shots being shown of the cleaned opening for autopsy. No one had expected this precise an incision. A good portion of the agents in the room had looked for a messy, cracked skull with a huge chasm atop the cranium, the results of a brutal attack from overhead. Most had expected to see the results of a killer's having ripped and torn apart the crown in a passionate, insatiable animal fashion to get at the brain below. As Jessica, J.T. and the unit had learned the night before-and the reason she'd gotten no sleep-nothing could be further from the truth.
Instead, what stared back at the assembled agents was a huge dark cavity where the victim's forehead and forebrain ought to be. The empty open skull was proof of a dispassionate, deliberate animal at work, a thinking animal.
“ And then in Winston-Salem-” continued Eriq, swallowing hard as another mechanical pulop signaled a new slide had rotated into the viewfinder and was now projected against the screening wall. It proved a slide of such similarity that many took it to be the same victim now held in time against the large screen, her eyes mercifully closed, looking for all the world to be in an angelic repose if not for the satanic wound above the eyes-a rearview- mirror-sized hole in the head.
For a moment, even Jessica, where she turned in her seat to look over her shoulder, thought it the same victim, Anna Gleason. But no, this slide showed Miriam McCloud, victim number two. The ages were close and there were striking physical similarities in the two women; but it was the sameness of their wounds, like a fulcrum for the eyes, that drew the most attention.
The deaths had occurred within days of each other, and the authorities in North Carolina did not immediately know of the earlier such slaying in Richmond, Virginia. As a result, the two autopsies were done independent of the other. Only later did someone put the two cases together when a routine program on an FBI computer flagged them as being the same MO. Jessica knew when or if a third such body surfaced that she and J.T. wanted to autopsy the body themselves. Reading the entire case files on the first and second victims, viewing the autopsy photos and speaking with the doctors who had performed the autopsies, had all been heif^^ fill, but Jessica knew it was no substitute for firsthand knowledge.
Still, with the autopsy results in hand, she had spent many hours attempting to understand what kind of mind could conceive of such a crime. Trying to find reason in a mad hatter's reasoning. The two questions on everyone's mind remained: What is he doing with the brain matter; and why is he performing these deadly operations?
Behavioral psychologists in the Behavioral Science Unit working to profile the killer kept coming back to a simple case of brain cannibalism. She recalled the words of Dr. Linda Pearlman, a member of the team: “Everyone wants a ready answer to what the madman is doing with the gray matter. Everyone feels it must be for consumption, that this craving is an appetite for cranial matter. For now, since we reilly know nothing to the contrary, we're best served by simply agreeing with the common notion… at least until we learn otherwise.”
“ What does he hope to get from consuming the brains, if that is what he's doing with them?” J.T. asked Pearlman, who sat beside him.
Jessica stated, “For all we know, given what we see on the streets nowadays, he could be using them as dashboard ornaments.” “Throughout history, all cannibalistic tribes removed the heart and the brains of an enemy,” Pearlman replied, her glasses shimmering on the end of her nose.
“ But this guy's just into the brain.”
Pearlman put her glasses on the table, rubbed her eyes and added, “Cannibals fed on the heart, believing it the seat of courage, and the brain for its wisdom and power as a force within the fierce enemy derived from a divine source. In consuming these parts, the heart-eater and the brain-eater believes he can take oh the courage and wisdom of a fierce enemy and see into the invisible universal energy of a psychic cosmic mind that binds all matter as one.”
“ Here I always thought the cannibal saw the consumption of such parts as a gesture to affirm the life of the enemy, giving him renewed life inside the victor's own body and mind,” said J.T.
“ That's the common thinking.”
“ I know it's primitive thinking, but given our collective unconscious-that the memories of our eldest ancestors still reside in our genetic makeup)-well, it has a certain passionate power to it, doesn't it?” asked Jessica. “Kind of a quid pro quo?”
“ You could say that, yes. The two reasons do not necessarily negate one another-search for the universal mind and granting respect to one's enemies, or victims in this
“ A tough sell to the crowd,” said J.T.
Jessica believed that to put forth a formal stand on the killer's rationale so early in the investigation could harm the case more than help. Still, she had to convey to the assembled agents the majority opinion, and everyone had conceded that Dr. Pearlman's had made more sense than any of the other theories that had been put forth.
The open void of the massive but clearly surgical wound to Miriam McCloud's head had now brought on a deep silence that filled the room. All the agents present pondered the image and their individual response to it.
Santiva finally broke the silence. “I can't tell you how dangerous this… this brain-hunter is, people. And he is working Richmond, our backyard. We have to stop him before he strikes again, if he hasn't already done so. Both victims we know of were dumped in poorly secured watery graves, and found less than forty-eight hours after they were killed.”
“ This is so… so gross.” Someone moaned in response to the slide. Santiva meant to shock his audience.
“ Dr. Coran and Dr. Thorpe will fill you in on what we have so far,” said Santiva.
J.T. took the lead, championing Dr. Pearlman's notion for why the killer “stole and presumably consumed the quote 'enemy,' victim that is.”
Jessica took her cue from J.T. She pushed her seat back and stood to add, “What we have so far, unfortunately, amounts to very little since the offender has been extremely careful to leave no trace of himself. Now as to the incision, and what it tells us about our man.. This maniac literally carved out a major surgical incision from the scalp, beginning direct center of the scalp or fore crown, here.”
She used a light pointer against the picture of Miriam McCloud's remains, still up on the screen wall, to indicate where the incision began. As she did so, she noticed a strange marred area on the screen wall, and mentally noted that someone ought to get the screen surface fixed or replaced, since it was a so-called high-tech solution to using a pull-down screen-the wall itself had been treated with a finish made for perfect screening of videos and slides. The marred area in this slide was directly inside the dark hole at the victim's forehead, so it hardly showed. Jessica ignored it and continued. “The killer did leave a little something for us to decipher.”
J.T. picked it up, adding, “This guy operates like a surgeon. He clears the area where he cuts off any hair, shaving back the scalp and temple areas as well as the eyebrows.” J.T.'s light pointer followed his discussion of the giant missing cranial area, all round the wound. “It's the way he works, ladies and gentlemen, that tells us something about him.”
“ Chemical analysis tells us these red flecks are residue of red marker,” added Jessica, pointing with her laser light to the faint red dots showing up like mini-bloodstains along the cut lines of the bone.
“ And from the depth on the right and left sides of his lines-assuming the killer and not an accomplice made the lines-we can hazard a guess that the killer is left-handed or ambidextrous.”
“ How did you get that?” asked a young agent.
“ Handwriting analysis tells us that the more pressure applied along a constant line from left to right indicates this, rather than the other way around. Perhaps more important, after marking the incision lines, he next sliced into the flesh in the exact same order, side to side from the midpoint to each ear. The pressure again tells us something.” She demonstrated with her laser beam. “Along the crown, then the lower trapdoor cuts, as we M.E.'s call them, from each ear and back to center, ending right between and above the eyes. This creates a kind of door at the forehead and crown, from which the brain is lifted. And again, indications show a left-handed person at work, even our computers blessed this much.”
“ What kind of blade did he use?” asked an agent at the rear.
“ He begins with a scalpel of the type we use in autopsies,” interjected J.T. “The scalpel cuts also indicate a tendency toward more depth on the left side. Then he followed with a bone cutter, a small but powerful circular saw of the sort we use in the autopsy room every day.”
“ Wouldn't that… don't those things make a hell of a noise?”
