“ Blood turns this bastard on for sure,” added Jessica who had calmly listened to the discussion.
“ But only eighty or ninety percent of known blood drinkers also perform deviant sex acts on their victims,” O'Rourke interjected.
“ But even the other ten percent are in it for some twisted psychosexual perversion,” countered Otto, “albeit so bloody sick that the sexual nature of the crime is overtly unapparent. I think our creep is totally screwed in the head and has, for whatever reasons, gotten blood and semen and sex and murder all balled up into one.”
“ So he gets sexual pleasure from drinking the blood,” said Jessica.
“ His ultimate gratification, yes.”
The others considered this in a moment of silence.
“ Maybe that's your lead, Schultz,” suggested Byrnes.
“ What lead?” asked Schultz.
“ For your story. Plaster it across the headline that the bastard we're after gets his rocks off by pouring blood down his pants.”
“ Intimate that he's unable to please a woman,” added O'Rourke.
“ Intimate hell,” replied Byrnes. “Call him a faggot vampire.”
“ Byrnes may be on the right track,” said Schultz. “If this thing is to work, we have to piss the bloodsucker off.” Schultz pursed his lips, nodded and tapped a pencil before him, considering his next move. Jessica, searching the features of everyone around the room, realized that all of them were considering their next steps very carefully. None moreso than Otto.?
SIXTEEN
He knew that he suffered from two rare diseases, both of which made him angry and both of which made him a blood-drinker. He had read all there was to read on his conditions. He knew that his adrenal cortex was steadily atrophying, and that only cortisone helped. It was a hormone that regulated the electrolyte balance between sodium and potassium in the body. An imbalance caused progressive fatigue, weight loss and eventual death. At one time Addison's disease was fatal, but now you took cortisone to replace the body's supply. But the damnable cortisone caused weird fatty deposits in his back, turning him into a kind of Quasimodo, bending him over. It showed up in his buttocks and his cheeks as well, giving him a John Kennedy or Jim Belushi appearance about the face. He had gone to a doctor friend who had X-rayed his pituitary gland at the base of his skull, the gland that controlled the adrenals. The pituitary was shriveled, the adrenals tiny. The disease had done its work, marking him both inside and out.
Other symptoms were anxiety, depression and an acute sensitivity to cold.
Blood, he reasoned, helped to hold the disease in check, as it warmed him both physically and spiritually.
Blood also helped combat his second disorder, porphyria, called by some the vampire disease, in which large amounts of white blood corpuscles were wildly manufactured in the bone marrow, leaving red corpuscles in short supply. The bone marrow defect led to a lack of heme, a pigment in the blood's oxygen carrying cells as well, and this gave him a pallor. Occult historians believed that porphyries attacked and drank the blood of others in a desperate attempt to get healthy hemoglobin into their systems. Nonsense, he thought. If that were the only reason he killed, he could stop tomorrow, go into a clinic and get all the hemoglobin he required-and he had done exactly that on more than one occasion. He knew a lot of doctors. He went to them whenever he could. He liked to watch them work, and, for the most part, he liked them.
A key symptom of his disorder was a sensitivity to sunlight, which caused scabs, scarring and sores over his skin. His gums, too, had receded as a result of the disease, exposing his teeth to such a degree that they appeared to the casual observer to be fangs.
Some people had cancer. Some were afflicted with other debilitating diseases. He counted himself lucky. His diseases could be held in check, both by cortisone, which was in plentiful and cheap supply, and by blood.
He had earlier packed the van, before the sun had come up. He had clients to see in Indiana, up and down the state, and he might get over to Ohio and down to Kentucky, if he could manage it. On the company car phone, he kept in touch, but the range wasn't as far-reaching as he and his van. He placed his heavy cases into the van, his samples, all the various brochures and catalogues provided by the company. He then stocked the rear of the van with his own, private goods, the items necessary for taking the blood from another Candy or another Renee. All he needed now was opportunity, and he would help opportunity along, knowing that it would present itself somewhere in Indiana tonight.
It was midmoming when he pulled from the driveway, waving to a few neighbors who, retired, had nothing to do beyond tending to crabgrass and their tomato plants. Somewhere a dog barked.
He pulled from the little subdivision of houses onto the main road, then took Interstate 294 in its wide arch around the sprawling city. He wanted to find a good place in Indiana to post his letter to Dr. Jessica Coran and eventually mailed it from the small post office in Hammond. People stared at him with his hat and sunglasses on, since it had become overcast. He got back into the dark interior of his van and hid behind the black-tinted windows. From there he watched a young woman pull up, get out of her car and go into the post office. She was, to him, a bucket of blood. Everyone walking before his gaze was a bucket of blood. But young girls were prettier buckets. He stayed long enough to watch the girl exit, get into her car to leave. He fell in behind her, fantasizing about doing her.
But he had a schedule to keep, and he knew that schedules could be checked, and so when the red Firebird ahead of him turned off onto a residential street, he kept pace with the traffic going back toward the interstate and Indianapolis.
At least the letter got off.
He switched on his cassette player and listened to the Blue Danube to combat the jackhammers and noise of busy Hammond. Hammond was bustling with sound and pollution and he hurried to the interstate. But he was careful not to go through any yellow lights, to lane-change or to cut anyone off. He certainly didn't want to be placed in Hammond, Indiana, by some stupid traffic ticket on the same day that a certain letter was mailed to the FBI's premier forensics investigator. If he was going to play games with the authorities, rub their faces in their helplessness against him, he meant to do it right.
On the seat alongside him was his brown leather briefcase. Inside the case were his special blood-tapping tools. Behind his chair was his cooler, stocked with empty jars anxious to be refilled.
Dr. Grubber was waiting for him, and following that a new client in the Indianapolis area.
The sunlight had not been harsh or glaring when he got out of the van to post the letter, and yet it still had hurt his sensitive skin and eyes; it'd bring the sores and scabs if he was not careful. Dr. Leonard Grubber would supply him with more of his concoction of proteins and carbohydrates which the man claimed was the best single source of relief from porphyria as well as Addison's disease. Grubber had been seeing to his needs since he met the man his first day on the Indiana run. Grubber was fascinated by his case and wanted to do a case study. It took a long time for the confidences and assurances to be bonded, but now he saw Grubber as a harmless medicine man who wanted to conduct his experiments. It was a trade-off, a kind of symbiotic relationship. He'd give Grubber the use of his body for study, if Grubber provided him with the medications he required to hold the diseases that ravished his body in check.
Grubber was, in fact, the closest thing he had to a friend.
Grubber's records were interesting. He had picked them up once and read about himself. Grubber had not been able to get the research and his paper published in any medical journals yet, but he kept trying.
He found his way back to the interstate and pulled into traffic. If he made good time, maybe he'd get lucky later on this evening.
Late in the day at Quantico, Teresa O'Rourke claimed that the killer lived in or around the Chicago area. This pinpointing of residence was important for several reasons, and despite her methods, everyone wanted to believe she was accurate. This would narrow the focus considerably. Records could be more easily checked, DMVs, registrations of all sorts. The Chicago FBI field offices were very professional, very good. Everyone was elated when
