Extreme Instinct

by Robert W. Walker

  “We've got to get out there,” Jessica told J.T.

  “But Bishop's arriving here this morning. Don't you want to wait for him?”

  “I left word in Vegas about what happened last night,” she explained. “Talked with Harry Furth. Bishop'll figure it out; he'll catch up with us at Bryce Canyon.”

  They arranged for a shuttle run to the airport. Along the way, J.T. asked, “Suppose we can get a helicopter pilot who doesn't think he's Buck Rogers?”

  Once at the Page airport, they located a helicopter and flew toward Zion National Park and Bryce Canyon. Jessica had once traveled to the area, and she told J.T. that his eyes were in for a number of breathtaking sights; and the country, as they flew over in the whirlybird, did not dis­appoint either of them.

  In Bryce, Utah, at the Ruby Inn, they touched down at a commercial helicopter pad just across the street from the inn, a mammoth, made-over ranch, it appeared. There a crowd of onlookers had gathered in the way of police and fire officials just winding down their investigations. Jessica and J.T. feared they would find exactly what they knew they would, a fourth body—another woman, by Jessica's reckoning and what little her ear had picked up of the victim this time around.

  The murdered woman's name was Eloise Whitaker, an elderly window, and she was, like Martin before her, en­joying a vacation as a member of a bus tour group, using Colorado Bus Travel, and traveling solo. J.T. and Jessica had already discussed the fact that two of the victims now had been passengers on vacation buses that toured the na­tional parks, a third victim had worked in one of the parks, and that this seemed the only tenuous thread connecting the various victims.

  Jessica knew that large tour groups went back and forth through the national parks every day, following exacting schedules. A death like Martin's and now this one slowed that progress considerably, and so when they ran into the bus tour guide named Ronny Ropers and his group again at Ruby Inn, Jessica was not completely surprised.

  But Ropers's face lit up in a wide, theatrical surprise. “You again? And another fire?” he asked Jessica. “Do you bring them about?” Jessica gritted her teeth and asked, “Is the deceased one of your charges, Mr. Ropers?”

  “No, thank God. This one belonged to Christy Apple- gate, with Sunshine Tours. That's her over there, the one who can't control her crying.”

  One of several huge buses painted with a rainbow of colors and letters proclaiming it a Vision Quest bus sud­denly lurched at Jessica as she walked across the parking lot toward the blackened rooms where the fire had gotten out of control this time. Jessica was suddenly pulled from the path of the bus by an alert J.T.

  “Damn bus driver,” cursed J.T. for her.

  Other buses began to follow suit, leaving the lodge to maintain schedules, but Ropers had held his group up in an effort to help out in any way he could with Christy's sudden problem, him having had “experience” now with just this sort of emergency. He intended walking Christy, a well-acquainted friend, through the reams of paperwork and reports that would have to be filed. Now she had a dead—murdered—passenger to report, and Ronny deftly held her hand through it all.

  “What the hell's this world coming to?” Ropers asked Jessica, who began questioning the tearful Christy, who could tell them nothing useful.

  J.T. and Jessica flashed their badges and were ushered through the yellow police tape. Ruby Inn looked like an enormous ranch turned bus stop, fields and corrals and lakes stretching out away from it at the rear. Jessica caught glimpses of horses running freely about the corrals. A part of her wanted to run screaming and free with the horses, to get as far from this case and the Phantom as humanly possible.

  Out front of Ruby's, the place sported a huge welcoming sign for all the bus tour traffic, a large restaurant, rooms for rent, laundry facilities, telephones, and a gift shop.

  “Another body, another message, another autopsy to tell us what we already know,” complained Karl Repasi, who met them at the door.

  Surprised, Jessica asked, “Karl! How did you get here so quickly?”

  “I have friends in high places, remember?” he replied glumly, adding, “God, this is getting too hard, Jess, too damned hard. One smoldering body after another. Listen, please, please let me apologize for my outburst of the other day. I didn't mean half of what I said. I'm on my feet for too long and my brain stops functioning.”

