Final Edge s--4

by Robert W. Walker

  "You're the best, Chang."

  "I still must treat this as a crime, Lucas, and a possible murder, and not a stupid-ass practical joke. And since law- enforcement officials have been targeted, we will work around the clock until we have answers for you, Detective."

  Houston, like most major American cities, had passed tough laws against people who targeted the homes and families of police and firemen, so prevalent had crimes against law-enforcement officials become, anything from stalking to attempted murder of police in their homes.

  Chang was now examining the poem, holding it up to the light with a pair of tweezers. "Poor dear Meredyth," he said to Lucas. "The idea that such a monster as the kind we deal with gains entry this way…in her home…."

  "Yeah, I felt the same way at my place."

  "Screwy poem, but I'm no literary critic." He ordered Hoskins to slip the poein into a glassine case, careful not to smudge prints that might show up under a blue light.

  "There was a CD left with the contents as well," Lucas informed the M.E., adding, "and ahhh, Meredyth placed it in her machine and played it."

  "Where is the player?"

  Lucas pointed it out. Chang pressed the play button and listened to a few bars of the old but popular tune, the singer's enthusiastic melody honoring "the time of my life."

  Chang ejected the CD, slipped it into a plastic bag, and placed this into his black valise. "All this reminds me of that fan of mine who broke into my house a year ago." Chang gripped the back of his head and rubbed it in thought, looking rather Woody Allen — ish in clothes too baggy for his slight build. "This… this has to be unnerving for both of you."

  "Like I said, Leonard, my first instinct was to think it a scam, you know, put together by some of the lunatics down at the precinct. At the moment, that suggestion has soothed Dr. Sanger somewhat."

  "The lesser of two evils, you think?"

  "Exactly."

  "Feldman, hmmm…" He rubbed his chin in thought, trying to picture Arnie Feldman behind the prank. "Suppose you are wrong about Feldman. Suppose this is the work of some lunatic after all."

  "Then we've got a real nutcase on our hands, don't we, Doc?"

  "Perhaps in the meantime, while I am examining the eyes, teeth, and tissues, you might start an investigation with Missing Persons."

  "I can put in the necessary calls."

  "The eyes are fresh but with no ice crystals, Lucas. If it were from a corpse in the morgue, and this was done recently, there would be traces of ice. Whoever the victim is, her eyes are still pliable and firm. Not dry and breaking down from exposure to the elements or exposure to freezing."

  "And that spells?"

  "If not a recent-very recent-cadaver tampering, as you suggest, then a very, very recent missing persons case perhaps."

  "I see. The death is recent, which might point to a recent disappearance, a recent-"

  "— abduction-killing," Chang finished for him.

  Lucas stepped away from Chang and into the kitchen, mulling over what Chang had said. He remembered Meredyth's request for iced tea, and he found it in the fridge, grabbed a clean glass and ice, and filled it to the brim. When he returned to the living room and passed through to the terrace, he found that Dr. Chang had gone out to talk with Meredyth. Lucas stepped into the middle of their conversation, the ice in her tea signaling his arrival.

  Chang stood at the terrace rail, staring out at Houston's joyful skyline as it was being gobbled up by a fog. He seemed to be studying the clear demarcation where the blankness of night met the artificial orange glow of the city lights, lights that softly pushed back at space only to create a twilight meeting ground in between. The final effect created a swelling, growing smokiness around the tall buildings of downtown Houston. The effect seemed both real and unreal at once, composed as it was of reflecting colorful lights in battle with bleakness.

  Chang seemed to be taking in the strange view as he consoled the psychiatrist. "My lab will work day and night to bring this lunatic to justice, whoever he may be, Dr. Sanger, be assured, and I am so sorry that you were put through this horror."

  "Thank you, Dr. Chang, Leonard."

  "I can't imagine the kind of brain we are dealing with, to send the eyes ripped from a young woman to terrorize a beautiful person like yourself, Meredyth. If you wish, of course, Kim and I will make room for you at our house for the night."

  Meredyth sniffled. "That's so sweet of you, Leonard. But it won't be necessary. I can use my parents' home in Clover Leaf."

