Pure Instinct

32

Alex, still wracked with pain from his own wounds, had cornered the sadistic Hearts killer, and he had destroyed the monster, at least in his fevered mind where he slept in hospital.

After the storm had subsided, after his wounds had stopped palpitating, he found himself chasing Thommie Whiley's E, alias Dominique, out that window in Surette's apartment. E leaped manfully from building to building, as if capable of flight, but Alex was also up to the challenge, despite the profuse bleeding from his wounds-stitches already in place and torn now. Regardless, his dream ego kept on the killer's heels, shadowing every move, every dodge.

The killer made one leap too many for a wall too far, landing on the other side and barely holding on with those ugly clawlike fingernails Alex so vividly recalled now. The bastard was a guy wearing fake nails and even a set of false breasts which dangled below his shirt.

“ Help! Help me!” screamed the bloody killer who had just brutalized Ben.

Alex backed up and made a prodigious leap across the crevasse between them, miraculously landing on the black-topped roof. He then crawled on his belly to where the SOB clung to his/her petty life there at the ledge.

The killer's pleading eyes were framed in fear, a cowardly creature with heavy makeup, rouge at the cheeks and thick, red lipstick, a kind of crazed clown.

“ Pull me up, damn you! Pull me up, now!” she/he cried in a falsetto voice.

Alex grabbed hold of the killer's flesh and found it soft to the touch, feminine and warm. This startled him, and he looked again into Dominique's eyes. He was a she, she was a he… and then back again. There was no earthly way to tell, save for the ferocity of his/her strength as she/he clung now to Alex, ripping into Alex's skin with those bird-of-prey claws of his/hers.

“ Let her fly, Sincy,” said Ben deYampert, standing alongside, having materialized from the cloud of dream. “Let's see how well the bitch flies.”

“ Save me, you must… you must save me!” came the killer's plea, piercing and painful to his ear.

“ Kill it, Alex… whatever it is… kill it!” demanded Ben's vengeful spirit. “You owe me that much!”

Alex couldn't easily let go even though he wished to fulfill Big's last request. His struggle with himself was nothing compared to the struggle against her clawing, bloodletting grip; in fact the connection between them, killer and hunter, became so slick with blood that it was the red milk of life which soon and ironically made it impossible for the monster to hold onto Alex any longer.

She/he slid in minute increments, one lurch at a time, from Alex's grip. He was unsure whether he wanted the fiend to die so easily or not. He wanted to see the thing suffer as he had suffered the loss of his friend, and as he had seen Surette and Thommie Whiley and other victims of the Queen of Hearts killer suffer. He wanted to rip the bastard's heart out, make it a clean, even, full-circled kind of revenge, but too, amid all the rage and chaos of the moment, Alex also pleaded to have his curiosity quenched.

“ Tell me where the hearts are kept and what you do with them, and I'll save you!” he lied.

But the blood slick created from the gushing wounds and a handful of bloody human hearts the maniac clung to was too much, and the moment the monster sailed away into the oblivion of the pit below Alex's dream self, he awakened with one resolve.

Sweating, his wrists in pain from the imaginary rents and tears inflicted on him, Alex had recalled the one word the ugly demon had whispered to him when he'd asked where she kept the hearts: Raveneaux.

He opened his eyes to find that he was not at home but in a hospital room surrounded by Captain Landry, Kim Desinor and Dr. James Aubrey Longette, the hypnotist and shrink.

“ The regression therapy worked, Alex. You've told us everything that happened in that room,” Kim assured him.

Landry was staring out the hospital window, quietly cursing to himself and repeating the name Raveneaux.

Even Dr. Longette knew what the name stood for in New Orleans and Louisiana.

“ Just who or what is this Raveneaux?” asked Jessica, who looked on behind a concerned Kim Desinor.

“ Big plantation home north of the city,” replied Landry.

