“ You saved a lot of their underthings, Leon,” said Rychman, “and Mrs. Phillips' Oriental rug splattered with her blood was in the trunk of your car, Leon.”
Archer had heard enough. He was convinced of two things. Rychman and the others believed what he wanted them to believe all along, that Leon had worked out his lurid fantasies alone, and secondly, Dr. Coran believed otherwise. She remained his only threat.
When Rychman stepped out of the interrogation room, all he saw of Archer was his back as the M.E. disappeared along a corridor. He cursed his luck. Had he known Archer was outside, he would have found a way for Helfer to meet Dr. Archer face-to-face.?
Twenty-Six
Simon Archer lay restless in his large four-poster mahogany bed, unable to sleep, his peace disturbed by a woman who was over two hundred miles away. He knew that Coran was no typical medical examiner, that she was known among her close associates as thorough. Very little to nothing got past her. Her intimations of impropriety on his part had led to an investigation of his newly acquired department. He wasn't worried that the investigation would turn up anything as incriminating as murder and cannibalism, but he was worried about Jessica Coran. Even Darius had called her brilliant, an adjective he had never used to describe Archer. And now she had Emmons' body under her full scrutiny.
Perhaps he was foolish to worry: the stronger voice within him tried to soothe his fears, calling them irrational.
“ After all,” he told himself, “you took every precaution with Emmons, every possible precaution: gloves, hair net, the specially designed tooth sheath that simulated Leon Helfer's bite, now a somewhat useless item.”
Giving it further thought, he told himself, “I really should destroy and discard the sheath.” He held up the two rows of hard, acrylic tooth coverings with Helfer's signature on every edge and molar. They were self-incriminating, after all.
He cupped them in his hand and placed them beside his bed and felt the old urges welling up. His need for living flesh had come full circle.
He tried to close his eyes, get some rest. But each time he did a mad cinema of images flashed before him: first the writhing body, the half-conscious victim simpering, and he bending over, a shadow-man looking on in stark horror and curiosity. Closer and closer he brought his face down to the victim's throat, his animal's claw poised for the final tear, but his mouth wanting to tear first into the still-flexing arteries of the throat, when suddenly he saw her face. It was Coran's face and her eyes opened, staring straight through him, daring him to continue to kill her.
His dream self lashed madly and monstrously at her with the claw again and again, but her flesh withstood each blow. She began to laugh, and he was unable to make her stop, and the claw was breaking apart under his repeated attempt to rend her iron flesh from her.
His eyes came open with a start. She knew. He did not know how she knew, but she knew.
“ Forget about her,” he told himself in a chastising voice. “Even if she knows, she can't prove a thing.”
“ Not yet, she can't,” he answered himself. “But one day she might.”
Responding to a nervous Malthuesen who had telephoned in a panic, he had gone after hours to Leon's place of work. Malthuesen had immediately contacted him after two police detectives, one named Emmons, had grilled him about Leon. Malthuesen was surprised when Archer had shown up after the place had cleared out. Malthuesen didn't know he was about to die of a tragic accident, the trap already set before Dr. Archer led him to the snare. Malthuesen didn't understand Archer's interest in Leon and had thought it all to do with a gay liaison between them, and Archer hadn't dissuaded the notion until the end. But as a result of the police snooping, Malthuesen had become greatly curious, and he was asking too many questions.
“ Come with me,” Archer had told him. “I'll clear everything up for you.”
“ What if the cops come back? They seemed to want to get more out of me,” said Malthuesen.
“ I'd appreciate your not saying anything about my… association with Leon.”
“ But what if they ask?”
“ You do as I say, and there's more money in it for you, much more.”
Malthuesen was interested. “How much?”
“ Three times what I've given you already.”
Malthuesen whistled. “When do I get it?”
“ It's in my car. Come with me.”
