Darkest Instinct

TWELVE

An hour later, all was accomplished-or demolished; it all depended on how one looked at it, Jessica thought. While Eriq was busy appeasing the big boys, she had taken the dangerous step of crossing him and whatever superiors he was presently kowtowing to.

To hell with it, she recklessly told herself, a part of her secretly hoping to get into enough trouble to stir the pot. If she was blackballed, if her reputation was besmirched by a healthy bit of insubordination, then perhaps she could trade in her “celebrity” status in FBI circles for a commonplace job in the agency where she might work in a lab twenty-four hours a day, to never come out to hunt another human monster again. She’d be perfectly happy to do so. Who needed the kind of stress she’d been working under for the past five years? And perhaps a move to Hawaii then would not be out of the question… Now she said aloud, “To hell with it.”

“ What’s that?” asked Coudriet, still in an unusually upbeat mood, like a kid pulling a high school prank and enjoying the exquisite moment in which his plan comes together.

“ Nothing… never mind,” she replied.

“ You know you’ve made the right choice; you’re doing the right thing here,” he told her. He was about to shut down his E-mail when a message for Jessica came over. “Something for you here… from London… that fellow Moyler.”

Nigel Moyler said that he was sending a fax over, a description and police sketch of the man who had terrorized the White Chapel District for four years only to suddenly cease, desist and disappear last year.

“ It should be coming over your fax there any moment now. Sorry it took so long to get back to you there. Took some time to locate the file. It had gone to our dead file office. But now here it comes, and I daresay you will find it of peculiar interest.” He signed off as Insp. Moy., Scotyd.

The fax machine began a staccato chorus of cranks, churns and beeps, the paper crawling ahead like an inch- worm, too slow for Jessica’s patience. “Come on… come on,” she nursed it along before ripping it out.

The likeness was remarkable, stunning and stark.

“ Send Moyler a message. Tell him we are ninety-nine percent sure that his man is here. Ask him to find out what he can about a Patric Allain over there. Anything on file- police record, prints, anything at all.”

“ Where are you going?”

“ Going to find Santiva, tell him what I’ve done and inform him that this bloody case has greater jurisdictional boundaries than he imagined.”

“ Yeah, right.” Coudrient chuckled lightly. “What’s so funny?”

“ Santiva… He may just want to get the Queen of England’s fucking views on the case before he steps on her bleeding toes.”

“ Hey, just a minute, Dr. Coudriet,” she brought him up short. “It’s not Santiva’s fault that your local politicians are more concerned about the blight on their tourist trade than the lives of the victims. Or that only Allison Norris, of all the victims, counts!”

“ What are you saying, Dr. Coran? That it’s hardly so simple as all that?” Coudriet was being facetious now, still on a high.

“ If Eriq hadn’t had his hands tied by others, that electronic wanted poster we just sent would’ve gone out twenty-four hours ago.”

“ You think for a moment that he’s going to place the safety of prospective victims of this madman ahead of his own ambitions? Think again. I used to be him. I know. It comes with the territory.”

“ That’s not Eriq.”

“ Power seeks out power, corrupts the soul and-”

“ You don’t know what you’re talking about, Doctor, so please be silent!” She stormed from the laboratory offices and took the elevator to the top floor, where she got out, located a stairwell and climbed to the roof. There she breathed in the night air and stared into the blinking eyes of the black firmament overhead. She felt tears welling up-tears for the victims, their families, Judy Templar, herself-and she wondered little why she’d so easily and readily sided with first Donna LeMonte and now Coudriet against Eriq Santiva. Still, she felt a wave of remorse flow over her, and she silently wondered, Why am I being so self-destructive? But neither the stars nor the land or sea or sky gave her reply….

