Final Edge

CHAPTER 11

Mother Elizabeth had not exaggerated the inaccessibility of their files and records. Going back as far as 1984 proved a daunting task. Meredyth wondered if she'd ever locate the files she'd come to peruse. While Mother Elizabeth apologized, saying they had not had money to place the records on computer, and that they hadn't the space for the hard files anywhere but in the basement, Meredyth and Lucas knew better. Record-keeping simply hadn't ever been a big priority here, and certainly not given the attention that it ought to have been given over the years. The orphanage was lucky to have gotten away with such poor record-keeping this long. And hadn't Mother Elizabeth said something about some woman associated with the state who wanted to shut them down? It likely began with a look at the records relegated to this damp and dismal place.

"If you don't want that Allison woman to shut you down, Mother Elizabeth, you really ought to do something about these records," Lucas warned as Meredyth stumbled over boxes.

She had had to literally climb over and past obstacles ranging from retired podiums and old furniture to ancient garden tools, box springs, and file boxes. Amid the leftovers of a lifetime in the convent, on neatly stacked crates, they finally found some promising old files labeled with black marker. They had to wipe away cobwebs and beetle debris to read the labels.

Lucas had gotten no answer from the elderly nun or Sister Audrey, and staring across the dimly lit room to where they stood in the doorway, he read a glazed dull look in the old woman's eyes, and a pained look in the younger woman's gaze. Shaking her head as if looking at a problem without solution, Mother Elizabeth chose to leave so as to not look at the problem a moment longer. Sister Audrey ducked out with her.

By this time, wheezing had evolved into sneezing for both of them, but Lucas had developed a case of nonstop asthmatic coughing. His eyes began to tear up from the particle dust and mites.

A handheld flashlight helped somewhat in the poorly lit area in which they worked.

"Here! I've found 1984," announced Meredyth.

She pulled the box from beneath another as Lucas held and replaced the one that had sat atop it. Lucas then took the box from Meredyth's grasp, and he carried it up the stone steps, into a corridor, and out into the open church where at least some air circulated. He placed the box on a pew and Meredyth rifled through it, looking for any court papers with her signature on them. She found none. "I'm trying to recall if I had any of these cases, but its all a blur. So long ago. None of these documents would have required a social worker's signature, so I have no way of tracking it from these files."

"What about this Lauralie Blodgett? You find a file on her? Wouldn't you recall a name like Blodgett?"

"No, I don't remember the name. The mother was likely unmarried…likely using her maiden name."

"Of course."

"All the same, I'm looking for Blodgett now." Meredyth began digging for the Blodgett file, but it was not in alphabetical order where it should be. She rifled through, searching other possible ways it could be filed, under L for Lauralie, under B for Blood. "Nothing… it's not here," she finally concluded. "I'd hoped to locate a photo of her at the very least."

"Maybe it's been filed in the wrong year," he suggested.

"Or maybe Lauralie got at it a second time. Maybe she took it with her when she left this place."

"Perhaps."

"Do you think she sent us here? That she was the sexpot in the schoolgirl uniform Tebo took the package from?" Lucas continued to wheeze and cough. During a lull, he managed to say, "Guess I gotta return this file box to the basement. Can't leave it here."

"You don't want to get on Mother Elizabeth's bad side."

"No ma'am, not never…."

Lucas returned the box, leaving Meredyth standing alone in the central church, staring up at the larger-than- life, yet lifelike depiction of Christ on the cross. She had been raised Catholic herself, and it had been literally years since her last confession. She had traded in her religion for her scientific bent and her profession, and she knew it. She had broken every vow, and she was now sleeping with and contemplating marrying a Cherokee Indian named Lucas Stonecoat whose beliefs were a mix of mysticism and native folklore. A man who found God in all of nature and whose own nature held a spiritual side that was loving and caring on the one hand, but quickly moved to anger and vengeance if he saw an injustice. He was a man also capable of great wrath, and the law of blood-vengeance for a relative- ran deep in his Cherokee genes. She had seen it over the years, his ability and willingness to track a man down and kill his prey, and walk away without remorse. It was what made him an exemplary detective, but more than once, she had seen him lose control under extreme conditions, as when he thought her life in danger. Lucas had rescued her from death on more than one occasion. He had been the one she called in any crisis.

Lucas credited his upbringing largely to his grandfather, who believed in the old ways and customs. A shaman of his people, Keeowskowee had made of Lucas a strong and determined man, yet Lucas's childhood remained as far from her upbringing as that of an Eskimo.

With these thoughts and misgivings swirling about in her head, Meredyth crossed herself and knelt before the crucifix. Then from behind, she heard someone's footfall. She wheeled, imagining it to be Sister Audrey come to check on their progress, or Mother Elizabeth, but no one materialized.

"Is there someone there?" she asked.

No answer.

The silence that had been the silence of this place only deepened. "Is there anyone here?" she asked more empahtically. This time, when she received no answer, she returned her gaze to the face of Christ. Once more, to her rear, she heard a sound, and this time, she watched a shadow, someone in a hooded cloak, a priest who stepped into the confessional booth. Had the noise she heard been the priest? Had he moved that swiftly?

