“Thank you, Dr. Schuller. I'll certainly avail myself of your hospitality.” Jessica summed him up as he spoke: stiff, uncompromising, proud, angry at her having been called in on his case to lend him assistance and not at all wishing to be in the least help to her, his mildly German accent masked by his British tongue.
The cadaver had been washed clean, the wounds hardly as ghastly as those seen in the crime-scene photos, now that the crucifixion holes had had time to sink in on themselves. The holes in the hands and feet, however, were large enough and gruesome and strange enough to warrant Jessica's undivided attention. She snatched a large magnifying glass on a swivel arm and placed it between her eyes and the crucifixion wound to the right hand.
Soon her silence, her intense scrutiny, made Schuller and Boulte particularly uneasy. She felt Schuller stiffen even more, and she felt Boulte's body language behind her where he rocked nervously from his heels to the balls of his feet and back again, clearing his throat, and finally excusing himself, telling Richard Sharpe in a tone loud enough for all, “I have bushels of ancient paperwork awaiting upstairs.”
Jessica guessed that Boulte must be thinking better of ever having asked her out, and that there would likely be no second attempt. For this she felt grateful.
Boulte promptly said, “I'll leave you four to it then, Richard, Doctors. Oh, and Richard, do keep me informed, please.”Jessica quickly, efficiently moved on with her investigation, reading notes into a small tape recorder she'd used on many such errands. “Noting the otherwise unhealthy appearance of the deceased, and having read Dr. Schuller's detailed autopsy report on the victim, Theodore Burton, it appears the victim died of asphyxia due to crucifixion torture. Holes in hands and feet measuring three-fourths to an inch in diameter were fitted with stakes recovered from railroad yard rail ties. My own findings are consistent with Dr. Schuller's findings.” She knew that her final remarks put Schuller somewhat at ease. Even Sharpe seemed to relax his stiff posture. Her words were designed for that effect.
“Are you quite satisfied, then?” asked Schuller. “Of my diagnosis?”
Jessica continued to probe the body with the movable magnifying glass, the arm outstretched like the leg of a robotic praying mantis. She searched for the telltale signs of puncture marks mentioned in the reports. She found them in both thighs, the abdomen, and the rump.
“He appears to have been shooting up pretty regularly. Diabetic, you think?”
“No, he wasn't shooting insulin. He was shooting up drugs-a wide variety from the look of his blood scan.”
“So he was an addict?”
“Exactly.”
“Did anyone check for diabetes?”
“There was no need after the drug findings and the gaping wounds to the hands and feet,” countered Schuller, his guard up again like a shield.
Jessica dropped the subject of the obvious oversight. “What about the other two victims? Any evidence of drugs other than Brevital used in subduing them?”
“Matter-of-fact, yes. It's the one common denominator found in all three cases, but then, given the pervasive presence of drugs in London society nowadays… Well, there you have it. No great shock. Rather think it should come as no surprise to an experienced forensics person like yourself,” Schuller said, his tone turned slighdy condescending.
“You think a lifestyle of habitual drug use had anything to do with their becoming victims?” On either side of the Atlantic the thinking was the same-most victims of violent death lived lives that courted such disasters. For the most part she couldn't deny that it held true, but the argument also lost in the end like blaming the rape on the raped woman. No one deserved murder or to be scammed out of their life's savings because they acted out of a desperation brought on by illness or old age. Still no one, coroners, pathologists, and medical examiners included, was without his or her prejudices. It sounded to Jessica, if she accurately read between the lines, that Schuller had an aversion to druggies.
Despite the choice of lifestyle, she maintained silently in her head that the victim did not nail himself to a cross. He did not kill himself. The victims were killed by someone of superior strength and cunning, possibly someone taking full advantage of the victims' weakest of weaknesses.
