long.”Jessica shook her head, knowing this to be true. She then told the reporter what she could of the autopsy on the latest Jane Doe.
“The one found in the Serpentine?”
“That's the one, yes.”
“Number four. Oddly close to where Richard Sharpe once lived.”
“Right.” Jessica didn't so much as blink, but she wondered how on Earth this woman had gotten that piece of information. A closer look revealed that Culbertson had a sort of elegant panache about her and that she was, in Jessica's estimation, a pretty brunette. Since Richard had said that they had been close friends at one time, intimating that they had slept together, Culbertson likely knew about where his ex-wife and children lived.
“What do you think is the significance of the words found on the tongue?”
“Some sort of cult ritual? Part of the process of crucifying the victim, sending them over to the other side… properly armed, symbolically speaking.”
“Her name's been discovered, you know. She had a name.”
“You know her name?”
“I told you, I'm a reporter, and I'm damned good at it. “
“Apparently.”
“She was a thirty-nine-year-old, a Marion Woodard, looked a good deal older. Must have had a rough life of it. A paralegal secretary at Hass, Stodder, and Weiland, a law firm on Fleet Street.”
Jessica silently mused and she said to Culbertson, “Victim's age is far younger than the previous three. What does that tell us?”
“That your killer does not discriminate on the basis of age?”
“Frankly, I prefer to not know their names and ages, the number of children they left behind, their favorite hobbies, interests, or restaurants until I'm done with the autopsy.”
“Really? I should think the more information you have on a subject-”
“Corpse, not subject. You reporters do interesting things with words. You hounded Lady Di until she was Lady Dead. Then the same people who lusted after this image you all created of a rebellious whore suddenly in death became Snow White. So she lived a lie created for her by the press and the public, and she died a lie created for her by the press and the public.”
“I see. Well, you do have a low opinion of the press.”
“Not everyone in the press, but yes, generally speaking, there are few people in the press who have my respect.”
“So, you didn't answer my question. The information on the victim?”
“Knowing too much, too soon, can make me less than effective in my work.”
“Clinical objectivity, you mean?”
“Precisely.”
“But isn't that alone sort of working blind?”
“I must remain objective in doing my job, which is to examine the body for signs of trauma. Later, some information about the dead person or his past may be relevant.” She thought of Tattoo Man back in the States. A corpse without any background, a good example of the need for information on the deceased's life. The reporter knew the answer to her question before she asked it. She wondered why Culbertson felt it necessary to beat about the bush. “What the forensic team does is to take a step-by-step approach, leaving nothing to chance,” Jessica finally said.
“You do have a clinical air about you,” Culbertson sharply countered. “Sorry, didn't mean that the way it came out.”
The hell you didn't, Jessica thought. She knew when she was being sized up, and when someone had a hidden agenda. She guessed that Culbertson's agenda must be at least as personal as it was professional. Had she come to cash in on Jessica's reputation? To get a story she could sell to the tabloids? Was she mining for dirt? Jessica thought of Richard, and how vulnerable he might be to such a predator as the one sitting across from her right now. “Look, it's been a long and fatiguing day. If you don't mind, and if you've got your questions answered-”
“One more, and I'll be gone, I promise.”
“All right.”
“Has the old priest, Luc Sante, been of any help to the investigation? I've read where he has helped solve cases for the Yard in the past. I've been thinking of doing a straight profile on the man.”
“That's a wonderful idea, and yes, he has provided invaluable insights into the thinking of the killer or killers through both his meetings with us and through his book.”
“Killers? Do you think there are more than one?” It's fairly obvious that this is a likely scenario, yes.”
“Do you mind if I report this?”
“And if I said I did? Would it stop you?”
“No.” She smiled when she said it.
They parted with Jessica urging the reporter to do a piece on Luc Sante and his book. It would do wonders for the old man's ego, she thought, and it might divert the hungry young reporter away from herself, and so away from Richard.
A momentary scenario of Richard in a British courtroom defending his right to visit his daughters burned across her mind like a match being struck. Jessica stared after the young reporter whose hips swayed like a ship at sea as she stepped through the revolving door exit in the lobby of the York.
Dr. Raehael, his eyeglasses being used as a battering ram, held out the report he had made on Burton's corpse and said, “You were right, Dr. Coran.” He spoke loud enough for the entire room to hear, but primarily, she surmised, for Dr. Schuller's benefit.
Jessica now stared in earnest at the results of the tests Dr. Raehael had rushed through on Burton's health prior to his death. In bold, Dr. Raehael wrote: Colon cancer had eaten away most of the man's intestines and stomach. If he hadn't died as he had, he would be dead within days.
“How could his doctors not have known?”
“He went to Switzerland for diagnosis, to keep it hush-hush.”
“I see. And no one knew of his condition?”
“No one, not even his shrink.”
“His shrink?”
“A Dr. Kahili, works not far from here. Police questioned him, but he refused to divulge anything about Burton, invoked doctor-patient privilege.”
“Kahili?”
“Iranian.”
“I wonder if Luc Sante would know of him.”
“Possibly. You might ask.”
“Thanks for the workup, Dr. Raehael.”
“Here also are my findings on the Woodard woman. Par-tide and fiber evidence, but nothing strikes me as particularly useful, I'm afraid.”
Raehael handed Jessica the lab work on Marion Woodard, and answered a call from Schuller who, apparently, had begun working his own angle on the case and isolating himself from Jessica. Schuller appeared none too pleased with his little Egyptian assistant, and the two men muttered some angry words between them before Raehael returned to his own corner of the busy lab where men and women in lab coats worked investigations other than the Crucifier case. In fact, the place appeared as busy, noisy, and buzzing as her Quantico, Virginia, lab back home.
Jessica found an unoccupied seat next to a microscope. She sat and leisurely looked over Raehael's findings on Burton, imagining the pain the man must have been in, and how the pain of the crucifixion death might mask this death from within, just as the gross scars and obviousness of the crucifixion murder had masked Burton's condition on the autopsy slab from Drs. Schuller and Raehael.
Jessica then began to look over the Woodard report Raehael had handed her. More of the same. No fingerprint evidence whatsoever. Brevital in the system. All particle and minutia from hair to carpet fibers creating a long list of useless information. But then she saw one unique item in postmortem number four, causing her to sit up
