Final Edge

CHAPTER 15

In the parking garage the two officers, Tony and Frank, turned over the.38 Police Special along with a grateful 31st Precinct forensic psychiatrist. Both Meredyth and Lucas thanked them for their discretion and help. With the officers waved off, Meredyth threw her arms around Lucas. He held her, disregarding the comings and goings of other police personnel and HPD civilian support staff in the garage. "Come on down to my office," he told her, walking her to the Cold Room. "I've got coffee. We can talk."

"First, I hafta warn Byron." She got on her cell phone as they walked. Byron didn't pick up his cell. She left a cryptic message, saying, "Call me on my cell. It's a matter of life and death-possibly yours!"

Once in the Cold Room, he got her a cup of hot coffee and asked her to tell him every detail of what had happened at the courthouse.

Between sips of the steaming coffee, she imparted the entire story.

When she'd finished, she handed Lucas the document she had gone after at the courthouse, the one Lauralie had cranked from the machine for her. Lucas took in a deep breath of air. "Had she wanted to, it sounds as if she could have killed you then and there, when you had your back to her."

"Don't you think I've thought of that?"

"So her purpose is not to kill you, Mere, merely to destroy your peace of mind, your emotional well-being."

"First she stalks us at the convent, leaving the finger there, and now the courthouse."

"But she didn't leave anything at the courthouse, did she?"

"No, but then I was hardly in a position to notice if she had. I was stopped from pursuing her by the security guards, and next thing I know, I'm handcuffed and pushed into the rear of a police cruiser."

"Did you see Priestly leave the lot?"

She hesitated, saying nothing.

"Did you see him drive off? Did he wave bye-bye?"

"No…no, I didn't. Byron…"

"She can't kill you." He stepped off from her, pacing about the office. "She has more tidbits and items she wants to show you…she wants us to discover."

"I don't like where this is going, Lucas."

"First the abduction and mutilation of Mira Lourdes, the planting of clues to lead us to the convent, the funeral home, the courthouse."

"What're you driving at? That we missed something at these locations?"

"We know she's sick, and we know she's got a sick sense of humor. She must have placed something at Morte de Arthur's and-"

"— and the courthouse?"

"With her twisted sister act, with her sick take on things, yes. Revelations yet in store, Mere. She has yet to show it all to us."

"What are we going to do?"

"Call in help." Lucas got on the phone and arranged for two police raids, one on the funeral home, the other on the courthouse. Both required no warrants, as Lucas cagily called each in to Stan Kelton as an Imminent Threat Response Team circumstance. One push of a button sent these search-and-seizure emergency-response units out to a location. The teams responded to terrorist and biohazard threats, bomb scares, and hostage situations. These teams included armed men with tactical training, a CSI unit for gathering evidence, and a public relations team to stave off the press. The teams went into instant action when ordered out, but the go-order must be based on hard evidence. On his say-so, his responsibility, Lucas Stonecoat meant to lock down a place of business and a county courthouse annex building. He felt a flutter in his heart at the power of it all, and the uncertainty of what would happen. It'd be hell to pay with Captain Lincoln if they found nothing.

He made a second call, informing Jana North that he needed her to coordinate the effort at Morte de Arthur's, and she immediately agreed to oversee the raid there.

"Come on, let's get over to the courthouse," he said to Meredyth when he got off the phone. "Maybe we'll find the rest of Mira Lourdes."

They rushed for Lucas's car and the courthouse. Along the way, over the sound of the siren, Meredyth bitterly said, "A finger here, a finger there. This could go on indefinitely-for as long as they have body parts to scatter."

"You perhaps should stay here in the car. Let me handle this part myself."

"No…no, I'll stay with you, if you don't mind."

"Are you sure?"

"Lucas, this little bitch isn't going to get to me."

"That's the spirit." He'd placed his strobe light on top of his unmarked car. The police-band radio was alive with the activity of the simultaneous raids. Lucas imagined the mortification and distress his order would create in Giorgio and Carlotta's funeral parlor, and the curiosity and fear they would soon arouse at the courthouse.

"This disturbed, distorted, screwed-up take she has on her being abandoned, put up for adoption, pawned off to foster homes as she sees it, Lucas, it all provides her a sick motive to seek out a twisted revenge for all the wrongs she perceives people have done her. And me? I am the last of those women involved who placed her at the orphanage."

"You, Orleans, her mother, all three of you are on this record," Lucas said, holding up the document Lauralie had duplicated for them.

"And Lourdes? What was she to Lauralie?"

"A mere pawn in her game," mused Lucas.

"She wants to kill me slowly, slower than she did her mother or Sara Orleans. They died too easily and quickly for her liking. For me she has a different plan, an appalling purpose, as if she's mailing pieces of herself."

"The team's here, waiting for orders to move in," he said as they pulled around to the rear of the courthouse, the entrance to the low-lying wing housing the county clerk's department and Child and Family Services, and below these offices, the archival records.

A man in full body protection and an ITRT patch on his arm and back-head of the Imminent Threat Response Team-introduced himself as Elliot Andrews. "Lietuenant, these the two we're looking for? Armed and dangerous?" Andrews held up photos of Lauralie Blodgett and the man known only as the Ripper.

"That's right, but I want your team ready for anything, and I want every nook and cranny searched."

"You suspect a bomb?"

"Anything's possible."

"We've got a canine unit. They can sniff out just about anything."

'Trained on cadavers? We might find body parts left by the suspects."

"Oh, I see. This has some connection to the Post-it guy, right!" Andrews immediately responded, getting on his radio and ordering the dogs to be guided into the building ahead of the men. He repeated Lucas's search orders to his men. Lucas wondered how Jana North's team at the funeral parlor was managing. He trusted that she had a capable man like Andrews and a strong CSI team at her location.

Lucas and Andrews, with Meredyth tentatively following, paced themselves to remain behind the men leading the dogs into the courthouse annex.

