Just how Chief Inspector Boulte knew remained a mystery, but Jessica suspected Erin Culbertson. Damn her.
Jessica nodded, taking the podium, and after saying good afternoon to some sixty or so assembled inspectors, she listed the likely characteristics of the killer again, adding, “We, first of all, we believe to be a they-at least two men. They have a religious fixation, an obsession with the crucifixion, likely find replicas and paintings of it everywhere they spend time. They will likely lead exemplary lives, purporting to be model citizens, even religious experts or leaders among their acquaintances. They will likely be in their mid-twenties to upper-thirties, and are most likely white men. They will be married, working steady jobs, likely lower-income, blue-collar, raising families and/or caring for aged parents, all the duties of sons, fatherhood, and husbands part of their facade, and part of the pressure they live under. We've also developed some threads of connection among the victims. The victims are middle-class for the most part, white-one reason we suspect the killers to be white. Each victim led a life generally uneventful, devoted to an effort at finding peace and comfort in organized religion and within themselves. They had little else in common save religious devotion. This doesn't tell us much, but it does suggest that they may have met their attackers in their quest for religious answers.”
A characteristically wry Falstaff-looking British detective interjected, “Not exactly lookin' for love in all the wrong places. But perhaps looking for God in all the wrong places? Heh, Doctor?”
“You could put it that way, yes.” Her smile relaxed.
“So, we seek out any and all bizarre-o cults in London? That's a gargantuan task in itself,” said one inspector.
“Take us till bloody doomsday,” added another. Jessica went on the defensive, her tone firm, saying, “Actually, sometimes, if a law-enforcement official shows up at the doorstep of a guilty person, he automatically confesses and asks, 'Why'd it take you so long? I've been waiting for you.' “ After the meeting, Boulte said to Jessica, “A news conference is set to go. I'd like you to be beside me when I inform the press of our most recent findings.”
Near her wit's end, Jessica exploded, “My God, Chief! Another meeting?”
“Meet the press time, Doctor,” came his simple response.
“You don't intend to give them the details surrounding the tongue brandings, do you?”
“That bit of news may shake someone from apathy, may open someone's mind to the possibility of a neighbor's strange habits and lifestyle.”
“It could also jeopardize a conviction, if and when the killer's apprehended. We need to keep some information in-house.”
“We owe it to the public to be open and honest with them at this point, and… well…”
“And that's the image you wish to portray, but that information isn't news! It must be withheld. It could prove invaluable as a tool in interrogating viable suspects later, and it can certainly rule a suspect out quickly, if skillfully used to-”
“We need to tell the press something now, today, and it has to be something new, Dr. Coran, and it has to be concrete evidence.”
“I see. Then no amount of persuasion on my part will change the course you've chosen.”
“No, it will not.”
Jessica followed alongside Boulte, Sharpe, and Copperwaite to the news conference. Surprisingly, Stuart Copperwaite appeared animated over the prospect of cameras and microphones pushed into his face. She chalked his enthusiasm up to his youth, his inexperience with the press. He'd soon enough learn the pitfalls of dealing with the “free press.” Sharpe, by comparison, appeared sullen, perhaps angry. She wondered if he and Boulte had already had it out over this matter. The two men, obviously, were not speaking to one another at the moment.
Suddenly Richard said to Boulte, “This is shoddy police work, sir, and I choose not to participate in your little circus.” Sharpe stormed off to Boulte's, “You come back here, Inspector, right this moment, or I will be forced to take sanctions against you for insubordination. You force me to remove you from the case and it will be on your head, Richard! Richard!”
“Do that!” Sharpe shouted over his shoulder.
“Damn that fellow,” bellowed Boulte at Copperwaite. “You'll have to buck up, Stuart. You are, for the moment, the lead investigator on the case of the century.”
Copperwaite blanched and didn't smile, but he almost saluted and he might have clicked his heels, Jessica thought. “I shall do my level best, sir.”
A far cry from his back-stabbing comments of only a few days ago, Jessica thought. Now Copperwaite's lapping at Paul Boulte's boots. She momentarily wondered if Sharpe had been given Copperwaite to mold and fashion for some insidious purpose such as his keeping a close eye on Sharpe's activities. It fleeted past like a shy shadow, but the intuitive feeling certainly sat squarely before Jessica now that Boulte nodded appreciatively at his junior inspector and said, “I knew I could count on you, Coppers.”
Copperwaite's lips pursed in an unassuming smile, while his eyes sought out Jessica, sending a silent and unspoken message that clearly read: What else am I to do? Storm off like a child, like Richard? What will that accomplish?
Copperwaite read nothing in Jessica's return gaze. She allowed nothing to be transmitted. Still, the coldness of her gaze, the neutrality of it, brought about a painted smile that flit birdlike across Stuart's countenance, gone almost as suddenly as it had come. As the press conference began, a pencil-thin, sharp-edged woman calling herself the new public prosecutor promised the usual political improbables. But Boulte worked the center ring with Copperwaite to one side of him, Jessica to the other. Since her way to London had been paid for by Boulte's department, she felt she must do as the man requested of her. But she volunteered nothing. Reporters had to pry the new forensic evidence from her with one leading question after another. Jessica finally and reluctantly told the press about the branding of the tongues, only at Boulte's insistence. However, the exact wording was withheld and would be kept internal so that investigators could know when a suspect is viable or simply a crackpot wishing to confess to the crime.
Boulte seethed, his gaze piercing hers, for she said it in such a way as to make it sound like Boulte's order. Then in the sea of faces before them, Jessica saw the reporter who'd questioned her at the York. She glared at Erin Culbertson, wishing to stake the reporter to a cross even as the other woman asked Jessica a pointed question. “Are you and Richard Sharpe”… hesitation, pause… “Are you in agreement on the question of whether the Crucifier is one killer or two?”
“We suspect there are at least two men doing the killing, yes.”
“Have you any idea why they crucify their victims?”
“We fear it is a religious fixation, a zealotry, possibly an attempt to reawaken in the general public an awareness of Christ, the cross, God's word, all that, but we are only speculating. It's difficult enough to climb into the head of one killer, much less two at once. But, yes, there does seem to be a pair-mentality at work, and some of the physical requirements of actually spiking someone to a cross might well require at least four strong hands.”
“Thank you all for coming,” said Boulte, bringing the press conference to a close. Jessica stepped behind a curtain, out of sight of the cameras and reporters, but she watched from her vantage point to see what, if any, contact Culbertson made with Boulte. To her surprise, there appeared none whatever.
Jessica felt good about having kept the exact wording of the killer's message and the coal dust and beetle long shot to herself. No one but she and Dr. Raehael knew of its possible significance. She secretly seethed now, knowing that the information on the tongue branding, and most likely the precise wording, would soon become newsprint fodder, plastered across every television in the city. Like America, the press in England, inadvertently or otherwise, made antiheroes of serial killers. The Crucifiers would make great copy for many days, possibly many months, to come. Even if caught, their story would continue through pre-and post-trial footage, and these psychos would be held up as “criminal geniuses” for young people to “worship” when in fact they were anything but.
Jessica saw that the Culbertson woman had remained behind, fixing her makeup, combing out her hair, preparing it seemed for the next interview, the next story. On a dare to herself, Jessica stepped from behind the curtain to confront the woman. Moments before Erin Culbertson was about to step away, Jessica intercepted her and asked, “Can I have a private moment with you. Miss Culbertson?”
“Absolutely, Dr. Coran. You're the hottest topic in London today. What can I do for you?”
“You can tell me what's transpired between you and Chief Boulte.”
“Whatever are you talking about?”
