Authors: Robert W. Walker
"Then we're on the same page."
They fell silent for a moment, in one ear the sounds of the people bagging and collecting the evidence inside, in the other ear the sounds of traffic and the city.
"You know, Lucas, I like the way you call me Mere. Have I ever told you that you're the only one I know who calls me Mere, that is, aside from my mom and dad?"
"No, you've never shared that with me, Mere."
"My dad used it kiddingly. Called me Night-Mere sometimes!"
Lucas laughed lightly at this. "That's a good one."
"Fits, you mean."
"Maybe that too."
From inside, the click-click-click of the digital photographs being taken filtered out to them. They heard Dr. Leonard Chang's distinctive voice now, ordering that the poetic note and the CD be bagged and taken into evidence as well.
"I'm going to check on Chang's progress, and let him know about Byron's prints being on the wrapper. You might best stay out here. Can I bring you a drink from the fridge?"
"Yeah, there's some iced tea in the flask."
Lucas returned to the living room, where it appeared the techs were closing down their investigation. He saw that each eye and each tooth had been placed into separate baggies, and while each tooth was dropped into a pocket within a black valise, the two eyes were dropped into a medical cooler filled with ice.
Dr. Leonard Chang slowed Hoskins up, wanting to look once more into the depth of the eyes, holding them now in his gloved hands, staring through the cellophane bags. When Lucas came alongside him, asking him what he thought, Chang erupted from his inscrutable silence. "How horrible this must have been for Meredyth. How is she holding up?"
"She's gutsy; she's holding up." He told Chang about Byron Priestly's having handled the package. "Leonard, I'd like you and maybe Dr. Nielsen to investigate your labs for missing tissues, eyes, teeth."
"My labs? What're you meaning to imply, Lucas?"
"These items and those sent to my place—autopsy slices of human organs as far as I can tell—may've originated in-house as a sick joke against me and Meredyth."
"That would be in the worst taste imaginable."
"Yeah, tasted bad at my place too."
"What kind of package did this fiend send you?"
Lucas described the packaging as identical down to the Styrofoam-lined interior that soaked up much of the liquid residue coming off the warm contents. "The hand-printing job and the scripted poems appear the work of the same person, so I'm wondering the same thing you are right about now."
"Which is?" The slight Chinese M.E. looked piqued that Lucas should suggest that his thoughts could be read.
"Are the body parts from the same victim, and who is the victim? And could the victim have been a resident of your morgue?"
"I'll hang anyone who might have taken human tissues and organs from our labs, Lucas. There will be no mercy for such actions. No one working under my direction can take such despicable liberties. It can't happen, not in my morgue."
"Come on, Leonard. You know who I have in mind. Scratch the surface of the man and what've you got?"
"You want me to question Frank Patterson about this?"
"Just watch him carefully, and I'll keep my eye on Detective Feldman."
"Itch? Itch and his friend Frank. Scratch the surface, you say. Should we say it is a game of itch and scratch? You can't truly believe it, Lucas. That they could be so stupid, so irresponsible, so..."
"Despicable?"
"Exactly."
"Hey, only a hunch, but the two of them've become quite chummy lately, and Feldman's done worse, and he's a bad influence on Frank."
"I hope you're wrong. Meantime, analysis of the tissues will tell us something about the victim or victims— certainly whether or not all the tissues come from the same female and how long she's been dead."
"You already know she's a she?"
"Eyes are small but mature, feminine eyes, my guess."
"You're the best, Chang."
"I still must treat this as a crime, Lucas, and a possible murder, and not a stupid-ass practical joke. And since law- enforcement officials have been targeted, we will work around the clock until we have answers for you, Detective."
Houston, like most major American cities, had passed tough laws against people who targeted the homes and families of police and firemen, so prevalent had crimes against law-enforcement officials become, anything from stalking to attempted murder of police in their homes.
Chang was now examining the poem, holding it up to the light with a pair of tweezers. "Poor dear Meredyth," he said to Lucas. "The idea that such a monster as the kind we deal with gains entry this way...in her home...."
"Yeah, I felt the same way at my place."
"Screwy poem, but I'm no literary critic." He ordered Hoskins to slip the poein into a glassine case, careful not to smudge prints that might show up under a blue light.