Was it a sign? she wondered. She took a step toward the confessional, thinking it would do her good to go to confession, but with Lucas about to return any moment, she stopped shy of the coffin like booth. She could hear the man inside yawning.

Then, out of the side of her eye, she saw movement again, a young woman dressed in the uniform of the convent school darting from a hiding place and out the door at the front of the church. It might have been any one of the girls she and Lucas had interviewed.

Was it perhaps Rachel? Wanting to tell Meredyth something out of Mother Elizabeth's earshot? "Wait!" Meredyth rushed for the exit, but she was stopped at the holy water fount, seeing the unusual cigar-shaped item in the water, trifling swirls of blood creating a mosaic over what appeared a human finger. Like a pale dead fish, the finger floated just below the surface, submerged yet floating above the bottom of the fount-the source where the holy water originated, at least in the symbolism of the Church.

Whoever had left the ugly gift in the fountainhead knew its symbolic meaning, she was sure.

"What's going on?" asked Lucas, startling her, suddenly at her side.

"Look, the holy water."

Lucas groaned at what he saw there. "Damn it, they've followed us here; they've been on our heels."

"I heard her back here, and I saw her dash out the front. It was a girl in the school uniform."

He used a handkerchief to fish out the right index finger presumably left by the girl she had seen scuttling out into the rain.

"The confessional booth, Lucas!"

He turned to look down the aisle at the booth. "What about it?"

"He's in the booth! Dressed as a priest."

Lucas rushed the confessional and tore open the door to a wide-eyed, startled young priest whose glasses fell off when he threw up his hands to fend off the attack. Lucas pulled him from the confessional as he pleaded for mercy.

His hands tightly fisted in the folds of the man's robes, Lucas demanded, "Who are you?"

"Sandy brown hair, glasses, but no mole on his cheek, Lucas."

"I–I'm Father…W-Will-yam," he choked out.

From behind them, Lucas heard Sister Audrey shout simultaneously, "It's Father Will! Don't hurt him!"

Mother Elizabeth rushed in next, shouting, "This is outrageous conduct, Detective. This isn't your reservation chapel. I will kindly ask that you two please leave Our Lady, now!"

Lucas, realizing the mistaken identity, desperately tried to smooth out the man's robes, and he reached into the booth to fetch his glasses, apology following apology. "Sorry, Father William."

"I apologize as well, but we had provocation," Meredyth defended. "Show them what was floating in their holy water, Lucas."

Lucas held up the severed index finger.

"My dear God," moaned Father William as he straightened his glasses and inched away from Lucas, shrinking away. "I just used the fount to cross myself, and I saw nothing in the water when I entered."

Mother Elizabeth and Sister Audrey collectively gasped at what they saw in Lucas's possession. "Is it…" began Mother Elizabeth.

Meredyth nodded. "Most likely from Mira Lourdes."

"Found in our holy water…" Elizabeth slumped to a pew seat.

"Defiling the holy water?" asked Audrey.

"Yes, afraid so. I saw someone in the uniform of your school race out the door, but I didn't get a clear look at her."

The old woman placed a hand across her heart. "Give me strength." Sister Audrey located a handheld cardboard fan. "Did you find the records you wanted?" Elizabeth asked.

"I'm afraid not, and Lauralie appears to have stolen her file, Mother Superior," Meredyth explained.

"Theft, defiled holy water," muttered William. "One would almost have to believe that Lauralie had come for a visit. What is your interest in her records? Why are you here?"

"We'll let Mother Superior fill you in. It's a long story."

"Apparently, William, she's become involved in a most unsavory affair with someone who has abducted and killed a woman."

"Our Lauralie? Involved with a murderer?"

"Do you have a photo of Lauralie anywhere, Mother Elizabeth?" asked Lucas.

Again Elizabeth had to defer to Sister Audrey, asking if she had any ideas on the subject. Sister Audrey instantly replied, "The yearbook, Mother Superior. She'll be in it. I'll bring one from the storage closet."

Elizabeth caught her breath and formally introduced Father William Stoughton to Lucas and Meredyth. "Father William comes twice a week to take confessions, to look in on us, make reports to the bishop, and to dine on our food, right, Father?"

"That's right, Mother Superior. Dr. Sanger, Detective, if there is anything I can do to help"-Stoughton brought the hem of his robe up to meet the glasses in his hand and began cleaning the lenses, lifting them back to his eyes, testing, cleaning again, as he spoke-"anything whatever, don't hesitate to contact me at St. Pete's Cathedral downtown."

"Did you know Lauralie Blodgett well when she resided here?" asked Lucas, immediately taking him up on his offer.

"Not really. I help those who help themselves, so I hardly noticed Lauralie. She was sullen, moody, you know how she was, Mother Elizabeth. Extremely hard to reach."

"Yes, she was all those things," Elizabeth agreed.

Father William continued, seeming anxious to distance himself from Lauralie. "She refused any notion of confessing her sins, told me she had none. Imagine it. I tried to counsel her, of course, but she remained stone-hearted, insisting she had nothing whatever to confess. I explained the doctrine of Original Sin to her, of course, the blood of the lamb, all of it, but she remained adamant that she was without sin; that she was sinned against."

Meredyth took Lucas aside for a moment to confer. "Should we call in Chang, have the church vestibule and fount cordoned off as a crime scene?"