He maneuvered Malthuesen into a long corridor where piping had been stored to the ceiling. He rushed ahead of the other man, getting to the safety of the other side of the room, and in the dark he threw a switch that released a row of the pipe at the bottom. This sent an avalanche of heavy metal over Malthuesen, whose cries were quickly drowned out.
Archer exited quietly the way he had come as a night watchman raced to the scene of the noise and clatter.
Now Archer smiled anew at the memory. He was an efficient man, smart to have had Leon actually design the claw. He had been efficient with Leon's dentist as well, the man who had designed for him a set of tooth coverlets. He lifted the set of acrylic teeth to his eyes once more and stared at them in the darkened bedroom.
Its contours were so beautiful, and holding it in his hand made him want to put the instrument to good use. But he couldn't… not for a long time, and when he did, he'd have to use a completely different approach, different cuts, and a new dupe. It would take some time to find another Leon, someone as pliable as he, someone with a helpful dentist.
Leon's dentist had put up a struggle. He had grabbed onto Archer's coat and shirt, worrying Archer that fibers below the man's nails would show signs of the struggle. When he pushed the thin, bespectacled Dr. Parke over the edge, the man had grabbed onto the cables, his briefcase and his glasses preceding him down the sixteen stories of black hole. For a few minutes, as the man's hands were rubbed raw against the thick metal cable, their eyes met, and in that moment the fool knew he was about to die, and then he slipped, grabbed again, gninted, cried out and was gone like a pebble down a well.
Archer had slipped from the area only to return in his official capacity to see to it that the dead man told no tales. The death was ruled accidental, as had Malthuesen's, but in Malthuesen's case, an associate M.E. handled the cleanup.
So far as he knew, no one other than that suspicious bitch.
Coran, had thought the death of Leon's dentist anything but a freak accident, the sort that happened all too often in high rises lately. Rychman didn't need the dentist to convict Helfer; all he needed were the dental records and the testimony of another qualified dental expert, in fact, one in forensics, Dr. Donald Altman, who worked under Archer now as his paleontologist and dental forensics man. Altman had done a superb job on the witness stand, so much so that Archer had turned over all the evidence to him and had sent him and serologist Elliot Andersen back to court to oversee the pre-sentation of the case against Leon Helfer. Both Altman and Andersen were pleased with the confidence Archer had placed in them, and Archer hadn't had to face Helfer, fearing the little weasel would recognize either his face or his voice and cry out in open court that he was the Claw.
Of course it would only make Leon look even more crazy than he already did, and it would be interpreted as ludicrous, but Archer had already taken enough chances and there was no point in tempting fate. Nor did he want to fuel Coran and Rychman's combined distrust of him any more than he already had.
“ They've got nothing on you… nothing,” he told himself. “Get your rest. Forget about that bitch. She can't prove a thing… not a single thing.”
But the rest of the night, his sleep remained disturbed by the image of the woman and the incessant tapping of her cane. Matisak had only maimed her. If he had one chance at her, he would do far more than maim her.
“ Let… it… go…”
But how sweet her flesh must taste, he thought. How lovely to roll her eyes around in his mouth…
Jessica's apartment never looked so good. She loved being surrounded with her
familiar trappings, the photos on the walls, many blow-ups of her underwater shots taken when she had gone on various diving excursions in Jamaica, the Keys, Martinique and elsewhere. She also had photos of her parents, herself as a child and her best friends and closest working associates adorning another wall.
The beige to white furnishings with glass tops and glass cases throughout the apartment had also collected knick-knacks from her many travels and hunting and diving trips, from first-prize awards for the biggest or the most game in a season to miniature deer, bear and fowl, many of which were hand-carved by American and Canadian Indians.
Here, more than anywhere on earth, she felt secure and comforted, and she received a transfusion of sorts, a transfusion of identity and soul that was often much needed. She already missed Alan Rychman, however, and it would be some time, as she had told her girlfriend, Amanda Cairn, over the phone, before Alan could break away to take her on that diving trip they had planned before she had left New York City.