Early the Next Day in Coudriet’s Office

Women all over Miami and the state of Florida were now being more cautious, for the Miami Herald and the six o’clock news had carried Patric Allain’s likeness into the homes of anyone whose newspaper subscription hadn’t lapsed or who owned a TV set. Armed with the knowledge that Allison Norris, Tammy Sue Sheppard, the more recently identified Kathy Harmon and others like them were abducted through chicanery and charm at local seaside restaurants along the Intracoastal Waterway, police officials had stepped up their surveillance of the area and had gone in with a vengeance, questioning bartenders, employees and frequent patrons of such establishments. Jessica Coran had contacted Inspector Nigel Moyler again, only to learn that there was no record of a Patric

Allain, and that the closest match was an arrest record of a Patricia Allain, an alias for a prostitute whose real name was Madeleine Tauman. She electronically asked Moyler if his killer had used a boat for his deviant operations.

Moyler’s response came up on the computer screen as “Never any killing ground located; however, it was theorized killer used a boat of some sort, yes.”

Jessica sent a reply immediately: “It’s almost a foregone conclusion here that our killer is using a boat as his killing ground. Please, see what you can learn about Patricia Allain. Long shot, but we haven’t much else to go on here.”

“ Right, and good luck. End transmission.”

The moment she ended the E-mail transmission with Moyler, Eriq Santiva entered Coudriet’s office. Livid, Eriq repeatedly slapped a copy of the Miami Herald into the palm of his hand. ‘ ‘Just who the hell gave you the authority to release this information, Dr. Coran? It’s all over the wire services, on every damned network in the nation now. Are you crazy or just an egoistic-”

“ So shoot me, Eriq.”

“ Don’t tempt me! What were you thinking? I gave you a direct order to stand down on this information until you heard otherwise from me. You know this is going to hurt us both, and you in particular, in Washington.”

“ So I’ll bleed some, but maybe in the interim, we’ve saved a life?”

“ Don’t count on it. Damnit, you might’ve at least consulted with me first.”

“ We did consult!”

“ Again then! This going over my head, looks… looks…”

“ I’m sorry if it makes you look bad, Eriq. If it hurts your male ego. That wasn’t my intention.”

“ It makes it appear that we’re at cross-purposes, Doctor.”

“ Well, maybe we are.”

He stared hard at her, fighting to control his emotions, gripping at the back of a chair, his knuckles white against his Latin skin. “Appearances are important, Jessica. You know that, I know that. I asked for a day, a lousy day, and you stab me in the back?”

“ Damnit, Eriq, it isn’t about you; it isn’t about me. It’s about the truth and the out there”-she pointed to the windows-”remember? Remember our obligation to the truth, and to people outside these walls?”

“ Nice sentiments, Jess, but-”

“- And it’s about saving lives,” she continued without a blink, her hands raised to him. “Besides, you led me to believe that the composite would at the very least go out to authorities up and down the coast.”

“ Save your crusading, Doctor. We both know this will likely send our man into hiding, possibly never to be seen again.”

“ We don’t know that, and I don’t believe it-not this guy. He’s too interested in communicating with us, and he’s out of control.”

“ You don’t know what’s going on in this madman’s brain; you can’t know it. You’re not psychic and you’re not inside his head, Jess.”

“ I know he’s still got two more verses to write.”

“ What?” Santiva was incredulous.

“ The e. j. hellering poem; he’ll have to complete it. He’ll contact us again, and he’ll go on killing.”

“ So, now you do believe you’re capable of reading his mind?”

“ Maybe… maybe…”

Santiva’s pride had obviously been badly bruised, but he was fighting to keep his calm and rational exterior intact. To this end, he now paced like a caged lion back and forth, holding his grinding teeth tightly together. Jessica appreciated this great effort.

To keep him focused, she began telling him what was in her mind. “I’ve struggled to hold up a mirror to this maniacal killer, to see him at close range, to understand him, as I’ve understood other monsters I’ve had to cope with over the years, and believe me, doing so is no simple or easy task. In fact, it costs me a great deal of sleep. Makes a person no longer at ease with herself to think like this creature, but it’s the only damned way I know to catch such a monster. You’ve got to go through the looking glass.”

“ And so… what does your mirror tell you?”