He shook his head. "They won't find anything useful, and we'll only disturb the rhythm of this place more than we already have. I say we keep it to ourselves for now. But how is this girl so closely shadowing us that we don't see her?"

"Hell, you're the Indian. You tell me. But I did see a girl. It could've been Lauralie, but it could as well have been Rachel, or one of the others. Actually, at first, I was sure it was Rachel, wanting to add to her testimony, you know, but I was stopped at the sight of the bloody holy water."

"Another defiled religious holy item," he muttered. "A pattern emerges."

Sister Audrey returned with the yearbook, two pages already marked for their perusal. Lucas and Meredyth studied the two photos of Lauralie Blodgett that had made the yearbook, her head-shot graduation photo and a photo taken with her entire class. She was a striking young woman who appeared far older than eighteen years of age. In the full body shot, it was evident that she had filled out her Catholic school uniform, and she exuded sex appeal even in the frumpy plaid skirt and suspenders over a white blouse.

"No way Father William didn't notice her," whispered Lucas to Meredyth. "Given his nervousness when asked about her, I wouldn't put it past him to have put a move on her."

"Or she on him for favors."

Lauralie stood almost a head taller than any of her classmates. In both photos, she wore an expressionless face, but her eyes rose up from the flat page and seemed to bum with a strange, penetrating radiance. Dark-skinned, exotic in appearance, she might pass for Mexican or Indian. When Lucas asked about her nationality, William said, "Mexican… she was Mexican and Caucasian."

"No, Father Will, she was Irish on her mother's side, Croombs, and a mix of Mexican and Native American on her father's side."

"Croombs?" asked Meredyth.

"She showed me her father's photo once, and a photo of the woman she had located, Katherine Croombs. Quite the Caucasian, looked like the Irish stereotype."

Lucas and Meredyth thanked the woman again for her time and hospitality as they prepared to leave. Mother Elizabeth, forgiving them their trespasses against Father William, suddenly insisted that they must remain for the dinner meal, 'To see how well the children prepare the meal, wait the tables, and clean up afterwards."

Meredyth begged off, saying they hoped to get to the county clerk's office before the Children and Family Services Department shut down for the evening. "As it is, we may not make it."

"All the more reason to stay for the meal. Father William always stays for dinner."

The mother superior had earlier asked Father William to replace the holy water in the fount, and he'd seemed anxious to fulfill her wish and had eagerly gone to the front vestibule for the chore. Lucas went to Father William now and asked, "You have no idea of Lauralie' s current whereabouts? Where we might find her? We really need to ask her a few routine questions."

"Sorry…as Mother Elizabeth can tell you, none of us have seen or heard from Lauralie in months."

"She was a pretty girl, Father."

"All children are beautiful in the eyes of the Lord, Detective."

"I'm sure they are." Lucas put a mental note in the back of his head to talk to Rachel again someday about Father William. Instinct told Lucas that the man was not the saint he purported to be, and that perhaps Rachel and others here were not so demure as they were frightened.

Lucas and Meredyth left, to Mother Elizabeth's and Sister Audrey's smiles and waving of hands as Lucas pulled from the lot, Sister Audrey again electronically opening and closing the gate.

"Place is like a small castle missing a drawbridge and a moat," said Lucas. "There must be ways in and out the students alone know about."

"What're you suggesting? That we have the church staked out?"

"Maybe…"

"Whoever's playing games with us, she knows the lay of the grounds here, the ins and outs, and Rachel mans the kitchen door. Suppose Rachel is still being dominated by Lauralie. Suppose Rachel's suspicion that Mother Orleans's accident was no accident is true. Maybe the fire was no accident either, but a first attempt on the old mother nun's life? Rachel might make an excellent witness for the prosecution if Lauralie is as involved in the abduction and death of Mira Lourdes as she seems to be."

"Where is Lauralie?"

"I'd like to get Rachel out of that place and into a real interrogation room downtown."

"Rachel knows a lot, agreed. Like someone who has spent her entire life here should know."

"And I'm telling you now, Mere, there's something not kosher with that priest. He may deserve a great deal more thrashing than I gave him."

"He did seem odd, defensive, especially when you were strangling him with his own robes!" She laughed recalling the image.

Both Meredyth and Lucas felt great relief at passing from the church grounds and back into the world of the city of Houston. "Poor Rachel," Meredyth said. "I feel like we ought to've hidden her in the trunk of the car and rescued her from all those characters."

"I know…me too, but then that'd be agin the law."

"Mother Elizabeth is a strange mix of strength, intelligence, and naivete, isn't she?"

"I think her heart's in the right place, but no one's playing by her rules, not really."

"Behind those bars, she's created a fanciful fantasy existence, a place apart for her separate peace, yet she's convinced herself that she's preparing those girls for the real world."

"Still, I liked her. Heart of gold. I been searching for a heart of gold…and I'm growin' old," he sang out.

Meredyth insisted they try to make the downtown courthouse before closing time, but Lucas replied, "In this traffic, no way we can make it before the offices close. We may as well call it a day, Mere."