When she had arrived at the airport at Quantico there was faithful J.T. to take full charge of the Emmons body, seeing to its final transportation to the morgue. And as ever, J.T. was full of questions, starting with, “I don't get it, Jess. Why're we examining a body the New York people have already des-ignated as the work of this nut case Helfer? You want to fill me in?”
“ Just treat Emmons as a murder victim, J.T., and run every test we have on her. I mean every damned test, and no shortcuts.”
“ All right, but you'd better know up front-”
“ What?”
“ O'Rourke doesn't like it.”
“ What doesn't she like?”
“ Carting the body here like this, pulling it from this guy Archer's jurisdiction. Says… thinks it's not good form, that sort of thing. Says we've got to respect and cooperate with the local officials for times when we really need them, all that crap.”
She could not hide her exasperation with O'Rourke. “I suppose she wants to see me on the double?”
“ You must be psychic.”
She frowned. “First she gives Matisak carte blanche with the information on my case, has that filthy creep telling me long-distance how to investigate it, and now she's questioning decisions of mine of a forensics nature? You know what she wants, don't you, J.T.?”
“ If I didn't know better, I'd say she wants your ass in a can, Doctor.”
“ Great being home, J.T., and it's great to talk to someone who's going to be straight with me.”
“ It's great having you home, Jess.”
Their relationship had grown over the years of their association and had solidified with the Matisak vampire-stalker case. Her cane was a constant reminder to both her and J.T. of how close she had come to being killed by Matisak, but there was something else she remembered when around J.T., and that was her old confidence in her deft abilities. J. T fanned the flame of her positive self-image. He was a good friend.
“ O'Rourke thinks she'll cut me loose and that she can more easily control you, John,” she told him. “You know that, don't you?”
They stared at one another there on the tarmac, the sound of aircraft near deafening.
“ I'll see to the body now,” he said without another word, and as she watched him go toward the open cargo bay and the box within, she wondered if J.T. had changed. It shouldn't come as any surprise, not with O'Rourke's keen manipulations. O'Rourke was very happy playing queen to Chief Bill Leamy's king on the FBI chessboard. She'd been made chief of the psychological profiling unit which had been built from the ground floor by Otto Boutine, and to which Jessica and J.T. belonged.
She went straight from the airport to O'Rourke's office. O'Rourke was a strong woman, firm and sure of herself, always dressed to kill, and she had worked her way up through the ranks to get where she was, but her affair with Bill Leamy hadn't hurt, either. Otto had had great respect for O'Rourke's ability at crime detection and, in particular, psychological profiling-her avenue up the rungs of the FBI ladder.
Their meeting was brief and predictable. O'Rourke was sorely upset. She'd gotten a call from the chief medical examiner of New York City, a Dr. Archer, who felt his entire staff had been maligned by Agent Coran, and that the unnecessary removal of Louise Emmons' body was the final straw. “Archer feels you're out to ruin his reputation in the forensics community, that you bear him some personal animosity, something to do with Dr. Darius' being made some kind of god in your eyes to which no one could possibly measure up; said the entire time you two worked together, you were second-guessing his every finding.”
“ Somebody had to.”
“ Is that all you've got to say?”
“ Why're you so concerned about Archer's feelings?”
“ It's quite simple, Dr. Coran. We will need New York someday in the future, and cooperation between our agencies has to be optimal. You, of all people, should know that.”
Jessica realized that the conversation was being taped, that everything she said was on the record and that her boss was now amassing her own evidence to prove Jessica incompetent and unable to continue in her present position, that her psychological problems were overtaking her.
Something must have shown in her eyes, because O'Rourke, staring coldly at her, said, “You know, Jessica, we're all concerned about you. The FBI family wants only what's best for you, and I, personally, care only to see that we do what's best for you.”
