Final Edge

CHAPTER 12

Before arriving at Michelangelo's Italian Eatery, Lucas had called District Attorney Harry Jorganson, asking if they'd gotten the warrant on the address he wanted. Jorganson informed him that he couldn't sell it to the judge. "No dice. Judge says she fails to see that we've actually connected enough dots here, Lucas. Sorry, I know your instincts are right on, but the judge was adamant, got on her high horse about my coming to her to turn a blind eye to the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, the American Civil Liberties credo, you name it, every time Houston PD is feeling public pressure."

"Did you tell her we suspect it has to do with the Post-it Ripper?" he asked.

"I told her, told her more than once, but she was on a tear. I understand she got turned over on appeal in the Edmunds case, which sucks, and we just got her at really the wrong time."

Lucas invited Jorganson to sit down with him, Meredyth, and Nielsen for dinner. "We can give you more of the details to go on."

"Sorry, Lucas, but ol' Jorganson's got two trials to prep witnesses on for a busy A.M. manana. Again, sorry about the warrant. Get me a bigger hammer to wield, okay? Drive that sucker home for you with the right tools, you know that, you know you do. Well, gotta run. Enjoy dinner."

Lucas broke the bad news to Meredyth, who said, "Damn…damn fool judge, and what's wrong with Harry Jorganson?" She scorned and fumed the rest of way to Michelangelo's.

At the restaurant, they were well into their main course by the time Lucas and Meredyth explained all their reasons for suspecting the girl fresh out of the convent school. "It's possible that her boyfriend is doing the actual killing, but we suspect she's pointing out the targets," said Lucas.

"Then you suspect that the Post-it Ripper is two people," said Nielsen.

"Yes, we do."

Meredyth added, "There've been clues intentionally leading us to Lauralie Blodgett, and I'm afraid the sudden reappearance of Lauralie in Katherine's life was not the touching reunion scene we usually see on television programs and in the movies."

Lucas told Nielsen what they had learned at the mortician's.

"I think that Lauralie was and remains traumatized by her childhood experience of growing up without anyone, feeling like a prisoner inside the walls of Our Lady of Miracles," added Meredyth.

Nielsen nodded. "And now she's out to perform a miracle of her own, the perfect crime."

"With enlisted help, yes."

"This is good news then, that you two have narrowed your search from a nonentity, a boogeyman, to two specific individuals, one of whom you have a name for."

"It's all based on a great deal of speculation," cautioned Lucas. "Not solid enough for the DA or to get a warrant, it seems."

"Educated speculation," corrected Meredyth. "Due in large part because Lauralie couldn't resist leaving us bread crumbs to follow, as if-"

"Bread crumbs?" asked Nielsen.

"Clues, as if there beats inside her the heart of a person who wants to be caught and punished," explained Lucas.

"More likely she wants her day-and-say before the cameras and in court, as if she feels we owe it to her to catch her and make her a star," said Meredyth. "It's why she's selected Lucas and me to come after her, and perhaps because I was instrumental in placing her at that orphanage back in 1984."

"Damn twisted story," commented Nielsen. "Sounds too much like fiction not to be true, if you understand my meaning. Beyond belief, so it makes it credible by virtue of being beyond belief. Anything that bizarre…well, we have a saying for in Sweden. It is the lunacy not yet dreamt of that will befall you."

"I like that," said Lucas. "Are you sure it wasn't stolen from the Cherokee?"

"Sad but true," Meredyth said of the aphorism, and then she added, "Now let me see if I have it right. The most incredible lunacy, not yet dreamt of, shall come to pass…and Jesus wept for all mankind." She toasted it with her wine glass.

They dined to the rattle of dishware and silverware, each nursing private thoughts for the moment. The waiter came, asked after their comfort, and left. The music was as authentically Italian as the cuisine, from an opera Meredyth recognized.

"What more can you tell us about the mother's death?" asked Meredyth of Lynn Nielsen.

"One of the first uniformed officers at the scene told me it may have been staged to look as if Katherine had killed herself, but he would never repeat it again afterwards. Detective Feldman, the lead investigator, seemed to have some personal interest in closing the case quickly. I think he needed to clear his homicide board for the month. Who knows?"

