Fatal Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  Jessica felt a wave of revulsion sweep over her, but she managed to maintain a firm hold on her emotions. She kneeled beside Dr. Darius, trying to keep her sanity and professional edge. Darius had found his amid this; she must do likewise.

  Darius, as if to help her along, held up a kidney that he had fished from the soup of the younger woman's body.

  “What do you make of this, Doctor?”

  “She was suffering jaundice?”

  “You might think so, but guess again.”

  The kidney was shriveled, tiny even, and the color was that of a several-days'-old pate. “It's... it's not her kidney. It's the old woman's?”

  “I think not,” replied Darius.

  “Whose is it, then?”

  “That's the problem.”

  “Are you saying it doesn't belong to either victim?”

  “That is what I believe, yes.”

  She stared into Darius' luminous eyes. She saw a little boy deep within him looking back at her, trapped there in his decrepit body. She liked him instantly, and she now understood his riddle. “The bastard brought it with him; it belongs to one of the earlier victims, maybe Mrs. Hamner?”

  “Precisely. It will be tested for a match.”

  “Then he may have left other such items.”

  They began to look closely at the organs, finding that none were connected to the bodies. “This appears to be the young woman's,” she told Darius when she lifted out the heart that had been posited inside the old woman.

  “And this no doubt belongs to the young woman,” Darius reciprocated.

  Police standing about listening to the M.E.s instantly spread the word that the killer had switched the victims' organs like a child at play.

  They found several other older, shriveled organs that matched neither victim. The Claw had made off with the fresher meat, as he had with the brain tissues.

  Rychman told the others he didn't want a word of this to leak to the press, that it was the kind of information they could use at a later date, if and when they had the murdering psycho in custody.

  “A three-way switch,” said Darius, “and for what reason?”

  “For the hell of it,” suggested Rychman. “To shove it in our faces, that's why!”

  Rychman informed them that the house belonged to the Olin woman and that the identity of the second woman remained unknown. He explained that the second body, along with the additional organs, had been transported to the house and dumped here.

  “Such a fiend,” said Darius, shaking his white head, strands of the thin hair falling forward. “And to think that he is one of us, one of our species.”

  “He seems drawn to the most defenseless, the gentlest of victims,” Rychman added.

  His words recalled something Jessica's father once told her when she had asked how a gentle person such as he could possibly want to work as a medical examiner, to investigate the crimes of the cruel and inhuman.

  “My father used to say that the gentlest among us are fascinated with the cruelest among us. Maybe it works in reverse, too. That the cruelest among us are fascinated with the gentlest.”

  “That might well be our common denominator so far as the victims go. They were all shy, retiring, quiet types. Even the first victim, a streetwalker, was known for being a timid, reluctant streetwalker,” replied Rychman.

  The M.E.s returned to their work, and after a few hours an impatient Rychman came back, asking if they had found anything useful.

  “Some fibers that don't appear to match the room, and we've been unable to find a match elsewhere here. They were clinging to the old woman, matted in the blood. We know she was killed elsewhere, and it appears she was wrapped in some sort of blanket or rug. We will analyze the fibers in detail back at the lab,” Jessica explained.

  “That doesn't tell us a whole lot,” replied a frustrated Rychman.

  “We're doing the best we can, Captain. Like your identifying the old woman, it will take time.”

  “Still searching.”

  “Dr. Darius has stated that he believes the killer could quite possibly be two men instead of one,” she now added.

  “Is that right, Dr. Darius?”

  “That is what we have been speculating about, yes.”

  “I can't go on speculation. What makes you think so?”

  “It's just a... a feeling,” Jessica answered.

  “A feeling?”

  “At least until we can prove it otherwise through the microscopic evidence.”

  “Did you find two sets of bite marks? Two footprint sizes? Give,” he ordered her.

  “No, nothing concrete, but for a single man to pull this off—it just seems highly unlikely.”

