“ A feeling?”
“ At least until we can prove it otherwise through the microscopic evidence.”
“ Did you find two sets of bite marks? Two footprint sizes? Give,” he ordered her.
“ No, nothing concrete, but for a single man to pull this off-it just seems highly unlikely.”
“ Hell, I've thought of that myself, but if he's a big man, a strong man, my size, he could do it alone. I need more to go on than that.”
Rychman's ire was getting the best of him. They were all tired and frustrated. “I can only tell you what my gut reaction is,” she defended herself.
“ From day one there's only been one set of fingerprints we've been able to match at the various scenes, one set of bite marks, according to your office, Darius, and as for hair and saliva samples, the story's the same. Now, in midstream, you're talking two instead of one? It makes no sense.”
“ It does if the second man takes extreme care, uses gloves, takes his portion away with him to cannibalize elsewhere,” replied Darius, his eyes widening.
“ But you've got nothing whatever to go on here, except your gut reaction.”
“ My gut reaction,” Darius defended, “is the result of long meditation and maybe plenty of medication as well, Captain.”
He didn't have an answer for this. “All right, how soon before the lab can come up with something to prove this theory? I don't want my people going down a wrong alley, searching for a killer couple, going through all kinds of gyrations on nothing other than a hunch I can't justify.”
The Claw already had the NYPD looking like the Keystone Kops, and Rychman didn't want to add to that bleak picture.
Dr. Darius groaned and Rychman helped him to his feet. Jessica's legs were stiff from kneeling, and she was also exhausted. She followed the old coroner's lead, standing and stretching; she, too, had taken all the samples she wanted from the crime scene. Everything else must wait for the autopsy room.
“ Well, Dr. Coran, you've got your samples and specimens, and I've got mine; between the two of us, we're going to give this sonofabitch a run for his money. Oh, by the way, should your specimens reveal any new hair samples, check what you've found here against the ones I have on file first. Saves time and keeps you from looking like a fool later. Which reminds me, young lady, you had best file samples of your hair with the lab, too, unless you want Rychman here or some other gung-ho cop arresting you as the Claw.”
It was sound advice and standard procedure for M.E. s to have fingerprints, hair, and blood samples on file with the lab, so that stray prints and hair found at a crime scene could be ruled out right away as those of the examiner.
Dr. Simon Archer came through the door and went directly to Darius and scolded him. “Why didn't you tell them to contact me, Luther? I could have handled this; I can't believe you've been here since three this morning.”
Archer's concern for his aged colleague was touching, Jessica thought as she made for the door, but Darius didn't quite find it so. He returned Archer's kindness with a bitter outburst, saying, “God damn you, Simon, I'm not a fucking cripple. I can do my job. You needn't have rushed down here. Who's minding the office?”
Rychman and Jessica left the two doctors to war it out. As le walked Jessica to the car, Rychman told her that he had to lang there a bit longer, something about a possible witness with a very shaky story that he doubted would pan out.
Darius came out of the house, joining Jessica at Lou Pierce's squad car, asking, “Is this carriage going downtown?”
“ You got it. Doc,” replied Lou.
“ May I join you, Dr. Coran?”
“ Absolutely.”
“ Sorry about that outburst. Archer doesn't mean to be such a pain in the ass, he just is. He thinks he's doing the decrepit old man right by disqualifying me from fieldwork. Meanwhile, we've gotten nowhere on this case. It's not that Simon isn't a good, thorough man, but he simply lacks that special something. Your father had it, and I suspect you do, too, Dr. Coran, that special… ahhh.” He searched for the word.
“ Imagination?” she asked.
“ Precisely, yes. Imagination and instinct.”
“ Both very necessary in our business.”
“ Dull man, really, that Archer, but he means well, and I suppose he does his best. Perkins was a greater disappointment, actually, not finishing out his term with us. Ahh, well…”
They got into the backseat of the car after depositing their medical bags in the trunk. She asked him, “Will you be pursuing the case from here out, Doctor?”
“ So long as my health allows, Doctor.”
“ It would be wonderful to work closely with you, sir.”
“ Butter the other side, my dear. That feels good.”
“ But I mean it in the most sincere way, Dr. Darius.”
“ Me, so out of step with the times I didn't even know about your scented cotton balls?” He laughed and she realized that he'd been joking the entire time. “Fact is, it would do me a world of good to work with you, Jessica Coran. I've read everything about your case of the vampire killer, whal was his name? Madson, Manson?”
“ Matisak.”
“ Oh, yes… vile creature that one. Not wholly unlike our Claw.”?
Twelve
Rychman was a frustrated man. The C.P. had him exactly where he wanted him, on the firing line. The Claw case made anyone connected with it look the fool; it could not have been better for Eldritch if he had planned it himself for this election year. By maneuvering Rychman into the catbird seat, he had both the perfect fall guy and a way to make his competition look bad. Maybe Eldritch was the better man for the job, after all; he was certainly the better politician. Where was he now? Miles from Scarsdale, that was for sure.
The half-baked notion of making an arrest was another fine stroke of genius on Eldritch's part. Arresting Conrad Shaw would make Rychman look as if he were leading a witch-hunt. He had to find some new. something, some sort of lead, anything, if he planned to survive. But for now, feeling tired and weary, he slumped against his car and waited for the rest of his task force people to report back to him what they had, or more likely had not, learned from the surrounding neighborhood. He himself had learned that the Olin woman was quiet and retiring, a model neighbor, hardly spoke a word above a whisper. Those who knew her best didn't really seem to know her at all, but there was some hint of money problems, and her health seemed an issue. As for the old woman, still no word.
His mind raced back over every victim of the Claw, trying to take a new tack, to think about two killers. It was like sailing against the wind to pursue an idea that opposed what seemed concrete fact. It was always the hardest part of police work to keep options open, to keep the sea of information from solidifying too quickly into one idea. For so long now, everyone had assumed the brutal killer was a single individual… but what if Jessica and Darius were right? And why couldn't they provide him with something unequivocal and binding, some proof he could believe in completely? Something other than hunches and suppositions, however informed?
Maybe these murders weren't even the work of the Claw, Rychman thought in disgust. The fact it was Scarsdale and the fact the killer or killers had deviated by brutalizing two victims in one night made Rychman suspicious that they were copy cat killings. Someone reading the nonstop news coverage on the Claw could have planned and executed the double murder to make it appear the work of the Claw, thereby throwing suspicion away from himself.
It had not helped matters that the newspaper reporters across the city had been able to piece together almost all of the various clues that pointed to the work of the Claw. Throughout the investigation, they lifted one detail from one precinct, another from a second and so on, while the mayor and the C. R were gabbing about gag orders.
