Show of Evil

'Just as stupid,' St Claire said.

Naomi looked up as Vail, Parver, and Stenner got off the lift. 'Here comes the one person who can answer these questions if anybody can,' Naomi said, nodding towards Vail.

'What've we got here?' Vail asked as he entered the office.

They all looked at one another and then focused their attention on Harvey St Claire. He smoothed out his moustache and got rid of the wad of tobacco in his cheek.

'Tell ya how it started out,' he said. 'I was runnin' the HITS network, thinkin' maybe we could turn up something outta town on them bodies in the city dump. Missin' persons, maybe a bank heist, drug gang. Playin' a hunch, okay? And Ben Meyer runs across this brutal murder down near the Kentucky border. Town called Gideon. Ever hear of it?'

'Not that I recall,' Vail said.

'Anyway, uh, this town's run by some old religious jokers and they hushed it up. Wrote it off as Satanists. We got interested outta curiosity much as anything. The victim was a housewife. Happily married, nice solid husband. Year-old son. I thought what I'd do, I'd read the autopsy report. The police chief brushed me off, but the town doctor, he's also the coroner, was a nice old guy, most cooperative.' St Claire searched around the table and found Doc Fields's autopsy, which Ben had entered into the computer and printed out, and read it out loud.

'The victim, Linda Balfour, is a white female, age 26. The body is 53.5 inches in length and weighs 134 pounds and has blue eyes and light brown hair. She was dead upon my arrival at her home on Poplar Street, this city. The victim was stabbed, cut, and incised 56 times. There was evidence of cadaver spasm, trauma, and aero-embolism. There was significant exsanguination from stab wounds. The throat wound, which nearly decapitated Balfour, caused aero-embolism, which usually results in instantaneous death. Wounds in her hands and arms indicate a struggle before she was killed.'

St Claire looked up for a moment. 'Beginning to sound a little familiar, Marty?'

'Where are you taking this, Harve?'

'Okay, now listen to this. It's from the ME's testimony in Stampler's trial.'

He read excerpts from William Danielson's description of the wounds that had killed Archbishop Richard Rushman ten years before:

'DANIELSON: Body trauma, aeroembolism, cadaveric spasm, exsanguination, that's loss of blood. All could have caused death… The primary cause, I believe was the throat wound… It caused aeroembolism, which is the sudden exit of air from the lungs. This kind of wound is always fatal, in fact, death is usually instantaneous… And the wounds indicated a knowledge of surgical techniques.'

Vail was beginning to react. He leaned forward in his chair, his cigarette smouldering, forgotten, between his fingers.

'Now listen't' the rest of Dr Fields's report,' St Claire said, and finished reading the autopsy:

'There was also evidence of mutilation. Both the victim's nipples and the clitoris were amputated and placed in the victim's mouth. It appears that the wounds were accomplished by a person or persons with some surgical knowledge. Also the inscription C13.489 was printed with the victim's blood on the rear of the skull, 4.6 centimetres above the base of the skull and under the hairline. The weapon was determined to be a common carving knife with an eight-inch blade found on the premises and belonging to the victim…'

'She was also nine weeks pregnant,' St Claire added, almost as an afterthought.

Vail was staring into space. He did not say anything for almost a minute.

'Where's Stampler?' he finally asked.

'Up in Daisyland, still in maximum security,' said Stenner. 'Never had a visitor, never had a letter, never made a phone call.'

'In ten years?'

'In ten years,' Stenner said. 'I talked to the head of security, Bascott and the other executives were in conferences. He wouldn't tell me much, but he volunteered that.'

'There's somethin' else,' said St Claire. 'When I was finishing up the transcripts my eye caught somethin' I missed the first time 'round. Damn near jolted me outta m'chair when I saw it. It was when you was questionin' Stampler on the witness stand. Stampler says, 'My