harm's way.'
'Lincoln's got to be updated. He's got to know all we know now.'
'Yes, should anything happen to us, what little we've unearthed about her, the miniscule hard evidence dies with us, and should we follow the way of Byron, no one's going to weave this convoluted, tangled web of murder together ever again….You saw Nielsen's face; you heard her words. She's not buying it.' Meredyth looked in need of rest, and her eyes were bloodshot from tears.
'Come on. Let's go, Mere. Nothing more we can contribute here.'
'She's watching it all, Lucas, from a safe distance, seeing us running about, all of us, SWAT people, CSI people, all of us back and forth, and her pulling the strings and getting high off the mix. Maybe…I don't know… maybe we, all of us, her mother, die church, the state…me…we all contributed to this day. We certainly created a stone-cold vampire.'
'Byron's dead, Meredyth, but it's not your fault. Not any more than Mira Lourdes's death is your fault.'
They'd made it to his car, newsmen shouting for a comment from Lucas. He instead urged Meredyth to get in, and he did likewise, shooting from the lot, successfully ducking reporters.
Driving for their downtown home, the 31st Precinct, Lucas got on the radio and was patched through to Gordon Lincoln's aide, who put him on with Lincoln.
'Yes, sir…reporters? A sea of 'em, Captain. They get the call same as the units, listening in on the band. Yes, sir. Meredyth's with me, sir. Count on it. We're on our way to your office now, sir.'
Meredyth only half-heard his end of the conversation. When he got free, she said to him, 'I hate her, Lucas… hate her. I no longer give a damn what a lousy hand she was dealt, the fact she wasn't even given a name by her mother. The nun, Mother Sara Orleans, christened her Lauralie, did you know? Think of it, imagine it. No one cares enough to give you a name.'
'Don't waste any sympathy on her, Mere. This girl has mutilated two people, complete strangers to her, so she can play god-games to feel superior to us. Don't forget that.'
'Lincoln might take some convincing.' She wrapped her arms about herself and put her head back, exhausted.
Lucas felt a barren, dry wave of fatigue like a desert wind wash over him now. This case was draining them both. Frustration and a growing hatred for their prey threatened to make them less effective, less objective, less professional. He knew they must combat it. The alternative was a spiral from which Meredyth and he might not pull out.
She sensed his fears, reached over to him, and took his hand in hers. 'We've got to stay strong, Lucas. In the face of all of it, stay strong to bring this danse macabre to an end.'
Captain Gordon Lincoln hung up the phone, having gotten word on the raids ordered by Stonecoat on a funeral parlor and the Harris County courthouse. The news from both locations was bad-but that coining out of the courthouse-an acquaintance of Meredyth Sanger's brutally, savagely knifed to death, his face slashed as an afterthought, his body stuffed in a maintenance closet-was truly disturbing. This news came on the heels of a call he'd gotten earlier from his friend Judge Wilfred Manning. Manning had conveyed a bizarre story of having witnessed an arrest in the hallway of the county courthouse. He'd relayed the shocking details of how, that very afternoon, not twenty-odd feet from Byron Priestly's murder, Dr. Meredyth Sanger had been 'wrestled to the floor and a gun wrested from her' by security personnel who had then turned her over to city police officers. Lincoln's aide, Officer Jonah Kent, could not find any record of an arrest having been made.
Lincoln had assured Judge Manning that he would personally look into it, but that was when Kent had put through Sergeant Stan Kelton, who'd called to give his captain a heads-up regarding two ITRT raids authorized by Stonecoat-one on a funeral parlor, and the other on the Harris County courthouse annex building.
Now he had listened to reports filtering in from both locations, learning of the ghastly discoveries at each site. He could not imagine what had tipped Lucas off to a body awaiting police at the courthouse, and he tried to picture two security guards having to wrestle Dr. Sanger in her Ivanna wear to the marbled courthouse floor for a gun. Even harder to picture was the disruption of a Mexican wake down at that funeral home. He tried to imagine the mayhem there, the mix of horror surrounding the discovery of the disembodied arms coming on the heels of the natural outpouring of grief with the passing of a loved one.
But he had made his priority Meredyth Sanger's safety and well-being, and to this end, he'd been calling around trying to determine where she might be, fearing she was in some holding cell in another precinct, when he'd gotten the call from Lucas on site at the courthouse informing him that she was with him. Those two're spending a hell of a lot of time together, he'd paused to note.
He had been assured by Lucas that both scenes, courthouse annex and funeral parlor, had been secured and an ongoing investigation was in the works at both locations. The use of the ITRT units, while hell on his budget, had proven Stonecoat's instincts correct all the same. The 'medicine man,' some in the department called him, and he did seem to have some kind of magical powers of investigation at times. Certainly, his reputation as a hunter- tracker was well deserved.
Given Lucas's assurances, Lincoln had seen no need to rush to either of the scenes, at least not yet. Later, as the CSI units were winding down and could give him a full report, then perhaps he could stand before the microphones and cameras and give a guarded statement.
He started for the window and once there, examined the traffic going down Kensington, wondering if the trip home would be in gridlock. He stared at his gold watch. It was nearing four P.M., and he'd wanted to get out of the city for an engagement party at the Threepenny Oaks Country Club for his daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law, a nice young man in a safe occupation, textiles. He didn't want his daughter, Serena, to be a cop's wife, a fireman's wife, or a soldier's wife, to suffer the unrelenting stresses of being in her mother's shoes. Her mother had heartily agreed, telling Lincoln, who'd been in the service, and had once been a fireman, 'I wouldn't wish some of my nights on a dog. Still, Gordon, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I love you.'
Do I want to deal with this shit now or not? he wondered of the Sanger business at the courthouse. He had remained standing at his desk, calling for his car to be brought around as soon as he had finished with Lieutenant Stonecoat and Dr. Sanger.
No sooner had he given the order than Lucas and Meredyth arrived in the outer office. The aide, Officer Kent, informed Lincoln of their arrival.
'Well, send them in now!'
'Yes, sir. Captain, oh…and you wanted me to remind you, sir, of Serena's engagement party tonight.'
'Yes, yes, I remember, I'm not a dolt.'
'But, sir, you asked me to-'
'Just send those two in, Kent! Get 'em in here now!'
Kent escorted them through the door and sullenly closed it behind him. 'Something big's happened on the Post-it case,' Lucas said.
Meredyth simultaneously said, 'We believe Lauralie Blodgett is not some poor kid brainwashed and frightened, but in fact the leader and dominant force behind the Ripper killings.'
'That's quite a leap. You want to tell me what's changed?'
'We suspect she's manipulating the boyfriend. She's demonstrated a history of manipulating people. She's behind the choice of Mira Lourdes as victim, to create a clue out of her very body that would take me back to 1984.'
'Whoa, slow down. What's 1984 got to do with this case?'
Lucas rattled the air with the court document she'd gotten from the archives. 'Tell him about this, Mere. Tell Captain Lincoln the entire story from the moment we entered the convent school till we discovered Byron's body.'
Lincoln sat down, an expectant look on his face, ready for the two of them to show him something. Meredyth leaned over the desk and said, 'In the end, her fantasy is so off the wall, you have to suspend your natural tendency toward disbelief in order to believe it.'
'Like any good fiction,' Lincoln said, smiling.
'But this is not fiction. It's her game board.'
'Game board?'
'She's a controlling, conniving woman, Captain, and she's laid all this out from the beginning,' replied
