Extreme Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “Absence of soot in these areas in a flash fire is not uncommon, and it does not necessarily mean that Martin was dead prior to the blaze.”

  “Quite right. I've seen numerous cases in which no soot appeared in these deeper areas, and yet analysis of blood carbon monoxide revealed lethal levels. Unfortunately, blisters or the absence thereof,” continued Repasi, “do not indicate that the deceased was alive at the time the burns were incurred either, since they can be produced postmor­tem.”

  Jessica knew that many people, medical people in­cluded, coroners and pathologists and some medical ex­aminers included, mistakenly believed that if blisters or burns were surrounded by an erythematous—red—rim, then this clearly indicated that the victim was alive at the time the burns were incurred. This was blatantly false. Blisters with such red rims had now been produced on dead bodies at the FBI's famous, or infamous, “Body Farm” in Tennessee. Both she and Repasi knew that heat applied to skin caused contraction of dermal capillaries, and this forced blood to the periphery of the blister, sim­ulating an antemortem hyperemic inflammatory response.

  An autopsy on such a body proved the worst kind of pathology. Fire did awful things to flesh, creating leathery, wood-grain like swirls, like some mad tattoo artists had been allowed to go to work on the dead man. Jessica rec­ognized this configuration as the result of actual contact with flame, that they were again dealing with a “flash” burn.

  The extent of the burn was indicated as the percent of total surface area involved by the thermal injury, and chemical burns from the gas used caused even deeper, thicker blotches of mottled skin tissue. The percentage of total surface area burned was quickly determined using the rule of nines. Jessica, using the typical conventional think­ing, considered the total body surface as 100 percent, meaning the head was 9 percent, as it was completely burned away to the bone, leaving no features. The arms or upper extremities represented 9 percent each. The front of the torso, also extremely badly damaged, counted for an additional 18 percent. The back, which was not burned badly at all, since it was protected by the victim's weight against the bed, also represented 18 percent. Each lower extremity totaled 18 percent apiece, while the neck amounted to 1 percent, equaling an even 100 percent. Mar­tin's body was burned over 82 percent of its surface. His bums were the worst kind, third- and fourth-degree, or as Repasi's nomenclature had it, a combination of partial-and full-thickness bums. In third-degree bums there was co­agulation necrosis of the epidermis and dermis with complete destruction to the dermal appendages. Most of Martin's lesions were brown and blackened, the result of charring and eschar formation. If he had survived the fire, the smoke inhalation, the shock, the dehydration, and the bursting blood vessels, this blackened skin would have healed as scar tissue, but at his advanced age, even if he had lived, he would likely be dead within hours or days. Other bums, fourth-degree bums, appeared as ashen white leather. There were no red blisters. The fire was too intense for the cherry-red bums usually associated with fire and skin, for Martin's bums were incinerating injuries extend­ing deeper than the skin.

  It was evident to Repasi, J.T., and Jessica that Martin's injuries were the result of a high-intensity flash bum, re­sulting from an explosion of gases. Jessica kept hearing the whoosh of the explosion in her ears. This explained why 90 percent of the burned areas appeared to have burned uniformly. The other 10 percent was due to the mattress and clothing burning against the body. When clothing ignited, a combination of flash and flash bum oc­curred. Flash bums usually resulted in only partial- thickness or second- and third-degree bums and singed hair, but this flash burn was directed by human means directly at the victim, making it third- and fourth-degree about the face, head, and upper torso, with nearly total loss of hair. What hair remained crumbled at the touch, like burned pitch pine.

  The severity of the bum was increased by the careful method in which the killer loosely wrapped the clothing about the body. If wrapped tightly and snugly against the body, it would have decreased the degree of bum. But the killer knew that air surrounding the clothing would help fuel his human bonfire.

  “Order up at minimum,” began Jessica, “blood, vitre­ous, urine, and bile for toxicological analysis.”

  “I'll do the blood myself,” suggested Repasi, quickly taking the blood from the root of the aorta with needle and syringe. Wise choice, Jessica thought, glad that Karl hadn't incised the vessels and attempted to catch the fluid as it came out.

