stew, which Mother Raveneaux had called bisque, filled Alex's nostrils, and he wondered if he'd die here with the unhealthy odor in his brain.