Robert Walker - Pure Instinct

“ More parlor games?” an exasperated Paul Zanek asked.

But Kim Desinor put up a hand to Paul's objections, stepping up to the littered desk and lightly sifting through the debris of wasted human lives. She picked over it, saying, “All the victims liked dressing up as women, didn't they?” Still, she browsed the flea-market items on Paul's desk, trying to find something that might speak to her. She discarded the grip purse and several of the jewelry items almost immediately, saying they were “not genuine.”

“ Did you bring any of the cards? The genuine ones, I mean?”

“ I didn't have time to get the real ones from the M.E. Crime lab's still running tests on 'em, but that all seems rather hopeless at this point,” Stephens explained.

“ Wait a minute, back up there,” said Jessica. “Do you mean you couldn't get hold of any of the cards?”

“ No, sorry. I couldn't.”

“ You've got problems in your lab then,” she assured him.

“ We… we are aware of some problems in the M.E.'s office, yes, and we're working to rectify them immediately, I assure you. Dr. Coran.”

“ I can understand why it'd be impossible to get one of the recent cards, but why can't you put your hands on one of the earlier ones?” Jessica continued.

“ Let's just say that the evidence hasn't always been handled with the care that it deserved… at the time.”

Jessica blanched and nodded, understanding only too well, recalling the intricacies of such problems in the New York crime lab when she was there, as well as the more recent political roadblocks she'd faced in Honolulu. She shouldn't expect less from New Orleans, she silently cautioned herself. Meanwhile, Dr. Desinor had discarded more than half the additional items before she touched a unique handmade rosary. It held a stunning unusual cross with an inlaid crystal, something your usual Catholic wouldn't wear since crystals were normally associated with mysticism, going counter to Catholic teaching, despite the indoctrinated and institutionalized superstitions of the Church itself. At any rate, the crystal made the cross and beads an interesting, eye-catching piece for Kim. It made the rosary something of an oddity, a maverick piece amid the typical clutter of a victim's pockets turned inside out.

Jessica also wondered about its owner.

Kim found the crystal nicely weighted and warm to the touch, either the mineral stone or her own body temperature the source. Either way, it sent out emanations. She held firmly to it and concentrated.

“ Only some of this clutter comes from the victims. This rosary came from the very first victim's neck.”

Stephens filled his lungs now and puffed up, feeling relieved that the woman was human, that she was capable of a mistake. After all he'd seen and heard so far, he had almost begun to believe in wizards and witchcraft, and now suddenly he was not so uncomfortable as before. He now rocked on the balls of his feet as if winning a point.

Jessica noticed the unconscious clue, and wasn't surprised to hear Dr. Desinor correct herself. “No… not his neck. Found near the body, between the legs perhaps.”

“ That's very good, Dr. Desinor, but sorry, you're wrong this time. Nobody bats a thousand, as they say. This particular piece belongs to the unrelated, unsolved murder case. The case I mentioned before? Wherein there was no playing card left at the scene?”

She continued. “Crosses. It says look for the cross or crosses, flaming crosses.”

“ More with the crosses,” Zanek mentioned. “That could be significant.”

“ But I told you,” Stephens continued, “that this piece is unrelated, that it's a control piece.”

“ Crosses that madly march on,” Kim repeated. Not hearing him? wondered Jessica. Or not wanting to hear him?

“ What kind of crosses?” Zanek pressed on as if he expected to solve the baffling case here and now.

“ I would assume New Orleans is full of crosses,” said Jessica, unsure of Dr. Desinor now. “Church towers, graveyards, any number of windmill-type displays, crossroads even.”

“ What kind of crosses are you talking about, Doctor?” Zanek pressed now, as if on a scent, acting as a facilitator, leading her on.

“ Living crosses, burning crosses, crosses of blood and bile and tissue…”

“ Jesus, that sounds like KKK from where I come from,” repeated Stephens. “And the KKK are known gay-bashers, but as I said…”

“ Can't be sure…don't know for certain… unclear…” Kim Desinor was now saying. Suddenly she felt a sharp pang of fear and terror that sent her body into a paroxysm of rigidity. “Oh, Christ… God… help me! I'm cutting…he's… he's bleeding… I'm cutting and he's bleeding everywhere, God! God's blood everywhere!”

Jessica at first thought she saw Kim Desinor acting out the part of a helpless victim, warding off blows and trying desperately to defend herself with her bare hands against her psychic attacker, but on second look, Jessica saw a much different image: Dr. Desinor had become the attacker now, and she was raining blows with two clenched fists over some imagined victim at her feet. She went to her knees to better destroy her enemy, wielding the rosary still entwined in her grasp as if it were an enormous and powerful weapon in her hands.

The psychic's blows against Zanek's carpeting were so filled with rage, enmity and energy that Jessica was mesmerized by the powerful image that Kim Desinor now presented.

The woman's hands repeatedly flew skyward, and with the power of a U.S. Open tennis player, using both hands, she continued to maniacally stab at some unseen object before her. Then she suddenly collapsed and writhed, until a shocked Jessica rushed to her and worked feverishly to pry loose her grasp on the black rosary beads and the crystal cross.

Stephens, while both overawed and afraid, cried out, “What's happening?”

“ Who do you see? What does he look like? Can you make out his features?” Zanek pleaded, having gone to his knees alongside Kim and Jessica now he'd wrapped his arms about Kim, forcing her to end it as he rocked her there in his arms, telling her she was safe, that he had her, that they were in his office and nothing could harm her here.

Kim went limp in his embrace, and for a moment Jessica thought they looked like lovers.

“ God,” Zanek said to Jessica, “I've never seen her react like this before. Something evil about that thing.” He indicated the black rosary beads attached to the crystal, dangling now from Jessica's hand.

“ Is she all right? My God, I had no idea…”

“ She's all right,” said Zanek. “She's all right.”

Kim was coming back, but her mouth hung open, slack with fear and gasping.

“ It… it doesn't make sense…” Stephens began, wide-eyed, licking his lips. “The damned rosary came from a murder scene over a year old. Belonged to the victim according to the manifest, a separate unrelated case.”

“ Well, maybe you better look at it again,” suggested Zanek, angry with the other man's reaction.

“ No…” muttered Kim.

“ What?” asked Zanek.

“ No what?” added Stephens, hovering now.

“ No… no,” she countered. “It… the rosary belongs to the killer.”

“ Christ, are you sure?” Stephens asked.

“ Yes, I'm… quite sure.” Stephens's skepticism remained intact, as did Jessica's. Even if Kim were right about the rosary, she might simply have gotten vibes about a separate killer on the earlier case. It was highly improbable that such a killer, so filled with hatred for gay men, would go on a one-year hiatus, unless he'd gone to another territory and returned. And suggesting an actual link between cases on the basis of a psychic seizure didn't seem to Jessica what a detective or a court of law might call concrete evidence.