objects which resembled giant moldering leeches. They were brown-black and glistening, flecked minutely with white. Tom smiled grimly. “You know what those are, Helen? They’re metastacized human lungs. Small-cell lung cancer is what I’m talking here. Look at them.” “I’m… looking,” Helen complained. Tom went on: “That’s what
But more smoke haunted her now. Deputy Police Chief Larrel Olsher’s face looked as rigid as a black marble bust of Attila the Hun as he brutally crushed out his current cigar stub. He was black and ugly and bad. Some called him “the Shadow,” for his 6’2”, 270-pound frame tended to darken any hallway he chose to traverse. Olsher had risen to his status the hard way, by kicking ass and taking names and putting a lot of perps up for life. Beneath the veneer, though, was an unselfish man who cared about people. He and Helen had climbed up the hierarchal ladder together, had been friends for years. In fact, Olsher may have been one of Helen’s only true friends on the department.
“Look at this picture of Dahmer,” he said. “It’s unbelievable that they could print that in a newspaper.”
Helen frowned at her own bad luck, took up the sheet of newsprint. FIRST OFFICIAL PHOTO OF DAHMER’S BODY the headline raved.
“This isn’t a
“Yeah, well—so?” Olsher replied a bit defensively. “The picture’s all that matters. Christ, Dahmer’s body is custody of the state, and there he is lying flat out on
Then the image registered, and Helen couldn’t help but laugh. “For one thing, Larrel, this picture wasn’t taken in St. John’s. Second, it’s not Dahmer.”
“Sure, it’s Dahmer.” Olsher crudely pointed to the paper. “That’s his face, right there. Everyone knows what
Olsher’s naivete absolutely astounded her. Here was a man who’d been shot twice, and had probably come face to face with every conceivable kind of crackpot, killer, car-jacker, junkie, and street freak. But…
“Larrel, you’re kidding me, right? You believe this is for real?”
Olsher diddled with a big cigar, lines pinched up in his dark face. “What’s not to believe? That’s
Helen issued yet another laugh.
“And what’s so goddamn funny?”
She shimmied to retrieve her composure. “Come on,, Larrel. It’s obvious. They took a picture of some guy lying on his back with his shirt off and cropped Dahmer’s head on it. That’s not Dahmer. That’s not even St. John’s autopsy room.”
Olsher’s big hand took back the clip. His brow furrowed, staring at it. “How do
“Because I just came from St. John’s. I
“You saw it, huh? You saw Dahmer’s body?”
“Yes! The face wasn’t recognizable at all, it was beaten to pulp.”
Olsher made a smirk, then stuffed the tabloid clipping into his desk. “Oh,” he said. “Well. I didn’t really believe it, either.”
“For VCU? Nothing.” Olsher lit an El Producto. Gobs of smoke obscured his face, which Helen was grateful for. “You can go Christmas shopping today for all I care. Just thank God the state of Wisconsin’s not like California.”
“Thank God for Tommy Thompsen.”
Olsher shrugged hugely. “Same difference.”
“Talk to you later, Larrel.” Helen got up, prepared to leave.
“What? I forget to use my Right Guard today?”
“Let me just put it this way, Larrel. Have another cigar.”
“Oh, so you’re saying my cigars stink?”
“Later.”
Now her mood was ruined, at once. It happened that fast these days, it always did. Blank-faced uniforms passed this way and that; the main hall down from reception was a cacophony she’d long grown used to. She didn’t hear it any more. Shiny beige tile and drab white walls led her toward her own office.
Two cops swapped jokes from the Intelligence squad room right next door.
“Hey, what did Dahmer say when Tredell Rosser tried to take his broom?”
“What?”
“Over my dead body.”
“Hey, what did Jeffrey Dahmer say to Lorena Bobbit?”
“What?”
“Are you going to eat that?”
Helen’s ticking heels stopped. Her furor rose—she had to take it out on someone, didn’t she? She ducked her head in.
“Next man I hear telling Dahmer jokes gets transferred to Warehouse Division in the morning.”
Two shocked faces glanced up, blanched white when they saw who it was.
“Dahmer murdered seventeen people, he perpetuated a lot of tragedy,” Helen reminded them. “There’s nothing funny about it, is there?”
“No, ma’am,” one of the uniforms answered.
“Start acting like cops instead of high school punks,” Helen advised the both of them, then left.
The instant she sat down at her own desk in her own office, she mused,
00210-OP
FLAG: FYI
001//112994
29 NOV 94, 1440 HRS.
DE: WISCONSIN BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION
TO: WSP VIOLENT CRIMES UNIT
STATUS: FYI, ALL RELEVANT PERSONNEL