  Repasi next went about placing all body fluids he col­lected in glass tubes and bottles, no plastic. Once more, Jessica approved.

  “Shall we open up the chest? Get liver, kidney, and muscle samples?”

  “Ready when you are, Doctor.”

  Repasi was a sure man with a scalpel, and his incision helped the already fractured and split-apart chest open like a melon to reveal the viscera, remarkably but not surpris­ingly untouched by the fire. Due to its high water content, a body was one of the most difficult items on the planet to use as fuel for a fire—so much so that a body like Martin's, showing great and extreme damage and exten­sive charring on the outside, often showed perfect preser­vation of the internal organs, especially those below the rib cage. Household fires generated temperatures seldom exceeding 1,200 to 1,600 degrees Fahrenheit. It took 1,800 to 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit to cremate a body. Ordinary house fires lacked that kind of intensity and the time to incinerate a human body completely. As for a flash fire, involving gasoline and butane and a sudden flashover, the intensity was fleeting. A flash fire could not sustain such temperatures for a long enough period to fully ignite the body and all its water-laden internal organs.

  “Liver, kidney, and muscle needn't be retained,” Re­pasi suggested. “I can take samples only, and I'll see that they are kept for three or four years, if need be. I'll do the microscopic examination of the tissues, and I'll oversee the slides.”

  “Very thorough, Doctor,” complimented Jessica. “Please be sure to also make a positive ID of the victim as well.”

  He saw the glint in her eye. “Yes, of course.” He man­aged a wry smile.

  “To make a positive and unmistakable identification, a chest X ray will be taken to be used for comparison with those of the deceased man. His dentures will also be kept in the effort to ID him beyond a reasonable doubt.”

  Jessica knew that in fact a single tooth could positively identify Martin, but the old man didn't have a single tooth of his own remaining.

  “So, as it stands, we have no evidence he was alive when the flash fire killed him, none other than your word, Dr. Coran.”

  “It appears so,” she agreed, but she didn't care for Karl's accusatory tone.

  Now he cut off the recorder. “This business about the phone, about the killer's having constant contact with you, Dr. Coran. It's a bit far-fetched, wouldn't you say?” The assistants in the room stopped what they were doing to listen to Repasi, who continued in the same vein, saying, “Why does he talk to you exclusively? Why?”

  Jessica took her colleague aside. “Trust me, Dr. Repasi, if I thought giving him your number would help matters—''

  Repasi's raucous laughter cut her off. “So exactly when did he last speak with you, Jessica? What does he wish to convey to you? What is his ultimate purpose? His desti­nation? His goal?”

  “If I knew that, Karl, I'd have him surrounded with an army of law enforcement officials this moment. Believe me, if I could alter or end his madness, I would do so immediately.”

  “Would you really? Your record does not bear you out, Jessica. You're rather well known nowadays for rushing in where fools fear to tread, quite on your own, to grab the glory.”

  “The glory? There is no bloody glory in any of this!” She pointed to the petrified corpse, once again raising in­terest in the lab assistants.

  “You garnered plenty in New Orleans, and with that madman Matisak, repeating a similar performance to your actions in Chicago, New York—”

  Jessica's face grew ste
rn as she listened to Repasi, her teeth grinding top to bottom, until she exploded, cutting him off. “Are you finished?”

  “Oh, I see,” he replied. “It only appears that you're interested in media attention as a modem-day Sherlock Holmes. I get it.” A curling smile snaked about his mouth.

  He enjoyed making her uneasy, making her squirm, she realized. “That's contemptible, Karl.”

  “Jessica, I've no doubt we have a serial killer playing deadly with fire here, but that he grants you a private au­dience with each killing? I have a problem with that.”

  “Bullshit! I didn't make it up, Karl! And I'm not smit­ten with the press or building an image for myself. There's no hoax here! Certainly none of my doing.”

  “Oh, I hope I didn't suggest that you were part of some elaborate medical hoax, Doctor. It's just that I'm having trouble with the idea that this monster serial killer feels compelled to contact you every step of the way. It's sheer madness even for a madman.” As I said, if I could alter his madness in any way, this moment—”

  “So, when did he last talk to you?” he wanted to know.