“ Yes, I realized that when you sent me to Philadelphia that first time, to see Matisak… to see the bastard alive and well fed and biding his time. Yes, Theresa… Chief… I've always known that you took my… my problems… as seriously as I.”
“ Are you still seeing Dr. Lemonte?”
“ No… not professionally, but thank you for asking,” she lied.
“ Then you are feeling… emotionally stronger? Good.”
“ I'm so glad that you can see that.”
“ And your… physical impairment? How is that doing?”
She held up the cane. “It's not going to go away, if that's what you mean, but it hasn't kept me from doing my job.”
“ Of course not.”
“ And another thing, Theresa.” Her voice like acid, Jessica was emphasizing her words with a tongue that flicked across her upper lip and disappeared. “You won't win against me; you won't take my job here. I'm too good at what I do.”
O'Rourke pointedly pressed the recorder attachment to her desk to off. Then she came around the desk and stood toe-to-toe with Jessica. “Dr. Archer telephoned Leamy when he finished with me, and-”
“ At your urging, no doubt.”
“ Archer didn't need any urging. Regardless of Archer, it's just this simple, Dr. Coran: you didn't get the collar in New York; you weren't involved in the manhunt to the extent you should have been. Very likely because you were too busy sleeping with Captain Rychman.”
Jessica's jaw stiffened but she refrained from saying another word or raising the hand that so wanted to slap O'Rourke.
“ You're not being credited with the end of the Claw case, Jessica, and you got Otto killed in Chicago. Facts like that have a way of haunting a person's career. Careers here rise and fall on the basis of one's most recent case, not yesterday's laurels. Fact of life here… what have you done for me lately, Dr. Coran? Then there's Matisak…”
“ Matisak?” Jessica's right hand quivered now with a power of its own. Had O'Rourke set her up from the beginning, anxious from the start to see her crumble under the physical and psychological strain of dealing with men like Sims and Matisak? O'Rourke had known from the beginning that Jessica believed O'Rourke's leadership was far inferior to Otto Boutine's as head of the division. It seemed a particularly nasty way to clean house, but then O'Rourke had proven nasty in the past, especially to other women whom she felt threatened by.
“ Yes, he claims you've failed to listen to him-”
“ I don't believe I'm hearing this.”
“- that you've been uncooperative and ext
remely rude, and-”
“ For Christ's sake, O'Rourke!”
“- and the fact you entered his cell with a gun hidden on your person, Dr. Coran. Very bad… very bad form. That alone-”
“ I deny it all! All the fucking crap that Gabriel Arnold, your penitentiary pimp, has told you. And his word will not hold up against mine! Now, I'm leaving before I actually do commit a punishable act.”
Jessica made it to the door but hadn't cleared it before hearing O'Rourke say, “Well, you have regained some of your old strength, dear, haven't you?”
Jessica had kept going, afraid if she did not clear the building, she'd return and knock O'Rourke on her ass.
Time was crawling by. To keep everything completely objective and unimpeachable, she had turned the Emmons examination over to J.T. and a team that was unlikely to miss the smallest hair or fiber on the slate-white tissues of the body.
And so she had gone home.
How she now missed Alan.
Would she soon be missing J.T.?
She felt alone in her comforting little world, snuggled deeply into the cushions of her soft, beige couch, staring up at the walls, the silence, taunting time and memory, beating out a rhythm not unlike that of her saddened heart. It was not just her loneliness that was poisoning her homecoming, but her fear. She realized now that all this time, since she had recovered from the attack on her by Matisak, O'Rourke had played on her weaknesses and Jessica had become afraid not only of her own decisions but those of others, and of O'Rourke's in particular. O'Rourke held sway over her and had been trying to use her like a dangling marionette first here and then there. It had been O'Rourke who pushed her into taking the Claw case, and she had manipulated her to the interviews with Matisak long before this, and urged her into Gerald Ray Sims' cell, all the time knowing what it must be doing to her, eroding away her mental stability, washing away her strength.
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