Robert Walker - Killer Instinct

“ Something like that, yes.”

She breathed deeply and said, “You must have a hell of a lot of confidence in your theory, then.”

“ I do.”

“ That Wekosha is no isolated case.”

Otto stared at her like someone caught in a lie. “That's my guess.”

“ And you must have had a lot of confidence in me.”

He nodded firmly. “I do.”

“ Now you want me to review these earlier cases, see if I agree, that there's some sort of pattern here, some connection?”

“ That's right; any match points you can make will add to mine, and then we can sell Leamy on it, and get my team to work on it before…” His voice trailed off.

“ Before there's another Candy Copeland,” she finished for him.

“ That's right.”

She nodded, sipped more from her drink and lifted one of the faxed photos. “Let me look this stuff over.”

“ I'll be up front if you need me,” he said, getting up and going forward.

She studied each of the reports, noting the dates of each earlier blood-taking murder. She searched for patterns. One was dated November 3 of the previous year; a second, December 6. They were hundreds of miles from each other, yet both, like the third, were in the Midwest. The third report told of a bizarre death that had occurred the following March, late in the month. Why the long hiatus between the second and third killings? And now Candy Copeland on April 3. If it was the work of a single killer or a single pair of killers on a rampage, going the several months between December and March might mean a jail term was being served, or the killer had moved away for a time before returning to the area. Yet, it was such a wide-ranging area: Wisconsin, Missouri, Illinois, Iowa.

The method of murder was chillingly similar in all these cases, and it gave rise to the horrible thought that there could be far more murders committed by this madman than anyone knew, or ever might know. Other bloodless bodies buried in shallow graves and hanging in such remote locations as to have gone undiscovered.

She jotted notes from her meandering thoughts, one of which was to check with all missing persons bureaus across the Midwest, to gain a computer list of all the names and addresses of the missing and see if any lived in or around such places as Wekosha, Wisconsin, and these other small hamlets.

She also noted on the reports that all the women had not only been mutilated and drained of their blood supplies but had had their tendons severed. She noted, too, that the earlier cases had all been under the purview of Dr. Raynack, who, as acting head of the department before her appointment, had not seen fit to discuss any of these cases with her.

“ The bastard,” she muttered.

“ Coffee?” It was Otto, returned with two cups of coffee.

“ You're a lifesaver, yes.”

Otto settled in again across from her in the cab. He waited expectantly for her to express herself on the faxed material. She kept him waiting until her coffee was half-consumed, and then she told him what she had found in the way of patterns, all of which he already knew.

“ These were Raynack's cases, I see,” she finished.

“ The old doctor didn't pursue them as aggressively as I would like to have seen them pursued.”

“ He never left Virginia,” she said. “Expected to do it all from the confines of the lab. Just took samples sent him by the local guys in every case.”

“ And that's only in the cases that bothered to notify us at all. I suspect there've probably been others, but we're not always notified or asked for help.”

“ How did you get interested in this one?” she asked.

“ It was brought to my attention in a not too subtle way by John Thorpe.”

“ All before my appointment.”

“ Thorpe did the right thing, but no one, not even Raynack, knows about my having pursued the matter. As for J.T., all he knows is that he felt someone ought to investigate a little more in-depth on such cases.”

“ So why didn't you get John Thorpe on this flight? Instead, you have me.”

“ J.T.'s a good man, no doubt about that; but so are you-and I mean that in the most complimentary way. But you are also now head of your area, and I want your area to fall under my division, to be a part of my division. Raynack has fought the notion for a long time, but I'm hoping you'll see the wisdom in it.”

“ I can understand Raynack's reluctance.”

“ I've heard all of his arguments, about how scientists cannot be bullied and pressured into framing reports that fit a case scenario that my psych team puts together; that's not what I want to do at all.”

The flight was coming to an end, a Fasten seat belts red light flashing now. Otto reached across and took her hand in his, a gesture she wasn't expecting. He was a handsome older man, striking with his silver-dappled head; dedicated to the work, he had shown such pain in his eyes back at that death cabin in Wekosha.

“ Jess, you did a hell of a job, and I want you standing before my team with your findings up to now-''

“ Whoa!”

“- tomorrow afternoon, four sharp, debriefing room 222, all right?”

“ Hold on, Otto! I'd have to work my people on twenty-four-hour shifts to-”

“ Just bring us what you've got to date. That's all I'm asking, Jess.”

“ I just don't know… Standing before a psychological profiling team-your team-with the paltry bits and pieces I have…”

“ Do it for me, then, Jess.”

She sighed and looked down at her hands in his. When she looked up he said, “I've got all the confidence in the world in you.”

“ That's… what I like to hear. All right,” she conceded. “And thanks for the confidence.”

“ You earned it, measure for measure.”

He released her hands and sat more calmly in his seat, the Lear descending rapidly now. He muttered almost to himself, “I'm sorry if you felt lied to, cheated or used in all this, Jess.”

Part of her wanted to shout, “Use me!” but another part forced her to remain silent, to hear him out.

“ Things're very unsettled in my life right now. Between my wife's coma taking its toll on us both, and the demands of the job… Leamy, Raynack, some other enemies I've managed to make…”

She had had no idea that he considered Leamy an enemy along with Raynack, and she wondered about the others, but she remained silent, allowing him to go on.

“ Anyway, working with you has been real, very real and refreshing.”

“ Thanks, Otto, but are you sure you're not making too much of all this? Raynack's a pain in the ass, I know, but-”

“ Put it this way, kid. Watch your backside with Raynack. It's people like us, you the new-kid-on-the-block and me the tired old racehorse, they screw first… so watch it.” She watched as he doused his coffee with a hefty helping of bourbon. She guessed he had had too much alcohol and was feeling it, and feeling sorry for himself, which was totally out of character for Boutine… and yet, she had heard reports about his excessive behavior of late, something about his having punched out a doctor at Bethesda.

“ Hey,” he began philosophically, “life and the Bureau go on, right? With or without guys like me. We're all expendable. It's what's expedient at the moment for the Bureau that ought to concern each and every one of us, right?”

“ That's nonsense, Otto. Everyone knows you're the best psych team leader at Quantico, and everybody knows-”

“ Nobody knows a goddamned-” He stopped himself, the old control coming back over him like a mantle.

“ Your solve rate is higher than any-”

“ Look, I just wanted you to understand-I mean know- the full extent of… of my… of my use for you, Dr. Coran. I may be pulling you down with me.” He stared hard into her unflinching eyes now. “There! Confession, they say, is good for the soul.”