Lord grant me patience, and I want it right now.
A solemn, overweight doctor in sneakers and green scrubs entered the waiting room, and Jessica leaped to her feet. The doctor explained that his portion of the operation- the intestinal tract-was finished, but that there were other complications, and that their vigil could go on for another two or three hours. "Sorry," finished the doctor, "but he was badly chewed up, internally."
"Any improvement on his prognosis, Doctor?" asked Jessica.
"I'm afraid not."
"Then it'll be hours before he's out of intensive care."
"Yes, it will. Again, I'm sorry I can't have better news for you."
Jessica knew she didn't have that kind of time, not if she wished to catch a killer, yet her heart tugged at her to be here with Warren should he recover. Should he… She banned her final thought.
A male nurse entered and asked if there was a Doctor Jessica Coran in the waiting room. "Telephone call at the desk for you,'' he announced.
Jessica looked from the nurse to J. T., a birdlike fear flitting before her mind's eye, a thought fully formed: Who knows I'm here?
J. T., reading her thoughts, supplied an answer: "Santiva's got to have had word by now on what's happened here. He'll want a full report."
Jessica nodded and asked the nurse to lead the way. She followed the young man to the nurses' station; he pointed to a small, enclosed office, saying, "You can take it in there."
Being alone in the room with the phone was like standing in a pit with a snake. She stared at the waiting phone where it blinked and winked up at her. Finally, she took the receiver in hand and pounced on the hold button. "Hello."
Santiva barked, "Jessica, what in hell's going on there? I thought you said this Bishop fellow was top drawer, and now I learn he's compromised an entire operation?"
"Eriq, I don't know what was going down with Warren," she lied, not wishing to discuss it now, and certainly not over the phone. ''All we know for certain is that he may not make it through the night, and even if he does, he'll be paralyzed, possibly for life." She choked on the facts.
"I'm sorry to hear that. Damn it, and just when we've gotten a line on what the list is getting at, too, Jessica."
"Oh, really?"
''A Professor William Milton Jarvis, Medieval Studies Department at Georgetown University, tracked it to-"
"Really, my old alma mater? Don't tell me," she replied, spoiling his moment, "Dante's Inferno, right?"
"How did you know? Damn it, you're always a step ahead."
"It finally dawned on me," she half-lied, no time for detailed long-distance explanations. "And I've been reading the book since. We'll fax you our latest suspicions and an updated list as soon as possible."
"I'm coming out there to be with you," he countered.
"It's not necessary, Eriq."
"I think it is, at this juncture, absolutely necessary. I'm flying out to Salt Lake."
"Well, if you must come, make it Wyoming."
"Wyoming?"
"Jackson Hole."
"Where the president vacations?"
"One and the same. Ever been there?"
"A splendid, beautiful area, and yes, I've been there and I know how to get there from here, yes."
"There are nine rungs of Hell, Eriq, and this guy appears to be populating each with each of his victims. He's going to kill at least three, possibly four more times before he ends it, if we allow him to. Is it too damn much to hope we end it?"
"I want to be on hand, help any way I can, Jess. I'll meet you in Jackson Hole. Meanwhile, fax any new developments to the BSU; I can't sit idly by any longer, Jess. And Jess-"
"Yes?"
"I am one step ahead of you on one lead we got on this guy."
"What kind of a lead?" She remained skeptical.
"How about a name?"
"A name?"
"Feydor Dorphmann, spelled…" He slowed to spell the name accurately for her.
At her end, Jessica took time to write it down.
"How did you get the man's name? How accurate is this information?"
"Right on, Jess. We sent his ugly little cryptograms to all major mental health facilities in the country, as you suggested, and bingo, up comes one in San Francisco called the Lombardh Institute for the Mentally Insane, where this Dorphmann character lived for a time."
"For a time?"
"Eight years without harming a soul. Then he's released-"
"Released when?"
"Seven months ago, and not three months passed when one of his doctors, a guy named Wetherbine, Dr. Stuart Wetherbine, is stabbed repeatedly with a knife and set aflame in an alleyway. Coincidence?"