"Feldman's a jerk," Lucas muttered. "He's a nine-to- fiver, anxious to wrap up a case and go home."

"Always scratching himself in the crotch," she said. "Is this why they call him Itch?"

Lucas laughed, Nielsen and Meredyth joining in. Someone passing by jostled their table, an empty bottle of wine spilling out its last drop, telling Lucas to order a second.

Nielsen continued talking about the Croombs matter. "They took the statements of neighbors about the woman's on-again, off-again relationship with the bottle. Said she had it bad, her battle with booze. But one neighbor said she thought Katherine was doing better since she had rediscovered her daughter." Nielsen sipped her wine before continuing. "I read some of Feldman's remarks in the file. He cited a long police history with the address, numerous occasions of disorderly disturbances, fighting, you know. This was enough to sum it all up for the detectives. Relapse. And this time an overdose. Closed case. Death was chalked down to accidental overdose."

"Chalked up," Lucas corrected her.

"Yes, and I was strongly urged to get it off my desk and get onto the sixty-four or so other cases awaiting me."

"Dr. Chang never looked over the findings?" asked Lucas.

"No, he was away at the time, and Patterson was in charge. Not likely I would have gone over Frank's head in any case, being new on the job and not yet knowing how to tiptoe around him like I do now."

"If you had had full responsibility and freedom to pursue the case at the time, what would you have done differently, Dr. Nielsen?" asked Meredyth.

"I would have done more than simply express my condolences to the daughter as Feldman and the others did, releasing the body and ordering it sent to an undertaker of her choosing. They should have questioned the daughter far more extensively about her alibi; instead, they listened to her sob story of how she had just found and reunited with her mother. The men were falling all over her as I recall."

Meredyth displayed the photo of Lauralie. "Is this the daughter?"

Nielsen studied the photo. "Yes, that is her."

"We think she left us a gift at the convent," said Lucas. "Found this and a few ounces of blood in the baptismal at Our Lady." He showed her the index finger from what they suspected was Mira Lourdes's left hand.

"Like I said, no such thing as free lunch," Nielsen replied, wincing at the amputated digit.

"Sorry," said Lucas. "I thought all you coroner types were immune to such things as runaway body parts."

A waiter stood over them, gasped, and threw down the bill before Lucas realized he'd been traumatized by the thing nestled in the handkerchief. Meredyth grabbed the hanky, folding it away, but Lucas managed to grab it back. "Hey, that's still evidence."

"What're you going to do with that thing, Lucas? Take it to the witch doctor out at the Coushatta Reservation? See if we can get some voodoo input on the case?"

"Cherokee magic might surprise you, Mere."

"No amount of tobacco twisting and burning is going to help us here, Stone Man," Meredyth replied.

"Hey, I know you're frustrated, but you shouldn't knock what you haven't tried, Doctor," he fired back.

Meredyth dropped her gaze and wrung her hands together. "I'm sorry, Lucas. It's just this case is getting to me… she's getting to me."

"If you would care to leave the finger with me, Lieutenant," said Nielsen, "I can match the tissue against what we have, make a certain determination as to whether or not it is Lourdes's digit."

Lucas joked, "I thought I'd make a necklace of it, make it my Cherokee magical icon, but I am tiring of carrying it around." He handed it, wrapped in the handkerchief, to Dr. Nielsen. As he did so, Meredyth grabbed for the check. Lucas caught her hand and retrieved the check.

"I'm paying," she said.

"The hell you are."

Their waiter suddenly and noisily stormed out of the restaurant, tossing his apron at the boss. "Look at that, Lucas. The guy quit his job. I hope you're proud of yourself. Now give me the check. You've caused enough trouble tonight." Meredyth held one end of the check between her fingers, and he held the other end in a tug of war that ripped it in two.

Lucas firmly said, "It's my treat. You can leave the tip."

"Leave the tip for whom?" asked Nielsen, amused at the two.

"You are such a…a man!" Meredyth sternly said.