“ Home to Senator Raveneaux, retired General George Maurice Raveneaux,” added Dr. Longette with some bemused delight. “How could that old upstanding white cracker man know anything about these horrible killings? How could the killer be connected to one of the most powerful men in the state?” The doctor was awestruck, yet jaded enough to accept the possibility. “You know, to this day some people believe that Jack the Ripper was born of royal blood and lived in Windsor Castle.”

“ Unless the killer was having us on,” replied Landry. “Listen, doctors,” he said solemnly to Kim, Jessica and Dr. Longette, “I don't want a word of it, not a single word, going beyond this room. Do you understand? An accusation like this… well, it must be handled with all due caution and by the book.”

“ Yes, indeed, an important man like Raveneaux, a member of the white elite, a member of the old family guard. Be a different story if the man were black, though, wouldn't it, Captain Landry?” said the shrink and hypnotist, his eyes bulging with rage.

“ I'm surprised at you, Dr. Longette,” countered Kim in her most facetious voice. “Do you mean to say there's different laws for Cajun, Creole and black folks than there are for whites in New Orleans?”

Landry just gritted his teeth and pretended he'd heard no objections. “Alex and I'll have to pursue this by the book, and that will mean somehow, some way we're going to have to convince a judge in this town to give up a warrant on former Senator Raveneaux. You know what that's going to entail?” Alex attempted a laugh, which only hurt his bruised insides, and then he said, “Maybe by the time you get that warrant, I'll be ready to walk out of here, go up-country with you, Carl. Just be sure it covers all the Senator's dwellings and vehicles.”

Landry's usually deep worry lines had just sunk deeper into the folds of his skin. “Christ… it would have to be Raveneaux…”

Kim was worried about Alex, the wounds he'd suffered, and she was also worried about her associate and friend, Jessica Coran. Jessica had been subdued, like an exhausted swimmer just finished with the English Channel. She'd been on the phone all morning in an attempt to locate James Parry, wishing to send him news, but she'd been unable to reach him. Meanwhile, she'd refused to check in with Paul Zanek, who had become irrational about the whole matter, blaming Lew Meade for having bungled the whole operation.

Zanek had called Kim, shouting at her, but she hadn't taken any crap from Zanek either, telling him, “What operation's that, Paul? The bag-Matisak operation? Well, you can stop worrying about Matisak. Jessica bagged him just fine. Meade's got a report on the Matisak matter coming over your fax as we speak, and I'm sure you'll like the results.” She'd then briefly explained what had been found at the Gatorland Storage facility.

Paul had punctuated all she said by remarks such as, “Are you sure? Are you putting me on? Is that exactly how it went down? But that's damned good news, damned great!”

“ Yeah, sure it's great, but at what expense to Jessica, Paul? Have you given her any thought at all?”

“ What're you, crazy? She's all I've thought about. Damned straight I have. I put round-the-clock surveillance on her, despite the fact she didn't want it! I arranged everything through Lew Meade with clearance from Santiva.”

“ Well, congratulations, Paul. Hoist a glass for Jessica. In the meantime, she's surviving quite nicely.”

She'd hung up on Zanek, and turned and looked across the room at Jessica, who'd chosen to hide out at her place. Kim had realized that Jessica simply needed some time and emotional distance. She'd been consoling Jessica when she learned of Alex's brush with death and how poor Ben deYampert had met his end.

At that point, Kim had dropped everything and rushed to the hospital, Jessica chasing after. Moments after her arrival, Kim had learned of Landry's request that Alex undergo hypnosis so they could learn all they could about what had happened in the apartment where Ben deYampert was killed.

Alex was now insisting on getting up and going straight for this place called Raveneaux without a warrant, on probable cause alone, and he meant to do it with or without anyone's help, and he meant to do it this moment, disregarding his doctor's advice, disregarding his captain and Jessica's objections or Kim's concern for him. His attempt to get up, however, caused a flurry of dizziness and a tongue-biting pain searing up from his midsection where damaged, bruised ribs were still sending out shards of gnawing distress. His arms were both in bandages, but his hands were free. An orderly was called in by Landry and the hospital machine was put into motion, and in a few minutes Alex was being pumped with a sleep-inducing medication that calmed him into a stark white doze.

