protect her lime-green pants suit. It was extremely humid already though it was still early morning, the day promising a record-breaking heat. She saw an unmarked police car coming off the bridge now, and in the rear seat she could dimly make out Dr. Kim Desinor's pretty profile.
“ Good,” she muttered to herself, “give the men something else to stare at for a while.”
Overhead, Jessica saw a sign for the Jax Brewery, and beside this an even larger billboard advertising live bait, beer and snacks in that order, along with excursion boats and fishing charters, all below bold letters that read: “TOULOUSE STREET WHARF.”
12
One by one, and two by two.
He tossed them human hearts to chew.
Alex Sincebaugh felt the wave of burdensome humidity leisurely insinuate itself into his pores as it wafted across the pier where the body, pulled from the water by men and machines moments before, was still dripping and not likely to dry out anytime soon. As early as it was, the heat had settled in like God's angry breath on their faces, necks and any exposed skin, sending a perspiring reminder to one and all that mortality was ever present, while promising up a scorching day for the radio announcers to bitch about, a day of blown-out tires and blistering metal fatigue for automobiles, all in the wake of a record-breaking Louisiana heat wave; in other words, misery and a wall of super-heated air to exist in and to move through.
Louisiana's summer heat killed things: potted plants on win-dowsills-all but St. Augustine grass-and the small hearts of rabbits, raccoons, and overwrought birds that didn't stand a chance, couldn't cope. Dead opossums floated downriver in the Big Muddy, their teeth, gums and bone exposed, water turning their hardened, furry forms into tar like slicks. Only time and the water might clean up such debris; the fish didn't seem to want it.
It was nearing mid-morning at the Toulouse Street Wharf, where the first rays of the sun glinted and winked between the paddle wheels of the steamboat Natchez. From where Alex stood, the angle of the paddle wheel lifted over the bridge, making passing cars disappear on the Jefferson Highway on the east side of the river and U.S. 18 on the west. Here was a Mississippi River stopover with restaurants, a Texaco station for boat traffic and another excursion cruise ship called the Bayou Jean Lafitte, which departed every two hours for the Bayou Barataria, once home to the famous pirate.
Across the river from where she stood, Kim Desinor, her sundrenched hair glistening in the New Orleans morning, could see a levee and a canal, which in the old days might well have connected up to others and, if followed carefully, might take one to Lake Ponchartrain-but that was before economic progress had covered over many of the canals.
Still, there remained literally hundreds of canals that crisscrossed the city, meeting the perpetual downriver flow of the Mississippi at the city's northernmost tier. New Orleans was a city of canals and intermittent pumping stations. Below sea level, half the city's land mass was perpetually under siege by water, and when it rained hard, as it often did, water had to be pumped from canals which fed into Lake Ponchartrain, else the entire city would flood.
Sincebaugh and Ben deYampert, along with Kim-who was feeling like the psychic interloper or psychic saint, however the myriad perceptions might mold her-now joined the crowd of authorities on the wharf where Jessica Coran had already started to work. It appeared the aftermath of yet another seemingly mindless, unreasonable and bestial desecration of a person, the body belonging to a young man, his exact age and identity yet to be determined.
All too obviously to Kim, as it must be to Jessica's FBI-trained eye, the brutalization of the body had filled a raging need in the monster who'd inflicted such wounds in his at-tempt to get at the heart, ripping wide the chest and viscera from the hapless victim. Kim, also trained to some degree in criminal-profile procedures, could read all that in the stark evidence on the wharf. No great or mysterious or powerful trick in that observation, she told herself now; certainly no sixth sense required, she continued to mentally remind herself, wondering again why Jessica Coran should be acting so bitchy toward her. Perhaps it had all to do with the fact that Jessica's mind, as well as her entire life, had always been predicated on the search for scientifically proven fact, indisputable, hard, tangible evidence. It was what a medical examiner staked her life on; it was her worldview. Yet here Jessica was on bended knee, and not bending too gracefully at that, groveling in her mind's eye, no doubt, to a woman whose worldview was in direct contradiction to her own, having to ask Kim Desinor for help. She had been so far reduced by her continuing fear of the phantom stalking her that she'd arranged a secret moment alone with a psychic for answers, and then what did she get? The sky is falling…shit…
Kim was angry with herself that her reading had gone so badly. It might color their relationship from here on out, should Dr. Coran make assumptions based on what had occurred in that Lear jet.
Kim watched the other woman now in the shadow of the big riverboat Natchez; Jessica's sable-like, auburn hair and alluring features were startlingly set off by the white lab coat she now wore, a pair of silver-rimmed magnifying glasses framing her enchanting hazel eyes. Besides appearing lovely, Jessica looked adept, competent, knowledgeable, experienced and in charge all at once-all those good things which Kim at the moment was wishing she felt. Jessica and the NOPD principals on the case, Sincebaugh and deYampert, did their work while tourists looked on from the deck, preparing for an excursion upriver and down.
A light fog veiled the scene, but not enough to offer cover from prying eyes and the high-tech photo lenses of curious journalists and people with home cameras. Officials were rightly concerned that they might wind up on I- Witness Video in coming weeks, and from Stephens's behavior, he'd welcome it. Word had already gone out about the heinous nature of the crimes to both the locals and nationwide. Facts in evidence: There'd been a string of male prostitute deaths in the French Quarter; these deaths were caused by massive lacerations to the upper body; each victim had later had his genitals excised; each victim had had his heart removed, some people speculating that it had happened before death set in; the killer had struck five, possibly six times and had escalated his attacks; the killer had attacked both indoors and out. And now he was escalating the frequency of his attacks, according to police; only the day before there'd been another discovery of a body floating in a Mississippi backwash, the headless ca-daver that Sincebaugh had only hinted at. Everything known about the killer culminated in one frightening truth- the phantom remained unapprehended and he would kill again and again until he was stopped.
Sergeant Detective Ben deYampert ambled over to where Jessica worked, almost stepping on her black valise, he was that clumsy. He started talking as if they'd known each other since childhood.
“ You know, I've lived all my life in New Orleans, and I've spent the last six years on the NOPD, working my way up to sergeant detective, Homicide Squad. Guess it takes a case like this to make you wonder why a man'd subject himself to this line of work, huh?”
When he got no answer from Jessica, whose attention now was riveted on the body, deYampert merely continued on. “I got a wife and kids at home; they don't hardly know me anymore. I'm telling you, if something doesn't bust loose soon, well… I ain't so sure I want to keep on as a detective.”
She finally looked up at the doughy-eyed, large man and offered a half smile of reassurance. “Hang in there, Sergeant. We're going to get this bastard and soon.” Even as she spoke the words, she realized how cold and routine they must sound, but she only made things worse when she went on. “But if you're looking for psychoanalysis, see Kim Desinor over there. I understand she's a shrink as well as a psychic.”
“ Is that your idea of a consoling word, or do you have something concrete or useful to share with us?” asked an acerbic man now beside deYampert who quickly introduced himself as the principle detective on the case, Alex Sincebaugh.
She looked over her shoulder from the kneeling position she'd taken alongside the horrid corpse. The fire in Alex Sincebaugh's eyes was a sharp contrast to the cold, watery yet barren gaze of the corpse.
“ Why'd he leave this one's head intact?” asked deYampert of her, as if she had some magical dust to spread which would reveal the answers to all his questions.