Nielsen laughed and said, "Are you two sure you're not married?"

Lucas laughed at this, and tossed down several bills to cover the meal.

In the parking lot outside, they said good night to Dr. Nielsen and asked her to keep their discussion private for now, sharing it only with Leonard Chang. She agreed without reservation.

"Whatever you do, say nothing to Frank Patterson on the matter," Lucas said.

"I have no intention of doing that."

They parted company with Lynn Nielsen. As they went for the car, Meredyth said, "Wish we had some notion of Lauralie's whereabouts."

"We find her, we find the boyfriend, and we can shut them down."

"Wish I could be a hundred percent certain one way or the other of any part I played in helping shape this woman's obsession. Wish I could see those records at the courthouse."

'Tonight? Open the Harris County courthouse records? That'd also take a warrant signed by a judge. Tomorrow's another day, Mere."

"Another day and possibly another horrible mailing to you or me or both of us."

He pulled her into his arms and hugged her close. "It'll be all right. I promise you, it's going to be all right."

They drove from the restaurant down a series of meandering streets until Lucas pulled to the curb in a residential neighborhood. An Interstate overpass sliced the street in two, and cutting his engine, Lucas said, "I want you to stay right here, Mere. I'll be right back."

"Where the hell are we, Lucas? And where're you going?"

"Katherine Croombs's house. There're lights on inside. I'm going to have a look-see."

"But without a warrant, what'11 happen?"

"I'm not going to break in, just determine if she's inside or not," he said, climbing from the driver's seat.

"And how're you going to do that?"

"Old Indian sleuth trick," he said, standing in the rain.

"What trick?"

"I'll knock." With that, he sprinted to the door.

Meredyth nervously watched him climb the stairs of the rundown tenement house. She listened to the whirring, whining, and roaring of cars, trucks, and buses whizzing by on the Interstate overhead. "Think I'd drink myself to death if I had to listen to this all day long," she muttered to the interior of the car. She glanced again at Lucas, now speaking to someone on the porch, an elderly lady who had probably caught him peeking in at Katherine's windows.

Then she saw Lucas coming back to the car. He opened the door, got in, turned on the ignition, and started away from the curb. "Dead end," he said.

"Whataya mean, dead end? What did you learn from the neighbor?"

"Says no one's been living below her. She's had an eye out for the daughter herself, wants to know who's going to pay the water and electric bills, neither of which were turned off. Says she's having it all turned off if she doesn't hear from Lauralie by morning."

"Then Lauralie did live there for a time after the mother's death?"

"Yes, for a month and a half. She says the girl went from saccharine sweetness when she first arrived to a bitch during and after the funeral."

"So the woman-"

"— Mrs. Crane-"

"— saw Lauralie at the funeral?"

"She was at the funeral, no thanks to Lauralie. She had to get the information from the police report in the Chronicle, and from there she called the funeral home for the details of when and where. Says Lauralie didn't invite her or any of Katherine's cronies, and when Mrs. Crane arrived with several others in tow, Lauralie hadn't a word for her or any of Katherine's few friends and neighbors. She also said that Katherine had been off the bottle and was making an effort to please Lauralie, allowing her to live with her, feeding her, buying her things, all that. But Mrs. Crane says Lauralie never showed the least gratitude or appreciation for Katherine's efforts. It's likely what drove her back to drinking that night, she says."

"So where is Lauralie now?"

"Got to be she's with the boyfriend, Mr. Mystery, his pad."

"Her personal butcher. You think he helped her in poisoning her mother?"

"According to Mrs. Crane, she never once saw Lauralie with a man. She came to think her a lesbian, and you recall Rachel's take on that back at the convent."

Meredyth mulled it over. "AC-DC as her needs required, depending on whom she felt a need to control or manipulate at any given time, be it Father William, Rachel, her mother, and perhaps the killer."

As they drove through the increasingly clinging fog-a fog doing battle with the orange glow of the city's lights- Meredyth's stress got the better of her. Lucas realized that she was sobbing beside him. He reached out and placed a hand around her neck, rubbing it tenderly.