The dogs, large German shepherds, and their handlers, split off, one guided into the archives downstairs, the other taking the main floor. There were two floors overhead yet to secure. Andrews had the security guard named Roy on hand to point out all exits and entrances to the annex, including a service elevator only maintenance and security had access to, the one he'd escorted Meredyth onto earlier today. A second exit that opened on the main concourse of the courthouse itself. The lockdown meant no one could go in or out. Already people were clamoring to get past the exits, cell phones aflutter. Others jammed in hallways. People plastered to windows, looking out over the lot at the police activity. Loved ones had already begun showing up, jamming the courthouse parking lot, vehicles circling buzzard-fashion in search of parking, anxious to see their relatives unharmed. A police perimeter pushed them back, along with the news media.

Inside, the sound of the dog in the basement, sending up a barrage of agitated barks and howls, sent Lucas, Andrews, and Meredyth racing down toward the archives. The dog had alerted on something.

At the foot of the stairs, along this corridor to the archives, the dog stood, ears erect, agitatedly dancing about, yipping excitedly. His handler fed him a beef jerky cube from his hand as a reward, and they pulled back, allowing Elliot Andrews in. Lucas and Andrews, guns drawn, nodded at one another. Andrews so forcefully tore open the dark oak-wood door that it swung into the marbled wall, creating a reverberating blast down the corridor and up the stairs, and this, combined with the stench of blood let free, gave Lucas the feeling of a fleeting soul that'd been trapped inside where the body of an unrecognizable man lay in a pool of blood, his thrown-away tie, trousers, and half-tom-away white shirt stained with blood.

The walls-flecked with blood-told the story of multiple stab wounds.

"Dear God," muttered Andrews, turning his head away from the mutilated facial features after Lucas, crouching, lifted the chin and turned the eyes upward from the heap of clothing and flesh at their feet. "Who is he?"

Meredyth looked past Andrews now and screamed. "It's Byron! My God, it's Byron!"

Lucas made out the features and nodded to Andrews. He also held up Byron Priestly's wallet, his license and credit cards intact. He rifled for his keys and found them in the bloody pants.

A police woman alongside Meredyth had caught her from falling when her knees had buckled, and she'd led her to a nearby bench. Meredyth sobbed openly.

Lucas looked across at her, his heart feeling the pain of her anguish. She had broken it off with Priestly, but they had been friends for a long time. They had been talking marriage at one time. This shocking development could send her into a complete spiral, he feared.

Byron had been viciously torn apart in the confines of the small shoulder-width cubbyhole, and no one had heard his screams here just off the archives where Meredyth had been working that morning. Everything seemed now to move in slow motion as Andrews radioed for an at-ease and called Lynn Nielsen to bring in her CSI team, informing her over the secured channel that a body had been found at his location. Someone brought a thermos of hot coffee down to them, and Lucas sat quietly holding Meredyth's hands in his.

After doing an initial assessment of Priestly's body, Dr. Lynn Nielsen came to them. "Your friend Byron has been stabbed in the gut so many times that without cleaning the wounds thoroughly and viewing them under the lights at my lab, it is impossible to say how many times he was stabbed, but one thing is certain, whoever did this truly hated the man. It looks like a crime of passion, one of those estranged relationships in which one party snaps and can't seem to stop at inflicting only one wound or even three.

This is in the neighborhood of twenty-five, possibly more stab wounds, plus the afterwards mutilation to the eyes, nose, mouth…and we found something peculiar stuffed down his throat."

"What is it?" asked Lucas.

She held up a clear plastic bag. "Rosary beads."

Meredyth said nothing; she could only stare at the onyx string of beads.

To Lucas they looked like the symbol for the passage of days into night, nights into days in an old Cherokee pictograph-a string of beads. "Was Byron a practicing Catholic?" he asked Meredyth.

"About as much as I was, but no…he didn't carry a rosary with him, and no, I never gave him any as a present. I've never seen this rosary before, and I resent your implication, Dr. Nielsen, that I had anything to do with Byron's murder… except as…due to our proximity…anyone being close to me in the least, she's targeted. You're in danger too, Lucas, perhaps far more than I am."

"He had no advance warning, Mere, but I do. I know what those two maniacs look like, and I'm hunting them down."

Nielsen had begun to apologize, saying she hadn't meant to imply that Dr. Sanger had any part in Priestly's murder. Meredyth ignored her, continuing to speak to Lucas. "While Lauralie and Crazy Joe are hunting you."

"Whoever killed him, he, she, or they did it with a maniacal ferocity. I believe in the lab, we will find wounds in which the knife blade-a large one-will have exited the back. That's how much energy the Ripper-if this proves to be the work of the Post-it Ripper-put into the effort. It would have left the killer breathless, disarrayed, perspiring, and bloody but for the apron and the cleanup she did inside. There's a sink in there and lots of soap, and a stack of maintenance aprons, caps, hair nets, rubber gloves."

"She donned the maintenance uniform for him," said Meredyth. "Caught up to him, asked him for some help inside the closet-something on a shelf perhaps. She lured him inside, teased him as she put on the apron and gloves, the paper hat and hair net."

'Teased her way into his pants," added Lucas. "Explains the discarded tie and trousers."

"And when he most expected gratification, she stabbed him."

"No outcry alerting anyone."

Nielsen said, "He may well have gone into immediate shock, unable to call out-"

"— then came the ratcheted knife strokes, machine-gun fashion," said Lucas. "It all fits."

Nielsen said. "Killed by someone who had a personal connection, someone who had either hated him greatly or was driven to such an emotional pitch that after the first several stab wounds, he or she could not stop a wild violence against him. Like the killer of Yolanda Sims, whoever did it was emotionally involved, deeply so." She looked at Meredyth where she sat sobbing still. "Could this Lauralie have been sleeping with your friend?"

"Anything's possible. But I don't think so. He was just weak when it came to an overture by any female."

"I know a few men like that," Nielsen said sarcastically, trying to elicit a smile but failing.

