Authors: Robert W. Walker
"What is it you two want from me?" she asked. "Come now. I know the American mind now. No such thing as a free lunch."
Lucas smiled and held up his hands as if caught. "Information on a case of yours that goes back to July 17th."
"That would be on file in the computer."
"A woman named Katherine Croombs."
"Croombs...Croombs..."
"Found in a state of alcoholic poisoning in which you noted two key elements that went ignored by your immediate supervisor, our Dr. Patterson, and the detectives on the case, who appeared in heat to sign off on it," Lucas explained.
She turned up her collar against the annoying drizzle, said nothing, and began skipping down the steps. Lucas and Meredyth followed.
"Do you recall the case?" asked Meredyth in her ear.
She stopped and looked into Meredyth's eyes. "Yes, I recall the one named Croombs. Acute liver damage, skin jaundiced to a tea-green color, other internal organs shriveled and saturated with the booze."
"Why do you recall her case so vividly, unless you have good reason to?" asked Lucas. "Say, because it haunts you?"
"I've said enough. Good night." She rushed for her car. They pursued.
"We suspect she was helped along that night toward her death. Dr. Nielsen," said Meredyth, catching her at her car.
Nielsen shakily worked to dig her key into the lock.
"We believe the woman's daughter not only killed her, Dr. Nielsen, but that she is involved in the mutilation murder of Mira Lourdes."
Nielsen had snatched her door open, about to leave, but this stopped her cold. She looked back at them. "The daughter? The two cases are somehow related? Everyone involved strongly encouraged me to believe the prevailing wisdom."
"Which was that the old woman died as she lived, OD-ing in a weekend war with her own worst enemy—her drunken self?" asked Lucas.
"Locked in a lifelong melee with alcohol, yes. Make no waves, I was told by Frank."
"Patterson. Figures. Feldman and Rowan investigate it, Patterson rubber-stamps it. But you saw the marks on her wrists and ankles," Lucas hammered now.
"Yes, true, but the case was—how you said— rubber-stamped, closed over my objections, so..."
"You also noted there was very little in the way of barbiturates in her system, while the police report said she had swallowed an entire bottle of pills," added Meredyth.
"They brought the empty pill bottle in a plastic bag along with six empty bottles of Jim Beam—six! She was killed by making excessive love to Jim Beam, they joked— right over her body, they joked! I never saw such a thing in my country."
Nielsen shivered with the recall. Lucas and Meredyth let her talk. "I knew it would come back to get me," she said.
"We're not interested in getting you, Dr. Nielsen, believe me."
"Dr. Chang will be disappointed to learn of it. He was out of the city then, on working vacation—Vancouver, giving a talk." Then speaking of Katherine Croombs, she said, "Poor woman looked like my grandmama, but hardly that age! She had two chipped teeth, and her lips were bruised too, a curious thing we see in abuse cases. It didn't make sense."
"And Frank didn't want to hear about this?"
She now climbed into her car, averting her eyes and face for the moment, fumbling with her seat belt. She turned the key, her Plymouth Voyager coming to life. "You must tell me why you think the Croombs autopsy is connected to the Post-it case we're now working. I must know if I am to bring all of this to Dr. Chang's attention and give in my resignation."
"What possible good can come of your resigning?" asked Meredyth through the car window.
"If anyone should be talking of resigning, it's Patterson. Trust Chang, yes. Confide the truth in him. You won't ever regret it," Lucas firmly told her.
"What is connecting the two cases?" she asked.
"It's a long story, and we'd truly like to tell you over dinner," Meredyth assured her.
She considered this. "All right, Michelangelo's, say in twenty minutes? I'll meet you there, and since it may be my last meal as Assistant M.E. here, be prepared to buy me the house specialty."
"It won't be your last meal, I promise," Meredyth replied. "We'll stand with you against Patterson. We know he put you in this position."
"I have been haunted by that Croombs woman."
She backed from her parking space and pulled out of the police lot, Lucas and Meredyth watching, hoping she'd show up at the restaurant.
They went for Lucas's car.
