coal dust and mites alone.”
She tried to salvage something of it, saying, “In America, coal dust particles would have significantly different characteristics, helping pinpoint the killer's lair. Are you sure there might not be something worth-”
“No, forget about it, Doctor. Every city dweller in London has coal dust under his nails. It's miasmatic. It's endemic.” His tone was sarcastic.
“Making coal dust the most ready substance in the city,” added Raehael with a nearly imperceptible shrug to say he was sorry for Schuller's unprofessional outburst. What had seemed so clearly an enormous clue immediately took on the attitude and character of dust mites-so abundant as to be useless, unless this coal dust had some significantly distinguishable characteristics buried within, like those minute differences found in layers of dirt at an archaeological dig.
She put the coal dust particle results aside along with her pride. Another bloody dead end, Richard would call it.
She moved along, searching the results of fiber evidence, hair evidence, blood and serum tests. Everything came up identical to the previously murdered victims. The Crucifier had left no trace of himself behind. Gloves and caution, she surmised.
One of the few remaining clues as to the Crucifier's identity remained his use of the drug Brevital to control Marion Woodard and the three other victims. It showed up in the blood work, found in large enough quantity to have put her under for some time and certainly to have subdued her, making her helpless against the god-awful attack she had suffered.
Schuller then stepped away and disappeared down the hall, a lightness in his step that hadn't been there before.
“Bastard,” she muttered.
Frustrated, the police scientists at the Yard, along with Jessica, continued the entire day to sift through the minutia of evidence left by the Crucifier, with the result being about as large as the few clues left them. This being the state of the case, Jessica expected that at least Chief Inspector Boulte would feel good-or at least vindicated on his assessment of bringing the American Colonist in on the case. Vindicated to the degree that he had been wiser than Sharpe in the matter.
All the same, a nagging intuition, a kind of, forced her to ask Schuller, “Can we get this beetle that came with the coal dust carbon dated?”
“Carbon dated?” His wide, questioning, gray-blue eyes told the story of incredulity. “Do you have any idea the expense of time and man hours that will put us to?”
“Carbon dating is the only precise way to know the age of the specimen, the only exacting method to be precise.”
“To what bloody end, Doctor? Beetles abound in London, as I am sure they abound in America.”
“Humor me, Dr. Schuller. Suppose it came with the coal dust, and suppose it suggests-”
“Carbon dating a beetle found in Coibby's hair.”
“Don't forget, we found beetle leavings on all the others, in their nails, along with the wood fibers, and the wood fibers appear to be from some ancient structure.”
His tone clearly indicated the madness of such a time-consuming step. “That would be a waste of our time here. Regardless of what you and Sharpe and the others might think, there are other, ongoing cases that have to be dealt with here. Carbon dating trace elements of beetles, really.”
“G'damnit, Doctor,” she angrily retorted, “do you have the capability to carbon date here? Or do we farm it out, and if so, where are the bloody forms?” Jessica realized two truths even as she said it. One, she hated the pettiness of having to shout; and two, she'd managed to pick up something of a British accent during her short stay in London.
Schuller responded by pacing and then exploding, “I will not be ordered about within the confines of my own laboratory by anyone. Doctor. If you wish to pursue a blind alley in this matter, you will get no help from me!” He stormed out, leaving her to be stared at by all remaining in the lab, most of whom were uninvolved in the Crucifier case. Raehael came quickly over to her. “I will see to the dating of the material.”
“Carbon dating,” she insisted.
“I am aware what you wish, Doctor. But such tests, it will take time. Please, allow me to express apology for Dr. Schuller. He has been beneath great stress these many days.”
She assumed these many days meant since the Crucifier had gone to work in London. “Thank you, Dr. Raehael.” She could not read his black, inscrutable pupils. Like a pair of grapes, the seeds glimmered deep within.
“You see, Dr. Schuller's wife, she is in hospital. Not expected to live too much soon. You unders-stand?”
Jessica closed her eyes on the revelation. It explained a great deal of Schuller's behavior toward both her and others around him, and it certainly explained his absences and his short fuse.
“I'm sorry,” she told Raehael. “I had no idea.”
“He is a stoic man. How you Americans say, a man of stone outside only.”
She thanked Raehael for the information. He took the beetle debris and particles-so much smudge lying at the bottom of a small vial as to be near invisible. “I will personally see over this matter for you. Dr. Coran. And as well, I have DNA tests, which you may now like to see some result?”
She nearly gasped at the suggestion. “You have some results?”
He held up a DNA scan sheet that reflected back the overhead fluorescent lights, making the tiny black marks on the oversize slide, like an X ray of minutia, shimmer and dance about before her eyes.
“What have you learned?”
“I rule out my own self as secretor. I rule out the investigators next, you and Dr. Schuller, of course next, so this will take time. But this…” He shook the DNA strand that had been scanned and duplicated onto an acetate sheet, and it made a small thunder in response. “I believe we have DNA from heavy secretor, and intuition tell me it is from the killer. Take time to look is lesson you have taught me, Dr. Coran,” he said.
“I appreciate your kindness in saying so. If you don't mind, I'll also warn you not to smudge what you have there with your oily fingerprints.”
He smiled. “Yes. I am secretor, too, heavy.” She stared at the smudge of patterns on the acetate sheet now thrown up against a viewing light pedestal. She tempered her hope-against-hope feeling that they were actually, scientifically marking the footprints of the killer, that they had indeed come into his cursed wake. Still, they remained a long way from proof and providing that proof to a jury. She must remain cautious, careful.
“First, rule out the DNA of anyone and everyone who has come remotely near the body, including the ambulance people and anyone here in the lab, including Dr. Schuller.”
“He won't like it,” warned Raehael.
“He understands the protocol.”
“Heavy secretor,” he repeated. “Very most likely to be, in any case.”
They both knew that approximately eighty percent of the population secreted blood type indicators in their body fluids-saliva, semen, and perspiration. Not even soap and water could completely wash secretions away. A match could be made to the killer in all probability, if they ever made an arrest. Jessica recalled Martin Strand's having wiped his brow twice in her presence, but she swiftly dismissed this as any kind of evidence. Still, she wondered why she so easily and quickly put the words heavy secretor and Strand together. Luc Sante had dabbed his brow in his office, too. The place had felt stuffy and humid the entire time Jessica spent in the cathedral offices and corridors. The windows weren't exactly fashioned for AC units. For that matter, she had seen Sharpe and Copperwaite each break out in perspiration at the scene of the last murder. Secretions in perspiration were, in effect, everywhere.
“I will complete work of ruling out the investigators and doctors. Later, if we find some unusual markings, matches,” said Dr. Raehael, his clean-shaven chin in hand, “then all will depend on arrest. If we find a match, this man will be the Crucifier.”
Jessica watched Raehael's small, deft fingers nimbly place possibly the only single bit of evidence of the killer into its glassine slip. Raefael then found a home for it in a manila file folder and labeled it with the case number.
Jessica lifted the phone on the desk that had temporarily become hers, and she telephoned Quantico. While she had little to report, Chief Santiva had been leaving messages that he wanted to know any progress on the case.