  “Hell, I've thought of that myself, but if he's a big man, a strong man, my size, he could do it alone. I need more to go on than that.”

  Rychman's ire was getting the best of him. They were all tired and frustrated. “I can only tell you what my gut reaction is,” she defended herself.

  “From day one there's only been one set of fingerprints we've been able to match at the various scenes, one set of bite marks, according to your office, Darius, and as for hair and saliva samples, the story's the same. Now, in midstream, you're talking two instead of one? It makes no sense.”

  “It does if the second man takes extreme care, uses gloves, takes his portion away with him to cannibalize elsewhere,” replied Darius, his eyes widening.

  “But you've got nothing whatever to go on here, except your gut reaction.”

  “My gut reaction,” Darius defended, “is the result of long meditation and maybe plenty of medication as well, Captain.”

  He didn't have an answer for this. “All right, how soon before the lab can come up with something to prove this theory? I don't want my people going down a wrong alley, searching for a killer couple, going through all kinds of gyrations on nothing other than a hunch I can't justify.”

  The Claw already had the NYPD looking like the Keystone Kops, and Rychman didn't want to add to that bleak picture.

  Dr. Darius groaned and Rychman helped him to his feet. Jessica's legs were stiff from kneeling, and she was also exhausted. She followed the old coroner's lead, standing and stretching; she, too, had taken all the samples she wanted from the crime scene. Everything else must wait for the autopsy room.

  “Well, Dr. Coran, you've got your samples and specimens, and I've got mine; between the two of us, we're going to give this sonofabitch a run for his money. Oh, by the way, should your specimens reveal any new hair samples, check what you've found here against the ones I have on file first. Saves time and keeps you from looking like a fool later. Which reminds me, young lady, you had best file samples of your hair with the lab, too, unless you want Rychman here or some other gung-ho cop arresting you as the Claw.”

  It was sound advice and standard procedure for M.E.s to have fingerprints, hair, and blood samples on file with the lab, so that stray prints and hair found at a crime scene could be ruled out right away as those of the examiner.

  Dr. Simon Archer came through the door and went directly to Darius and scolded him. “Why didn't you tell them to contact me, Luther? I could have handled this; I can't believe you've been here since three this morning.”

  Archer's concern for his aged colleague was touching, Jessica thought as she made for the door, but Darius didn't quite find it so. He returned Archer's kindness with a bitter outburst, saying, “God damn you, Simon, I'm not a fucking cripple. I can do my job. You needn't have rushed down here. Who's minding the office?”

  Rychman and Jessica left the two doctors to war it out. As le walked Jessica to the car, Rychman told her that he had to lang there a bit longer, something about a possible witness with a very shaky story that he doubted would pan out.

  Darius came out of the house, joining Jessica at Lou Pierce's squad car, asking, “Is this carriage going downtown?”

  “You got it. Doc,” replied Lou.

  “May I join you, Dr. Coran?�
�

  “Absolutely.”

  “Sorry about that outburst. Archer doesn't mean to be such a pain in the ass, he just is. He thinks he's doing the decrepit old man right by disqualifying me from fieldwork. Meanwhile, we've gotten nowhere on this case. It's not that Simon isn't a good, thorough man, but he simply lacks that special something. Your father had it, and I suspect you do, too, Dr. Coran, that special . . . ahhh.” He searched for the word.

  “Imagination?” she asked.

  “Precisely, yes. Imagination and instinct.”

  “Both very necessary in our business.”

  “Dull man, really, that Archer, but he means well, and I suppose he does his best. Perkins was a greater disappointment, actually, not finishing out his term with us. Ahh, well...”

  They got into the backseat of the car after depositing their medical bags in the trunk. She asked him, “Will you be pursuing the case from here out, Doctor?”

  “So long as my health allows, Doctor.”

  “It would be wonderful to work closely with you, sir.”

  “Butter the other side, my dear. That feels good.”

