Robert Walker - Fatal Instinct

“ I've run into more than my share,” she confided, reaching into her purse for a mint, offering him one.

Declining her offer, he snatched out a pack of Rolaids instead. “I just hope I can keep my mind from exploding along with my stomach.”

“ Don't let the stress get to you, Alan.” She reached across and laid her hand over his, squeezing momentarily, a gesture that made him look across at her. He visibly relaxed, the creases in his face smoothing.

Stress came with the strain of having to face death in its myriad forms, and while a cop had to harden himself against it so as to appear in control, he still internalized such brutality-such as that meted out on the victims of the Claw-as would incapacitate a lesser man. He had to console those left behind, had to relive the events via the mountain of paperwork each case spawned; even then he must contend with his own feelings, not to mention the system and those higher-ups in it, who, like Eldritch, only poured salt on the wounds. The scars left on a homicide investigator often became visible only when a man smoked himself with his own gun.

“ You okay, Alan?” she asked.

“ Yeah, sure… fine…” he managed in his best tough-guy brogue. “God, I hope we can keep the friggin' press from learning about his taking the brain matter out.”

“ I agree.”

“ We're batting zero with controlling leaks.”

She nodded and took her hand away. “As it is, when an arrest is made, it's going to be difficult to prove it's not just another lunatic who reads.”

“ The real Claw will have secrets to share with us that no one else could know… things we don't even know. Things we can't even imagine. Or worse, things we have imagined. What is it they say in Disneyland? If you can imagine it, you can do it? Tell it to the Claw.”

She didn't answer, allowing him to vent.

“ Still,” he continued, “if ever I find out where the leaks are coming from… well, God help the fool.”

“ These press guys like Drake are real smart about getting people to slip or cooperate. They've got more tricks than divorce lawyers.”

He blanched a little at the mention of divorce lawyers. “Once again, you're not telling me anything I don't already know.”

“ Sorry…”

Rychman changed the subject. “We're searching like hell through the backgrounds of the victims, sticking with old-fashioned police work.”

“ So what's it gotten you?” she asked.

“ A lot of upset relatives who think we've got no business asking questions. They don't want us to know their loved one frequented a neighborhood bar, mixed it up with some character in a one-night stand… you know, the usual.”

“ Still no common threads?”

“ Does he like them lean and mean? Does he like them young or old? Hell, what happened in Scarsdale tells us emphatically, he isn't a choosy bastard. He'll take his tall or short, brunette or blonde, in her teens or in her eighties.”

“ Frustrating.”

“ We have sniffed out one item of interest, though. It took us long enough to see it, but I got a little curious; something you said about the killer's knowing something about medicine, anatomy maybe.”

“ Yeah, and…?”

“ So it appears all the vies were relatively poor, on food stamps, on small incomes, Medicare.”

She brightened and sat up. “That could be very important.”

“ At least some of them were having some sort of medical problem. We're checking into each of their medical histories and running down doctors they've been seeing, trying to cross-check, but so far nothing.”

“ Has it occurred to you that one of the killers likes them young, while the other likes them old?”

“ Then you've definitely found forensic support for your theory that there're two of them at work here?”

“ No, not yet, but we're working on it, and if that poem is interpreted as I believe it will be… well, it lends credence to the idea.”

“ Because if you and Darius are sure, I could get my task force going in that direction. Some of them have already been thinking along those lines. Anyway, it's coming clear to me that the killer or killers knew at least one of the victims, and perhaps others.”

Mulling it over, she said, “If he knew them, then perhaps he knew them from where they received their medical assistance. Someone working in the medical community, or a closely related field, say insurance, would be in a position to get information on Medicare patients.”

“ We're already working on it. We're comparing all the vietims' preferences regarding medical clinics, hospitals and private doctors. Of course, the guy could be anybody working in the health or health-related professions. We're talking medics, nurses, pharmaceutical supply companies, clinics, hospitals, the goddamned housing authority, the health authority, HUD, for God's sake.”

“ It's still a trail worth pursuing, Alan.”

“ So we start with the victims' medical records, which I've already got my detectives searching through. Maybe we'll get lucky.”

“ Then you did have something to tell Eldritch. Why didn't you get him off your back with this news?”

“ I'm done with letting Eldritch make a fool of me. I know what he'd do with the information.”

“ You're not saying he's the leak!”

“ No, but I am saying he takes all the kudos when everything goes well, but he's the invisible man when things fall apart.”

“ This could prove the most important lead we have, Alan.” She brightened. “It gives me hope. And we're overdue to be due, as Casey Stengel would say.”

This made Rychman laugh. “I didn't know you were a baseball fan.”

“ Baseball, football, sure. My dad did not neglect his duty to me.”

“ So what do you think of the Giants' chances this year for the Super Bowl?”

“ Do you really want me to answer that? But,” she added, again looking out at the passing traffic of the city, seeing a glimmer of the sun that had been shut out for the past few days, “I just might feel up to the theater, after all.”

“ Great, great.” Rychman felt a sudden surge of excitement himself.

Rychman called the meeting of the task force to order a little past six, delaying as long as he could for Dr. Ames' arrival. Everyone was still buzzing about the double homicide and the equally puzzling double crime scenes. None of the detectives knew about the bizarre poetry sent to them by Ovid.

“ Gentlemen, ladies,” began Rychman, “we have a great deal to cover this moming, so let's get to it. First, suffice it to say that last night's double murder was most certainly the work of the man known to us as the Claw, no question. But the killer left us with a little more to go on this time than he-or they-have in the past.”

“ They? Whataya saying, Captain? That the Claw is two men instead of one?” asked O’Toole's partner, a burly detective named Mannion.

“ That possibility is being discussed in light of new evidence that has come to our… well, that was placed under our noses. Dr. Darius and Dr. Coran fished a note from the body of the Phillips woman from a man signing himself Ovid. He claimed knowledge of the killer.”

“ A note?”

“ What kind of note?”

Rychman held up his hands. “You'll see the note in due time. At the moment, I'd like you to rethink your quarry; this bird may be two birds. Meanwhile, Forensics is trying to pursue the case from the same angle.”

O’Toole, sitting near the front, said in his baritone voice, “So the creep had to reach out and touch somebody…”

“ More like Western Union,” said Rychman. “He sent a message, which I'll let Dr. Coran tell you about.”

Jessica came to the front and leaned her cane against the podium. “Our killer, or one of our killers, is into poetry. At 1100 hours yesterday, when we were about to close Amelia Phillips up after autopsy, Dr. Darius found a wadded-up piece of paper below the rib cage with a message from this man calling himself Ovid. I'll read it to you in its entirety.” Jessica read the bizarre poem to her audience as the mutilated faces of the Claw's victims looked on from the photos along the walls in the ready room.