Just as Alex was going under, he mumbled to Landry, “I'm going… with you… to this place…Raveneaux.”

“ For now, you get some rest, Alex,” Landry said. But now he was speaking to an unconscious man.

Jessica took Landry aside and said, “Me too, Captain. I want to be with you when you go out to this Raveneaux place.”

“ Listen here, I want you to get some rest yourself, young lady. You've gone through a terrible trauma with that fiend Matisak, and both of you”-he included Kim with a ges-ture-”you've been up all night on this vigil over Alex, and I appreciate your concern for him, but you're not going to be any good to anyone if you collapse.”

“ I'll get some rest now, knowing he's okay,” Kim countered.“It's going to be a while before I get that warrant-if I can get it at all. As to probable cause, that's a long shot and not a very good long shot at that.”

“ I'll see what I can do about a federal warrant,” suggested Jessica.

“ That would be great.”

“ But don't count on it,” cautioned Jessica. “Meade doesn't like the idea.”

“ I'll be in touch, and truth be known, there's some things we picked up at the scene which I'd like you to touch over, Dr. Desinor. See what comes of 'em. Would you mind terribly?” asked Landry.

She shook her head. “No, of course not. That's what I'm here for. Anything I can do to help, which so far hasn't been much.”

“ You don't go second-guessing yourself now, Doctor. You've done far more than we could've expected here.”

Dr. Longette shook Landry's hand. “I want to see you raid that old plantation out there. Wish I could be with you, in fact, but… anyway, that's going to be a sight for the six o'clock news.”

“ Hold on now, Dr. Longette, you promise me you won't go calling Channel 2 or anybody. Say it… say it.”

Longette took a deep breath and finally nodded. “All right, Captain. If that's how you want it.”

“ Say it.”

“ I promise you, Carl.”

Now Landry breathed out of relief. Longette then left, a light chuckle on his lips.

“ You'd best get that rest yourself now. Dr. Desinor, Dr. Coran,” suggested Landry.

“ I will,” replied Kim, “but for now, I think I'll just stay a while with Alex, so he doesn't wake up alone.”

He wakes up alone every morning, Landry thought, but did not say. “He'll be out for hours, maybe till tomorrow. Go home… get some rest, both of you.”

“ You go on back to the hotel, Jess. I'll just stay a little longer,” Kim lied, and sent Landry and Jessica on their way.

When Alex's eyes opened and cleared after the dreamless, white-cloud sleep which only sedation could bring, he found Kim Desinor sitting alongside him, holding his hand in hers, her eyes red and moist from her having had no sleep and from weeping.

“ Hey, what gives? What're the tears for? You okay?” He tried to clear a dry, cracked throat. “Somepin happen while I was out?”

“ Everything's such a mess. Ben's gone, you've been hurt so badly, Jessica's so depressed, and I… I haven't been of any use to any of you. If I'd only heeded my own best voice. I knew I was getting crazy, mixed messages from the killer about identity, so why couldn't I have-”

“ You're talkin' nonsense, Kim. That's crazy talk, and I don't want to hear you blaming yourself over Ben's death. God, if anyone's to blame, hell, the big lug wanted to go home to his wife, and I insisted we make one more stop.”

She leaned in over him and found herself hugging him. With bandaged forearms and wrists, he returned the hug as best he could, and they were both surprised at how casually he found her lips, his own passion rising to the surface of its own volition. “It's all right,” he reassured her. “I'm going to be okay.”

Behind them someone had stepped into the hospital room. It was Carl Landry, accompanied by Jessica Coran, who was polite enough to noisily clear her throat, a smile coloring her features, obviously happy to see that Kim and Alex at long last were getting along so well.

Landry cleared his throat almost in echo of Jessica and said, “Glad that I've found you here, Dr. Desinor. Alex, how're you feeling?”

“ Some better.”

