“ I don't think he's really interested in heads as trophies,” she coolly replied.
“ We figured with yesterday's vie,” deYampert continued, as if still hoping for the pixie dust, “that he was increasing his attacks, but we never figured on finding another body within twenty-four hours.”
Jessica had no reply for such a statement, certainly not here and now. She'd need considerable time in the lab to look over the evidence of both recent kills. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Dr. Kim Desinor was pacing the wharf, seeking out an area where she might receive some psychic emanations, Jessica supposed, but the doctor of head and haunt seemed at the moment only to be frustrated. Continuing to gather what trace elements she could from the waterlogged victim, scraping out the nails, knowing that the water had likely already gotten her real trace evidence, Jessica made short work of the preliminaries. At the same time, she kept an eye on Kim, who had now reached into her purse and pulled forth the rosary beads but seemed hesitant to clutch them, dropping them back into her purse instead.“So, do you have anything of substance for us? Dr. Coran?” Sincebaugh pressed. “Wardlaw, your M.E.,” she began to Sincebaugh's audible groan, having to forge ahead over the man's pained expression. “Anyway, he tells me yesterday long-distance that he was able to get some semen from the previous victim's mouth which he's running DNA scans on now. He theorizes that it could be from the killer, and if so… who knows, maybe we can leam something about this guy's physical makeup-racial identity, probable height, weight, color of hair, eyes…”
“ Wardlaw's just as likely to botch a DNA test as any other test he runs.”
She looked up again at the rankled cop. “Well, I see there's no love lost between you, but amazingly enough, there were some hairs and fibers found inside the corpse which didn't belong to the victim.”
“ Semen? None of the others had any semen in their mouths.” DeYampert was working on this puzzle.
“ Exactly… and none of them had had their heads severed either, and nor does this morning's package. Everything intact except the missing heart and genitals.”
Sincebaugh was nodding appreciatively. “I'd had similar un answered questions about yesterday's 'package' as you call it, Doctor. So, Frank's on top of that one, huh? Going at it through DNA testing. Just where is officer Frank Wardlaw this morning, Dr. Coran?” Sincebaugh asked while struggling with some inner turmoil that Jessica couldn't quite put her finger on.
“ I assume he's at his crime lab. I really couldn't say.”
“ I would've assumed he'd be here. How're you two getting on, then?”
“ We actually haven't as yet met-face-to-face, that is, Lieutenant.”
Damn thorough of Frank to catch the semen, thought Sincebaugh. Wonder what's up. Now that the famous Jessica Coran had hit town, was Frank going to finally do his job? “Just the same, Frank ought to be out here, don't you agree?”
“ He… he wasn't called out, so I'm told.” She blinked in the morning glare in P.C. Stephens's direction, her long lashes like butterfly wings.
“ Wasn't called? Really?”
“ Yes, really. He's…well, guess you'll hear soon enough, but it's not my place to tell you.”
“ Tell me what?”
“ He's currently under some, I don't know, attack…”
“ What the hell's that? FBI euphemism for investigation of misconduct and impropriety?”
“ Both in and out of the lab, I'm afraid.”
“ Damn, so you're taking charge altogether on the forensics end? So we trade off Frank's alcoholic problems for your…press-magnetism?” He pointed to the array of cameras on the bridge, the reporters held back by uniformed cops. “I didn't invite the press, but for the time being, yes to your question, and in particular on this case. Wardlaw's staff will see to the routine calls.” Ben and Alex exchanged a glance. Things were happening fast.
“ So Frank let the Hearts case blow him out of the water,” Alex mumbled to deYampert.
“ Maybe his bleeding heart did him in,” said Ben, and both men laughed at the inside joke.
She knew how callous and jaded cops were, that it came with the territory, but she empathized strongly with the unknown Dr. Wardlaw, who'd fallen prey to the case he was working. She imagined it could happen to any M.E. or pa-thologist who got too emotionally involved in a case, and without thinking, she blurted out, “The man's hurting badly both emotionally and professionally, gentlemen. I don't suppose you two have ever been there?”
“ It's hard to muster any sympathy for Frank, Doctor, so don't even try,” replied Alex curtly.
