Robert Walker - Killer Instinct

The others began to file out with a few grunts, some of which were an octave higher than necessary. As they drifted out onto the rickety front porch, she said to Otto, “Just don't leave me completely alone, okay?”

He realized from the plea in her eyes that her request was more than a concern for procedure, that a witness be at her side at all times; the request was also quite personal.

“ So what's your initial impression?”'he asked awkwardly.

“ Too soon to tell much beyond the fact the local medicine man is pissed.”

“ Yeah, I got that impression, too. Wants first call, I suppose.”

“ Anyone can declare her dead. No, he just wants to dress the body for burial, spare the relatives any further grief. Least, that's what he said outside.”

“ So where do we begin, now that it's ours?”

“ The light in here stinks,” she said.

“ Got that right, but it's the best we can do with field generators.”

“ Have those guys bring up their squad cars, come through the windows and the door with their headlights. Dammit, where're those guys from Milwaukee with what we need?”

“ On their way, or they better be.”

She went to her black valise and began laying out the tools of her trade: slides, capsule bottles, plastic bags, labels, forceps, specialty scalpels and syringes. She took off her long beige overcoat and donned her apron, gloves and mask. From the inside pocket of the overcoat she pulled forth a scalpel in a case that she flipped open. Otto stared, wondering about the scalpel. She saw the curiosity in his eyes.

“ It was my father's. I guess it's kinda superstitious, but it helps me get through times like this.”

“ Sure, sure,” he said.

They approached the body once again and Otto asked,' it is definite, from what I see.”

“ What's definite?”

“ We got ourselves a torture victim at the ninth level.”

“ A Tort 9,” she said shakily.

“ Next to no blood evidence, other than around the wounds.”

“ You've seen a few of these. I haven't. Give me time to work, okay?”

“ But Jess, it's obvious, isn't it?”

“ Nothing's ever obvious to me. I didn't build a reputation on reporting on the obvious. Now, let me work. It will take some time.”

It had been her considerable reputation upon which Boutine had counted on. He had climbed out on a shaky limb here, a limb which could send them both tumbling should it snap. Both their careers could go down with it. But it was Boutine's bid, and so she hadn't questioned it when he had come into her lab several weeks before asking her a hundred and one questions that had begun with how many pints of blood were there in the human body and ending with how would those pints be most efficiently emptied. Meanwhile, Jessica had heard rumblings about disagreeable scenes between Boutine and his boss, Chief William Leamy, something to do with manpower, monies and time. So he had “recruited” her in an effort to enlarge his investigative powers at headquarters and to build onto his team, adding a forensics expert to his psychological profiling team. It was a maneuver, and not quite yet a fait accompli. She had chosen to leave such jockeying for position and strength to Otto, and to concentrate on her own chess game, which was with the killer. This game began here and now.

After an hour's examination, she began to talk to Otto once again. “She… the mutilation to the body was done after she was dead.”

County Sheriff Stowell had drifted in, and hearing this, he remarked, “Thank God, then she didn't suffer.”

“ Wrong. She suffered a great deal,” countered Jessica. She then said to Otto, “I'll know more about the weapons used by the killer later, after I've had a chance to examine the tissues under magnification.”

“ How can you be sure she was dead before the mutilation occurred?” asked Otto. “The lack of blood evidence?”

“ Yes, for one.”

“ Killer cleaned up the place,” suggested Stowell.

“ Not a chance he could have cleaned it entirely from the walls, the ceiling, the floor,” she said. “Besides, other than footprints, the dirt over these floors hasn't been disturbed. No, he didn't bother cleaning a damned thing.”

“ Then where the hell's the blood?”

She and Otto exchanged a look. Otto glared at Stowell from where he was crouched beside Jessica, and said, “This information is strictly confidential, Sheriff.”

“ Absolutely… absolutely.”

# # #

She and Otto huddled together, Otto obviously excited now. “So the bastard drained her of her blood.”

“ A slow process and a slow death.”

“ What'd he use?”

“ Tubes maybe… I can't say at this point… but it was controlled, very controlled.”

“ And the mutilation afterward? Just a cover?”

“ Purely cosmetic, for our benefit.”

“ You can tell all that without your tests and scopes? It's that cut-and-dry?”

“ No, the other way around. It's dry first, cut second.”

“ No doubts?”

“ None. Look… look closely here.” With forceps, she opened the awful gash to the dead woman's throat which had been smeared with blood that had dripped down to her chin and mouth, drying in an unusual pattern. “This wound is awful, but it was inflicted after she died, and the blood… well, it had to have been placed on-”

“ Placed on?”

“ Applied, smeared on, afterward.”

“ There's got to be prints in the blood, then.”

“ Not if he used surgical gloves, and I believe we're dealing with a very controlled killer here.”

“ You saying he's a shrewd bastard?”

“ In some ways. Others, he's foolish. Like we're supposed to naively believe that she died of these wounds? Odd thing is that there is significant coloration below the facade of the blood on the throat to indicate some sort of ligature wound possibly, or something else to discolor the tissues here and here,” she finished, pointing.

“ So it's just as I suspected,” he said, “a Tort 9.”

“ Think you can get me some black coffee, Otto?” she asked. “I've got a lot more to do here yet.”

“ Doctor, your wish is my command. This is an important step for us both.”

“ That coffee'11 do me just fine, and maybe a hot shower later? And maybe the understanding of God?”

“ I can arrange for the coffee and shower, but the other one? You're on your own there, kid.”

She watched him go before turning back to the corpse, her eyes zeroing in on the whites of the dead girl's eyes where they had rolled back in her head, a natural reaction to terror. The whites were speckled with near invisible, infinitesimal red dots which would show up much better under bright light and magnification, but Jessica had seen the unmistakable telltale signs of strangulation before, and here they were. Everything pointed to the throat as the aperture through which the killer drained his victim. Below the cosmetic slash of the madman, she was certain there had to be more signs of the actual cause of death. But here, now, under these conditions, how was she to determine that? It couldn't be done.

Where was that damned coffee?

Suddenly, one of the deceased's eyes wobbled and flipped back into place, the pupil staring back at Jessica Coran, making her start. The dead girl had had lovely, deep blue eyes.

“ Assuming you're right,” Chief Inspector Leamy, Otto Boutine's boss, had said the day before, “that there is a serial killer making off with whole liters of blood from his victims, Otto, what in hell do you think the guy's doing with it?”

“ He might be using it for any number of purposes. Case histories have people using it in ceremonies, rituals, satanic-”