  Jessica walked past him without another word.

  “How did you get here, Repasi?” asked J.T., who had thought only he and Jessica, with the exception of the Ve­gas FBI, knew of the Ruby Inn murder scene. “Who tipped you off to this one?”

  “I've been listening in on police calls since I was a child.”

  “Karl, you're beginning to get on my nerves as well as Jessica's,” he replied.

  Karl merely frowned, turned, and joined Jessica to stand amid the charred remains of the room, the dead woman's still-smoking body on the bed, the killer's now familiar scrawl on the mirror. “You need all the help you can get on this one, Jessica. Don't fight me. Let me help you. Just tell me how I can assist in bringing this madman to heel.”

  “How, Karl? How're you going to help me?”

  “Obviously, this Charon fellow wants to tie you up with autopsy upon autopsy while he is free to go on to his next killing,” Karl replied, his hands flying about. “I can give you freedom to move faster if you turn over all the autopsy work—hours of time, which the killer is using against you—to me.”

  “Why, Karl?” asked J.T. “So you can get your name in the papers?”

  “I won't lie to you. I'm writing a book right now on my most intriguing cases for Pentium Publishing. I have a contract. A chapter detailing how I worked closely with the great Dr. Jessica Coran won't hurt the book.”

  “Now it begins to make sense,” suggested J.T. with a cynical grin. “I thought so!”

  “In fact,” continued Repasi, “I was hoping you'd con­sent to doing an introduction for the book, Jessica If not, perhaps you, Dr. Thorpe.”

  Ignoring his request, feeling him ingenuous, she replied, “I'll consider your suggestion, Karl, but at the moment, I'm busy, Doctor.” She stepped up to the message on the sooty and this time cracked mirror, the surface of which looked like a roadmap with its spider web of crisscrossing cracks. This message, also written on greasy, fatty liquids, actually bulged outward, with sections of glass ready to peel apart and fall away. The message on the cracked mir­ror read:

  #4 is #6—Heretics “Pick up sticks,” she muttered to herself.

  “The fourth victim is a heretic?” asked Repasi, shaking his head. “Is this why she is burned far greater than those before? No, not exactly,” he continued. “The room was entirely engulfed, according to the fire investigator. It went to backlash.”

  “Back flash, you mean?” corrected Jessica.

  “Yes, back flash, flashover, creating of the room an oven of gases, which exploded inward. From there the fire spread.”

  “Something of a miracle the mirror only cracked and didn't explode,” she said, staring into the webbed lines that streaked across the lettering to make a mosaic of her reflection. “I'm surprised the whole place didn't go up in smoke.”

  “Fire has a mind of its own, they say. No two fires being exactly alike, like people, they say,” J.T. philoso­phized.

  Repasi added, “The units saved came as a result of speedy work on the fire department's part, after everyone was alerted by the explosion, and the fact one of the local trucks was at Ruby's for an all-night country jamboree and barbecue at the time.”

  “Anyone in adjoining rooms hurt?” she asked.

  He shook his head. “Just scared witless.”

  “I suppose they've been interviewed? Saw no one, heard nothing until the explosion?”

  “All of 'em have already departed this morning, but they left statements with the local authorities. They add nothing useful.”

  Jessica stepped to within inches of the bed where the Whitaker woman's black-sco
urged body lay in the familiar crumpled, fetal position. The superheated fire had reduced her body to near dwarf size, it seemed. Maybe the bastard burned himself badly on this one, she silently prayed. “Too bad his body's not amid the rubble,” she said aloud.

  “Will you allow me to help, Dr. Coran?” asked Repasi. “You'll see to it that copies of your protocols follow me?”

  “I will indeed.”

  “Then it's a deal.”

  “Jess!” complained J.T.

  “Karl's right, John. We need the freedom to move quickly. I can't be tied up in another autopsy, which is going to tell me nothing I don't already know, so... so let's get out of here.”

  “But Jess...”

