Absolute Instinct (6 page)

“
Oh, yes, of course,” she'd chided back.

“
But it's that simple.”

“
And do you have any idea how foolish that'd make me look?”

“
Foolish?”

“
Take my word for it. It'd go over real big with the people I'd be supervising. Me dropping in from the sky each morning onto the roof like... like some cross between Tinkerbell and... and—”

“
Superwoman, of course, and why not, like an avenging angel each day, still fighting crime yet capable of maintaining a stable—well, almost stable—home life. It would befit you, descending on the state crime lab,” he had quipped.

“
As an angel of vengeance?”

“
We'll arrange for wings to go with your lab coat.”

They had begun to talk more frequently of marriage, but as yet they had not set a date. Things were simply too good between them to spoil or to risk spoiling, and so they remained lovers and friends rather than man and wife. Although they had passed the ongoing test of having lived together now, happily, for six months, each felt a reserve of emotion that feared the litmus test of actual marriage vows. Vows changed things. Upped the ante. And for now, they were happy and having fun, something Jessica hadn't known for a long time, and she feared losing that even to a marriage certificate.

Richard's own consulting work had made a diplomat of him, taking him to the far corners of the earth on various missions for the State Department—missions cloaked in secrecy. He primarily trained other intelligence forces across the globe in the tactics of Scotland Yard and the FBI. And while he was busy at the far-flung corners of the planet, Jessica's work sent her to such holes-in-the-wall and armpits as Paris, Texas; Rome, Georgia; Corinth, Mississippi; and even Hong Kong, New Jersey—with its claim to a six-story, Disneyesque McDonald's with a decidedly Asian theme replete with the two-headed dragon Ferris wheel.

And now, Portland, Oregon, or Millbrook, Minnesota, might well be her next stopovers if Darwin had his way. If the killing here in Milwaukee appeared the work of a maniac some years back who had dispatched someone else in the very same manner. In the Portland, Oregon, case, the victim's husband now awaited lethal injection for her murder. As with the Milwaukee case, the salient feature of the crime, of course, was the missing spinal cord that'd been literally ripped from the Portland woman's back, the rack of bones stolen and never recovered. Something similar had occurred in a small town in Minnesota as well, and Darwin appeared bent on building a reputation for himself by tying the cases together and hunting down the real killer, a serial killer in his mind, someone other than the man on death row in Oregon.

On meeting the enthusiastic Darwin at the airport, the huge black agent had begun to spout on about how he had read the FBI bulletins and the Journal of Forensic Sciences relating every detail of every case Jessica had ever worked, and he had been loud about it, his voice booming across the tarmac as he shouted her name in a mantra of praise, “Jessica Coran! I can't believe it. Jessica Coran, here, in Milwaukee. Jessica Coran. I cut my eyeteeth on your crime-scene techniques book! God, Jessica Coran. I'm working with Jessica Coran!”

His enthusiasm was infectious. She blushed and accepted his praise.

Later, in the car on the way to the crime scene, he leaned into her and near whispered, “I tell you, I am so absolutely and instinctively certain of my ground—that these cases are related.”

“
Let me be the judge of that, Darwin. It's what I'm here to determine, remember?”

Now they were here in the death room, and the noise and chatter around Jessica rose and fell with the predominantly male crime-scene unit people giving voice to feelings similar to Jessica's own. No one had ever seen such inhuman injustice done to a victim. The corpse did not always have everyone's sympathy, such as the Diamondback, Louisiana, father who had brutalized and raped his own children and had been murdered by his children and son-in-law when they schemed to get him into a New Jersey junkyard with mad dogs they had infected with rabies. The murder had worked but the cover-up had not, and while no one in Diamondback mourned the monster's passing, the responsible parties were brought to trial.

