Bitter Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “So, let me remind you, ladies and gentlemen,” Sturte­vante began when Jessica sat down. “We strongly suspect our killer prowls Second Street for his victims, and we also suspect he may live within the area or extremely close to it. Keep these facts in mind while on your stakeouts of the various locations assigned.”

  Parry added, “We believe the killer frequents the same nightclubs as his prey, blending in so well as to go unnoticed.”

  'To blend in on Second Street you'd have to stand out pretty far,” said one of the detectives, causing the others to laugh.

  A woman detective named Brubaker added, “You could walk down Second in your birthday suit, painted green, and no one would think you stuck out.”

  “Unless you were Brubaker!” shouted a third, bringing on greater laughter.

  The female detective threw a wadded-up piece of paper at the other detective. One look at her breasts and Jessica understood what was meant. Brubaker stood out like Dolly Parton.

  “Most creative people are not prone to violence of this magnitude,” Jessica told the group now. “Hiis killer, if he turns out to be the author of the poems left behind, will be a strange bird, indeed. There's some feeling that the poems may not be original.”

  “If the SOB is plagiarizing the lines, we'll soon know it, since we have sent copies to all our university sources in both America and England,” added Parry.

  “If he is stealing the lines, he will indeed fit the profile of the failed artist unable to create anything lasting of his own. Such a person often, out of some internal pressure and anx­iety, projects his hatred outward.”

  “Is this just a theory?” asked one of the women on the task force.

  Jessica replied, “My personal take, yes. The failed artist, the man who sets himself up to be a success in some artis­tic endeavor but fails miserably, a man who has little or no talent and feels unfairly maligned by the system that re­jects him, is not an altogether unfamiliar bird.” Is that true, Sturtevante?” asked one of the detectives.

  “One likely scenario here.”

  Jessica added, “A tracking of much of violent behavior, from Hitler and Charles Manson to the boys who killed eleven fellow students and destroyed the innocence of thousands at Columbine High School in Littleton, Col­orado, all demonstrate this fact. Hitler was a failure at all he touched before rising to political prominence by means of the hatred and promises he preached.”

  Parry added, “Charles Manson had been spurned by America's recording industry.”

  “And Eric Harris—who from all accounts thought of warfare as his kind of art—had been turned down by the U.S. military.”

  Sturtevante brought on more laughs when she joked, “Perhaps our killer is a poet who's found one too many re­jection letters in his mailbox.”

  “Laugh if you will, but it makes far more sense than looking for a successful poet,” countered Jessica. “Unless I'm missing something.”

  Jessica was bombarded with arguments over her analysis of the situation, particularly from Leanne Sturtevante. Parry ended the heated discussion with, “I think Dr. Coran has a point, but it's stretching a point to say that we have anything conclusive on this... theory.”

  “You could say that, yes,” Jessica agreed, “but this is a brainstorming session, and as such, the theory, like any other, deserves fair attention.”

  “It's Friday, people,” Sturtevante announced. “Everyone has been assigned a location along Second Street. We will canvass the locations, on foot, on the street, and in shops and coffeehouses, and we'll arrest anyone displaying un­usual behavior.”

  “On Second Street? You don't have enough cells!” called out a man who sat against the far wall. Then anyone who looks like a threat,” she countered. The meeting broke up on this note of qualification, everyone anxiously awaiting the events of the weekend, and the killer's plans for spending it.

  THIRTEEN

  Instinct and study; love and hate; Audacity—reverence. These must mate, And fuse with Jacob's mystic heart, To wrestle with the angel—Art.