"Don't you see? She'd like nothing better than to have me on trial for murdering Byron, to put me through that ordeal. To see me disgraced, my life in a shambles. Every-one I ever cared about either dead or scurrying to put as much distance between me and himself as possible. Putting my friends and family through a humiliating time. She wants you to indict me for Byron's murder-I was here at the time of his murder! I have the classic three necessities for a D.A. to put me away-motive, means, and opportunity. I knew the man, detested him, have complained of being stalked by him, been seen arguing with him right outside in the lot the morning of his death not twenty feet from where I sat behind those doors without an alibi."

Lucas added, "It's the work of that cunning bitch we've told you about, Dr. Nielsen. She wants it to look as if he were butchered by her in a fit of rage. But Meredyth doesn't do rage."

"If this is her work, she's done a good job pointing the finger at you, Dr. Sanger, if you can so incriminate yourself-with your own assessment. I urge you to say no more that someone might take as self-incriminating. Besides, liking you as I do, I would not wish to be called to the stand against you to say yes and nod to words taken out of context."

"In other words shut my mouth?"

Nielsen nodded, and then spoke to Lucas. "Now, Lieutenant, as to this sort of disfigurement to the face…"

"Yes?"

"Speaks to the kind of rage between estranged lovers as well, so my advice stands."

"Disfigurement is what this maniac does," said Lucas. "It's why we call him, her-the two of them-rippers- mutilation murderers."

"I understand, of course. I was just pointing out-"

"It looks on the surface very bad, we know," countered Meredyth. "And having been arrested on a weapons charge the same afternoon, well…"

"Technically speaking, you weren't arrested," he said. "You were detained and transported but not booked."

"All the same, multiple witnesses saw the incident."

"Your clever Lauralie was wise enough to have left no calling card or telltale signs of herself behind this time," Nielsen said. "A few toes, teeth, or fingers belonging to Mira Lourdes, left in or around the body here, that would insure it was she and her friend who hacked Mr. Priestly up."

"Only the damn rosary," lamented Lucas. "Only the damn rosary."

"That butchering bitch," muttered Meredyth. "Don't you see, the rosary is her calling card. She wants no mistaking this; she wants me to know she can hurt me at any time. That no one around me is safe either."

Elliot Andrews was standing nearby, picking up as much of what was being said as possible, when his radio crackled into life. He answered it and carried it to Lucas. "For you, your captain."

Lucas accepted the radio Andrews held out to him, Lincoln's ranting voice coming over even before he put it to his ear. His shouting focused on the chaos and phone calls caused by the raid on the courthouse. "I want to know if it's been worth it all. What've you netted there?"

Lucas relayed the gruesome find and informed Lincoln that it was connected to the Mira Lourdes murder, and that the CSI unit at the annex would be here well into the night collecting evidence. Lincoln was placated for the moment, but he wanted to be kept abreast of things, finishing with, "We'll red-ball this APB we have out on this Blodgett woman and her friend, Lucas. Shame what's happening. Give Meredyth my best, and we need to talk in full as soon as possible."

Lucas kept hold of the radio and returned to Meredyth on the bench. She was sipping at a cup of coffee now, a slight shiver escaping her.

"Lincoln's changing the APB on Lauralie Blodgett to a Code Red BOLO."

"Be on the lookout for a witch on a broom?" she muttered. "Then Gordon understands what's going on?"

"He's standing behind you one hundred percent. Mere, we'll get her, now that her likeness is plastered everywhere and she's a Code Red. Her wading pool is growing ever smaller. Only wish we knew what she and Crazy Joe are driving."

"A vehicle description, hell, a Texas driver's license…it would all be good. Meantime, we're being led around by the nose by a child mental case playing lethal games."

Lucas got back on the police radio and called Lieutenant Jana North at the funeral parlor raid. The sound of chaos came over the line before she finally came on. "What the hell's going on there? Sounds like a riot."

"We've cordoned off a wake here."

"A wake?"

"We didn't have any choice. It was in the open coffin."

"What was in the open coffin?

"A pair of disembodied arms, one missing a right hand."

He listened attentively to the details of her report, replying with a series of yeses, and finally he said, "See to it no one disturbs the scene before your CSI unit can process it."

"You ever try that with a roomful of irate loved ones? Dr. Patterson's got his hands full, and he's on the run."

"Christ, they sent out Frank with an ITRT unit?"

'Told me he volunteered when he heard it had to do with the Ripper case, even said something about how you and he were close, Lucas. How he wanted to help in any way possible."

"Weasel knows I fingered him and some others for this nasty business when I thought it was all a tasteless joke."

"Bad blood between you guys, heh? You'll have to tell me about it some evening over drinks."

"He lost some vital evidence on a case of mine once. Cost me." He then said, "Jana, you may's well know that Meredyth and I…that we are seeing each other, and that for the time being at least, we're seriously…together."

"Then I take it drinks are out."

"Yeah, drinks are out."

"I'd better go. The natives are getting restless here. You're right about Frank. He's managed to antagonize the owners, the wake crowd, and I suspect the dead woman in the coffin."

"Sounds like Patterson."

"The crowd is made up of some pissed-off Mexicans. Talk to you later."

Lucas tossed the radio back to Andrews. He said to Meredyth, "They've found something at the funeral home."

"Do I want to know what it is?"

"A pair of arms, one severed at the wrist, missing a hand. Presumed by Frank Patterson as those of a young woman. I think we can presume Mira Lourdes."

"Where were the arms found?"

"In one of the caskets about to be wheeled out for public viewing with one of Giorgio's masterpieces of makeup inside-a regular Ripley's Believe It or Not event-a body within a casket freshly wrapped in yellow crime-scene tape. North is waiting for Frank Patterson to finish up the CSI work there. 'Fraid Nielsen and the team'll be here a great deal longer."

"And in the meantime, what do we do, Lucas?"

"Meanwhile, I'm taking you outta here. Come on."

"Byron was a jerk, Lucas, but he didn't deserve this. My God…what am I to tell his mother, Agnes? His sister? Hell, I dare not go near them. We've got to end this thing, Lucas. We must and soon. What can we do?"

"We go back to Lincoln with everything we know, everything we suspect, everything we suspect we know about Lauralie Blodgett, including your run-in with her here, and the near run-in at the convent school."

