As he worked to place the dismembered little pieces of the victim into small vials of a preservative which the salesman had called WonderPlus Glow 19, Coudriet said, “I’ve been a widower for about as long as you’ve been single. And how old are you, if you don’t mind my asking.”
“ I’ll be twenty-nine soon enough.”
“ I’m old enough to be your father.”
“ Yes, sir, Doctor. I know, but personally I… I like older men.”
He looked up from what he was doing to see that she was blushing even more, yet staring deeply into his eyes. He managed a smile and was instantly kicked at the same time by the body so near-as if it were vying for his full attention-the water having heaved it into his leg. His wife of so many years was gone now; still, he was a grandfather, an old buzzard, set in his ways. What could this… this child see in him? Is that why you so readily volunteered to wade out here and hold hands with a corpse for me? he wondered but dared not ask. Flirting here like this, over the body, was wrong, he told himself. He opted for what he felt was a soft joke instead. ‘ ‘Where does it say in your job description that you have to help cut off fingers?” He’d had outrageous thoughts all his life come full-blown and unbidden into his head, but this… thoughts of making a date with the paramedic over the body: No, he couldn’t, he told himself now.
“ My job is to assist my superiors and officials of this city as best I can, where I can and when I can, sir, and I would never, ever allow my personal life to get in the way of that, sir.”
He smiled, enjoying her now immensely, loving her paramilitary bearing and speech. “Tell you what, Ms. Hoyt-Hoytler, is it?”
“ Serena, yes.”
“ Serena, a lovely name… Listen, how would you like to have dinner with me tonight?”
She smiled now, the sunlight dimming amid clouds as if on cue. She was so cheery, so delightful… perhaps just what he needed, he silently told himself, although a deep- seated voice also said, No fool like an old fool, and then a third voice interceded, saying. Nobody’s a fool like the fool who lets her get away…
“ You just tell me when and where to be, Doctor.”
“ Andrew… call me, Andrew.”
“ All right, Andrew. You don’t know how long I’ve wanted to speak your name aloud to you.”
“ That’s… that’s sweet,” he replied, thinking that it was also a bit extreme. He wondered just how intense she might become, welcoming her intensity, and a bit fearful of it as well.
“ Do you need me for anything else, Ann-drew?” A fresh twinkle shimmered in her strikingly green eyes.
“ Sure, sure… yes, help me bring the body onto shore.”
“ Well, I’ve got my partner for that. We’ll take it from here, sir. Around the others, I’ll continue to call you sir and Doctor, sir.”
“ Thank you very much, Serena, and if you’ll leave me your number, I’ll call you later and we’ll get together.”
She whipped out a card with her address and telephone number clearly printed, handed it to him and said, “Funny, huh… How an ugly, awful thing like these brutal killings can bring two people together. Oh, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t’ve called her ugly.” She indicated the bloated body bobbing inches from them. “It’s just so… so ghastly to see…”
“ The one kind of death they don’t even like to discuss in medical school, even in M.E. training, my dear Serena, is the floater. A floater is an ugly travesty of the human form. Don’t feel ashamed.”
“ But it’s so horrible that I should gain from so tragic a loss…”
“ Just be thankful you still have feelings at all. In our business, it’s hard to hold on to honest feelings, believe me. She instantly agreed with a nod. “I know drivers, paramedics like me, who’re so burned out. Why this one guy, Stover-” She realized she was carrying on too long for here and now, so she closed down.
Coudriet turned and waded back to shore as Serena’s burly partner came out toward the body, the two men nodding vigorously to one another as they exchanged elements. Coudriet clutched the small medical pouch, stuffed now with the evidence of the crime, where it dangled about his neck on leather thongs. He had all the evidence the body could give him here in the field. The rest would have to wait for a thorough examination in the morgue, in dry conditions, below bright lights and under the microscope in his lab, where he might turn for a warm cup of coffee and listen to classical music as he worked, anything to lessen the abomination of the moment.
“ Take love when and where you can find it,” Coudriet muttered to himself when he had arrived ashore. He turned to watch how Serena manfully hauled the body toward land, her partner hardly helping or keeping abreast. She appeared to be quite a woman, perhaps too much of a woman for him. She was intriguing, but he worried about what might become of them if they were to get involved. Perhaps it’d been wrong of him to encourage the young woman, but something in Serena stirred him even now, as he watched her wade ashore. Something deep within told him it was a feeling he should pursue, if for no other reason than to experience some much-needed excitement in his life, to feel again. It seemed a selfish reason, but he was too old anymore to fall back on falsities, to deny that he was selfish.
“ There’s a call for you, Dr. Coudriet,” said a uniformed cop in his ear, bringing the M.E. out of his reverie. “You can take it in my unit. Follow me.”
Coudriet climbed into the front seat of the man’s squad car and took up the nicely contoured, modern police receiver, barking into it, “Coudriet here. What is it?”
“ It’s me, Dr. Coudriet, Powers.”
“ Oh, yes, Owen, good of you to call. Now tell me, what’ve you and Thorn got out at Lighthouse Point?” Coudriet pictured the lively little Coconut Grove park where the historical monument-one of Florida’s most ancient and prestigious lighthouses-looked out over luscious palmettos, native cacti and other vegetation along the riverside, and the sugar-sand beach, cerulean waters and distant Atlantic horizon on the other. There was also nearby Peacock Park and the oldest building in Miami, the Barnacle, an historic home built in 1908 which had long since become a museum offering a glimpse into Florida’s past, the grounds overlooking the ocean, ideal for strolling and spotting the occasional native armadillo and raccoon. He imagined how crowded the entire area would be even at an early hour, it being a favorite haunt of both locals and tourists, with cafe, gift shop and beach all in one place. The red-brick lighthouse, while no longer operational, still acted as a beacon, a magnet, for people to come and visit, whether it was to climb her 320-odd spiraling steps or to party amid the seascape.
What an awful foil against which to examine a body in the water, he thought, even worse than doing so below the thousand or so windows of the Flamingo Hilton Beach Resort. At the lighthouse, there would be little children about, dogs and Frisbees, sand castles and sea urchins to chase. But looking around now, he saw children already locating the pool at the resort while others impatiently waited with sand buckets and colorful shovels in hand so they might hit the beach.
“ So, tell me… what exactly do you have out there, Owen?”
He silently prayed for a stabbing victim, a drowned surfer, anything but another sampling of the work of the Night Crawler.
“ Ted and I both concur, sir, that it’s the work of the Night Crawler.”
“ Goddamn it all! Are you absolutely certain?”
“ Absolutely, yes. Unfortunately, all the signs, sir.”
“ Were the hands bound in front with a black nylon boating rope?”
“ As a matter of fact, they were, and the same rope was tied about her throat.”
“ Sounds like we’ve got the makings of a… a hat trick…”
“ A hat trick, sir?”
“ Hockey, Doctor… You remember hockey, don’t you? I’m talking about mass murder, possibly three victims in a single day, if Coran’s victim is also one of his.”
“ Oh, yeah, ice hockey… hat trick, sure… gotcha, Dr. Coudriet.”
“ Damn… damn…”
“ So your victim, sir… was a bound female, nude except for the ropes with the same ligature marks, same time in the water, sir?”
“ One and the same, but not so long in the water as previous victims, no…”
“ That is unusual, isn’t it?” Powers was a master of the obvious.
“ Two victims, a possible third, all given to us on the same day, yes, Powers, damn you… damned unusual.
