“I had Burrwith's poetry compared stylistically with what we've taken from the crime scenes. It in no way resembles the killer's work,” said Jessica.
“He masks himself well, this man,” countered Plummer, still fuming. Locke took her aside to calm her down.
“By comparison, both Locke's and Leare's poems are far, far closer in imagery and the nuances of tone to what we find in the killer's poetry, and their styles are far closer,” continued Jessica. “I picked up one of Dr. Locke's books, a collection of dark, brooding poems-as are all his books, I'm given to understand.” Three in total,” inteijected Locke, a smug look on his face.
Jessica recalled how each title said little about the contents of the volume, yet each title was turgid, abstruse, and not a little pompous. The titles, all listed inside the book she had in her possession, were: Oration of the Gifts of Those Angels Who Rule the Four Quarters, Lurkers in the Stillness of the Forest Soul, and Various Jottings-Collectively Known As Folly and Light.
Jessica had had every piece of information on Locke duplicated and forwarded to her, and she studied it all before coming to see him a second time. She was stuck by the memory of another killer who had wrapped himself in the cloak of civility and science, and she feared making the same mistake with Dr. Locke, who cloaked himself in genteel intellectual pursuits. Should he be hiding a dark and evil secret, perhaps doing her homework might help her illuminate the depths of this man.
She and Kim exchanged a look now, as Jessica had shared her suspicions of Locke and the possibility that Locke and Leare were in some sort of twisted collaboration.
Apparently sensing the suspicion in the room, Locke suddenly burst out, “And just why am I suspect at all? Because I sat on a stool at a number of coffeehouses and bars in the old Warehouse District and on Second Street? What nerve, what gall, what desperate grasping at straws on the part of an inept police department!” He finished with a dramatic wave of the hand.
Kim assured him, “We're just following leads, Dr. Locke. We suspect that somewhere in your memory banks, some key to this nightmare may reside. If not in your memory, then perhaps in Dr. Leare's.”
“This is bound to make the newspapers,” said Plummer. “The university can't sustain such bad publicity.” Are you sure of that, Harriet?” asked Leare, smiling. “Think of it: 'Two Noted Philly U Poets Hypnotized to Determine Guilt or Innocence in Series of Murders.' “
“I'm sure you'll put the best spin on it,” Jessica predicted. “Fact is, it could be good for book sales, Dr. Plummer.”
Locke managed a wry smile as well. “You see, I'm up for tenure and promotion here. At least, since you are talking to Donatella as well as to me, and you have had Burrwith under suspicion, it doesn't appear as if I am the exclusive target of your probe. That much is good.”
A nice guy with an ulterior motive for ratting out his colleagues, Jessica thought.
“Good gal Leare is, and a fine poet, though something of a Jekyll and Hyde type; I doubt her capable of killing anyone, despite the method,” Locke said, with forced jocularity.
“Exactly what do you mean by 'Jekyll and Hyde type,' Dr. Locke?” Leare replied archly, playing the game.
Harriet Plummer quickly interceded. “He means, Dr. Leare, that you are sometimes moody, that's all. Right, Lucian?”
“Oh, yes, that's precisely what I meant. The woman has, of course, read all my work, and she's won accolades and one of the more important poetry prizes, all on the basis of her last volume, which I gave advice on. Still, that hardly makes it derivative of my own work, although writers do work on the backs of those who came before them.”
The sexual innuendo could not be missed, nor the reference to the murders.
“Dr. Leare is working her way up the literary ladder, and her recent success has mitigated her moodiness, wouldn't you say, Lucian? I believe she is working new ground now, aren't you, dear?”
Jessica could not help but note the sexual tension among the colleagues. Had they all slept with each other at one time or another? Leare obviously swung both ways.
“New poems?” asked Jessica.
“Free verse.”
“Is that 'new ground'?”
Donatella Leare replied for herself. “Oh, definitely! Aside from no forced rhyming, it changes the pitch, tone, and hue of a work of poetry to cast it in free verse. Frees the mind from petty constraints, you see.”
“I see I have some studying to do,” Jessica responded.
Locke interjected. “I would offer you a lesson, but the well's run dry. A bookstore in the Second Street area, quite quaint and out of the way, called Darkest Expectations, carries my book on how to read poetry. Be prepared for a great deal of dust, which I suspect is all you will gain from a hypnosis session, but then, you are the experts.”
“Shall we begin with you, Dr. Leare?” asked Kim, who had quietly prepared herself for the hypnosis session, which involved holding the hands of the person being hypnotized. This would allow her to do a full psychometric reading of both the poets as well.
After ten minutes, Donatella Leare revealed little knowledge of the victims who had been her students; she managed only to repeat the cursory information she had already given them. Lucian Locke, by comparison, detailed the study habits of each in cogent specifics, down to what sort of writing tool each preferred. Still, little came of the hypnotic net Kim cast out-certainly nothing revealing enough to uncover the killer.
“I had thought that between you two, you might have some knowledge of the killer, perhaps not consciously but subconsciously,” Kim apologetically said once the session with Locke had come to a close. “You don't mean to say you're giving credence to Dr. Plummer's batty notion that Professor Burrwith is the Poet Killer, are you?” Leare fairly screamed. “Burrwith hasn't got it in him to kick your ass, Locke, for stealing his woman; he hasn't even got the guts to call your wife on it.”
“It may be worth pursuing, Donatella,” countered Locke. “I told you how he's been stalking Plummer, how he made a scene at the cafe, and you know very well that Plummer and I have a purely platonic re-”
“That hardly makes him a poisoner, any more than it makes me a killer,” she replied, pacing Locke's living room.
“Why do you suspect that we might know this killer?” asked Locke.
Jessica took a deep breath before replying. “I believe you may know who the killer is on a subconscious level, since his writing has obviously been influenced by both of your works.”
“Are you quite sure of this?”
In response, Jessica went to a table and unrolled a computer graphic display she'd held back until now. “This is what the artificial intelligence computer program that examined your work alongside that of the killer's came up with. It's not really close; not a match. Where Locke is bleak, Leare is dark, and the combination is a dark bleakness of style that parallels the style of the killer.”
Locke and Leare studied the many connections the computer program had found between their poems and those of the Poet Killer. Leare protested, saying, “This is crazy. No computer program can precisely read style and nuance and innuendo and a hundred other tools of the skillful poet. This is so entirely bogus, Lucian.”
“Remarkable nonetheless, but Leare and I have never collaborated, and to ask a machine to collaborate for us, well, I should think that's some sort of infringement of copyright protection. It is absurd to have machines pointing fingers at us on the flimsy basis of similarities between our styles and that of some amateur who also happens to be a murderer.”
“You must admit that there appears to be a close tie,” said Jessica.
Locke's good eye seemed to double in size, and his glass eye looked to be in danger of rolling out of its socket. “Are you suggesting that we two, together, somehow compose the Poet Killer?” he asked, his dwarfed body shaking with laughter and a gleeful sort of astonishment. “Leare, imagine what such nonsense will do for our reputations and book sales! This is remarkable, wouldn't you say, Donatella?”