"There was a CD left with the contents as well," Lucas informed the M.E., adding, "and ahhh, Meredyth placed it in her machine and played it."
"Where is the player?"
Lucas pointed it out. Chang pressed the play button and listened to a few bars of the old but popular tune, the singer's enthusiastic melody honoring "the time of my life."
Chang ejected the CD, slipped it into a plastic bag, and placed this into his black valise. "All this reminds me of that fan of mine who broke into my house a year ago." Chang gripped the back of his head and rubbed it in thought, looking rather Woody Allen -ish in clothes too baggy for his slight build. "This... this has to be unnerving for both of you."
"Like I said, Leonard, my first instinct was to think it a scam, you know, put together by some of the lunatics down at the precinct. At the moment, that suggestion has soothed Dr. Sanger somewhat."
"The lesser of two evils, you think?"
"Exactly."
"Feldman, hmmm..." He rubbed his chin in thought, trying to picture Arnie Feldman behind the prank. "Suppose you are wrong about Feldman. Suppose this is the work of some lunatic after all."
"Then we've got a real nutcase on our hands, don't we, Doc?"
"Perhaps in the meantime, while I am examining the eyes, teeth, and tissues, you might start an investigation with Missing Persons."
"I can put in the necessary calls."
"The eyes are fresh but with no ice crystals, Lucas. If it were from a corpse in the morgue, and this was done recently, there would be traces of ice. Whoever the victim is, her eyes are still pliable and firm. Not dry and breaking down from exposure to the elements or exposure to freezing."
"And that spells?"
"If not a recent—very recent—cadaver tampering, as you suggest, then a very, very recent missing persons case perhaps."
"I see. The death is recent, which might point to a recent disappearance, a recent—"
"—abduction-killing," Chang finished for him.
Lucas stepped away from Chang and into the kitchen, mulling over what Chang had said. He remembered Meredyth's request for iced tea, and he found it in the fridge, grabbed a clean glass and ice, and filled it to the brim. When he returned to the living room and passed through to the terrace, he found that Dr. Chang had gone out to talk with Meredyth. Lucas stepped into the middle of their conversation, the ice in her tea signaling his arrival.
Chang stood at the terrace rail, staring out at Houston's joyful skyline as it was being gobbled up by a fog. He seemed to be studying the clear demarcation where the blankness of night met the artificial orange glow of the city lights, lights that softly pushed back at space only to create a twilight meeting ground in between. The final effect created a swelling, growing smokiness around the tall buildings of downtown Houston. The effect seemed both real and unreal at once, composed as it was of reflecting colorful lights in battle with bleakness.
Chang seemed to be taking in the strange view as he consoled the psychiatrist. "My lab will work day and night to bring this lunatic to justice, whoever he may be, Dr. Sanger, be assured, and I am so sorry that you were put through this horror."
"Thank you, Dr. Chang, Leonard."
"I can't imagine the kind of brain we are dealing with, to send the eyes ripped from a young woman to terrorize a beautiful person like yourself, Meredyth. If you wish, of course, Kim and I will make room for you at our house for the night."
Meredyth sniffled. "That's so sweet of you, Leonard. But it won't be necessary. I can use my parents' home in Clover Leaf."
"Yes, and how are they enjoying their new place, Colony in the Glade? Father getting in a lot of golf there? Mother using the gym, maybe the pool?"
"They're in Paris."
"Really?"
"Anniversary."
"Long time since we last dined together, all of us."
Lucas now leaned over her and handed Meredyth the glass of iced tea, and she quickly grabbed it up and drank heartily while Chang informed her of the gender of the eyes. "They are those of a young woman, likely out of her teens, most certainly younger than forty. The teeth appear to be consistent with this finding as well."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked, setting her glass down.
"I'll know better once we have examined them under microscopic lens, of course."
"But how do you know the eyes belong to a woman?" pressed Meredyth. "I mean, it's not as if they had eyelashes attached."
"They are fully mature orbs, but slightly smaller than those of most males, so unless we are dealing with stunted growth or a male dwarf, which is highly unlikely, I am eighty- or ninety-percent certain they are the eyes of a middle-aged or a young woman in her late teens or early twenties."
