Detective Sturtevante's voice rang out. “Sorry to disturb you there, but this is about the case Jessica thought she detected a tinge of sarcasm. “Go ahead.”
“Then you haven't heard? I thought Parry and you were tight.”
“Heard what? I haven't seen or heard from Parry since you left together, yesterday.”
“Unfortunately, we think we may have victim number five already. If it's true, this guy's really stepped up his timetable in a big way.”
“Can you send a squad car for Dr. Desinor and me?”
“It's waiting for you outside the lab, east exit of the building.”
“Thanks. See you when we arrive and we're all sorry about the confusion of the other-”
“And Dr. Coran…”
“Yes?”
“Good to have you on the case. Don't think I had the opportunity to say so before.”
“ 'Predate it, Lieutenant.”
“I know we need all the support we can muster on this one.” Leave it to Sturtevante to call me support staff, Jessica thought. “Right. Male or female?” she asked.
“Come again?”
“The victim, male or female?”
“Male, but he pretends otherwise.”
“Come again?”
“Likes dressing up in women's clothes. He's something of a… let's say an androgynous sort.”
“I see.”
“Might have something to do with all this, you think? This look of the victims? To me, they all appear to be rather difficult to pinpoint as to sex. The men are as pretty as the women.”
“Perhaps, could be. We've been remarking on the same thing here. I mean to say that their lifestyles, all of the victims, were…” She hesitated. “In one fashion or another, they were atypical, sexually speaking.”
“Agreed. And they dressed the part, playing down which sex they belonged to, playing down their sexual characteristics. Add to that the thin, lithe bodies, none of them dating in the normal sense, all looking for some spiritual answer to the sexual dilemma.”
“You've given this some thought.”
“I have, yes.”
“I did notice the asexual nature of the bodies, both the two females and the feminine males. Long, slender, no telling them apart from the back, even difficult from the front, such small breasts on the women.”
“Yes, the killer's body type of choice.”
“Could have a great deal to do with what's going on inside his head.”
“We'll never know if he decides one of these days to take his own medicine.”
“You think he may be suicidal?”
“His poetry leads me to think so, yes.”
“We've duplicated the poems and have had them forwarded to every teacher and professor in the area and beyond, to see if anyone recognizes the handiwork,” Jessica told her.
“Good thinking. As you know, I'd already started down that road with the local professors at the university. Listen, I must rush off. I'm glad we've had this chat.” The detective abruptly cut the connection, and Jessica wondered for a moment if the androgynous nature of all the victims had spoken more to Lieutenant Leanne Sturtevante than to others working the case. She wondered momentarily about Sturtevante's sexual orientation. Then she admonished herself for the thought.
“Kim!” she called out to Desinor as her Mend passed by the office, a cup of steaming coffee in one hand, a half-eaten Snickers bar in the other. Kim poked her head inside, asking between chews, “What was the call about? Who was it, Parry?”
Jessica stepped around the desk and walked over to Kim, taking the coffee and sipping from it. “Thanks, I needed that.”
“Hey, go get your own.” Kim retrieved the cup.
“There's been another killing, Kim.”
“Oh, Jesus. Our boy has gotten busy since our arrival, hasn't he?”
“Yeah, I'm afraid he's been bad again-”
“Damn him-or her,” Kim corrected herself. “Damn.”
“In any case, the killer has struck again, and we're up to bat.”
“What about Shockley?”
“This one's our house call. I think Shockley knows it. They already have a car waiting on us at the east exit of the building. Let's go.” Jessica grabbed her medical bag and a lab coat.
“Right behind you.”
Shockley saluted them as they passed by his office and found the elevator. Jessica got the distinct impression Dr. Leonard Shockley looked upon all the care and political tiptoeing being done around him as so much silly cloak-and-dagger.
“Have a good time at the show,” he called out to the two ladies standing before the elevator.
Jessica and Kim smiled. The elevator arrived and they stepped aboard.
“What do you think of old Dr. Shockley?” Kim asked.
As the elevator descended, Jessica replied, “I think he's good for my ego.”
“That goes without saying.”
“But he's also shrewd, and I believe at some point he'll declare himself.”
“Declare himself?”
“Show his true colors, make his professional move. He has great acumen. That much he proved with the tear find.” 'True enough, but you've got to believe that some of us co-inhabitants on the planet are genuine, Jess.”
“Some few, sure.” Jessica placed a hand on Kim's shoulder, reassuring her. “You know I'd trust you with my life, as I have in the past.”
“Same here.”
SEVEN
Instinct is the express train-no stops, no detours, no layovers nor delays… Instinct is knowing without knowing why.
Like everyone else entering the murder scene at 1102 South Street, Suite 3-35, Jessica felt an eerie sensation of disbelief that anyone here lay dead, much less murdered. The music and odors coming from the room were pleasing to ear and nose. A Loreena McKennitt CD had been set on continual play-presumably set in motion by the deceased or his killer-and one haunting melody after another softly caressed the ear. As sandalwood incense burned, McKennitt's dulcet voice and heartfelt lyrics sounded like the wail of the dead man's spirit, the sad Celtic strings and flute filtering through the window and onto the street below.
This strange feeling came from what was missing at the scene of the murder of Maurice Deneau. The place proved to be chillingly pleasant, normal and calm; nothing appeared out of the ordinary, nothing the least disturbed in the apartment, and the body lay posed, facedown so that anyone discovering Maurice would first be struck by the etched poem on his back. The body, thus posed, appeared in deep, comfortable slumber. Beside the dead man, on his nightstand, lay a book of poetry, a gilded marker inserted three-quarters of the way through Lord Byron's Childe Harold, Canto II, and the book was dog-eared at the opening of his famous long poem, Don Juan. Other books on a nearby shelf showed Maurice to be a lover of Wordsworth, Coleridge, Keats, Shelley, as well as Pope, Swift, Voltaire, Milton, and two of Jessica's favorite poets, Gerard Manley Hopkins and Robert Browning. Two modern poets graced the bookshelf as well, one named Lucian Burke Locke and the other named Donatella Leare, the poet and professor at the university, Jessica recalled, that Leanne Sturtevante was using as an expert and consultant.
Jessica was taken by the dark, layered cover art on both Leare's and Locke's books, a gut-wrenching Hieronymus Bosch landscape of hell on Leare's cover, the dark and sinister wasteland of a bleak cityscape on Locke's.
The walls were lavishly hung with large prints by the famous Edward Burne-Jones, G. W. Waterhouse, and other Pre-Raphaelite artists. In the hallway, a tearful male friend, Thomas Ainsworth, who had discovered Maurice's body when he had let himself in with a key, kept up a constant, heart-wrenching wailing, like an ancient requiem, over the death of “Mayonnaise”-as he called the victim. When pressed to explain why he called Maurice Mayonnaise, he said the term was his on-line moniker. From all appearances, Thomas loved Maurice and would not harm him for the world, and he knew no one who had any reason whatsoever to harm Maurice.