tomorrow. They couldn't fit me in any sooner,' she told him when she noticed Lucas staring at the marks on the plush gray pile. He watched her eyes roam the room to be certain nothing had been left inside by any well-meaning doorman.
'We made it,' he declared for her.
She tossed her purse and keys on a table and said, 'I gotta get a shower, wash away the stress. Want to join me?' she called out over her shoulder. Not waiting for an answer, Meredyth instantly went for her bedroom and shower, telling Lucas, 'If you're not coming in, at least make yourself a sandwich. Make yourself at home.'
'I need to make a call, okay?'
She was gone. He heard the spray of the shower like the dull cascade of a waterfall wafting down the corridor from her open bedroom door. Lucas called into the precinct, telling Kelton he and Dr. Sanger would be late arriving this morning, that she'd needed time to recuperate. 'And I'm not leaving her alone here, understood? Anyone desperately seeking either of us, we can be reached at her home number.'
'Good idea. She's been through hell. You've gotta get this creep, Lucas, and fast.'
'My sentiments exactly. Workin' on it.'
'You see the Chronicle?'
'Saw it.'
'Can't keep a story like that under wraps, Lieutenant. May as well try to keep a wolverine in a birdcage.'
Lucas grunted and asked, 'Put me through to the crime lab, Dr. Davies if he's available.'
Lucas waited to be patched through. 'Yes, this is Tom Davies.'
'Detective Stonecoat, Doctor.'
'Oh, good…glad you called. Saves me calling round for you and Dr. Sanger.'
'Then you have news one way or the other regarding the dental records and the teeth?'
'I do. We have a winner, a hit.'
Lucas's fist clenched in the gesture of victory. 'Great! Excellent.'
'Want to take a stab at which of the three matched?' Davies offered.
Lucas recalled the M.E.'s determination that the hand found with the writing on it indicated a left-handed victim. 'Mira Lourdes,' he guessed.
'Uncanny,' replied Davies. 'Someone told me you were psychic.'
'I had a lot of help on this one, Doc.'
Davies went on. 'The victim's teeth, an upper and lower, one bicuspid, the other a front tooth, matched perfectly with Lourdes's dental chart.'
'No doubts or margin of error here, Dr. Davies?'
'I've made nineteen comparison points on one tooth, fourteen on the other. Enough to hold up in any courtroom in the land.'
'That's good news. Doctor. You must have worked all night. Don't let anything happen to the evidence.'
'Not to worry. After hearing about what occurred in the garage last night, I felt it best to make short work of it, Detective.'
'Thanks again.'
'My pleasure. Hope we can end this nightmare for the two of you.'
'Mira Lourdes was a woman with a boyfriend who claims she disappeared when trying to sell her car. Claims she was abducted from her own driveway.'
'It has happened before,' Davies replied.
'Something screwy about the guy.'
'If you say so, Detective. You seem to have terrific instincts. Look, I'll have a copy of my full report on your desk by mid-morning. The original will go to Dr. Chang to accompany the mounting evidence against our man, whoever he is.'
'Yeah, now all we need is to answer the question of who would want Mira Lourdes dead and why.'
'And why the game with the body parts?'
'Someone who can tell us all about what only he and we know.'
'Chang says the hand was severed with a powerful rotary saw, exactly the sort used in an autopsy,' added Davies. 'Very odd game he is playing with you and Dr. Sanger, odd indeed. Well, I'm exhausted and am going home now.'
'Yeah, kind of tired myself. Think I'll go take a shower.'
'Good luck on tracking down this fiend, Detective.'
'Thanks, I'm doing my damnedest.'
Lucas hung up, deciding he could use that shower and some foreplay with Meredyth, and perhaps convince her that they should take the day off. He went toward the bed-room, stripping away his shirt and pants, going for the shower. Inside the bathroom, a steam cloud filled the space, billowing out at him and the adjacent bedroom. He stripped down completely now, dropping all his clothing and stepping into Meredyth's cloud, recalling her peyote dream of the other night.
When he opened the shower door and stepped through the cloud and into the cascading spray, he took her in his arms and kissed her, his long mane of hair blending with hers.
'Just what the hell're you doing?' she said in mock alarm.
'I've come to fulfill your dream.'
'We're not the least conceited now, are we, Lucas Stonecoat?'
'No, I mean, I am stepping into your cloud…like in your dream? Coming into your dream cloud.' He held his arms out to indicate the steam cloud around them.
She laughed. 'Oh, yeah…I get it, stepping into my cloud.'
'You see me now, don't you? That I belong in your cloud with you?'
'Perhaps clearly for the first time,' she replied, wrapping her glistening, soap-covered arms around him. She kissed Lucas, and he returned the kiss. She ran her fingers through his long hair, saying, 'Let me wash that long mane of yours, my Indian lover.'
Lucas turned his back to her and allowed her to do exactly that.
BY MID MORNING THEY were driving to downtown Houston and the precinct. On the trip, Lucas brought Meredyth up to date on Dr. Davies's findings, that they had an identity for the Jane Doe whose body parts some geeky- looking wacked-out maniac was sending to them piece by piece.
When Lucas told her the name of the victim, Meredyth repeated it, 'Mira Lourdes…Mira Lourdes…means nothing to me. What possible connection is there between us, Lucas? What do we know about her?'
Lucas told her all that they had learned of Mira Lourdes, and how she had supposedly disappeared. 'I suspect her abduction was random, that it had to do with her placing the ad, and inadvertently letting her guard down, placing herself in a vulnerable position by going with this couple seen by the neighbor, unless the boyfriend's story is a complete fabrication. I'm sure we'll be talking a great deal more to him if he doesn't lawyer up.'
They fell silent as the car whizzed past gas stations, fast-food restaurants, newsstands, parking garages, bus stops, churches, mosques, all reflecting off the windshield. 'Wonder what that chemical odor was that Stu smelled on the guy who delivered the package,' she said, breaking the silence.
'Anything from disinfectant to formaldehyde, I suppose,' replied Lucas. 'Points again to a medical type of some sort.'
'Do you really think we're dealing with some kind of medical Jack the Ripper?'
'The way the organs were sliced…the precision…the way her hand was severed so cleanly with a surgical saw. Not to mention the removal of the teeth, and the eyes intact. Yeah, I'd bet on it; our guy is a medical man.'
'Or a butcher, or a carpenter, or a barber. Hell, he could be anyone, Lucas! A lousy failed gynecologist or Navy chef, any moke with the right tools for plucking out eyes and pulling teeth and cleaving off a hand.'
'Whoever did this also opened up the chest cavity and removed internal organs. Mere. It requires some precision to make the cuts he left for me. Even Chang was impressed.'
'Impressed? Nothing this monster can do to us can ever impress me, Lucas.'
'Perhaps impressed is a poor choice of words.' They had arrived at the precinct when Lucas's cell rang out. He lifted it and immediately acknowledged Jana North's voice, unaware that this made Meredyth stiffen alongside
