Robert Walker - Fatal Instinct

Continuing to sift through his garbage, she imagined a scenario in which Leon, learning of Shaw's arrest, had deliberately gone out and committed the horrid double murder in order to make Shaw appear innocent and thus gain his freedom back, because maybe Leon felt like only half a man without Shaw. But nothing she could uncover showed any connection between Shaw and Leon. Although the idea was in keeping, the shoe didn't quite fit.

A curious man going by the alley entranceway glanced toward her, no doubt thinking her mad. Another man came around a corner, shocking her, and she fully expected it to be Helfer coming for her, but it was a tall man in a black overcoat and he asked, “You're Emmons, aren't you?”

“ Yes, that's me. Who're you?”

“ Perkins, M.E.'s office,” the stranger flashed his M.E.'s badge. “Got a call to be here from… from, ahh… HQ, that there was going to be a search and seizure?”

“ Paperwork's rolling on it, yeah.”

“ Oh, good… then I'm not too late. How long you think it'll be? I got kids at home and one of 'em's in recital tonight.”

She smiled at this and relaxed, taking her hands out of the garbage, grabbing up some of the newspapers and wiping with them when she noticed the gruesome stains on the paper and again that odd, disturbing odor. Suddenly she realized that it was the kind of preservative they used on cadavers at the morgue. Then she remembered the medical plate on the car in Helfer's garage. But it was too late.

The man lifted his black valise in one surgically gloved hand and for a moment dangled it before her eyes, when a sudden swipe of icy steel and wind tore across her eyes, shredding them. He was laughing as if it were all a magic trick. She blindly stumbled away, trying to pull her gun while he said, “Meet the real Claw.”

As she reached for the gun in her shoulder holster, the claw crashed into her with light reflecting from somewhere, and the flash of light lobbed off her right hand, the severed limb thudding against her shoe, making her shriek and pull away, backing deeper into the garage, blood spurting from her wrist, pumping like a geyser and making her light-headed. Blood streamed down her face from her wounded eyes. She reached wildly at her gun with her one good hand, fumbling and finally getting the weapon into her grasp when she felt the powerful claw clap around her neck, severing arteries and cutting off her choked, gurgling scream, pinning her against the car. Unable to turn, she clung tightly to the gun held now at her midriff, waiting for him to turn her over and drive the damnable claw into her breasts and drag it jaggedly to her navel, as she had seen in countless horrible photographs.

She was the ninth victim.

She tried to feel the gun in her hand but everything had gone numb. She could feel consciousness evaporating, knowing that if she could not remain conscious, she was certainly dead, and yet, to remain conscious meant excruciating pain if he got at her again with the claw. Already she had lost a limb, already her neck was showered in her own blood.

He turned her around and saw the gun clenched in her fist and he fully expected to be shot to death on seeing it gripped so, but then he realized that she was too weak to lift it, too weak to pull the trigger, and this brought a smile to his lips as he raised the claw over his head and brought it down in one powerful dig, feeling it take root in her where the ice pick ends jaggedly made their way through her, making her twist and squeal again.

He had gotten lucky seeing Emmons from the house going through Leon's trash. She must also have seen his car. He tore from her the little notepad she carried. He'd destroy it later.

He had never expected to enjoy the killing as an explosive orgiastic experience, but that's precisely what it had become, and in the sheer pleasure of brutally taking life, he had found that brute part of himself he called Casadessus who had been locked away just below the surface his entire life; that part of him that had hated all the constraints, all the nagging, needling commandments, all the pressure to conform, all the voices telling him his entire life what to do; that part of him that secretly murdered his father and mother once a night every night during his years under their roof; that part of him that had been restrained from hanging his sister; that part of him that had hung her dog instead; that part of him that fought his entire life to be unleashed and unfettered. Now he had given over to that side, and yet he was well adjusted enough to do so in careful increments, and to do so with a master plan in mind.

While at the same time that he could watch women squirm beneath the impaling claw before he completely gutted them, he could also be comforted in the thought that he could never be caught-ever. He had Leon to assure this, and he had Dr. Simon Archer to assure it as well. Leon, his Ovid, was the perfect dupe, a perfect victim in his own right. Dr. Simon Archer had learned all about poor Leon from his dying mother at the hospital where Archer did his pro bono work. Archer knew precisely the state of mind her death would leave the weak-minded Leon in, and that he would be helpful to Casadessus, the real Claw. Leon was so impressionable, like a child, so easily molded.

But apparently Leon had some ideas of his own. The poem had come as a shock, but a bigger shock was when Dr. Darius told him of its discovery inside the body. Darius had gotten a copy from Lathrope and had shared its content with Archer. Little bastard had disobeyed him, and now Archer's cleverly laid plans were unraveling at the seams, unless he could quickly put everything right.

The first step to putting things right was to rip the flesh of Detective Emmons from top to bottom with the tool that had come from the mind of Casadessus, an idea polished and improved on by Archer. He covered himself in a smock taken from his valise, lifted her sagging form and carried her dying body into Helfer's house.

Once inside Leon's house with Emmons, who was still alive. Archer took further hideous delight over her. Here he disemboweled her, tearing her intestines from her stomach cavity, curling them in a heap beside her, as was the Claw's custom. Rychman, Coran and the others would find her eviscerated, gutted open like a fish on a slab. And Leon was the perfect suspect. Archer had seen to that.

Archer's clothing was bloodstained, but he had a change of clothing in his trunk. He had been careful once more to wear a hair net and surgical gloves, even under the glove of the claw so as to leave no prints inside the claw itself. Coran would think to investigate the interior of it, he was sure. Now, ready to feed on the dead Emmons, he covered even his teeth with an acrylic coverlet that duplicated the impressions made by Leon Helfer. His plan was one of genius, thanks to the ruminations of his alter ego, Casadessus, whom he kept secret from even Leon.

The teeth impressions were compliments of Leon's dentist, a Dr. Parke, who had been most pliable when presented with the sight of $25,000. The good dentist had a number of outstanding gambling debts he was anxious to be shed of. The transaction had gone smoothly, and when Casadessus had vis-ited Dr. Parke again, the dentist had no fear or suspicion of him. He just wanted to know if there was anything else he could do for him, for payment. “There is one thing,” Casadessus told him just before pushing him down an open elevator shaft. “You can die for me.”

Archer had agreed that Parke, like Jim Drake, had to be eliminated. It just tidied things up and he was cautious to a fault. He fed over Emmons' organs now, feeling the warm blood and tissue traveling down his throat. Her soul would add power to his, become one with him as the prey and predator met in the ultimate union. She would go a long way to empower him with the strength needed for what lay ahead. But he hadn't much time before Leon might return and before Emmons' partner or other police might show up.