  Ignoring J.T.'s whining, Jessica stepped out of the crime scene and rushed to the nearby restaurant, where she plopped into a booth. J.T. chased after her and found her nursing black coffee. “You going to drink that whole pot alone?”

  “Help yourself.”

  “You okay, Jess?” he asked, sliding into the booth.

  “Stop asking that.”

  “Sure, sure... whatever you say.” He poured himself a cup of black coffee, lifted the cup, chinked it against hers, and said, “Cheers.”

  “I'm sorry,” she apologized. “This case is driving me mad.”

  J.T. looked up at the pretty waitress whose shadow fell across the table. “Well, hello,” he said.

  “May I get your breakfast order?” she asked.

  “Nothing else for me,” Jessica replied.

  J.T. ordered two eggs over easy, hash browns, and ba­con.

  “You ever going to get that cholesterol down, J.T.?” Jessica said as the waitress hurried off.

  Pouring himself more coffee, he asked, “What's our next move, Jess? We can't simply just wait for him to dump another body at our footsteps.”

  “That's exactly what he's doing, isn't it?” she asked, her eyes displaying a revelation. “He's wanting us to trail him, so he leaves a trail of bodies, but where do they ultimately lead? If we knew that, then maybe we could get a step ahead of him. Do you still have that area map you've been carrying around?”

  “Got it right here,” he replied, snatching the map from his coat pocket.

  “We've got to predict his next stopover. Where he will next kill, and try like hell to stop him before he does it again.”

  “But how?” J.T. pleaded. “How're we going to do that?”

  “What if he's on one of these tour buses coming and going out of these parks, J.T.? What if he was on one the other morning, pulling out of Page at Wahweap Lodge? He may well have seen me, or you, or both of us. That's how he knew I wasn't the one on the phone back in Vegas where he called. He knew it going in; and that's how he knew to find me at Wahweap Lodge last night, to log his last call.”

  “If that's the case—”

  “Then he's been yanking our chains right along. It's time to turn this chase around. Let me study that map.”

  FOURTEEN

  To a man who is afraid, everything rustles.

  —Sophocles

  Over coffee and J.T.'s breakfast plate, they discussed tour­ist points on the map, of which there were too many to count. They discussed what they so far knew about the killer, each comparing the notes of the other. They dis­cussed the new message on the mirror and how it fit with the others, J.T. displaying it on his notepad. To date, the list now read:

  #1 is #9—Traitors

  #2 is #8—Malicious Frauds

  #3 is #7—Violents

  #4 is #6—Heretics

  “Now, logically speaking, his next victim will be num­ber five, right, Jess?”

  “We can't let that happen.”

  “Bear with me, here, Jess. If his next victim is number five, and it follows as it has been going, then we can pre­dict part of his next message will be”—he interrupted himself to add to the list—”this. Right?”

  Jessica looked down at his added line, which read:

  #5 is #5

  “Interesting juxtaposition, wouldn't you say, how five crosses five?” he asked.

  “Yeah, but what does it mean? How does it help us to stop the bastard?”

  J.T. bit his lower lip, frowning. “I don't know... yet....”

  With maps and tour bus guides laid out across the table, they continued the brainstorming session they'd begun. “J.T., you think it's just a coincidence that two of the victims were traveling on touring buses?”

  “Yeah, I have to agree. It is a bit strange, but each victim, Melvin Martin and Eloise Whitaker, were using different tour bus companies.”

  “Still, the two buses interweaved from sight-seeing point to sight-seeing point.”

  J.T. considered this, sipping at his coffee. “Yeah. You saw how many buses were pulling out of the lot here this morning?”

  “I saw, all right. One almost ran me down.”

  “Maybe the killer's that bus driver.” Jessica replied with a slight shake of the head, “More likely to be a less than remarkable passenger. Besides, come to think of it, being run over by a monster bus like that, it'd be too easy a way for me to go, so far as this guy's concerned. He wants me to suffer along with what— nine other victims?”

  “You think he'll stop at nine?”

  “Unless he plans to spin on nine and take it back down to one.”