"An educated guess," commented Lucas.
"One most likely corroborated by closer analysis, blood and serum tests, and DNA typing. And I intend, at Lucas's suggestion, to see if there is a match in DNA typing to any recent visitors to my autopsy rooms, morgue, or labs. If there is any sort of nonsense going on behind my back, I will determine it and prosecute anyone found to be involved."
"I'll be looking into Missing Persons tomorrow morning, Meredyth," Lucas informed her. "On the off chance this isn't the work of that beer-guzzling crowd down at the squad room."
"Oh, really?" she replied.
"It is at my suggestion," Chang explained. "The eyes show no signs of decay whatsoever, and no sign they were ever frozen. If they came from my labs, it is likely they would have spent some time in a freezer unit."
"I see."
Lucas leaned against the railing now, giving her a reassuring smile. "We'll soon know who's behind this ugly business, Mere. Tomorrow I'll coordinate efforts with Jana North."
"Jana, yes, of course."
"See if Missing Persons has someone recently gone missing without a trace...see if maybe there's a piece of this puzzle they can help with. Once we get a fix on who she was, then we can get a fix on who she knew, what happened to her, and how parts of her came to visit us."
"Why wait till tomorrow? Why not get on it tonight?" she asked.
"It's almost two A.M, Mere, and we're both emotionally and physically spent. Besides, we need to see what Leonard's experts can tell us. Aside from that, by morning, I'll have a copy of Perelli's photographs to work with."
"You don't really hope to match severed eyes to a photograph of a missing person?" she asked.
"Doubtful, but I'd like to have the photos to help explain the situation to Detective North and, when and if the time comes, to Captain Lincoln when I nail the bastard behind all this. As for matching the teeth, that ought to be far easier and more scientific. Whether she came from Leonard's lab or is in a missing persons file someplace, she'll have dental records. Reason we have procedures, right, Leonard?"
Chang nodded reassuringly at all of Lucas's conclusions. Leonard then said, "Well, Lucas, now I go over to your place with Hoskins, Perelli, and the others. See what we have there."
"My friend and landlord is minding things there, name's Jack Tebo."
"Aren't you coming?"
"I'll meet you over there."
"Don't leave me alone here, Lucas, not tonight," pleaded Meredyth.
Lucas corrected himself. "We will follow you over, Leonard."
DR. LEONARD C HANG' S expert team of technicians made short work of the soup-layered, thin-sliced autopsy cuts in Lucas's kitchen sink; unlike the scene at Meredyth's place, the criminal contents were contained all in one area, except for the note left by the killer. It lay on a sofa table where Tebo had left it. Lucas pointed it out to Chang, and Tebo, who had tried to stay out of the way, now tried being helpful, about to grab the note and pass it to Chang.
"Don't touch it!" shouted Chang.
Lucas confessed, "We already have. Both of us. Sorry, but we tampered with it before realizing how serious the situation was."
"I expected as much from Dr. Sanger, but you, Detective Stonecoat, you should know better," chastised Chang.
Lucas weakly apologized again, but as with Meredyth's reading of her note and playing the CD—handling both— Lucas had felt compelled to act as he did. "A knee-jerk reaction to being attacked in this twisted manner," Lucas told Chang now.
"No doubt." replied the M.E.
"Like I said, at first I thought it was a sick prank."
"Prank, this?" asked Perelli as he snapped shot after shot of what lay in Lucas's kitchen sink.
"Maybe some of the guys down at the precinct or the morgue. You know how they can be, sick SOBs that they are. Keep it to yourself, though, will you, Perelli?"
"You don't think I had anything to do with it, do you?" asked Ted Hoskins, his eyes riveted on Lucas for a reaction.
"No...never crossed my mind, Ted. I know you'd be no part of such as this, no."
"Well...it does look like precision cuts from liver, spleen, kidney, and pancreas," Chang thoughtfully mused as he poked a retracted scalpel at the materials inside the box. "I can understand your thinking it came from a crime lab. The slices are the work of a careful professional, or someone who has studied autopsy work. Certainly someone using the right tools. Amazing what an amateur can do with the right tools. Remember the I-10 sniper? Turned out to be a kid with his first scoped AK-74."