  —Herman Melville

  Leads were pursued and the usual suspects were arrested, held, and interrogated, but all of it netted authorities nothing. One reason local police went through this charade was to demonstrate to press and public that all that could be done was being done, but to insiders it meant a shakedown of the street lowlifes, the bottom feeders, as Sturtevante called them. It, in fact, involved such people in the search for the killer, enjoining them to keep their eyes and ears open. Everyone who maintained a street snitch put the in­formant on notice. Every cop in the city wanted to know anything remotely to do with the Poet Killer. However, this time around, the efforts appeared futile, or as one indelicate detective kept saying, “It didn't bear a single fruit”—preg­nant pause—”cake.” No one knew anything about the Poet. Word on the street was stone silent. No one's snitch had a single useful tip. The few leads that did come out only en­ticed the investigators down the well-trod primrose path. And with each new wasted effort, Jessica and the others be­came increasingly disappointed, irritable, and frustrated.

  But no one felt disappointed that the killer appeared to have taken a holiday, as the weekend passed without inci­dent. Meanwhile the FBI had enlisted professors of English across the country to study the poems left on the backs of the victims for any clue, any sign of a possible suspect. But no one recognized the work, although some called it Ginsberg-like or a pastiche of Burroughs. It appeared that the killer fit no known profile, either as a killer or as a poet. One old professor saw the poems as existentialist in im­pulse, while another saw them as an example of New Age philosophy with a Jungian twist. Another saw them as de­scendants of Edgar Allan Poe's lunatic-narrated dramatic monologues and tales. Everyone thought the poet astute, clever, highly intelligent, well read, and learned—even if he was insane. Not unlike a narrator in a Poe story, after all.

  Despite their frustrations, Jessica and the others working the case did learn a great deal about Second Street and what went on there over the weekend. The coffeehouses and pubs, filled to capacity, routinely featured poets who read their work, and many places Jessica and Kim visited were into body art and display. At one such place, the Brick Teacup, the evening began with a tattoo competition and it ended on a somewhat higher-brow note with a poetry competition—poetry written on the backs and chests of young people, both male and female, who didn't feel shy about exposing their bodies along with the words.

  Someone acting as master of ceremonies for the night read aloud the words as the “poems” kept moving across stage. A panel of judges made their decision on both the body and the poem, and the artistic merging of the two.

  Kim and Jessica felt as if they stood out in the crowd, but looking around, they found any number of touristy-looking people and older men out for a good time. Still, Jessica guessed the average age in the place hovered around twenty-one or two.

  After taking in the scene, she began asking questions of the bartender, who doled out far more coffee and latte than he did hard liquor. The bartender waved her off, say­ing loudly, “We don't know anything about those killings.”

  “You can talk to me here or downtown, Steve,” she told him, reading his badge. “What's your preference?”

  “The boss doesn't like us spending too much time with any one customer.”

  “I'm not your average customer. Now tell me, you have anyone you have had trouble with lately, any little oddball disturbances at all?”

  “The whole damned place is one long oddball distur­bance.”

  “Anything out of the ordinary insanity, then?”

  “Bounced a guy out of here last night.”

  “Really? What was his name?”

  “Hell if I know. I didn't stop to get his name. Just kicked his ass through the door.”

  “Why'd he need bouncing?”

  “He grabbed one of the poets.”

  “Which one?”

  “One with the big tits...
so, I'd say he's pretty normal as guys go.”

  “You notice anything unusual in his behavior prior to his grabbing the girl?”

  “Naaah, came out of the blue. He'd had too many bour­bons.”

  “Isn't that unusual in a place like this, a bourbon drinker?”

  “He was an older dude. Didn't fit with the usual crowd, no more'n you and your partner do.”

  “There you go. Then there was something out of the or­dinary about this fellow. Anything else?”

  “Well, I couldn't say, but the girl he grabbed, I think she kinda knew him. ”You think?”

  “She called him by some name. Can't remember what.”

  “What was the girl's name?”

  “Dali, I think she calls herself, Dali Esque. Stage name. Don't know her real name.”

  “Dolly Esk?”

  “Not Dolly as in Dolly Parton, Dali as in the artist Dali, the painter. Dali Esque.”

  “I see. Do all these kids take on stage names?”

  “It's a way of stepping out of yourself, your usual inhi­bitions, you see.”

  “What're you, a psych major?”