"I can't believe we can't locate one convent girl recently released on her own from that place," lamented Meredyth, placing her head on his shoulder. "And that place. And the lessons of that place, what Lauralie took from there."

"And what would that be?"

"Just put yourself into her place. Imagine spending your entire life there, without a true home, without parents, without siblings…bullied by the older girls, possibly assaulted by them, possibly molested by a priest, learning only how to connive, he, cheat, steal, destroy people and things, how to sexually manipulate others, until your behavior escalated into something far more sinister…escalating to fire-setting and causing accidents that result in death."

"It's not your fault or doing, Mere. Don't put all that on your head."'

"No telling what kind of tyrant that Mother Orleans was. Do you think she drove Lauralie to kill her? First attempting to do it by fire, and later helping her down a flight of stairs?"

"We don't know any of this is true," Lucas objected.

"And-and as for Mother Elizabeth, I've never met anyone more in denial. She knows…down deep, Lucas, she knows Lauralie is a disturbed individual, and not another Rachel-not a child in need of coddling, but a child in need of a straitjacket."

"Exactly…got that right." He placed one arm around her as he drove on. "Time you got your mind off it tonight, sweetheart."

But she went on. "And us…look at us…two professionals going round in circles inside a labyrinth she has led us into…a maze created especially for us, and she's got to be laughing at us-Lucas, the big bad Texas Cherokee detective with an uncanny record for tracking down the monsters among us, and Meredyth Sanger, Ph.D, M.D., a forensic psychiatrist well respected in my field, and together we can't find a missing murderous child."

"Hey, Mere, damn now you've got to go easier on yourself-and me. After all, it's not as if we haven't gotten anywhere. We've come a long-"

"But we haven't. She's still out there somewhere free to do whatever her deranged mind-in cohort with Crazy Joe as you call him-can whip up! And we're no closer to stopping them."

"Oh, but we are! Thanks to your brilliant mind, we've put together a motive behind all this madness. Mere, not to mention we have put a name to one of the suspects in the abduction of Mira Lourdes. A name and a likeness, which will be placed on the all-points bulletin along with our Mr. X with the mole on his cheek. Tomorrow's papers will carry it, along with the news broadcast. It's on Captain Lincoln's desk."

"When did you do all this?"

"I used the graduation photo and made out a report while you were in the ladies' room, and left it with our fearless leader. Now, thanks to you, we're that much closer to ending this terror."

"No, no thanks to me, to her, Lauralie. She has consciously led us to her, Lucas; she wants us to put the puzzle together. Don't forget that. She not only wants to insult us, she wants to control us by controlling every step of the investigation against her. She's shrewd, calculating, and cruel-a terrible combination."

"All the same, we're a lot closer to closing this thing down than we were before going to the convent. You should take some comfort in that."

"Where're you taking me now, Lucas? I'm a nervous wreck, so worried about going home, finding another part of Mira Lourdes awaiting me."

"I don't blame you. I don't relish seeing another of Lauralie and Crazy Joe's gifts either."

"Then we have to dodge your place too."

"And the precinct," he half-joked. "We could always return to the desert, sleep beneath the stars again. Maybe this time, you'll include me on the cloud of your dreams. Whataya say, me-lady?"

"The desert sounds nice, but I have a better idea."

"Shoot."

"My family's country house. She can't know about that. Hey, let's do it. Let's go there. It's on a beautiful lake, and I don't receive mail there."

"Are you suggesting I meet your parents?" He half- smiled, staring into her eyes.

"No, they won't be there. They're in Paris."

"Paris, Texas?"

"France, on holiday. So, we'll be alone, and you won't have any pressure whatsoever. We can pick up some groceries and bathing suits on the way."

"How far is it?"

"Between here and Huntsville. Not to worry. We can be back in the city in an hour and a half."

Lucas raised his hands as if arrested. "All right, you got me, Doctor. I am in your hands completely tonight."

"That sounds promising."

"Lead on, please."

"Interstate north," she said, "Derry Road exit, Madera Lake." She nestled into the crook of his arm, closing her eyes, persuaded she could get far enough away to escape any further thoughts of Lauralie Blodgett tonight.