“ Doctors are saying bruised ribs, nothing broken,” Kim began, pushing away from Alex, standing now, a bright and energetic glow about her. “And the forearm gashes should heal in a few weeks like new.”

Landry nodded knowingly and muttered, “Battle scars.” Then his tone changed to one of accusation. “You never left this room, did you, Dr. Desinor?”

“ I've been in and out… for coffee and whatnot.”

“ Oh, leave her alone, Carl,” said Jessica, playfully shoving Landry. “Can't you see she's worried about Alex? Nothing wrong in that.”

Landry, a bit uncomfortable with the joviality, spoke directly to Alex. “Alex, I talked with Ben's wife while you were out… tough, tough business. Meanwhile, I've been busy. Got something here I pulled from Surette's apartment. I'm sure it belonged to the killer we're after, and he or she, as you suspect, would've worn it close to his… ahh, her body. Look familiar?”

“ She, Captain,” Alex said, sure of himself. “He-our killer-is a she. It's the same she that killed Thommie Whiley. Calls herself Michael Emanuel Dominique, Thommie's E for Easy… pretends to be a man who likes to dress as a woman, but those breasts of hers were real enough.”

“ Any rate, he or she likely wore these beads close to the skin, and in the scuffle with Ben, they were torn off.” Landry held a set of dark rosary beads up to Kim's eyes. “Look familiar?” This time there was a red-eyed gargoyle on the amulet along with a skull and crossbones, but the gargoyle had not been as cleanly fused to the rosary as the earlier crystal amulet had been. “This too.” He pulled forth a pair of lacy, round cards with the image of a queen of hearts on them, along with two brushes and eyeliners, a comb and a handheld mirror.

“ There weren't any convenient photos lying around with her picture on them by any chance?” asked Jessica.

“ We… I retrieved the damned cards, incidental items; nothing as useful as a photograph was in the place. It was as if it were being used as a dressing room only; nothing but water, Diet Pepsi, cheese and bread in the fridge.”

“ No, not a thing in the way of paper in that place,” Alex said, “I'd just been remarking about that to Ben when he saw the card below the couch, and that's when all hell broke loose. That's why it was so eerie, because the place was cleaned out after Surette was killed long before we got there that first time almost a year ago, and the place had remained almost exactly the same since. I should've known then how dangerous this wacko-creep was… I should've known; should've felt it and gone with my instincts, but not me… not this time… Still, she didn't look strong enough to hurt a fly, much less Big. Damn me… damn me, anyway…”

“ Beating up on yourselfs not going to accomplish anything, Alex.” Kim said, returning to him, her hands going to his shoulder in a consoling squeeze.

Landry cleared his throat and added, “The bad news is I'm still working on a court order for a search and seizure out at Raveneaux, but-”

“ Whataya mean? What's the flaming holdup, Captain?” asked Alex, his agitation showing clearly on his brow.

“ Even in the best of circumstances, Alex, you know how these things can take time, and this is hardly the best of circumstances. We don't have a whole hell of a lot to go on. We have the word of a cop who thinks he heard the killer shout the name Raveneaux as the place where he or she plants the victims' hearts, and we only have that through hypnosis, which doesn't always fly with the justices, as you also know. Now-”

“ Gotta be somebody over in the courthouse who'll listen to you, Carl.”

“ I'm working on it. Now let's do what we can to improve our chances. For that, we need your help, Dr. Desinor.”

Landry went to the blinds and drew them against the afternoon sun, darkening the room, knowing now how Kim preferred to work. Everyone became silent while she ran her fingertips gently over the items which Carl had brought her. She got nothing at first, the items cold and useless. The first card she held in her hand, like the rosary, yielded little, something about black birds, possibly crows or ravens filling in a night sky, yet fixed there as in a still life; they were large birds with evil eyes and worse intentions, but that was all she was getting. She picked up the second card, and got a disturbing wave of information.

“ The killer has no sense of compunction. He… she hates her victims with great intensity. They have all taken something precious from her and like a child, she is confused about her own identity…”

The two NOPD policemen and Jessica Coran listened for Kim's every word now.

