Robert Walker - Killer Instinct

“ How cool would he be if we put out a diagram of the kind of devices he uses in his hometown paper?” asked O'Rourke, who seemed to favor the proactive method.

“ Along with the fact he drives a gray van with lettering along the side,” added Schultz. “And then we leak the fact we've got some of his DNA left at the scene. Don't know about you, but that'd make me kind of jumpy.”

“ Add to the list that we suspect he's some sort of a traveling pervert-salesman who combs the Midwest, possibly selling to hospitals,” said O'Rourke.

“ Call him a fag because he didn't rape the victim, some insults like that. Call him impotent, that kind of thing,” said Byrnes. “Yeah, maybe it would smoke him. Maybe he'd respond to insults.”

“ Maybe, maybe not,” said Otto.

“ It's worth a shot,” said Schultz.

“ You want to coordinate that, then, Schultz, all the big midwestern papers get the story. Do something with the victims' families in all three cases, try to draw the bastard back to the victim psychologically. Although with this guy, I have my doubts he's going to feel the least sympathetic to the families. But start there and if that gets no results, go with the insults. Remember to stress no bylines on the damned stories. We don't want this psycho going after a reporter.”

Otto took a deep breath before going on, pausing for everyone's complete attention. “I talked with a man in my office who claimed to be a goddamned vampire expert, who says he can help stalk this 'thing,' as he called it.”

There was some muffled laughter.

“ A real loon but the guy's not only the Exalted Emperor of something called the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Vampires and Werewolves in North America, he's a legitimate biologist with the Corning Corporation in Upstate New York.”

This drew a few more laughs and remarks.

“ Guy flew here as soon as he read about the case, insisted on seeing me and me alone-”

“ You were alone with this guy?” asked O'Rourke.

“ He insisted on seeing the evidence, everything we have. Of course, I showed him the door. You know how much store I put in these wackos and fringe guys, even if it is more than a goddamned weekend hobby for the man.”

“ So, we got 'em coming out of the woodwork,” said Schultz.

“ All the same, the Exalted One did say something that made sense. What sets this killer apart is his very real instinctual drives, such as his unquenchable taste for human blood. I don't go along with all the crap about superhuman gifts or reanimated beings, but this monster has an acquired taste for blood, whether that's due to some physiological need, a psychosexual need, or a combination of the two, that's what we must determine. What makes this bastard tick.”

“ Well, from all we've researched on the subject, and there's damned little to go on, boss,” began Byrnes. “You've got to figure this guy is working out some twisted sexual fantasy. What is it they say: one man's garbage is another man's treasure? In sex, it's similar; what one man gags over, say menstrual blood, another man is turned on by.”

“ Blood turns this bastard on for sure,” added Jessica who had calmly listened to the discussion.

“ But only eighty or ninety percent of known blood drinkers also perform deviant sex acts on their victims,” O'Rourke interjected.

“ But even the other ten percent are in it for some twisted psychosexual perversion,” countered Otto, “albeit so bloody sick that the sexual nature of the crime is overtly unapparent. I think our creep is totally screwed in the head and has, for whatever reasons, gotten blood and semen and sex and murder all balled up into one.”

“ So he gets sexual pleasure from drinking the blood,” said Jessica.

“ His ultimate gratification, yes.”

The others considered this in a moment of silence.

“ Maybe that's your lead, Schultz,” suggested Byrnes.

“ What lead?” asked Schultz.

“ For your story. Plaster it across the headline that the bastard we're after gets his rocks off by pouring blood down his pants.”

“ Intimate that he's unable to please a woman,” added O'Rourke.

“ Intimate hell,” replied Byrnes. “Call him a faggot vampire.”

“ Byrnes may be on the right track,” said Schultz. “If this thing is to work, we have to piss the bloodsucker off.” Schultz pursed his lips, nodded and tapped a pencil before him, considering his next move. Jessica, searching the features of everyone around the room, realized that all of them were considering their next steps very carefully. None moreso than Otto.?

He knew that he suffered from two rare diseases, both of which made him angry and both of which made him a blood-drinker. He had read all there was to read on his conditions. He knew that his adrenal cortex was steadily atrophying, and that only cortisone helped. It was a hormone that regulated the electrolyte balance between sodium and potassium in the body. An imbalance caused progressive fatigue, weight loss and eventual death. At one time Addison's disease was fatal, but now you took cortisone to replace the body's supply. But the damnable cortisone caused weird fatty deposits in his back, turning him into a kind of Quasimodo, bending him over. It showed up in his buttocks and his cheeks as well, giving him a John Kennedy or Jim Belushi appearance about the face. He had gone to a doctor friend who had X-rayed his pituitary gland at the base of his skull, the gland that controlled the adrenals. The pituitary was shriveled, the adrenals tiny. The disease had done its work, marking him both inside and out.

Other symptoms were anxiety, depression and an acute sensitivity to cold.

Blood, he reasoned, helped to hold the disease in check, as it warmed him both physically and spiritually.

Blood also helped combat his second disorder, porphyria, called by some the vampire disease, in which large amounts of white blood corpuscles were wildly manufactured in the bone marrow, leaving red corpuscles in short supply. The bone marrow defect led to a lack of heme, a pigment in the blood's oxygen carrying cells as well, and this gave him a pallor. Occult historians believed that porphyries attacked and drank the blood of others in a desperate attempt to get healthy hemoglobin into their systems. Nonsense, he thought. If that were the only reason he killed, he could stop tomorrow, go into a clinic and get all the hemoglobin he required-and he had done exactly that on more than one occasion. He knew a lot of doctors. He went to them whenever he could. He liked to watch them work, and, for the most part, he liked them.

A key symptom of his disorder was a sensitivity to sunlight, which caused scabs, scarring and sores over his skin. His gums, too, had receded as a result of the disease, exposing his teeth to such a degree that they appeared to the casual observer to be fangs.

Some people had cancer. Some were afflicted with other debilitating diseases. He counted himself lucky. His diseases could be held in check, both by cortisone, which was in plentiful and cheap supply, and by blood.

He had earlier packed the van, before the sun had come up. He had clients to see in Indiana, up and down the state, and he might get over to Ohio and down to Kentucky, if he could manage it. On the company car phone, he kept in touch, but the range wasn't as far-reaching as he and his van. He placed his heavy cases into the van, his samples, all the various brochures and catalogues provided by the company. He then stocked the rear of the van with his own, private goods, the items necessary for taking the blood from another Candy or another Renee. All he needed now was opportunity, and he would help opportunity along, knowing that it would present itself somewhere in Indiana tonight.