“ It’s cracked, spiderwebbed, difficult to see through, but if you want proof we’re on to the right man, take a look at this.” She held up the faxed copy of the sketch that Moyler had forwarded. “I faxed what we have to Scotland Yard. You’ll want to see what their response has been.”

She now laid out all that Inspector Nigel Moyler had shared with her.

“ Coincidence, maybe? Most likely?” he wondered aloud as his eyes played over the information.

“ A big coincidence, if you’re asking me. Look, Eriq, if it’s the same killer-”

“ Big if. To go along with your big coincidence. Crap like this happens in the movies, on TV, in novels, Jess, but like this, laying it all right in our laps? Hardly likely.”

“ Who says anything’s been laid in our laps? Look, just suppose for a moment that our killer and Moyler’s is the same guy. He starts with prostitutes in London, and he’s since decided that we’re all whores, especially those of us of a type he fancies. I just believe that in this instance, women of the victim type, in particular in this city, have a right to know that they-as a group-have been targeted by this madman and are being stalked by him as we speak, Eriq.”

He stared long and hard at her. Jessica matched his intensity in her hard glowering eyes. “Do you have any idea the trouble you’ve caused?”

“ I have a notion, yes.”

“ You’ve placed me in a difficult position with a lot of people, Jessica. And you didn’t factor in the political ramifications of your actions.”

“ Oh, please! Don’t talk politics to me when life and death are at stake!” she exploded, but he held up a restraining hand to her and pushed on.

“ In my office, I’ve got to consider all the ripples in the pond every bloody waking moment, and sometimes in my damned sleep, so pardon me if I seem a bit upset, okay?”

“ My intention didn’t factor in your comfort, Eriq.”

“ Damnit, it’s not just my comfort I’m talking about. We’re talking about power, government contracts, defense spending.”

“ You’re talking about the new U.S. payroll centers which may be slated to be built here if government bigwigs are sold on the area.” The local newscasts and the papers were full of the story of how Miami was vying with other major American cities to build three U.S. payroll centers in the Miami-Dade area, which meant lucrative government jobs.

“ It means seven thousand federal jobs with salaries and benefits averaging out at thirty-five thousand dollars. That’s one hell of an economic boost, Jess. It means a better way of life for a lot of people here. Nothing this big has come along for Miami in a decade. Depending on its size, a single payroll center could pump between sixty and two hundred million a year in direct earnings into the local economy. And in an economy that’s supported almost solely on tourism, such an infusion of dollars means a gilded future for our friends in high places here. But, bottom line, it also means one hell of a payroll for the city.”

“ And Miami stands to lose it all because of the Night Crawler.”

“ Exactly. A city’s image is everything.”

“ Yeah, more important than its life’s blood, obviously.”

“ Damnit, Agent, you’re not listening to me!” Her coolness to his upper-echelon problems didn’t sit well. “The goddamn Economic Development Council, the Metro Vision for the Year 2000, the 1050 Beach Street Business Coalition, the Downtown Development District Council, the Miami Chamber of Commerce-you name it-they’re all on the mayor’s back, so the mayor’s naturally on the police commissioner’s back, and the lot of them are on my back!”

A thick, palpable hush fell over the room as the two FBI agents breathed in the political and economical realities of their situation. Eriq found a chair and sat, raised his hands apologetically and added, “Jess, the average Miami salary is in the neighborhood of twenty thousand dollars. Now the United Miami Coalition and some professors out at UM have figured it all out, and I tell you, an average pay of thirty-five thousand… Well, that’s big-time bucks to these people. They have very, very few industries in and around the city that can generate that kind of money.”

“ Money talks.”

“ It always has, and we’re both adult enough to understand its impact, even here on our case, Jess. Now perhaps you better understand where I’m coming from? In a few weeks the government steering committee to decide if Miami gets those centers will be back in the city. We… I… had hoped to nail this Crawler bastard before then.”

“ We can still clean house within three weeks, if we work together. Dr. Desinor forwarded this to me this morning. It’s from additional psychic readings she’s done on the case.” Jessica handed Santiva the list of physical characteristics which Kim Desinor had created. They matched the description given them by Judy Templar.