CHAPTER 12
BEFORE ARRIVING AT Michelangelo's Italian Eatery, Lucas had called District Attorney Harry Jorganson, asking if they'd gotten the warrant on the address he wanted. Jorganson informed him that he couldn't sell it to the judge. "No dice. Judge says she fails to see that we've actually connected enough dots here, Lucas. Sorry, I know your instincts are right on, but the judge was adamant, got on her high horse about my coming to her to turn a blind eye to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the American Civil Liberties credo, you name it, every time Houston PD is feeling public pressure."
"Did you tell her we suspect it has to do with the Post-it Ripper?" he asked.
"I told her, told her more than once, but she was on a tear. I understand she got turned over on appeal in the Edmunds case, which sucks, and we just got her at really the wrong time."
Lucas invited Jorganson to sit down with him, Meredyth, and Nielsen for dinner. "We can give you more of the details to go on."
"Sorry, Lucas, but ol' Jorganson's got two trials to prep witnesses on for a busy A.M. manana. Again, sorry about the warrant. Get me a bigger hammer to wield, okay? Drive that sucker home for you with the right tools, you know that, you know you do. Well, gotta run. Enjoy dinner."
Lucas broke the bad news to Meredyth, who said, "Damn...damn fool judge, and what's wrong with Harry Jorganson?" She scorned and fumed the rest of way to Michelangelo's.
At the restaurant, they were well into their main course by the time Lucas and Meredyth explained all their reasons for suspecting the girl fresh out of the convent school. "It's possible that her boyfriend is doing the actual killing, but we suspect she's pointing out the targets," said Lucas.
"Then you suspect that the Post-it Ripper is two people," said Nielsen.
"Yes, we do."
Meredyth added, "There've been clues intentionally leading us to Lauralie Blodgett, and I'm afraid the sudden reappearance of Lauralie in Katherine's life was not the touching reunion scene we usually see on television programs and in the movies."
Lucas told Nielsen what they had learned at the mortician's.
"I think that Lauralie was and remains traumatized by her childhood experience of growing up without anyone, feeling like a prisoner inside the walls of Our Lady of Miracles," added Meredyth.
Nielsen nodded. "And now she's out to perform a miracle of her own, the perfect crime."
"With enlisted help, yes."
"This is good news then, that you two have narrowed your search from a nonentity, a boogeyman, to two specific individuals, one of whom you have a name for."
"It's all based on a great deal of speculation," cautioned Lucas. "Not solid enough for the DA or to get a warrant, it seems."
"Educated speculation," corrected Meredyth. "Due in large part because Lauralie couldn't resist leaving us bread crumbs to follow, as if—"
"Bread crumbs?" asked Nielsen.
"Clues, as if there beats inside her the heart of a person who wants to be caught and punished," explained Lucas.
"More likely she wants her day-and-say before the cameras and in court, as if she feels we owe it to her to catch her and make her a star," said Meredyth. "It's why she's selected Lucas and me to come after her, and perhaps because I was instrumental in placing her at that orphanage back in 1984."
"Damn twisted story," commented Nielsen. "Sounds too much like fiction not to be true, if you understand my meaning. Beyond belief, so it makes it credible by virtue of being beyond belief. Anything that bizarre...well, we have a saying for in Sweden. It is the lunacy not yet dreamt of that will befall you."
"I like that," said Lucas. "Are you sure it wasn't stolen from the Cherokee?"
"Sad but true," Meredyth said of the aphorism, and then she added, "Now let me see if I have it right. The most incredible lunacy, not yet dreamt of, shall come to pass...and Jesus wept for all mankind." She toasted it with her wine glass.
They dined to the rattle of dishware and silverware, each nursing private thoughts for the moment. The waiter came, asked after their comfort, and left. The music was as authentically Italian as the cuisine, from an opera Meredyth recognized.
"What more can you tell us about the mother's death?" asked Meredyth of Lynn Nielsen.
"One of the first uniformed officers at the scene told me it may have been staged to look as if Katherine had killed herself, but he would never repeat it again afterwards. Detective Feldman, the lead investigator, seemed to have some personal interest in closing the case quickly. I think he needed to clear his homicide board for the month. Who knows?"
"Feldman's a jerk," Lucas muttered. "He's a nine-to- fiver, anxious to wrap up a case and go home."
"Always scratching himself in the crotch," she said. "Is this why they call him Itch?"