“Those who live by the needle, you know,” Schuller added, confirming Jessica's assessment of the good doctor. “Inspector Sharpe can attest to it. We've all seen it. An addict necessarily must associate with the dregs of society, those even lower on the food chain than the addict… The slightest something goes wrong and it's execution time.”
“I can't see a drug dealer crucifying addicts for nonpayment of debt, sorry,” Jessica replied, unable to listen to Schuller's nonsense any longer without comment. “Did you examine the female victim for signs of diabetes or other life-threatening diseases?”
“I urged you to do exactly that,” Sharpe said to Schuller.
Schuller shook his head. “All of them died not of disease but of evil mishandling. Someone cut off their oxygen supply to watch them die slowly and torturously. End of forensic story.”
“Did you check the woman for signs of sexual battery?” asked Jessica.
“Yes, and there were none.”
“Small favors,” she muttered, her hands now lifting Burton's punctured left foot closer to the magnifying glass. “What about souvenirs? Did the killer or killers take anything from the woman's body? Anything cut off and gone missing from any of the three bodies?”
“Nothing of the sort,” replied Schuller.
“I see, and the men, both intact.”
“Nothing stolen, save the breath of life.”
“So unusual,” she murmured thoughtfully.
“What's that?” asked Sharpe.
“That the killer should not retain something of his conquests, something of a souvenir. A token to memorialize the moment, a keepsake, say like some of the hair, a hand, a sex organ, an internal organ, the heart, something to mark the occasion, to lift from his box of memorabilia to relive the moment at some later date.”
Schuller lifted his chin high and said, “I assure you that Burton and the others were totally and wholly intact, not so much as a hair disturbed, other than the brutality done them as you see before you, Dr. Coran.”
She nodded and addressed Sharpe. “Could be part of the killer's fantasy, to send them over whole and intact… as pure as he can make them, perhaps. Still, the killer may've made videotapes to commemorate their-”
“Videotapes?” Raehael was aghast.
“A perfectly awful thought,” said Sharpe. “You do think like a killer, don't you. Dr. Coran?”
'Tapes of their deaths,” she repeated. “Remember, Christ hung on the cross for what, minimum three hours before he expired? Lot of time for photographs and videotape. Many serial killers collect pictures of the event.”
“If we imagine it all had to do with some sort of religious fantasy, involving the crucifixion-the blood, oil, and the water, all having rejuvenative powers, according to biblical symbolism-then any mutilation of the body, such as taking of a body part, might well interfere with the reanimation, the resurrection as it were. Do you suppose the killer or killers think they have the power to resurrect the dead?”
“It's a possibility, yes. Nothing's too fantastic for the fevered, psychotic mind.”
Richard nodded. “All sounds logical in a twisted way, of course.”
“If that is the case, it must've hurt the killer's sense of order and cleanliness to see the O'Donahue woman's body ran over,” she commented.
“I'm sure,” agreed Sharpe. “However, I do hope we can hurt the bastard in more places than his sensibilities.”
“I suppose it does sound foolish to speak of a killer's sense of order. But a killer like this one who premeditates, prescribes, stalks, plans out his kill. Inspector, is certainly concerned with a sense of orderliness and conduct in what he does.” She momentarily wondered whether or not J. T. back at home was having any luck with Tattoo Man
's case. Now there was a case involving a deadly planning out of every detail. She wondered what, if anything, the two disparate cases might have in common.
Sharpe near-whispered, “Do you think we can catch this madman anytime soon?”
“In time. All in due time, Inspector.” He set his jaw and nodded. “Are we finished here? She considered the pros and cons of asking that Burton's body be tested for disease of every sort. What might it net, what problems would it cause between the British doctors and herself? She finally said, “Yes, all done. These gentlemen have done a thorough job of it.”
But the spirit in the corpse didn't think so, for slowly, almost imperceptibly, the swollen dead tongue, bloated to near bursting, parted the smiling lips and peeked out like a cautious gray gecko. The tongue kept moving now that it had parted the lips, moving as if independent of the body, as if it remained somehow alive. Forward it came, of its own accord, to lie over the lower lip where it stopped.
