original Public Domain, and if not, the private affair amounted to a slop bucket in a cell.”
“Imagine a visit to the local dentist or doctor,” Kim added.
Jessica yawned. “Hey, maybe I'm out of touch with the young, but what exactly are their romanticized notions?”
Vladoc shrugged. “The usual.”
“What? That dragons walk the earth and that men in armor, like Sir Lancelot and Sir Galahad, slew them to save virgins nailed to crosses in fog-laden glens? Come on.”
“Yes, all that, but perhaps more accurately that fairies, and fairy godmothers and godfathers, and angels are real, and that they are interested in the lives of those humans who are 'clued' into them.”
“Dungeons and Dragons, fairies and elves, huh? The little people with gleeful hearts.”
“This is the mythology to which they owe a great deal of their romantic notions, along with pop-culture vulgarizations of the Knights of the Round Table. Romantic notions abound in art, literature, poetry.”
“Romantic or fantastic?” asked Jessica.
“The romantic is the fantastic,” Kim countered. “Hey, I know from experience.”
Jessica nodded as the miniature helicopter inside her head began a slow buzz, and she knew she'd had enough to drink for one night. She began a slow descent, alerting Kim that she was no longer drinking. Kim agreed to do the same, while Vladoc downed his Miller draft and called for another.
“You know, if you ask my opinion about this killer and his victims, I would have to say that a young and impressionable person-childlike in his thinking-can derive security only from the conviction that he understands nature and reality and truth, and that he feels safe in his convictions, and if this killer can make him feel so, well then, the con man and the manipulator is well on his way.” It all sounded to Jessica like vague generalities, and she was tiring of Vladoc's pontificating. It reminded her of a philosophy class she'd once struggled through in college. Still Vladoc droned on, saying, “That same young person, given so-called scientific fact to refute his belief in a fantasticized reality, will only be faced with more and greater uncertainties, but then isn't that true of us all?”
“We're exhausted, Dr. Vladoc, and we're going home now, aren't we, Kim?” was Jessica's only answer. “Sounds like a plan,” replied Kim.
“More than magic thinking… magic itself exists, if you believe in angels and hobgoblins, little people and aliens,” continued Vladoc, undaunted by the indifference of his audience. “And I believe your victims held such beliefs. They're all relatives in this sense, members of a same-thinking group.”
“Are you suggesting the victims were members of a cult?”
“No, not really, but rather members of society that finds it comforting to believe in what you and I would call fairies or angels.”
Nodding, Jessica added, “Elves of old have become the aliens of today? Nothing a few lines of a chant or an old-fashioned curse couldn't accomplish, so, too, a TV show like The X-Files. What was it Carl Sagan said-something about as mankind's campfire grows larger, so, too, do the imaginings of what's out there in the darkness beyond the flames?”
“Wish I knew a chant now to dispel this dizziness in my head,” Kim interjected.
Jessica teased, “I should think that being psychic, you'd know beforehand when you'd had your last drink.”
“That's funny. You know it doesn't work that way.”
“Oh, excuse me, ladies, I see someone I must speak to across the room,” said Vladoc, attempting to make a graceful exit. “It's been interesting chatting with you. Doctors, and good luck on the case. Do send me everything you find pertinent, and I will assist in any way I can.” He even bowed before leaving, and they watched him join a group of young women at another table, all college-aged kids, all appearing to know him.
Jessica and Kim located their shoes, got to their feet, and made their way out of the pub.
Outside, as the cool night breeze played through Jessica's hair, she said, “So we have a whole generation that believes in an invisible world surrounding us, an entire world in which magic thinking exists, in all its strange and bizarre permutations, while that strange little Peter Flavious Vladoc looks for a new conquest among the young?”
“I predict he will come to a bad end, especially if he is popping Viagra.”
“Do you think he's one of those men who will do anything, go anywhere, to sire a child, preferably a male child? And if so, has it to do with his being so short?”
“I think he could well be our killer, Jessica, but then you know that.”
“I do
“He's here, isn't he? Scouting a late-adolescent prize? He may write poetry very close in style and content to that of the Killer Poet, and he appears to have a fascination with the case, all facts in evidence.”
“It's his job.”
“What's his job?”
'To follow the close casely-I mean case closely, isn't he? Getting all his information from one source, Leanne Sturtevante, can't be good. He needs to see it from all sides, right?”
“Ah,” joked Kim, “so… do you think that something's up between those two?”
“Haven't a clue.”
“Shocking, isn't it?”
“No, not in and of itself, but Sturtevante's on thin ice with the pillow talk she's cooing to Dr. Vladoc.”
They walked on toward the hotel. “You know it,” Jessica muttered. “She could sabotage our case against a suspect if too many of the details are made public.”
“Agreed.”
“So, can you predict how my and Richard's relationship will end?”
“I wouldn't presume to go there, Jess. And you know it.” You mean I have to go to dial-a-psychic for that?”
“Sure, give me a year or so and I'll give you a 1-800 number I trust.”
“Hey, I've seen those ads. Everyone on them swears up and down that dial-a-psychic works.”
“Yeah, like my one-eyed, one-legged cat works.”
At PPD headquarters crime lab the next morning, Jessica found Parry on her doorstep, this time with news of a possible break in the case. A half grin played across his face as he said, “A call came to my office this morning from a distraught university dean. The woman believes she has a match up with the poetry. She's a dean of arts and sciences at the university here.”
“The University of Philadelphia?”
“Right.”
“And she got our FBI packet, studied the killer's poetry, and-”
“Bingo, a match.”
“Then I guess we need to talk to her.”
“She suspects a guy working under her at the university, and a check reveals that several of the victims were, at one time or another, in the guy's classes.”
“Sounds close enough for a look-see to me. Let's get over there.”
“I want you and Desinor to interview her, see what you can get.”
“What will you be doing in the meantime?”
“Sturtevante has set up the surveillance of a guy she's gotten some leads on from the street, a kind of Weird A1 Yankovic character that a lot of fingers keep pointing at. Sturtevante thinks she's onto something, and I need to review her findings. They're trying to get a warrant to search his apartment now.” So while you and Leanne are storming in to search and seize this Quasimodo's apartment and belongings, we're going to canvass the upper-crust possibilities, is that it?”
“Just trying to cover all the bases. We don't know jack-shit about the Poet at this point. We have to follow up on citizen tips and anything that smacks of reliable.”
“Sure, got it.”
“You don't like Sturtevante, do you, Jess?”
“She's a contradictory person; she wants a team effort, she heads a task force, but she's not a team player herself. I find her lack of interest in our autopsy findings curious and strange. She confides only in Shockley, and I find her reluctance to share information directly… well, a pain in the ass.”