"She used him, Lucas, to locate me. Following his movements…perhaps seeing him leaving my apartment, she and her boyfriend must have tailed him in their search for me, and where was I? Hiding from it all out at the ranch, Lucas. She'd been watching his movements to locate me. Thank God my parents are out of town, out of harm's way."

"Lincoln's got to be updated. He's got to know all we know now."

"Yes, should anything happen to us, what little we've unearthed about her, the miniscule hard evidence dies with us, and should we follow the way of Byron, no one's going to weave this convoluted, tangled web of murder together ever again….You saw Nielsen's face; you heard her words. She's not buying it." Meredyth looked in need of rest, and her eyes were bloodshot from tears.

"Come on. Let's go, Mere. Nothing more we can contribute here."

"She's watching it all, Lucas, from a safe distance, seeing us running about, all of us, SWAT people, CSI people, all of us back and forth, and her pulling the strings and getting high off the mix. Maybe…I don't know…maybe we, all of us, her mother, die church, the state…me…we all contributed to this day. We certainly created a stone-cold vampire."

"Byron's dead, Meredyth, but it's not your fault. Not any more than Mira Lourdes's death is your fault."

They'd made it to his car, newsmen shouting for a comment from Lucas. He instead urged Meredyth to get in, and he did likewise, shooting from the lot, successfully ducking reporters.

Driving for their downtown home, the 31st Precinct, Lucas got on the radio and was patched through to Gordon Lincoln's aide, who put him on with Lincoln.

"Yes, sir…reporters? A sea of 'em, Captain. They get the call same as the units, listening in on the band. Yes, sir. Meredyth's with me, sir. Count on it. We're on our way to your office now, sir."

Meredyth only half-heard his end of the conversation. When he got free, she said to him, "I hate her, Lucas…hate her. I no longer give a damn what a lousy hand she was dealt, the fact she wasn't even given a name by her mother. The nun, Mother Sara Orleans, christened her Lauralie, did you know? Think of it, imagine it. No one cares enough to give you a name."

"Don't waste any sympathy on her, Mere. This girl has mutilated two people, complete strangers to her, so she can play god-games to feel superior to us. Don't forget that."

"Lincoln might take some convincing." She wrapped her arms about herself and put her head back, exhausted.

Lucas felt a barren, dry wave of fatigue like a desert wind wash over him now. This case was draining them both. Frustration and a growing hatred for their prey threatened to make them less effective, less objective, less professional. He knew they must combat it. The alternative was a spiral from which Meredyth and he might not pull out.

She sensed his fears, reached over to him, and took his hand in hers. "We've got to stay strong, Lucas. In the face of all of it, stay strong to bring this danse macabre to an end."

Captain Gordon Lincoln hung up the phone, having gotten word on the raids ordered by Stonecoat on a funeral parlor and the Harris County courthouse. The news from both locations was bad-but that coining out of the courthouse-an acquaintance of Meredyth Sanger's brutally, savagely knifed to death, his face slashed as an afterthought, his body stuffed in a maintenance closet-was truly disturbing. This news came on the heels of a call he'd gotten earlier from his friend Judge Wilfred Manning. Manning had conveyed a bizarre story of having witnessed an arrest in the hallway of the county courthouse. He'd relayed the shocking details of how, that very afternoon, not twenty-odd feet from Byron Priestly's murder, Dr. Meredyth Sanger had been "wrestled to the floor and a gun wrested from her" by security personnel who had then turned her over to city police officers. Lincoln's aide, Officer Jonah Kent, could not find any record of an arrest having been made.

Lincoln had assured Judge Manning that he would personally look into it, but that was when Kent had put through Sergeant Stan Kelton, who'd called to give his captain a heads-up regarding two ITRT raids authorized by Stonecoat-one on a funeral parlor, and the other on the Harris County courthouse annex building.

Now he had listened to reports filtering in from both locations, learning of the ghastly discoveries at each site. He could not imagine what had tipped Lucas off to a body awaiting police at the courthouse, and he tried to picture two security guards having to wrestle Dr. Sanger in her Ivanna wear to the marbled courthouse floor for a gun. Even harder to picture was the disruption of a Mexican wake down at that funeral home. He tried to imagine the mayhem there, the mix of horror surrounding the discovery of the disembodied arms coming on the heels of the natural outpouring of grief with the passing of a loved one.

But he had made his priority Meredyth Sanger's safety and well-being, and to this end, he'd been calling around trying to determine where she might be, fearing she was in some holding cell in another precinct, when he'd gotten the call from Lucas on site at the courthouse informing him that she was with him. Those two're spending a hell of a lot of time together, he'd paused to note.

He had been assured by Lucas that both scenes, courthouse annex and funeral parlor, had been secured and an ongoing investigation was in the works at both locations. The use of the ITRT units, while hell on his budget, had proven Stonecoat's instincts correct all the same. The "medicine man," some in the department called him, and he did seem to have some kind of magical powers of investigation at times. Certainly, his reputation as a hunter- tracker was well deserved.

Given Lucas's assurances, Lincoln had seen no need to rush to either of the scenes, at least not yet. Later, as the CSI units were winding down and could give him a full report, then perhaps he could stand before the microphones and cameras and give a guarded statement.

He started for the window and once there, examined the traffic going down Kensington, wondering if the trip home would be in gridlock. He stared at his gold watch. It was nearing four P.M., and he'd wanted to get out of the city for an engagement party at the Threepenny Oaks Country Club for his daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law, a nice young man in a safe occupation, textiles. He didn't want his daughter, Serena, to be a cop's wife, a fireman's wife, or a soldier's wife, to suffer the unrelenting stresses of being in her mother's shoes. Her mother had heartily agreed, telling Lincoln, who'd been in the service, and had once been a fireman, "I wouldn't wish some of my nights on a dog. Still, Gordon, I wouldn't have had it any other way. I love you."

