Bitter Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “So someone has to bring her in for questioning?”

  “But it can't be me.”

  “Are you asking me to arrest Dr. Leare on the basis of her feelings about the breakup of your relationship or be­cause she lied to us about her whereabouts and was stalk­ing you instead of attending a conference?”

  “She once talked me into it.”

  “Into what?”

  “Into sitting for a poem, writing it out on my back. I still have deep scars from it. It was as if she wanted to brand me as hers for life.”

  “And you've been living with this knowledge all this time?”

  “No, I didn't think it was her until I learned she had not gotten onto that plane, and I even rationalized that away until now, until you said that this one died on Saturday. It's an indication how far she will take this delusion that we still have this... this connection.”

  “It sounds like enough to warrant a surveillance, but hardly enough to haul her in.”

  “Fine, I'll talk to someone else. God dammit, I know she's the Poet Killer. I know it in my bones.”

  Sturtevante stormed off, fuming. As she disappeared down the hallway and out of the building, Jessica returned to the crime scene to finish processing it, Donatella Leare very much on her mind.

  Jessica would have liked nothing better than to make an ar­rest, but a false arrest could prove embarrassing for every­one involved, not to mention the amount of wasted time and effort. Instead, she returned to Dr. Stuart Wahlbore and Rocky, taking her copies of both Leare's and Locke's book for analysis and comparison to the verses used by the killer. She asked Dr. Wahlbore if he would put his electronic lan­guage sleuth onto the case. Wahlbore was in raptures.

  “Can you also examine the two poets as possible collab­orators?” she asked.“Create a composite of stylistic features of Locke and Leare's work Rocky can do; designed to do such work, he was.”

  “And then match this composite of their work with the killer's poetry, should you find no match with either sepa­rately?”

  “The suspicion being that the killer's pen might be the work of their collaboration. Most interesting, indeed.”

  “How long will it take?”

  “An hour, maybe two.”

  Again, a weekend approached, and it promised another corpse. Jessica stayed with the linguistics professor until he made the comparisons. Dr. Wahlbore came back with his verdict.

  “While similar to our killer, not so close a match is Locke as Leare.”

  “Then Leare's style is closer to that of the Poet Killer?”

  “Yes, but a precise or exact match, I fear it is not.”

  “And when the two styles are combined?”

  “Closer to the truth, according to Rocky.”

  Given his fractured syntax, Jessica imagined what kind of poetry Dr. Wahlbore would write. The news provided corroboration of Leanne Sturtevante's worst fears. At least on the evidence of her poetic style and linguistic manner­isms, Donatella Leare was looking more and more like a suspect. Still, it was not enough to rush in and make an ar­rest. Jessica certainly could not arrest a person on the basis of a computer program, even though Dr. Wahlbore assured her that Rocky was also programmed as a lie detector, should she get Leare to agree to a test.

  “Rocky is far more accurate than any lie detector, even,” Dr. Wahlbore added.

  “Still, it's inadmissible in a court of law,” she reminded him.

  “Well, we'll see about that, I suppose.”

  “What do you mean, Doctor?”

  “Any findings over to local FBI and PPD I must send.”

  “What? I didn't ask for you to do any such thing.”

  “Requested of me it was, after your first visit, that ap­prised I keep them.”

  “By whom?”

  “Agent Parry and a Lieutenant Sturtevante.”

  “Sonovabitch,” she muttered. “Don't send these find­ings.”

  “Already done so, electronically. For any offense to you, I am sorry.” I'll just bet you are, she thought, realizing that Dr. Wahl­bore only wanted someone, anyone in power, to lend cred­ibility to his program, and now that the renowned Dr. Jessica Coran of the FBI had asked for his assistance, he'd no doubt do anything to keep the ball rolling.

  Jessica immediately dug out her cell phone and called Parry, locating him in the field. “We're moving on Sturte­vante's friend, Jessica,” he informed her.

  “Don't do this, Jim. It's a mistake.”

  “We don't think so.”

