She wanted to bum Jim's last letter, bum it in effigy to their several “reconciliations” and get the anger out. Instead, she sat rereading it, reminding herself that her intuition, upon reading the letter the first time around, had told her the relationship was over. She'd stubbornly and foolishly ignored the information from within, denial being the predator of all reason, the predator of all who failed to heed their own inner voices.
Jessica realized now for the second time, that all the signals had been given her then, and they were vivid, huge signals, like billboards in the sky. Signs she had simply chosen to ignore; signs she unconsciously shunned, like an insistent dream that one ignored only to find it coming to full-blown life.
“And me with my handwriting expertise, learned the hard way on the job,” she muttered in a whisper. “If only I'd subjected this letter to the same analysis I would a criminal's letter.” If only I had paid attention to the handwriting, the hesitation marks that skitter between the lines, she thought now. But like a motorist on an interstate, she'd been moving too fast to read the fine print on the billboard.
She imagined that if she closely examined his last several letters, she would find signs of the impending doom that had befallen the two of them. Love makes you blind, she told herself. She told her shadow self, the one keeping her awake, something altogether different. “Love's a war, a battle for one's soul, and in the battle pieces are lost, scars won, mostly scars bearing the appearance of defensive wounds. Love's poison. Love's a bitch. Love's a killing offense.”
Richard-half asleep and in what appeared a muddled nightmare-crinkled his forehead and mumbled something about a bastard, stakes, and crosses. Jessica imagined his personal nightmare of the moment filled to overflowing with the spirits of menace in a place thickly populated by demons. A pained gasp for air made her wonder if he were dreaming of his own crucifixion death, pinned to a cross, unable to move or to fight back. Then as suddenly as the darkness had swept over his brow, the dreamer smiled a grin similar to those she'd seen on Coibby and Burton, one of contentment, peace.
Obviously, Sharpe lives, breathes, and sleeps his work, she thought. Just as I do. The conviction grew the longer she stared down at his prone figure. Still, he was older than James, and retirement for him loomed on the near horizon. He'd be free to come to America. They could both live in the Quantico area where he might buy a large farm-no, a ranch with horses. She loved horses and horseback riding, and when he would call for her to come out on a weekend, she'd drop everything and be there and… Her dreams ran a bit rampant for a half second, her eyes fixed on Richard Sharpe lying alongside her, her “alongsider” friend and lover.
Their lovemaking rivaled any lovemaking she'd ever known, and she sensed it the tip of the iceberg with this man. They had been cautious, yet passionate with one another, halting yet fulfilling each other's needs. Jessica knew that she could grow to love this man.
She reread the letter for the eleventh time. James had desperately tried to make it come clear to her, clear that she either choose her career or him, clear that he could no longer accept the status quo: the burden of the long-distance love affair they'd established had fallen squarely on her shoulders-typical of the male of the species.
Checking the time, realizing it is after twelve noon in Hawaii, Jessica impulsively telephones James. She checks the digital figures on her bedside clock and while she realizes the hour puts him at work, she calls nonetheless. Her toe begins tapping at the air where it dangles alongside the bed, and she mentally taps her thoughts: He will be at his desk, she assures herself, pacing, wondering if he'd done the right thing, calling off their relationship, worried sick about her. On the fourth ring, he answers, acting surprised to hear from her again, when in fact he is not in the least surprised. When he speaks, he spews forth venom, telling her, “Jess, damnit, it's over now! Now, please never call here again!”
In the background, she hears someone softly asking if everything is all right: a female associate. Jessica throws the telephone through a nearby mirror where it is swallowed up. Her eyes open, and she finds, found, located herself in time and place, found herself being held against Richard Sharpe's powerful chest, listening to the beating drum of his heart, feeling the power of his grip on her back where his hands and fingers massaged while his voice soothed her pain.
Sharpe had grabbed her, holding on, telling her, “You're all right, Jessica. Your nightmare is just that, a nightmare.” His voice flowed like fine wine, strong, firm, reassuring, solid.