Do I want to deal with this shit now or not? he wondered of the Sanger business at the courthouse. He had remained standing at his desk, calling for his car to be brought around as soon as he had finished with Lieutenant Stonecoat and Dr. Sanger.

No sooner had he given the order than Lucas and Meredyth arrived in the outer office. The aide, Officer Kent, informed Lincoln of their arrival.

"Well, send them in now!"

"Yes, sir. Captain, oh…and you wanted me to remind you, sir, of Serena's engagement party tonight."

"Yes, yes, I remember, I'm not a dolt."

"But, sir, you asked me to-"

"Just send those two in, Kent! Get 'em in here now!"

Kent escorted them through the door and sullenly closed it behind him. "Something big's happened on the Post-it case," Lucas said.

Meredyth simultaneously said, "We believe Lauralie Blodgett is not some poor kid brainwashed and frightened, but in fact the leader and dominant force behind the Ripper killings."

"That's quite a leap. You want to tell me what's changed?"

"We suspect she's manipulating the boyfriend. She's demonstrated a history of manipulating people. She's behind the choice of Mira Lourdes as victim, to create a clue out of her very body that would take me back to 1984."

"Whoa, slow down. What's 1984 got to do with this case?"

Lucas rattled the air with the court document she'd gotten from the archives. 'Tell him about this, Mere. Tell Captain Lincoln the entire story from the moment we entered the convent school till we discovered Byron's body."

Lincoln sat down, an expectant look on his face, ready for the two of them to show him something. Meredyth leaned over the desk and said, "In the end, her fantasy is so off the wall, you have to suspend your natural tendency toward disbelief in order to believe it."

"Like any good fiction," Lincoln said, smiling.

"But this is not fiction. It's her game board."

"Game board?"

"She's a controlling, conniving woman, Captain, and she's laid all this out from the beginning," replied Meredyth.

"Really? From her photo, she looks like an innocent schoolgirl."

"We've known child killers before," countered Meredyth. "I'm staking my professional reputation on this, Captain."

"You may have already done so, given the theatrics at the courthouse, your having been pinned to the ground and reportedly transported off in a cruiser, and what, let off after being given a ride home? Meanwhile, your longtime friend is left behind murdered."

"I'll be proven right, when everything comes out…vindicated in time, I can prom-"

Lincoln put up a finger to gesture for her to hold on one minute. He made a call to his wife, explaining a break in the Ripper case had come and that he would not be making his daughter's engagement party on time if at all. After a bit of back and forth, he hung up with repeated apologies. He then turned back to Meredyth and said, "Now, start from the beginning, Dr. Sanger, and this better be good."

"I'll try to connect all the dots for you. Lucas can catch me if I forget anything. This case has more twists in it than a pretzel."

"Start at the beginning and please, get on with it," he ordered.

She did so. "As I said, it starts in 1984 when I was an eighteen-year-old intern at the courthouse. It starts with a six-month-old child I helped place in an orphanage for adoption, a girl named Lauralie Blodgett." She explained the significance of the victim's name, Lourdes, and how clues had been left for her and Lucas to connect the name to Our Lady of Miracles, to Mother Orleans and her questionable death, to Katherine Blodgett and her questionable death, coming full circle back to Meredyth's connection to Katherine and to her daughter in 1984. When finished, she held out the yearbook photo of Lauralie she had kept in her purse, so different from the head shot used in the press.

Lincoln studied the full body shot. "Voluptuous for an eighteen-year-old graduate, isn't she?"

"And she knows how to use it," remarked Lucas.

Meredyth continued, telling him about the record of how, as a young intern, she had signed off on Katherine Croombs giving up her daughter to the Catholic orphanage.

"I called Jack Tebo, my landlord, and asked him to look at the photo in the Chronicle," Lucas told Lincoln. "Jack ID'd her, saying she looked older than the girl in the photo, but that it was a dead ringer."

"So he positively identified her as the courier?" asked Lincoln.

"No hedging, sir."

"So we have her delivering a package, and you suspect her of multiple murder. But which of the two can you prove?"

"I believe if she's caught, she'll confess to all her crimes," began Meredyth, stepping to the window and looking out on the late afternoon traffic below. "In fact, I think that's precisely what she wants from us in the end."

"Whoa, I don't follow you, Doctor. She wants what in the end?"

"Wants us to give her a forum, a courtroom in which she can vocalize her pent-up rage and anger at all of us, Captain, at you, me, Lucas, the system."

"It's why she's playing the game, peppering the yellow brick road with clues for us to follow," said Lucas. "The Our Lady and Morte de Arthur's return addresses, the contempt shown for her father's grave site, the tackiness of how she buried her mother, the clues she left at the scene of her mother's murder, her selection of a victim named Lourdes purposely for us to make the connection, leading Meredyth to her own past association with Lauralie. And now these recent atrocities at the funeral home and the annex."

Meredyth turned from the window and added, "These aren't coincidences, but cries for help, pity, understanding- at least from Lauralie's perspective, she thinks she deserves our understanding, and perhaps, to some degree the monster was created by us."

"Lauralie Blodgett just graduated. Where do graduates go?" asked Lincoln.

"Most go on a field trip to D.C. or Disneyland," replied Lucas, "but I think Lauralie went to Greenhaven Cemetery to deface her father's gravestone instead."

"Many grads go on to college. Have you checked area colleges for a Lauralie Blodgett or Croombs registering for classes?"

"If not college, then an apprenticeship. Wait a moment." Meredyth got on the phone and called Mother Elizabeth Portsmith. When she got her on the phone, Meredyth asked, "What did Lauralie want to become when she grew up? What profession did she wish to pursue?"

"She loved animals. Always kept a small pet. They'd always die on her. She wanted to be a vet."

"A vet. Did she have a school picked out?"

"She was looking at several in the area, but I don't know that she ever actually enrolled. Still, there's a chance she did."

"Thank you, Mother Superior."

"Will you please call me when and if you locate my girl?" she asked.

"Yes, surely."

"Dreadful seeing her picture on the TV screen alongside that killer. You must stop such nasty rumors."

"We'll see what we can do, Mother, and thanks again.