“ Something you want to share?” Eriq asked as he took the fax from her, a razor edge to his voice. He still hadn’t had time to forgive her qualified allegiance to him. Like most men, he’d expected and wanted total and blind fidelity, without having to offer the same.

“ Kim only called very late last night. Don’t get spooky on me, Eriq.”

Eriq read the fax aloud in a near whisper. “Taurus… astrological sign of the bull, but actions are more like recluse spider…”

“ She’s got that right.”

Eriq continued to read, pacing as he did so. ‘ ‘Comes out only to feed. Safe only in his own surroundings. Light, sandy-brown hair, dark, mystical eyes, possibly aquamarine, handsome, pleasant, even-tempered, manners impeccable in public. May wear a T-cross around his neck, an emblem of his obsession. Stargazer.”

“ That was Kim’s first read, which she called me about last night. This morning, she conducted a second reading. Her results on the second go-round came over right after she faxed the first. Here it is.”

She handed him a second fax, which Eriq now stared at. It read: height: 6’1 or 2 weight: 160-80 lbs broad-shouldered, large-face, big forehead neck and shoulders all one large, oval, dark and piercing eyes, possibly blue, dark green either birthmark or bad tattoo of a star on right shoulder wears loose-fitting clothes, sneakers, boat shoes size 10–11 lives in isolation, yet within close proximity of many has fascination for stars and water deep-seated hatred for his mother has generalized hatred for all women…

Eriq read aloud the psychic’s final words. “Sorry, nothing more. Caution you to think symbolically and not literally regarding my findings.”

“ She is full of disclaimers,” Jessica muttered, digging her palms now into her eyes, trying to will the fatigue off. “Obviously general enough to fit most of the male population of the planet,” he replied, not overly impressed.

They again stared at one another; then first she and next he began to laugh until their laughter filled the room. “Damnit, Jessica, we’ve got to be together on this thing,” Santiva finally said. “That’s all I’m going to say about your rank insubordination at this time-”

Jessica started to protest, but thought better of it and kept still. “-except to say that in the future, we decide things of major consequence together. For now, we drop it and move on from here. We still have a killer to catch.”

She nodded. “I couldn’t agree with you more.”

“ I’ve got a tight net around every boat dock and riverside establishment for fifty miles either direction of Miami,” he informed her.

“ Are you talking Port Authority, Coast Guard, Florida Marine Patrol or your buddies in the Cuban underworld?”

“ All of the above. Somewhere along the line, this bastard’s going to slip up, and when he does, we’ll be there, Jess,” he assured her.

“ You’d better extend your net to every conceivable slip, including boat repair shops, dry docks, and maybe any shops where they preserve fish as trophies.”

“ How’s that?”

“ A strange new development. Let me tell you about it.”

Eriq felt his flesh crawl. “All right, fill me in.”

In the midst of making Eriq’s stomach turn, Jessica was told she had a long-distance call. She grabbed the nearest phone and identified herself and was suddenly surprised and elated to hear James Parry’s voice on the other end, asking, “Are you taking care of the woman I love?”

“ Oh, James… Where-where are you?” She pictured James Parry at the other end of the line, pleased beyond comprehension that he’d located her. “I’m calling from the islands, which have lost a great deal of their luster since you left. I’ve dearly missed you, darling.”

“ God, I’ve missed you.” Out of the side of her eye, she noticed Eriq impatiently waiting. She turned her back on him and continued her conversation.

They had a long talk in which they exchanged vows of love. It was enough to send Santiva from the room. She asked Jim to call her later before bedtime, to tuck her in. He promised that he would. She was happy for the first time since arriving in Miami. What was that all about?” asked Eriq when he returned to finish with her.

“ Personal.”

“ Oh, I see…”

“ Let’s get back to work.”

“ Long distance?” Santiva was smiling for her. “Hawaii maybe?”