"No one in San Francisco put those two facts together?"
"Dorphmann disappeared. He's been wanted ever since, but no one's seen him."
Jessica thought about the time line. "He murders his doctor three months after release, then four months pass before he goes on his kill spree? Not your usual serial killer, Eriq. Tell me, what was he in for?''
"Self-inflicted wounds-burning himself. Seems he's something of a masochist. Also delusional, something about seeing aliens behind his eyelids, that sort of thing."
"Aliens?"
"Aliens, elves, creatures from Hell, you name it."
"So his family committed him to the institution?"
"No, I spoke directly to the parents, both aged, in their seventies, and both didn't want anything to do with Feydor and didn't know he'd been released. I'm told they were frightened of him all their lives, something about his having burned living things-cats, dogs, you know-when he was a kid."
"Didn't the institution notify the parents when they released the man?''
"Said they couldn't locate them. Strangely enough, they weren't under any legal obligation to notify the next of kin since this Feydor guy had actually committed himself and was of age."
"He committed himself to eight years in a mental facility. That'll help him at trial," she half-joked, knowing a defense lawyer could make hay with this fact. Maybe Frank Lorentian's solution wasn't so far off the wall.
"Yeah," continued Santiva, "claiming he feared he'd hurt someone if he wasn't under constant watch."
"Damn it, this will help him at trial then. He commits himself for fear he'll harm someone, they release him, he does exactly as he feared and worse, and the defense has a hole large enough to drive a full-grown elephant through. Maybe that was Warren's concern, too, Eriq."
"Be that as it may, we still have to catch the fiend before any defense lawyers and activists praise him."
She smiled at this. "Still, what do we have that ties Dorphmann irrevocably to our case? How can you be sure he's the same man who's behind these fire crimes?"
"The greaseprints…"
"From the mirrors?"
"Mirror instinct, you might say. When you figured that out, Jess, you nailed the bastard. The mental facility kept his prints on file."
"Terrific."
"How did you know? About the prints in the mirror grease? Who else would've given it a thought?"
"I knew instinctively because I knew this guy intentionally leaves me his crumbs. He's been testing my mettle from the beginning."
"The important thing is the prints found a match with this guy. They match Dorphmann's medical records."
"Bingo," she added. "What about a photo of the son-of-a-''
"It's eight years old, and it's not too good. His entrance file at Lombardh, but it's being faxed to Gallagher's office, Vegas, Bozeman, Casper as we speak. It should catch up to you in a few."
"Excellent. Now we can put a face with this pervert."
''Too bad your eyewitness, Bishop, is under. Could give us valuable insight into what the creep looks like today."
"Did you do a computer-aged enhancement of the photo?"
"Faxed alongside the original."
"Dorphmann, Feydor Dorphmann," she repeated the name. It somehow helped tremendously to know the name of the maniac she'd been pursuing, and to know that soon she'd be able to look into his photographic eyes. It gave her a sense that he was human after all, and not at all the Antichrist, the all-powerful being he had become in the minds of his victims before their horrible deaths, and in her mind at each moment she had heard the final cries of his victims.
"Finally, we're seeing a turn in the case," Santiva said, interrupting her thoughts.
"What other good news are you hoarding, Eriq?"
"Shoeprint is this guy Dorphmann's size as well, and you were right about the photographic paper you found. From a Polaroid Instamatic. The creep is keeping an album."
Such a practice among serial killers wasn't unusual. She recalled how the vicious killer Kowona, in Hawaii, had kept such a photo album of his victims.
"We're putting the picture on the wires with a full alert, all points, concentrating heavily on your area and the area you're tracking, Jess."
"Excellent. Maybe we can now throw some fear back his way."
"I'll look for you in Jackson Hole, Jessica."
"Yes, see you there."
