Robert Walker - Bitter Instinct

“Then at least we know we have the right suspect this time,” the detective replied. “We won't let him out of our sight.”

“Or hearing,” Parry added. They climbed into the surveillance van and closed the doors just as Gordonn pulled into sight.

“It sure was hard to leave those photos behind,” Jessica said in frustration.

“You didn't leave much behind, Jessica,” Parry said, one eye on the returning Gordonn. Carrying a small plastic grocery bag, he stepped casually up to his door, unlocked it, took a moment to glance about to see if anyone was watching his comings and goings, and then disappeared through the door.

Parry continued to soothe Jessica. “What those photos represent is… well, it's just too nebulous, and a strong defense-team shrink could paint it as a healthy sign that Gordonn was strong enough, despite the trauma he suffered, to go back to research how his parents died.”

“And the part he played in their deaths?”

“He had no part in it. He was a child.”

“The dysfunctional family on overdrive involves every member.”

Parry shook his head. “The child was an innocent victim in a suicide pact made by his parents.”

“I am talking about the sordid, twisted family matrix of these three people. No, the child did not have any conscious part in it, but the parents were motivated by the child's being… just being, in every sense of the word. Existing in innocence, his angelic nature. They did it for him, seeing themselves as heroically saving the boy. His very innocence set his parents on the deadly path. And by now he knows this.”

“Sounds like a candidate for some serious psychoanalysis,” said Sturtevante.

“According to the story, each of them, including the child, had a poem incised on their back.”

“We'll have to get copies of the articles from the newspaper library.” Said that the mother wrote the poem into the back of her husband, and the husband into the back of the mother.”

“And the child?”

“No way to tell for certain which of the parents wrote on the child's back, but whichever parent it was, he or she intentionally withheld the poison, allowing the son to survive the suicide pact.”

“And the poems are similar to the ones the killer is using today,” added Parry.

“Whoever did the writing had not given the child the poison. Therefore, one of the parents must have balked at ending the child's life. Possibly as the partner lay dying, making the decision to allow the child to live at the last moment, possibly while feeling the first effects of the poisoned ink himself or herself.”

“Mother or father?” wondered Sturtevante, echoing Jessica's theory.

“And what difference does this make to Gordonn?” Parry asked.

“Possibly the answer to the question, the answer he is so desperately searching for. But for us, the more important question to our case, now that we're seeing victims all being poisoned in exactly the same manner, is why Gordonn sees a need to reenact such killings. I say there's enough evidence to involve the DA's office, maybe get an indictment,” Jessica told Parry.

“No, not necessarily,” Sturtevante said. “This story is public knowledge. Likely can be accessed through on-line sources-hell, likely isn't the word, absolutely can be accessed via the Inquirer's dot-com.”

Parry scratched his chin. “If Gordonn has shared this tale of the suicide pact of his parents and his own near death at their hands with people around him, any one of them could have taken the idea and run with it, including our friends at the college, Locke and Leare, or for that matter someone in the photography department, or Harriet Plummer, Professor Burrwith, anyone with whom George Gordonn may have had any dealings.”

“Or it could be Gordonn himself, acting out, repeating the twisted logic of his parents, who set him on this path as an infant,” Jessica insisted.

Parry calmed her, placing a gentle hand on each shoulder. “Remember your profiler training, Jess.”

“Of course I remember it. What about it?”

“It taught you that a killer will have a circle of attachments, acquaintances, friends or people he thinks are friends, relatives. Any one of these people could be using Gordonn, or Gordonn's story, for his own twisted ends.”

“According to records, Gordonn took photography courses at one of the local colleges. The University of Philadelphia-coincidentally.”

“It occurs to me he had to learn his specialty somewhere, yes. What are you getting at?”

“It's pretty obvious, Jim. All roads seem to lead us back to the university.”

Before Parry could respond to her words, Sturtevante interrupted. “Message coming through from Dr. Desinor. She has the warrant and is a block off. We have a go on bugging the place but a no-go on search and seizure. Best she could do. It would've been a serious mistake to have taken anything out of the home.”

Jessica nodded. “Got it.”

Leaving George Gordonn to a fresh surveillance team,

Jessica, Sturtevante, Parry, and Kim regrouped at PPD headquarters. There Jessica called in Peter Vladoc to look at the latest findings and make an assessment of George Gordonn, openly and honestly.

“My dear, Lord Byron's given name was George Gordon. Gordonn's mother's maiden name was Byron. Byron marries Harold Gordonn and the two would-be artists romantically concoct a quick exit from this world. As a photographic artist, Gordonn senior would have known the properties of selenium. The killings are based on this incident, but the story had been told in and around Philadelphia for so long that everyone considers it just another urban legend. Only thing is, young Gordonn researched his parents' death, and he learned that they intended for him to go out with them.”

“And you didn't think it relevant to tell us about this?”

“He's never threatened anyone in my presence; he's never admitted to being the Poet Killer, and he comes off as extremely well grounded, mentally speaking, for someone who began life as he did. Harmless, searching… these are words to describe George. Patient-doctor privilege forbids me to discuss our sessions in any but the most general of terms.”

“Ironic,” said Sturtevante.

“More like Byronic,” Vladoc countered. “Someone too fine, too delicate, too good for this world, too heroic in the sense of having the most exquisite of human sensibilities, an angelic nature too sublime to withstand the slings and arrows of this existence. That's what your killer thinks of his victims. Gordonn, on the other hand, detests what his parents did to him, leaving him alone in the world, and he hates them for attempting to kill him as well. A Byronic personality would be the last thing he would emulate.”

“But one of the parents actually saved him,” Jessica said. “Exactly, and he is wrestling with his ambivalence, and has from the outset of our talks attempted to leam which one showed him more mercy. You see, he has a right to be angry with his parents for deserting him as they did, leaving him to grow up alone.”

“Was he given to foster care?” asked Kim.

“His foster parents have since passed on; natural causes.”

“You're speaking as if you are certain Gordonn is not our killer,” said Sturtevante.

Jessica added, “As if the killer is a heroic person by mere virtue of being… sensitive to the supposed needs of his victims, Dr. Vladoc, and you don't believe Gordonn sensitive enough to be this killer?”

“Your killer is a worshiper of the angelic,” Vladoc countered. He nodded, his eyes going from Parry to each of the women investigators. “He sees himself this way, and sees each of his victims the same way.” His pause allowed them time to digest this.