Robert Walker - Killer Instinct

“ But you don't think this has anything to do with any cult? You think it's one flippo, right?”

Leamy leaned into the cushioned leather chair, rocking lightly, waiting for Otto's answer.

“ It's my educated guess that this guy drinks the blood, but whatever he's doing with it, bathing in it or painting his walls with it, the bastard's got some warped need for it, and he wants it fresh and pumped direct from his victims.”

“ Whoa, you're going way out on a limb here, Otto. Nothing in the forensics reports I saw backs you on this. At every crime scenario, the locals believed the body was removed from the slaughter scene, which explains the absence of blood all over. Now you take a giant, imaginative leap and on the basis of that, the bureau's supposed to launch an all-out investigation of this guy based on possible wrong assumptions?”

“ You pay me for my imagination and my intelligence. Bill. I've never let you down before, have I?” Leamy hesitated, started to form words, but rolled his gums about instead.

“ Well, have I?”

Leamy leaned even farther over his desk, fixing Otto with a cold stare. “You know as well as I do, Otto, that it only takes one major screw up and the organizational find a new place for both of us to sit out our years. You remember Colin Armory? You recall where he finished up?”

Otto hated this side of Bill Leamy: the man had worked hard to get where he was, and he meant to take no risks, and what he was saying at the moment was less than veiled. There was a recession on, budget cutbacks had been brutal, and if Otto committed manpower and a small fortune on an investigation plan, it had better produce results or it was Boutine's ass and not Leamy's.

Leamy suddenly began asking Boutine about his wife's condition, a courtesy that the man had extended once too often of late, the conversation taking on a perfunctory, sterile quality. Boutine's wife was in a coma in the hospital, the victim of an aneurysm.

Otto had become convinced that a number of previously unrelated cases were in fact related, that the killer had a taste for blood, and that he was that rare breed of killer who relied on the ninth level of torture, blood draining and blood drinking, to get his kicks.

Tonight was the first time he had seen a recent victim of Tort 9 firsthand; he had, as a first year field operative in California, seen the results of one other such blood-sucker. And now, he knew in his soul, with every fiber of his being, that the crime scene he stared at tonight had everything to do with that awful California case, almost as if this new killer had studied under James P. Childers who died in the gas chamber in 1979 after Boutine had helped put the bastard away. But Childers left a trail so clear and obvious that it was as if he had wanted to be stopped. That seemed not to be the case with this new psychopath.

And this guy ran the torture gamut, touching almost all the grid boxes on the FBI forms: Torture levels one and two with disfigurement of the sexual organs; dismemberment, Torts three through five. The only heinous acts the bastard seemed uninterested in performing were Torts six through eight, acts of disembowelment and cannibalism. But there was no doubt the fiend enjoyed draining his victims of their blood, slowly and with extreme caution, so as to lose not a milliliter unnecessarily. Boutine could be wrong, of course. The blood could be taken off for other than a manic feeding, and maybe the killer didn't use it as Kool-Aid, but something told him differently.

Otto believed Jessica Coran's findings would not only lend credence to his theory, but that she, like him, would soon be risking her hard-won reputation as well. As young as she was and as new to the division as she was, Dr. Coran was known for her thoroughness and her tenacity to stick by her convictions, no matter what the consequences. She was a far cry from the man who had been overlooked for the position she now held. Dr. Zachary Raynack had been blind to what Otto felt to be obvious signs of a Tort 9 killer.

“ Call it a hunch,” Otto had finally told Leamy the day before.

Leamy had gotten up from his seat, not a good sign. “You don't bet the ranch on a hunch, Otto. You, of all people, should know that. You sure this thing with your wife-” Leamy hesitated “-hasn't affected your reasoning on matters of-”

“ You've got nothing to worry about on that score, Bill. Nothing whatsoever!” Otto hoped that his firm voice, tinged with anger, had settled Leamy's mind about him. It was obvious that Leamy's garrulous golfing buddy, Dr. Raynack, had already gotten to him.

Otto pulled his thoughts from Leamy's and Quantico's concerns about him. He concentrated instead on Jessica Coran whose orchestration of the evidence gathering must seem like science fiction to the locals. Her instruments and the procedures she followed were cutting edge, and she had taken charge as she should, sending the brawny policemen to their hands and knees to rip out linoleum just below the sink in an adjacent alcove, as well as floor boards below the victim's head. Despite what seemed a lack of any blood anywhere, she knew that trace elements, even after washing and scrubbing, could be detected under a scanning electron microscope. If the killer so much as pricked himself as he hacked away at the body, she'd find some trace of his blood from the sink, the tiles, or the boards, Otto believed. He had heard through the grapevine that she was affectionately known as the “Scavenger.” Raynack, by comparison, was known as the “Rat Man” of the department.

Otto watched her intently now, finding Dr. Coran extremely easy to look at, remembering the first time he had ever seen her, and how he had felt as if his breath had been stolen. In this setting, she was of course in stark and unrelenting contrast to the male-dominated environment, but even in a roomful of vibrant women, he believed she'd stand out. Jessica had long auburn hair, which when not tied back, was just this side of wild. Her creamy complexion was flawless against a beautiful, navy-blue suit with a white chiffon blouse, but now the suit jacket was out in the car, lying atop her overcoat, replaced by a linen apron that also covered her petite skirt. Not even this could hide her slimness. Otto saw Stowell and some of the others snatching glances at her from time to time.

Terrific genes, he realized. At seventeen, she had been a tall and willowy girl, possessing a startling grace for one so young. She had her father's height, his knowing glint in the eye, and her mother's whiskey voice and high cheek bones. She had the characteristic intent-on-her-work attitude that had made her father so invaluable to the military. Boutine had known Dr. Oswald Coran as one of the finest medical examiners he had ever met, as had everyone who had dealings with the man, some of whom were the families of MIAs, senators, generals and presidents. In fact, Coran had presided over many controversial autopsies, his expertise often sought in an attempt to disprove rumors of foul play as in the plane crash deaths of two senators in a one-week period two years before.

Oswald Coran had died of a debilitating disease that first took his limbs, his muscles atrophying, leaving only his keen mind intact, imprisoned in a useless, wasted body. For such a man, it was a condemnation to hell. There was some talk that his sudden death was the result of euthanasia, but it was never pursued. Sadly for Jessica, her father's condition came on the heels of an automobile accident that had claimed her mother. Somehow Jessica persevered and had finished her residency at Bethesda Naval Hospital, where her father had once been chief of forensics.

According to Jessica's father, the Navy saw that their medical practitioners got what they needed in the way of training, as opposed to the Army. He insisted she either train under the Navy or through private medical schools. She chose the latter, but as a “navy brat” her upbringing was filled with upheaval, change and disruption, and as a result she seemed tough beneath the gentle exterior, and she hadn't a clue as to just how stunning she was. Her idea of a beauty regimen was to pull her hair back and splash on perfume, and for her, that was all it took.