Robert Walker - Pure Instinct

Dr. Coran's whiskey voice filled the room. “You'll have a perfect opportunity to help demonstrate in an ongoing investigation how effective collaboration might be between our usual scientific techniques and your own psychic techniques.”

Still suspicious of Zanek's motives, Kim wondered just how much of this show was a put-up job; were Dr. Coran and Paul Zanek close enough to have discussed his desire to rid himself of her for a time? Did Dr. Coran know about Paul's ultimate ambition to become head of the FBI someday? What did Jessica Coran think of Paul's dabbling in the “black arts” in order to get ahead? Was she among those who joked that Zanek was actually on the trail of how to turn ordinary tin into gold through the alchemy of Dr. Faith's mysterious laboratory?

When Kim failed to answer, Jessica Coran said, “No better place to prove a theory than in the field, Dr. Desinor.”

Or have you forgotten that you're an agent first? Kim flinched, filling in the trailing thought behind Jessica Coran's dare.

“ What's in it for me, Paul?” Kim asked. “Do I get that budget adjustment I've been requesting for the past year?”

He ignored this. “What's the alternative scenario, Kim?” Zanek now pressed the issue. “You sit here in Virginia, waiting for the case to go stale and cold like that damned Decatur mess? Then they bring it all to you in a shoe box? Come on, Kim, this is your big chance. Don't let petty concerns stand in your way.”

She took in a deep, long breath of air, still unsure of his motives and feeling slightly off balance with the others in the room. If he had made the suggestion to New Orleans brass two weeks before, then it was before Paul had decided to go back with his wife. Still, Paul could be lying about when he'd first contacted Stephens about her.

“ You're probably the best psychic detective working in America today, Dr. Desinor.” Stephens's attempt at flattery fell flat.

“ But nobody else of consequence outside the Bureau knows that, Kim, not yet,” Zanek continued. “And while we're determined here at the Bureau to keep our association with psychism a secret for the time being, there will come a day…” He turned to Stephens and explained. “The FBI isn't prepared to go on record as proponents of psychic detection just yet, you understand, so, sir, you'll have to honor our agreement on that score. She enters as a private citizen engaged by the NOPD to help shed light on the case.”

“ Maybe after the twenty-first century the Bureau will show some balls,” Jessica Coran snickered.

Zanek gritted his teeth, a glare slicing across at Jessica which he quickly covered. “Still, we don't deny the needs of law-enforcement agencies today,” Zanek continued in his most officious voice.

“ To help in your decision, Dr. Desinor,” Stephens countered, “please have a look at these items I brought for your… inspection.” Richard Stephens's well-manicured hands now reached for three brown metal-clasp envelopes. He laid them out on Zanek's desk. Two of the packs were neatly creased and lay flat, while the third bulged with what appeared to be and sounded like metallic objects-likely a junk collection from a New Orleans police property room, Kim decided.

Stephens then tore open the first envelope and displayed its flat contents: an array of horrid police photos, one after another, of murdered young men, boys really. Two of the photos displayed bodies in remote, heavily wooded areas, their backs to the lens, faces turned away, features lost. The additional two dead teens lay on brightly colored, silken sheets, lying on their backs, their torsos half covered in bloody bedding. The fifth and sixth victims had actually been beheaded.

“ Can you, from these photos, tell me anything at all about these cases?” pressed Stephens.

She inched closer, on the edge of her seat, staring down at the photos now, the others watching her intently. She lifted each photo one at a time, her eyes closing now while her fingers wandered lazily across the placid and glossy surfaces. Something about such crime-scene photos touched people in a mysterious, dark corner of the brain, giving the mind over to the same sensation as when viewing a supposed UFO photo or a so-called ghost captured on film, but here, in a real photo shot of a real victim of violent crime, there seemed to be an aura about the corpse.

“ They are all victims of the same killer… except this one.” She discarded one of the two photos of boys found beheaded and lying in a forested area. Stephens's bushy eye-brows danced in response.

Jessica caught the unconscious body language and saw that Kim didn't miss it either. She quickly grabbed the second photo of the other beheaded boy and tossed it aside as well, saying, “This one too.”

“ Parlor tricks,” remarked Zanek. “Now try her on something substantial.”

“ The others are all related. At least the NOPD believes they are all victims of the same killer,” Kim continued, her eyes closing now, her fingers still reading the photos. “There is some awful common denominator which ties these victims and their killer together. He takes their vitality… their energy… identity… eats from their wounds… if not literally, figuratively feeds on them. I see strange crosses… black, rising birds…”

“ Then he's cannibalizing them?” asked Stephens.

“ Crosses?” asked Jessica.

“ I see large crosses, marching crosses… living crosses ablaze with fire.”

Stephens's eyes lit up. “What're you saying? That the KKK has something to do with the Queen of Hearts slayings?”

“ I just know what I see… crosses marching.”

“ Anything else?” asked Jessica.

“ These four were brutalized… sex organs amputated, and their hearts were cut out. Killer left his calling card, a queen of hearts.”

“ All information known to the public,” Stephens said, a little disappointed.

“ It's an unusual playing card, however,” she added. “Not plastic or paper product, something… softer, even… lacy?”

Information on the nature of the killer's calling card was not generally known, and had purposely been kept from the press and public, held back along with a few other particulars in order that a confession might more easily be dismissed or taken seriously.

Kim looked squarely into Stephens's eyes, reaching into his soul, and asked, “Does the killer make the cards? Does he stitch them out of yarn or silken string?”

Stephens was visibly unnerved. Swallowing became his preoccupation now, but to regroup, he quickly busied himself by placing aside the second flat envelope and going directly to the rumpled third, the lumpy one.

“ Well, Stephens?” Zanek pressed. “Is she onto something or not?”

Stephens breathed deeply and exhaled his answer. “Yes, remarkably accurate. Investigators have theorized that the uniqueness of the cards left in the cadavers marks them as personally handmade by the killer. They've been unable to locate their like in any novelty shop in the city. But you missed on one of the victims. He wasn't among the victims of the card-carrying killer, since no card was left with his body.”

This left Kim Desinor shaking her head, doubtful.

With fingers growing thicker by the moment, Stephens now shakily opened the unkempt brown envelope, spilling out its contents over the photos. A cascade of seemingly unrelated items skittered across Paul Zanek's desk: trinkets, keys and key rings, bracelets and swatches, rosary beads and necklaces, rings and earrings-one pair a set of crosses, another a purposeful mismatch or mishmash of satanic amulets-New Wave trinkets, skulls and crossbones; added to this were vials of makeup and lipstick, compact mirrors, assorted colorful combs, brushes, cigarette packs, colorful metal cigarette holders, intricate and delicate lighters, matchboxes, a broken pair of pumps, eyeglasses, a grip purse and feminine watches. Rounding out this montage now littering Paul's desktop were theater stubs, crumpled granola wrappers and several plastic playing cards, all the queen of hearts, all fakes, which Stephens now quickly scooped up and put away in a show of good grace under fire. Many of the items looked to belong to females.