Robert Walker - Bitter Instinct

“But she did not sleep around,” Sturtevante added to correct any false impression Jim may have left. “All the friends say the same: they know no one who would have wanted to harm her.”

“You don't understand,” complained Kim, still lying prone. “Their love was transcendent… transcendental. Not your normal boy-girl relationship, not based on sex.”

'Transcendental? I always took that to mean finding a way to get out of your dental bills, or that it was an insurance company-Occidental Transcendental, something like that,” quipped Parry.

The others, glad for something to laugh at, laughed at Parry's lame joke, except for Kim, who remained stonily silent, and Jessica, clearly remaining aloof from any joke Parry had to make about anything.

What then?” asked Parry. “Did they cut into one another with this poison pen in a pact of some sort? Did they read poetry together, only he chickened out and bailed? That doesn't explain the other two deaths.”

“No, it's not a suicide pact, since the killer obviously isn't willing to include himself in it,” countered Sturtevante, vigorously shaking her head.

“But it might explain how he gets them to this point,” suggested Jessica. “Conning them into a pact, then bailing.”

“Perhaps the victims went first, and were under the impression he would follow, but once the poison is introduced, our man steps off,” added Shockley. “Not a bad theory.” Kim shook her head. “He loved her, too.”

“Loved her, yeah, enough to kill her,” Sturtevante commented. “I've seen it before. Love kills.”

“Got that right,” Parry agreed.

“No, no. He loved her too much, too much to allow her a moment's suffering,” insisted Kim. “At least in his head.”

“What suffering?” asked Parry. “She was in perfect health, according to Shockley. Right, Doctor?”

Shockley nodded repeatedly, saying, “Perfect health, yes.”

Kim remained adamant about the feelings she'd received from the corpse. “All I know is that he… he killed her, poisoned her, out of love, and the suffering she felt was of the soul, not the body.”

“Loved her right into her grave? Is that what you're saying?” asked Sturtevante.

Parry gritted his teeth. “Do you really expect us to believe that?”

Jessica wanted to tell him a thing or two about love, but she held back. Kim clawed her way to a sitting position and replied, “Believe what you will, but I haxe to follow what my intuition tells me.”

“He killed her because he loved her? You psychics are all alike; you deal in double-talk.”

Kim shot back, “These are my honest impressions, Chief Parry. Not double talk.” Kim made it clear Parry's position as Philly's top-ranking FBI field operative didn't intimidate her.

“Lieutenant Sturtevante,” began Parry, “you buying any of this? You think this guy killed three people because he loved them?”

“That he so loved them that he killed them for it?” She mulled over the idea for a moment. “My team has looked into the boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend, and both of 'em have come up clean with solid alibis.”

“What about other acquaintances?” asked Jessica.

“Of course we're looking into every acquaintance we learn about, but getting information out of people takes time. So far, nothing has shaken out.”

“I want to see the other bodies,” Jessica replied. “See what, if anything, they have to tell us. Kim, you can rest here, regain your energies.” Got a little cold inside her. Strange… I again kept getting the single word rampage, as in the other reading.”

“Rampage,” Jessica repeated. “I wonder what it is, this rampage…”

“Micellina,” said Shockley.

“What's that?” asked Kim.

“Her name… Micellina Petryna.”

“Even her name is beautiful,” Jessica said.

“As was-is-her soul,” Kim added.

“She was striking,” Jessica agreed, “in her near perfection.”

Parry stared longer at the body.

“If you like that body type,” Sturtevante said to Jessica.

Jessica nodded. “Apparently our killer does… like that long, lean look.”

“Whoever's doing this, he writes to each victim, creates a new poem for each,” said Sturtevante, “and an expert in poetry I'm working with says the poems are excellent examples of what's going on among the young nowadays, that typically adolescent interest in the dark side, in death and the beyond, and a search for absolute perfection and peace, and maybe the meaning of life.”

“But the result is death,” Jessica countered. ^, r Who is this expert you're working with?”

“A friend at the University of Philadelphia who teaches poetry and writes it as well, a Dr. Donatella Leare. In fact, she has given me many insights into the killer. I'll leave her notes with you.”

“That would be helpful. Thanks.”

“Shall we visit the next victim?” asked Kim, standing now on wobbly feet.

“Not you. You've had enough.”

“I've only just begun. Out of my way, Coran.” Kim pushed past her friend and colleague, asking Shockley, “Will you please lead the way, Doctor?” One step, however, and Kim nearly fainted; the session had taken more of a toll on her strength than she cared to admit. Jessica helped her back down to a sitting position. “Get her some water, a Coke, something.”

Parry rushed out to do her bidding to a chorus of “Sorry, sorry,” coming from Kim.

Jessica now sat hunched over a desk, staring at Dr. Leonard Shockley's protocols on each of the victims. The others had all disappeared, each, in a sense, off to follow his or her own nose, his or her own separate leads. Jessica's instincts told her that more could be learned through the patterns left behind by the killer, and any similarities she could find or infer among his victims. These could only be ascertained by studying the reams of paper. Research was mining for small nuggets of information that led to a shock of recognition, nuggets of details and specifics that, taken altogether, might point in a direction. The first step in any journey is the hardest, but it may also be the step most filled with discovery. She recalled how her father had put it. Her mentor in forensics, Dr. Asa Holcraft, had put it more succinctly: “Baby steps. Go lightly. Crawl if you have to.”

Neither Leanne Sturtevante nor James Parry needed to remain at the crime lab morgue, and Kim had been physically and emotionally drained by her earlier experience with the deceased. She had a time-out coming, but she refused to leave the building, remaining on Shockley's ottoman. There she now rested with the intention of finding out what she could from the second victim before leaving altogether. Jessica had begun studying the paperwork in anticipation of Kim's return.

Jessica was secretly glad that Kim had not revealed that they believed the poem on each victim somehow connected, as if they were part of one long dirge that had been divided into discrete sections. After everyone had gone, Jessica suggested to Kim that they keep this theory between themselves for the time being. She had also told Kim that perhaps the number nineteen, which kept insinuating itself into her visions, might be the number of victims or sections of the poem, or both. Kim agreed that this could indeed be a possibility.

Going over the bodies and the protocols Dr. Shockley had created, Jessica again drew a bead on the absolutely healthy condition of the victims, each a sad loss-of the sort doctors hated to see-for none of them, male or female, had so much as a gallstone to worry their insides, and not so much as a mole to worry their outsides. Excellently proportioned, artistically so, their lithe, sculptured bodies reminded her of marble statues in a museum.