Jim’s having called her now repeatedly to profess his love for her.
“ What’s going on?” she asked of the men who piled into her temporary office, making the little cubicle feel like a telephone booth.
“ This was received by the Naples Constitution early this morning,” said Samernow, handing Jessica a flimsy fax machine copy of a handwritten note. She gasped uncontrollably, repeating, “It’s him,” while staring at the note, which appeared to be in the killer’s hand. It read:
“ He couldn’t help himself. He had to show himself,” she said after reading the ugly words.
Samernow said to the floor, “A Sanibel Island girl matching the victim description has disappeared and remains unaccounted for. He’s on the west coast now!”
“ He’s definitely back,” Quincey immediately agreed.
Eriq vehemently shook his head. “We don’t know that, not for certain.”
“ It’s the third installment of the e. j. hellering poem,” Jessica countered. “It’s got to be him. Who else?”
“ You forget, the damned Miami Herald printed the first two installments, not to mention a background story by that Eddings guy on hellering. Don’t you see, any number of nutcases out there might’ve decided to reinvent the killer, and so this shows up clear across the state. I’m sorry, but I’m going to have to reserve judgment.”
“ But you’re the expert on handwriting!” Samernow exploded. “And you said the handwriting appeared the same.”
“ The key word is appears, Samernow. With the killer’s handwriting out there for any and everyone to see, hell, anybody could forge it now.” Quincey quietly reminded Eriq of the missing Sanibel Island teen.
The Herald had disappointed Santiva. The FBI and Santiva had disappointed the Herald. As for the newspaper, who could blame it? The FBI hadn’t kept its bargain, after all, and was pulling up stakes, now, so Merrick hadn’t seen any need to withhold on the whole story once it was given to America’s Most Wanted, especially now that it appeared the Night Crawler had disappeared from the vicinity. The entire fiasco seemed a catch-22.
“ We don’t know that it’s the killer’s handwriting, not for a fact,” repeated Santiva. “We really need to get the original, put our documents experts to work on it.”
Samernow was instantly in Eriq’s face. “You said it was the same handwriting!” Jessica wondered what had fired Mark Samernow up so.
“ I said on first appearance, it might be the same, but it will take much closer scrutiny than I can give it in a hallway.”
Quincey raised his considerable hands to quell the two other men and said, “Mark’s got a daughter about the age of the victims-”
“ Shut up, Quince!”
“- and the divorce took her to Naples.”
“ Is that why you’re so interested in establishing the authenticity of this letter?” asked Eriq. Samernow stammered, “I’ve been torn up over this whole damnable business from day one, the way this creep does them. My little girl… I haven’t seen her in six months, but she could pass for Allison Norris. And here I thought with her in Naples, at least she was out of harm’s way, but now… now this
“ We need to get somebody over to Naples,” said Quincey, “but we also need to get somebody down south of here to Matecumbe Key to hear the testimony of the Monroe girl. We want… we’re asking you both to stay on long enough to talk to her and to look into the Naples connection a little more closely.”
“ Someone’s got to go to Key Largo,” said Courdriet, materializing from nowhere at the doorway.
“ Why’s that, Dr. Coudriet?” asked Jessica, wondering what the ME was getting at.
“ Friend of mine is a pathologist at the local hospital there. They have a body washed up on shore bearing all the marks of the Night Crawler’s handiwork and then some.’’’’
“ Show me on the map?” asked Santiva. They moved into the laboratory, where a map of south Florida and the Keys had been pinned on a bulletin board, each colored stickpin marking another of the Night Crawler’s victims. This southernmost tip of Florida resembled a slovenly J, the islands like ink spatters at the bottom. Coudriet did the dubious honors of tacking in this most recent kill.
“ What do you mean and then some?” asked Jessica.
“ Washed up between the Key Largo Hammocks State Botanical Site and the Carysfort Yacht Club, right here,”
Coudriet said as he jabbed the tack into the corkboard. “Came in on the Gulf Stream.”
“ Well damn, then that’s got to place our killer well south of Key Largo, as the stream would ripple the body in a northerly direction at that point,” said Quincey. “I know- I’ve fished those waters.”
“ And then some?” Jessica repeated, tugging at Coudriet’s billowy shirt. The man had dispensed with ties and jackets, it appeared. “What did you mean when you said ‘bearing all the normal marks of the killer and then someT “
He looked directly at Jessica when he replied, “Seems this time he embalmed the girl, and not just a piece of her… the entire body. You were right. Prophetic, in fact. Doctor.”
She didn’t enjoy being right like this, and such power of prophesy was more a curse than a wonder. “It’s him, Eriq. Now one of us has to go to Naples and the other to Key Largo,” said Jessica.
“ What’s this about, Jess? What haven’t you told me?”
“ I told you about the embalming agents found in some of the body parts. This just confirms it,” she said, sighing heavily. “The killer’s trying to preserve a victim. He’s been experimenting with embalming methods.”
“ Naples is straight across the state by way of Alligator Alley,” said Quincey. “Mark could drive you,” he told Eriq. “And me, I’ll take Dr. Coran to Key Largo. From there, we can go down to Matecumbe Key, interview the Monroe girl in person.”
“ Yeah,” agreed Samernow, “sure, I can take Agent Santiva to Naples.”
“ Not before I authenticate this letter,” Eriq said. “It could be a hoax.”
“ Who would put together such a hoax?” asked Coudriet, a bit facetiously.
“ I wouldn’t put it past that creepy bald guy Eddings at the Herald, for one,” replied Santiva.
Jessica’s eyebrows shot up. “Eddings? I rather doubt that, Eriq. I know he was a bit strange, but-”
‘ A bit strange?’ “ Eriq laughed. “Try X-Files weirdo supernerd paranoid fringe dittohead.”
“ I thought he was kinda cute and sweet,” she said with a laugh.
“ Just the same, I’m going nowhere until we authenticate the letter.”
She countered with her own challenge. “Well, I’m going to Key Largo. Detective Quincey, I just have to get my bag and a change of clothes. Can you pick me up at my hotel?”
Eriq only shook his head and found a chair to plop into, seemingly beaten.
“ I’ll swing by in, say, half an hour?” Quincey asked Jessica.
“ Agreed.”
“ Jess,” said Eriq, climbing again to his feet and now taking her away from the others. “I thought we agreed to discuss any major moves we take in relation to this case. Now you’re rushing off to the Keys, and you want me to race to Naples without our having had a chance to authenticate the letter or discuss it.”
“ I thought we just did authenticate and discuss.”
“ We did what?”
“ We discussed how Eddings would not’ve plotted such a hoax and the fact that there is a missing girl meeting the victim profile the other side of the state. We have to move on this, Eriq.” She briskly walked back to her temporary office, grabbed her black ME’s bag and rushed out with Quincey.
Eriq stared across at Mark Samernow. “All right, Detective, let’s go to Naples… Maybe pay a visit to your girl and your ex. I can make the comparison points on the letters along the way.”
“ I’ll get you there in two and a half hours without leaving the ground,” Samernow promised. “And thanks, Agent.”
THIRTEEN