  "Yes, and how are they enjoying their new place, Colony in the Glade? Father getting in a lot of golf there? Mother using the gym, maybe the pool?"

  "They're in Paris."

  "Really?"

  "Anniversary."

  "Long time since we last dined together, all of us."

  Lucas now leaned over her and handed Meredyth the glass of iced tea, and she quickly grabbed it up and drank heartily while Chang informed her of the gender of the eyes. "They are those of a young woman, likely out of her teens, most certainly younger than forty. The teeth appear to be consistent with this finding as well."

  "How can you be so sure?" she asked, setting her glass down.

  "I'll know better once we have examined them under microscopic lens, of course."

  "But how do you know the eyes belong to a woman?" pressed Meredyth. "I mean, it's not as if they had eyelashes attached."

  "They are fully mature orbs, but slightly smaller than those of most males, so unless we are dealing with stunted growth or a male dwarf, which is highly unlikely, I am eighty- or ninety-percent certain they are the eyes of a middle-aged or a young woman in her late teens or early twenties."

  "An educated guess," commented Lucas.

  "One most likely corroborated by closer analysis, blood and serum tests, and DNA typing. And I intend, at Lucas's suggestion, to see if there is a match in DNA typing to any recent visitors to my autopsy rooms, morgue, or labs. If there is any sort of nonsense going on behind my back, I will determine it and prosecute anyone found to be involved."

  "I'll be looking into Missing Persons tomorrow morning, Meredyth," Lucas informed her. "On the off chance this isn't the work of that beer-guzzling crowd down at the squad room."

  "Oh, really?" she replied.

  "It is at my suggestion," Chang explained. "The eyes show no signs of decay whatsoever, and no sign they were ever frozen. If they came from my labs, it is likely they would have spent some time in a freezer unit."

  "I see."

  Lucas leaned against the railing now, giving her a reassuring smile. "We'll soon know who's behind this ugly business, Mere. Tomorrow I'll coordinate efforts with Jana North."

  "Jana, yes, of course."

  "See if Missing Persons has someone recently gone missing without a trace…see if maybe there's a piece of this puzzle they can help with. Once we get a fix on who she was, then we can get a fix on who she knew, what happened to her, and how parts of her came to visit us."

  "Why wait till tomorrow? Why not get on it tonight?" she asked.

  "It's almost two A.M, Mere, and we're both emotionally and physically spent. Besides, we need to see what Leonard's experts can tell us. Aside from that, by morning, I'll have a copy of Perelli's photographs to work with."

  "You don't really hope to match severed eyes to a photograph of a missing person?" she asked.

  "Doubtful, but I'd like to have the photos to help explain the situation to Detective North and, when and if the time comes, to Captain Lincoln when I nail the bastard behind all this. As for matching the teeth, that ought to be far easier and more scientific. Whether she came from Leonard's lab or is in a missing persons file someplace, she'll have dental records. Reason we have procedures, right, Leonard?"

  Chang nodded reassuringly at all of Lucas's conclusions. Leonard then said, "Well, Lucas, now I go over to your place with Hoskins, Perelli, and the others. See what we have there."

  "My friend and landlord is minding things there
, name's Jack Tebo."

  "Aren't you coming?"

  "I'll meet you over there."

  "Don't leave me alone here, Lucas, not tonight," pleaded Meredyth.

  Lucas corrected himself. "We will follow you over, Leonard."

  Dr. Leonard Chang's expert team of technicians made short work of the soup-layered, thin-sliced autopsy cuts in Lucas's kitchen sink; unlike the scene at Meredyth's place, the criminal contents were contained all in one area, except for the note left by the killer. It lay on a sofa table where Tebo had left it. Lucas pointed it out to Chang, and Tebo, who had tried to stay out of the way, now tried being helpful, about to grab the note and pass it to Chang.

  "Don't touch it!" shouted Chang.

  Lucas confessed, "We already have. Both of us. Sorry, but we tampered with it before realizing how serious the situation was."

  "I expected as much from Dr. Sanger, but you, Detective Stonecoat, you should know better," chastised Chang.