  “You can't go forward on the basis of Dr. Wahlbore's work. It's no more reliable than—”

  “It's just another piece of the puzzle, Jess, added to what Sturtevante knows about her, and the he about being in Houston last Saturday when the last victim was killed. It's enough for us to move on; we get her into the sweatbox, get a confession, and the mayor and the governor and the senator'11 all be happy.”

  “You've fallen pretty far, haven't you, Jim?”

  “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “You, James Parry, caving in to political pressure on a case. I remember a fellow in Hawaii who would have told the politicians where they could stuff it.”

  “That was Hawaii, Jess, and a long time ago. This is now and this is Philly, and I've changed. I make no apologies for moving on Leare. I like her for the crimes, and you will, too, when she confesses.”

  “That isn't going to happen, Jim.”

  “How can you be so sure? Your famous instinct?”

  “Yeah, intuition tells me it isn't her.”

  “Well, Jess, it's largely been because of your findings that the finger points to her and her colleague Locke. You'll be happy to know that in the meantime, we will be watching Locke for his every reaction,” Parry added. “At the moment, whether we like it or not, Leare's our best shot; hell, she's our only shot. If you hadn't noticed, the Poet hasn't left us much to go on. Still, I think I know a judge that will issue a warrant for her arrest on what we do have.”

  He hung up. She felt deflated. Some voice in her head, whether of reason or intuition, told her the others were chasing the wrong person.

  The next day's newspapers would carry the story: Don­atella leare, respected teacher and poet, arrested in connection with the second street killings.

  Jessica imagined the fallout. Tensions would ease all across the city as a result of the headline that Leare, local professor and celebrated poet, had been taken into custody as a suspect in the killings. Meanwhile, everyone in law enforcement, with the exception of Leanne Sturtevante, would withhold judgment, and many would be closely watching Lucian Burke Locke's every move, as Parry had indicated.

  Jessica telephoned Kim, bringing her up to date; Kim agreed with her that the Philadelphia authorities were act­ing prematurely. “They have a twenty-four-hour surveil­lance on Locke, and this action the team has agreed upon, Jess,” Kim informed her.

  “The team agreed on all this? In my absence?”

  “They knew you were checking up on Professor Leare's handwriting, and they added it to the mix. I tried to be the voice of reason, but they weren't interested. Trust me, there was nothing you could've done at this end.”

  “Meanwhile, we sit and wait to see if, in the next two days, another poor soul will be sent across the River Styx by the gentle killer who pens poems on his victims' backs?”

  “With Leare in custody, eating well on the taxpayers' money and the notoriety and publicity this arrest affords her poetry, book sales are likely to skyrocket.”

  “So much that Locke will no doubt want to join her in the slammer, realizing only too late the marketing power of being arrested on suspicion of murder?”

  “It's worked for others—actors as well as authors.”

  “Then the expected happens. The killer comes and goes again, undetected, leaving yet another murder victim and another bit of verse. This while Leare remains in lockup, and while Locke remains under surveillance.”

  “Should that turn out to
be the case, it would effectively exonerate both poets.”

  “I keep feeling that somehow both are connected to the case, Kim. I just don't know how.”

  “Yes, I've been getting that from you.”

  “If in no other way than that their grim poetry has filled the imagination of the killer, whoever he or she is.”

  “We'll have to look closely into the lives of every stu­dent that both professors have ever had,” suggested Kim.

  “No, we save time by getting you to hypnotize the two, and we hope something relevant shakes out,” Jessica coun­tered. “You can't use hypnosis in a Pennsylvania courtroom.”

  “We'll use it, not the courts.”

  “You'll have to get their approval, and once Leare's ar­rested, I imagine she will be pissed off, and as long as Locke is a free man, what possible motivation would he have to submit to hypnosis?”

  “Leave that to me.”

  Jessica knew she had to work fast. Enlisting Kim's help, they contacted both Locke and Leare, asking if they might all meet. It took some powers of persuasion, but with Jes­sica appealing to the poets' vanity, and the possibility of “major” publicity for their works, she managed to gain their assent to do a hypnosis session with Dr. Kim Desinor in order to jog their memories about the victims they'd had as students.