No, the corpse seldom had every man and woman in the place wanting vengeance for her. But this one did, as if her ghost had plunged a cold dagger into each detective's heart to make even the jaded feel again—even if it was a sharp iciness. Even the hesitancy with which the official FBI photographer's camera clicked, unlike the usual frenetic snap-snap-snap of each frame, spoke volumes about the awful horror and sheer awe that this killing engendered. Jessica tried to imagine worse, but she simply could not. Perhaps at an inquest in 1888 London during which the mutilated body of a Ripper victim was displayed before the gallery, literally hooked to a wall for all to see the brutality. At least today, authorities treated the body with the professional courtesy and reverence it deserved, taking all precaution to preserve the dignity and to keep it in as intact a form as humanly possible under the rigors of an autopsy. In fact, laws had been enacted since the days of Jack the Ripper to safeguard and maintain that very integrity.

Reynolds came to stand near her, and he said, “Are you all right, Dr. Coran?”

Her nod was a lie. “In the old days... not so old, really, a hundred and fifty odd years ago, when something of this nature occurred, people in the immediate vicinity... anyone who'd had anything whatsoever to do with the deceased—friends, relatives, neighbors, landlords—came to the inquest. Only thing missing was the popcorn.”

“
Yeah, it was like a public forum, a hearing?”

“
Like, no... It was a public forum, an inquiry into cause of death. Conducted much like a trial today.”

“
We sure don't need an inquest here.” He indicated the body. “Fairly obvious here, wouldn't you say?” Reynolds's Midwestern twang made him a native, and his tall frame placed him a head taller than Jessica. He had black-on-blue eyes, piercing, questioning. Any woman could get lost in them. A powerful build, he stood at just over six-foot-four, and his close-cropped hair accented a wide, intelligent forehead.

“
Here, you oughta put this on.” She handed him a hair net from her bag.

As Jessica searched her valise for a pair of gloves for him, she added, “I've read about the bizarre proceedings at the death inquiries in the cases of Jack the Ripper.”

Accepting the hair net and a surgical mask and a set of gloves, Reynolds replied, “Ol' Jacko's got nothing on our Milwaukee, Wisconsin, boy... least not in the butchery department.”

“
Agreed, but why the spine?”

“
That's why you're here, Dr. Coran, to tell us exactly that. You're the profiling expert.”

“
Thanks, but this... this defies any profile on record.”

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Not quite. There're two other cases that we know of in which women have literally lost a backbone.”

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Yes, Oregon... the guy on death row. And the other? Some Minnesota woman?”

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Yes, and this very same pattern emerges in each case. Also, Millbrook, Minnesota, is only three hundred miles from Milwaukee.”

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But Portland... That's over half a continent away, and you think this guy in Oregon innocent, wrongly convicted—”

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Towne, Robert Towne.”

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You believe him innocent. That it's all a mistake. His arrest, trial, conviction?”

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Larger mistakes have happened in the judicial system of Portland, Oregon, especially where black men are concerned.”

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Then Towne is black?”

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Yes, he is as black as... as me.”

“
But suppose Towne did it to copycat the Minnesota killing? And by extension, suppose someone here did it to copycat Towne for some sick, perverted reason?”

“
Three separate guys tearing out backbones? I don't buy it.”

“
Stick to your guns, Agent. I like that in a man,” Jessica said.

“
There's more than happenstance and coincidence at work here. I feel it in my bones. No pun intended.”

“
Trust me, none taken.”

Two photographers were snapping pictures now, one centered on the body and everything in relation to it, every stationary point of reference. The other cameraman fired off shots of the bloody mop propped against the wall beside the door where presumably the killer exited, leaving his wake of blood. Photographic shots from all angles exploded one after another, the photographers having latched on to competition as a way to get past the horror of their subject.

From somewhere down the hall, the sad melody of a Hank Williams tune droned on, the words a surreal fit: “the mooooon just went be-hind a cloud to hiiiiide its face and cry... I'm so lonesome I-ah could die...”

More shots of the body from all angles. The second photographer now took shots of the swirls of blood on the carpet. She looked from the busy photographers and back to Reynolds, but he had stepped away. Special Agent X. Darwin Reynolds now stood alongside Dr. Ira Sands, the Milwaukee M.E., and together they studied several cellophane-wrapped charcoal sketches.

