sickening sight of the mutilated corpse and the pungent aroma of the wharf itself, a place which saw the slaughter of fish and blood with every incoming fishing vessel-a demonstration which the crowd also appreciated on a daily basis here-and what did Alex expect. An aroma of decay and death forever sniffed at by people and roaming cats, like the one now representing its wild brethren as it slinked silently and unseen to the body for a curious sniff and inhale, making Jessica Coran shout, “Will somebody get this freakin' contaminating cat out of the crime scene area?”Ben deYampert reacted immediately, chasing the cat off with a kick, which gained a wave of sympathy from the onlookers, a few elderly women hissing at Ben something about cruelty.
13
Fiend behind the fiend behind the fiend…
Mastodon with mastery, monster with an ache At the tooth of the ego. the dead drunk judge: Where so ever Thou art our agony shall find Thee Enthroned on the darkest altar of our heartbreak Perfect, Beast, brute, bastard. O dog my God!
Dr. Kim Desinor recalled the last time she'd come down to the Toulouse Street Wharf area, barely thirteen years old. She was in the company of a busload of others from the two schools at St. Domitilla's, the boys' and the girls' reformatories. It was a rare occasion, an event, a field trip. They had been given an opportunity to go aboard and take an excursion on a paddle wheeler like the one now over her shoulder, only hers was called the Creole River Princess and was far less elegant, and along with her was a young man whose features and sexual proclivities were not completely unlike those of the victim over which Jessica Coran was now working. The young man's name was Edward Mantleboro, and he had his sister in tow, a strange and silent girl who stared not at you but through you. Edward had introduced her as Edwina, a twin sister, although they didn't look very much alike. Edwina was unpleasantly swollen, her skin wrinkled badly for one so young, her eyes puffy, as if some fluid were below the surface, but it was her distant irises which seemed lacking soul that had most disturbed and intrigued the young Kim. She'd forgotten about the queer girl, along with so much else in this city, until now, and she wondered, why now? What brought such fragments of memory to the surface? Was it her surroundings. New Orleans, the wharf, the steamboat or the vacancy in the dead man's eyes? Perhaps it was a combination of them all.
Edward, the young boy, by contrast to his odd sister, seemed to possess all that his sister lacked: health, vitality, soul, charm, wit, sensitivity, and he liked and flirted with young Kim, in fact spending most of the trip hanging and hovering about her, often apologizing for having been saddled with his sister, while Edwina spent most of the trip either staring out at the river or at Kim, as if she'd like to set fire to her. Kim found it both disturbing and interesting that the other girl, without really knowing her, harbored such an unreasonable hatred for her. It had been a memory that Kim had successfully put away until now, but here it came galloping back at her like an angry Headless Horseman, like an indelible mark that had never gone from her memory at all.
She wondered what had ever become of Edward and the girl, who had both also attended St. Domitilla's, he in the boys' school, she in the girls' school. Kim had thought them both odd when Edward, perhaps fifteen at the time, had confided that they weren't parentless or abandoned, but that their parents had placed them into the orphanage to be “straightened out.” He'd muttered something about it all having been “bought and paid for.”
The memories were vague and confusing now, but the Toulouse Street Wharf brought back vivid images. She hadn't exactly been on a date with Edward Mantleboro. It had been more like two desperate young people looking for someone to be with and cling to. That was how their friendship had begun, before it turned into something bigger and more confusing, and before Edwina had attacked Kim with a broken bottle in the shower.
Kim still had the scar from the deepest wound to her upper back, which had required eight stitches. Edwina had later disappeared, no explanation given, and life at St. Domitilla's had gone grinding along without her, much to Kim's relief.
As for Edward, one day after her fourteenth birthday, she'd agreed to secretly meet him in the anteroom off the cafeteria located between the two buildings. Far into the night, refugees from a painful world, they'd lain in one another's arms, oblivious to the hardwood floor, and Edward had made love to her. But soon after, he too had vanished from the school, never to be seen or heard from again. She'd never told anyone about the incident except for her aunt, the only friend she could trust.
