Killer Instinct

TWENTY-TWO

Otto Boutine had grown up on a weedy little farm that was aspiring to be a ranch near Bozeman, Montana. It had been a rough life, filled with hardships, but amid the difficulties there was a great affection between himself and his parents, and the life had taught him self-reliance and resourcefulness. He was raised on chores. He was responsible from a very young age for firewood, hay for the horses, the scut work around the bam, grazing the mares and helping during foldings. His memories were filled with some very good times. But they all ended in harshness.

A spate of bad luck plagued the small ranch when his mother fell ill. Diagnosed with cancer, she did not last long. It was after her passing that Otto learned just how much his father and his father's business depended upon the wisdom and guidance of his mother. The place went downhill like a California mud slide and there was nothing his father could do to help; in fact, the more Herman Boutine did, the worse his situation became. With the loss of his wife and the financial setbacks, Otto watched his father decline.

The place had had to be put up for auction, and Otto and his father watched every personal belonging go up for sale. The loss of their home was the final blow for Otto's father. All life had soured for the man, and he could see no use in the future, and no amount of talking to him seemed to matter. Otto watched him pull a cloak around himself, a shroud, and in his living death he was never able to free himself from this shroud again.

He was soon in the hospital, unable to pay for the bed in which he lay. He died there within forty-eight hours of entering the hospital, hating every second of his ' 'welfare stay” as he called it. Otto was not quite eighteen at the time, but he had won a scholarship to attend the University of California at Berkeley, and so, after burying his father, he left Bozeman and never looked back.

That had been in 1963, the year that John F. Kennedy was assassinated. The assassination that touched so many lives turned his attention toward law enforcement and the FBI in particular. At Berkeley he pursued a course of study that would lead him into criminal justice. Along the way he had met a young, brash lawyer named Marilyn Amesworth. They married and before them lay a beautiful life, their love for one another the great support in his life. And then she was struck down. And now he had buried his wife.

So here he was on an FBI-owned Learjet bound for Chicago as much to get to Jessica Coran as to put an end to a case which, it appeared, was shaping up to be the most important case in his career. Word about the corridors of FBI headquarters at Quantico had it that he was emotionally crippled by his latest personal bout with death; that the case should be handled by someone else, someone stronger and younger. Leamy had made it all quite clear: Boutine had twenty-four hours in which to show some break in the deadlocked case, or he was off it.

He wondered about his own deepest motives for racing to Jessica now. Ostensibly, it was to share the wording of the letter from this madman calling himself Teach, and most people would accept that. Ostensibly, his rushing away from pressing duties in Virginia to be at her side was due to the obvious threat the killer posed to Jessica. But if he were honest with himself, it was a desperate action. But was he more desperate to be with Jessica or to be nearby when she broke the case? For he had little doubt that Jess would bring about the break in the case they needed.

Still, his feelings for her were undeniable. He wondered if he should not declare them to her. He wondered if he dared.

Marilyn had been gone from him long before her actual clinical death. The lingering coma had sapped him of hope, reducing him to the little boy who watched his father's slow death. He needed someone to turn to, someone who would take the pain away, draw it off the way Jessica did, sometimes without her even knowing.

Was he acting like a fool? Would Jessica respond to him? Would she understand his needs? Or would she confuse them with motives of a different nature?

The hum of the engines was like the thinking of God, deep and resonant and peaceful but also unfathomable. He let the black-and-white copy of the letter from Teach slip from his grasp and onto the circular tabletop as his head fell back and he rested his eyes just for a moment before falling into a deep slumber.

He dreamed of Jessica.

# # #

Otto Boutine arrived at her door, and she welcomed him in. He had come alone except for the copy of the letter he had on his person, and it seemed like there was a third person in the room-the killer.

