fingertips.
Lincoln mouthed the words written across the palm of the severed hand. 'Sad business…terribly sad,' he muttered.
'Handwriting on hand…printing actually, doesn't appear the same as on package,' Chang said.
'I suspect the victim was in the habit of writing messages to herself on her hand. Lot of people do it,' said Meredyth, who now had a chance to examine the awful contents of the third ugly parcel.
Lincoln straightened up with a mild groan. He ordered everyone's silence on the incident, knowing it would be the precinct buzz before midnight and leaked to the press before dawn. 'Chang, I know this is already first priority in your lab,' continued Captain Lincoln, pacing, 'but anything…anything more you can do to speed up our evidence- gathering and knowledge of this SOB will be appreciated.'
'We're doing all we can to expedite matters, Captain, I can assure you,' replied Chang.
'I'm sure you are. Keep me posted.' Lincoln took Lucas aside, escorting him to his car, out of earshot of the others. 'Do you have any inkling as to who might be behind this, Lucas? Are any of your loony street connections or snitches telling you anything? Any word from anyone fresh off the reservation? Didn't you have some enemies on theres? Wasn't there a thing between you and a woman there that got messy?'
'That was my cousin's wife, Tsali, and it hasn't a thing to do with this, no.'
'Any connection possibly to Zachary Roundpoint?'
'Sir, I can assure you there is none whatsoever.'
'Then you do admit to knowing Roundpoint well enough to know he has nothing to do with this shit?'
'IAD's cleared me of all those charges, Captain. You got the report. I do not have any personal relationship with Roundpoint or anyone in his organization.'
'But FBI approached you and suggested you help them to infiltrate Roundpoint's operation, to wear a wire.'
'I turned 'em down. I got no juice with Roundpoint.'
'All right…all right, don't get testy. I'm just throwing out ideas here, brainstorming. When you brainstorm a case, no idea is too radical for consideration. Nothing personal, and when and if the Feds start up anything with you, Detective, remember, you're under my command, and I stand by men under my command. Kee-mo- sabe?'
Lucas could feel his jaw tighten. He had a good idea where Lincoln would be standing if and when a federal grand jury were convened and Lucas were called to point a finger at Zach Roundpoint, one lone lieutenant of Native American descent against the power of the U.S. Government. An old story, Lucas told himself.
Lucas told his captain, 'Meredyth and I suspect that whoever's behind these foul mailings will be someone we have a history with.'
'Both of you?'
'Yes, both of us. It'll be someone we may've put away, or a relative of someone we put away. Remember the vengeance Jimmy Lee Purdy took out on Judge DeCampe after his death? Through the twisted thinking of his deranged father?'
Lincoln breathed deeply of the stale parking lot air and fumes, considering the horror of the case that had brought Lucas Stonecoat so much federal attention, the case of an abducted and cruelly tortured appellate court judge and personal friend of Lincoln's. Maureen DeCampe had been abducted in a municipal underground parking lot, not unlike this one, forced into a coffin, and transported across the country to a deserted farmhouse. The sentence against her was carried out by a maniacal old man thinking himself a prophet of God or some such nonsense. Isaiah Purdy, hearing his executed son's voice in his head, believing his son to be God or God's angel, had followed Jimmy Lee's orders to fulfill his last request. Isaiah lashed her to his son's decayed body, holding her hostage to a slow death for a week before Lucas and Meredyth had helped to discover her and put an end to her misery. The old man's plan was to kill her via rotting her flesh as it came into contact with the rotting flesh of his dead son. The poor woman still had lingering psychological scars. Cooperating with the FBI, Lucas and Meredyth had helped save the judge's life. However, Lucas had come under suspicion by the Feds himself when they targeted Roundpoint for a series of killings in North Dakota, all related to a hate crime involving a young Native American. Someone had seen to it that the boy's killers met their end when federal prosecutors announced they hadn't enough evidence on anyone to bring charges.
'Canvas the old cases you've worked together,' said Lincoln now. 'Beyond that, shake loose the talk on the street. Somebody somewhere has to know something.'
'Currently, we're working up a victim profile, awaiting more information from our dental forensics man, Davies.'
'Yeah, the teeth…good idea…good work.'
'Narrowed down three recently reported cases of missing persons who fit Chang's assessment of the age range, size, and weight estimates.'
Lincoln climbed back into his car, waved Lucas off, and drove up the ramp and out of the garage. Lucas's eyes followed his car until it was out of sight. He and Lincoln hadn't always been in agreement; they had had their battles. Still, the captain was genuinely concerned about the awful thing happening to him and to Meredyth.
Lucas returned to Meredyth, and he saw that Chang was through with the evidence-gathering and photo- taking at the secondary crime scene. In the back of everyone's mind was the question of the primary crime scene or scenes, where the killer had first abducted his victim, and where he had chopped her into multiple pieces.
'Come with me,' Chang told Nielsen, 'and we'll get a closer look at that.'
'At what?' asked Lucas.
'Dr. Nielsen asks a good question. She wonders how the hand can look so fresh if the victim is the same. It has been twenty-four hours difference and still not a single spot of decay.'
'What does that suggest?'
'I suspect under the electron microscope, we will find ice crystals beneath the skin.'
'So he's keeping the body in a freezer now?' asked Lucas.
'That would be my guess.'
'We found a cloth fiber and hair inside the box too,' said Nielsen.
'The fiber and hair are likely the victim's, but we could get lucky…they may belong to our killer,' Chang added.
Lucas thanked the two M.E.'s for their extra effort on the case, and then he took Meredyth aside. 'I'm taking you home now, Meredyth. No arguments.'
'I'd like that. Thank you, Lucas.'
Lucas escorted her to his car and opened her door, but she stopped, looked into his eyes, and began relating the story of exactly what had happened to her.
'Save it for the ride. Mere. Let's get out of this place.' She climbed in and he closed the door, came around the car, entered, and pulled out.
'Whoever this creep is, he came up from the garage to my office,' she said. 'He wanted to leave the package in my office. He was sneaking around up there when I heard a noise, and I stepped out to the outer office to investigate. From there, he beat it back down to the garage. Not seeing my car in the garage, he'd thought I wasn't in, so he'd brought the package up the elevator or stairwell with him to leave on my desk.'
'But he panicked.'
'I think so, yes.'
Lucas darted in and out of the traffic of the bustling city, listening attentively for the details while the lights, horns, sirens, and shouting of people bounced off the rolled-up windows. It had become darker still, a faintly chilly nip in the air, and the promise of rain had gone unrealized. 'Nice night for a desert drive. You want to get out of the city for a while, find the stars?' he asked.
'Damn it, Lucas, you're not hearing me. This guy has been watching my every move. He knows my habits. I wasn't supposed to be in the office this late.'
'All right, I hear you. We've got some sort of wacko stalker on our hands. But you need to get some respite from it. I'm not leaving you alone again until this bastard's caught, so where to? Your place or mine? I gotta warn you, though, that-'
'What were you saying about the desert stars?'
'I know a place where we can spread a blanket.'
