case.”
“ Surette is very possibly the first victim, Chief,” Landry explained again. “First victim, says who? Alex Sincebaugh? I still say Kenny Stimpson was the first.”
“ New evidence on the Surette homicide has recently surfaced,” began Landry. “We have reason to believe that the killings date back at least as far as Surette.”
“ New evidence has surfaced regarding the Surette death?” asked a surprised Stephens.
“ What kind of new evidence?” Meade pressed.
“ We'll know more after the exhumation,” Landry assured the other two men. “Suffice to say that Surette was known by the other victims.”
Stephens and Meade exchanged a look of surprise before Stephens replied, “You'd better have something a hell of a lot more compelling than the fact these fags knew one another, Carl.”
Captain Landry nodded, his large jaw firmly set, allowing his cocksure expression to do the talking for him.
“ I know what's going on here,” Meade said. “Landry here seems to think that his Detective Sincebaugh has some sixth sense about this case, don't you, Carl?”
“ I'll take Alex Sincebaugh's instincts and stack them against anyone you've got in your whole damned agency, Lew.”
“ It's on then. Let us know when and where, Carl,” Stephens declared with little enthusiasm for the idea.
Meade gave Stephens a menacing look, and Stephens fired back a volley of words in reply. “I have other reasons to see this through, at least to determine if there ever was a…connection. Lew.”
Kim knew that Stephens had been made curious over the Surette case due to what he'd seen her do in Virginia when he'd placed the Surette case in as a decoy, only to learn it was, in her professional opinion, related. She wondered why he had chosen the Surette case to use as a decoy when he'd visited Zanek's office in Quantico; had it been merely coincidental, or had there been motivating circumstances that she was unaware of?
Jessica Coran stepped between the men and said, “From what I've examined of the Surette case file, one which Dr. Wardlaw only reluctantly revealed to me, I had the immediate impression that there was a connection which Dr. Wardlaw at the time, for whatever reasons, chose to overlook.”
“ Overlook?” Stephens was incredulous.
“ The report claimed that the heart had been dug out by animals and taken off, that the body had been in the woods for weeks and was maggot-infested, but other, more easily accessible organs and parts of the body showed little to no sign of animal contact, only the extremities where rats, field mice and — perhaps raccoons had got at the decaying fingers, hands and toes. It seemed odd to me that only the heart was removed from the viscera. That runs counter to logic.”
“ Since when are animals logical?” asked Meade. “But even if you're right, why? Why would a respected M.E. of Wardlaw's obvious, ahhh, caliber…” Meade was cut short by Stephens, who jokingly told him that his final argument would lose his case.
“ Perhaps the idea that someone cannibalized the heart, or took it off for some other perverted pleasure, simply got the best of Dr. Wardlaw,” Jessica replied. “Or Wardlaw had other reasons not yet before us.”
Kim quickly added, “There's no accounting for what turns a normally functioning adult human being into a child filled with fright-psychologically speaking, that is. For some of us it's the touch of a spider's leg along the ankle, the sight of a snake, a maggot pool. For others it can be an odor associated with some long-ago hurt. Or a few words which conjure up a reproaching parental voice threatening us with God's divine punishment.”
“ What're you saying, that Frank Wardlaw's ready for the funny farm?” asked Meade.
“ No, no… not at all,” Kim replied. “I'm telling you that for some people…well, the very idea of… of, say for instance, a murder victim's hands being severed at the wrists becomes a torture to contemplate, much less work over, examine and touch. Such a terrible trauma came for a colleague of mine in Chicago once, and perhaps… just perhaps the idea of a man's heart being ripped from his chest might not put you into an emotional tug-of-war, Chief Meade, but it may've found some long-protected chinks in Dr. Wardlaw's armor, possibly placing him in an emotional upheaval which you and I only can guess at by comparison.”
“ Well,” began Jessica, “suffice it to say that Dr. Wardlaw obviously was in no state of mind to want to deal with what his eyes were telling him at the autopsy. Call it human error, frailty, emotional turmoil, oversight if you like.”
“ Bullshit. The man's a cutter himself,” said Meade, obviously impatient with the psychoanalysis of a friend.
Stephens stepped in. “Just do whatever's necessary, Dr. Coran, to get that exhumation order on this…what's his name…”
“ Surette,” added Landry a bit impatiently, knowing full well that Stephens knew of the suspicions that had cropped up around the Surette case.
“ You run into any goddamned problems or red tape, Doctor,” Fouintenac said directly to Jessica, his eyes blazing now, “and you just have the asshole who gets in your way give me a call, or you may call me yourself at this number.” He extended another expensive-looking embossed card.
“ Carte blanche? I like doing business with you, Mr. Deputy Mayor, Commissioner Stephens, Chief Meade.”
The mayor's man made a feeble attempt to impress Jessica further, looking as if he were on the verge of asking her to dinner when he instead said, “You'll find us all here in New Orleans most cooperative, Dr. Coran… Dr. Desinor. If the FBI's best can't hel'p us, then God he'p us all.”
“ Just keep those good wishes flowing our way, Mr. Fouintenac,” Jessica said for both Kim and herself.
“ Will do… will do, ladies…”
Kim saw that Jessica's tone was mild but that her aura was a pulsating flare and her eyes, boring into Kim now, were driving home spiked shards, projectiles of uncertainty. Something was nagging at the other woman, something like a shadow that crawled up from inside Jess and took up a position along the wall, camouflaging itself there, waiting with infinite patience to snatch her whenever she might be alone.
And she was clumsily, awkwardly seeking help from Kim, yet unable to negotiate the uncharted waters, having no practice at asking for help from anyone, especially from a psychic, thanks most likely to her upbringing. Jess worked heroically, tirelessly at being the professional that she was, but she was also working overtime at keeping the shadow at bay, but it climbed up out of her at times-even here-casting a pall over her eyes, and deep within those shadow-cast eyes lay the most fathomless and nameless emotions Kim had ever seen.
Kim suddenly grabbed Meade by the arm, saying, “Let's have a private word, Chief Meade, now!”
19
I hear it in the deep heart's core.
Meade followed Dr. Desinor's march through the heavy double doors and out into the two-tone yellow tunnel-a perverse twist on the road to Oz, leading as it did to the autopsy room. “I want to know just what the hell is going on, Lew.”
“ What're you talking about, Doctor?”
“ Hey, the mayor's guy, the P.C., you, a captain… who's next to take an active role in the case? The goddamn governor?''
“ As it happens, the governor has taken an interest in the case, as have two senators.”
“ Why? Is this going to be an election issue?”
“ I believe the governor's genuinely interested. I think it's the heart thing… just like what you said with Wardlaw before… simply got to him. I don't know. Maybe a lot of us are squeamish about the heart. All I know for
