Jessica jumped back in. “Maybe Ovid doesn't want the other killer to know that he took this step.”
“ And he's counting on us not to leak this information, maybe, and maybe he's as good as dead if the other one finds out,” added Rychman. “Least, that's the way Dr. Coran and I see it at this point. Call it educated conjecture, if you wish.”
This seemed to satisfy most in the room. Emmons' thin hand went up as she raised another question. “What does he have to gain by this act? Does he want to be caught? Is he trying to end the killing spree?”
“ We don't have all the answers, not by a long shot,” replied Rychman. “The poem shows a lot of misguided, insane notions are swimming around in the guy's head, like the business of the Claw's doing the world a good turn, servicing us, you might say, by getting rid of the wretched among us.”
“ This ties in with a related theory that Captain Rychman is working on, about the killer or killers knowing that some and perhaps all of his victims were having medical problems,” Jessica added.
This brought a rumble from the assembled detectives. Only a handful were working on the probe of the medical histories. Rychman asked these few to report any new findings, but they'd just begun to scratch the surface and each begged for more time.
O’Toole asked the question that seemed now on everyone's mind. “Then this bastard, or these bastards, knew their victims?”
“ We can't say that's a for-sure at this point,” countered Rychman. “But we're betting that he had prior knowledge of their weaknesses through their medical histories or records. Believe me, people, it has been a leap of faith to take our speculations this far, but that's why we're lucky to have Dr. Coran on our side.”
The group acknowledged this with positive grunts and nods. Emmons asked in her quiet voice, “You got all this from that poem? Maybe I'd better go back to school, because I don't see it.”
“ The medical history trail came independently through Captain Rychman's investigation,” Jessica answered. “All we truly got from the poem is the belief that Ovid is a weak and subordinated personality at the mercy of the one he calls the Claw. It was Ovid who contacted the radio station after the initial attacks way back in November of last year. Ovid has remained silent until now-out of fear, we believe. But just as with his radio appearance, he is championing the work of the Claw with his poem.”
“ Sorry,” said Emmons. “I just don't get that much out of this loon's poem, Doctor, and if you're wrong we could be looking in all the wrong places.”
“ The poem doesn't really say all that much,” agreed another detective.
“ But it does” Jessica disagreed. “It's a sick rationalization for the Claw's cannibalistic nature, and it places the Claw in a godlike role, doing the work of an archangel of death. It tells us a great deal about the killer, and about his accomplice, this Ovid who is in fear for his own life and quite surely in awe of the other man, who has convinced him somehow to be a part of some glorious master plan.”
“ Obviously delusionary,” said Dr. Richard Ames, who had stepped through the door, his secretary beside him with a handful of slides. “However, I'm not convinced that you have two men with murderous intent and cannibalistic urges, and not one man with a dual personality disorder.”
Dr. Ames' contradiction took both Rychman and Jessica by surprise. Jessica tried to minimize the damage already done. “No, this is not a case of one man with two identities, Doctor, but two men with a shared psychosis, acting out a shared fantasy.”
“ If you will bear with me, please,” Ames pleaded with an upraised palm, displaying his huge hand. He then gave a nod to his secretary, who looked disgruntled to be working so early. Priscilla obviously knew the routine, going for the slide projector at the rear of the room. Rychman pulled down a screen from overhead.
Meanwhile, Ames was saying, “I will provide you with my opinion regarding the Claw as he has revealed himself through his writing. Beginning with his handwriting, it is clear that he has a great reservoir of self-hatred and is lacking in self-esteem. As to how many killers you have? I believe this a case of encroaching possession of one personality over the other-that is to say, what the press has dubbed the Claw is another Gerald Ray Sims, i.e., Sims equals Ovid, Stainlype equals the Claw.”
“ No, no,” Jessica started to object, unable to hide her disappointment, her eyes meeting Rychman's. He, too, was upset, realizing that Ames' conclusions toppled all that they had so carefully built up in the minds of his detectives. They had been suddenly clipped at the knees.
Ames had taken the podium, and seeing the dismay in their eyes, he said to Jessica and Rychman, “Aren't you even curious as to how I arrived at my conclusions? Shall I go on, Captain?”
Rychman bit his lip and nodded. “Please… please do.”
Jessica sat down alongside Alan, the two of them waiting for Ames, who was waiting for Priscilla, to continue. Rychman began tapping with a pencil, his confused people looking on.
Sixteen
The room was darkened, and overhead, larger than life, was the handwriting of the Claw. The childish script of huge swirls and loops looked almost as if it had been intentionally used to throw police off. Dr. Ames, a huge, dark shadow beside the screen, pointed at each line as he discussed it.
“ His rage and anger have been sublimated by this fantastic idea that he has somehow done the right thing; his words here and here, about tearing out his victims' eyes, feeding on the soft flesh, are balanced by his holier- than-thou attitude that he is somehow the agent of a spirit beyond this world, an angel or archangel. He feels that the power controlling him is in fact superhuman, and so if it tells him to kill, if it tells him to feed on those he kills, he does so. Not that he is without fear of the spirit that has overtaken him, but it is this fear that motivates him. He would rather eat out the sins of his victims, swallow them down and accumulate them, than face this being from another world that has taken control of him.”
“ Then there are two killers and not one,” said someone in the group.
“ No,” Ames disagreed. “There is only one killer, but he is a psychopath who receives visits from a second, more powerful personality, the dire, black side of his own soul, perhaps. Voices he takes to be that of God or God- directed.”
“ Then he's one guy with two personalities?”
“ Two personalities, yes, but one is at the beck and call of the other, the weaker will subjugated by the more demonic.”
Jessica was unnerved by Ames' profile of the killer. He was describing Gerald Ray Sims and a host of others either behind bars or executed long ago.
Rychman said in her ear, “We should've postponed this, gotten together with Ames ourselves and hashed it out before we presented it in front of my people. This is going to send them out with a lot of mixed signals.”
Jessica interrupted Ames. “Dr. Ames, isn't it at all possible that the two personalities you're referring to are, in fact, two physically separate men? One dominated by the other?”
“ This is my interpretation of the poem the man has written. It fits the classic pattern of a dangerous psychopath.”
“ But isn't it possible that he could just as well be writing about himself and his dominant partner, the one he protects?”
Ames was decisive. “No… not in my estimation.”
Damn, she thought. “I really need those reports from J.T. now,” she told Rychman.
The lights came up on the confusion of sixty creased faces, each person and each team trying to weigh the theories and decide whether the Claw was a single individual with a dual personality, or a killing couple.
Rychman was as upset with the way things had gone as Jessica, and it appeared, finally, that Dr. Ames realized just how upset they were with him. “I'm sorry if my diagnosis of the situation does not fit neatly into your plans, but I must be honest,” he told them as he began to pack up his notes and files. Priscilla had already abandoned the overhead and was now waiting for him at the door.
Rychman shook Ames' hand and thanked him for coming, as did Jessica. When Ames disappeared, hands went up all over the room. Rychman said in his firmest voice, “I believe Dr. Ames is half-right, and Dr. Coran is half-right. At any rate, quite soon, we will have forensics evidence to prove one theory or the other. In the meantime, you have your assignments. Dig into the medical records of each victim, and think about-think about-the