Arthur Belkuin’s gloved hands twitched ever so slightly where he gripped the freezer door over his head. The surgical gloves he wore made a stifled little barking rubber sound against the lid of the horizontal freezer. Arthur closed the lid over what little remained of Mira Lourdes where she lay inside her frozen coffin: a pair of legs held together by lower torso and hips, two severed arms-one missing a hand, another a finger.

Behind Arthur, her headless, armless upper torso lay on the stainless-steel operating table, where his rotary bone saw rested, silently dripping with blood. He stared at his reflection in the patent titanium blade, so efficient and clean was this blade. He defied any human eye to detect the microscopic tissue and bone fragments adhering to it. He'd have to give it a Muriatic acid bath to be certain the saw, like the ax, could not be DNA'd to Mira Lourdes, and so linked to him. He'd eventually wash down the table as well, whenever Lauralie finally resolved that they had come to the end of this dark journey she had set them on. At which time, he would take the table and all the tools far out to the desert, possibly as far as Mexico, dig an enormous hole, and bury it aU.

He silently thanked God that the blood was at a minimum, most of Mira's blood having been lost when she was killed, and the remaining blood, pooling in the lungs and back, remaining thick and gelatinous from the corpse's having been so long in cold storage. The solid flesh made cutting easier, cleaner. The torso itself had been opened earlier to get at the organs that he had sliced up in thin leaves for the first box sent to Detective Stonecoat. Lauralie had tossed what was left of those organs into the brook that ran through the property, a backwater creek off the Navasota River. He recalled how she'd delighted in watching the creek ripple along on its path, taking its natural course. "On a mission, Arthur, like us," she'd said of the stream as she fed Mira's internal organs to the fish.

The only untouched and undefiled of Mira Lourdes's organs was the heart, now swimming in a formaldehyde- filled jar on a shelf over Arthur's shoulder. Arthur had closed up the huge Y-section cut he had made to the torso and abdomen to get at the organs for Lauralie. The crude autopsy scar on the torso looked like the stitching on a bloated football, Arthur thought. He'd done the procedure quickly and with a shaking hand.

"Lauralie, damn it now, you promised you'd tell me the whole story, and I think it's high time. I think I've earned your trust and the right to know everything."

"You are on a need-to-know basis, Arthur-you need, and I know." She laughed, while outside his dogs, locked in the run, whimpered and whined for the warmth and light inside.

"Lauralie, your reason for doing all this!" he demanded, pointing at the dissected, sewn-up torso lying between them. "You promised, remember?"

"You want rationalizations, Arthur? Will a good rationale help you get past your part in murder, Arthur, sweetie?"

"You promised. You said that you had a lifetime of reasons for what you've done, remember? And you promised to share them with me."

"I remember telling you I'd tell you, Arthur, when the time came…when conditions were right, when I was good and ready. Do you remember that, Arthur, do you?"

"I need to know why, Lauralie, now! Why am I doing this?" How could I have agreed to this? Arthur wondered, but did not say. Arthur looked down over Mira Lourdes's armless torso and breasts, where he stood directly across the dissecting table from Lauralie. He imagined die eerie picture it must make, this meeting of the three of them, together again-Mira not entirely present physically, Lauralie not entirely present mentally, Arthur not entirely present emotionally-a strange bizarre twist on the eternal triangle, he thought.

Lauralie was angry with him, but she appeared to have calmed. Arthur had balked at her orders once again, balked at any further mutilation of the body. He dared voice his wish now. "We should end this thing now, bury what's left of Mira in the desert, and be done with it."

Lauralie only laughed, and between laughs, she said, "Mira, Mira on the slab, who's the prettiest of the hags? You talk about her as if you knew her, Arthur. Get over it. Look at what she is for what she is, an unfeeling and empty shell."

"She was a human being, Lauralie."

"Was being the operative word! Look at her now! We've excised her eyes, her teeth, a hand, and her head, not to mention the finger I left at the convent, and now you're going soft on me, Arthur? Don't be a wimp!"