At first, Jessica assumed the sketches were created by a police artist, but Darwin informed her, “We believe her killer drew them and left them behind.”

Now everything about the case felt surreal, even her thumbing through these lovely charcoal sketches. Sketches left by the Spine Thief himself. “Why'd he do it? Take the time to do all these?”

“
And when did he do them?” asked Reynolds.

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Are they telling us something? Are they his con? How he wormed his way past the threshold?” Jessica mused aloud.

“
Dr. Coran... like to introduce you to Dr. Ira Sands.” Reynolds stood between them, the obvious message being that she and Sands should work together.

Sands instantly shot out his hand and took hers, pumping it in a vise grip, his smile wide and welcoming. “We are so lucky to have you, Dr. Coran, so very fortunate indeed. I've read all your abstracts and bulletins.”

“
Thank you, Dr. Sands. I've heard only good things about your crime lab.” Jessica knew that paying him this compliment was the highest praise he sought, as it was with any M.E.

“
My lab is at your disposal, of course.”

“
That's wonderful to hear. Thank you, Dr. Sands.” Like every FBI field lab boss, Sands thought the government-issue lab was his and his alone. She prayed he was being genuine and not simply politically correct.

The short, stocky Dr. Sands said, “Beginning with these”—Sands pointed at the sketches of a dog and the dead woman in Jessica's hand— “we are covering every base.”

Nodding, Jessica again examined the finely drawn, beautifully wrought charcoal drawings of the victim, three in all, one of a frolicking golden retriever chasing birds and two depicting the same dog with the victim in different poses, kissing and hugging one another.

“
Where's the dog?” she asked.

“
Animal control took him out,” said the heavyset Wyatt Abrams, the Milwaukee police chief, who'd introduced himself downstairs where he'd been taking a smoke break. “Poor dog had matted blood all over him from sleeping up against her for a week. 'Fraid he... ahhh... gnawed on some of the flesh cutaway from the woman, too, but you can't blame the animal.”

“
Animal instinct,” she muttered.

“
No, the SOB of a landlord let the dog howl for days before he decided to check on things, and even then only after the stench caught his attention.”

Darwin Reynolds took the sketches from Jessica and handed her another set, but these additional six were faxes. “From the other two cases, and I'd bet my pension it's the same artist leaving his calling card.”

“
Two other cases not here in Milwaukee?” commented Sands, rolling his aged eyes.

Chief Abrams exploded with, “I think Reynolds is reaching.”

“
Never discount gut instincts,” Jessica countered, coming to Reynolds's defense. “My own have served me well over the years.”

Smiles all around except for the stodgy chief, his forehead a road map of confusion. “Unfortunately, the law doesn't work that way, and neither does it put a man away for no good reason. We gotta trust the authorities in Oregon are every bit as competent as we are.”

“
And just how competent is that?” joked Sands, laughing lightly to himself.

Reynolds's eyes showed rage, but he spoke with cool reserve. “Competent? Like the Smollen case, and the Byrd case before that? Competent? Try incompetent nincompoops. I tell you, Wyatt, they've got the wrong man on death row for this, and now it's a certainty. Given this murderer's robbing his victim of her spine.”

Reynolds had peaked Jessica's curiosity, but Dr. Sands said, “Look, Darwin, for the moment, we have our hands full with this fucking mess”—he indicated the horrid mangled body a few feet from them—”and we're losing light, and I haven't eaten anything since my morning coffee roll, so if you don't mind. Dr. Coran, let's get down to business, shall we?” Sands swept his arm out in a gesture that said, You first.

Jessica went to the body and knelt beside it. Dr. Ira Sands did likewise across from her. She saw that the hefty local coroner wanted to get nearer. “Darwin,” he near whispered to Jessica, “is on a tear to prove this is the third such death in a series, but I've seen nothing to convince me of it. Regardless, we have enough in hand for the moment, wouldn't you agree?”