FOURTEEN
Curious about evil since they had never known evil, the gods produced evil by interacting with mankind, usually a woman who was soon impregnated with a misfit child.
The following day in Portland
Jessica was awakened by a pounding on her door, but it turned out to be the adjoining room's door-Darwin, shouting something unintelligible on the other side. While she threw on her terry-cloth robe, she worked out in her head what she was hearing. Darwin continued shouting, “We've gotten a terrific break in our case, Jess. On the tube, now!”
She tore open the door and he barged past her, searching for her remote. Finding it, he snapped on the television set.
“What is it?” she asked, following him into her room. “Darwin?”
“Watch! CNN, MSNBC, Fox, they all have the breaking story, and it's going to blow that fucking smug Governor Hughes outta his pants. They gotta give Robert a reprieve now. They won't have a choice.”
Jessica sat on the very edge of her bed facing the TV screen as it filled with images of a police raid, a box crate the size of a small pool table confiscated, shots of a man in handcuffs, his long hair and clothing looking like that of a rock star. Jessica tried to put it all together, wondering what it had to do with their case.
“It's Chicago, and the guy they're snatching around and forcing into the squad car, that's Orion, Keith Orion. Seems an old girlfriend's corpse turned up.”
“You mean Orion pulled an Ira Einhorn?”
“Yeah, and in similar fashion. Crated up a murder victim-someone my team in Milwaukee believes we've heard about before.”
“My God, who?”
“Lucinda Wellingham.”
“The art gallery girl, the one who backed Orion's exhibit in Milwaukee? This could be our trump card to get your brother off death row.”
“Yeah, but it gets even better. Listen.” Darwin pointed to the tube, and her gaze followed.
CNN newswoman Paula Zahn was reporting.
“I thought Zahn went to night-time television,” Jessica said.
“She's back to daytime. Will you just listen?”
With a look of frightened consternation creasing her forehead, Paula Zahn read the TelePrompTer. “… following a breaking story out of Chicago… just in… just gruesome… something out of an Evan Kingsbury novel.” Zahn took a moment to compose and gather her assaulted sensibilities, obviously shaken. “In a bizarre and gruesome find, Chicago UPS workers, sorting mail at their Grace-Ravenswood-Lakeview facility, discovered a large, leaking container. With terror alerts still at orange, UPS management immediately notified officials, and the leaking container remained a mystery for the better part of the day as seven hundred eighty employees were evacuated and Chicago biohazard team and the EPA went in.” Coanchor Bill Zimmer cut in with, “After initial tests, chemists on hand at the UPS facility discovered the fluid staining the container and floor to be the result of human decomposition-fluids from a decaying body.”
“How could she be decaying so quickly,” asked Jessica, “if no one even knew she'd disappeared until now? Unless…”
“Yeah,” said Darwin, “unless. Keep listening, Jess.”
Paula Zahn, through gnashed teeth and frown, continued. “The crate was ordered opened, and within was found a nude young woman in mid-twenties who's back had been so completely splayed open that her killer had actually… Oh, dear God…”
Zimmer had to pick up the story from here. “The killer had actually removed the victim's entire backbone, which remains missing! Paula.”
Paula looked as if she wanted to storm off. Again Zimmer took up the slack. “Investigators suspect there might be a connection between this and three previous murders in three other states involving the taking of spinal columns- for what grisly purpose no one yet knows.”
Zahn finally recovered and turned to her coanchor and mock-gagged, repeating, “'Backbones'? A killer interested in backbones? Uggghhh… whatever for?”
“Well, Paula,” replied Zimmer, “police aren't saying for certain that they have the murderer in custody, but they do have what CNN sources are calling a person of interest in custody.”
Paula shook off any thoughts of hyperventilating and interjected, “And given UPS's penchant for a lot of paperwork, they strongly suspect the man to whom the box was being shipped, as Keith Orion is believed to have sent the crate to Chicago from Milwaukee-where he was having a showing of his artwork.”
Zimmer picked up the story there. “We're not likely to hear anything definite on the identity of the lady in the crate anytime soon from authorities, but there is rampant speculation at this hour as to her identity. Some saying that it is this woman.”
They flashed a photo of Lucinda Wellingham, smiling, bright, cheerful, eyes alive with excited enthusiasm. “We are told,” began Paula, “at this time that while police won't speculate on the identity of the victim, CNN has obtained a second photo for comparison.”
They flashed the second photo, this one a morgue mug shot of the victim. “Geez,” complained Jessica, “how do these parasites do it? How do they get photos from an M.E.'s office?”
“Big bucks change hands,” was all that Darwin replied, glued to the set.
Zahn continued speaking now. “Many speculate it may be Lucinda Wellingham” again they put up the vivacious photo of Lucinda, but this time side by side with the morgue shot. “Friends knew her as Lucy, and she was last seen in Orion's company at an opening in Hamilton Museum's Fine Arts Center in downtown Milwaukee. Eyewitnesses said the couple quarreled and got into a shouting match during the largest opening in Orion's career.”
Jack Cafferty, the third wheel on the show, piped up now off-camera, saying, “I thought we couldn't release the name of the victim until police have notified the next of kin.”
“That's easier said than done if you are so well known in the arts community,” replied Zimmer quickly and calmly.
“Just hope we can take the heat when her parents come at us with a lawsuit.” Cafferty's chuckle could be heard off camera.
Paula Zahn added, “Many in the art world in and around Milwaukee and Chicago will likely recognize her photo and we will soon have a positive ID.”
“We will keep you posted on this developing story,” added Zimmer moments before breaking for an Altoids commercial.
Darwin looked as if he might jump on the bed and bounce to the ceiling. “It's what we've been waiting for, Jess, a break in the case! Evidence the real killer is indeed still out there, still operating and not some copycat killer. Two such mutilations involving backbone theft in a matter of weeks in Milwaukee.”
“Certainly, it's gotta cut some ice with the governor.”
“Cut some ice? Wake up, Dr. Coran. Hell, it'll free Robert. Damn fine morning for Robert, this news.”
“Not so fine for the young victim.”
“We gotta call Chicago authorities and get the details.”
Paula Zahn's image came back on screen. Unaware she was on, she was saying again to Jack Cafferty, “Backbones? What the hell's he doing with the backbones?” Then she shivered as if something like rough sandpaper had scratched across her spine.
Cafferty indicated the camera was rolling, and he replied to her question, “He must've wanted to be certain she couldn't stand up and come back to haunt him maybe?”
