watching CNN, they're too busy with role-playing video games and going to the movies to concern themselves with current events. I've taught, I know. When the D.C. Sniper shootings were going on, none of my students had an inkling until I put them onto it, and you know how saturated our lives had become with it.'
'Scary.'
'I got Dr. Arthur Belkvin's full name, SS number, street address for home and practice from Dr. Price,' Meredyth told him. 'And maybe now Jorganson can ram through search warrants for us?'
'If the bastards won't give us a go-ahead, we'll call in the ITRT again, but for the sake of building a case against this guy and Lauralie, who I suspect we will find living with him, let's go the warrant route first.'
'So long as we put this investigation in motion.'
Lucas grabbed the desk phone and called the D.A.'s office, telling Harry Jorganson what they'd uncovered. 'Sounds like plenty of probable cause, and since the courthouse incident, I don't think I'm going to have trouble finding a sympathetic judge, Lucas. Meet you at the man's practice. The home warrant will come by way of my legal aide, Phil Merrick.'
'We'll make the raids simultaneously. I think the noose is around the right neck, Harry.'
No sooner had he hung up Stan's desk phone than his cell phone rang into life. He picked up to find Jana North speaking in an excited manner. 'We got a an interesting development over here in Missing Persons, a report filed on a doctor of veterinary medicine gone missing for forty- eight hours, Lucas. The report was filed by his receptionist, a MariLouise Jones.'
'Go on.'
'Says her boss has missed appointments, surgeries, and such. Also says he looks a little like the artist sketch on our killer. This doggy doc's name is-'
'Arthur Belkvin,' Lucas finished for her.
'Right, but how the hell'd you know?'
'We've got a warrant for his practice and home in the works. We have reason to believe he's the male half of the Post-it Ripper duo.'
'I want in, Lucas.'
'You've got it. Take a team of your best to this address.'
He gave her the home address. 'Phd Merrick from the D.A.'s would meet you there with a warrant. We'll cover the man's practice. Careful, these people are armed and dangerous.'
'Imagine it, Lucas, our big bad boogeyman who cuts people into cubes turns out to be an animal lover…a doggy doctor.'
Lucas hung up. 'Let's get over to the clinic. Detective North's people're going to coordinate the raid on the house.'
'I'll be damned,' said Meredyth.
'What's that?' asked Lucas.
'Lauralie's little game takes on a new twist. She selects a man named Arthur at a vet school named King to do her bidding. King Arthur…Morte de Arthur's, the funeral home? Is it only coincidence?'
'A king with a set of surgical tools and hairy mole on his cheek.'
'She's using him just as she's used people all her life.'
Lucas said, 'Says here his office is on JFK Drive, South, the seedier side of the Sixth Ward.'
'Let's go.'
'I want in,' Kelton said.
'For sure, Stan. Get us a tactical team for backup, and put Chang on notice we may call for him or Dr. Nielsen at either or both scenes. Ahhh, tell him we'd prefer Frank Pat-terson be kept out of it. Will you do that, Stan?'
'Consider it done. And I'll bring Lincoln up to par as well.'
'See you at the kennel and surgery then, Stan.'
'Count on it.'
Lucas and Meredyth located his car, a sense of hope, of impending closure wanting to rush into their hearts, but they warned one another against it, keeping it at bay, dammed up by a cop's normal caution in the face of optimism, a reining-in emotion called prudence, which spoke the language of care and vigilance. They had been wrong before; eyewitnesses had been proved wrong in case after case. The professor and veterinarian could well be missing for a thousand and one reasons, none having the remotest to do with Lauralie Blodgett or a murder spree. They could be entirely wrong about Belkvin.
Nevertheless, Lucas intended serving two warrants to open up his entire life to their scrutiny.
CHAPTER 16
Detective Jana North had the door knocked in by SWAT team operatives, and instantly Dr. Arthur Belkvin's private little world became public.
The men who stormed in and locked down each area, room by room, shouted out their findings. 'Clear!'
'Clear in the kitchen!'
'Bedroom's secure.'
'No one here!'
'Basement, all clear.'
'Garage, all clear.'
Jana began combing the rooms for any sign of Mira Lourdes ever having been here. She found instead a tidy, well-kept little apartment home with a garage out back, neighbors at each elbow, their windows close enough to spit into. She found plaques, certificates, licenses, awards, blue ribbons for first prize in area and state championship dog shows, and proud postings of the champions, a pair of greyhounds. In fact, animal photos adorned every wall and passageway. Whoever Arthur was, he proved a fanatical dog lover and a competitive one.
Evidence of several missing dogs, she mentally noted from food dishes with flies in them to photos of Belkvin with a large Dalmatian and two greyhounds, all caught in play, each photo pinned to the fridge by tiny dog-bone magnets. Turning the most prominent Dalmatian photo in her hand, she saw the block printing on the back read, Pongo and me, 1997. 'Wonder where ol' Pongo must be now,' she said, handing the photo over to Merrick.
Merrick's thin face pinched as he studied the photo. 'Likely pounded someplace nearby. Maybe at Belkvin's practice. Looks like he loves the mutt, don't it. Guy looks as harmless as my brother-in-law.'
She lifted another photo with Belkvin crouched between two greyhounds. The inscription on the back read, Petie and Fritz, Fall 2001.
Search as she might, she could find not a single item in the house that could be of the least importance to their case.
'All right, take this place apart!' she ordered her detectives. 'I don't want a single unturned matchbook.'
'Don't look to be a smoker to me,' replied Phil Merrick, the warrant folded beneath the two dog pictures he'd laid over it now. 'You guys got a bum steer. Look at this place. Guy has at least two, maybe three dogs, and it looks like the house that Mr. Clean built. My place, my kids have a hamster, but the house looks like a tornado ripped through.'
'All the same, we're going to search thoroughly. I'm checking the back bedroom.' She entered Belkvin's bedroom and angrily tore out bureau drawers, throwing clothing in the air. She came across sexually explicit magazines, X-rated videos, massaging vibrators, plugs, and assorted adult toys.
'Can't prosecute a guy for being horny, Detective,' said Merrick from behind her.
She paid no heed to the junior D.A., going to the bed and tearing away the neat, tidy afghan and blanket to reveal soiled sheets.
Ahh-ha! Finally, evidence this jag-off actually ever spent time and bodily fluids here,' taunted Merrick.
'Shut up or step outside, will you, Mr. Merrick. If Mira Lourdes was held here against her will, tied to this bed-'
'Was she sexually molested?'
'No way to know for certain with only her head to examine and none of her lower genitalia. Mouth was free of
