'Yeah, I seen that much.'
'Hold on, you're about to see more.'
'The redhead in the picture?'
'Came up with something interesting on the slides.'
'Is that right?'
'It's going to blow you away, Dean, old boy.'
'Anything like nail polish, or warpaint?'
'You bastard,” shouted Sid, staring across at him and almost hitting someone in his lane before he put his foot hard on the break. “How'd you know?'
'Just an educated guess. Where there's scalping, there's usually warpaint of one sort or another. The wounds were cut in shapes that mean something to the killer, perhaps, and I wondered if he might not use some sort of makeup on himself, or his victims, for some ritual purpose or other.'
'Damn, Dean, you're a little scary, you know that?'
* * * *
Dean was impressed by the glitteringly clean hallways and offices of the Orlando Central Forensics Division and Criminal Detection Agency, OCFDCD, or DCD, as Sid preferred. Sid's office was more spacious than Dean's lab back in Chicago, and all stops were pulled out to furnish the place with the best furniture. Mauve and pastels captured the eye along with sparkling glass and steel. Even the paintings and pictures on the walls were chosen with care. There were thriving plants everywhere, too. The effect was sterile, and the decidely Floridian growth in the planters in the halls and foyer and Sid's office were an attempt, perhaps, to compensate for the calculated pink-ness of the place.
But when Dean was escorted to the slab room, it was like any other. There was an area with refrigerated drawers where cadavers were kept, and three operating theaters, since the place doubled as a teaching hospital. The clinical labs were beyond Dean's wildest dreams. He'd give his right arm to have any one of them in Chicago. The most modern equipment abounded, and there was even talk of setting up a DNA testing site on the premises, the newest technological advance in the war on crime. Sid had it all, and he didn't mind gloating about it.
'You're stalling, Sid, showing off this palace of science. That isn't what I'm here for. What gives?” Dean finally asked.
'Stupid to try and fool you, Dean ... but some people want to meet with you and get your impressions regarding the latest victim of the Scalper—that's what they're calling him in the press now, Scalper.'
'And who is it I'll be meeting, Sid?'
Sid laughed a bit nervously. “A couple of cops that are assigned to the case, and their chief, and this guy Hamel, the shrink.'
'Why all the to-do, Sid? I don't get it. Certainly not because of the floaters thing in Chicago, unless you made me out as some kinda guru to these guys.'
'Not exactly that, Dean ... and I'm ... well, it's not exactly how I put it to you on the phone, old friend.'
Dean wondered what Sid was driving at when suddenly the double doors were pushed open and a stretcher was wheeled into the room, followed by the men Dean assumed he was to meet. The two holding back the doors, he guessed, were the detectives, while the two sauntering behind must be the police chief and the psychiatrist.
There were quick introductions all around, Dean barely understanding that the two detectives were Park and Dyer. Dyer was quiet, moody-looking, maybe even pissed; and Park was certainly sullen. It was as if neither man wanted to be here. The chief, in a heavily accented voice, made the introductions, leaving Sid completely out, as if he weren't even in the room. Dean wondered if this were due to familiarity or contempt or both. Chief Ted “Slim” Hodges, large about the chest and middle, with a face that spread wide from the jowls and looked awkward below a cropped head of hair, wore civilian clothing, the buttons open for comfort, with heavy suspenders. He was loud, and saliva formed about the corners of his mouth as he spoke.
But it was Hamel who drew Dean's attention more than the others, for here was the bull-slinger he'd heard Sid speak of, and he was an incredibly striking human being. Tall, slender, but not too slender, with wavy blond hair and thick lashes, he recalled to mind the rugged adventurer type, the underwater diver, the mountain climber, and the rhino hunter rolled into one. His icy, blue-gray stare nailed Dean where he stood as the attendent wheeled the corpse closer.
'Dr. Grant, Dr. Hamel, our head of police psychiatry here in Orlando,” finished Chief Hodges. “He has been working closely with Park and Dyer here on the case.'
'Benjamin Hamel,” said the man, extending a powerful hand to Dean, and they shook firmly, each caught in the other's gaze. He didn't appear to be a man who took his work lightly, nor one who might make a quick or sloppy diagnosis, Dean thought.
'We are here, Dr. Grant,” continued Chief Hodges, “to get a second opinion, in a sense.'
'Second opinion? On the corpse, you mean?'
'Why, didn't Dr. Corman inform you?'
Dean shot a glance in Sid's direction. Sid put up his hands. “I didn't want to bias Dr. Grant's autopsy in any way.'
'You wish me to do a complete autopsy on the victim?” asked Dean, surprised.
'For the sake of thoroughness, you see, to leave nothing to chance.'
Dean listened to Hodges’ nuance as well as his words. With such a man, it was the only way to interpret what was being said. It appeared that Sid's situation here was not quite so cushy as he wanted Dean to believe, that something terribly wrong was afoot. The Chief of Police didn't make house calls to the morgue for second opinions on murder victims unless something had been botched, or someone was under investigation. Dean wondered how much of what he might say at this point would impact on Sid's future.
'Are you men going to remain throughout the autopsy?” asked Dean, incredulous.
'We'll be above you,” replied Hamel, a finger indicating the viewing section above.
'And we'll monitor your every word,” added Hodges.
'I see,” replied Dean, “how cozy. But suppose I choose not to become a part of such a performance?'
'Then we will call in someone of
'I see...'
'Dean, as a favor,” asked Sid quietly.
'Without knowing what this is all about?'
'That's the way we would like it, yes,” answered Hodges.
'A complete autopsy will take all day and night, and some tests will take longer still.'
'We are all quite well aware of that, doctor.'
Dean's eyes met Sid's, and now he remembered Sid as he really was, always the pain-in-the-ass. He'd get himself into trouble and dig it deeper until someone bailed him out. He hadn't changed, only Dean's memory of him had changed. In Korea, he had been a passable doctor, but in his case, going into forensics had been a much safer occupation, for the dead could not sue for a wrongful cut or clumsiness from a night's binge.
'Please, Dean.'
'When you want me to begin?” he asked Hodges.
'Now.'
'So this is her,” said Dean when he peeled back the white sheet from the red-haired woman he had only known through routine lab tests and a photo.
Park cleared his throat and Dyer gasped at the still-gruesome sight of the mutilated scalp. Park, trying to be professional, shakily said, “We ID'd her as—'
'Never mind,” pleaded Dean, his eyes riveted on the gash in the woman's forehead and skull. Blue-black beneath the cold hardness of death, the wound seemed somehow alive, a creature unto itself. “I'd just as soon not know her name right now, detective.'
'Of course...'
Dean knew that Sid understood, even if no one else might. He just did not wish to know anything more about her—not yet, anyway. The least a forensics man knows of the victim, the better, at such an early stage. If he thought of her as a young woman with children, a husband, a nice home, as a woman with a fair name like Laura or