“Sorry,” she softly apologized, awake enough now to distinguish dream from reality, to assure him that she was no infant in need of coddling.
“Lamenting the death of an old relationship is never easy,” he replied, holding up the letter from Jim Parry.
She snatched at the paper, tearing it even as he welcomed her taking it. “That's private!” she shouted, realizing that this moment could end their relationship with one stroke, that it represented one of those escape exits from a relationship that Dr. Donna LeMonte, her psychiatrist and friend, had so often told Jessica she grasped at like straws. She could so easily overreact, sending Richard out into the night, screaming at him for daring to touch her letter from Jim. She could easily accuse him of having read her private correspondence, of finding the act vile. Or she could hold on. Hold to the moment, hold to Richard, hold.
“I quite well know and understand the depression and horror of a long-term relationship falling apart,” he calmly said, his hands still massaging her back.
“None of my relationships have any chance whatsoever, thanks to my
… This obsessive drive to be the best forensic scientist I can be.” She found herself confessing and not knowing why. Sharpe brought it out in her. She wanted to share everything with him, including her darkest moments and her every mole.
'To be the best at something. No better desire or goal on the planet. And you are, you know, the best M.E. I've ever seen at work. You don't have to keep proving yourself to me. Boulte, yes. Me, no.” He said it with the rich, lusty laugh which he'd trumpeted at the theater.
“God, you're a wonderful man,” she told him.
“That's the nicest thing a woman, any woman, has said to me in a long time.”
She bit on her lower lip, pouting. “So, you've found me out, and quickly. I found you irresistible from the start, from the moment I first saw you in my office.”
“I had no idea.”
“Nonsense, Inspector. You're both too observant and too fast for that, Sharpe.”
He countered, saying, “I find you keenly quick-intelligent, capable-and as to your obsessions, well, I rather fancy them admirable obsessions. Far more so than those of women obsessed with hair, lipstick, and ornamentation.”
She smiled at this. “Will you find it so admirable once I've returned to the States?”
“We're both adults, Jessica. We've both been in prior relationships, both good and bad. I have no wish to put any yokes on you. Besides, it's a great deal closer to London from Washington than it is to Hawaii.”
She looked peculiarly at him. She hadn't explained to him anything about James Parry or ever mentioned Hawaii to him, not that she could recall. “Then you did read Jim's letter. How else could you know it was Hawaii?” she asked, point-blank. “You said so, in your sleep.”
“I did?”
“You repeatedly said the words 'paradise' and 'Hawaii' amidst a gibberish about spawning whales. I could not follow. I tried waking you before you toppled the phone, but-”
'Toppled the phone?”
He pointed to the floor beside the bed. She realized now that the buzzing in her ears was the phone off its cradle where it lay on the floor beside the bed.
“Perhaps you're not quite over this fellow in Hawaii, in which case, I feel that perhaps I ought not to have stayed.”
“No, no, Richard. I'm glad you and I, that we… that we have had this moment. It's been…” She wanted to say therapeutic, but she feared he'd
take that description badly. He reached her mouth with his and covered her halting words, taking her breath away, feeding on it. She responded with quick energy, returning his probing kiss, feeling the heat and passion rising in Richard Sharpe again, feeling her own passions well up and boil over.
“It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a woman, and never one so beautiful as you,” he continued the none-too-subtle flattery, and she loved it.
“It's been a long time since a man has lied so well to me,” she countered.
“Lie!” He laughed and repeated it. “Lie? Me? Inspector Richard Sharpe of Scotland Yard? Lie to a lady? Never about such matters of importance.”
“Shut up. Kiss me.” She kissed him, James's letter falling in a crumple on the floor beside the bed with the phone still off the hook.
They made love for the second time, and the second proved better than the first time. Jessica's thoughts and memories of James Parry dissipated and faded as Richard's touch opened her mind to new possibilities. She particularly enjoyed hearing Sharpe laugh in complete and total abandon when he came in her.