“ Maybe…”

Ten Days Later

When America’s Most Wanted did its segment on the killings in Florida, it appeared the trail of the killer had gone stone cold. No more notes coming in from the killer and, thankfully, no more bodies either. It was as if the creature had simply vanished while camera crews had replaced police and medics, film barricades had replaced police tape and Jessica had been replaced by an actor, Santiva by a director.

The images on the TV screen of women floating in the sea, although simulations, were emotionally stirring-but not when Jessica considered the fact that those young women would, off camera, lift their heads from the surf, stand, wade back to shore and go home to dinner. And as for truly simulating a bloated drowning victim, prime-time TV simply wasn’t ready.

There was both relief and anger in the Miami area when, a week and a half after the discovery of three victims of the Night Crawler in the space of hours, there were no further developments and no new leads in the case, so far as the public knew. Meanwhile, the national attention given the case, the TV exposure and the fact that it remained open had helped persuade the government steering committee on payroll centers to steer elsewhere.

Theories regarding the whereabouts of the killer abounded: He’d killed himself; he had been arrested on some other charge, been convicted and put away, and from behind bars he could only contemplate murder at some future date. Others theorized that he had left the country for more fertile ground-virgin turf, as it were. Missing Persons departments all over the state continued as always to file reports on young women disappearing or running away from their homes, but not all of these fit the victim profile. There was a growing, sinking feeling among law enforcement officials that the Night Crawler had simply been frightened off by the news accounts and the police sketch, which had gone out across the state and the nation, and that despite his flirtation with the news media, he had turned out to be extremely camera-shy after all.

Jessica had begun to believe she’d blundered badly, that Eriq and his superiors had been right in wanting to withhold information on the killer until some future date. But upon her voicing this concern to Eriq, he shook his head and told her that what had upset local politicos most was that they had made certain promises to America’s Most Wanted: that the poster would be shown there first and that other vital clues in the case would be revealed only on the show. He ended with an apology that he hadn’t confided all this nonsense to her earlier, but said that he’d been unable to.

Still, Jessica wondered if Patric Allain had not fled as a direct result of her actions. She believed now that Allain, or whoever he was, had simply decided to vanish, and that to do so he had been forced to control his killing urge. To control such primitive, overwhelming compulsions, she felt, he had to demonstrate a willpower few men, good or bad, possessed, and she wasn’t buying it; and neither would the monster for long, she figured. She recalled with chilling detail the case of the Claw in New York, who could not control his need to cannibalize. It was a need which had compelled the monster to follow her for several hundred miles in an attempt to make a meal of her.

Knowing what she did of the criminal mind, including its need for a familiar landscape upon which to operate, Jessica had contacted Moyler in England to warn him that the killer could be returning there. On the other hand, she noted this particular killer seemed at home on the oceans and seas of the world. He might be anywhere on the globe.

In the meantime, Moyler had found additional information on the female named Madeleine Tauman whose alias had been Patricia Allain. She had grown up amidst what Moyler termed “difficult situations in a difficult area of London,” and she’d become a prostitute at a young age. Soon she had gone from prostitution to the small-time stage, using the same alias, Allain, as her stage name. Late in life, she had married a well-to-do landowner named William Anthony Kirlian who owned an estate in Grimsby on what the ancients called the Nordsee-the North Sea-far to the north of London. Not surprisingly, the old baron died a year after the marriage, but a coroner’s inquest turned up nothing beyond a massive heart attack. The kicker came when Lady Kirlian, the former Patricia Allain, herself died soon after in what was ruled a fatal accident involving a cliff near the estate. Lady Kirlian’s tumble from a precipice near the estate, Moyler told Jessica, was witnessed only by her devoted son, Warren Tauman.

Moyler had located some people who had worked for Kirlian and Lady Kirlian before their deaths, and as to the young man, Warren, they had little to say except that he was sullen, brooding and always staring out over the horizon to the North Sea, commiserating with nature on the very precipice where his mother had slipped and fallen to her death on the jagged rocks below.

Moyler now believed that Patric Allain might possibly be an alias for Warren Tauman, who’d disappeared after dissolving the estate and keeping what monies he could, along with a sailboat valued in the hundreds of thousands, which he diligently learned to work.

