At the time, Ovid had not understood the allusion to his being a speaker of divine truth, but he did understand the remarks about his mother, and the fact that the Claw had been sent by her, that he was there to guide and direct him.
That was enough for Leon Helfer. He liked being Ovid, once he got over his horror and disdain for the blood and the evisceration, and the feeding on flesh.
According to the Claw, in the distant past his family had always eaten flesh, and in time his genetic makeup and inborn need for human flesh would make itself felt. And it did… it did. The Claw, for all his ill temper and tantrums, had never told Ovid a lie. He had that in common with his mother, too.
“ Together, we can work miracles. Will you follow me? Will you do my bidding? Will you accept me as your master?” He could hear the Claw's voice in his head as if it were lodged there, as if it had been implanted that first moment he had been asked these same questions.
He looked down at his poetry and read aloud what he had written:
Eyes no longer see
The power vested in me…
I am the Claw who makes the law…
Those who come to me
Are redeemed in a sea of blood and cleansed of their unholy sins…
It read too much like a catechism, far too Catholic for his needs. He set about the business of rethinking and rewriting.
After a few hours and innumerable drafts, his poem was complete. It read:
My teeth will have your eyes
And feed on your banal cries…
Your sins will be eaten away
That you might live another day…
The Claw is no name for him
Who gives you eternal life
By eating away your sin…
My rabid, hungry sin-feast
Will out in the end
To give you eternal peace.
“ Not bad,” he told himself. Not half-bad for someone who didn't understand the first thing about iambic pentameter, or whatever they called these things, someone who had never written poetry before. The Claw was right. It was in his genes, this desire to destroy and to create, all wrapped up together like two hands clasped.
Still, he dared not send the poem for publication.
He wondered again if the Claw would come to visit tonight.
Eight
The following day Jessica was in the lab early. She had pinpointed the crux of the forensics problem with regard to the Claw. What Rychman needed to know was the type of weapon used, and so she had gone to work on this in earnest. Secondly, she wanted to review the information on the bite marks thoroughly, to be certain there was only one set of marks and not two. This determination, and the exact nature of the weapon, might be the most important information she could provide for Rychman at this time.
From her reading of the files, the way the victims were attacked, first by a blow to the back of the head and then the mutilations, the idea of a team at work rather than a single individual appealed to her instincts. It wouldn't be the first time that the so-called killer turned out to be two men, or a man and woman, lust-killing in tandem. But to prove this, she'd have to prove the NYPD crime lab wrong, as all the evidence thus far pointed to a single perpetrator.
It would take all of her resources and those of the Quantico labs and a lot of help from J.T. there to rule out the possibility of a team of killers.
She had already faxed notes of her thoughts on the matter to J.T. Even with so many miles separating them, she was using John Thorpe as her sounding board. Her list in part read: All victims were taken by surprise. Victims had been struck in one location and dragged to another, where the attack took place. Further, the bodies, in all but the Hamner case, were removed and placed elsewhere, suggesting either a very strong man or two men. Possibly one man acted as decoy, distracting victim, while second slipped from shadows to overpower her. Only possibilities, she'd finished.
She had also air-expressed J.T. the one good set of teeth impressions lifted from the Hamner woman along with all those lifted from previous victims. If J.T. determined that the teeth marks all came from the same man, then she'd be satisfied, but as it was, with rumors abounding about the slipshod condition of the NY lab during Darius' bout with illness, she hadn't slept easily knowing a mistake of great proportion might have gone unnoticed. Worse things happened in a laboratory.
Jessica tried to consider all the possibilities, so she'd be open to clues when they arose. She was working in the lab when a technician called via the intercom and said that there was a Dr. Gabriel Arnold on the line for her.
“ Just what I need,” she muttered under her breath. “A sadistic shrink calling from the asylum in Philadelphia.” The last time she'd been alone with Dr. Arnold, the slime had pulled out a bottle of brandy and tried to cajole her into having a drink with him. She sensed that he had somehow learned of her recent battle with drinking. Who among her colleagues would have told Arnold about her bout with alcoholism after Otto's death? Who but Chief O'Rourke, either intentionally or unintentionally?
When she got to the phone in the office that had been turned over to her, she asked, “What can I do for you. Dr. Arnold?”
“ It's not what you can do for me. It's what I can do for you, Dr. Coran.”
“ What is it, Doctor?”
“ I've been working steadily with Matisak since you last saw him.”
“ That's commendable, Doctor.” She didn't intend to give him an inch.
“ Anyway, I think we've had a breakthrough. He's told us where the Torres woman's remains can be found, and the authorities in Ohio-she wasn't in Kentucky, after all-have unearthed a body fitting the general description-”
“ Dr. Arnold, I'm in the middle of an ongoing case here that needs my attention, so if you don't mind-”
“ But that's just it. This relates to the Claw. I've gotten Matisak to cooperate with us on this, and he wishes to speak to you. He says he has vital information bearing on your case there.”
“ Forget it, Dr. Arnold. He's using you for a fool.”
“ This was not my idea.”
“ What're you saying?”
“ I'm saying that a copy of the FBI files on the Claw was forwarded here for Matisak by your, superiors, and-”
“ O'Rourke, dammit!” She'd pleaded with O'Rourke to give her some time; that she didn't need or want any input from Mad Matisak; that the man was yanking everyone's chain.
“ Look, Matisak refuses to talk to anyone but you at this point.”
“ There is nothing Matisak could possibly say of interest about-”
“ He's sitting beside me and he tells me to tell you that the Claw is not one but two.”
This made her pause. How did the bastard know that? Was he simply taking a wild stab? Was he trying to throw her off guard? Was he trying to predict what her thinking would be? He was doing an eerily good job of both.
“ Dr. Coran? Doctor? Are you there?”
“ Put the bastard on the phone, Arnold.”
She heard the noise of a phone being passed through to Matisak in his cell.
“ You're so far away dear Doctor, my old acquaintance,” mewed Matisak, whose voice was like a knife sliding over her nerves. She felt her blood pressure rise with her anger.
“ What is it you want, Matisak?”
“ Please, I've asked you a hundred times. Call me Teach or Matthew.”
“ Get on with it.”
“ I have had time-lots of time, thanks to you-to review the records and documents your superiors forwarded, despite your apparent reluctance to, shall we say, have me on your team…”
Jessica imagined how the small man's chest was expanding. He was so full of himself. She took in a great breath of air and bit her lip, trying to maintain her control, saying nothing.
“ It's Stainlype. Stainlype went out-of-body, out of Gerald Ray Sims, just long enough to find another Sims, there in New York, where you are now. Stainlype came back here to destroy Sims, and then she returned to New York. It's a real force, Jessica: demonic, evil, powerful beyond your wildest imaginings, and if you get too close to it again, well… I fear for your future, dear Dr. Jessica.”