  Lucas weakly apologized again, but as with Meredyth's reading of her note and playing the CD-handling both- Lucas had felt compelled to act as he did. "A knee-jerk reaction to being attacked in this twisted manner," Lucas told Chang now.

  "No doubt." replied the M.E.

  "Like I said, at first I thought it was a sick prank."

  "Prank, this?" asked Perelli as he snapped shot after shot of what lay in Lucas's kitchen sink.

  "Maybe some of the guys down at the precinct or the morgue. You know how they can be, sick SOBs that they are. Keep it to yourself, though, will you, Perelli?"

  "You don't think I had anything to do with it, do you?" asked Ted Hoskins, his eyes riveted on Lucas for a reaction.

  "No…never crossed my mind, Ted. I know you'd be no part of such as this, no."

  "Well…it does look like precision cuts from liver, spleen, kidney, and pancreas," Chang thoughtfully mused as he poked a retracted scalpel at the materials inside the box. "I can understand your thinking it came from a crime lab. The slices are the work of a careful professional, or someone who has studied autopsy work. Certainly someone using the right tools. Amazing what an amateur can do with the right tools. Remember the I-10 sniper? Turned out to be a kid with his first scoped AK-74."

  "You can tell all that from just looking?" asked Tebo.

  "Absolutely," replied Chang. "First impressions are usually right. Whoever cut out the eyes and removed the two front teeth, he knew precisely what to do and how to do it. Again, unless these tissues, organs, and teeth were already excised for him, which is Lucas's hopeful theory, this fellow has access to precision tools and is skilled in using them."

  "Makes it the more horrible," said Meredyth, who had gnashed her teeth and gasped on seeing what had been forwarded to Lucas. Meredyth held a handkerchief to her nostrils to fend off the foul odors of the decaying matter sent to Lucas. "This has to be from a separate victim," she said now. "It's older, further along in decay."

  "Your eyes and nose deceive you. Unlike the soft tissue of the eyes, left whole, these internal organs-hard tissue that has been split off from the organs-already have a strong odor about them. Like cutting into an onion, you release the odors." Everyone followed Chang's explanation. "These internal cold cuts, if you will, are actually quite fresh, like the eyes. It will be surprising if they did not come from the same source."

  The out-of-place human organ materials were then quickly scooped into bags, which were sealed and removed, along with all the paper and wood and Styrofoam that had housed them. Chang said good night as his techs filed out.

  Tebo took a deep breath and shook his head after the retreating CSI team. Lucas said to his friend, "Thanks for hanging on here all this time, Jack."

  "No problem… don't mention it. Wonder why people always say don't mention it just after someone mentions it. Little late by then, right?" He laughed, trying to get the other two to laugh with him. They did not.

  "Good night, Jack," Lucas said.

  Tebo hesitated, something on his mind.

  "What is it?" asked Lucas, certain it had to do with Eunice. She'd been here, seen the package, and she'd be spreading the word from here to the Coushatta Reservation by morning. The moccasin grapevine in the hands of a truly vociferous specialist was wonderful to behold.

  Tebo knew Lucas's conclusion, reading it in his eye. "Never mind. We'll talk tomorrow. Good night, Dr. Sanger, Lucas."

  They were alone with one another now, and Lucas asked Meredyth if she wanted anything to drink.

  "I'll have some of that Mexican gin you like so much."

  'Tequila? You?"

  "If it'll help me sleep tonight, yes, unless you have a better suggestion."

  "Well…matter of fact, I do have my own remedy for insomnia."

  She gave him a knowing look. She knew of his drug habit, that it was linked to his accident and near-death experience of years before, that it helped him to maintain a front in his personal war against the pain that was ever with him. She knew he smoked marijuana and peyote for medicinal purposes, and at times he drank to excess.

  She watched him go into his bedroom, and following, she saw him scrounge beneath the bed and come out with a cigar box. "This stuff won't leave you with a hangover."

  "Promise?"

  He pulled forth a pipe and his stash of Texas reservation peyote. "Old Indian cure-all. Come on, let's get comfortable." He led her back into the living room, tossed some pillows on the floor, and got down on the rug, crossing his legs. She sat alongside in her jeans, also cross-legged now.