It seemed that while the trail in England had finally heated up, the trail in America had dried up, and when another week slipped by and still nothing remarkable occurred, FBI operations in Florida seemed at an end.

Santiva was talking about packing up and returning to Quantico, where more pressing matters awaited. In the meantime, Jessica had kept in touch with Judy Templar, whose therapy had done wonders for her, according to Donna LeMonte.

Meanwhile, Quincey and Samernow had finally persuaded Monroe and Lovette family members to give up the location of the other supposed eyewitness by making certain they saw the America’s Most Wanted segment which requested information on Aeriel Marilee Lovette Monroe, who was wanted for questioning in relation to the killings. Something in the notoriety of being mentioned on national TV, or of being close to someone named on national TV, got a lot of people to talk to authorities.

Samernow and Quince had first found Marilee’s trail when they were pointed toward relatives in Georgia, where the girl had gone to recuperate, heal and forget after her alleged attack by the Night Crawler. But in the interim, she had returned to Florida, moving in with other relatives in Lower Matecumbe Key, where friends and relatives had urged her to get in contact with authorities, which she had done through the 800 number flashed across America. She was now reportedly working as a maid in a motel called Nomad’s Pillow in Lower Matecumbe Key.

Eriq had only come by to inform Jessica that he was returning to FBI Headquarters in Quantico and shutting down the operation here in Florida, and that he expected her to follow in a day or so. They once again were in Coudriet’s lab when she informed him that they had nailed the whereabouts of Marilee, the other witness. “But Jess, what can we possibly learn from this woman that we don’t already know?” asked Eriq, frustrated as they all were by the dead ends.

Still Jessica argued, “I think we need to follow up on this one, Eriq.”

But Santiva was not listening. “Besides, I’ve already told Coudriet and the MPD thanks for the use of the space, and that we’re moving out.”

“ I think we owe it to Allison Norris, Tammy Sheppard, Kathy Harmon and all the others to at least-”

‘ ‘ Jess-Jess-Jess!’’

“- meet with the Monroe girl, learn what we can from her,” Jessica said over Eriq’s objections while Santiva paced the very laboratory he had moments before suggested they begin to vacate, so as to turn back over to the Miami authorities and Coudriet that which was theirs, with the heartfelt thanks of the FBI.

Santiva replied, “Some cases don’t get solved, Jessica.”

“ Not my cases,” she countered.

“ Although, by God, it’s never happened to me before, it’s… well, it’s time we accepted the facts of the matter.”

She relented a moment, going to him, forcing him to stop pacing, positioning him eye to eye with her. She knew that, in his mind, he had already closed the file on the case. “Give me one more week here, Eriq. Just one more week.”

“ Too much time and money’s already gone down the tubes here, Jess.”

“ Then I’ll move out of the Fontainebleau, damnit.”

“ Too much time has elapsed since the last killings and communication from the killer.” Jessica stood in his face, daring his next move. He blinked first. “All right, you want to drive or fly down to the Keys again, talk to this girl, be my guest. You do that. I’m on the next flight north. You can follow after you learn no more than we already know. It’s finished here, Jess, over…” She breathed in a long, shaky breath of air and pushed her hair from her eyes. “I take full responsibility for what’s happened here, Eriq. I think you’re going to need a fall guy when you get back to D.C., so here I am.”

“ Oh, no you don’t. You don’t get out of this so easy; no martyr or dumb-shit stuff, okay, my medical friend?”

From the tenor of his voice, she realized that he had already taken the full brunt of the heat over the matter, and that he hadn’t sold her out or short.

“ I’ve got a plane waiting, and as much as I hate to fly, adios, amiga. And for what it’s worth, good luck with the Monroe girl, although-”

“ Don’t say it, Eriq. Let’s part friends, shall we?”

“ Now that’s something I’ll agree to.”

They exchanged a warm smile and a hug. He said in her ear, “That Parry guy is one lucky SOB, you know it?”

“ I think so.”