They enjoyed a shower together and a large breakfast via room service the next morning, and Richard, having no change of clothes, left ahead of Jessica to swing by his flat to find what he needed. They both felt a euphoria about the step they had taken in forging a personal bond. Neither felt obligated to the other, and yet both wished to get to know the other at a still deeper level. They had parted with this feeling strong between them. Jessica had stopped just short of telling Richard how awful she felt at ever having, even for a moment, suspected him in setting up the Crucifixion murders to further his career. The nasty, vulture-atop-a-tree suspicious mind she had cultivated over the years, so rich in its cynicism, so capable in its bullshit detection, had simply kicked in prematurely there in Hyde Park when Richard had stepped off the crime scene so abruptly, leaving her alone with Copperwaite. Now she rather admired his having simply dropped everything-all of his duties and responsibilities-to seek out his girls in an effort to reassure himself of their safety.
Still, she thought better of telling him of her foolish suspicions during that fleeting moment in Hyde Park. The suspicion had come and gone like a bird flying in through an open window and out another. No big deal. Funny, really. Perhaps, one day, she might tell him, so that he might see clearly and exactly the bad sort he'd become involved with. But not now, not here. She feared spoiling what they had only just found.
The phone rang, and Jessica found Chief Inspector Boulte on the other end. “I've gathered together every available detective, policeman, and investigator in and out of Scotland Yard who has devoted any time at all to the case, and it has amounted to some one hundred and fifty chaps and ladies, all of whom I wish for you to speak to this morning.”
“Speak to… today?”
“As soon as you can get here, yes.”
“About what we've uncovered thus far about the Crucifier? “Exactly.”
“You know how very little that is, Chief Inspector.”
He cleared his throat before replying, “I do, but our chaps need some guidance, and that is what you are here for, correct? Haven't you developed a complete picture-profile-of the killer as yet?”
“I have some preliminary notes, but-”
“Good show, then read from your notes. See you in half an hour, then?”
He hung up before she could protest with another word.
Jessica quickly dressed now in a lime green two-piece suit with a forest-green blouse. The colors accentuated her auburn hair and set off her smooth, tanned skin and hazel eyes. She located her black valise and keys and set off for the stroll from the York to the Yard.
The morning air felt crisp, clean, and brand-new, and the sun felt like the life-giving source that it was. All around her, life appeared bright, teemed full with promise, and Jessica realized that her dream of telephoning Parry had been a compensatory dream. Compensating for her true feelings of relief that it was finally and cleanly over with James. While she cherished their most intimate and fun-filled moments together, she, too, had felt the weight of their relationship like heavy chains of late. Her entire body now felt airy. Still a lump of remorse stuck in her craw, a set of smoky, mirrored images of James and her together in past moments, embracing; images of them in an imagined future. This sad and wasted hope conspired with her unease at presenting what little evidence they had against the Crucifier at an open meeting at Scotland Yard. It proved enough to make her feel nauseous. Her stomach felt as if someone had left a hot poker inside her.
She tried to concentrate on her surroundings, ban the ill thoughts, doubts, and fears. This area of London displayed wealth and pomp on every comer, at every hotel door and lobby, even down to what the doormen wore. Public pounds kept this area of the City clean day and night. The vagrants were kept out, leaving tourists with the impression that Britain suffered no homeless problem, no poverty, prostitution, or drugs. All social ills locked away or kept at bay, just beyond the tourist-dollar districts.
Jessica watched London cabs and buses and people bustle about the streets. Each had a purpose, a sure destination; while she, like a rank tourist, stared at all the wonders of the City. Suddenly a strange, odd, eerie twinge of fear struck like small lightning down her spine, as if the Crucifier were close by, damned near within touch, simply observing her out of morbid curiosity, having learned of her presence on the case. Yet when she stopped to look in every direction, staring down one cabdriver, she found no one stalking her, no cameras pointed.
She dismissed the notion and continued on to Scotland Yard, finally coming within sight of the revolving cube-shaped sign. At the entry, she flashed both her FBI badge and her temporary Scotland Yard ID and was allowed to pass by the armed security guards.