Lucas laughed, Nielsen and Meredyth joining in. Someone passing by jostled their table, an empty bottle of wine spilling out its last drop, telling Lucas to order a second.
Nielsen continued talking about the Croombs matter. "They took the statements of neighbors about the woman's on-again, off-again relationship with the bottle. Said she had it bad, her battle with booze. But one neighbor said she thought Katherine was doing better since she had rediscovered her daughter." Nielsen sipped her wine before continuing. "I read some of Feldman's remarks in the file. He cited a long police history with the address, numerous occasions of disorderly disturbances, fighting, you know. This was enough to sum it all up for the detectives. Relapse. And this time an overdose. Closed case. Death was chalked down to accidental overdose."
"Chalked up," Lucas corrected her.
"Yes, and I was strongly urged to get it off my desk and get onto the sixty-four or so other cases awaiting me."
"Dr. Chang never looked over the findings?" asked Lucas.
"No, he was away at the time, and Patterson was in charge. Not likely I would have gone over Frank's head in any case, being new on the job and not yet knowing how to tiptoe around him like I do now."
"If you had had full responsibility and freedom to pursue the case at the time, what would you have done differently, Dr. Nielsen?" asked Meredyth.
"I would have done more than simply express my condolences to the daughter as Feldman and the others did, releasing the body and ordering it sent to an undertaker of her choosing. They should have questioned the daughter far more extensively about her alibi; instead, they listened to her sob story of how she had just found and reunited with her mother. The men were falling all over her as I recall."
Meredyth displayed the photo of Lauralie. "Is this the daughter?"
Nielsen studied the photo. "Yes, that is her."
"We think she left us a gift at the convent," said Lucas. "Found this and a few ounces of blood in the baptismal at Our Lady." He showed her the index finger from what they suspected was Mira Lourdes's left hand.
"Like I said, no such thing as free lunch," Nielsen replied, wincing at the amputated digit.
"Sorry," said Lucas. "I thought all you coroner types were immune to such things as runaway body parts."
A waiter stood over them, gasped, and threw down the bill before Lucas realized he'd been traumatized by the thing nestled in the handkerchief. Meredyth grabbed the hanky, folding it away, but Lucas managed to grab it back. "Hey, that's still evidence."
"What're you going to do with that thing, Lucas? Take it to the witch doctor out at the Coushatta Reservation? See if we can get some voodoo input on the case?"
"Cherokee magic might surprise you, Mere."
"No amount of tobacco twisting and burning is going to help us here, Stone Man," Meredyth replied.
"Hey, I know you're frustrated, but you shouldn't knock what you haven't tried, Doctor," he fired back.
Meredyth dropped her gaze and wrung her hands together. "I'm sorry, Lucas. It's just this case is getting to me... she's getting to me."
"If you would care to leave the finger with me, Lieutenant," said Nielsen, "I can match the tissue against what we have, make a certain determination as to whether or not it is Lourdes's digit."
Lucas joked, "I thought I'd make a necklace of it, make it my Cherokee magical icon, but I am tiring of carrying it around." He handed it, wrapped in the handkerchief, to Dr. Nielsen. As he did so, Meredyth grabbed for the check. Lucas caught her hand and retrieved the check.
"I'm paying," she said.
"The hell you are."
Their waiter suddenly and noisily stormed out of the restaurant, tossing his apron at the boss. "Look at that, Lucas. The guy quit his job. I hope you're proud of yourself. Now give me the check. You've caused enough trouble tonight." Meredyth held one end of the check between her fingers, and he held the other end in a tug of war that ripped it in two.
Lucas firmly said, "It's my treat. You can leave the tip."
"Leave the tip for whom?" asked Nielsen, amused at the two.
"You are such a...a man!" Meredyth sternly said.
Nielsen laughed and said, "Are you two sure you're not married?"
Lucas laughed at this, and tossed down several bills to cover the meal.
In the parking lot outside, they said good night to Dr. Nielsen and asked her to keep their discussion private for now, sharing it only with Leonard Chang. She agreed without reservation.
"Whatever you do, say nothing to Frank Patterson on the matter," Lucas said.
"I have no intention of doing that."
They parted company with Lynn Nielsen. As they went for the car, Meredyth said, "Wish we had some notion of Lauralie's whereabouts."