Eriq was on his way down the corridor and eventually to the airport when she saw from the lab window that he had been stopped in his tracks by Samernow, who was displaying more emotion than she’d ever seen from the man before. No doubt he wanted Eriq to stay long enough to talk with Aeriel M. L. Monroe. After all, he had put in a lot of investigative hours pursuing her at Eriq’s specific request, and now Eriq was walking out on the investigation. She saw Eriq mouth the words It’s over several times. But then suddenly Eriq glanced up from a slip of paper Samernow had pusheid into his hands and his eyes fixed on Jessica’s. Jessica could see from the intensity of his stare that he was going to miss that plane.

Quincey had joined the group, and all three men came barreling toward the lab and Jessica like a small squad, each intent on her.

Jessica stripped away her gloves and lab coat and met them in the office which had been provided for her adjacent to Coudriet’s. Lately, Coudriet had been absent from the place. He had fallen in love, she was given to understand. More power to him, she thought with a pang of remorse about the absence of love in her life, despite Jim’s having called her now repeatedly to profess his love for her.

“ What’s going on?” she asked of the men who piled into her temporary office, making the little cubicle feel like a telephone booth.

“ This was received by the Naples Constitution early this morning,” said Samernow, handing Jessica a flimsy fax machine copy of a handwritten note. She gasped uncontrollably, repeating, “It’s him,” while staring at the note, which appeared to be in the killer’s hand. It read:

“ He couldn’t help himself. He had to show himself,” she said after reading the ugly words.

Samernow said to the floor, “A Sanibel Island girl matching the victim description has disappeared and remains unaccounted for. He’s on the west coast now!”

“ He’s definitely back,” Quincey immediately agreed.

Eriq vehemently shook his head. “We don’t know that, not for certain.”

“ It’s the third installment of the e. j. hellering poem,” Jessica countered. “It’s got to be him. Who else?”

“ You forget, the damned Miami Herald printed the first two installments, not to mention a background story by that Eddings guy on hellering. Don’t you see, any number of nutcases out there might’ve decided to reinvent the killer, and so this shows up clear across the state. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to reserve judgment.”

“ But you’re the expert on handwriting!” Samernow exploded. “And you said the handwriting appeared the same.”

“ The key word is appears, Samernow. With the killer’s handwriting out there for any and everyone to see, hell, anybody could forge it now.” Quincey quietly reminded Eriq of the missing Sanibel Island teen.

The Herald had disappointed Santiva. The FBI and Santiva had disappointed the Herald. As for the newspaper, who could blame it? The FBI hadn’t kept its bargain, after all, and was pulling up stakes, now, so Merrick hadn’t seen any need to withhold on the whole story once it was given to America’s Most Wanted, especially now that it appeared the Night Crawler had disappeared from the vicinity. The entire fiasco seemed a catch-22.

“ We don’t know that it’s the killer’s handwriting, not for a fact,” repeated Santiva. “We really need to get the original, put our documents experts to work on it.”

Samernow was instantly in Eriq’s face. “You said it was the same handwriting!” Jessica wondered what had fired Mark Samernow up so.

“ I said on first appearance, it might be the same, but it will take much closer scrutiny than I can give it in a hallway.”

Quincey raised his considerable hands to quell the two other men and said, “Mark’s got a daughter about the age of the victims-”

“ Shut up, Quince!”

“- and the divorce took her to Naples.”

“ Is that why you’re so interested in establishing the authenticity of this letter?” asked Eriq. Samernow stammered, “I’ve been torn up over this whole damnable business from day one, the way this creep does them. My little girl… I haven’t seen her in six months, but she could pass for Allison Norris. And here I thought with her in Naples, at least she was out of harm’s way, but now… now this

“ We need to get somebody over to Naples,” said Quincey, “but we also need to get somebody down south of here to Matecumbe Key to hear the testimony of the Monroe girl. We want… we’re asking you both to stay on long enough to talk to her and to look into the Naples connection a little more closely.”

“ Someone’s got to go to Key Largo,” said Courdriet, materializing from nowhere at the doorway.