She didn't relish the idea of speaking before the huge crowd Boulte had assembled, and she wondered where in the building such a crowd might be stored. She stepped back to the guards, asking advice. One of the pair, in his late twenties to early thirties, said she must take the elevator for the top floor. “Entire top floor is a theater with a stage,” he told her.
When the elevator opened on the top floor of the building, she found people in suits milling so thick that she had to fight her way off the elevator before the doors closed on her. She'd found the meeting room, a large lecture hall with a microphone and chairs set up before a table at the front.
Richard Sharpe, Stuart Copperwaite, Father Luc Sante, and Paul Boulte sat at the panel table, all of them looking sharply up at her as she entered. There was an expectant look on Boulte's face, like a pit bull before feeding. Luc Sante gave her a professional nod and a beaming smile. Copperwaite bit his own lower lip, and Richard dropped his gaze, as if pretending no interest in her whatsoever.
Just as it should be, she thought before plunking down her valise at her feet and a small notebook on the table.
“Good, Dr. Coran,” said Boulte. “Glad you could join us. I've informed Dr. Coran that we wish to share all we have with the citywide task force, including but not limited to the information Dr. Coran unearthed regarding the tongues, and the meaning of the words found on those brands. We may proceed now, gentlemen and ladies.”
“I would first like to make a call to Dr. Raehael,” Jessica interrupted. “I have put him to work on creating some slides from the wounds. They may be helpful here.”
'Time being a factor, I took the liberty. Here are your slides,” replied Boulte, who with an upturned finger signaled someone in the dark rear of the room to bring up slide number one. Instantly, the murmurs and scattered discussions among the assembled police authorities fell to a dying hush as everyone stared at the seared flesh and lettering found on the fourth victim's tongue, the best impression they had been able to get. The words, large on the screen behind Jessica and the panel, reading Mihi beata mater held an eerie quality about them in their grand scale.
The room fell silent, seeing for the first time the words of the Crucifie
r. No one had anything to say, not a single question regarding the tongue brandings. So Jessica, after asking Dr. Luc Sante to explain the meaning of the words to everyone, moved straight into her profiling of the killer or killers.
“The suspect or suspects will most likely be white, a man or men who live in the Bow Bells district, and most certainly London, and if he does not have a Messiah complex, it will be just as twisted or just as closely linked with one.” She stopped to let this sink in. The response from the audience was one of whispered heckling, as if what she said must be obvious to all present. Some brave fellow finally said, “Really now?”
Another asked, “Is that an absolute certainty?” The tone alone ridiculed.
“The killer may have developed some interest in St. Michael, patron saint of the exorcists, and so as you can imagine, he likely spends a great deal of time on religious matters. Still, he may exhibit an emotional age of late teens to early twenties. He likely lives or works within close proximity to the crime scene, or in this case the dump sites. He may have recently acquired some knowledge or a psychological jolt to his system, some shocking news, as in the death of a close family member, the breakup of a long-standing relationship, perhaps a divorce or loss of income.” She unconsciously stopped and eyed Richard. Then she hurried on, adding, “He may be a spontaneous person with a quick temper. He may take great pride in his vehicle.” She read her own notes and paused, not sure she herself believed this one. The typical profile may not apply here, she reminded herself. “Might brag about his van or truck to others, might even joke about how many bodies it can carry. Having left the scene in disarray, we believe him to be a youthful offender, inexperienced at killing. He is known to have been in the Victoria Gardens Embankment-York-front area between three and four in the morning of the first discovered body. Now since the fourth killing, characteristics the killer may be displaying are: a change in eating and drinking habits, and personal hygiene. Inappropriate or obsessive interest in the crimes. The killer may frequently initiate discussion about one or more of the victims and the crimes. Anyone acting like a different person, and anyone who may have suddenly left the area.” Finished, Jessica asked for questions from the floor. She received many. Some seemed oddly repetitious, and she found herself having to repeat herself. She pushed on. “The crucifixion deaths, Sharpe and I surmise”-Jessica paused to stare out at the detectives and beat cops from all over the city-”may have all to do with the coming millennium! As if the year 2000 were not enough, now we face 2001, and together, we'd like everyone to explore this possibility.”
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