"Damn it, Lucas, I can't recall if there was an infant named Lauralie Blodgett or Lauralie Croombs as one of my first cases or not. But given the mounting coincidences, I'm assuming I did handle the case. It's got to be why I've been targeted by this maniac, and Lauralie has got to be at the center of it all. Maybe the Post-it Killer is her boyfriend; maybe he has made promises to her."

"Promises?"

"Promises to help her wreak revenge on me. She could be the brains behind the hand of this Frankenstein."

"Why target me then?"

"Because, Lucas, they've gone to school on me, so they know all about me and my surroundings, my likes and dislikes, and so they know I'm…that is, that we are close, and by hurting you, they know they hurt me."

"Is that an admission of love?" he asked.

"A great and abiding fondness with a capital F," she replied.

He laughed at this and drove on. After ten minutes of silence, he said, "You know me, Mere. I don't normally leap to assumptions and conclusions on a case, but it's increasingly clear that someone, most likely this Lauralie someone, has it in for you so badly that it borders on a kind of religious abhorrence she has against you."

"To've mailed those body parts to us, and to've placed that severed finger for me to find in the holy water…Indeed it is a furious hatred she's harboring for me."

'True whether she's done all of this herself, in person, or has had others following her orders. Kinda like you!" he joked.

"She certainly knows how to control people."

"Yeah, even men of the cloth like Father William."

"You really didn't like Father William, did you?"

"Call it an instant dislike."

"But how do you see him helping Lauralie-or whoever is behind Mira Lourdes's death and mutilation?"

"Small favors, I suspect, for sexual favors perhaps. I get a bird-of-prey kind of thing coming off that beak-nosed priest. He curries favors with all the girls, I suspect, but maybe Lauralie became too much for him to handle. I get the feeling he's damned glad he hasn't seen her in some time and doesn't know her whereabouts and wants to keep it that way."

"That's quite a leap, Lucas."

"Suspicious mind of mine has kept me alive this long."

"Well, one thing I believe we can agree on is that our female courier is not so innocent. The finger was not tucked away in a box. She knew what she was defiling the holy water with."

"Which means that our Post-it Ripper is not a he but a they, a couple out to panic Houston, and bent on destroying you and me in the bargain, like…like a jealous lover."

"I know it'll only sound paranoid to anyone looking at the circumstances from the outside," Meredyth said. "Hell, as a shrink, I'd say the same thing of someone coming to me with a story as convoluted and crazed as this…but after all, it was a man-and-woman team who abducted Mira Lourdes, and why Lourdes, if not to make a point with the convent? And-and, Lucas, why'd they mark the return address on the first parcel to you as Our Lady of-" She stopped herself in mid-sentence, pondering something new.

"What is it, Mere?" he asked, stopping at a light.

"The other return address, the mortician's. They're a twenty-four-hour business, right?"

"Yeah, it's over on Lowe near Clinton, off the canal…a commercial district. What're you thinking?"

"I'm thinking a lot of people have tragically died around Lauralie Blodgett. A few years ago it was her mother superior, and this year her birth mother. So where do you suppose her mother's body went for burial if not that return address on Lowe?"

"I hope they have better record-keeping skills than the sisters of Our Lady of Miracles."

Lucas turned the car in the direction of the mortuary.

Morte de Arthur's was the first and only mortuary Lucas had ever seen that sported a neon sign, but within they found a clean, well-lit, marble-floored, darkly paneled place of real mahogany walls, all polished and kept from the original mortuary on this spot, likely in business for most of the century before losing out to economic hard times and family illness and death. They also learned on the inside that the new proprietors, Giorgio and Carlotta Fellini, did keep better records than did the convent school. They were quickly able to locate a burial service for a Carmilla Blodgett, a Walter D. Blodgett, a Terrence K. Blodgett, and more recently a John D. Blodgett.

"No Katherine Croombs Blodgett?" Meredyth asked, shaking her head.

"Sony. If it ain't there," said Carlotta, "then we didn't handle her."

Meredyth scanned the John Blodgett card and read aloud. "John D. Blodgett, aged fifty-two. Amer. Indian/Mexican male. Height 62", weight 210 lbs. Generic service. Determination of death: heart attack. Survived by common law wife, Katherine Croombs, and daughter Lauralie. Services and burial at Greenhaven Meadows Cemetery held May 4, 1997."

"Bingo! It's her!" shouted Lucas.

"Yes, she's on Blodgett's card as his wife and Lauralie's down as his daughter."

Lucas examined the card. The date of Blodgett's funeral and burial at Greenhaven Cemetery predated Giorgio and Carlotta's taking over the business. "Greenhaven…Blodgett. The vandalized gravesite Kelton learned about? It's got to be him, Lauralie's father."

"So where was Katherine's body taken?"

'Try the C's," suggested Lucas.

Meredyth then thumbed through the three-by-five cards under the Cs, and there she located a Katherine Anne Croombs who had been embalmed and prepared for burial here. "It's her, Lauralie's mother, Lucas. It's got to be Lauralie behind all this. She's leaving all these telltale signs."

"Bread-crumb trail. She wants to get caught."

"More likely, she wants us to know her motives."

"If it's not her, someone's going to a hell of a lot of trouble to make us believe it's her."

"Like wily Father William Stoughton, you mean?"