  “I'm going to do some checking about these bus tour lines. See what I can find out about them,” J.T. suggested.

  “Do that. As I recall, that Pierson woman whom Chris Lorentian stayed with said Chris was in the process of— or had gotten—tickets for both of them to escape Vegas. I had assumed she meant plane tickets, but bus tickets would have done just as well.”

  “Hey, that's right.”

  “And there've been buses loading and unloading around us since... well, since Vegas.”

  “My God. If this is true, the killer took Chris Loren­tian's ticket and is traveling on her reservation.”

  “Contact all the bus lines and run down Lorentian's itinerary, and we may know the killer's next destination. Short of that, check also for anyone with the name Charon or Nessus traveling by bus.”

  “That might take some time.”

  Jessica gritted her teeth, but looking across the room, she saw her old friend the tour guide Ronny Ropers. She scooted from the booth seat and rushed for the tour guide, asking, “Where do the buses go from here?”

  Ropers, looking confused, his hands in the air, asked, “Which buses? They all go in different directions.”

  “What's tonight's destination for those heading north?”

  “Salt Lake City for some; Pocatello, Idaho, for others; and Rock Springs, Wyoming, for others. Depends on site destinations.”

  “And those heading south?”

  “Where we came from, Zion National Park, Wahweap Lodge, Glen Canyon country, or a straight run to Vegas. Ultimately Vegas for most, Flagstaff for others.”

  “Salt Lake City,” she repeated while Ropers stared at her. It stood out as the largest northerly destination at the moment.

  She returned to J.T. “He's headed for Salt Lake. It's a large enough city. We could lose him forever, if he sud­denly decides to cut his losses and wishes to disappear, but I doubt that's his plan.”

  “What do we do?”

  She started away, saying over her shoulder, “Follow through on your plan. Check with the bus lines. Run down that ticket.”

  “And what are you going to do?” he asked, chasing after. “I'm going ahead to Salt Lake.”

  “Alone?”

  “I'll wire Bishop to meet me there.”

  “I don't know, Jess. I think we ought to stick together.”

  “J.T., that information on what bus line he's on will be vital. It will tell us not only his next destination but also the one after that. There's no way you can get that info while traveling to Salt Lake. We need to know Lor- entian's proposed itinerary and what hotels she would've been staying at, the same ones we hypothesize that he will be using in
her stead.”

  “But Jess!”

  She was making her way across the highway to the hel­icopter again. “Don't you see? That information is vital now, John. Get it! Meanwhile, I'll organize a strike force in Salt Lake, utilizing FBI headquarters there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  Over her shoulder, she called back, saying, “I'll call you here when I'm set up there.”

  “But Jess . .. Jess...”

  She had stopped listening and continued her march to the helicopter pad, determined now to be at the killer's next destination before him, glad that she had brought along an overnight bag along with her medical bag.

  J.T. discovered that many of the people staying at the hotels at or near national parks such as Bryce Canyon and Zion were indeed on one bus tour or another, that on any given night at least two and perhaps four or five tour buses lodged at Ruby Inn and Lake Powell's Wahweap as well. No surprises there. He also learned that like ships at sea, there were weary-worn routes all the buses took, but that some tours included side trips that others failed to take. All of this he learned from the clique of tour guides hang­ing about Ruby Inn. He also learned something of the his­tory of the inn, that it was a favorite haunt of cowboy and Western stars from Gene Autry and Roy Rogers to Audie Murphy and John Wayne. From the bus companies he'd contacted, he had heard from only three of seven so far, and none of them listed a Chris Lorentian, a Charon, or anyone named Nessus in any of various spellings on their manifests. It had been four hours since Jessica had left, and no word. He began to worry when Warren Bishop showed up at the inn, seeking Jessica.

  “Where is she?” Bishop asked J.T. where he sat before a phone in the manager's office.

  “Salt Lake City.”

  “Why Salt Lake?”

  “We believe—or rather, she believes it will be where he next kills.”

  “How does she know this?”

  “She doesn't, not exactly, but bear with me.”