"Veterinary schools in the area. We need to check all of them," she told the men.

"Then let's find her, and when we do, we drag her and her boyfriend in here, and we put them in the pressure cooker and grill their asses until we get a confession from one or the other or both." Lincoln called Kent on the intercom to come in with a city directory.

Lucas now stood at the window with Meredyth, a protective hand on her shoulder. He said to Lincoln, "That lunatic was at the courthouse, shadowing Meredyth for a reason. She's plotting to harm her physically now, now that she's already torn away at her emotionally. It's the reason she's been shadowing us, first at the convent, leaving the finger in the fount, and then at the courthouse."

"All right," said Lincoln, "it's going to be a long night. Everyone on the team needs to be brought in on this. Let's pray she has a school transcript, and we work from the information there outward. We'll send cruisers to every damned veterinary school in the city and the suburbs if necessary, and we'll corner this young hellion."

"Someone in this city has to have some idea where these two are holed up and who they are," Lucas reassured Meredyth. "No one is invisible."

Kent entered with the Houston directory. Lincoln told him to go out and return with directories for the suburbs as well. "And order us in some food."

"What do you feel like, sir? Pizza, burgers, Chinese?"

"Anything, Kent, so long as it's hot. And close the door."

Lucas had quickly found the listings for veterinary schools in the city. "We'll start calling the task force together, Captain, bring them up to date, if you want to get out of here, attend that party for your girl."

Meredyth added, "We can get the word out on the vet schools just as well as you, Gordon. Go on. You can still make your daughter's day."

"Thanks, Doctor, Lucas. Are you two sure you can handle things without me?"

"Sure we can," replied Meredyth.

"All right then. Use my office as long as you need it. Food is on me." He passed Officer Kent, whose arms were full with directories, on the way out, giving one last instruction to his aide. "Get these two everything and anything they need, Kent, and call your wife, tell her you'll be pulling a double shift."

Kent frowned and dropped the additional directories on his boss's desk.

Later that evening, the entire Post-it Ripper task force was brought together and brought up to date. Meredyth and Lucas again told their startling story of how Meredyth's friend Byron had died, and how she and anyone close to her had become targets of Lauralie Blodgett's obsession, and the twisted reasoning behind the postings of Mira Lourdes's body parts.

The late edition of the Chronicle carried both photos of Lauralie now alongside that of the mole-faced charcoal likeness of her accomplice. Along with this, the photo carried a cryptic history of how she was a recent graduate from Our Lady of Miracles School. Anyone with any information on Lauralie's whereabouts, or those of the mysterious Mr. X, was asked to call authorities immediately. Both suspects were considered armed and dangerous in this updated version forwarded to the press. On page three, the story of an unnamed body found in a closet in the court-room annex appeared with sketchy details. The story of the bizarre shutdown of a funeral parlor across the city in which police found severed arms inside the casket during an ongoing wake said the severed arms lay across the chest and were discovered by loved ones at the casket just as police arrived. The story went on to detail the name of the parlor and the deceased woman, hinting at some connection to the Post-it Ripper case. It quoted Dr. Frank Patterson as having said, "Mrs. Zoradia Ortiz's family members were questioned, but none of them are believed to have played any part in this unfortunate event. Crime-scene analysis both here and at the courthouse annex today points to the Post-it Ripper, who appears to have found another way to send his message, in a larger box, so to speak. A cryptic note left in the casket and tissue analysis is expected to confirm this."

A bank of phones had been secured along with men and women to man them, and calls were being made to every veterinary school in and around Houston in an attempt to locate one registered student by name. Meanwhile, the rest of the task force was introduced to the idea that an orphaned girl had been both the motivating and driving force behind the abduction and murder of Mira Lourdes. It required Meredyth's having to go through the details once again, and as the inexplicable tale began to unfold, all the others sat in rapt attention, curious over the next twist and the final turn.

"A story worthy of an Agatha Christie novel," said Leonard Chang, who had by now read both Nielsen's and Patterson's field reports. Chang, Nielsen, the others in the CSI unit. Detective North and her partners who had interrogated Dwayne Stokes, the young sketch artist, Anna Tewes, Sergeant Kelton, Dr. Catrina Purvis, and Dr. Tom Davies all now had a better understanding of why the killers, Lauralie Blodgett and her unnamed associate, had committed two hideous murder mutilations. They were also apprised of the suspicious deaths of Sara Orleans, Katherine Croombs, and the brutal details in the stabbing death of Byron Priestly.

Questions flew. Everyone wanted answers. Mistakes and oversights became apparent, especially in the handling of the presumed overdose death of Katherine Croombs. Frank Patterson had slipped in as they revisited the Croombs case. Frank quietly found a chair in a comer as there was no room left around the conference table. He sat silent in shadow, not contributing or objecting.

"All this is very intriguing and compelling," said Jana North, "and you two obviously believe in this pure and twisted revenge theory, but we're no closer to finding this woman, and we still have no idea who the accomplice is. No one seems to know the extent of his involvement, that is, what his motives or rewards are. Why has he done her bidding? Who is he to her? Are they related? What sort of a relationship do they share? What binds him to her? Is he merely following her orders, or is he an encourager, a cheerleader, possibly the leader, dominating her and pushing her over the edge? Or is it the other way around? Is she the driving force in their twisted relationship as Lucas and Meredyth have come to believe?"

"All questions impossible to answer with any certainty until the killing couple is captured and interrogated, and the truth wrenched from them," replied Lucas.

Meredyth said unequivocally, "He's her lapdog, pure and simple. She's in charge."

Jana North wasn't so sure. "Female murderers are rare. Only eight women have ever made the FBI's Most Wanted List."

"But don't you see, that's what drives her!" shouted Meredyth. "She wants to be our most wanted, maybe the ninth female on the FBI's Most Wanted. She wants to be on John Walsh's America's Most Wanted, on CNN. NBC, MSNBC, ABC, CBS, Fox, 20/20, and 48 Hours."

'Take a breath, Mere," warned Lucas.