“ She strikes out with the venom of a child that has been wronged.”

“ How can she be taking back what is hers by tearing out the hearts of others?” Jessica asked, puzzled.

“ If I were a clinical psychologist, I wouldn't have any problem with that, but I couldn't tell you for sure.”

“ Kim, is the killer… is she… are you saying that then killer is at this place called Raveneaux?” asked Jessica.

She was no fool. If she said yes, then Landry could take this information back to the right judge, the one who believed in the power of psychics and thereby assure his warrant.

If she said no, and she was by no means certain of it, they might not get the warrant which Alex was so certain would net them their strongest lead yet on the Hearts killer.

“ Yes or no, Doctor?” pressed Jessica.

“ Yes,” she lied.

“ All right, that tears it,” Landry gruffly replied.

“ You think you'll have any luck getting a judge to sign on this, Carl?” asked Alex, pulling up to his elbows.

“ I'm down to the bottom of the barrel, but yes, I believe so.”

“ So, you're taking it to Judge Flint then?”

“ 'Bout the size of it. Nobody but nobody wants to touch this with a ten-foot flagpole, pal.”

Alex didn't particularly care about how they got the warrant to search, so long as they got it, but Flint's reputation being what it was, he worried nonetheless about what might happen on the other side of it when, after they apprehended the Queen of Hearts killer, the legal loopholes started to work in favor of the fiend.

“ I see. A black judge to issue a warrant against a plantation home. Make good copy for the National Enquirer. Very good, Cap'n, but you know that going through so many judges and their clerks, you've tipped the entire legal community to unfolding events. Someone's sure to call out there.”

“ One stroke of fortune. The power lines up that way got hit by eighty-five-mile-an-hour winds. No phone calls going in or out thataway, and we get ourselves a legit warrant in the meantime.”

Alex laughed harshly. “Even if it's from a boozy old derelict who's up on child abuse charges-pending, of course.” Jessica began pacing the room. “How soon do you think we can get the warrant?” she asked. “Every moment we lose, the killer gains.”

“ How about right this moment?”

“ What?” Landry made the warrant materialize before them in magician fashion.

“ But… how'd you do that? I thought you needed Kim's added info about the items here,” Jessica said as Kim blinked.

“ I told Flint it'd already been done, and I told him the results. It's on file. I felt a need for speed too.”

“ Great. Then we'd best go now.” Alex got up from his hospital bed without any pain this time-or without enough to matter. He located his clothes, and was soon dressed and prepared to walk out with them. In ten minutes they were outside in Landry's squad car, headed across town for Rave-neaux's Georgetown home, the warrant actually covering all properties belonging to the distinguished former general and senator.

The servants, who hadn't seen the master in several months, were astonished and put out by the gestapo-like intrusion into their world, but a search revealed nothing save a framed photograph of a pair of children, a boy and a girl, the boy barely five or six, the girl a head taller, her arm draped protectively around him. When pressed for who the children were, the servants could only say that they were the senator's two children, Victor and Dominique.

Soon after, the squad car was turning off Interstate 10, darting through the countryside where Raveneaux stretched on for miles in the darkness beyond the windshield. Jessica and the others had seen the first sign on the first gate leading onto the property six or seven minutes before when the headlight beams had picked it up. Now they'd passed no less than six additional gates. Out on the meadows beyond the gates, cows lulled in the night. There were horses and sheep and pigs out there as well, and field upon field of sugarcane.

They were less than twenty miles northwest of the New Orleans city limits, on a rural road in Ascension Parish now, just down from Interstate 10. The countryside here was flat for the most part, but it had become so solidly pitch-black out here, where the insects now reigned and rang with noise, that little of the land could be seen.

Raveneaux played home to a large stable of racehorses, some first-class winners, but most of the old man's money and wealth had been achieved through a clever mix of sugarcane and politics. In daylight the lush black earth and green fields seemed a far removed world from that of New Orleans' teeming French Quarter; even at night it seemed a world without malice or hatred, envy or greed, bitterness or remorse, deceit or wounds either healed or weeping. So Captain Landry, sitting in the driver's seat beside Alex, looked as skeptical as Jessica, whose frown he had caught in his rearview.

