you delving into here, a lonely-hearts-dot-com singles match website?'
'Missing Persons files, Mere. They're on-line now, and I'm trying to match what we know of the body parts to anyone on this list,' he said, pointing to the screen. 'Look at them, all sizes, shapes, ages-the missing souls of a nation.' He typed in Texas, narrowing the field. Houston and vicinity narrowed it. Finally, he called for a fifty-mile radius from downtown Houston. With each new request, the numbers of the missing dwindled, allowing more focus. When he narrowed his search by age, the files and corresponding photos came up fast and furiously. There were nine people missing. He then limited search parameters to only those missing in the last seventy-two hours.
Seven files and photos remained. Lucas had to click on the photo to go into each file.
Lucas began the process, taking each in alphabetical order, unsure what he was looking for beyond those beautiful sea-blue pupils he'd seen on Meredyth's carpet. 'We can rule out all but the blue-eyed missing,' he said, asking the computer to comply, and this narrowed the number to four. He then narrowed them to girls wearing corrective lenses. 'Catrina Purvis tells me whoever belongs to the eyes, she had a serious prescription with prisms.'
'Really? She's good.'
'Jane Doe was a four-eyes. Wore them everywhere.'
This latest entry narrowed his search to three remaining young women. Meredyth looked on with interest. The youngest MP was nineteen, a Helga Muncie, the oldest at twenty-eight, a woman named Mira Lourdes, and the third a girl of twenty-one named Irma Nance. 'Any one of them might have once carried those eyes and teeth in her head,' said Lucas. 'Or else none of them have any connection to the wayward eyes.'
'Oh, the wayward eye is a restless eye,' sang out Dave Casey as he passed by. 'Everybody's heard, Lucas, about your encounter last night.'
'That thrills me, Dave. How's the Conroe case going?'
'Plodding along.'
Lucas returned his gaze to the screen, staring at the photos of the three remaining possible victims, all of whom had disappeared without a trace. He tried to will himself to recognize the eyes. Helga's looked close, Mira's looked closer, and Irma's looked closest. Then, on a second go- round, they all looked closest. 'No way to tell from the photos. For one, the glasses they wear obscure the eyes.'
'Stare long enough and all you see are the eyes,' Meredyth muttered, still holding his shoulders.
He clicked on the photo of Helga Muncie, opening the first of the three files. 'This'11 take some time.'
She looked at her watch. 'I've got a group session upstairs I've got to be at, and then I've got to get uptown.' She looked around, saw no one else at the other desks in the room was watching, and pressed a kiss to the back of his neck. 'Let me hear from you if anything should click.'
'Will do, but it may take some fieldwork. Only so far a computer screen will take you.'
'Keep me apprised, will you?'
'Sure thing.' He patted her hand on his shoulder, but his eyes remained on the screen as he began reading the first file.
Lucas didn't recall seeing Meredyth leave, and he took each of the MP files in turn, studying them in order with an eye to eliminating his search further, but instead, he had to hold Helga's file in abeyance. Perhaps it had been Helga's eyes.
One by one, he read through the details of each story, the information supplied by family members, friends, coworkers about the missing person, nothing but shining accolades. No one in any of the three cases had the slightest notion how their loved one or friend could simply vanish, but in each case they had.
When he looked up again from the computer files, it was nearing two in the afternoon, and he hadn't eaten. His research had focused in on how much trouble each girl had with her eyes. Unfortunately, all three had serious sight problems and eyewear. Still, he felt good that he'd been able to narrow his search from hundreds to only these three.
Lucas again called Chang. 'I've narrowed my search from reported missing persons cases that might match the unusual circumstances of our case down to three, Leonard.'
'Fantastic.'
'From these three, I'm going to obtain dental records on each, and we'll get your pal Davies to see if any of them are a match with the teeth found at Meredyth's.' Dr. Thomas Phillip Davies, the forensic orthodontist Lucas referred to, had already extracted DNA from the teeth for Chang.
'Wonderful idea. Good work. I've already provided the teeth for Dr. Davies, so when time comes, let us know.'
'Thanks again.' Lucas hung up and then he called upstairs to Meredyth's office, hoping to catch her and update her on his progress, but he was informed that she'd left for her private practice and could be reached there in an hour. He decided to get a bite to eat and call her afterward.
He ran a hard copy of the three files he thought could be a match to the eyes and teeth. He'd spend the afternoon obtaining the dental records he required, knowing it would be tough to get these, as all three files indicated dental records had not been forwarded for any of them. He wondered how common an oversight this was in Missing Persons, and made a mental note to ask Jana North about this.
Now, unfortunately, it was left to him to locate first permission and then the actual dental records for each young woman. He must make the request via the next of kin, and had to impress upon them how urgent his need was. Such a request would trigger fears in family members, and since they didn't know him, they would be doubly wary, slowing him with questions, getting their hopes up, as well as arousing misgivings, old doubts, regrets, and fears. Dental records usually meant a match with a corpse if a match were to be made at all.
He knew at this stage he must involve Detective Jana North, Missing Persons. She had done most of the work of logging on all the MP files in the COMIT system. He knew her well and trusted her. She'd be an asset in going after the dental records of each of the girls Lucas proposed investigating. Certainly, she had far greater experience in dealing with anxiety-ridden, bereaved loved ones than most of the cops at the precinct put together. He rang her number.
'Have you had lunch yet?' he asked Detective North.
'Matter of fact I haven't, why?' replied Jana. 'What'd you have in mind?'
'I haven't eaten either, and I have some cases to go over with you. Meet me at Crazy Calories in ten minutes?'
'I've been seeing your turkey track on the COMIT-MP interface. Something cooking?'
'You found me out.'
'Has it to do with rumors I've been hearing about you and Dr. Sanger being targeted by a mad mailer sending packets of body parts?'
'You're well informed. Try to keep a secret around here.'
'Make it fifteen minutes and you're on. See you at Crazy's.'
Lucas strapped on his gun and put his Wellington overcoat on, going for the door. He called out to other detectives who manned Cold Case desks in the room that he was out for the day, 'Tracking leads,' he announced.
'Lucky SOB!' Casey shouted in response.
Lucas had looked in on Itchy Arnie Feldman that morning for any sign of foul play on his part, but if Arnie was involved, his poker face gave nothing away. Not the slightest twitch or snicker. Lucas had also dropped in on the M.E., Frank Patterson, and dropped a few hints about what had occurred at his and Sanger's apartments, but didn't find Patterson the least bit edgy or revealing anything in his body language. The cruel incident looked, as time had passed and the day wore on, to have no hoaxsters behind it after all.
Lucas walked the short way to the bistro, his insides screaming for a roast beef sandwich and a drink. In the back of his mind, he knew that the missing persons avenue, while a logical and methodical step to take, might net nothing. Still, he had no other lead at the moment.
He stepped off a curb and a car screeched to a halt inches from his legs. Lucas stared at the driver, his jaw clenched as the man in the car laid on his horn and cursed. The irate driver then leaped from the car, rage on his face as he came toward Lucas with a tire iron.
Lucas snatched out his badge in one hand, his Glock 9mm in the other, extending both to the charging bull's eyes. The beefy red-faced Texan stopped cold, gestured for clemency, backed to his door, climbed into his pickup truck, and roared off, leaving Lucas standing in the street.
