of Kim Desinor's wounds, photos taken by Dr. Shoate, which she had gotten copies of. “And these welts or bruises on Dr. Desinor? They're real?”
“ As real, I fear, as those on DeCampe.”
He breathed in deeply. “How long has the victim gone missing?”
'Two days, two nights now.”
“ How long since Desinor's first psychosomatic bruising?”
'Twenty-four hours later.”
“ Then perhaps she has twenty-four hours that DeCampe doesn't have, if she's running a day behind, so to speak.”
“ You think so?”
“ Something as bizarre as this? I am guessing at best. Sorry.”
She nodded, accepting this, sipping at her coffee. She felt a well of fear for Kim that filled her being.
“ And how long has Jimmy Lee Purdy's body been in his father's hands?”
“ Picked it up Sunday.”
“ Five days.”
“ He likely kept it on ice for as long as he could do so,” she said, adding, “Can you imagine a cop pulling him over and asking him what he's got in the rear?”
Fielding mused. Then he said, “For that matter, imagine pulling over in a highway oasis, and some old guy is replacing ice in the bottom of a coffin.”
“ If he kept it on ice until he reached D.C., and if the body decay on Purdy were forestalled as long as say the fourth or fifth day, and if she's been forced into contact with the decay for two days and two nights, what kind of estimate on her life span can you give me?”
“ So much depends on… on, well, on so much.”
“ What does that mean? I need some help here.”
“ It means, my dear Dr. Coran, that to determine what sort of clock you have to work with… well… given the dryness of the season in the D.C. area-you did say you suspect he is keeping her in the D.C. area, right?”
“
“ We've come to that conclusion, yes.”
“ Then, given conditions, and if she and the corpse to which she is lashed are being kept in an enclosed, confined space with a floor, that is one thing; atop soil is another, and we'd need to know the type of soil. Sorry, but this is all backward from our usual case. Our usual case involves-”
“ A dead body, I know, I know.”
“ After the fact of murder, yes.” He looked genuinely sorry at seeing her distress. For a moment, their eyes met. His eyes said he wanted to pull a miracle out of the hat for her but that he had none. “Evenings have been cool and dry as have been the days there, right? This will delay the process. If Jimmy Lee Purdy's body is not completely decomposed, as you suspect, she's got some time.”
“ How much time?” Jessica persisted.
“ Again, I don't know if she's been made wet, if she's been made to sweat, if she's in direct or indirect, prolonged or intermittent contact with the corpse-the decay, to be exact.”
“ What do you give her chances of being alive this time tomorrow?” Jessica pleaded. “Nil or nil?”
“ You're asking for an opinion I can't give.” He sat back in his chair and pushed off strands of thinning blond hair from his forehead. “We usually deal with fractures and gunshot wounds and insect activity here, not… What would you call this sort of murder? Induced decay? It's hard to contemplate how anyone could carry out such a sentence.”
“ A time, Doctor, a best guesstimate.”
“ Depends on if the old man wants to hasten it or not. If he cut her, for instance, at the areas of contact, it would hasten her gangrene, decay, and death. But if he wants it torturously slow, then he just lets the little microbes of decay do their own work. That would take more time, most certainly. If he's chosen the latter, then I give her maybe twenty-four hours more before the gangrene is likely to be irreversible. She may be helped to a clean bed and her braises helped by skin grafts, but if infected, gangrene works fast. It will kill her.”
“ We get the sense that this guy wants her to suffer over as long a period as he can make her suffer. It's about revenge.”
“ In that case… Yeah, I'd say then you have twenty-four, forty-eight hours tops.”
“ You can't be any more specific than that?”
'Too many variables. Is she getting water? Is she getting any nutrients? Has he tied her back-to-back, face- to-face, face-to-back? Has he placed her in the sun? The corpse's weight used against her? The level of putrefaction to begin with, yet another unknown. We're working with too many unknowns here.”
“ Then our time clock is forty-eight hours max.”
“ I believe so.”
Fielding blinked as he spoke and as he thought, with a wisp of light strands over a pale face. She had to admire the man. He had made his life's work the study of human decaying flesh in all its permutations and in every circumstance. He had been instrumental in creating the FBI's infamous Body Farm. And there was not a working M.E. in the country who had not benefited, directly or indirectly, knowingly or unknowingly, from the work of men like Bass and Fielding.
A body left for days in the sun, in the shade, in water, in sandy soil, in humus, inside the trunk of a car-they all showed different rates of decay. Fielding had been among the men who had catalogued these fine differences, and in effect had brought many fugitives to justice as a result However, the corpses used in the experiments- primarily prison inmates who had donated their bodies to the advancement of science while in no way knowing just how science would use them-had that fundamental difference from DeCampe. DeCampe was presumably lashed to Jimmy Lee Purdy's rotting corpse, but her flesh was alive, healthy, a vital heart pumping blood to every capillary. Her body would fight off the decay to some degree before eventually losing the battle. So Jessica had to know how much time she had left. Only a man of Fielding's experience might be able to give ho- a time line. The word deadline, she had avoided; it had taken on a whole new meaning in this case since she had met and spoken with Father Pinwaring.
Fielding now wanted to show her some insect data, larvae that hatched from one of his bodies out at the Body Farm, determining some special facts about the type of mite he was currently fascinated with. He mumbled something about larval sacs having a kind of beauty all their own.
“ Yeah, I expect they do, Dr. Fielding.”
“ Are you staying over long enough to have dinner?” he then asked. “I would love to take you to dinner.”
She realized now how hard he had been staring at her, and why. She did not interest him as much as his insect findings, but she did interest him. “No, I'll be going directly back. Time being so limited, you see.”
“ Of course. Maybe you'd like to return for another visit? Really get familiar with what we do here.”
“ Perhaps in the future.”
“ It does indeed sound like a most impossible case, an absolute horror. I certainly do not envy you your job, Dr. Coran.”
The man works nine to five studying decay in corpses, and he's pitying me, she glumly thought.
She stood to leave, and he insisted on walking her back to the waiting helicopter. “You know, all the variables that make it impossible for me to be precise on how long Maureen Decampe has to live could also be working in her favor, you realize?”
“ The nights of dry lightning, no rain, drought conditions, yes, they have worked in her favor, I'm sure.” Jessica knew that decay fed more rapidly in dampness.
“ But then a bam like you describe is in itself a micro- ecology,” countered Dr. Fielding, ushering her along the corridor and out into the light, “and it will be dimly lit, no sunshine, and little wind blowing through, if he's using it as a prison, a place to keep someone locked inside, and to keep others out.” Jessica nodded several times. “Then we must find her tonight.”
“ But you understand, this is all assuming she has had no respite from contact with the decaying corpse.”
“ What do you mean?”
“ If her captor is wishing to prolong her agony, he will feed her, give her water, drag it out.” Fielding gritted