“ Is he, you know, psychologically impaired over the case, or did the booze do him in?” asked Ben.
“ That's the common belief, yes,” she replied, leaving her response purposefully vague because she didn't herself know all the particulars. The M.E.'s predicament made her wonder if someone would one day be speaking the same epitaph over her when she finally flipped out over a case.
Sincebaugh was now also thinking about Wardlaw's emotional response to the Hearts case, the ramifications of it all. Not only had the case had a powerful emotional effect on Alex, but on others as well. He had given little consideration to its impact on Wardlaw or Landry or even Benjamin deYampert, who'd been beside him the whole time, so wrapped up was he in his own reproach and turmoil and the damnable nightmares plaguing him thanks to the most bizarre case of his tenure as detective in the NOPD.
Something in Jessica's steely, glinting eye made Alex now look over his shoulder at the psychic, Kim Desinor, whom he'd been ordered to fetch and bring here before he and deYampert had even had a chance to view the body. It stuck in his craw that he and Ben were sent like a couple of welcome-wagon ladies to greet the psychic whom Landry had notified them about.
Landry had said that it was out of his hands, that the Department's top people had requested it of the mayor, for Christ's sake, and that the mayor, a superstitious SOB, had readily gone along with the idea of hiring the psychic to come in to do her touchy-feely thing over the case evidence. But nobody had warned him that the psychic would be allowed here at the crime scene, to rummage about as she liked. What the fuck had happened to proper protocol? And what was the famous FBI forensics guru, Jessica Coran, going to think of the Department, or how a backward police precinct in New Orleans conducted a murder investigation? He momentarily thought of all the evidence-gathering he and Ben had done, his thick notebook filled with detailed drawings of the crime scenes, notes and sketches which he'd pored over and stared at at all hours of the night, none of it giving up anything remotely helpful to determining the killer's identity.
Alex was involved in the same process now, drawing a thumbnail sketch of the body where it lay on the pier, noting its condition down to the smallest detail. But as he worked, he continued to think about Kim Desinor and the psychic connection the city had made with her. Word was that Kim Desinor was a doctor, a psychologist, as well as a psychic, which for some made her legitimate, but proved not a thing with Alex. Word also had it that she hailed from the Miami-Dade area, where she'd done some “incredible” work with police agencies. Word had it that she was a psychometrist, that she took readings from the evidence in a case and imaged out possibilities and scenarios, which ordinary cops like Ben and Alex couldn't possibly be expected to do. Word had it that the woman was strikingly good-looking as well as “gifted” with a “sight and vision” beyond normal. Part of the word according to the cop-vine was certainly true: She was a strikingly beautiful woman with an olive tinge to her skin, full red lips and penetrating eyes, her smooth complexion and shoulder-length hair enticing.
Yes, the word was right about her features; she was a good-looking woman, as was Dr. Coran, who continued to kneel over the body, her gloved hands busily working, her black case beside her. Coran certainly looked to be a lot more in control than Wardlaw had ever been on any of the Hearts cases. Coran was taking little pieces of the victim and putting them in tubes and vials and below glass on slides; she was cutting nails and hair samples, taking scraps of flesh from here and there.
Alex watched her work over the corpse. The pier had long since come to life. Fishing boats went by in convoys, the deckhands curiously staring as each boat headed for open sea. In the distance, birds sent up a screeching racket as they followed the shrimpers. All around the death scene were signs of humming, buzzing life as cars sped across the big bridge overhead, and squealing children-like birds at play-scrambled after one another between their parents' legs amid an anxious, restless crowd waiting to board the ferryboats, some of the families now leaving for a less dubious adventure, thus causing consternation among the boat personnel, who'd pleaded with officials earlier to hasten their cleanup before the crowds arrived. But all had remained intact for Jessica Coran and for Kim Desinor's plane to touch down clear across the city.
But there was also around the crime scene an aura of ancient bloodletting, the people on the bridge and at the yellow tape line ever the Roman spectators, crying for more intensity and shock and gut-wrenching horror so they could investigate death in all its guises from the safe distance of the armchair enthusiast. Add to this the
