Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

The slightest pressure on the water-soaked corpse stripped off such vital portions as the nails and epidermal skin layer, some of which had miraculously held. He believed that if he were extremely careful fingerprints could be had from one or both hands, since the next layer of skin below the epidermis had miraculously remained intact- soupy, but intact. If he could cut away the fingertips and drop them into a preservative now, he’d have them. But it would take everything he had and another pair of hands. Unfortunately, his two assistants were on yet a third drowning victim call, likely just that-a drowning victim. Perhaps even the body which Coran and Santiva had surrounded was a simple drowning victim. He dared not think that they had three murder victims in one bright morning here. He knew for certain that door number two-this victim-was like those murdered before her. The rope burns about the wrists and neck would no doubt become evident when, back at the crime lab, Coudriet removed the ropes which still clung to the deceased, trailing ribbons of torture and abuse.

He had at first considered this a copycat killing because of the thick nylon ropes dangling about the body’s throat and tied hands, but closer examination had determined this to be the work of the Night Crawler. Of this, he was certain.

The tail ends of the ropes at both neck and hands floated in serpentine loops, two trapped black vipers.

Removing the ropes here and now would only cause a further loss of tissue, and coloration with it, to the water. Best to leave well enough alone. Still, the cause of death was as evident to him as the glare of the sun over the water’s sparkling surface, despite the bloating and the folds of tissue which worked so hard at masking the features and the facts.

“ I’ll need another man here!” he shouted over his shoulder. “A volunteer, someone experienced and capable.” Even as he shouted it, he wondered who was experienced in such horror.

One of the paramedics didn’t hesitate, wading out into the water in a pair of boots she’d donned earlier, announcing, “I’m your woman, Dr. Coudriet.”

Coudriet found himself staring back at a woman who looked like a housewife in a Pillsbury doughboy ad, her plump form and chubby cheeks offset by the stern and steely gaze of a woman who meant business despite her pleasant, white-toothed smile. “Serena Hoytler, Dr. Coudriet. I’ve hauled a few corpses to you over the years. I’ll be happy to assist in any way I can.”

He didn’t recognize her, but then he seldom mixed with the paramedics, and certainly not a woman paramedic, although he wondered how he had not noticed her before. Then again, at a distance, given her dress, she looked like a heavyset male paramedic. Still, she had a grace about her, the way she carried her weight, and how her eyes sparkled, he thought now.

“ You see these surgical scissors?”

“ Yes, sir.”

“ I want you to know what you’re in for. We can have no mistake here.”

“ Yes, sir.”

“ I’m about to cut off her-the fingertips at the joint.”

Serena swallowed hard but simply nodded.

He was delighted that she didn’t ask him why he was going to take the fingertips.

“ They will pop free and the water will eat them up if we don’t do this correctly,” he continued.

“ Just tell me what to do, sir.” He stared at her, nodding, saying, “Good… good. Now just take one of the large plastic bags from my right coat pocket and hold it around the woman’s hands.”

Serena saw that the dead girl’s hands were tied together with thick, black nylon rope in what appeared an unyielding knot. Saying nothing, she reached into Coudriet’s lab coat pocket, jerked out one of the large plastic bags and pried open its lip. She next cautiously took the dead girl’s hands without the slightest recoil and slipped them into the poly- urethane bag.

Coudriet closely watched the paramedic’s hands, and saw that Serena Hoytler was not trembling in the slightest. “I’ll make the cuts inside the bag. That way, we catch what we need, you understand?”

“ Affirmative, sir.”

“ Good… good…” He had to hand it to her. She had grit, unlike many of the other paramedics-male and female-he’d employed over the years.

They went to work, Serena looking away whenever the scissors closed around a joint; but she couldn’t close her ears to the little crunch each cut made, and she could feel the weight in the bag around the bloated hand increase with each cut.

“ There, done,” he finally said. “We have them all.”

“ Do we do the other hand now?” she asked, her voice steady.

“ You lost count. I’ve done both hands; I’ve got all the useful tips I’ll be taking. What few are left would prove a useless exercise.”

Serena Hoytler breathed in her relief. “Glad I could help, Doctor.”

“ I couldn’t’ve done it without you. Thank you, Mrs. Hotler.”

“ Hoytler, sir, Miss… Ms., actually. I divorced my husband six years ago, returned to school, got my two-year degree, finished the medic program at State, and I’ve been working the meat wagon ever since.”

Coudriet saw that she was pretty, despite her size; her eyes were filled with a radiance he hadn’t seen in a woman in a long time, and this radiance seemed to be for him, directed at him. Now, staring at her, he found her reddening up, actually blushing.

As he worked to place the dismembered little pieces of the victim into small vials of a preservative which the salesman had called WonderPlus Glow 19, Coudriet said, “I’ve been a widower for about as long as you’ve been single. And how old are you, if you don’t mind my asking.”

“ I’ll be twenty-nine soon enough.”

“ I’m old enough to be your father.”

“ Yes, sir, Doctor. I know, but personally I… I like older men.”

He looked up from what he was doing to see that she was blushing even more, yet staring deeply into his eyes. He managed a smile and was instantly kicked at the same time by the body so near-as if it were vying for his full attention-the water having heaved it into his leg. His wife of so many years was gone now; still, he was a grandfather, an old buzzard, set in his ways. What could this… this child see in him? Is that why you so readily volunteered to wade out here and hold hands with a corpse for me? he wondered but dared not ask. Flirting here like this, over the body, was wrong, he told himself. He opted for what he felt was a soft joke instead. ‘ ‘Where does it say in your job description that you have to help cut off fingers?” He’d had outrageous thoughts all his life come full-blown and unbidden into his head, but this… thoughts of making a date with the paramedic over the body: No, he couldn’t, he told himself now.

“ My job is to assist my superiors and officials of this city as best I can, where I can and when I can, sir, and I would never, ever allow my personal life to get in the way of that, sir.”

He smiled, enjoying her now immensely, loving her paramilitary bearing and speech. “Tell you what, Ms. Hoyt-Hoytler, is it?”

“ Serena, yes.”

“ Serena, a lovely name… Listen, how would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”

She smiled now, the sunlight dimming amid clouds as if on cue. She was so cheery, so delightful… perhaps just what he needed, he silently told himself, although a deep- seated voice also said, No fool like an old fool, and then a third voice interceded, saying. Nobody’s a fool like the fool who lets her get away…

“ You just tell me when and where to be, Doctor.”

“ Andrew… call me, Andrew.”

“ All right, Andrew. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to speak your name aloud to you.”

“ That’s… that’s sweet,” he replied, thinking that it was also a bit extreme. He wondered just how intense she might become, welcoming her intensity, and a bit fearful of it as well.