Arthur again looked down at the upper torso of Mira Lourdes lying before them. Lauralie had operated the circular bone saw to sever torso from lower abdomen and legs. With Arthur's guidance, she had done all the cutting this time, and she'd done it with a kind of gusto. In fact, she took a kind of otherworldly delight in carving up the frozen corpse, while Arthur again questioned her reasoning and motivation.

Lifting a scalpel now, she asked Arthur how best to remove the breasts.

"Why do that?" he asked.

'To gross them out. The idea is to gross them out as much as I possibly can. Now tell me how to begin and where to go with the scalpel." Arthur did as instructed, swallowing his inner quaking and the sense of regret infiltrating his heart.

He forced one of the still-hard, cold breasts upward and using a red marker, made a line beneath and around the globe. He then did the same for the second breast. "Begin at the bottom and follow the line up from the center, here, on either side."

Holding the surgical scalpel against the marks he'd made, Lauralie carefully followed the ink path against Mira's flesh, soon removing the left breast. She smiled, her eyes delighted as it came away. "That was easy, Arthur. You're an excellent teacher. Like slicing off a ham."

Arthur was not surprised at the lack of blood, and the ease with which the breast came away. Seeing there was no stopping Lauralie's gleeful play, Arthur said, "Give me the scalpel and I'll finish for you."

"Call me Dr. Blodgett!" she teased, swinging the scalpel in the air like a Roman candle. "No, Dr. Belkvin, sir, young Dr. Blodgett needs the experience and will finish the procedure." And she did, severing the right breast with even more fanfare, and even less blood.

Lauralie had earlier prepared the box meant to receive the torso and breasts, but she hadn't planned well for the size of Mira's Joan Crawford shoulders and the girth of her torso. The fit was so snug and tight that Arthur had to help Lauralie force the torso into the Styrofoam-lined, colorful blue and green FedEx box. He then lifted the two breasts in his gloved hands, turning to take them back to the freezer.

"Now the severed breasts," Lauralie ordered.

"What?"

"In the box. Stuff them into the box too."

"But there's no room."

"Make room!"

He tested the possibility, shaking his head, saying, "How, where?"

"Squish them in, Arthur! You can do it."

"Why not send them separately?"

"Separately?"

"You know, to…to this Meredyth Sanger person instead of to Stonecoat?"

"It's a thought, would be freaky for the lady doctor, wouldn't it? But no…no, I want her to get the heart next, and I want him to get all of this area at once," she replied, her hands going to her own breasts, the scalpel in one hand, her other hand caressing her breast area.

"Everything is about what you want, isn't it, Lauralie?" he asked even as he worked the severed breasts into the tight area left him. "Well, what about what I want?" he demanded.

"Oh, Arthur, you can be so commanding when you try. What you want? I know what you want, Arthur," she said in her most coquettish voice, her smile a flirtatious snake as she bared a shoulder with the tip of the scalpel.

"Damn it, I want to know why we're doing all this, Lauralie! I want to know why we're not on a plane for someplace safe!"

"Some island in the Pacific, Arthur? Tahiti's full of tourists this time of year. It may's well be another state in the goddamn union."

"You saw the newspaper!" He held up the late edition of the Chronicle, waving the image before her. "They've got my likeness on the front pages! It'll be flashed on the tube by now. My clients will all see it. They'll fucking have me on America's Most Wanted."

"It's a lousy likeness, Arthur. Quit your worrying. It doesn't look anything like you."

"The mole, Lauralie. They've got the mole on my face. My black eyebrows, the thick glasses, my hair. It's close enough to nail me, I tell you. We've got to get out of the jurisdiction, to someplace where I'm not known."

"Christ, the mole's on the other side of your face," she said, slapping the newspaper into free flight and ripping through his likeness in a zipping Zorro strike of her scalpel. "Don't you go wimping out on me, Arthur! Don't do it."

"But we've got to be reasonable. What the hell're we going to do? What kind of escape route do we have? None. Can you imagine what will happen when I go back to the office, to the campus? I could be picked up, arrested at any moment for questioning."