  When Jessica and Kim arrived at Locke's home, they found Dr. Harriet Plummer in the company of her two col­leagues. “Here,” she said, “to lend moral support. I think it wretched and disgusting that you people have badgered Donatella and Lucian in the manner you have,” the dean declared. “Now you've flashed their pictures about and talked to students hanging out at the local pubs, again and again, first creating a sense of guilt where there is no rea­son for guilt, and then perpetuating it. Meanwhile, you do nothing about looking into Garrison Burrwith. I can't un­derstand you people.”

  They were interrupted by Locke's wholesome, plump wife, who suddenly appeared in the doorway, asking, “Dear, what is this all about?”

  “Never mind, sweetheart. Just a bit of a problem with fi­nals coming up; you know how that is. You know Dr. Plummer; Donatella,” he said.

  Mrs. Locke icily acknowledged both women with a sim­ple nod before turning her attention to Jessica and Kim.

  “More playmates, I see,” she muttered, and disappeared.

  “See to the children, dear,” he called after her. “Wonder­ful person, really, and the children are my perfect little people.”

  He saw that Jessica was staring at the photos of the chil­dren, as she had done on her first visit. He asked, “Do you have children, Dr. Coran?”

  “No; no, I do not.”

  “Why not adopt, as we have? It was a wonderful deci­sion.”

  “Yes, I can well imagine.”

  “Children are the pearls of this universe, really, far more so than any jeweled poem, wouldn't you agree, Harriet, Donatella? They're so magical.” The women agreed with nods and mutterings, but Har­riet Plummer wanted again to know, “How can you badger these two wonderful poets so, Dr. Coran?”

  “Both Dr. Locke and Dr. Leare's names keep coming up in our investigation, Dr. Plummer,” countered Jessica.

  Kim tried to soothe the woman, calmly adding, “We believe that perhaps Dr. Locke and/or Dr. Leare may know something, may have seen something, may have some special, inside information on the counterculture of this area and the college, as all the victims held, at one time or another, some ties—even if tenuous—to the uni­versity.”

  “That's a lot of may haves,” Plummer grumbled.

  “One or both must know something, even if they do not consciously know that they know,” Kim continued.

  “So reason the detectives,” said Plummer, fuming, “when I've told you repeatedly that if anyone, anyone at the university is involved in these heinous crimes, it can only be Garrison Burrwith.”

  “We've found nothing to link Dr. Burrwith to the crimes, Dr. Plummer. In fact, no one has ever seen him in any of the pubs or coffeehouses save you.”

  “Are you calling me a liar? Tell them, Lucian. Tell them how he insulted us.”

  “I had Burrwith's poetry compared stylistically with what we've taken from the crime scenes. It in no way re­sembles the killer's work,” said Jessica.

  “He masks himself well, this man,” countered Plummer, still fuming. Locke took her aside to calm her down.

  “By comparison, both Locke's and Leare's poems are far, far closer in imagery and the nuances of tone to what we find in the killer's poetry, and their styles are far closer,” continued Jessica. “I picked up one of Dr. Locke's books, a collection of dark, brooding poems—as are all his books, I'm given to understand.” Three in total,” inteijected Locke, a smug look on his face.

  Jessica recalled how each title said little about the con­tents of the volume, yet each title was turgid, abstruse, and not a little pompous. The titles, all listed inside the book she had in her possession, were: Oration of the Gifts of Those Angels Who Rule the Four Quarters, Lurkers in the Stillness of the Forest Soul, and Various Jottings—Collec­tively Known As Folly and Light.

  Jessica had had every piece of information on Locke duplicated and forwarded to her, and she studied it all before coming to see him a second time. She was stuck by the memory of another killer who had wrapped him­self in the cloak of civility and science, and she feared making the same mistake with Dr. Locke, who cloaked himself in genteel intellectual pursuits. Should he be hiding a dark and evil secret, perhaps doing her home­work might help her illuminate the depths of this man.

  She and Kim exchanged a look now, as Jessica had shared her suspicions of Locke and the possibility that Locke and Leare were in some sort of twisted collabora­tion.

