Robert Walker - Darkest Instinct

Santiva had somehow come up with a garden salad in a plastic container, a peace offering there in the hallway. “Will you talk to the girl? Judy Templar’s her name. She’s told police everything she remembers twice over, but she’s holding back, says she can’t remember the features of the man whom Tammy Sheppard was last seen with. It’s like she wants to but she’s blocked it out, self-preservation perhaps; I don’t pretend to know. See what you think, and let me know.”

“ Is she deliberately holding back?”

“ I don’t think it’s deliberate so much as it is some sort of psychological safety valve; I think she’s feeling guilty about the death of her friend, and now, learning that her death is a certainty, well… she’s closed some doors.”

“ How long have you had her in interrogation?”

“ Three hours. Had trouble finding her earlier. She was shopping but she didn’t buy anything. No one with her. She’s either a bad liar or very lonely.”

“ She give the composite guys anything?”

“ She’s been so wishy-washy and iffy that the session was a washout.”

Jessica located a small snack room whose tables and hard chairs looked familiar and comforting. She sat down and consumed half her fast-food salad while Eriq paced.

“ All right, I’ll talk to her, but there’s nothing says I’ll get any more from her than you were able to.”

She was up and tossing the remainder of her salad into a trash container, walking out the entry and into the corridor, going for the police precinct upstairs. Santiva hurried alongside her, asking, “Anything new or helpful come of the autopsies?”

“ Just what we suspected. Same MO, same guy.”

“ On all three… astonishing. God, this mother makes me mad.”

“ Maybe that’s his intention-and dive below that a moment, Eriq and ask yourself what that says about us.”

“ Hey, don’t go soft on me now, Jessica. We’re doing our jobs, and that’s all we’re doing. There’s a storm sliding across the sea out there that we didn’t create. We can only monitor it, locate it, warn others of it and somehow work to diffuse it.”

“ Warn others of it? Just how have we warned anyone outside police circles, Eriq? Just when do we get these storm warnings out to the public?”

“ In due time. That’s not your concern.”

“ Not my concern? Hell, Eriq, it should be our number one concern. You saw how young those girls in Coudriet’s Crime Lab were. It’s time we got some information out.”

“ That’s just what he wants us to do, write him up big in all our papers, talk about him on our TV and radio programs. Hell, he probably wants a spot on OprahV’

“ Then give it to the bastard, and give it to the public. It’s past time everyone knew.”

“ You get this kid upstairs to open up about the killer’s identity, and we’ll go public-hell, we’ll go national. Deal?”

She stopped before the elevator as it opened, depositing a handful of medical staff. She then stepped inside and turned to face Eriq, who remained in the corridor. “Deal,” she said as she laid on the close button, the doors responding immediately, closing on Eriq, who shouted, “She’s in interrogation six.”

Jessica saw Mark Samernow at the water cooler and Quincey on the phone at his desk. Samernow gave Jessica a half smile and asked her how she was doing, surprising her.

“ Why can’t anyone get any information from this girl inside interrogation room six?” she asked him.

“ Ask me, I’d say she’s blocked it out. Not a bad kid, really, just scared and feeling badly.”

“ That’s what Santiva tells me.”

“ We could get a shrink in to talk with her, but our guy’s a Freudian and not much with situations like this.”

She nodded. “How’re you doing, Detective?”

“ Me? Hell, I’m fine since the chewing-out I got from Quince and then my captain. He sure put my butt back on track. Tells me I’m being transferred out of Homicide to Vice detail if I don’t clean up my act. Guess I’ll survive one way or another.”

She wondered about the man’s sudden transformation. He seemed to have experienced more than just a dressing- down by the boss. She followed his lead to the door of interrogation six. He was pleasant when he said, “Santiva told us you’d be talking to the girl.”

“ I have carte blanche with this kid?”

“ All right by us.”

“ She’s not being charged for obstruction or anything stupid like that?”

“ Only if you say so, Dr. Coran.”

“ No, I don’t think so.”

She opened the door on the interrogation room where Judy Templar had patiently and sadly waited; the place was bare, cold and unfriendly to say the least, and although it had recently been refurbished with new carpeting and furniture, not even the fresh coat of paint could conceal the years-old accumulation of cigar and cigarette smoke. New or old, cigarette butts were cigarette butts, and they lay in cheap Wal-Mart crockery ashtrays instead of cheap tin ashtrays now, and something like battery acid leaked from Sty- rofoam cups, the litter of long nights. Add to this picture one frightened young woman who had come in of her own accord-a second time-to repeat her story, and Jessica knew a change of venue was in order.

She introduced herself to Judy Templar and they shook hands, Jessica immediately aware of the trembling within the other woman. “You’ve been here a long time, I understand. Your parents know you’re here?”

“ Why? They’ve got nothing to do with this.” She looked a bit like the actress Molly Ringwald minus the freckles, Jessica thought, with pretty red tresses for hair; but she’d given no attention to eye shadow or other makeup.

From the young woman’s tone, Jessica guessed aloud, “Your folks

… they tell you to keep your mouth shut, to keep away from the police?”

“ No… not exactly.”

“ They fear your getting involved in any way could make you a target for the killer?”

“ They fear it, I fear it… and why not? You people haven’t been able to stop him, and now they find Tammy and those other two girls, and… and-” Her words were cut short by her inability to breathe, gasp and speak at the same time.

“ You hungry?” Jessica asked Judy.

“ I’m too upset to eat anything.”

“ Have you lost a lot of weight since Tammy was taken?”

“ It’s just fallen off. Can’t eat… can’t sleep.”

Jessica stood, saying, “Whataya say we get the hell out of here. You like cappuccino or Irish coffee or espresso? You know a place where we can get some?”

“ Sure, the Cafe Promenade, just down the street.”

“ Take me, will you?”

“ Just like that, I can leave with you?”

“ No one here’s going to hold you against your will, Judy; no one.”

She seemed suddenly to relax. “Nobody knows how it feels, how I feel, the problem… the sheer size of the problem… of it all.”

“ You want to talk about it?”

“ It’s like a book I read in school once, a book called The Pearl. This man finds a pearl and he thinks it’s going to bring him happiness and riches for his whole family, but all it brings down is misery. I feel kinda like that guy in the book, except I didn’t find any pearl or riches; but I came that close to this bastard who killed Tammy, so close that I sat across from him like I’m sitting across from you, but it’s information-that’s the pearl everybody wants to get from me, but I… I can’t bring it back, and I can’t go back and do things differently…”