when Dr. Darius told him of its discovery inside the body. Darius had gotten a copy from Lathrope and had shared its content with Archer. Little bastard had disobeyed him, and now Archer's cleverly laid plans were unraveling at the seams, unless he could quickly put everything right.
The first step to putting things right was to rip the flesh of Detective Emmons from top to bottom with the tool that had come from the mind of Casadessus, an idea polished and improved on by Archer. He covered himself in a smock taken from his valise, lifted her sagging form and carried her dying body into Helfer's house.
Twenty-Two
Once inside Leon's house with Emmons, who was still alive. Archer took further hideous delight over her. Here he disemboweled her, tearing her intestines from her stomach cavity, curling them in a heap beside her, as was the Claw's custom. Rychman, Coran and the others would find her eviscerated, gutted open like a fish on a slab. And Leon was the perfect suspect. Archer had seen to that.
Archer's clothing was bloodstained, but he had a change of clothing in his trunk. He had been careful once more to wear a hair net and surgical gloves, even under the glove of the claw so as to leave no prints inside the claw itself. Coran would think to investigate the interior of it, he was sure. Now, ready to feed on the dead Emmons, he covered even his teeth with an acrylic coverlet that duplicated the impressions made by Leon Helfer. His plan was one of genius, thanks to the ruminations of his alter ego, Casadessus, whom he kept secret from even Leon.
The teeth impressions were compliments of Leon's dentist, a Dr. Parke, who had been most pliable when presented with the sight of $25,000. The good dentist had a number of outstanding gambling debts he was anxious to be shed of. The transaction had gone smoothly, and when Casadessus had vis-ited Dr. Parke again, the dentist had no fear or suspicion of him. He just wanted to know if there was anything else he could do for him, for payment. “There is one thing,” Casadessus told him just before pushing him down an open elevator shaft. “You can die for me.”
Archer had agreed that Parke, like Jim Drake, had to be eliminated. It just tidied things up and he was cautious to a fault. He fed over Emmons' organs now, feeling the warm blood and tissue traveling down his throat. Her soul would add power to his, become one with him as the prey and predator met in the ultimate union. She would go a long way to empower him with the strength needed for what lay ahead. But he hadn't much time before Leon might return and before Emmons' partner or other police might show up.
Sergeant Emmons had been a pleasant surprise, coming on his heels as she had. Archer had entered Leon's stinking place with a key he'd fashioned long before. Expecting Leon to be there, he became incensed to learn that Leon had not only disobeyed him by leaving but had removed all the organ jars.
He had gone to the window and peered out, recalling how he had once watched from this same window to see Leon with Mrs. Phillips in the park, feeding pigeons. He had known then that Casadessus, his other self-known to all others as the Claw-would kill Mrs. Phillips in order to impli-cate Leon further in the Claw killings. After Leon was taken into custody, Simon would prove beyond any doubt that Helfer was the one and only Claw. It was the type of attention-grabbing case that would catapult him into the kind of prominence demanded of his profession. If he were ever to be given the serious consideration granted people like Luther Darius, he must carry through with Casadessus' diabolical plan. Once accomplished, Simon Archer would be whole, Casadessus had promised.
He'd then seen Emmons out the rear window going through Leon's trash. He went down the street, fearful at first, and when he saw her unmarked police car, and no one near, he got in and called dispatch, who asked, “Unit 234, what is your position?”
When he did not answer, the dispatcher said, “Turner? Are you there? Emmons? Louise, are you there?” Louise Emmons was the lady cop at the trash, but there was no sign of her partner. She must be moonlighting on her own. She had undoubtedly seen his BMW and possibly the smashed fender. He decided he could use her in his scheme to implicate Leon and extricate himself from any possible suspicion. He'd fortunately carried his black valise into Leon's with him, intending to plant the murder weapon in Leon's bedroom closet. Now he'd leave Emmons' body as well as the damning murder weapon to ensure Leon's absolute guilt. It could not have worked out better. Not even his sinister other self had planned such a climactic end to the Claw.
Now, his lips red with her blood, he swallowed another piece of Emmons, knowing the protein was good for him.
Having fed to his liking, he reached with his bloodied and gloved right hand into his mouth and snatched off the hard, acrylic tooth coverlets that Leon's dentist had fashioned for him at a dear price. These he carefully wrapped in cellophane and placed in his pocket.
He stood over the body where it lay in the kitchen. Emmons had been a lovely woman in life, and she had sustained him in death. His strong, inner self, Casadessus, grew in strength and energy each time he fed, and Simon Archer, too, was strengthened. With each kill, Simon became more and more adept at getting what he wanted.
Now he had only to let things fall as they may. He stepped away from the last feeding he would have in some time. The masquerade must be finished, the Claw captured and his reign of terror ended, all for Simon.
Archer sat in the middle of Leon Helfer's living room, his knees pulled up to his chest, rocking and biding his time, determined to keep calm and to cover his own tracks as carefully as he had throughout the year of the Claw. He'd soon take his final step as the Claw, and all would end with Leon's capture or-preferably-his death.
It was odd, he thought, how he had become a murderer, and why. He hadn't planned it, not really… at least not the first time, yet it had grown out of who he was and what he did. He'd begun in the lab where he stripped the bodies of the women; knowing he could not mutilate them, knowing that if he did, it would surely end in his dismissal, if not his arrest, he took what delights he could. He knew he must refrain from any cutting other than the coroner's Y-cut, unless there was some overriding and urgent need to cut elsewhere. But he had such urges; sometimes he wanted to tear the corpse from head to toe. It had just started creeping over his mind like a growth, a snaking vine. He could mutilate the in-sides, that which did not show. And so he began… He ripped apart the organs in the privacy of his lab, and finding this not satisfying enough, he had begun to cannibalize the internal flesh.
He did not know exactly why.
He was not sure he wanted to know why.
Why had his appetite for flesh suddenly blossomed? Was it hereditary? An ancient lust, genetically coded? Or had it a cerebral origin coming out of a nasty childhood in which his mother often bit him repeatedly as punishment for wrongdoing? Either way, why did he now feel the need for a fresh kill when before, the quiet, silent feeding over corpses entering the morgue had been enough?
Ambition, he guessed. He might have gone on feeding his prurient, unusual tastes just as he had for years in the depths of the city morgue but for his other self, that self who was ambitious enough to want Dr. Darius' position.
Archer kept his secrets well from everyone; however, he kept no secrets well from himself. He knew that there were two Simon Archers, and the Mr. Hyde was aware of Dr. Archer, and vice versa.
He must get up, make the call and get out.
He gathered up his black valise and other things, leaving only the poorly hidden tell-tale claw and the gutted, motionless body of Detective Emmons, her eyes gone from their sockets, delicacies that Archer had taken for himself.
He dialed 911 and clicked on the spliced-together tape recording he had forced from Leon several months before, knowing the day would come when he'd have to use it. Leon's taped voice said, “Someone's been killed… send help… quickly.” Leon then gave his address and Archer hung up over the protests of the operator.
Archer then quickly disappeared from the premises.
When Dave Turner pulled within sight of Leon Helfer's squat little apartment complex, his heart felt as if it were in ice, his nerves completely dulled, and his vision blurring like that of a drunk's. It was true… It was true, what they were saying on the radio: another victim of the Claw had been discovered, and it was a cop. He knew it was Emmons.
“ Dammit, Louise, damn you! Why didn't you wait?” He was holding the search warrant in his hand, waving it
