Robert Walker - Fatal Instinct

She recalled the doctor's reluctance when she had wanted to take the additional bite mark cuttings from the throat, and how he had kept the head covered, and how she had placed the materials to go out to J.T. into his hands.

But why? she asked herself several times. Why would the old man sabotage her work? In an attempt to regain his former stature within the medicolegal community as something of an amazing guru? It seemed almost too farfetched, but recently farfetched was the rule of the day.

No! no! she told herself, not wishing to hear it. Then she wondered if Darius had been pursued to come back on the case initially, or if he had put the idea into Eldritch's mind. According to Dr. Darius' own statements, they were actively seeking a replacement for him. Was he hoping to so dazzle them with the Claw case that they'd ask him to stay on permanently?

There were not too many men who, after so long a service, could gracefully walk away from such an all-encompassing career as that of Dr. Luther Darius.

But then why kill himself? If he thought to make a comeback of a spectacular nature, to crack the biggest case in New York City… why? Archer had said that the old man had fallen in the locker room outside the autopsy theater, and when he awoke, he must have found himself alone in that hospital room, his body connected to an IV, machines registering his heartbeat, blood pressure and breathing. It was perhaps too much for him to bear, this enormous setback.

Thinking he could no longer cut it…

Alan Rychman had called the lab and everywhere else he could think of in his attempt to locate Jessica, but no one seemed to know where she was, and she wasn't answering her phone at the Marriott. Then he recalled how she and Darius had disappeared the previous day. He went searching for her himself and found her strolling a harbor sidewalk, stopping to stare off into the bay, occasionally reaching up to gulls that hovered nearby. From a distance she looked to be in conversation with the birds, who were simply fooled into believing she had something for them in her hand.

Rychman beat a path over the aged, discolored wharf, straight for her.

“ Talking to the birds?” he shouted as he approached.

“ To myself, actually.”

“ Come up with any solutions?” He slipped an arm over her shoulder and she leaned into him.

“ Why is it always that beauty… integrity… honor… all fine things in this city of yours come wrapped in such ugly packages?”

“ What's that supposed to mean?”

“ I mean that Darius was all those things, at least outwardly… beautiful in his soul, and yet he was also deceptive and dangerous at the same time… cloaking his own personal mystery and pain so well, working in the lab at the same time.”

“ A man's got a right to a few secrets, Jess. Hell, without them, we're all… well, naked and at the mercy of others who aren't often kind.”

She said no more. It seemed strange how the city had come to life around her, but in her state of mind she hadn't before noticed the melee of activity and bustle from cars and buses to pedestrians. He looked into her shimmering eyes. “I tried reaching you at your hotel… then thought of here. Listen, Jess, I'm… I couldn't be sorrier about Luther. He was a hell of a doctor and a fine man.”

“ I only knew him for a short time.” She sniffled and dabbed her eye with a handkerchief. “Foolish, I guess, standing out here crying over him. Fearful for his memory.”

“ Nothing foolish in it at all,” he countered. “Might do us all some good. As to fearful… well, no one can hurt him now. Hell, no one would want to, Jess.”

“ Yeah, I guess Archer and the rest of the people in the lab have to be feeling pretty low over it. I should get back, do what I can to… to straighten out a few things.”

He was confused and curious at once. “Straighten out what?”

“ I think maybe Dr. Darius had more reason than alcoholism or depression to take that jump. He… he had to, and perhaps…”

“ You're getting me confused, Jess. Perhaps what?”

“ You had a high opinion of Dr. Darius.”

“ Of course.”

“ Everyone did, right?”

“ Right. So?” Rychman held her to a dead stop.

“ He was above reproach, above question. His reputation alone-”

“ What's this all about, Jess?”

“ The first coroner worked for the king as a watchdog, overseeing suspicious deaths in the kingdom, Alan. Mostly the king wanted someone to represent his interests, so that he got his due on the death of a subject-taxes, lands, whatever. Nowadays things have changed, sure, but just like the king, you and others in government have to rely on the coroner to tell you the truth. In other words, the king may have a man watching out for his own interests, but who's going to question the king's man?”

Rychman didn't understand what she was driving at. He looked deep and questioningly into her eyes. “Jess, I don't do riddles. What're you saying?” You up for some coffee? Let's get some.”

Over coffee she confided her dark suspicions of Dr. Luther Darius. Rychman listened with quiet reserve the entire time, flinching only once, at the idea that Darius would sabotage his own investigation.

“ To heighten the payoff,” she suggested. “At the end he would pull the rabbit out of the hat. He'd thought he could do that when he discovered some small clue that the Claw was two men instead of one.”

“ So he withheld information on the bite marks?”

“ I think so.”

“ And he diverted some of the tissue samples you sent to Quantico?”

“ I know it sounds crazy, but-”

“ It sounds crazy, all right.”

“- but, Alan, it also makes crazy sense. He was the first besides me to suggest that the Claw was two men.”

“ It's so unbelievable. Darius?”

She was quickly angered by his coolness to the idea. “I know I'm right.”

“ Now you sound like Luther.”

She relented. “You knew him a lot better than I did. But all the time you knew him, Alan, he was in good health and mentally capable. Perhaps, with his failing health-”

“ He was a fighter, Jess.”

“ So, dammit, what made him go through that window?”

“ You tell me. I'm going to make a phone call.” Alan was upset with what he saw as her wild suspicions.

Alan returned and sat down heavily, his brow creased.

“ What is it?” she asked.

“ I've just talked with Archer… Blood tests show no drags, nothing foreign in Luther's system, and nothing to indicate anything other than a jump from the window.”

She breathed in a deep gulp of air, filling her lungs and releasing it in exasperation.

“ I think our next step is to talk with Archer, find out if he thinks Dr. Darius was acting strangely, and if he thinks anything strange was going on with respect to the forensics evidence in the case.”

“ A careful accounting will show you're wrong, Jess,” he said. “You've got to be.”

She nodded. “I've been wrong before, and this time I also hope I am…”

Alan escorted her back to the NYPD forensics laboratories, where they parted company. Jessica feared making any further commitment in their runaway relationship. She feared anything more with a man like Rychman. Like Otto, he lived too close to danger. As far as she was concerned, their love-making was an offshoot of the war they were engaged in, two people thrown together due to circumstances, their attraction the only thing bonding them. And yet, she cared deeply for Alan.

In the laboratory she returned to a project she'd begun the day before. Using computer graphics, she matched the ugliest wounds inflicted on the victims, trying to determine the exact nature of the weapon used against these women. She had programmed-in the depth of the wounds and the abrasive nature of the instrument used to turn flesh into jagged scars. She fed every detail to the computer. The computer's job was to find a weapon to fit the wound as closely as possible.