  “How'd you guess?”

  “The girl, Dali, does she come in often?”

  “Saturday nights, sometimes Fridays, to catch the scene. First time I ever saw her take her blouse off and display, though. She was fine. Hell, I wanted to touch her myself—”

  “Do all the girls have to display in order to have their poems read?”

  “No, no, it's not required, but if you want to win the door prize, it's, you know, advisable. You get a load of the judges? Two guys and a dyke.”

  She finished by slipping him her card and writing the PPD's number on it, telling him, “If you think of anything else out of the ordinary, anything at all happens that you think is strange, give me a call.”

  “Sure”—he stared at the card—”sure, Doctor.”

  Grasping at straws, she turned back to the bartender, who'd begun to mix a drink for another patron, and asked, “When's the last time you saw Dali?”

  “Earlier tonight. She left with some guy; draped all over him, in fact.”

  “Not the same guy, I hope.”

  “No, some guy she came in with. Guy looked twice her age. Great tipper, but short as a Shetland pony.” Jessica informed Kim she'd gotten next to nothing out of the bartender. Kim merely replied, “Look at this place. It's a far cry from the raunchy topless bars in New York or across-town Philly, I'm sure, but there's something just under the surface that exudes sexual energy.”

  “Not exactly the sort of place where naked women wres­tle in ten-gallon pools of coleslaw,” said Jessica, recalling a story about Daytona Beach, Florida.

  “Not even a wet-T contest here,” agreed Kim. “But the ages and the look of these young people going onstage and baring themselves, that's got to be a real turn-on for your local perverts. Notch over to the impotent poet in search of a winged angel and maybe you might see the appeal.”

  “You catch the guy with the camera?” asked Jessica, pointing.

  “He's not a pervert. He says he's just doing a job for the owners of the club.”

  “Really?”

  “His name is George Gordonn. He's making a film for this Web site. Says people traveling in from all over the world can get a taste of what happens at the Teacup and de­cide if they're poetry lovers or not”

  “Gotcha.” Jessica studied the filmmaker. The fellow was young, somewhat heavyset, noticeably unimagina­tive in his dress and demeanor. Yet he magically blended in here, like part of the decor, and captured all the video he wanted. “What's to keep him from making copies for himself?” she wondered aloud.

  “Fact is, that's how he's paid, or so he told me.”

  Jessica stared at the young man again, wondering if he was a nutcase or a connoisseur of this newfound art form.

  Jessica studied the young women and teen girls who placed themselves on display here. They were young, nu­bile, innocent-eyed, hardly aware of the power they wielded over the men who ogled them.

  “Where to next?” Kim asked.

  “We're going coffeehouse crawling, it would appear.”

  “Why do we do this, Jessica?”

  “Do what?”

  “Make a living this way, on the trail of maniacs and murderers? What possible reason can we have to justify this life we lead?”

  “Who else is going to do it? And if we don't?”

  Kim didn't answer. They went to the next coffeehouse, the local Starbucks, which was situated on a comer. No poetry nights here, they learned, just cash and carry latte and cappuccino. When Jessica asked what was the hottest place to hear good po­etry read in the area, the kid behind the counter shrugged and said, “Merlin's most likely.”

  “Then we're off to Merlin's. Which way?”

  “Straight up two blocks that away,” the young man said, pointing. Can't miss it. Exterior's done up like a castle— you know, Camelot, round table, knights, damsels in dis­tress, all that shit.”

  They spent the rest of the evening watching and listen­ing to poetry written on the backs of young people at Merlin's Caf6. Here, exposing breasts appeared taboo, and this fact, along with the stone-tiled floor and castle­like decor, lent an air of respectability that somehow spilled over into the caliber of the poetry, or so it seemed to Jessica.

  Again, no one working in the place had any useful in­formation. The evening was beginning to feel like a bust when a stunted little man with short stubby legs waddled in like a penguin, his slight stature and strange appear­ance—he was impeccably dressed in a three-piece suit— calling attention to him. Everyone in the place waved to him and called his name—Vladoc. He seemed to enjoy his notoriety.