  “I've taken proper steps to inform, on a need-to-know basis, my superiors of any contact made. That doesn't in­clude you, Karl.”

  “What has he conveyed to you? What is his ultimate goal? And this business of him telephoning it in. Are you sure he's not just some mental patient from a federal fa­cility whom you've had... previous contact with?”

  She considered the possibility for half a second. “No, he is not, Doctor. And I'm not sure I like what you're implying here.”

  “I didn't mean to imply anything unsavory.”

  She pointed her finger at his eyes and sternly said,” This conversation is taking a strange turn, Karl. I think it's at an end, now.”

  “I, personally, don't believe a word of the rumors being touted about, Jessica, but you know what they say about appearances.”

  “Whatever are you talking about? What rumors?''

  “Press rumors.”

  “About me?”

  “You and this madman, yes, and the idea there might be some former connection; that perhaps you know him, or knew him, but have put him out of your mind, per­haps?”

  “No, no... I have as much knowledge of him as you, Karl.”

  “Some people are throwing it out there, Jessica, this theory, and it has just enough basis in fact that credence is being—”

  “Basis in fact? Credence? What fact?”

  “It's a well-known fact that you have both access and control over any number of serial killers and homicidal psychopaths in federal care. Is that not true?”

  She gritted her teeth, angry, knowing that Karl was right about the press, particularly the tabloid press, with their unspoken motto: We print every half-truth fit or unfit to see print. And there was just enough half-truth in what Karl said to crop up in the rags. She took it out on Karl, saying, “You just reminded me again why I've always disliked you, Karl.”

  “Hey, don't shoot the messenger. I'm only telling you to watch your back, Jessica. That's all.”

  Like you care about my back, she thought, wondering anew about his motive in even being here. She tore off her gloves and mask and stepped away from the body. “I'm done here. You can finish up, Doctor.” She stormed from the small autopsy room, angry and exhausted, her jaw clenched tight.

  An hour later, Jessica was back at the resort marina, where she fell across the bed. She could hardly believe the madness of Karl Repasi, and the gall of the man. Hours of intense labor over a body that kept casting off bits and pieces of itself onto the floor, and then to have to deal with Repasi's obvious mental breakdown. She had suspected him of a fraud and a hoax when all of this began, and now he suspected her of the same. It seemed turnaround was fair game, but how could he believe that she'd be party to such cruelty? Cruelty even on a dead body, if he believed her capable of producing dead bodies for some fire maniac to set ablaze, and that she somehow had hidden the real Chris Lorentian and the real Melvin Bartlett Martin.

  She must wash this day off, she told herself, climbing from the bed, feeling the absolute need for a long, hot shower.

  First, however, she found a phone and called J.T., lo­cating him still at work at the hospital she had stormed away from. He'd been right to distance himself from the odd and eccentric Repasi, but he was still working out of a lab down the hall from Repasi. She wondered if Karl had tried to feed any of his fantastic nonsense to John

  Thorpe. If he suggested it in the least to J.T., John would deck him with a single blow, but from J.T.'s tone, obvi­ously, Karl Repasi hadn't repeated his crazy allegations.

  “Any luck on the shoeprint?” she asked J.T.

  “Ruled out everyone else's having made the print,” he replied.

  “That's a positive step.”

  “Very funny. I oversaw the creation of a cast imprint of the shoeprint.”

  She let out a gasp of air. “I hope you got more results and conclusions than we did from the autopsy.”

  “From the size of the shoe imprint, it's apparent that the killer wears an eight and a half shoe size, extremely well worn, and due to the impression it made, fair esti­mates of the height and weight of the killer are also now known. The Phantom, as the press in Nevada and Utah are now calling him, is in the range of five-eleven to six feet tall.”

  “That's about what the waitress put him at.”

  “And he weighs in at a hundred seventy-nine to a hun­dred eighty-nine pounds.”

  “Excellent work, J.T.”

