Robert Walker - Killer Instinct

Throughout her evidence gathering the Chicago bureau guys were very helpful, very professional. The scene was nothing like Wekosha, although Kaseem and Forsythe were forever in her way. Everything had been kept exactly as it was found and no one had been allowed to wander aimlessly around the house or the body. It was a controlled situation for a change.

She didn't have to do her own photographs, nor did she have to tell the photographer how to do his job. She had all the cooperation she required. FBI's Chicago bureau chief, Joe Brewer, was an old friend of Otto's and Otto had paved the way for her.

It was almost a carbon-copy killing of the Wekosha nightmare, with a few notable exceptions. The tendons were not cut. The rope used was the same, but the knot was a bit different. The sperm was liberally smeared about the orifices and the mutilation cuts were just as horrible, but the severed limbs were thrown across the room and lay where they had fallen. The eyes were slit, as was the jugular. And again, there was a distinct absence of blood, or even the smell of blood. She determined first and quickly that the neck wound was once again superficial and the blood about the lips of this large wound had been smeared on, most likely with a brush. She knew instinctively that they were dealing with the same maniac.

She knew she would get no usable prints; that he worked with gloves, most likely surgical gloves. She guessed that any blood they might find would belong to the victim, that the killer hadn't so much as nicked himself.

“ Found something over here,” said Joe Brewer, “a capsule… some sort of medication.”

She went to have a look. It was a red and white capsule. She asked Brewer's men to search for any matching pills, or a container, to rule if it belonged to the victim or the killer. The search turned up nothing.

“ Indicating a possible connection to the killer,” Jessica said. “We'll have to analyze it at the Lab.”

“ We can do it downtown,” replied Brewer.

Jessica held her breath. She dared not hope that finally the fastidious killer had overlooked something. She would hold her prayers until the lab could tell her whether it was or was not a viable clue.

Brewer was just as anxious. He sent the capsule out immediately with strict orders that it take priority. Meanwhile, working in conjunction with Kaseem, Brewer had put together the all-points bulletin on the soldier that Kaseem sought. She was glad for this, because it kept at least one of the military guys off her back while she worked over the cadaver. Forsythe had to leave the house on two occasions, unable to hold back the meal he'd taken on the plane.

The kill was much fresher than the Copeland girl had been, and from her clothing and photos about the house, they established in a matter of minutes that the victim was a hospital nurse. Jessica felt so close to the killer now that she thought she could smell him in the room, a foul odor indeed.

She stood before the dead woman and she visualized his movements, each in turn. He first takes control of her. He must have complete control to tie her heels and her hands and to feel the rush of superiority he requires to look upon her as an object, a container housing the fluid he wants from her. He must use an injection, possibly a powerful anesthetic. Once she is incapacitated, he ties her and rips down the chandelier and uses the naked cords to tie his rope to and hoist her up over the area where her dining room table had been before the killer pushed it over to one side. He uses a chair, but he still must be rather tall and strong to support the dangling woman while he wraps the rope round and round her heels there, pulling tight against the wire supports.

She put the chair next to the body and had Forsythe stand on it. Forsythe was six two. He had to reach to the very length of his arms to make the tie. Their killer, she reasoned, was even taller than Forsythe, perhaps six four or five. She jotted this fact down beside all the others she had learned about the killer, both from her lab work and from Otto's profiling team. The list was getting long, and for the first time, she began to see discrepancies between Kaseem's killer and her own. For one, Kaseem's man was only five nine. He'd have a near impossible time of placing the body in the position it was in, using only the chair.

She informed Kaseem of this when he returned. He was instantly dubious.

“ How do you know he didn't use the table? Or a ladder?”

“ Marks in the rug, here,” she said, pointing. She had already had photos taken of the indentations. “They indicate the four-legged chair was used, and there are no others in the immediate area of the body.”

“ Just the same, my guy is very strong, a weight-lifter.”

“ It's not so much a matter of weight lifting as reaching.” She got up on the chair, saying, “I'm over six feet up, but I could never work that rope myself.”

Kaseem chose to ignore the obvious. He was convinced that the vampire they were after was the same vampire he had encountered in West Germany. She chose then to ignore his ignorance and get on with her evidence gathering. This time, with Chicago's help, she had the latest in equipment for fingerprint finding and for dampness imaging, and the light generated by the reflective ultraviolet imager brought smudges and smears into incredible focus. The bastard's chosen the wrong place this time, she thought. Somewhere in this room he had left traces of his perspiration, and from that all she need do is establish his DNA.

She worked through the night.

At 2 A.M. she began to hear the first rumblings of another victim located in Indiana, on the outskirts of Indianapolis. Word had it that it was a young male victim, and that perhaps it had nothing whatever to do with the Zion killing; yet the victim was drained of his blood. It was yet another Tort 9, and it fell within the one-hundred-mile circumference of Chicago.

She would have to go there in the morning. Joe Brewer brought her word that Otto Boutine would catch up to her in Indiana.

Jessica wanted to strike out at the unknown, unseen assassin. She wanted to rend his tidy little world apart, threaten him as he had never been threatened before. She more and more liked O'Rourke and Schultz's suggestion to taunt him through the newspapers, and be damned with caution. She wanted to do something-anything-before the bastard struck again. In the space of twenty-four hours two more bodies were found. He had stepped up his killing, increased his need for victims, for blood. Why? What had changed? Or was it that he now had, along with his killing tool, a brash new attitude that he could take it when he wanted it, whenever he dared; that in fact there was no dare to it? He was feeling so far beyond capture, beyond the law and human morality, that he was flaunting his newfound power. This is what he seemed to be saying to her. She was angry beyond words, so angry that she wanted to kill this horrible man at any cost.

Brewer drove her back toward Chicago and the Lincolnshire Inn where she was staying, fairly close to the airport. She had intended to be flying back to Virginia the following morning, but now she'd have to prevail upon Brewer's people to get her out to Indianapolis, or hire a car of her own.

She was exhausted by now and so declined Brewer's suggestion they get a bite to eat. He said he hadn't seen Otto in years, and wanted to catch up.

“ You'll have plenty of time for that with Otto when he meets us in Indianapolis,” she said.

“ I was sorry to hear about his wife.”

“ Yes, so were we all.”

They were just outside the inn now. “Did you know her, well?”

“ No, not at all, really. Except for what Otto's told me.”

“ Was a time I thought she was going to marry me, but she chose Otto instead.”