Meredyth didn't skip a beat. "This bitch wants the notoriety of the D.C. Sniper, and so she wins either way; whether we succeed in catching her or killing her. she wins. She gets to rise out of the obscurity of a life behind the gates of Our Lady's orphanage to world prominence as a serial killer with a new M.O., a new twist."

"She's not a proven serial killer. Dr. Sanger," said Nielsen. "Agreed, we suspect her in her mother's death, but that's a long way from proof, and we have even less evidence in the death of this nun, Orleans, and we can't be certain Lauralie actually swung the blade that killed Priestly, nor the ax that decapitated Mira Lourdes."

"She's intending to kill me next!" Meredyth exploded, her fist coming down on the table, silencing Nielsen and everyone else in the room.

For a long moment, no one said anything, all eyes on Meredyth, who finally broke the silence. "She's killed four times now, and she has intended from the beginning to make a statement. She is becoming a celebrity as we speak, a serial killer celeb to-to gain all the attention she can to-to shine a bright light on herself, her heart-rending personal story. She's obsessed with it."

Silence met Meredyth, all eyes staring at her, some of those eyes mutely asking if she were not obsessed with it and perhaps ought to be removed from the case as too emotionally involved. Breaking the awkward silence, Leonard Chang said, "Perhaps Dr. Sanger is correct in all she has said here tonight. After all, since Lauralie has intentionally left arrows in the sand for us to follow-to the convent, to the funeral parlor, to the mother's home, to the courthouse-all of it pointing to her being abandoned and pawned off as an infant in 1984, then she has masterminded the entire affair, so that despite whether Crazy Joe, as Lucas calls him, wielded the poison that killed her mother, the ax that killed Lourdes, and the knife that killed Priestly, she then emerges as the dominating force in the relationship."

Lucas picked up on this, adding, "We all know the history of killers who work in tandem. One is always submissive to the will of the other. While in most cases, the submissive one is younger, often female, we're looking at an older male submissive to a younger female."

Several people in the room spoke up.

"Information, how do we get more of it about Lauralie?"

"Her current whereabouts."

"Who she's associated with since leaving the school."

"Where she's been hanging, as they say," said Jana.

"We have people manning phones as we speak," Lucas assured them. 'Trying to locate Lauralie through a possible lead-veterinary school transcripts."

"Vet schools?" asked Nielsen. "They learn how to use anesthetics, scalpels, sutures, and other medical instruments in vet schools."

"Mother Elizabeth says Lauralie had expressed an interest in pursuing a career as a vet," Lucas added. "By the way, our hot line on the case is racking up hundreds of tips, and these are being weighed and analyzed by our best people, led by Stan the Man Kelton. New wrinkle, Dr. Sanger here has put up a substantial reward of twenty-five thou-sand dollars for info leading to an arrest and conviction.

"Which has been matched by the Texas Department of Law Enforcement," added Lucas. "They're also lending support in following up on tips in the field."

"Fifty thousand, okay. That ought to bring out the rats, both those with and those without any idea of who Lauralie is or where she is," complained Frank Patterson. "We'll be lucky to ferret out the real tips from the goofballs."

Kelton added, "We've already had sixteen separate confessions to the crime, all of which have failed the litmus tests."

"Which revolves around the wording of the notes?" asked Davies.

"And the details of the packing material and what was in each box. So far, no winners." Kelton secured his nervously twitching left hand with his right, and then tucked both beneath the table in his lap.

"So now we're all on the same page, people," said Lucas to the assembled task force. "As new information becomes available, from whatever direction, please share it with the group."

The meeting broke up, and people were filing out when an officer in uniform pushed through, in his hands a brightly colored green, blue, and white parcel clearly marked FedEx Ground. "It's addressed to Detective Stonecoat," he announced. "Return address is odd-Greenhaven Meadows Cemetery on Berwyn at Ridge Avenue. We thought it peculiar and suspicious."

Lucas shouted for everyone to sit back down. The task force reluctantly returned to their conference room seats, the memory of the last box opened in this room fresh in their minds. "Has it been X-rayed?" Kelton asked the officer who had brought it.

"Our scanner is down, sir. But from the odor and the sheer weight, I'd say it isn't donuts or office supplies."

Chang slowed things, saying, "We have a sonar scanner upstairs that will do the trick, and we need to go for necessary tools and a cooler as well as a sheet to lay everything out on."

"I'll get what we need," Lynn Nielsen assured Chang.

"Dr. Patterson will help you out, Dr. Nielsen."

Nielsen darted a barbed but brief glance in Chang's direction, began to object, but decided to do as told instead. Patterson, in exaggerated politeness, stood holding the door for Nielsen.

Everyone else was told to take ten minutes but to not disappear. Most ran for rest rooms or the coffee and snack machines at a nearby lounge filled with plastic chairs, tables, and bulletin boards. When everyone had returned, remembering Anna Tewes losing it the last time they'd assembled, no one had food or coffee in hand.

After fifteen minutes had passed, Nielsen and Patterson returned, Lynn pushing a sleek steel cart, heavy with all the items Chang had called for, Patterson holding the door again. Nielsen wheeled the cart to where Chang motioned he wanted it. Atop it sat a compact sonar scanner attached to a computer accompanied by a monitor. From a shelf below the cart, Nielsen produced an ice-filled cooler, the sheet, and an array of metal instruments from a box cutter to a scalpel, and a large needle for drawing fluids. As Lynn Nielsen worked, Frank Patterson retreated back into his comer seat. He'd taken his cue from Chang to sit down and leave things to Dr. Nielsen. Frank's stiff body language spoke of a mix of hurt pride and anger. He'd have liked to take a more proactive role here in the presentation-as he had at the funeral parlor as lead CSI investigator. Instead, Chang had chosen to rely on Lynn Nielsen.

