Scalpers

'I rather doubt that possibility,” Dean answered Sid groggily, still sleepy.

Coffee and croissants were brought in and the scientist in Sid kicked in. He was fast at work while Dean telephoned Jackie, finally reaching her at home.

'Where've you been?” Jackie demanded. “When you didn't call, I thought all sorts of horrible things had happened.'

'I tried reaching you, but you were out—'

'When? At what time?'

'Jackie, it doesn't matter. I'm talking to you now, and I'm fine.'

'When are you coming home?'

'I ... I can't say just yet.'

'In a week, in a month, for New Year's?'

She was angry and her tone was biting.

'Listen, Sid's ... well, Sid's in a bad jam here, and I think I can help him out.... “Dean had no idea how long it would take, or if there would ever be a resolution to the case. Some cases resolved themselves, even serial cases such as this, when the killing simply stopped, the murderer's taste for blood coming to an end. But no one was counting on that ... least of all Dean.

'You do what you have to do, Dean,” she said, and for a moment Dean thought it sincere. “But don't lie to me. You're not there for Sid. You're down there for yourself ... yourself and your sick killer.'

'I'm trying to help resolve a serial murder case, to save lives. You can understand—'

'Yeah ... I understand only too well....'

Dean knew what she meant: Angel Rae, and Jackie's near-death encounter with her. Jackie still had gruesome nightmares in which Lake Michigan was so filled with floating corpses you might walk across it over their backs.

'Are you still seeing—'

'Dean, a shrink's no replacement for you!'

'This dependence upon me, Jackie—it isn't good. Love is one thing, and I love you dearly, but dependence on another human being as much as this—it's destructive to both of us.'

She hung up.

Dean started to re-dial, but then forced himself not to ... for her, he told himself, though wondering if it were not for him. He had been so bad at helping her through this ordeal. Perhaps he'd made all the wrong moves and said all the wrong things, yet his instincts told him he was right, that Jackie must face down her own fears rather than buffer them with his constant presence.

Dean dialed the number for Chief Kelso, but learned only that his friend was in New York City. He missed Kelso's camaraderie, his backup both professionally and personally. Dean thought about how Kelso had almost died with stab wounds not five months ago. Now he was chasing criminals again.

Dean checked in with his right hand and associate at the lab, Dr. Sybil Shanley. She informed him that everything was running smoothly without him. This had the effect of making him feel both secure and insecure at once. Getting right to business, he replied, “I'm sending you some samples and want you to run backup tests on some items for us, Sybil.'

'It might have to take a back seat to—'

'No, Sybil, this takes top priority.'

'How am I supposed to explain that to the boss?'

'Don't explain, just tell him your orders came directly from me, should he ask. I'll take the heat.'

'That's easy for you to say. You're a thousand miles away.'

'Sybil'

'Right, Dean. We've been reading about the Scalper up here. Sounds really sicko.'

'Scalpers, sweetheart ... we think it's two men.'

'God, really? That's—why, that's even sicker!'

Dean didn't bother to ask her why she thought so. Instead, he told her it was costing Sid Corman too much for them to yammer on his phone any longer. “How's the new man working out?'

'Great! Got him trained the way I want.'

'Don't get yourself spoiled.'

'Say, are you still dating Carl Prather?'

'Why the sudden interest in my love life?

'You think Carl might do me a favor?'

'Sure, he thinks the world of you, Dean—just as I do.'

'Good. Here it is.'

As Dean relayed his message to the former Gary, Indiana, policeman, now with the Chicago force, he saw that Sid was staring through the glass from the other room. No doubt Sid wondered just how many calls Dean planned to make to Chicago, and to whom.

'You got that now?” Dean asked Sybil. “Read it back to me.'

Sybil did so. “This seems strange, Dean,” she said.

'Just do it, Dr. Shanley,” Dean said loudly when Sid opened the door and entered. “Talk to you soon.'

'Hope you told Sybil hello for me,” Sid said.

'Yeah, and she sends her regards.'

'Get Jackie?'

'Yeah, all's well.'

'Didn't look that way from my standpoint.'

'Sid, I'm going to work.'

'Same old Dean.'

'Yeah, that's right ... same old Dean, Sid.'

Sid stared into Dean's eyes for a long time. “I'm the same old Sid, too. Maybe a little bigger around the gut, and my hair's thinned out considerably.” He ran his right hand over his scalp. “But Christ, Dean, I'm still your old war buddy, and if you're having problems—'

'No problems, Sid, except the one we're faced with right here. And I suggest we stop talking and get to work on it'

Dean left the office for the lab. Sid shook his head. “Same old Dean. Buries it all inside of him. The man's going to have a heart attack some day.'

The pathologists went to work trying to match fiber and hair samples taken from the black Jane Doe with samples from earlier victims. It was mid-morning before Dean had what amounted to a positive, if preliminary, matchup between any of the strands of hair. He called Sid over to confirm what his eyes had already told him via the comparison microscope.

The hair Dean was working with was body hair, and at first the samples had been considered minor, since Sid's assistant had made the false assumption that they'd come off the victim. It was a natural enough mistake, and one that Dean himself might have made, given the circumstances and the earlier lack of evidence, or the theorem that more than one attacker was at work here. The fact that it was body hair, and not scalp or facial hair, further compounded the mystery. Yet a close analysis of the victim's body hair yielded a no-match, and in fact showed the hair to be that of a male, a third party, since the hair did not match that of either the victim or that of the primary attacker, dug out from beneath the victim's nails.

So Sid had been working with a complex of problems which had gotten away from him. Now there was thin, brown-to-sandy hair from the head of the murderer, and thick, coarse, dark and curly hair from the body of a second killer. The samples of body hair were far and away greater in number than those from the scalp, and there was no true correlation to be made between these either—they could not have come from the same man. All this the electron microscope had proved, yet the proof had been put aside, had gone unrecognized all this time.

Dean pointed out these facts to Sid now. They had found both kinds of hairs again on the latest Scalper victim.

Sid's phone rang almost as much as Dean's in Chicago, and again Dean paid no attention to it. This time, however, Sid had been summoned by his young assistant, Tom Warner. Something was afoot. Sid waved Dean over,