"Fool, they don't arrest you for questioning…can't arrest you until they have absolute, certain proof. You've got rights. They can only ask you to come in for questioning. It's called an interrogation…custody, question and answer, then arrest, if you fail their litmus test for telling the truth."

"A lie detector? I don't think I could pass, not after what-"

"Yes, you can, Arthur. It wasn't you who did all this. It was me, my plan, I drugged her…I killed her. What'd you do? You cut into a cadaver. What can they do to you for that? Suspend your license?"

Lauralie had laid aside the scalpel and stood squeezing a set of black rosary beads. "I took these off a dead nun at the convent…long time ago," she said, her eyes dreamy, as if reliving the moment. "She took an unfortunate spill down a nasty flight of stairs, and at her advanced age, I didn't think she'd miss the beads."

He stared at the black beads, picturing her leaning over the dying nun. As if reading his mind, she added, "She was our mother superior. Believed in the old saying 'Spare the rod, spoil the child.' I took a lot of crap from that old bat for a lotta years." Her eyes had roamed about the room as she spoke of Mother Orleans, but now they settled on him. "Look, Arthur, I understand your worries, but we can take steps, Arthur…"

"Such as?"

"We'll have the mole surgically removed."

"And who's going to do that?"

"How hard can it be? With just the right tools and your guidance, hell, I just removed two hot-air balloons from the cadaver." She replaced the beads in her hand with the scalpel. Its stainless-steel blade shone under the tensor lamp over the operating table.

"Me, operate on my own cheek by guiding you?"

"Why not? We've got the mirror." She swung a high- powered mirror on a swivel arm over the tabletop.

"I'd have to be alert, no anesthetic. It could be painful. I could pass out, botch the whole job."

"Damn wuss, Arthur. You tell me what to do, walk me through it, and I'll remove the bloody thing while you're under. We can use the chloroform, or we can just deaden the area around the mole, so you won't feel a thing." She appeared genuinely excited by the prospect of his being under her complete control. "You do trust me, don't you, Arthur?"

"A bandage over my cheek will only draw more attention."

"Then we bandage your whole damned head if need be. God, quit complaining."

"Forget about it. I'll take my chances with the mole."

"But if it'll help ease your worries, Arthur…"

Arthur grabbed the scalpel from her, cutting himself, cursing and tossing the instrument onto a tray behind him, where it clattered and where she couldn't reach it. "Enough with that. It's not happening."

"God, Artie, baby, take it easy. You hurt yourself. I was only funning you." She quickly wrapped his bleeding finger in a bandage.

"You changed the subject on me. I want to know why you're so bent on destroying this Dr. Sanger and this detective."

Outside, a long, rumbling thunderclap got the dogs braying again. Lauralie replied, "That bitch, Sanger… she destroyed me!"

"Sweetheart, love…you're not destroyed. You are beautiful and vibrant and alive and-and young, with- with your whole life ahead of you. We should be busy making a life together, a life for ourselves, a life with a future. I love you, Lauralie."

"When I'm done with Sanger and her man, then we'll talk about a life and a future, darling, but not before. Now stuff her breasts into the damned box. I knew I should have gotten the larger one!"

Arthur forced the severed second breast into the impossible space allotted. Lauralie closed the flaps and taped it shut. She placed the label over the top, patted the bulging box, and said, "It's done, all ready for overnight shipment."

"You're not going to be happy until you use up every part of the Lourdes woman, are you?"

"Arthur, you are beginning to get on my nerves. Now, what do you say to my removing that disgusting mole on your cheek?"

"Damn it, Lauralie, I thought we were off that subject for tonight."

"You think the cops and the news people are going to be off that subject tonight? We've got to do something about the damn mole. I never told you, but it has always bothered me, like…like the old man's dead eye in Edgar Allan Poe's Tell-Tale Heart."

"W-what's that supposed to mean?" He unconsciously touched the mole on his left cheek.

"I look at you, and it's all I see sometimes."

"Cutting the damn thing off may be the only way I can escape capture, but my students, my colleagues, my patients-that is my patients' owners-they know what I look like, Lauralie."