“What in God's name?” whispered Sharpe.
“Never seen anything like it,” added young Dr. Raehael.
“Not unusual in my experience,” Jessica said, albeit unnerved. Such artificial life movements in the dead always caused a ripple of fear in anyone looking on. The tongue made Burton's already distorted features an impious gargoyle's snicker. The overall effect made Burton a macabre clown poking fun to both startle and taunt all in the room.
Schuller, although curious, kept a straight face, while Jessica grabbed for the large magnifying glass on its swivel arm and focused it on the tongue, asking, “Had you seen this swelling before?” She wondered if it were not indicative of some exotic disease.
“Yes, it was mentioned as an addendum to my report,” countered Schuller.
Jessica, not knowing why, found a pair of large forceps and pulled the tongue as far as the corpse would allow her, staring at the decaying, bloated thing for some time before she lifted it to stare at the underside, and there she found something that made them all gasp-some sort of brand.
“Son-of-a Bristol whore,” said Sharpe. “Oh, pardon, Dr. Coran, but what the deuce is it?”
Schuller couldn't hide his confusion, nor the shakiness where he stood on the balls of his feet across from Jessica, staring at the blackened flesh. He finally asked, “Is it some sort of emblem?”
“Lettering…”
“What's that?”
“It appears to be lettering of some sort, but I can't make it out. Was there anything of the sort on the other two bodies?”
“No, some swelling of the tongue, but no… no branded letters on the underside of the tongues, no,” replied Schuller. “But then…”
“But,” Jessica finished for him, “there'd been no reason to look below the tongue, right?”
“Exactly, and what with the understaffing here and the overworked help…”
Sharpe, more interested in the message than the verbal jousting between doctors, firmly asked, “Can you make out what it says?”
“Small lettering. Guy had to use jeweler's tools or tattoo parlor tools or a hot brand to make this happen,” Jessica replied, again thinking there may well be some connections unforeseen between Tattoo Man and the crucified dead here in London.
Sharpe, craning to see, demanded, “You can read it with the glass, can't you, Dr. Coran?”
“It's partially obliterated from where the integrity of the skin has collapsed in on itself, but the first letter appears to be M.”
“Anything else?”
“M-i-h-i,” she slowly read, each letter qualified by her tentative tone, like someone reading a chart in an optometrist's office. “I think, but don't hold me to it. And the message goes on.”
“Saying what?” Sharpe bent over her shoulder now, trying desperately to have a look, pushing against her, close enough that she could smell his cologne. “Can't say without closer examination.”
“What will that require?”
“What I really must do is cut out the tongue, strip the skin, and place it beneath electron microscope magnifica-”
“Ironic… Cut out his tongue? The man made a living with that tongue,” said Dr. Schuller, sounding disturbed.
“There's more to the message, Doctor,” she countered.
“I realize that, but suppose it's a mere affectation, say as you suggest, like a tattoo or tongue piercing, and all your time in cutting and searching for linguistic evidence is ail a blind corridor?”
“Sharpe, it's your investigation,” she said. 'Tell us what you want.”
“You're certain there's more to the message?”
“Absolutely, but the only way to get at it is to remove the tongue, spray it with a fixative and fillet it flat, and skin the portion with the message. It's the only way we can tell the age of the brand and whether or not it came about when he was still alive or after death.”
“What the bloody hell does Mihi mean?” Sharpe wondered aloud.
No one in the room knew the answer.
“Sounds kinda Hawaiian to me,” Jessica said. “Have you a linguistics expert on call?”
“We do. Father Luc Sante. He's a Catholic priest as well.”
“Get him in here, then. I think Mr. Burton has made one thing clear. He wants to tell us something after all, and here I'd judged him wrong, thinking him stonily silent.”