  Apparently sensing the suspicion in the room, Locke suddenly burst out, “And just why am I suspect at all? Be­cause I sat on a stool at a number of coffeehouses and bars in the old Warehouse District and on Second Street? What nerve, what gall, what desperate grasping at straws on the part of an inept police department!” He finished with a dra­matic wave of the hand.

  Kim assured him, “We're just following leads, Dr. Locke. We suspect that somewhere in your memory banks, some key to this nightmare may reside. If not in your mem­ory, then perhaps in Dr. Leare's.”

  “This is bound to make the newspapers,” said Plummer. “The university can't sustain such bad publicity.” Are you sure of that, Harriet?” asked Leare, smiling. “Think of it: 'Two Noted Philly U Poets Hypnotized to De­termine Guilt or Innocence in Series of Murders.' “

  “I'm sure you'll put the best spin on it,” Jessica pre­dicted. “Fact is, it could be good for book sales, Dr. Plum­mer.”

  Locke managed a wry smile as well. “You see, I'm up for tenure and promotion here. At least, since you are talk­ing to Donatella as well as to me, and you have had Burr­with under suspicion, it doesn't appear as if I am the exclusive target of your probe. That much is good.”

  A nice guy with an ulterior motive for ratting out his colleagues, Jessica thought.

  “Good gal Leare is, and a fine poet, though something of a Jekyll and Hyde type; I doubt her capable of killing anyone, despite the method,” Locke said, with forced joc­ularity.

  “Exactly what do you mean by 'Jekyll and Hyde type,' Dr. Locke?” Leare replied archly, playing the game.

  Harriet Plummer quickly interceded. “He means, Dr. Leare, that you are sometimes moody, that's all. Right, Lu­cian?”

  “Oh, yes, that's precisely what I meant. The woman has, of course, read all my work, and she's won accolades and one of the more important poetry prizes, all on the basis of her last volume, which I gave advice on. Still, that hardly makes it derivative of my own work, although writers do work on the backs of those who came before them.”

  The sexual innuendo could not be missed, nor the refer­ence to the murders.

  “Dr. Leare is working her way up the literary ladder, and her recent success has mitigated her moodiness, wouldn't you say, Lu
cian? I believe she is working new ground now, aren't you, dear?”

  Jessica could not help but note the sexual tension among the colleagues. Had they all slept with each other at one time or another? Leare obviously swung both ways.

  “New poems?” asked Jessica.

  “Free verse.”

  “Is that 'new ground'?”

  Donatella Leare replied for herself. “Oh, definitely! Aside from no forced rhyming, it changes the pitch, tone, and hue of a work of poetry to cast it in free verse. Frees the mind from petty constraints, you see.”

  “I see I have some studying to do,” Jessica responded.

  Locke interjected. “I would offer you a lesson, but the well's run dry. A bookstore in the Second Street area, quite quaint and out of the way, called Darkest Expectations, carries my book on how to read poetry. Be prepared for a great deal of dust, which I suspect is all you will gain from a hypnosis session, but then, you are the experts.”

  “Shall we begin with you, Dr. Leare?” asked Kim, who had quietly prepared herself for the hypnosis session, which involved holding the hands of the person being hyp­notized. This would allow her to do a full psychometric reading of both the poets as well.

  After ten minutes, Donatella Leare revealed little knowl­edge of the victims who had been her students; she man­aged only to repeat the cursory information she had already given them. Lucian Locke, by comparison, de­tailed the study habits of each in cogent specifics, down to what sort of writing tool each preferred. Still, little came of the hypnotic net Kim cast out—certainly nothing revealing enough to uncover the killer.

  “I had thought that between you two, you might have some knowledge of the killer, perhaps not consciously but subconsciously,” Kim apologetically said once the session with Locke had come to a close. “You don't mean to say you're giving credence to Dr. Plummer's batty notion that Professor Burrwith is the Poet Killer, are you?” Leare fairly screamed. “Burrwith hasn't got it in him to kick your ass, Locke, for stealing his woman; he hasn't even got the guts to call your wife on it.”

  “It may be worth pursuing, Donatella,” countered Locke. “I told you how he's been stalking Plummer, how he made a scene at the cafe, and you know very well that Plummer and I have a purely platonic re—”