“Go ahead, say it,” Kim replied, “in bed with the dead.”
“All this morbid poetry, it's rubbing off on you, Kim,” Jessica joked.
“Judging from his diary entries,” Parry commented, “Maurice fancied himself a poet. He's written a lot of verse in his private journal. It's pretty maudlin stuff, about how he is too much put upon by the forces of this world, but I'll wade through it. Who knows… maybe it'll reveal something about him or his killer.”
Sturtevante insisted, “You going to tell us what you saw when you were in trance, Dr. Desinor?”
“Didn't see a thing, sorry.”
“Nothing? Not a thing?” the detective repeated.“Felt a great deal, but no, my mental eyes were closed. I saw no images, no faces, no visual revelations. Too overwhelmed, I suspect, by the feelings of the moment-which I suspect is how Maurice felt.”
“Then what did you feel?” pressed Sturtevante “Feel… what did I feel? Felt a gnawing, rat like pain in my abdomen; felt surprise, amazement, if you will.”
“Go on.”
“I felt dry-throated, my-or Maurice's-entire body went cold-cold as a parched desert in winter; felt my throat go arid as sand, like… like I was choking on dust, but this dust was laden with sulfur, or some such chemical. Next, I felt nausea and numbing and tingling all at once, especially in the hands and feet-fingers and toes, actually.”
“Anything else?” urged Sturtevante, clearly taking mental notes.
“Toward the end, I felt an overwhelming sense of calm replace the painful cold; the calm flooded over me, replacing any sensations of pain or discomfort. I was left with no sensations any longer. The ultimate sensation-peace and unfeeling.”
“Who said, 'Only the dead are at peace'?” asked Parry.
“The quote is 'Only the dead know peace.' Old Mexican saying, I think,” replied Jessica. “Else it came from an old John Wayne western.”
Jessica saw Jim smile at this. His boyish grin brought on flashes of memory for her-memories of times when each of them noticed every small detail about the other, from the way her hair fell across her cheek to the way he traced her lifeline on her palm. She recalled how, at one time, they could not get enough of each other, how the wine of endorphins fed their love-”the true nectar of the gods,” she had once told him. She wondered how they might begin to relax around each other after so much had happened between them. She wondered if it was possible to work a case alongside Jim, or if the two of them were foolish to try.
Sturtevante continued to interrogate Kim. “Then you're telling us that you saw nothing about the murder?” The detective's voice carried an edge like a knife blade. “You can't even tell us who wrote the poem left beside the body, or the poem on the body? If the two were or were not written by the same person?”
“I didn't say that.”
“What can you tell us, then, about the poetry on the parchment?”
“It's the work of the victim; his parchment, his pen, his words. I got those words again, pressing in on me-rampage and quark-and another word insinuated itself on my mind as well.”
“What word?” asked Jessica.
“Pre/light. “Like a preflight check you do on an airplane?”
“I can't say, only that it's somehow important. “You're sure the poem on the paper is Maurice's?” repeated Sturtevante.
“Yes, I'm sure.”
“Good guess, I should think,” the detective muttered.
“Maurice's poem was written to his killer. It was written in praise of his killer. An attempt to honor his own killer.”
“Then they had a suicide pact?” Jessica perked up at this.
“I believe so.”
“You believe so, or you'd decided as much before you ever arrived here?” Sturtevante demanded.
“Compare the handwriting, Jessica, with Maurice's lines from his diary,” Kim calmly replied, unruffled by the detective's skepticism. “The lines on the death poem will, no doubt, render this a moot point.”
Jessica silently compared the two poems. “I have to agree with Kim's assessment of the difference here in literary quality; one is professional, the other amateurish.”
“Maurice's poetry is stilted, somewhat cliched, and filled with awkward, passive constructions,” continued Kim. “No fresh images, nothing to recommend it beyond its mediocrity.”
Jessica added, “The poet who saw Maurice to his grave does not deal in mediocrity.”
Kim immediately added, “Or awkward language, cliched diction, or stilted imagery! This guy, whoever he is, writes more haunting, evocative poetry-in my opinion-than anything I've read in years. Take it for what it's worth, Lieutenant.”
“Then the killer's a professional poet, someone capable in every respect where language is concerned?” asked Parry.
“Precise and calculated,” Kim replied, “with every word.”
“Then he doesn't just write this off the top of his head in the throes of murder? He premeditates the entire act, writing draft after draft.”
“I think it's time we shared a suspicion we hold about the Poet Killer with you two,” Jessica said to Parry and Sturtevante.
“And what is that?” Sturtevante looked shaken by the direction the discussion had taken, but Jessica could not be certain of her expression.
“We've compared the poems he's left behind thus far, and aside from the opening repetition or chorus of three lines, they all have the theme of flickering life-that is, that the soul is never quite extinguished by death but merely takes on a new form.”
“We believe the killer is involved in a fantasy that has to do with some sort of migration of souls,” added Kim.
Jessica continued. “And that he's in the business of helping that migration along.”
“Speculation,” muttered Leanne Sturtevante, staring now at the firmament ceiling motif, which had been carried out even here in the kitchenette.
“We believe all the poems are linked,” said Kim. “In fact, that each is a part of a whole, a kind of epic poem he's going for.”
“My God,” said Parry. “Then that means he's premeditating more slates to write on, more murders.”
“Kim keeps coming up with the number nineteen.”
“That may mean the killer will require nineteen bodies to complete his or her performance art,” added Kim, who sipped again at the steaming coffee in her now-warmed hands.
The room fell silent as this notion floated like a spectral presence among them.
“I've compared the handwriting in the diary to that of the poem on the yellowed, fake-but-fun parchment, which Sturtevante suspected had come from the stationery store Ink, Line amp; Sinker,” Jessica began.
“What's your take on the handwriting, Jess?” asked Parry, standing over her at the table where she sat examining the two documents.
“With my admittedly limited experience in handwriting analysis, I'd say these two, parchment and diary, are by the same hand.”
“I see.”
“Of course, we'll know for sure when our specialists in handwriting have a look-see.” Jessica looked up to Sturtevante and set her jaw firmly. “I think Dr. Desinor has scored a major hit here.” She then put a hand on Kim's arm and asked, “How're you feeling?”
“Better… much…”
“Did you get a sense of the killer at all from touching the victim's back, from placing yourself in his… his place?” pursued Sturtevante.
“Nothing beyond a vague sense of his belief in himself and his actions.”
“Can you elaborate, Dr. Desinor?”
“No, I was… fell into the victim's mind-set, not the killer's.”
“She's tired, Lieutenant. Give it a rest,” Jessica said, her voice clear and final. “Allow Dr. Desinor to regain her strength now, please.”
“Sure, sure.” Sturtevante raised her hands in the universal gesture of truce, but her eyes registered a sad defeat. Like everyone else in the room, she had wanted answers to questions plaguing the investigation, answers that eluded them all.
Seeing this and Jim's dejection as well, Jessica pulled out a large magnifying glass and said to the other two, “Come with me. I have something additional to share with you.”