SEVENTEEN
If poisonous minerals, and of that tree whose fruit threw death on else immortal us, If lecherous goats, if serpents envious cannot be damned; alas, why should I be?
They went to a small stairwell just down from the death room, and Leanne Sturtevante was pacing there like a caged tiger. “I don't know how to tell you this any way but straight out. Leare… Donatella… she is the Poet Killer. Leare-she has done this.”
“What are you saying?”
“She killed that kid down the hall!”
“How do you know this?”
“You were right. Donatella never left for Houston.”
“How do you know this?”
“I confronted her with it.”
“Confronted her with it? When? Did you call her in for questioning? What?”
“No, I arranged a meeting.”
“A meeting?”
“You don't understand.”
“No, I don't. Enlighten me.”
Leanne finally stopped pacing. “Donatella… she and I… we've known each other for several years, and she's become… well, obsessed of late.”
Jessica finally felt the light bulb go on in her head. Leanne and Donatella were-or had been-lovers. “Obsessed? How? In what manner?”
“She's been baiting me with these murders, playing me! Don't you get it? Ever since I broke it off with her, she's been obsessed, fixated on getting us back together. She knows I… I've complained volumes about how unfair the PPD is when it comes to giving women detectives a chance, and I fear… I believe she created this case for me!”
This was beginning to sound to Jessica as if Leanne Sturtevante were the delusional one in the relationship. “She is arranging to help you in the department by killing all these kids?”
“I know it sounds crazy! It is crazy. She's crazy. She fits Vladoc's profile of the killer, and-”Have you any proof? Has she said anything, made any kind of confession?”
“She got off that plane to Houston, like I suspected, Jessica.”
“Are you sure?”
“She pleaded with Locke to keep it to himself. She has become… desperate… since, since our breakup.”
“So, she is a spurned lover, but she doesn't take her anger out on you. Instead she takes it out on these young people… in a bid to help your career? Some thoughtful lover she turned out to be…”
“Cut it out. I broke it off a couple of months ago, and just after, the killings began… and I checked. She never boarded that plane. I confronted her with it, and she confessed, after she told me she had seen me somewhere in the company of a friend on a day when she was supposed to be in Houston.”
“I see. So you put two and two together and-”
“She never got on the plane, and now this kid is dead, and I'm telling you all of it equates to her as the killer.”
“But what evidence do you have that she was involved in what's happened down the hall, Leanne?”
“She's scary, always has been, and now all this. I'd been subconsciously denying that she had anything to do with it, but now… now I can't deny it any longer. I know the poetry is hers. I've read enough of her crap to know she's the one who has penned the death verses.”
“You've got to have more than your hunches and your emotional involvement in order to make an arrest.”
“She lied about her whereabouts on the night when this young woman died. She tracked you down, didn't she? Found out you were working the case from another angle? Picked you out as one to watch and learn from so she can keep a step ahead of you.”
“We still need more than your suspicions to make an arrest, Leanne. So far as I can tell, your hypothesis about Leare is as uncorroborated as Dean Plummer's against her old boyfriend, Burrwith.”
“This isn't the same. Donatella calls herself the reincarnated soul of the poets of the Romantic period. She believes in all that kind of crap-past lives, karma, love that transcends time, you name it. And the fake alibi, that's significant; plenty enough for an arrest.”
“So someone has to bring her in for questioning?”
“But it can't be me.”
“Are you asking me to arrest Dr. Leare on the basis of her feelings about the breakup of your relationship or because she lied to us about her whereabouts and was stalking you instead of attending a conference?”
“She once talked me into it.”
“Into what?”
“Into sitting for a poem, writing it out on my back. I still have deep scars from it. It was as if she wanted to brand me as hers for life.”
“And you've been living with this knowledge all this time?”
“No, I didn't think it was her until I learned she had not gotten onto that plane, and I even rationalized that away until now, until you said that this one died on Saturday. It's an indication how far she will take this delusion that we still have this… this connection.”
“It sounds like enough to warrant a surveillance, but hardly enough to haul her in.”
“Fine, I'll talk to someone else. God dammit, I know she's the Poet Killer. I know it in my bones.”
Sturtevante stormed off, fuming. As she disappeared down the hallway and out of the building, Jessica returned to the crime scene to finish processing it, Donatella Leare very much on her mind.
Jessica would have liked nothing better than to make an arrest, but a false arrest could prove embarrassing for everyone involved, not to mention the amount of wasted time and effort. Instead, she returned to Dr. Stuart Wahlbore and Rocky, taking her copies of both Leare's and Locke's book for analysis and comparison to the verses used by the killer. She asked Dr. Wahlbore if he would put his electronic language sleuth onto the case. Wahlbore was in raptures.
“Can you also examine the two poets as possible collaborators?” she asked.“Create a composite of stylistic features of Locke and Leare's work Rocky can do; designed to do such work, he was.”
“And then match this composite of their work with the killer's poetry, should you find no match with either separately?”
“The suspicion being that the killer's pen might be the work of their collaboration. Most interesting, indeed.”
“How long will it take?”
“An hour, maybe two.”
Again, a weekend approached, and it promised another corpse. Jessica stayed with the linguistics professor until he made the comparisons. Dr. Wahlbore came back with his verdict.
“While similar to our killer, not so close a match is Locke as Leare.”
“Then Leare's style is closer to that of the Poet Killer?”
“Yes, but a precise or exact match, I fear it is not.”
“And when the two styles are combined?”
“Closer to the truth, according to Rocky.”
Given his fractured syntax, Jessica imagined what kind of poetry Dr. Wahlbore would write. The news provided corroboration of Leanne Sturtevante's worst fears. At least on the evidence of her poetic style and linguistic mannerisms, Donatella Leare was looking more and more like a suspect. Still, it was not enough to rush in and make an arrest. Jessica certainly could not arrest a person on the basis of a computer program, even though Dr. Wahlbore assured her that Rocky was also programmed as a lie detector, should she get Leare to agree to a test.
“Rocky is far more accurate than any lie detector, even,” Dr. Wahlbore added.
“Still, it's inadmissible in a court of law,” she reminded him.
“Well, we'll see about that, I suppose.”
“What do you mean, Doctor?”
“Any findings over to local FBI and PPD I must send.”
“What? I didn't ask for you to do any such thing.”
“Requested of me it was, after your first visit, that apprised I keep them.”
“By whom?”
“Agent Parry and a Lieutenant Sturtevante.”
“Sonovabitch,” she muttered. “Don't send these findings.”
“Already done so, electronically. For any offense to you, I am sorry.” I'll just bet you are, she thought, realizing that Dr. Wahlbore only wanted someone, anyone in power, to lend credibility to his program, and now that the renowned Dr. Jessica Coran of the FBI had asked for his assistance, he'd no doubt do anything to keep the ball rolling.