Scalpers

the headline:

TEEN FOUND MUTILATED IN FOREST GLEN WOODS.

Another used the word scalped. Dean then saw the scalpel at Park's side. Maybe they had the bloody Scalper after all. What a blessing, if it were so. There'd be no more such horrendous murders, no more need to go to sleep wondering if tomorrow the next victim would be found. He could go home to his wife and his own piled up work and spend Christmas, only a week away now, where he could feel in a Christmas mood, in the arms of Jackie, surrounded by a snow-whitened landscape outside their high-rise condo fronting Lake Michigan.

But there was much to prove before such fantasies could be made realities. Dean and Sid would have to be more thorough and relentless on this particular crime scene than on any of the previous ones they'd worked together. They were about to set out on a course to prove beyond any doubt, through scientific investigation, that David Park, part Indian, had developed a murderous rage against people and randomly ripped from them their scalps.

First in Dean's mind was the question of where in this small apartment were the scalps? That, above all else, would tie Park to the killings. When Dyer returned, his face ashen, Dean put him to work looking through the closets and beneath the bed for anything resembling a container, from a shoebox to a leather pouch. As Dyer searched and Peggy Carson began to regain enough control to repeatedly deny killing Park, Dean removed the long bowie knife from Park's heart and placed it, blood and all, into a clear bag which he promptly sealed and placed in the valise. As he did so, he said, “Office Dyer, you will witness this evidence gathering for the record please.'

'Yes, sure,” Dyer's voice was still shaky. Obviously he had not found anything in the way of a shoebox yet.

'The long knife is of the type Sid and I were agreed upon as the second weapon used on the victims of the Scalper, Frank.'

'I just can't believe it was Park all this time...'

'There's a lot of evidence to point to it. Note that now I have the scalpel put aside.'

'Got it.'

Dyer went toward the bathroom, going deeper in his search. When he looked into the dark interior of the bathroom, he saw something hanging from the shower curtain. He thought at first it was a pair of women's pantyhose, but when he flicked on the light, he gasped and backed away several inches.

'What is it, Frank? Frank?'

'The redhead's ... hair ... sc-sca-scalp....'

'Had to be somewhere,” Dean offered, stepping over the body and joining Frank, staring at the very clean and nicely cured, long-haired scalp. “Only the one, huh? Nothing else?'

'Maybe he tossed them after a while .. smells, don't it?'

It had an animal odor, yes, like wet leather. Dean went back to his case, took out a pair of forceps, returned to the scalp, snatched it off the rod, and stuffed it into another of his plastic bags. “What the hell's keeping Corman?” he wondered aloud. “Weren't you able to get him?'

'I know dispatch is beeping him. He's got to know by now.'

'I'm not waiting all night for him.” Dean returned to the body and began taking scrapings, scrapings of coagulated blood from the chest and from the hands. “I'll want the clothing once he's transported, including the shoes,” he told Dyer. Dean allowed a momentary glance into Park's open eyes and face. It was always a mistake to do so, and now he wished he hadn't. They'd been talking earlier that day in Dean's lab, the man's mind active and alive, his muscle, nerves, and senses working, and now he was as lifeless and still as a mound of sand. Something in the dead man's eyes or expression told Dean he had been taken by surprise by Peggy Carson, shocked, perhaps, by her forcing her way in at gunpoint. But how, then, did he die as a result of his own knife?

Dean went to Peggy to ask her if she could now tell him exactly what had happened between her and Park. But Peggy seemed totally confused, telling him that she had not confronted Park, that he hadn't been in the room until she was grabbed from behind and choked unconscious.

'Choked?'

'Yes, and I must've fainted.'

'Where were you when you were grabbed from behind?'

Dean sat at the very spot she indicated and glanced over his shoulder to where the bath was. “Had you secured the bathroom, Peggy, before going over the news clippings, you might not have been surprised by Park.'

'No, I thought he was out ... thought I was alone. Then somebody grabbed me and I ... I lost consciousness.'

This sounded odd to Dean. He slipped out a slide from his valise and asked Peggy to exhale on it.'

'What for?'

'Call it a breathalizer test.'

'I wasn't drinking!'

'I just want a sample, Peggy, please. Humor me, all right?'

She looked deeply into Dean's eyes. Seeing the concern there, she did as he asked. He immediately treated the slide with a fixative, covered it, and clamped the two together. Later he'd analyze it in the lab.

'What in God's name!” It was Chief Hodges in evening attire. His bulk filled the doorway. “I was just across at Nero's when I heard.'

'Come on, give me a hand,” Dean said to him.

'With what?'

'Spray.'

'Spray?'

'Seconal.'

'Oh, yeah ... that shit.'

'I want the whole carpet covered with it,” said Dean.

'The whole damned carpet, huh?” Hodges wasn't use to taking orders, but the situation called for cooperation, and soon he was going about the room with the can of seconal spray as if it were Lysol.

'The bed, too, Chief.'

Hodges frowned, but did as he was told.

'It'll highlight any blood spots, give us a trail, if there is one, tell us exactly where Park was when he died and if he did any twisting,” said Dean. “More to the point, we'll know if he died here, or was carried here.'

'That's rather obvious, isn't it?” asked Dyer from his knees at the bed. He was searching between the springs and the mattress for any additional incriminating scalps. 'Ugh,' he said, his hand touching hair. “I think I've got another one, Dr. Grant'

Dean rushed to the spot, telling Dyer to keep his mitts off. With the foreceps, Dean again had the prized evidence put into a sealed bag. Dean had already gathered up the newspaper clippings, pointing them out to Hodges who, by this time, was embarrassed and delighted at once. Embarrased because he believed all that David Park had led him to believe, and had been led to believe so by someone in faraway Michigan as well. Delighted because now he could return to the Mayor and tell him that the Scalper was a thing of the past. The two scalps in Park's room alone were enough to convict him, in Hodges’ book.

Even so, the more evidence Dean and Dyer unearthed in the tiny apartment, the more Dean wondered. Something smelled here, and it was more than just the scalps. It would take a little more time for the seconal spray to work, and in the meantime, Dean went again to Peggy Carson and asked her questions. “Did you hear Park come up on you? Did he say anything to you?'

'No, nothing.'

'When did you grab hold of the knife?'

'I didn't. I swear, I didn't see the knife until you and Frank came through the door. I didn't kill him!'

'Don't worry, Officer Carson,” said Hodges, “you did this city a service, and it's going to be written up that way. Don't be surprised if you get a commendation, young lady.'

'I don't want a commendation for killing someone I had no part in—” But Hodges wasn't listening to Peggy. He merely continued on.

'But how did you know Park was the man who had attacked you before?'