  “I next packaged up the imprint and shipped it to Quantico for an expert FBI imprint man named Kenyan to go over. Kenyan's already at work eliminating any and all footwear that the cast could not have been made from. Through the process of elimination and comparison, it's hoped something specific may be said about the shoes worn by the killer.”

  “That's good work, John, really.”

  “I take it the autopsy revealed nothing we didn't already know?”

  “You take it right. Except for the fact of the victim's sex and age, the killings were identical, down to the use of a butane torch with a wand attachment.”

  “How do we know there's a wand attachment on the torch?” asked J.T. “Clear that up for me, will you?”

  According to the fire investigators, both Fairfax in Ve­gas and Brightpath here, the initial flames were extremely well controlled. They can tell from the controlled direction of the hot spots to the eyes, face, and chest.”

  J.T. softly whistled into the receiver and remarked, “You said this guy was a highly organized, controlled killer, Jess. Appears he has thought out his every instru­ment, his every move. Appears you were right again. Amazing ability of yours. You should be proud of it, the accuracy of your predictions.”

  “Proud? Hardly.”

  “Why not? They rank up there with Kim Desinor's psy­chic predictions.”

  “Believe me, John, knowledge doesn't begin to touch the feelings. Scientific investigation is one thing, instinct born of preparation, you might call it, but it doesn't soothe the gods of the dark night of the soul.”

  J.T., unable to respond to this bit of philosophy, stut­tered into suggesting they meet later for a drink in the lounge at the Wahweap Lodge, where they were staying the night.

  ELEVEN

  His eyes are bloodshot, his back near broke, For he has been chasing a distant smoke.

  —Charles Scribner

  Feydor had settled in at Ruby's Inn, a rustic roadside inn on Highway 63 in Bryce, Utah, within shouting distance of the fantasyland of rock formations created by nature that so dazzled hundreds of thousands of tourists each year. It was a place of sheer beauty, but Feydor had seen enough of rock formations from the bus window to last him a lifetime.

  Whenever they got off the bus after the day's journey, everyone's bags were placed before the door at the hotel or motel they stopped at, and a key was pushed into each party's hands. The bus tour company made life easy for i
ts passengers, and for Chris Dunlap in particular.

  Inside his room now, alone, alongside a plethora of Po­laroid photographs of burning bodies, Feydor stretched out his own body serpentine fashion, the mattress and his skin feeling fiery hot. But it was a good heat he now felt: nei­ther rash nor bum. It was no longer the dreaded and hated redness Satan used to punish him with. No, this was more a warm glow, like the way other people described them­selves feeling after what they termed “normal” sex, some­thing Feydor had no firsthand knowledge of.

  Still, for the first time in his life, Feydor Dorphmann felt whole and in control; there came a sense of accom­plishment with performing the ritual that Satan had given him to do, but there also came a sense of purpose and power. He hadn't expected so much personal satisfaction. In fact, he hadn't expected any satisfaction to come of the gruesome work he had done, but in the doing he had dis­covered himself.

  In fact, he had discovered some semblance of under­standing that his purpose—guided as it was by Satan— must in fact be, dare he think it even, God's directive. For nothing Satan ever did came of his own volition, but as a scheme set into motion by God Himself, or so many Chris­tian religious leaders professed.

  Inscrutable as God himself, so must be God's plan to appease Satan, or to perhaps trip the Old Serpent up on some transcendent level mankind could never hope to glimpse, much less understand. Feydor knew himself to be in the presence of cosmic forces beyond himself; he felt privileged in glimpsing—although “glimpsing” was hard­ly the word—glimpsing the small truth he had glimpsed. He struggled for a better word than “glimpsed,” angry at his limited thought patterns, the linearity and limited boundaries of the mind. A peek, an impression, a quick and momentary view beyond which his brain would fry. A subliminal image of his Satan, a force to be reckoned with, a force that, of course, must sense the whole as well as the parts of all existence, and this intense power must know that while Dorphmann was merely a pawn in this empyrean game of cat and mouse, that God would, in the end, redeem Feydor's soul because, after all, he was as much God's pawn as the Devil's.