himself getting out at the crime scene, following Bill Joyce and a feeling of troubling premonitions that hit him the moment they got out of the car.
Sylvia Kasikoff was what they called the whole serial murder package but Sylvia Kasikoff herself had been a young, good-looking housewife from Downer's Grove, found on one of the few fields left within a short drive of where they were right now. She'd been found rolled up in a blanket and the killer had not taken the heart. She'd been tied to the others by the semen traces in her mouth. One of the other heart murders had been a matchup on the semen in the mouth, vaginal, and anal orifices, and that victim had also been found with neck broken. It looked like the perpetrator was on a roll now and back in business.
Eichord could feel or imagined he could feel the presence of death before they walked through the police line and around to the back. Joyce spoke to a couple of uniformed patrol officers who told them where Arlen was. A crime scene will sometimes give off a strong aura, particularly a type of homicide or messy suicide. Or perhaps you're only expecting the hideous and the frightening and all the lights and grim faces and black humor just creates an atmosphere conducive to those kinds of thoughts and feelings. But real or imagined, Jack sensed or felt something strong.
'Hey, amigos,' Vernon Arlen said.
'Lou.'
'Got a Jane Doe,' the lieutenant told them, gesturing at a metal container where a photographer was popping flashes, 'maybe thirty-five, nude, mutilated, heart missing. Bag lady found the body when she was going through the trash dumpster. ME says semen, and all the rest of it. Slashed down the front the usual way. Blood all over inside the box but none outside. Perp might have killed her somewhere and wrapped her in plastic or a rug or whatever and dumped her in and taken the heart inside, which would explain the blood there and nowhere else.' He opened a plastic-encased map of the downtown area and pointed as Bill Joyce moved in closer.
'We're about here—and we'll all work out in a straight line. Bill, you and Jack can take the alley on down that way if you will and just take it on straight out that way when we get done here. Probably won't find anything but we'll give it a shot and then meet back at the office.' They were walking over to the dumpster.
'Anything from the bag lady?' Eichord saw an old, disheveled-looking woman slumped over by one of the units.
'Zip. Forget it. Worthless,' he said, turning to Eichord. 'Have a go but she's just a schizzy old whackadoo. You won't get much.' 'Right.'
'Showtime, folks,' the lieutenant said, and they looked down into the horror of the dumpster.
'Jesus Christ.'
'You get something like this, man, it can just paralyze a town. I've seen it happen once before here, like Atlanta, L.A., Boston, New York—it just terrorizes everybody. I want to make damn sure the papers and the TV don't turn this thing into another Jack the Ripper. Missing hearts, they get anything to run with, it'll be worse than fuckin' Dracula.' He nodded agreement and looked at the mutilated Jane Doe.
The old bag woman was moaning now and Jack Eichord was tired of looking into the dumpster and he started walking over to where she was slumped up against one of the radio units, realizing he'd been holding his breath and taking in a big gulp of oxygen.
One of the young patrol cops was looking like he was just about to lose it and Eichord said quietly, 'How you makin' it, pardner?'
'Awright,' the young uniform cop mumbled and turned and heaved up nothing into the weeds. Eichord fought to pull his mind back to the matters at hand, as there wasn't much that could make him sick but one of the exceptions was listening to somebody else tossing their dinner.
He concentrated on what to ask the bag lady as he came up and said softly, 'Ma'am?'
She turned and said something that sounded like,
'Govayesell.'
'Ma'am, ya' doing okay?' he repeated.
'Go for yourself.' Then he realized she was saying go fuck yourself.
'I'm sorry. I know this must have been—'
'Ummmmmmmmmmmmmm.' A sharp keening noise was coming out of her. He reached over instinctively and patted her gently and she twisted around and looked at him, but she stopped making the keening noise.
'You gonna' be okay, ma'am?'
'God chose me to be a beekeeper.' Or at least that's what it sounded like. He asked her to repeat it and she said something else.
'People don't know what it's like. He sends me all the signals and I have to deal with it handle it somethings some time some time some people and then and then and I and some sometimes some people and it gets and it is—'
She sagged a little and very gently he said, 'God speaks through you, does he?'
'Yes, that's correct Mr. Police Person Man. God speaks through me does her yes that's is one hundred percent.' She looked at him more closely, perhaps to see if he was making fun of her or teasing in some way.
'I've heard about that,' he said, 'it must be a big responsibility to carry around with you.' She said nothing. Lowered her head again. 'When someone does this kind of thing,' he went on softly, 'we want to find out who did it and stop them before they hurt someone else. That's why I need to know if you saw anything before—'
'I have eels and snakes in my hair and electrical energy voltage that runs up and down my arms and back into here and then that's we that's the that's how someway you see that they are here and that's and then and so I and can and what happens is you get it all mixed up and backward.'
'Yes.' He nodded at what she had just said as if it made perfect sense. 'I know what you mean. And then when somebody does something awful the police have to stop them. You know?'
'Uh-huh. I know.' She nodded sagely. They were having a real good discussion. She cocked her head at Eichord.
'I haven't seen you around here before. Do you live here?'
'No. I live a long ways away.'
'I live a long ways away too. I live on a planet beyond the moon and on the other side of the stars and God speaks his wisdom through my electric tongue and I know you don't live around here because I have never seen you before and I know how to remember who I have seen before and who I have not and you I have not and so that is how I know you have not. So, there, and there, and—' He interrupted her with his soft, soothing tones and all the while gentling her, calming her down. 'So you knew you hadn't seen me around before. You knew I was a stranger around here, didn't you?'
'Yes, that's right.' She smiled, revealing blood in her mouth.
'Ma'am, you've got some blood there in your mouth, did you cut yourself?' he asked solicitously.
'Huh?'
'Your mouth. Have you hurt your mouth?'
'Uh. I—' She dabbed a filthy rag at her mouth. saw blood on it and laughed and said, 'I have bad gums. My teeth are real good, it's my
'You knew I was a stranger around here. You must know everybody around here.'
'I know everybody around here.'
'If somebody was messing around over there'—he pointed toward the dumpster where a team were working with a body bag—'and you'd never seen them around here before you'd know it, wouldn't you?'
'Uh-huh.'
'And I'll bet you could even describe them,' he whispered to her softly.
'I can describe them easy, and I speak in the many tongues so that he can fast know the way that what can come of being in the part where I can see something and then they come and take it back and I don't and I will never can be able to see that I wasn't and— '
'It's okay,' he said, realizing he was going to get nothing from the poor old lady, and he took a small card out and a pen and began writing numbers on it as he spoke to her. 'I'd like to give you something, and I want you to do something for me if you will.'
'You want to give me a present?' She brightened.
'This card has my telephone number at work and at home. Please keep this. It is very important'—he was