Beside Jessica in the backseat, Kim kept her own silent counsel.

Jessica thought about the road which had led them here. Raveneaux was the one clue left Alex Sincebaugh by the murdering Michael Emanuel “E” Dominique, quite likely the same E as in Kim's uncanny vision after Thommie Whiley's death. Alex had admitted, with some conviction, to having been impressed by Dr. Desinor's near-magical abilities; he'd even admitted a possible connection between her mysterious E and the murdering Dominique, who'd readily used the middle name of Emanuel. Alex had admitted that Dr. Desinor had miraculously unveiled the killer to some degree; unfortunately it hadn't been enough to save Ben, perhaps in large measure due to Alex's own stubborn blindness. What was it about hindsight and 20/20 vision? And what had Kierkegaard said? Life can only be understood backwards, but it must be lived forwards.

As they drove on, Carl Landry told Alex how he'd had to break the news of Ben's death to Ben's wife, Fiona. Alex fought to control himself. Ben's family, his children, were like Alex's own.

“ Anyway, Fiona told me some disturbing news about Ben, Alex,” Landry said by way of preparation. “You may's well hear it now and from me.”

“ What're you talking about, Captain?”

Jessica and Kim, sitting behind them, were also curious.

“ Fiona told me that deYampert was upset and worried… that he had… well, taken some money…”

“ That's bullshit. Ben wasn't on anyone's take!”

“ Said that Ben had been paid off to keep quiet about the case involving Victor Surette, and…”

“ What?”

“ And to doctor some items in the reports.”

“ Christ, that's… that's crazy. Captain, just crazy. Nobody approached me to doctor any damned records, and…”

“ Said he was most upset not about the money so much as having lied to you, Alex, to steer you away from any serious investigation into Surette's past. And obviously it was working, up until your nightmares began and you began to put two and two together.”

“ Money? Who, Carl? Who offered him money to stomp all over the case?” Alex was still disbelieving, but at the same time his mind raced over moments when Ben had wanted to go in another direction, as when they'd gone looking for Gilreath, and later when they'd returned to Surette's apartment.

“ You gotta understand,” Landry said. “He never felt Surette was connected-you know, to the string of murders- least not at first. He was like me, hell… like everyone else…”

“ Who offered deYampert the bribe?”

“ She didn't want to tell me, but I made her.”

“ Who?”

“ It came through Dr. Wardlaw, Frank Wardlaw.”

“ That son of a bitch. I knew it… knew all along that he was covering something. Christ, can't believe Ben'd turn over like that. And why?”

“ Ben was hurting financially. Made him an easy target. Anyway, Ben rationalized it all out for himself and was living with it just fine, but for the lies he told you. According to Fiona, Ben just thought he and Frank were protecting someone high up from any public embarrassment-about Surette, I mean.”

“ One of Surette's regulars in high office, you mean?”

“ Actually, no… not exactly.”

“ What then?”

Kim Desinor and Jessica Coran listened intently as the drama of truth unfolded.

“ Seems Victor Surette was related to someone high up, and they-the family-didn't want it dragged out, you know, public embarrassment, ridicule, all that.”

“ Christ, so the guy was a transsexual, AC/DC… big deal. My God, only in the South today would anyone bat an eye,” moaned Alex. “All right, did Ben ever tell Fiona who it might be?”

“ I had to shake it out of her, but yeah, he did. It goes very high up.”

Alex released his white-knuckled grip on the dash.

“ Fiona asked that I take the money, all of it, back,” Landry went on. “Said it was set up in a trust fund for their boys, but that it only got Ben killed. Something about how God punishes the wicked.”

“ You reckon Ben earned every cent?”

“ I do, and it'll stay with their boys.”

“ So who was making payoffs to Wardlaw and Ben?”

