him. When he got off the phone, he told Meredyth, 'Jana's waiting for us in your office. Wants to discuss the case with us. Seems she's talked to Dr. Davies and has informed the family that Mira Lourdes is being chopped into little pieces and put into boxes and forwarded to you and me.'
'Jesus, Lucas, this thing's blowing up fast now, and we haven't a clue as to who is behind it. This is going to make us look like…like…'
'A couple of incompetents, I know. Shit! I can't believe Jana's done this.'
'Why not? From a Missing Persons departmental point of view, she's solved her case. Mira Lourdes has been located, so to speak.'
'Determined dead maybe, but Jana's got no corpus delecti.'
'Only bits and pieces of the corpse.'
'She damn sure could've waited on it, and given us more time.'
'So, you still think Byron's the unnamed source we need to worry about? Just tell me this, Lucas Stonecoat…'
He gnashed his teeth, readying for her attack. 'What?'
'Are you going to take Detective North to task?'
'Damn straight.'
She inwardly smiled. 'I want to see this.'
Detective Jana North was awaiting them both in Meredyth's office. She and Meredyth exchanged perfunctory hellos, knowing one another professionally. 'I've informed the parents and Mira's live-in, Dwayne Stokes, that we know Mira is dead and that parts of her are being sent to law-enforcement officials in a sick game of cat-and- mouse initiated by the killer.'
'Jeeze, Jana, that information's gone out to the family and that idiot Stokes? It's going to be all over the six o'clock news.'
'This is a Missing Persons case, Lucas. We have to keep the family informed. It's the way we work.'
'No Jana, it's a murder case, a homicide. That takes precedence over your jurisdiction, and you know that. You also know we don't work homicide that way.'
'Ease off, Lucas,' Meredyth said. She addressed Jana. 'God, it must've been extremely difficult breaking such news to the parents.' Meredyth felt a genuine guilt now, seeing that Jana was hurt by Lucas's words.
'They had to know, Lucas,' said Jana. 'Soon as I learned about the match made by Davies, I tried to find you. When I couldn't, I went over there to talk to the parents. I swore them to keep it confidential for now.'
'Can't imagine the shock of it for the parents,' Meredyth sympathetically added.
'But you didn't stop with the parents. You told Stokes what we have. Just wish you'd have held off, Jana.' The annoyance in Lucas's voice hung in the air. 'I would've liked to have seen Stokes's reaction.'
'All right, maybe I should've held off.'
'How'd Dwayne react to the news?'
'Devastated, as far as I could see.'
'He's hiding something.'
'He lost his legs and his breakfast. As far as the parents go, better they should get the news through us than hearing it on MSNBC or reading it in the Chronicle, and the way information's leaking from your precinct, Lucas, I think I did the right thing.'
'Regardless of Stokes's theatrics, Jana, I think we need to get him in here and grill his ass for all he's worth,' said Lucas. 'I think he knows more than he's telling.'
'I'm on top of it, Lucas.'
'How, Jana, are you on top of it?'
'He's in interrogation now, and has stuck tenaciously to his story. That she was abducted by a couple to whom she was showing the Saab.'
Meredyth piped in, saying, 'Whoa, it was my understanding that he never actually saw the couple, that he only heard about them.'
'Right.'
'Then how is he sticking to the story?'
Jana looked firmly in Meredyth's green eyes. 'Doctor, I meant he is sticking to his alibi-that he was at work at the taco stand in the mall where he is the night manager, and his multiple alibis are being checked. In the meantime, he's cooperated in helping us to get the neighbor to take a deposition as a witness through official contacts we've made in Jamaica. So both of you, ease off Jana, okay?'
Lucas and Meredyth exchanged a look and each apologized to Jana. Lucas then asked, 'What about the impounded Saab? Anything found there?'
Jana made herself comfortable, taking one of two chairs facing Meredyth's desk. Meredyth sat behind her desk, and Lucas took the seat beside Jana.
'A CSI team is going over the Saab. So far, they've found a stain on the front passenger side, the cloth seat. Nielsen says it's chloroform.'
'Chloroform, really?'
'Which explains how she was subdued,' said Meredyth.
'The abductor likely took her from behind while inside the car, from the rear seat,' explained Jana.
Lucas, nodding, added, 'Which suggest two perps at work here, one driving, one attacking.'
'All of which verifies Dwayne's story-or rather Mrs. Paulis's story.'
'Really? Then Stokes is off the hook?'
'Perhaps. Waiting for a call from Jamaica.'
'Still, good ol' Dwayne may've hired the couple that abducted and killed her.'
'Possibly,' she agreed, 'but as much as he hated the car, don't you think he would've paid them to take it as well?' asked Jana, smirking.
Lucas smiled wryly and nodded.
'Any case, he's agreed to a lie detector test. That's being arranged as we speak.'
'Any other news?'
'Well, you asked about the car. CSI did find strands of Mira's hair, and fibers from the cloth seat in the trunk, not unusual since it's her car, but it could indicate she spent some time locked away there.'
'Imagine the gall,' said Meredyth, picturing it as Lucas had described the circumstances surrounding Mira Lourdes's disappearance, 'leaving his own car at the scene of the abduction… taking Lourdes back to her own driveway…switching cars and switching Mira from the Saab to the car he arrived in… and finally driving off with her.'
'We need the woman in Jamaica to give a description of the guy's car,' said Lucas. 'Get what you can from her on it.'
'The bastard did it all with the passive assistance of the girlfriend or the wife, whoever she was-likely in great fear of him,' Meredyth added. 'So she assists in abducting a surrogate.'
'Surrogate?' asked Jana North.
'A stand-in for herself.'
'Stand-in for what?'
'A punching bag, a sex slave, a torture chamber victim, you name it. The wife or girlfriend tires of being these things that pleasure him, so together they strike up a plan to abduct someone to fill the role, so the wife-girlfriend can step out of that role of victim. Both partners are happy with the new arrangement. He gets a new sex partner to bully and torture, and she gets shed of his bullying and torturing.'
'Then her role in abducting and premeditated torture isn't so passive after all, is it?' asked Jana.
'No, not always, not entirely. If she sat in back while he drove, for instance, she attacked Mira and sent her into a defenseless unconsciousness.'
Lucas added, 'I've seen such domination of women myself. Meredyth could be right.'
The three sat for a moment in silence, contemplating the new developments.
Then Jana asked, 'Does the name Mira Lourdes mean anything at all to you, Dr. Sanger?'
'Nothing. A total blank.'
'We haven't found any connection between us and Lourdes,' Lucas assured Detective North.