"It may sound far-fetched, but suppose she's got something on him. Suppose he needs to incriminate her in order to get out from under any charges she could now, or in the future, bring against him."

"Molestation charges? Maybe you've got something there."

"Lot of temptation for a man in that place, and a lot of nooks and crannies to do something about it in, if you ask me."

"You do have a dirty mind, Lucas."

"No, a detective's mind is all."

'Take nothing at face value, huh?"

The mortuary record cards were arranged in alphabetical order and then by date of burial. John Blodgett and the other three Blodgetts, all of mixed Native American and Mexican descent, all predated the change in management. "All these Blodgetts were likely related. I wonder why someone in the family couldn't have taken Lauralie out of that convent to return to the family."

"Crack baby, remember? Mother without direction or goals. Father unavailable. All we know, John Blodgett never knew he had a daughter. If so, no one in his family would have known either."

"I'm sure Family Services didn't bother to find out."

Her face flushed red as if he'd slapped her. She turned to the bookkeeper, wife, co-owner, and asked, "Carlotta, were all these Blodgetts related?"

Carlotta shrugged. "No way to be sure. They were all serviced by Xavier and Sons, before we came."

"Before the advent of Morte de Arthur's-translated- the Death of Arthur's," replied Lucas, thinking, Before the Xaviers sold out to a tastelessly run franchise.

Lucas next took the card on Katherine Croombs from Meredyth and read the words. "Katherine Anne Croombs, age thirty-seven, Caucasian female, 5'9", 180 lbs. Catholic service. Determination of death: alcoholic overdose w/ ambien pills. Ms. Croombs is survived by a daughter, Lauralie Blodgett. Services and burial held at Greenhaven Meadows Berwyn Cemetery, July 20th, 2004."

On the back of the card, the remaining information summed Katherine's life up to a last known address. An address for Lauralie was given as 1386 Ravenswood, Chicago, Illinois. The mother's address was on North Groiler.

"Alcoholic poisoning, just as Mother Elizabeth said," Meredyth almost whispered.

"She didn't say anything about sleeping pills. Man, the lady was only a couple of years older than us, Mere."

"Do you suppose Lauralie is living at Katherine's address?"

"It's certainly worth our while to find out."

"Stakeout?"

"I think we have enough for a warrant to search. I'll make the call." Lucas went for his car radio, leaving Meredyth in the mortuary office with Carlotta Fellini, the proprietor.

"Do you recall anything at all about the daughter?" Meredyth asked the flamboyantly dressed, heavyset, buxom Carlotta, who acted as secretary and gofer for her husband, Giorgio. When Lucas and Meredyth had first arrived, Mr. Fellini, according to the name tag on his lapel, had greeted them at the door. Giorgio-in black bow tie against a ruffled baby-blue shirt beneath a navy-blue blazer a size too small, his ruffled cuffs flitting about on nervous wings at seeing Lucas's gold shield-had sent them to the office to speak to his wife about records. Giorgio was in the middle of a wake just the other side of the door.

Carlotta stopped chewing her gum at Meredyth's question, as if doing so might help her think. "I remember her, sure. Flirtatious bitch…all over my Giorgio. And cheap, paid in cash, said little, no tears…showed no emotion at all." The emphatic at all was condemnation and curse rolled into one in Carlotta jargon.

"Anything else you recall, anything at all?"

Carlotta's jaws worked the gum again. "Let me get Giorgio in here. He dealt with her more'n I did. I just took her money."

"Did she say she was staying at her mother's address on Ravenswood?" Meredyth held up the file card to her.

"Said she was at some Best Western, I think. Said she had come in from out of town to make arrangements is all. She left an out-of-town address, Chicago. It's on the card."

Meredyth had already jotted the two addresses down on a notepad she carried with her. She imagined the Chicago address a fake, a dead end. Certainly, Lauralie was closer than Chicago, and like Lucas, Meredyth wondered if sweet daughter Lauralie had perhaps taken up residence at Mom's old place.

Carlotta buzzed Giorgio on his pager, and Lucas reentered the office alongside Giorgio, who, smiling beneath his handlebar mustache, greeted them as if meeting them for the first time. "How much more can we help you?" he asked, his arms expansively opening to them, his smile a commercial habit.

Meredyth showed him the three-by-five card and asked, "Do you recall anything at all, sir, about the daughter?"

"Was she with anyone to lean on, a man?" asked Lucas.

"No, alone she was…all alone. I recall how sad that was, but she was stern, you know, like a rock"-he held out a fist to emphasize this point-"how do you say it, stoic…yes, stoic. Said her mother was a lifelong alcoholic, a victim of her chosen lifestyle, and as sad as it was, you know, a wasted life, that her overdosing came as no surprise to her, the daughter, I mean."

"That was her attitude? Matter-of-fact?" asked Lucas.

"She was under a lot of stress…depressed, you know," said Giorgio. "It is common under the circumstances of a death in the family. It is something I see every day."

Carlotta, who obviously did not work the wakes, wore a multicolored neck scarf, a halter top, and jeans. Hearing Giorgio's words, she leaped to her feet and came around from behind her desk like a charging bull, getting into Giorgio's face, shaking her head and waving a stem index finger. "She wasn't all that broke up, Giorgio! Don't confuse a stone-cold heart with honest depression!"