With the line cut, standing now with the receiver in her hand, Jessica wondered how much more she could endure. She thought of Warren Bishop, lying on the operating table, fighting for his life; she thought of the two thugs, Rollo and John Doe, agents of Lorentian, men who'd never be capable of resuming their lives as usual or their duties for Lorentian or anyone else, ever again, should they live past this night. Then it hit her, an idea that might save lives.
"Where's your hospital spokesperson?" she suddenly asked the lady sitting at a nearby desk, typing away.
''Spokesperson?''
"Who will deal with the press regarding the three men in your hospital in critical condition?"
"That would be PR, Mrs. Crighten, down the hall to your right. Can't miss it."
Jessica found Mrs. Florence Crighten on her phone, her desk in disarray. She was already dealing with the press over the FBI matter, the gunshot and burn victims in the hospital's care.
Jessica pressed the cut-off button on the woman's phone, flashing her badge as she said, ' 'Your government needs you. We need your help, Mrs. Crighten."
Growing gracefully into middle age, Mrs. Crighten's slim waistline and ample bust spoke of a onetime party girl who'd decided a career much more productive. She'd obviously worked extremely hard to get to where she sat atop the PR pinnacle of this medical establishment. Her soft, round tones and tawny black complexion made her the perfect person to pitch news-good, bad, or indifferent.
"How can I help?"
"I want a false report sent out to the newspapers."
"What?" The woman instantly shook her head, as if Jessica had suggested something vile, something perverted. "I can't do that."
"Even if it saves lives?"
Now Mrs. Crighten's lips closed and pursed. "What kind of misinformation are we talking about? And how will it save lives?"
"Trust me, it will save lives. Two, possibly three lives, maybe more."
"Explain further."
Jessica smiled, somehow knowing that she'd come to the right woman. She felt hopeful that now she could turn the tables on the Phantom. She explained to Mrs. Crighten how the killer had been operating. She laid out before Mrs. Crighten's astonished eyes the killer's cryptograms, telling her how they'd been left, how they'd been written using the victims' own fatty secretions, after they were burned alive. She told of the phone calls, how much she personally had suffered. Finally she got around to exactly how she planned to confuse the killer.
"If three men die here tonight, then the killer has reached eight victims for his deadly charade, if he counts his shooting victim, Chief of Operations Agent Warren Bishop. That would leave only one blank space to fill in his demented, infernal game. That leaves only one more victim."
"If he takes Agent Bishop's death, and the death of the other two agents who were burned in the fire as equal, on a par with one of his burn victims," she replied. "I see. But what if he doesn't take Bishop's death as enough?"
"Then we'll have saved two lives instead of three."
"Yes, I see, but suppose he, the killer, doesn't want to count any of them?"
"He will. He's anxious for this to be over…"
"How do you know that?"
"We have a relationship," Jessica firmly said. "I believe-no, I know-how he thinks. He believes everything happens for a reason. He's quite fatalistic. He'll at the very least count the burn victims; he'll see them as reward for carrying out his… his duties, his responsibilities, thus-"
"Duties," muttered Mrs. Crighten, shivering where she sat, "responsibilities."
"He's quite mad."
"Of that I'm sure."
"Will you put the misinformation out there?"
"It could backfire. Family members must be alerted to the truth before it gets around. It could cost me my job."
"The FBI made you do it?"
The woman smiled and took Jessica's hands in hers. "We'll do it."
Jessica gave her a prepared statement that she had written out in longhand. It gave names for the additional two agents as Agent Thorn Morganstern and Agent Raleigh Howler. To protect his office from embarrassment, Gallagher had earlier allowed hospital authorities to treat three FBI agents and not just one, but he'd left all three under heavy guard.
Finished here, Jessica said to Mrs. Crighten, "Thank you.. . thank you… Now, how do I get to Salt Lake's largest TV station and newspaper office?"
Crighten called in her aide, telling the young woman to chauffeur Agent Coran to wherever she wished, when Crighten's phone rang.
Jessica and the aide were halfway out the door when Mrs. Crighten announced that the call was for Jessica. ''I think it's one of your people," she cheerily said, offering the phone to Jessica. "He says he has information for you alone, Dr. Coran."