“ She didn't know just how high up it went, but the payoffs to him and Wardlaw came from Richard Stephens.”

“ Stephens? Commissioner Stephens?”

“ Wardlaw threatened once to expose him in Ben's presence, but the P.C. was being pushed from someone above too. I suspect the Raveneaux estate.”

“ Jesus, then this thing has come full circle,” said Jessica from the rear seat.

Alex allowed this news to sink in before he asked another question. “So what're your plans for our pal Frank Wardlaw, Captain?”

“ He's out. Went down to see Frank at the lab. He honestly thought he'd be protected.”

“ Protected by the P.C.?”

“ He claimed Stephens and Lew Meade set up the whole deal; said they said it was for the good of the city to keep such filth from staining the Raveneaux name. He truly thought he'd still have a job when this was over.”

“ Damned fool,” muttered Jessica, “tampering with evidence, the chain of evidence and the integrity of that evidence in a murder investigation. Damned fool.”

Landry continued. “I gave him a choice to either step down or face charges.”

“ Either way now he's ruined,” Jessica suggested. “I mean, when we expose the bastards behind the cover-up of Surette's link with the Queen of Hearts killings and the subsequent body-snatching, none of the old boys who'd put him up to it will be standing with him.”

Kim nodded. “They're likely all scrambling at the moment to save their own butts.”

“ Name of the ancient game,” added Alex dryly, concealing the wellspring of emotions surrounding Ben's involvement as best he could.

“ But are you sure Meade and Stephens were involved in this sordid body-snatching effort?” asked Kim. “I mean, the P.C. and the head of the New Orleans branch of the FBI? Literally robbing us of evidence and planting a false confirmation of our suspicions?”

“ You know anyone else who enjoys playing God behind the scenes more than Meade?” Alex asked.

“ That's one hell of an accusation, Alex,” Jessica cautioned, not wanting to believe the New Orleans FBI Bureau Chief had manipulated evidence.

“ If it wasn't them, who else, Dr. Coran?” asked Alex. “Who else in this city wields such authority and omnipotence?”

Carl Landry put up his large right hand for silence. He then said, “I asked myself that same question, Alex. I also asked myself who could buy a cop like Ben, an M.E. like Wardlaw, a way around the investigation, and why?”

“ So, how did you make Wardlaw come up with Stephens and Meade?” asked Alex.

“ I put the fear of death into Wardlaw,” Landry began. “He was in his office when I burst in knocking files and pencils and cups over and shouting threats. Wardlaw lunged for the phone, but I'm afraid I sent it flying through a pane of glass.”

“ God, wish I coulda been there,” Alex interjected.

“ It was Wardlaw who had done the crime-scene lab workup at the Surette murder investigation. He also did the apartment where Ben died since Jessica was in no condition for it. He was already unnerved and shaken by deYampert's death, and I blamed him for it. Told him he'd gotten Ben deYampert killed before Ben ever set foot in that apartment in the Quarter.

“ To hell with you,' “ he told me. Then he attempted to throw me out of his office, which resulted in him getting his lip cut. I then grabbed the good doctor and pushed him against his door, the glass partition shattering against the man's back. Raised my fist then and threatened him. 'Talk, you SOB, or your face is going to look like yesterday's pizza,' I assured him.”

“ Let me guess,” said Alex. “He only did what he was told, and even then the bastards tried to send him packing.”

“ I damn sure did a double take when he finally came clean.” Landry recalled how at first he'd been unable to decipher the words which accused Stephens and Meade. “How did they ever expect to get away with it?” Kim asked. “And then to bring in Jessica Coran and me. It seems crazy.”

“ They truly believed at the time of Surette's death that his murder was a one-time occurrence. Even after the other Hearts killings, even when they brought you on board, Dr. Desinor, they still believed there was no connection. Wardlaw was to cover up the Surette killing as much as possible, to shield it as much as possible from the public. Frank never knew why; he never wanted to know why. That's how it started, and that was supposed to be how it ended. Then Sincebaugh wouldn't let it go, coming back again and again to Surette even though Frank gave Alex nothing whatever to link that first killing with those that followed.”