  “But I mean it in the most sincere way, Dr. Darius.”

  “Me, so out of step with the times I didn't even know about your scented cotton balls?” He laughed and she realized that he'd been joking the entire time. “Fact is, it would do me a world of good to work with you, Jessica Coran. I've read everything about your case of the vampire killer, whal was his name? Madson, Manson?”

  “Matisak.”

  “Oh, yes... vile creature that one. Not wholly unlike our Claw.”

  Twelve

  Rychman was a frustrated man. The C.P. had him exactly where he wanted him, on the firing line. The Claw case made anyone connected with it look the fool; it could not have been better for Eldritch if he had planned it himself for this election year. By maneuvering Rychman into the catbird seat, he had both the perfect fall guy and a way to make his competition look bad. Maybe Eldritch was the better man for the job, after all; he was certainly the better politician. Where was he now? Miles from Scarsdale, that was for sure.

  The half-baked notion of making an arrest was another fine stroke of genius on Eldritch's part. Arresting Conrad Shaw would make Rychman look as if he were leading a witch-hunt. He had to find some new .something, some sort of lead, anything, if he planned to survive. But for now, feeling tired and weary, he slumped against his car and waited for the rest of his task force people to report back to him what they had, or more likely had not, learned from the surrounding neighborhood. He himself had learned that the Olin woman was quiet and retiring, a model neighbor, hardly spoke a word above a whisper. Those who knew her best didn't really seem to know her at all, but there was some hint of money problems, and her health seemed an issue. As for the old woman, still no word.

  His mind raced back over every victim of the Claw, trying to take a new tack, to think about two killers. It was like sailing against the wind to pursue an idea that opposed what seemed concrete fact. It was always the hardest part of police work to keep options open, to keep the sea of information from solidifying too quickly into one idea. For so long now, everyone had assumed the brutal killer was a single individual... but what if Jessica and Darius were right? And why couldn't they provide him with something unequivocal and binding, some proof he could believe in completely? Something other than hunches and suppositions, however informed?

  Maybe these murders weren't even the work of the Claw, Rychman thought in disgust. The fact it was Scarsdale and the fact the killer or killers had deviated by brutalizing two victims in one night made Rychman suspicious that they were copy cat killings. Someone reading the nonstop news coverage on the Claw could have planned and executed the double murder to make it appear the work of the Claw, thereby throwing suspicion away from himself.

  It had not helped matters that the newspaper reporters across the city had been able to piece together almost all of the various clues that pointed to the work of the Claw. Throughout the investigation, they lifted one detail from one precinct, another from a second and so on, while the mayor and the C.R were gabbing about gag orders.

  Meanwhile advantage the Claw.

  So much wasted effort and time. Translating into eight wasted lives, he thought. When he was a kid he had seen the movie Psycho, and it had left an indelible mark on him. It changed the way movies dealt with bad guys and heroines when Bates murdered Janet Leigh in the shower scene. There was no boyfriend running in at the last moment to save her, no cops or cavalry to the rescue, and somehow, even as a child Rychman understood the simple truth that real life seldom meant justice or fairness, or saved-in-the-nick-of-time happy endings. Still, he had wanted to be a cop; he'd wanted to be one of the good guys, and do whatever he could wherever he could to at least make reality bearable. And what had it gotten him? A divorce, the estrangement of his kids and a nasty fight ahead for Eldritch's job, if he had the stamina to go through with it. There were a lot of people who were behind him, but most of these had their own agendas. “Hell,” he moaned as he opened the car door and sprawled out on the back seat, hoping to catch a few winks.

  His detectives were still rattling doors, asking questions. They were all coming up empty-handed. The woman lived alone, never had relatives or visitors over, was as quiet and unimposing as a church mouse. Neighbors used to see her waiting for the bus on the corner.

