tripped or become disoriented. A large pool of blood showed the exact location where she'd been rendered unconscious by a blow to the head. The blow had sent her into a convulsive state, if the reading of the blood trail could be believed. There was much smeared blood, because each body had been dragged into the center of the living room. At least, these were her initial impressions. At the moment she could only speculate, but she guessed that Darius had to have seen the same tell-tale signs as she.
The air was stale, thick and rank with odors meant only for the embalming room. A police photographer was snapping shots of the two victims, and Darius was grumbling to himself and shaking his head sadly. Darius' form was thin and small and white-haired, making him look like one of Santa's elves as he knelt over the deceased. His snowy-white hair was in sharp contrast to the blood and bile on his hands when he turned to greet her. His handlebar mustache was also white and it tweaked from side to side as he tried to scratch an itch below it without the use of his soiled hands.
Jessica had suited up and she reached out her gloved right hand to take Dr. Darius' as she said, “I've so wanted to meet with you and work with you; I'm just sorry it has to be under such horrid conditions.”
“ Yes, well, I've been anxious to meet you, too, Dr. Coran. I knew your father for a time; excellent medical examiner.”
“ Thank you. He always spoke very highly of you, too, sir.”
“ I worked on a case with your father once; had to do with a bit of an epidemic here in the city back in the late fifties. After it was over, I offered him a job with my office, but he was stubborn; thought he could improve the military, so he stayed in. What a waste, I thought at the time, but he did make a difference in the way M.E. s in the service are perceived, wouldn't you agree?”
“ Yes, he did, and he spoke of your work together often.”
“ I was so sorry to hear of his illness and his passing.”
“ Thank you, Dr. Darius.”
“ Well, we'd better earn our keep here. We'll have to talk later,” he said. “As usual, the Claw has us up to our hips in gore for reasons unknown.”
Darius offered her his jar of Vicks VapoRub to cut the stench, but she declined, pulling forth scented cotton balls, which she offered him.
“ Oh, something new?”
“ It beats Vicks for this.”
“ I'll try them next time.”
“ We've got to ensure that there will not be a next time.”
“ Right you are, but I fear otherwise, my dear.”
The old coroner returned to his work, and for the first time Jessica allowed her eyes to take in the full extent of the damnable, godless crime against these women. They were filleted from throat to groin, their intestines removed and looped in the neat little coil that had become the trademark signature of the Claw, along with the crushed skulls where he had used his awful hammer. The two bodies had been robbed of their organs, she guessed, as in the past, and added to this horror was the missing gray matter from each skull. From the appearance of the heads, the brain tissue was removed after a surgical-like incision by a rough cutting instrument, most likely the same instrument used on the torsos. Once again the eyes had been removed, presumably eaten.
Jessica felt a wave of revulsion sweep over her, but she managed to maintain a firm hold on her emotions. She kneeled beside Dr. Darius, trying to keep her sanity and professional edge. Darius had found his amid this; she must do likewise.
Darius, as if to help her along, held up a kidney that he had fished from the soup of the younger woman's body.
“ What do you make of this, Doctor?”
“ She was suffering jaundice?”
“ You might think so, but guess again.”
The kidney was shriveled, tiny even, and the color was that of a several-days'-old pate. “It's… it's not her kidney. It's the old woman's?”
“ I think not,” replied Darius.
“ Whose is it, then?”
“ That's the problem.”
“ Are you saying it doesn't belong to either victim?”
“ That is what I believe, yes.”
She stared into Darius' luminous eyes. She saw a little boy deep within him looking back at her, trapped there in his decrepit body. She liked him instantly, and she now understood his riddle. “The bastard brought it with him; it belongs to one of the earlier victims, maybe Mrs. Hamner?”
“ Precisely. It will be tested for a match.”
“ Then he may have left other such items.”
They began to look closely at the organs, finding that none were connected to the bodies. “This appears to be the young woman's,” she told Darius when she lifted out the heart that had been posited inside the old woman.
“ And this no doubt belongs to the young woman,” Darius reciprocated.
Police standing about listening to the M.E. s instantly spread the word that the killer had switched the victims' organs like a child at play.
They found several other older, shriveled organs that matched neither victim. The Claw had made off with the fresher meat, as he had with the brain tissues.
Rychman told the others he didn't want a word of this to leak to the press, that it was the kind of information they could use at a later date, if and when they had the murdering psycho in custody.
“ A three-way switch,” said Darius, “and for what reason?”
“ For the hell of it,” suggested Rychman. “To shove it in our faces, that's why!”
Rychman informed them that the house belonged to the Olin woman and that the identity of the second woman remained unknown. He explained that the second body, along with the additional organs, had been transported to the house and dumped here.
“ Such a fiend,” said Darius, shaking his white head, strands of the thin hair falling forward. “And to think that he is one of us, one of our species.”
“ He seems drawn to the most defenseless, the gentlest of victims,” Rychman added.
His words recalled something Jessica's father once told her when she had asked how a gentle person such as he could possibly want to work as a medical examiner, to investigate the crimes of the cruel and inhuman.
“ My father used to say that the gentlest among us are fascinated with the cruelest among us. Maybe it works in reverse, too. That the cruelest among us are fascinated with the gentlest.”
“ That might well be our common denominator so far as the victims go. They were all shy, retiring, quiet types. Even the first victim, a streetwalker, was known for being a timid, reluctant streetwalker,” replied Rychman.
The M.E. s returned to their work, and after a few hours an impatient Rychman came back, asking if they had found anything useful.
“ Some fibers that don't appear to match the room, and we've been unable to find a match elsewhere here. They were clinging to the old woman, matted in the blood. We know she was killed elsewhere, and it appears she was wrapped in some sort of blanket or rug. We will analyze the fibers in detail back at the lab,” Jessica explained.
“ That doesn't tell us a whole lot,” replied a frustrated Rychman.
“ We're doing the best we can, Captain. Like your identifying the old woman, it will take time.”
“ Still searching.”
“ Dr. Darius has stated that he believes the killer could quite possibly be two men instead of one,” she now added.
“ Is that right, Dr. Darius?”
“ That is what we have been speculating about, yes.”
“ I can't go on speculation. What makes you think so?”
“ It's just a… a feeling,” Jessica answered.
