'Damn it, Lucas, I can't recall if there was an infant named Lauralie Blodgett or Lauralie Croombs as one of my first cases or not. But given the mounting coincidences, I'm assuming I did handle the case. It's got to be why I've been targeted by this maniac, and Lauralie has got to be at the center of it all. Maybe the Post-it Killer is her boyfriend; maybe he has made promises to her.'
'Promises?'
'Promises to help her wreak revenge on me. She could be the brains behind the hand of this Frankenstein.'
'Why target me then?'
'Because, Lucas, they've gone to school on me, so they know all about me and my surroundings, my likes and dislikes, and so they know I'm…that is, that we are close, and by hurting you, they know they hurt me.'
'Is that an admission of love?' he asked.
'A great and abiding fondness with a capital F,' she replied.
He laughed at this and drove on. After ten minutes of silence, he said, 'You know me, Mere. I don't normally leap to assumptions and conclusions on a case, but it's increasingly clear that someone, most likely this Lauralie someone, has it in for you so badly that it borders on a kind of religious abhorrence she has against you.'
'To've mailed those body parts to us, and to've placed that severed finger for me to find in the holy water… Indeed it is a furious hatred she's harboring for me.'
'True whether she's done all of this herself, in person, or has had others following her orders. Kinda like you!' he joked.
'She certainly knows how to control people.'
'Yeah, even men of the cloth like Father William.'
'You really didn't like Father William, did you?'
'Call it an instant dislike.'
'But how do you see him helping Lauralie-or whoever is behind Mira Lourdes's death and mutilation?'
'Small favors, I suspect, for sexual favors perhaps. I get a bird-of-prey kind of thing coming off that beak- nosed priest. He curries favors with all the girls, I suspect, but maybe Lauralie became too much for him to handle. I get the feeling he's damned glad he hasn't seen her in some time and doesn't know her whereabouts and wants to keep it that way.'
'That's quite a leap, Lucas.'
'Suspicious mind of mine has kept me alive this long.'
'Well, one thing I believe we can agree on is that our female courier is not so innocent. The finger was not tucked away in a box. She knew what she was defiling the holy water with.'
'Which means that our Post-it Ripper is not a he but a they, a couple out to panic Houston, and bent on destroying you and me in the bargain, like…like a jealous lover.'
'I know it'll only sound paranoid to anyone looking at the circumstances from the outside,' Meredyth said. 'Hell, as a shrink, I'd say the same thing of someone coming to me with a story as convoluted and crazed as this… but after all, it was a man-and-woman team who abducted Mira Lourdes, and why Lourdes, if not to make a point with the convent? And-and, Lucas, why'd they mark the return address on the first parcel to you as Our Lady of-' She stopped herself in mid-sentence, pondering something new.
'What is it, Mere?' he asked, stopping at a light.
'The other return address, the mortician's. They're a twenty-four-hour business, right?'
'Yeah, it's over on Lowe near Clinton, off the canal…a commercial district. What're you thinking?'
'I'm thinking a lot of people have tragically died around Lauralie Blodgett. A few years ago it was her mother superior, and this year her birth mother. So where do you suppose her mother's body went for burial if not that return address on Lowe?'
'I hope they have better record-keeping skills than the sisters of Our Lady of Miracles.'
Lucas turned the car in the direction of the mortuary.
Morte de Arthur's was the first and only mortuary Lucas had ever seen that sported a neon sign, but within they found a clean, well-lit, marble-floored, darkly paneled place of real mahogany walls, all polished and kept from the original mortuary on this spot, likely in business for most of the century before losing out to economic hard times and family illness and death. They also learned on the inside that the new proprietors, Giorgio and Carlotta Fellini, did keep better records than did the convent school. They were quickly able to locate a burial service for a Carmilla Blodgett, a Walter D. Blodgett, a Terrence K. Blodgett, and more recently a John D. Blodgett.
'No Katherine Croombs Blodgett?' Meredyth asked, shaking her head.
'Sony. If it ain't there,' said Carlotta, 'then we didn't handle her.'
Meredyth scanned the John Blodgett card and read aloud. 'John D. Blodgett, aged fifty-two. Amer. Indian/Mexican male. Height 62', weight 210 lbs. Generic service. Determination of death: heart attack. Survived by common law wife, Katherine Croombs, and daughter Lauralie. Services and burial at Greenhaven Meadows Cemetery held May 4, 1997.'
'Bingo! It's her!' shouted Lucas.
'Yes, she's on Blodgett's card as his wife and Lauralie's down as his daughter.'
Lucas examined the card. The date of Blodgett's funeral and burial at Greenhaven Cemetery predated Giorgio and Carlotta's taking over the business. 'Greenhaven…Blodgett. The vandalized gravesite Kelton learned about? It's got to be him, Lauralie's father.'
'So where was Katherine's body taken?'
'Try the C's,' suggested Lucas.
Meredyth then thumbed through the three-by-five cards under the Cs, and there she located a Katherine Anne Croombs who had been embalmed and prepared for burial here. 'It's her, Lauralie's mother, Lucas. It's got to be Lauralie behind all this. She's leaving all these telltale signs.'
'Bread-crumb trail. She wants to get caught.'
'More likely, she wants us to know her motives.'
'If it's not her, someone's going to a hell of a lot of trouble to make us believe it's her.'
'Like wily Father William Stoughton, you mean?'
'It may sound far-fetched, but suppose she's got something on him. Suppose he needs to incriminate her in order to get out from under any charges she could now, or in the future, bring against him.'
'Molestation charges? Maybe you've got something there.'
'Lot of temptation for a man in that place, and a lot of nooks and crannies to do something about it in, if you ask me.'
'You do have a dirty mind, Lucas.'
'No, a detective's mind is all.'
'Take nothing at face value, huh?'
The mortuary record cards were arranged in alphabetical order and then by date of burial. John Blodgett and the other three Blodgetts, all of mixed Native American and Mexican descent, all predated the change in management. 'All these Blodgetts were likely related. I wonder why someone in the family couldn't have taken Lauralie out of that convent to return to the family.'
'Crack baby, remember? Mother without direction or goals. Father unavailable. All we know, John Blodgett never knew he had a daughter. If so, no one in his family would have known either.'
'I'm sure Family Services didn't bother to find out.'
Her face flushed red as if he'd slapped her. She turned to the bookkeeper, wife, co-owner, and asked, 'Carlotta, were all these Blodgetts related?'
Carlotta shrugged. 'No way to be sure. They were all serviced by Xavier and Sons, before we came.'
'Before the advent of Morte de Arthur's-translated- the Death of Arthur's,' replied Lucas, thinking, Before the Xaviers sold out to a tastelessly run franchise.
Lucas next took the card on Katherine Croombs from Meredyth and read the words. 'Katherine Anne Croombs, age thirty-seven, Caucasian female, 5'9', 180 lbs. Catholic service. Determination of death: alcoholic overdose w/ ambien pills. Ms. Croombs is survived by a daughter, Lauralie Blodgett. Services and burial held at Greenhaven Meadows Berwyn Cemetery, July 20th, 2004.'
On the back of the card, the remaining information summed Katherine's life up to a last known address. An