“ Why’s that, Dr. Coudriet?” asked Jessica, wondering what the ME was getting at.

“ Friend of mine is a pathologist at the local hospital there. They have a body washed up on shore bearing all the marks of the Night Crawler’s handiwork and then some.’’’’

“ Show me on the map?” asked Santiva. They moved into the laboratory, where a map of south Florida and the Keys had been pinned on a bulletin board, each colored stickpin marking another of the Night Crawler’s victims. This southernmost tip of Florida resembled a slovenly J, the islands like ink spatters at the bottom. Coudriet did the dubious honors of tacking in this most recent kill.

“ What do you mean and then some?” asked Jessica.

“ Washed up between the Key Largo Hammocks State Botanical Site and the Carysfort Yacht Club, right here,”

Coudriet said as he jabbed the tack into the corkboard. “Came in on the Gulf Stream.”

“ Well damn, then that’s got to place our killer well south of Key Largo, as the stream would ripple the body in a northerly direction at that point,” said Quincey. “I know- I’ve fished those waters.”

“ And then some?” Jessica repeated, tugging at Coudriet’s billowy shirt. The man had dispensed with ties and jackets, it appeared. “What did you mean when you said ‘bearing all the normal marks of the killer and then someT “

He looked directly at Jessica when he replied, “Seems this time he embalmed the girl, and not just a piece of her… the entire body. You were right. Prophetic, in fact. Doctor.”

She didn’t enjoy being right like this, and such power of prophesy was more a curse than a wonder. “It’s him, Eriq. Now one of us has to go to Naples and the other to Key Largo,” said Jessica.

“ What’s this about, Jess? What haven’t you told me?”

“ I told you about the embalming agents found in some of the body parts. This just confirms it,” she said, sighing heavily. “The killer’s trying to preserve a victim. He’s been experimenting with embalming methods.”

“ Naples is straight across the state by way of Alligator Alley,” said Quincey. “Mark could drive you,” he told Eriq. “And me, I’ll take Dr. Coran to Key Largo. From there, we can go down to Matecumbe Key, interview the Monroe girl in person.”

“ Yeah,” agreed Samernow, “sure, I can take Agent Santiva to Naples.”

“ Not before I authenticate this letter,” Eriq said. “It could be a hoax.”

“ Who would put together such a hoax?” asked Coudriet, a bit facetiously.

“ I wouldn’t put it past that creepy bald guy Eddings at the Herald, for one,” replied Santiva.

Jessica’s eyebrows shot up. “Eddings? I rather doubt that, Eriq. I know he was a bit strange, but-”

‘ A bit strange?’ “ Eriq laughed. “Try X-Files weirdo supernerd paranoid fringe dittohead.”

“ I thought he was kinda cute and sweet,” she said with a laugh.

“ Just the same, I’m going nowhere until we authenticate the letter.”

She countered with her own challenge. “Well, I’m going to Key Largo. Detective Quincey, I just have to get my bag and a change of clothes. Can you pick me up at my hotel?”

Eriq only shook his head and found a chair to plop into, seemingly beaten.

“ I’ll swing by in, say, half an hour?” Quincey asked Jessica.

“ Agreed.”

“ Jess,” said Eriq, climbing again to his feet and now taking her away from the others. “I thought we agreed to discuss any major moves we take in relation to this case. Now you’re rushing off to the Keys, and you want me to race to Naples without our having had a chance to authenticate the letter or discuss it.”

“ I thought we just did authenticate and discuss.”

“ We did what?”

“ We discussed how Eddings would not’ve plotted such a hoax and the fact that there is a missing girl meeting the victim profile the other side of the state. We have to move on this, Eriq.” She briskly walked back to her temporary office, grabbed her black ME’s bag and rushed out with Quincey.

Eriq stared across at Mark Samernow. “All right, Detective, let’s go to Naples… Maybe pay a visit to your girl and your ex. I can make the comparison points on the letters along the way.”

“ I’ll get you there in two and a half hours without leaving the ground,” Samernow promised. “And thanks, Agent.”