Jessica took the phone and immediately recognized the voice of the killer at the other end as he said, "Satan, disguised as a one-eyed Minotaur, carried me on one hell of a journey until I could see down into an endless hole where flesh and fire, like wick and candle, were one."
"Dorphmann," she let his name fall on him like a bomb, "Feydor Dorphmann, we know now who you are and why you're driven to kill."
It was as if she were whistling in a wind tunnel; the surprise seemed to have no effect on Dorphmann as he continued speaking over her. "The journey kept me always on a downward spiral, and there were rungs on either side of the belly of this place, like they were made from Satan's ribs, you see…"
"Just as in Dante's Inferno," she suggested. "But Feydor, don't you see? If you turn yourself in now, I'll get help for you."
"Perhaps the historic Dante Alighieri in the 1300s was himself visited by Satan, because Satan wants us to praise him, you know, Dr. Coran. He wants us to never forget his presence. He must've made Dante's life a living hell like mine, turning his skin to boils and red rashes, making it impossible to live in his skin. He must've persuaded Dante to chronicle his domain, his dark kingdom. He's very good at persuasion techniques, you know, far superior to your FBI in that regard."
"You don't have to kill any more people, Feydor," she told him. "You've killed eight now by our count."
Jessica watched Crighten's face as it turned ashen grey with the realization that the killer was on the hospital line, her line. Feydor Dorphmann paused momentarily at her words but then continued, "He got Dante to sing the praises of Hades…"
"The two men you burned during your escape, two FBI agents, and a third you shot, Feydor. They've all died here at the hospital."
''But those killings were incidental, not part of the bargain."
"How do you know that? Satan works in mysterious ways, Feydor."
"They all must die by fire, all but one-you, Doctor… "
"But these men did die by fire."
"Two of them, yes."
"Then why not count Dr. Stuart Wetherbine, Feydor? You torched his body, remember? And he was trying to help you, remember?"
This silenced Feydor momentarily. "Then you do know all about me. Good, Doctor… very good. Now you will come for me all the more."
"What about it, Feydor? What about Wetherbine in San Francisco and the two agents you burned to death here in Salt Lake? It means you can be finished with your work, whatever contract you made with… with Satan that much sooner, Feydor."
"Perhaps… perhaps…"
She prayed he was considering the possibility she held out to him.
He coldly said, "I'll have to wait, see what he says about all this."
"Feydor, every FBI agent in the territory, every cop with a gun is now going to shoot to kill, knowing you killed three of their own. The stakes have gone up, Dorphmann. We not only know who you are, Feydor, but we know your shoe size and preference, we have your fingerprints and likeness, and it will appear in every newspaper and on every television screen across this country. There's no place you can hide now."
"Don't waste your breath, Dr. Coran. I've had assurances none of that will matter once I've finished with you."
"Even if you succeed, Feydor, in killing me, number nine, there'll be no place for you to hide."
"Satan will provide. He's already removed my fingerprints and my hair, and he's working on my bone structure, my height, weight, skin color. You see, it's all part of the deal."
How do you bargain with a madman? she wondered. "Give yourself up, give yourself up to me this moment. Tell me where you are and I'll come there personally to see no harm comes to you." It was a half-truth. If he invited her, she would see to it he was put out of his misery before he could fire-kill her.
"Harm? You have no idea how much harm I've already gone through, you foolish bitch. No, I won't be giving myself up. There's still work to do. Still, I do want you to come for me."
"Where and when?" she replied instantly, challenging him.
"Soon, soon now you will know."
She knew it was hopeless, but to encourage him, she added, "Read the morning papers, Feydor, then contact me again if you don't believe me. Will you do that, Feydor?"
"I told you! I have to talk to him.'"
"Where are you now?" she pleaded. "Are you still in the city?"
He cut her off.
Jessica looked up to see Mrs. Crighten staring at her with the frozen look of a statue, shaken at hearing just one side of Jessica's conversation with the killer. "I wouldn't have your job for all the money and prestige in this life," Mrs. Crighten finally said.