“ Must be some psychic talent at work in you, Alex,” Kim commented.

Landry continued. “Everyone by then was of a mind that since there were so many other killings, we didn't all need to keep pecking over Surette's carcass to locate the killer, and when I suggested the psychic exhumation and autopsy, they almost lost everything in their pants right then and there. I recall how nervous they all got, including Frank.”

“ What the hell was Frank Wardlaw thinking from the beginning? Just following orders?” asked Jessica, disgusted with Wardlaw.

“ Meade had something on him, holding it over his head.”

“ Black mail?”

“ You never heard of a G-man who'd stoop to blackmail?”

“ Blackmail for what?” Jessica asked.

“ Frank had a wife and kids at the time of Surette's death; they've since left him, of course.”

“ I hadn't heard.”

“ Meade had him on a couple of things… gambling, skirtchasing… I never knew Meade could be so vicious, but for reasons of their own, he and Stephens wanted the Surette kid's death kept as John Doe as possible, you understand?”

“ Hell, was Meade sleeping with the guy?” Alex sneered.

Landry smirked, and then laughed full-blown, which eased the electrified air inside the car. “Both the P.C. and Meade have powerful connections. That's all Frank needed to know. He wasn't going to trust his fate to a grand jury investigation into his alleged wrongdoings. Now, he'll be facing one anyway.”

Alex nodded grimly. “So you've deduced from the amount of pressure put on Frank that whoever Stephens and Meade were out to protect, these people have position and wealth and power-like Susie Socks tried to tell Ben and me, Ben already knowing. People with old-money connections in the highest circles, the mayor's office, the governor's office.”

“ And we get squeezed by the mayor's office and the state to close out the Queen of Hearts killings so that Surette-with the same first name as Raveneaux's son-can be quietly forgotten as having had no relation to the crimes,” Carl concluded. Kim sat shaking her head in disbelief, fearful of the truth. “All nice and tidy for the people who took Surette's body, people who obviously don't give a damn about the whereabouts of either Surette's heart or his killer, or whom the butcher might choose next.”

“ Hey, wealth and position can do that to a person, you know that, Kim,” replied Alex with a warm look over his shoulder for her.

“ I guess we take this case to a higher level of inquiry then; we raise it out of the gutter and the gay ghetto of the French Quarter to here-a place the size of the governor's mansion?” Jessica said.

“ The home of retired general and senator George Maurice Raveneaux, a friend of the governor's,” Landry declared.

“ Now you tell me, Kim,” Alex said. “Are the missing hearts really at Raveneaux?”

“ I can't honestly say…”

Landry pushed on, saying, “I checked the senator out thoroughly. His wife's maiden name is Surette.”

“ Damn, and we put out a request for information if you recall,” Alex noted, “a televised plea for anyone who might know Surette to come forward, claim the body. All we got were a handful of his friends from the Quarter, all of whom have either disappeared or have themselves been killed by the Queen of Hearts killer. Some coincidences you can shirk off, but some cling to you like burrs on Velcro.” Alex's anger could not be checked.

Now they were pulling into the blacktopped drive at Raveneaux, and none of them knew whom they could trust any longer. The thought seemed to coalesce into a palpitating question that hung in the cab where they sat. Backup squad cars came careening along and pulling in behind them.

“ I guess all that we can trust is one another,” Alex said, voicing his thoughts. “Can we trust you, Dr. Coran?”

“ What?”

“ Well, you were called in by Stephens, right? And you do work under Lew Meade's direction.”

“ That's not entirely fair,” Kim declared. “I mean, just because she's FBI doesn't mean she agrees with or goes along with everything Lew Meade has to say, Alex.”

“ I'm glad to hear that, because a showdown with Meade and Stephens is inevitable. You up for it, Dr. Coran?”

Jessica produced a document. “If I were in Meade's pocket, would I have served the sheriff of Ascension Parish with a federal warrant to back you guys up? I have a few connections of my own.”