“I caution you not to rush headlong into this decision, Richard,” Schuller said, putting a hand on Sharpe's shoulder and stepping him aside to huddle and whisper like boys playing football.
Schuller's assistant-the marble black eyes appearing a bit droopy and unfocused from a definite lack of sleep or no lack of drugs-nervously swallowed and tried to find anywhere to look but into Jessica's eyes. His demeanor said, “Yes, we royally screwed up here,” but he kept the words to himself. Sharpe suddenly walked away from Schuller, his teeth set, his jaw squared. Then he announced in clear defiance of Schuller, “Fillet the damned tongue.”
This made the other men laugh nervously. Jessica snatched out her scalpel case. Using the stainless-steel scalpel her father had given her when she graduated from medical school, she tugged at the tongue with forceps in one hand and worked to slice it off with the other. As usual, removing a tongue proved no easy task, as the last fibrous threads stubbornly held on. Finally, with two quick flicks of her wrist, Burton's tongue lay in her hand like a baby trout.
“Short of peeling the skin, I'll try filleting the tongue and sectioning it as thinly as possible to fit below the eyepiece of the largest microscope you have, Dr. Schuller. I don't think we'll need to bombard it with electrons, so we won't need the electron microscope. That would only destroy the physical evidence anyway.”
“Evidence of what?” Schuller remained skeptical.
Jessica went about the business of sectioning. She examined the other words of the small, cryptic message below the lens of a huge microscope that Schuller's assistant had pointed out to her. She read aloud what she saw before her. “P-no, it's a b-followed by e-a-t something mater.” She then read aloud the entire message, “Mihi be eat a mater.”
“Sounds like Greek,” said the Egyptian assistant.
“More likely Latin,” replied Sharpe. “Something about beautiful or blessed mother, mater being mother, and if you put the b and the eat and an a together, it's beata, beautiful or quite possibly blessed. Blessed mother, which pertains, of course, to Mary, Mother of Christ,” explained Sharpe, qualifying with, “But don't quote me. Father Luc Sante… he would know, most certainly. We've used him in cases before, often cases involving psychotics. He's a psychotherapist as well.”
Stuart Copperwaite appeared from nowhere at Jessica's shoulder, asking, “What's this?”
Jessica was startled into dropping the portion of slippery tongue she'd balanced beneath the microscope lens, only to further obliterate the message. “Sonofabitch,” she muttered under her breath. “Damnit,” she more clearly cursed and stared at Stuart Copperwaite whose shoulders lifted like those of a puppet on a string.
<
br /> “I am sorry,” he pleaded, trying to help her lift the slippery fish from the floor, but managing only to cause more havoc.
“Will you just back off?” she shouted.
Copperwaite gasped and backed away as she had asked.
The message had been ripped and torn and parts of it were down the drain on the floor where it had splattered.
“We may have to exhume the other bodies to have a clearer look at this,” she pointedly said to Sharpe. Then Jessica turned to Dr. Raehael and said, 'Take a few photos of what remains of the wording, Doctor.”
The little Egyptian nodded, his mouth agape, displaying good teeth.
“O'Donahue's tongue can't be intact after all this time. Maybe Coibby, but I doubt it,” Schuller thought openly and loudly. “Soft tissue decay.”
“Coibby then!” Jessica firmly replied. “We've got to know what we're chasing after in the dark, and this, gentlemen, is the first bit of light we've had. It may prove a false light, but for now, it behooves us to treat it as a divine light, a gift.”
“Right you are, Doctor,” agreed Sharpe. “If the others have this same mark on their tongues, then it originated, most likely, with the killer. I shall see to the exhumation order personally.”
Shouldn 't have released the damned bodies to begin with, Jessica thought. The thought colored her features, but she withstood the desire to throw it into Schuller's now less than smug face. “As for me, I'd like to find that hotel room you promised, Inspector Sharpe. Get some rest, maybe a bite.”
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