Jessica turned to the aide and said, "Let's go."
As Jessica was about to leave the hospital, J. T. located her and shouted for her to wait. She'd already gotten comfortable in the car and was about to depart from the parking garage. "Mrs. Crighten told me where I could find you, Jess. You're taking on too much alone again. Let me help you," he pleaded.
"You can help by being here when Warren Bishop recovers. He's going to need a familiar face at his bedside. Will you be there, John?"
He took in a deep breath. "Mrs. Crighten told me he called you at her office. How does this fiend find you, Jess? It's uncanny. It's almost as if-"
"As if what?"
"Nothing, never mind."
"You starting to think like Repasi, that we… the killer and I have some sort of link?''
"No, no… nothing like that, Jess."
"Then what? That there's some kind of supernatural psychic link at work? What?"
"I don't know."
"He's shrewd, smart, J. T. He knows we'd be at an area hospital; he goes the rounds with the yellow pages, just like you or me. That's all."
"Where'll you be, Jess?"
"Getting the story out. Talk to Crighten about it. We're going to spread the news that the Phantom has added three more kills to his kill list."
"Hey, I get it. Fill up his list for him and maybe no one else will be hurt on your account, right?"
She gritted her teeth before replying, "You really are beginning to sound like Karl."
"I think it's a brilliant stroke, Jess."
"Only if it works. Now, let me put it into motion."
"Have you cleared it with headquarters?"
"No, no, I haven't. Something like this, the fewer who know the real story, the better."
"All the same, if you want, I'll let Santiva in on the facts."
She nodded. "Yeah, do that. And J. T., thanks again."
"Where'll you be after you finish up with the news-people?"
"On to Jackson Hole with the others, it would appear."
"Gotcha. I'll join you there as soon as possible." The car pulled from the lot at Jessica's request. The car pulled upward on a slanting concrete hill and out into the predawn light of Salt Lake City. "Take me to the major TV stations first," she asked Crighten's aide, who yawned and apologized, saying she was not used to such crazy hours.
Jessica finished the rounds of TV and newspaper offices in Greater Salt Lake City and then said good-bye to Crighten's aide Sue Norris when the young woman dropped her off at Gallagher's nondescript FBI branch headquarters building. With Gallagher, Repasi, and that crew long ago off to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, a beautiful western town turned tourist haven nestled in Snake River Valley, amid the foothills of the Grand Tetons, Jessica freely acquired the fax forwarded to Salt Lake City headquarters from Eriq Santiva. As promised, she had every stitch of information they had on Feydor Dorphmann forwarded to the Salt Lake Herald. Returning to the Herald editors, she orchestrated the morning headline and layout of photo and computer-enhanced photo of the killer, alongside a sidebar carrying what Jessica and J. T had composed of the killer's cryptograms and the nine rungs of Hades in Dante's Inferno.
In the paper account, Morganstern and Howler were listed as fire victims number six and seven and Bishop as murder victim number eight, leaving only one rung to fill. The list now appeared:
#1 is #9-Traitors Lorentian
#2 is #8-Malicious Frauds Flanders
#3 is #7-Violents Martin
#4 is #6-Heretics Whitaker
#5 is #5-Wrathful amp; Sullen Grey
#6 is #4-Avaricious amp; Prodigal Morganstern
#7 is #3-Gluttonous Howler
#8 is #2-Lustful Bishop
#9 is #1-(the last victim?) sent into Limbo… through the Vestibule and over the River Acheron
The city editor and crime editor at the Salt Lake Herald had, upon Jessica's initial visit, immediately dispatched their best reporters to the phones and the hospital for verification of Jessica's story. At the hospital, Mrs. Crighten held a press conference, detailing the kinds of wounds each of the three FBI agents had endured, how the doctors worked tirelessly on their behalf, but that all attempts had met with unsuccessful results in the cases of all three men. Beside Mrs. Crighten, there on the podium, doctors lamented the conditions they'd had to work under, their long faces giving credence to the ruse. Jessica watched televised news reports from the city desk editor's office. Her plan was working like a charm.
