Robert Walker - Fatal Instinct

“ Whoa, wait a minute.” Rychman was searching the room for answers, his head twisting and turning. “I don't get it, Carl.”

“ You're the best man for the job.”

“ Am I?”

“ We're all agreed. That is, the mayor and this office.”

Stallings jumped in. “His Honor reviewed a lot of men and you came out on top, Captain Rychman. It's a high-profile case; certainly can't but help you if you ever aspire to any political office-not necessarily this office!”

Eldritch and Stallings laughed but Morris remained silent.

“ What about Morris here?” Rychman asked, not sure he wanted to head such a task force. Task forces were grueling, the hours murder, and he didn't fully understand what was motivating Eldritch.

“ Morris'll be taking charge of your precinct duties while you're on the task force,” explained Carl Eldritch.

“ I see.”

“ I thought it natural that you take over, Alan. After all, you were the one who initially came to me with the idea, remember?”

“ I remember, all right.”

“ Look, it was you who contacted the FBI, and they're sending a man. You've had your hand in since the first of these murders. It seemed only natural that you should carry on,” Eldritch continued.

Stallings jumped in again. “And you were the mayor's first choice, Alan.”

Rychman looked at Lowell Morris, who just stared back, saying nothing.

“ I suppose accepting is the politically correct thing to do, then. And from the congestion in the hall, I take it you expect to hold a press conference.”

“ Does that mean you'll accept?” asked Stallings.

Feeling trapped, a part of him wanting to run and a part of him wanting to take on the greatest challenge of his official life, Rychman quietly said, “I should have my head examined. Only one thing, Carl: I don't want anyone-anyone- second-guessing me or undermining me. Understood?”

“ Perfectly, and you won't regret it, Alan.”

“ Somehow,” Rychman said, “I'm not so sure.”

Eldritch told him that the evidence room and offices for the special task force were being set up in the building. Rychman told him that he knew that much, down to the room number.

“ Can't keep a secret in a police precinct.”

“ I don't know. Naming me to this task force came as quite a shock.”

Everyone shook hands and Ken Stallings said, “The mayor wants immediate action on this, Alan. You understand?”

“ Sure, he wants the Claw behind bars yesterday.”

Stallings smiled, his grin like the lip of a large pitcher. The three cops watched the Brooks Brothers suit as it hurried off.

“ I thought he might stay for the pep talk to the task force,” said Rychman.

“ Thank God no,” replied Eldritch.

Morris stood, poked a cigarette in his mouth, which he didn't light, and said, “I'll take care of your guys, Alan.”

“ I know you will, Lowell, and good luck.”

Morris disappeared.

“ You'll have the best men available, Alan,” said Eldritch the moment they were alone. “Best from each sector, and most have been working on one or more of the cases. Hand-picked, all good men.”

“ When did all this come about? Last night there wasn't a word of this. Now-”

“ We'd recruited everyone earlier, while you were away. Then when the killings appeared to have stopped… well, then last night. Ahh, what the hell difference does it make now?”

“ I might've liked to choose my own team.”

“ Hey, Alan, we're all on the same team, remember? Besides, you know most of the men that will be working under you.”

Rychman's eyes bore into Eldritch. “Most but not all isn't good enough, Carl.” Rychman knew that working within the team would be at least one and possibly two moles who'd be reporting back to the C.P.

At least Eldritch was transparent, he thought.

Rychman stepped into the homicide incident room, which would in all likelihood be his home for some time. Photographs of the victims shot from every angle immediately assailed the senses. Several blow-ups revealed the gargantuan injustices played out on the dead women. In this room, what few clues the police from various boroughs had gathered now belonged to the task force-the shredded clothing of the victims; their shoes; a pathetic display of purses, the contents of which had once surrounded their corpses; a few scraps of paper; a footprint set in concrete which had been lifted from a muddy alleyway; police reports; dossiers on the victims, their friends and relatives; detailed, tedious forensics reports on precisely how each woman had died-all lying across a line of cheap folding tables. Rychman thought that each item desperately cried out its meaning, but no one could hear. Lipstick tubes, keys and petite, childlike key rings, wallets with photos, scattered nail files and makeup kits. All the so-called evidence amounted to victim paraphernalia, nothing noteworthy and all pointing toward the victims, not the perpetrator. Frustration had crawled in before the task force was under way.

Eldritch had left him amid the collection of officers assembled from each of the city's five boroughs. Carl had a press conference to attend where he would present the details of how Alan Rychman would be heading up the newly formed task force. As soon as Eldritch disappeared, Rychman went to the front of the room, picked up a gavel and called for order. Some of the faces looking back at him he knew from previous cases, some he did not know and others were still milling in.

Among the late-comers were people Rychman didn't know, and he feared the press might infiltrate. He called for an ID check at the door, one of his detectives doing the honors. Then Rychman's attention, along with everyone else's, became glued on a tall, leggy and rather stunning woman in a gray suit. Her hazel eyes were clear, wide, intelligent and curious, Rychman thought. She carried a cane and walked with a limp. She could be press. He certainly didn't recognize her, but then he didn't know every detective or cop in the city. She might also be a police shrink, someone to help with the killer profile they'd have to work up. His man at the door, belatedly checking the woman's ID, nodded that all was well. The lovely stranger limped only a few feet when a detective rose and offered her a front-row seat.

Rychman grunted at the noise level, and asked for people to settle in.

“ Gentlemen… ladies… detectives… people!” Over Rychman's head, to the rear, the large photographic images of the victims of the phantom killer stared down over the assemblage. The dead faces, many with missing eyes, looked to Jessica Coran as though they belonged in a dark gallery in a wax museum of horrors. The skulls were crushed like soft melons by a ball peen hammer, axe or hatchet, depending on the mood of the sadistic monster, she supposed. The torsos presented an even more horrible array of destroyed flesh where the Claw had used some unknown tool to tear open the area usually reserved for the autopsiest. The contents of the victims' chests and abdomens had been turned out to feed the flies and rats.

The killer apparently relished the brutalization of female flesh.

The savagery was not altogether new to Jessica or the other police officials in the room. Violent crimes against women were on the rise, so much so that three out of four American women, at some point or other, would be the victims of at least one violent crime. The Justice Department statistic was more than just a number to Jessica, who had become Matisak's final target before he was captured and incarcerated. She knew that each year women were the victims of approximately 2.5 million violent crimes, from assault to rape. It was a low estimate, since the statistics didn't take into account the 3 million to 4 million women who were battered in episodes of domestic violence.