"You are too harsh, Carlotta!"

"She took you, Giorgio! We lost on that service, thanks to your thinking with your little head!" She said to Lucas, "That tramp was stone cold and cheap and flirting with my man the whole time. You…you men!"

Giorgio piped in. "Flirting? Come on! Yeah, all right, she was cool perhaps, and cheap, sure. I give you that, but she said the trip to get here on a moment's notice had emptied her bank account, and that she had only come in to bury her mother. I told her all about our memory-preservation and plot-maintenance programs, you know, how we send out anniversary cards with Mom or Dad's picture each year on the date of death, and how we keep up the grounds, place flowers on the grave every other week, but-"

"— but she wanted no frills, just the pine-box special," finished Carlotta. "She went all out for dear ol' Mom," Carlotta facetiously added. "She walked in here wanting to pay nothing, and short of that, as little as possible. And when I told her how easy it would be to take the maintenance plan out of her credit card each month, she said she didn't do credit cards. I had to pry a home address out of her."

"Did you see what kind of vehicle she arrived in?"

" 'Fraid not," replied Giorgio.

"And at the funeral service?"

"Arrived in a cab."

"Alone or with a man?"

"Alone, always alone, she was."

Carlotta let out a low growl like an angry cat. "All I know, she kept coming onto you, Giorgio, to get the price down, and you dummy, you let her. She got a sweet deal on a plot out at Berwyn too, I can tell you."

"Is this her?" asked Meredyth, flashing the open yearbook before the pair.

"Ahhh…hmmm…" hedged the man. "She was older, sexier. No kid like this," he emphasized, as if to say he didn't chase kids.

His wife disagreed. "It's her in the picture, Giorgio, only not wearing that skintight dress she came in here with."

"Yeah, if Carlotta says it's her, it's her. She's got a thing for faces."

Carlotta laughed. "And you, you got a thing for asses."

"Hey, so I got a thing for bodies-ain't it my business? Look around you, Carlotta. Come on, I'm jokin' here. Don't you get it?" Giorgio's arms went up and out, the ruffled cuffs flitting like two downy birds as he spoke. In an aside to Lucas, he winked. "Get it, my business? Bods?"

Carlotta gave her man a cold glare, her arms folded.

Lucas thanked them for their time and escorted Meredyth, clutching the yearbook to herself, out and onto Lowe Street. A ship came into view at the end of the street as if cruising the neighborhood, and it gave a blast of its fog horn, startling Meredyth. "Houston Ship Canal," Lucas explained as she watched the giant dark side of the ship disappear behind warehouses lining the canal. "Doubt you've ever had occasion to visit this side of town."

"What next?" she asked. "Raid Momma Croombs's house?"

"May be impossible to get a warrant. I spoke to Jorganson. He thinks we've got flimsy cause, a string of coincidences, he calls it, but he's going to wake up Judge Diehl. She's our best hope for a warrant."

"Meanwhile?"

"I'd like to see the police report on Katherine Croombs's death. How 'bout you?"

"Well…we have the date of death and her address. Getting hold of the report should be a simple matter."

They drove back for the precinct house and made inquiries, soon getting hold of a computer-generated copy of the police report on the death of one Katherine Croombs, occurring July 17th in the 29th Precinct. The body was autopsied in Leonard Chang's crime lab by Dr. Lynn Nielsen.

The police report, on the surface, appeared a routine mop-up after an unintentional death by overdose of sleeping pills and drink. Lucas commented on how cut and dried the report read, and in fact he thought aloud, "Perhaps too cut and dried."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning when cops don't want to spend all night in the station filling out a report, they resort to generalities like the ones we're seeing here. A cliche-ridden report is like a good paint job-covers a multitude of sins in quick time."

"What're you saying, Lucas?"

"In all my time with the COMIT program, going through all those thousands of Cold Case files, I know when a pair of cops have made up their collective minds to go along with surface appearances, and once an assumption of suicide or accidental overdose is made, it's hard to buck."

"You think this might be the case here?"

"If Lauralie is as dangerous as we've been led to think, yes. I may be out on a limb here, but the reports're too pat, the woman dying of an overdose without any question being raised, especially since-look here at the autopsy report."

She followed his finger to the line on the report he wanted her to read.

"She didn't swallow a lot of pills."

"Although her bottle was found empty on her night- stand," Lucas pointed out. "Cops at the scene made the assumption she swallowed the bottle of pills along with the alchohol."

"She died in bed in a peaceful pose," Meredyth said, pointing to one of the crime-scene photos he'd brought up on screen.

"That's screwy too. Death brought on by alcoholic poisoning doesn't fit with the neat, orderly position on the bed, folded arms, body perpendicular to the edge this way. Nahhh, no way."

"She laid down on her back, folded her arms, readying herself for death," Meredyth said, shrugging, playing devil's advocate.

"When people drink too much-and she had over three fifths of straight bourbon with gin chasers-they don't wake up all ready fixed and folded in bed. Someone posed her body after death. Now it may've been the neighbor who called it in…the one with the key…come in to check on her, but given testimony of the lady, it could've been her daughter, purportedly living with her and in Chicago at the same time."