The newspapermen were ecstatic to get an exclusive from the famed Dr. Jessica Coran, but for it, Jessica bargained: They must release it to every other news wire service in the country. She wanted to be certain that Feydor Dorphmann, wherever he was, knew that she knew that he knew that she knew…
At the newspaper office, Jessica found huge maps of Utah along one wall, each detailing the geographic beauty of the state, distances, and famous tourist attractions. On another wall, a similar map of Wyoming hung, and Jessica stared at the roads leading from Salt Lake City to Jackson Hole, Wyoming, and she realized for the first time in years just how close Jackson Hole was to Yellowstone National Park.
"Doing a travel and leisure piece on Wyoming," said a mild-mannered female editor who noticed Jessica's interest in the map. "You know, places to get away to that aren't too far and aren't too expensive for the middle crowd here in Salt Lake."
"I'm interested in Yellowstone," Jessica told her. "You have any detail maps of Yellowstone?''
"It's one of the major highlight of the article, and yes, I do." The woman dug into a desk and came up with a detailed map of the park itself, spreading it in lumpy and crude fashion across the papers and junk that populated the top of her desk. "It's really a breathtaking, fantastic place, almost like stepping onto another planet," said the editor.
Jessica studied the map, which brought back instant memories of a time when she had once visited Yellowstone National Park as a young assistant M.E. on vacation with a girlfriend. ''Yes, I once visited Yellowstone, many years ago," Jessica told the other woman as she studied the large yellow mass, the park that formed the northwestern corner of the state of Wyoming.
"My husband and the boys loved it," the woman continued. ''The Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone, that was their favorite, and the fishing, of course. Me, I became fascinated with the geysers and hot springs and mud pots."
Jessica scanned the map, her eyes gliding as if directed by a Ouija board pointer to a select few of the more than ten thousand geysers, hot springs, and boiling mud pots in the park, gasping at their resemblance to Feydor's words of earlier. There on the map, she read of the Devil's Well and Hellsmouth geysers in Lower Geyser Basin near Old Faithful and Old Faithful Lodge. A flood of memories, too disconnected and too disorganized at the moment to make any but fleeting sense to her, assaulted her senses while the editor continued to carry on about the grandeur that was Yellowstone.
"And can you imagine people coming here from the East and telling us, the Forestry Service in particular, that we need to build protective walls and fences throughout the parks? What utter nonsense. People have no idea the scale of nature out here. Why, it's enormous. Would anyone seriously entertain the thought of putting a fence around the Serengeti Plains in Tanzania or Victoria Falls or Niagara for that matter?"
Jessica only half-heard the woman. Her mind was on Dorphmann. Feydor's thinking, his quest, came into full focus. Finally, Jessica knew where he'd been headed from day one, what his final destination must be, and how he planned to kill victim number nine. "May I keep this map?"
"Ahhh, sure, sure… I've got enough material on the park that I don't need it any longer. I've pretty well put the story to bed."
"Whatever it cost." She dug into her purse.
"No, take it. Anything to help get this madman you're chasing. And I'm dreadfully sorry about those three brave agents."
Jessica swallowed her desire to confide any sliver of truth to the woman. "Yes, it has hit the agency hard, just as the previous five murders by this maniac have."
"Good luck on your manhunt, Dr. Coran. We all know one thing."
"And what's that?" she asked, folding the Yellowstone map back into its original shape.
"That you're the best person for the job."
"Thank you. I hope that's so."
"Well, obviously, from what you've told us, the killer certainly thinks so."
She smiled for the first time in twenty-four hours. "Yes. Yes, that certainly is so."
After the phony story was put to bed, a phone call to the hospital told her that Bishop died at 3:19 a.m. while still on the table, undergoing surgery, and that Agents Morganstern and Howler had also both died of wounds suffered in the fire. Excellent, she thought. Mrs. Crighten had played her part well.