She had since had relationships with men, but most were frightened off by her powers of “darkness.” Men, for the most part, didn't want a complicated woman, and being gifted or cursed with psi energies was one hell of a complication in a relationship. Looking around the pier now, she recalled a similar romance and an excursion boat in Florida when she lived in the Miami-Dade area. John Keys was his name, and he was her watch commander when she was a police detective there, when she'd been fairly successful at masking her potent ESP. At first John was delightful, a real prince whose acerbic wit never failed to make her laugh, and he was so good to her and so very shy about asking her out that first time. Once they had arranged their schedules and gone out, it was necessarily a daylight cruise out and back in the cerulean waters leading toward the placid Caribbean, because neither of them could get an evening free. It had been one of those blindingly bright, brilliant days only found off the waters of Florida, a lingering ocean breeze sweeping over the blue calm, the only clouds far off to the east, menacingly aligned against the crystal clarity of blue on blue sky all around them, the huge army of clouds awaiting the call to battle, yet strangely holding back for them and them alone. The battle came later that night when a terrible tropical depression brought on a downpour the likes of which the city hadn't seen since Hurricane Andrew in '92. But that day, as they'd disappeared like a pair of Huckleberry Finns aboard the cruise ship Sun God's Dream, floating slowly beyond sight of Miami's crime-ridden streets and its golden skyline, she had felt closer to John Keys than anyone she had ever known, and his embrace had been so very warm and comforting. She had fallen deeply in love with Jack, as she'd come to call him, but rumors had started circulating about the Department after an unusual bust and collar-not rumors about them, but rumors about her; rumors about how she'd conducted herself, how she'd second-guessed her partner and how bloody accurate she'd been, and how she could read minds.
Jack began to wonder at first, and soon after he confronted her, and when she confided in him her strange, unexplainable power, he soon began a somber campaign to distance himself from her. It started slowly at first, like a rape victim's partner who was unable to cope with the situation, but step by painstaking step, he sure footedly waltzed away and into the background of her life without giving her the courtesy of an honest explanation. When she confronted him, it became achingly clear that he was unable to deal with the new reality that lay before them like a granite stone in a Dali desert vision. There was no reviving the lost life of their relationship. Put simply, he was frightened off.
It wasn't long after that she was unofficially drummed out of the Department and off the force, and this compelled her to go into private practice as a psychic while she finished up her doctorate in psychology. She'd gone from a member of the force, where she'd been accepted, to a lone wolf, called in on cases all over the country, but seldom if ever in Florida, and never in the Miami vicinity.
That was why Paul Zanek was so damned attractive to her when he'd first proposed that she go through FBI training and become an agent. He'd been in Miami on a case in which FBI assistance was needed, and somehow he'd gotten wind of the woman who, in cop circles, had come to be known variously as a Psi-co cop, a Private Psi, 3rd Eye Psi, Cop Hazel, Spooky K.D., Taro-Cop, Ol' Faithful or the Psi-clops cop.
Given the circumstances and the time element, Paul Zanek dared not speak of a psychic division being contemplated by the FBI, but it was obvious he both knew of her reputation and was not put off by it. Little wonder, a year later, she was in his arms.
Now this, she thought: New Orleans and a bloodthirsty killer feeding on hearts, and Paul thousands of miles away, getting his staid life back in order while her own was once again a shambles. Even before the plane had landed and the limousine filled with dignitaries sent for Jessica Coran, with Sincebaugh sent to bring her along as an afterthought, she'd sensed trouble in the air over New Orleans, that this bright morning would find a large and ugly stain upon the sun drenched mecca for party-goers.
“ Bastard seems insatiable and the guys at headquarters have placed odds on what the creep's doing with the hearts,” said Alex Sincebaugh, who'd drifted from Dr. Coran to her now. “Ten to one down at the precinct says