Meredyth stared again at the digital computer images showing the deceased posed in death, as Lucas theorized- arms folded across her chest, ankles overlying one another. "Could still be an overdose, Lucas, and Lauralie, finding her mother in an unflattering position, poses her. Doesn't mean she killed her mother."

He nodded. "Could be…could be. Report does say she discovered the body and called it in." He paced the Cold Room floor now. "Could also be she did a lot more than pose Mommie Dearest."

"Could be she had to lift her off the floor, the sofa, the bathroom toilet," replied Meredyth, sitting cross-legged on the edge of his desk.

"That's where you find most falling-down drunks, and the investigators look the other way when a loved one moves the body out of a sense of…propriety."

"So you're not buying any of it."

"Lauralie is an effective actress, capable of lulling anyone into any belief she dangles before them. I believe she staged the body and the murder, just as she staged the death of the Mother Superior at age twelve."

"She does have a theatrical flare.

"Had Tebo's temperature rising, Father Will, and I'd bet a month's pay on Giorgio."

"How then did she do her mother in? Simply by providing her with the booze? Going out to a movie and returning?"

"There were unexplained marks on her wrists and ankles, Mere."

"Where does the report say that?"

"Coroner's protocol here." He brought it on screen. "Chalked up to clumsy handling of the body, men holding onto wrists and ankles when moving her from bed to body bag. Called a coroner's contusion. They can tell if it occurred after death from the discoloration of the skin. There's a reason you grab the deceased under the arms, and there's a proper way to hold the ankles tucked against your body."

"Sounds like you've hefted a few."

"I have. Look here too, the broken neck-chalked up to what they call a coroner's fracture. Likely from the same manhandling. Not easy properly elevating and hauling deadweight."

"So you're suggesting the M.E. wrote off restraint marks to coroner transport wagon bruises?"

"Possibly, yes."

"Are you saying that the cops lied so they could get off duty on time? And that the M.E. helped them out?"

"No, no, no. I'm saying they made a tacit blanket assumption and acted on it, and they justified that assumption with their language on the report. They didn't he so much as they convinced themselves of what their eyes told them."

"So while the detectives on scene may have had misgivings, they all turned into smoke?"

"Look, I still have doubts about how Marilyn Monroe was supposed to've died. Why? The scene was too clean, too damned neat, and she lay posed in bed, her body recently washed clean and dressed for the coroner, dead of an overdose. But God forbid she be found under the bed. Gives a guy doubts."

"And I suppose you think Elvis still lives?"

"Only as an icon for his estate and his legions of fans. He lives in that he's still number one. But that's show biz. No, I can easily accept the prognosis of an overdose in Elvis's case."

"Why Elvis yes, but Marilyn no? Because the death scene was not doctored or candy-coated?"

"Exactly. Elvis, unlike the Queen of Hollywood, was found dead at the foot of his toilet. No posing of the body, no gussying it up. Now that's unquestionably an overdose no one had a hand in but Elvis-an honest-to-God unintentional suicide."

"You buy into Marilyn's having been murdered?"

"At least assisted into her overdose by someone. Most cops know the body would at least be half on, half off the bed, and not posed in a peaceful slumber against the pd- lows."

"Then you suspect Lauralie's desperate hunt for her birth mother all those years-"

"Desperate's not too far from determined, the word Mother Elizabeth used to describe her tenacity in the search for Mom and Dad."

"From the beginning, all that effort in order to kill Katherine?"

"Some reason, huh?"

Meredyth's mind filled with the thought. 'To search for so long, only to learn that no one was searching for her…"

"Sounds like a motive for anger, and take anger up a notch to hatred, ratchet it up to acting on your hatred, and whataya got?" he asked.

"Imagine, though, seeking out one's own mother for the express purpose of killing her. It's almost too much to comprehend."

"Yeah, but it'd make a hell of a movie of the week."

"Perhaps there were extenuating circumstances, a falling-out, an argument that escalated to…to murder."

"Or assisted suicide?" asked Lucas.

"All we know for sure is that Lauralie did find her mother," she replied, clenching a fist.

"And within weeks of finding Mom, the daughter is having Mom prepped for burial at Greenhaven Cemetery by Giorgio and Carlotta. Or we could give little Lauralie, poor orphaned child, the benefit of doubt."

"Perhaps…perhaps she got caught up with-"

"Crazy Joe Boyfriend? Who not only planned and executed the abduction and murder of Mira Lourdes, but who also offered her mother, and maybe is the brain who devised the eerie mailings to you and me, Mere. No, it has to be they're equally involved-her with a motive for vengeance, him with a means to that end and a skill for dissection."

"If she selected Mira as a victim because of Mira's name-Lourdes-if she did that, then perhaps she is directing all the traffic, planting the clues she wants us to find, planning the abduction, the murder, the mutilation…which begs the question-"

"— did she plan her own mother's death?" he finished.

"— and did she have help even then from the mysterious boyfriend? Damn, a person could go crazy trying to decipher what floats here and what doesn't."

"Easy, Mere."

"And I hate it…I hate the thought of my contributing to all this insanity, however unwittingly."

He lifted her off his desk and into his arms, holding her close. "I'd say let's talk to the investigators on Katherine Croombs's overdose case, but it'd likely be a waste of time. No one's going to admit to sleepwalking through a case."