She went to the kitchenette and brewed them coffee. Otto spread the letter out on the table, saying that Documents was picking it apart, along with several shrinks and as many of his P.P. team as he was able to get back to Quantico. Byrnes was still in Wekosha, where he had uncovered very little new information, except for the fact that a guy with a medical supply company had made some purchases in the town at a music store, tapes of classical music primarily. The name of the place was Pernell's Music Emporium. A weak description of the man was of very little help, but it supported much of the theorizing that the P.P. team had done: the killer was in his late twenties or early thirties, a medical supply salesman of some sort, quiet and wallflowerlike, if not a regular shrinking violet.

With their coffee and the strange letter from Teach between them, the two FBI agents discussed its deeper meaning.

“ I'm worried about this, Jess,” he admitted. “It means that he's picked you from a crowd. Of all the hundreds of law enforcement people involved in this case, he has fixed his bloody attention on you. Gives me the chills, just thinking about it.”

“ Hasn't done much for my digestion either,” she admitted. “Or my beauty sleep.”

He had noticed that she'd been staring at the TV from the couch rather than in her bed when he had come in. “That's why I flew out. Christ, Jess, J.T.'s analysis of the blood scrapings-”

“ What? What about them?”

“ The blood on the letter matches Copeland's in every detail.”

“ Bastard,” she muttered. “Pisses away the dead girl's blood, uses it for ink… God knows what other uses he makes of it.”

“ A real Marquis de Sade. Wouldn't be surprised if he bathed in it,” he said. “So, little wonder I got worried about you out here. Called Joe Brewer personally to ask him to stick by you.”

“ Oh, he did that.”

“ That jerk didn't make a pass at you, did he?”

“ Not quite.”

“ Meaning?”

She frowned and shrugged. “It was nothing.”

“ Jess?”

“ He… he asked about our relationship.”

Otto dropped his gaze. “He's not the only one asking.”

“ I told him we were just best of friends.”

“ And we are,” he replied, reaching across to her hand and covering it. “But I've had… hopes… that we might be more to one another… someday.”

She covered his hand in hers. “I've had similar… hopes.”

“ So I came a thousand miles to be with you.”

She stared at him, trying to uncover the unspoken words here. “Against orders? Not against Leamy's holy wishes, I hope.”

“ No, nothing like that,” he said, but there seemed to be something hidden in his tone.

“ What, then?”

“ Someone's been spreading stories about… well, about you and me, Jess.” He scratched nervously behind his ear, and she saw that he was exhausted.

She frowned, but leaned across to him and kissed him. “Can you blame anyone for talking? There's some fire in this smoke… isn't there?”

“ There is… a fire.”

“ Brewer… some of your friends… are just worried it's too soon after Marilyn. Afraid I'll not be good for you or your career. And maybe, maybe they're-”

“- wrong,” he finished for her, kissing her deeply, probing her mouth with his tongue.

She felt her passion for him rise like the energy above an open flame; she felt as if all her inner turmoil and emotional conflict, the horrendous nature of her long, defeating search for the killer, the stress of being in charge of a forensics division of the largest law enforcement agency in the world-all of it melted within her, turning to an invisible, yielding mist that drained off her mind, to be replaced with his touch.

She could feel, also, Otto's inner trembling as he gave into his need for her. He tenderly held her, his mouth hungrily exploring hers, until suddenly he swept her up and carried her into the bedroom, where he softly placed her against the pillows. The earlier darkness of the room had been too heavy and somber and cold, but now it was as if a ray of morning light had filtered in. She could see Otto clearly over her, his features distinct and his eyes probing. She reached up and helped him tear away his shirt, her nails going into his flesh, making him arch toward her. She lifted her mouth to his chest and suckled at him, making him groan. She lay back and opened her robe to him.

“ I need you, Jess,” he moaned into her ear when he eased himself over her nude form.

“ And I need you,” she replied, wishing that he'd said “I love you,” instead. A part of Otto was still being held in check; a part of him was elsewhere. But she gave herself to him without reservation, praying that it would be enough for him, and that his coming to her like this would never be to his regret.

She pleased him.

She suiprised him.

She soon realized that he would never regret tonight.?