  Then who in hell was the old woman? What was the connection? Was there a connection, or was the Claw having them all on once more? Some sense of humor, he thought. But there must be something that attracted this demonic killer to his victims in the first place; something the two of them had in com-mon, some shred of a connection. But what could it be?

  He played over the similarities and the differences again in his head. All the victims were women who were alone when they were attacked. In no instance had the killer dared attack a woman in the company of a man. The attacks appeared random, but he knew that random violence was unlikely, that what at first appeared random very often was far from it. No, the Claw had a plan, however bizarre the plan might be. There was nothing random about the killer's obvious decision to murder women only. The bastard either feared men or had no interest in feeding on male organs. Why? The bastard was a coward at heart, afraid to attack even two women together, it would appear, since the new victims had been attacked at separate locations.

  “Captain, Captain!” Lou Pierce interrupted his thoughts. “We've got word on the old woman.”

  Rychman had no idea how long he had been lying in the car, but a glance at his clock told him it was almost 6 A.M. “A positive ID, Lou?”

  “Amelia Phillips. The super in her building reported her missing. Her place was searched a few hours ago by some guys in the 23rd. The place was a mess and there was blood, but no body. Missing Persons put two and two together, had someone go down to the morgue to ID her, and voila.”

  “Good to know somebody around here can still put two and two together. All right, hop in and let's have a look at her place.”

  “You want me to drive, Captain?”

  “Good idea, Lou. Dr. Coran get back okay?”

  “I dropped her and Dr. Darius off at the morgue.”

  “She'll wanta hear about this. See if you can get dispatch to put us through.” But dispatch was unable to reach her or Darius. The two had seemingly disappeared. Only Simon Archer was available to take the call. He took the address and said he would be right behind them, and that he was sorry but he didn't know where the other two M.E.s had gone.

  On the way to the second crime scene, a Brooklyn apartment out of the 23rd Precinct's jurisdiction, but not out of the jurisdiction of the citywide task force, Rychman learned that Amelia Phillips was a live-alone with multiple health problems that'd turned her into a recluse. When she did venture out, she might visit the corner store, the free clinic or the neighborhood park where she fed popcorn and seeds to squirrels and pigeons.

  Once at he
r apartment, Rychman could see at a glance just how close to the bone the woman lived. Her fridge was bare, and her cupboard was scantily stocked with a handful of tuna and soup cans, a box of Saltines and a bag of Fig Newtons gone stale according to O’Toole, whom Alan had found munching in the kitchen. The woman's furniture was early Salvation Army and had come with the apartment, but she kept the place neat and orderly, a place for everything and everything in its place. So the ugly red stain on the hardwood floor, indicating the likeliest place where Amelia Phillips had died, seemed that much more alien here in this place she called home.

  No forced entry—nothing to indicate she had any reason to fear her attacker any more than the Olin woman seemed to have had—gave Rychman a glimmer of hope. If both women knew their attacker, then some thread of commonality existed between these two victims which had gone unnoticed among the previous victims. Somewhere in each woman's past she had crossed the path of the Claw before last night, and when he came to call, each in turn had allowed him inside. Perhaps he was a neighbor, someone to be trusted, someone clever and cunning who had targeted these women in anything other than a random way after all.

  “This... this is dreadful,” whispered the building superintendent who'd crept in behind the detectives. Rychman thought the super was understandably upset by a tenant's death until he heard the man telling Lou that it was going to be hell to get the bloodstains up if they were allowed to remain much longer, and this would make renting out the place even more difficult in these recessionary times. He also complained of a missing rug.

  “What kind of a rug?” asked Rychman sharply.

  “An expensive one, Oriental.”

  “Hers or yours?”

  “Mine... at least, it was.”

  “Whataya mean, was? Either it belonged to you or it didn't.”

  “I didn't get it in writing. It was the only thing she had of worth, and she purchased her last month's rent with it. I figured it lent the place a touch of class, and if she moved out and it stayed, I figured... well, I figured...”