  I was told I might find you two here,” said the small, dark-featured man, walking up to Jessica and Kim and joining them in their booth. “I am Peter Flavius Vladoc, Philly police department shrink. Please, don't be alarmed to see me. Leanne Sturtevante put me onto you. In fact, she has had you put under surveillance so that I could find you. She knew you'd be in the vicinity, called me up. I maintain a flat here, sometimes working late hours, especially around holidays, and sometimes it's just absolutely neces­sary that I have privacy, and it's far closer to the campus where I teach than my house in the 'burbs.”

  Kim raised the glass of dark Guinness she'd been nurs­ing and muttered, “I think, sir, you have some catching up to do.” The two psychiatrists appeared already to have sized each other up, and apparently liked what they saw; Jessica guessed that Kim had done her homework on Vladoc.

  “We're only human,” she said, smiling. “Something to bolster our courage for the ordeal ahead of us.” She then toasted and drank as well.

  Vladoc nodded, gestured to a waiter and ordered, then said to the ladies, “The poetry, the wine, the camaraderie followed by murder—this is indeed a strange case. I confess, I am envious of your work. Weird fellow this Poet Killer. I wonder if he might not be an academic intellectual type.”

  “I'm not yet convinced his motive is mercy, Dr. Vladoc, but it sounds as if you have familiarized yourself with the de­tails of the case.” Although such details had been kept from public and press, Vladoc, as a police psychiatrist, would have no trouble gaining access to them.

  “Word spreads here like spilled wine on a white table­cloth, believe me,” the psychiatrist said. “The people here in this establishment know more about the details you think you're keeping secret than you can imagine.”

  Kim yawned and stretched out her legs, kicking off her shoes.

  “Not getting enough sleep, I see,” Vladoc said to her.

  Jessica added, “Don't get too comfy. I don't want to have to carry you home.”

  “Caseload back in Quantico is up to the rafters, and Se­rena Lansforth, my best and brightest up-and-coming tal­ent, has decided she wants no part of this line of work ever again, not since the Milwaukee Mauler,” Kim lamented.

  The little man laughed lightly—a thro
aty, big man's laugh. “And weighing in at 289 pounds... the Millllwaukeeee Mauler! Sounds like a Wrestle Mania guy to me.”

  “God, that man was into mutilation.” Kim shook her head, remembering. “Just the opposite of our boy in the City of Brotherly Love.”

  “Serena having nightmares?” asked Jessica.

  “Daymares, nightmares, all of it, yes. Sent her to your friend Lemonte to talk it out. She's stopped listening to me.

  “Have Philly authorities allowed you some private time with the physical evidence and items that belonged to the victims?” Vladoc asked Kim. “I should say I'm terribly cu­rious about what you two have come up with thus far, and if it is to your liking, I would be extremely glad to go over any and all of my findings with you—put in my two cents, as it were.”

  “They have precious little evidence,” Kim confided in the man, “and they're being stingy with what little they do have. But I've had assurances from Roth that that'll change tomorrow.”

  “You think the killer might be close in age to the victims, who were all barely out of their teens?” asked Vladoc.

  Jessica found herself at ease with the odd-looking psy­chiatrist, who reminded her of the mayor of Munchkin land in The Wizard of Oz■ She told Vladoc, “I gave that some thought, yes... kind of an acting out of teen angst, or should I say—dare I say—Generation-X angst or goth angst?”

  “You into labeling now, Jessica?” Kim scoffed. “At least get with the times. X is out, traveled on down the time line, and we're well into the Double Ought Generation now, the Y2Kbies.”

  “All right, whatever you want to call the current genera­tion.”

  “Well, actually,” Vladoc said, as if beginning a lecture, “many generations now have grown up with the gothic symbols of dark beauty that have been in existence since before Dante wrote The Divine Comedy.”