"No one'll ever believe you could possibly be the Post- it Ripper, Arthur. Everyone loves you. You make their animals well!"

"Mrs. Toohey's dog died in my care last month! Look, I know the police sketch isn't perfect, but it is close, and any one of the people that come into my practice, my receptionist even, could make the connection, and all it takes is a single telephone call, and I'm sitting behind bars being grilled by professionals who know how to make a man incriminate himself. They can even do it to an innocent man. Imagine what they can do to me!"

She allowed the thought to sink in. "All right, all right…so what you're saying is that even if you had the mole removed, some people who know you would become suspicious because you had the mole removed, and there's no getting away from this damnable mole either way, right? Out, out damned spot, like Lady Macbeth. So… Arthur, no small operation on that mole is going to help us now. Correct?"

"I suppose, yes, yes, that's what I'm saying, so it makes sense to maybe go overseas. I have some money saved up and-and-and I'm thinking of your safety too, sweetheart…sweetheart. I would hate myself if…if, you know, if anything should happen to you, to us."

"Come here, sugar." Her hands and arms, empty now, opened wide to him, inviting him in.

"What?"

"Come the hell over here, lover, now!"

He came around the table toward her.

"I think you need a good hug and a feel," she said.

Arthur dropped his head in a hangdog fashion, grinned, and opened his arms to her. She wrapped him in her arms where they stood against the stainless-steel table she had backed him into. "Want to make love on the steel?" she asked.

"Whataya mean? Now?" He looked over his shoulder at the table, empty of any of Lauralie's parts, but alongside the saw resting there, the surface was littered with bits and pieces of chewed flesh and bodily fluids.

She pressed herself tighter against him. "Now, right now," she whispered naughtily in his ear.

"But it's all filthy from the cutting and-"

"Just get naked. I'll spray it down with the hose while you get naked for me, okay?"

"It's going to be cold as hell against the skin."

"Arthur, get undressed and lay down! You're going to have the time of your life." She lifted the saw, putting it aside, found the hose, and rinsed off the operating table with warm soapy water. Water and human tissue and debris swept down the built-in sewage drain along each side of the table, taking the residue and blood to a tank that Arthur had ingeniously attached to the underside of the table.

Arthur stripped as she worked to clean the table. "We'll warm up this ol' steel right quickly, Arthur," she was saying as he tested the cold steel, first with his hands, then, climbing onto the flat surface, with elbows and knees. He squinted with the chill of it, despite the warm water she'd used. She turned the warm water hose on him now, laughing.

Finally, he eased onto his back, the sensation creating a trembling in him, the exact opposite of sliding down into a steaming hot tub of water, this gradual getting used to a chilling surface.

His eyes closed against the cold pain to his backside, Arthur said, "Never imagined I'd ever be making love to a beautiful young woman on one of my operating tables."

"One of your dogs maybe!" she joked, snickering.

'Told my receptionist we had to sell the table to pay for the increase in rent on the office. She bought it, but when she sees the books again, she'll know I was lying. Guess I'll have to drop a hint that I've been gambling again. She knows about my habit with the horses."

"Arthur, please shut up, close your eyes, baby, and get your mind off all these worries."

He closed his eyes, comfortable now on his back, hardening at her gentle touch. "God, Lauralie, I wish we were in Paris or maybe London…at the race track even…you, me together without a care, just enjoying the breeze, the ponies, the excitement of the race, sex afterwards…"

"Dream on, Artie, baby," she said, bringing down the rotary saw against his chest, clicking the on switch, and plunging its biting, grinding titanium steel into his heart.

His startled brown eyes flew open at the sound of the saw long enough to catch the geyser of blood that blinded him, a spray that likewise discolored Lauralie's features, making a fiend of her-the last thing he saw before dying.

"No more goddamn questions out of you," she muttered over the still-twitching body. "And you needn't worry that the cops are going to put you away, Arthur. Nobody can hurt you now, and you never have to worry about hurting me or incriminating me in any way. Such a dear you've been and so patient throughout this long ordeal."