Robert Walker - Fatal Instinct

“ We have a sixth victim,” replied Rychman. “The seventh was a copycat killing. You'll have full details in the press kit being put together at this moment. Now, please.”

“ What about the homeless couple?” pressed a female reporter.

“ There was nothing to connect those deaths with the Claw, so far as can be determined.”

“ Busy night last night, huh. Captain?” asked another reporter.

“ Typical Saturday night in the Apple.”

Drake returned to his earlier question. “Is it true, Captain Rychman, that you want to be our next police commissioner?”

“ I said no further comment.” Rychman's glare held Drake hostage for a moment before he disappeared through the door held open by Lou Pierce, who now stepped in for his boss and fielded questions of the disappointed reporters.

Rychman knew that Drake, along with a lot of other people, was fishing for a commitment, one that he couldn't at this time make. He had given the idea of becoming C.P. a lot of thought, but should he lose such a race, he'd have to forfeit a great deal, and besides, he wasn't sure he wanted the headaches that went with the office. Still, he had a lot of support in the rank and file, although that could simply be because everyone hated Commissioner Carl Eldritch, a man whose tenure was synonymous with bland and uneventful.

Until now. Thanks to the Claw. The NYPD was being parboiled and burned raw daily in the press, not only in the city but across the nation, being made to look ridiculous and incompetent. Allegations of gross ineptitude were nothing new, but now the cry of reform was in the air, reform at all levels, and since Rychman was a man decorated several times for bravery in his career, and since he had come up through the ranks… But even he hadn't escaped the sometimes cruel barbs of the cartoonists and columnists, the so-called wrath of the public via publishers who weren't above manu-facturing almost as much news as they might legitimately find. All that's fit to print had long before become Print all that fits.

“ And if it doesn't fit,” he muttered to himself, “make it fit.”

Rychman had to work hard to hold his anger at the press in check. Good relations could make or break a campaign, and he did indeed have aspirations to become the new C.P. He had ideas, plans for reform that would shake up the entire system, his top priority to effect the exchange of information across all boundaries and boroughs.

He had personal reasons to dislike and suspect the press as well, since his recent divorce had been given the National Enquirer treatment, the sensationalism verging on slander and libel. They took words uttered in passion and anger, twisted them just so, words out of Nancy's mouth as well as his own. Any chance of a reconciliation was demolished by the beating each of them had taken in the arena of the press. He'd lost his calm exterior over that one and lost friends among the fifth estate. Soon any utterance from either of Nancy's lawyers was confirmed as truth by the power of the printed word. He'd read where she had suffered emotional torment, mental torment, sexual torment and sixteen other forms of torment in their marriage, and to keep from going down to Lowenstein and Rutledge to find the vipers and crack their heads together, he'd have to rush down to the firing range to pull off as many rounds as it took to relieve the venom and the sense of injury and the confusion of not knowing what had hap-pened to bring Nancy and him to such a place in their relationship.

After twenty-odd years in the department, he ought to know how to kiss ass and when to shut up. But lately, his nerves sheared raw by this case and the infuriating way in which it had so far been botched, he knew he could lose it at any time, on or off camera. He'd lost it with Perkins the night before. The mechanism by which he maneuvered on tiptoe with both the press and his superiors was grinding gears, threatening to halt altogether, if he didn't get control first.

He rode the elevator up and got off at his floor. He stared down the busy, teeming hallway that led to the hastily got-up evidence room where a meeting with the mayor's deputy for public safety, Commissioner Eldritch and others with a vested interest in the case of the Claw were supposedly waiting. People spilling in and out of the offices lining his way offered practiced and solicitous greetings, none genuine. Rychman's well-perfected cold stare greeted them each in turn. P. P. One was not yet his precinct, but his image was recognized throughout the city, thanks to the divorce. He strode quickly past cops who jokingly asked for favors in his new regime, his chiseled, granite features like those of a bronze statue. Bronze due to his recent trip to Bermuda, which had turned him more contemplative and brown. He'd gotten to like Bermuda's sun and rum, and he'd enjoyed a world without ties- ties of any kind. He seldom wore a tie himself, but today he'd made an exception. The tie lay across his broad chest, unable to reach to his waistline. People stared.

He knew he could be intimidating, and that it wasn't an endearing quality-not for most. He knew he intimidated the younger cops, due to his record of service, which could be a positive kind of intimidation, he thought. Being persuasive without having to say a word was a useful tool in the right hands, at the right time, especially for a commander. It certainly hadn't hurt him any in the war.

Most other cops understood him. He was fierce, ferocious if need be, unforgiving if circumstances warranted. Still, the fact that no one felt comfortable around him bothered him at times. A career cop, he'd come up the hard way. Not once had he been appointed to or promoted to any rank on the basis of anything other than ability. Even the press couldn't find fault here. But he hadn't carved out a political place for himself and remained without political ties; truth be known, he was not a political animal, not in the sense that Eldritch was. Rychman hadn't the guile or the stomach for what Eldritch termed “political astuteness.” The lack of this “quality” was his chief weakness should he move against Eldritch. Despite the fact he had turned precinct after precinct into well-organized, result-getting organizations, he still didn't dance effortlessly along the tightrope of the police superstructure, which was much harder than doing the minuet with the press corps. Maybe he wasn't a dancer, and maybe he wasn't C. R material.

Before looking in on the evidence room, a room filled with the compiled information on the Claw killings, he remembered that Eldritch wanted to see him. The cop grapevine was quicker than a potato creeper. Word about Eldritch's having got up a special task force to oversee the investigation into the Claw killings was being spoken of in every sector. No one knew the particulars. Today everyone would know.

He was told by Eldritch's secretary, “They're waiting for you, Captain Rychman. Go right in.”

Eldritch had ordered him out of his office only two weeks before, and in a fit of rage told him there was no need of such a task force and finished by ordering him to take a week's vacation. It had been the first days he'd spent away from the job and the city in several years and he knew he was feeling burned out, so he raced off to Bermuda, where, for a time, he put thoughts of the Claw out of his mind. In the meantime news of another victim and news of his lounging in Bermuda at the time-conveniently leaked to the press-made him look bad.

Eldritch, ever the astute politician.

Now inside Eldritch's office he found two other men. Ken Stallings, deputy mayor of the city, and Lt. Capt. Lowell Morris, a capable man whom Rychman both liked and respected. Eldritch introduced Stallings to Rychman, the men sizing one another up.

“ I called you here, Alan, because we need a man of your caliber to head the Claw task force and head up-”