"What about talking to the M.E. in charge of the death?"

"That'd be Dr. Lynn Nielsen, very sharp. No way she couldn't've had doubts, but she'd just come on-new woman on the totem pole. Perhaps she held back pursuing it as a result."

"Do you think she'd admit that?"

"No, not unless we can convince her of its relevance to what's going on now. Maybe then…"

"You mean it's worth a try?"

"Let's do it."

He made a call and Frank Patterson answered, telling Lucas that Nielsen had just put on her coat and disappeared into the elevator.

"Thanks, Doctor."

"Anything I can do for you, Detective?" But before Patterson could finish his sentence, Lucas had slammed down the phone, grabbed Meredyth by the hand, and rushed her out.

"Nielsen's on her way out of the building. Let's catch her."

When they found Dr. Lynn Nielsen, she'd already exited the elevator on the main floor, but she'd been held up by an intern from a lab who'd chased her down with a clipboard and a form she had to sign. Nielsen briskly signed, waved good night to the young intern, and made for the exit.

Lucas and Meredyth caught her on the stairs outside the precinct, one on each side, Lucas proposing they buy her dinner.

"What is it you two want from me?" she asked. "Come now. I know the American mind now. No such thing as a free lunch."

Lucas smiled and held up his hands as if caught. "Information on a case of yours that goes back to July 17th."

"That would be on file in the computer."

"A woman named Katherine Croombs."

"Croombs…Croombs…"

"Found in a state of alcoholic poisoning in which you noted two key elements that went ignored by your immediate supervisor, our Dr. Patterson, and the detectives on the case, who appeared in heat to sign off on it," Lucas explained.

She turned up her collar against the annoying drizzle, said nothing, and began skipping down the steps. Lucas and Meredyth followed.

"Do you recall the case?" asked Meredyth in her ear.

She stopped and looked into Meredyth's eyes. "Yes, I recall the one named Croombs. Acute liver damage, skin jaundiced to a tea-green color, other internal organs shriveled and saturated with the booze."

"Why do you recall her case so vividly, unless you have good reason to?" asked Lucas. "Say, because it haunts you?"

"I've said enough. Good night." She rushed for her car. They pursued.

"We suspect she was helped along that night toward her death. Dr. Nielsen," said Meredyth, catching her at her car.

Nielsen shakily worked to dig her key into the lock.

"We believe the woman's daughter not only killed her, Dr. Nielsen, but that she is involved in the mutilation murder of Mira Lourdes."

Nielsen had snatched her door open, about to leave, but this stopped her cold. She looked back at them. "The daughter? The two cases are somehow related? Everyone involved strongly encouraged me to believe the prevailing wisdom."

"Which was that the old woman died as she lived, OD-ing in a weekend war with her own worst enemy-her drunken self?" asked Lucas.

"Locked in a lifelong melee with alcohol, yes. Make no waves, I was told by Frank."

"Patterson. Figures. Feldman and Rowan investigate it, Patterson rubber-stamps it. But you saw the marks on her wrists and ankles," Lucas hammered now.

"Yes, true, but the case was-how you said- rubber-stamped, closed over my objections, so…"

"You also noted there was very little in the way of barbiturates in her system, while the police report said she had swallowed an entire bottle of pills," added Meredyth.

"They brought the empty pill bottle in a plastic bag along with six empty bottles of Jim Beam-six! She was killed by making excessive love to Jim Beam, they joked- right over her body, they joked! I never saw such a thing in my country."

Nielsen shivered with the recall. Lucas and Meredyth let her talk. "I knew it would come back to get me," she said.

"We're not interested in getting you, Dr. Nielsen, believe me."

"Dr. Chang will be disappointed to learn of it. He was out of the city then, on working vacation-Vancouver, giving a talk." Then speaking of Katherine Croombs, she said, "Poor woman looked like my grandmama, but hardly that age! She had two chipped teeth, and her lips were bruised too, a curious thing we see in abuse cases. It didn't make sense."

"And Frank didn't want to hear about this?"

She now climbed into her car, averting her eyes and face for the moment, fumbling with her seat belt. She turned the key, her Plymouth Voyager coming to life. "You must tell me why you think the Croombs autopsy is connected to the Post-it case we're now working. I must know if I am to bring all of this to Dr. Chang's attention and give in my resignation."

"What possible good can come of your resigning?" asked Meredyth through the car window.

"If anyone should be talking of resigning, it's Patterson. Trust Chang, yes. Confide the truth in him. You won't ever regret it," Lucas firmly told her.

"What is connecting the two cases?" she asked.

"It's a long story, and we'd truly like to tell you over dinner," Meredyth assured her.

She considered this. "All right, Michelangelo's, say in twenty minutes? I'll meet you there, and since it may be my last meal as Assistant M.E. here, be prepared to buy me the house specialty."

"It won't be your last meal, I promise," Meredyth replied. "We'll stand with you against Patterson. We know he put you in this position."

"I have been haunted by that Croombs woman."

She backed from her parking space and pulled out of the police lot, Lucas and Meredyth watching, hoping she'd show up at the restaurant.

They went for Lucas's car.