  "So, this is how you stay so loose," she said.

  "You've known for some time, I'm sure. Poking around in my medical records. I know you've got friends in Dallas can tell you all about me." Lucas lit the pipe, took a long drag on it, and passed it to her.

  Meredyth cautiously breathed in the smoke, and still she coughed, making him laugh. She tried a second puff, and succeeded without coughing this time.

  "That's it, right, Mere. You're on your way to the Cherokee promised land now! I guaran-damn-tee you, darling," he promised. "Going where nothing bad can happen ever again."

  "That's all I ask…at least for now."

  CHAPTER 4

  The following day. Lucas awoke in Meredyth's arms, a place he had sought on and off for as long as they had known each other, but this time it felt right. He sensed her comfort in his arms, and he reached around her, holding her closer, tighter, filling his nostrils with the smell of her hair, all the while wondering when and how they had made it to the bedroom from the living room.

  Her eyes came open, and she tenderly, longingly returned his embrace, until soon they were locked in a passionate kiss.

  When she broke it off, coming up for air, she said, "That peyote works wonders."

  "Here I thought it was me…"

  "I was referring to sleep."

  "Then you slept restfully?"

  "I did, and I dreamed."

  "A pleasant dream, I hope," he replied.

  "Dreamed of a world of clouds to walk on and waterfalls to stand beneath, of a warm spray of water cleansing my body, and there were hillsides of flowers and roaming deer, birds overhead, a lake, a canoe, snowcapped mountains in the sky and reflected in the lake."

  "Sounds like Indian paradise. The peyote payoff, I call it," he joked.

  "It was beautiful, Lucas. A million miles of far away…"

  "Were you alone or was I there?" he asked.

  "You came into the viewfinder about the time I woke up."

  "Figures!" He placed a finger to her cheek, tracing a line to her lips before he again kissed her. She leaned into him, and their bodies tingled against one another. He inched downward and buried his face in her bosom, nibbling at her neck, biting at her bra, and making sounds like a wolf. Lucas became hard and firm, and Meredyth responded by sinking her teeth into his shoulder and sucking on his skin, bringing up a red welt.

  "You're now officially a marked man," she joked, and seriously added, "and no one, not even your Tsal
i, can have you now. And no one but I can be your cactus flower. Only me."

  "I'm all yours," he promised, then gently rolled further atop her and passionately found her. Together they entwined, becoming one sentient being with a single purpose.

  Their lovemaking rose to a crescendo and ended in mutual exhaustion, until she revived Lucas, and their playfulness turned again into burning passions that rose anew like a flame from the ashes. The loving continued for another hour in waves, eddies of shivering passion. Finally, they lay in the aftermath of their passions, their lovemaking over, and Lucas climbed from the bed. He began putting on his pants.

  "Hey! Where're you going so fast, Injun?' she complained.

  "I'm going to rustle you up some breakfast, sweetheart," he said with an exaggerated Texas drawl.

  "Don't you think we ought to…you know…at least talk about what just happened?"

  "Don't analyze it, Mere. It's why we've never made it as a couple in the past."

  "What do you mean?"

  "Oh, God, here we go."

  "What do you mean?" she repeated.

  "You…you and your…shrinking response! I'm beginning to think it's your coping mechanism, your way of pushing me away whenever we get intimate."

  "Shrinking response…Clever, very clever, but what's that supposed to mean? And since when did you start using words like coping mechanism and intimate? You been sneaking episodes of Phil and Oprah?"

  "I don't want to get into another disagreeable confrontation with you over a perfectly natural fondness we have for one another. Just let it be, like the song says."

  "Fondness? Is that what this is, a fondness for one another? Is that how we wound up in bed together last night? And come to think of it, how did you get me in bed last night? And you call it fondness? We make mad passionate love this morning, and it's out of a fondness?"

  "How do I know how we wound up in bed? If you don't want to accept the fact that I genuinely care about you, then blame it on the peyote."

  "Seriously, how did we wind up in bed last night?" she asked.

  "I don't know." He shrugged and disappeared as a pillow came at his head.