With the room darkened, using the sonar scan, Dr. Chang pointed to the computer monitor atop the cart and the image coming through. It was at first difficult to make out-the image flat, without depth or contrast, dreary gray, grainy, until some resolution was created by Nielsen, who handled the wand over the FedEx box. After a moment, Chang, using a light pointer, highlighted a flattened female areola, the nipple like an eye at the center. Around this there appeared a crush of flesh. "It appears to be the breast of a woman, but skewed, flattened as against a windowpane, and to the left, a half-hidden open flesh wound." The light pointer danced about the ugly image as he spoke. "Upper torso…here is clavicle area, you see, here in upper left-hand comer of this coffin is a shoulder ridge. Other shoulder blurred by what appears a tumor or bloody mass. My guess, the contents are a woman's upper torso and severed breasts."

To most in the room, the scanner image was one gray mass of unreadable flesh. Both Chang and Nielsen looked hard at the monitor image in a kind of professional fascination.

Leonard switched off his light pointer and asked for the lights to come up. Once they did, the image diffused into gray nothingness. Chang lifted the box cutter, carefully leaned in over the box itself, and began opening the bulging parcel-measured during the break as thirty-two inches in width by forty inches in height.

Everyone watched in silence as the tape split noisily under the blade, and Leonard's gloved hands trembled slightly as he pulled back the flaps and everyone held a collective breath. Leonard stared down into the box. Lucas had never seen Chang go white before, but he did now.

"Doctor, are you all right?" Lynn Nielsen asked him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Chang shook it off. "As I said, it's her upper torso, jammed in tightly. The breasts have been severed and stuffed in as well. It will not all possibly fit into one cooler, Dr. Nielsen." Chang wiped his sweating brow with a handkerchief. "If any of you care to see it up close, it will be in my lab upstairs. I see no purpose in displaying it here as-"

"Thank God," moaned Anna Tewes.

"Yes, indeed," added Dr. Purvis.

Chang continued. "-as any further display here will not add to our knowledge of the killer or whereabouts of same." Chang lifted the box and hefted its contents onto the cart behind the monitor. The cart was balanced precariously, and the wheels, skidding as a result, almost caused the vile parcel to tilt over and spill out its contents. With lightning reflexes, Lucas shot out a foot and steadied the wheel, allowing Leonard to hold onto the box, right it, and steady it. Once all was safe again, Leonard, with Nielsen's help, exited with the cart and its strange cargo. Nielsen helped guide the cart to the elevators. They had left behind the forensic tools, the sheet, and the cooler. Using the sheet, Frank Patterson began to bundle these up.

Everyone else soon followed one another through the door, walking like pallbearers after having seen the latest pieces of Mira Lourdes come through the door. Hoskins quietly muttered to Perelli, "Lincoln's going to hit high-G when he hears about this."

Lucas and Meredyth remained behind, the sound of Frank's rattling instruments, as he rolled them up, like a sad litany accompanying the procession of the others. "All the coroner's horses, and all the coroner's men, could not put Mira Lourdes back together again," Frank said.

Lucas and Meredyth turned to stare at the man, who next said, "At the now-accelerated rate, we shall one day have all of Ms. Lourdes back…her back, front as well, side-to-side, up-and-down pieces, the over, under, above, and below of her."

"What is it you want, Frank?" asked Lucas.

"Just talk. Leonard at first held some notion he might miraculously stitch all the parts into one, but I suspect a judicious cremation of the parts is in order for the grieving family now. Otherwise, she's going to look like Frankenstein's bride in the casket."

Lucas pursed his hps and nodded at Chang's second in command in the M.E.'s office. "Sounds like a better plan indeed, Frank."

Lucas led Meredyth toward the door.

"Look here, you two, has it occurred to either of you that we need the full resources of the FBI on this case? And I mean right away, like yesterday?"

"We're told that Captain Lincoln is keeping them informed," said Meredyth.

"They're clamoring to come aboard, and he's keeping them informed?' asked Patterson, a slight man with pinched features. "We all know that the killer's use of the mail makes this a federal crime-screwing with the U.S. Postal Service. We also know that we can only keep control of the case if we invite their help and resources now, at our invitation," he repeated. "Otherwise, at any moment, they'll come swooping in and simply take charge entirely, waving us all good-bye."

'Technically speaking, Frank, the Ripper hasn't actually posted anything through the U.S. mails. Fact is, prior to the FedEx box, everything had been hand-delivered, save for the UPS delivery at the station house."

"What's your interest. Dr. Patterson?" asked Meredyth. "Do you think a high-profile case can raise your profile?"

"I have a well-established reputation in my field. Dr. Sanger, and I resent the implications of your question. As for my interest? It is the same as any citizen, any law- enforcement officer, the same as yours, Dr. Sanger."

"And that is?" pressed Meredyth.

"I want to see an end to this horror! To see the perpetrators apprehended and punished to the fullest extent of the law. Short of that"-he stepped up to the table and balanced his slight frame against it-"I'd like to see someone of Lucas's ilk here kill the perpetrators before they can take another inch off their victim. Think of it-treating her body like a frozen Popsicle, taking it from a freezer, slicing off this piece and that, returning it to deep freeze for another go at shocking you, Dr. Sanger."

"And you think the FBI can sooner end this thing than we can?" asked Lucas.

"Well, Lucas, you must admit, from all appearances, Dr. Sanger, and you by extension, have been led by the nose by a juvenile who, whether you care to admit it or not, has gotten you both where she wants you-on an emotional roller coaster. You've played right into the bitch's hands. You say she's manipulating her accomplice! What has she done to you, Dr. Sanger?"

"We're out ahead of her, Dr. Patterson. You can tell your pals in the federal building that," countered Meredyth.

"Out ahead of her? Everyone in this room tonight questions your objectivity, Doctor. As a forensic psychiatrist, knowing of such a personal stake in the outcome of any other criminal case, you would yourself recommend to Captain Lincoln that any officer or detective so closely linked to a suspect be removed from duty and certainly not placed in charge."

"Is that your opinion?" she asked. "Are you finished?"

"Yes, Frank is finished," said Lucas, taking her by the arm, escorting her out.

"Just one man's opinion," Frank shouted after them.

Lucas turned on him. "An opinion you've no doubt shared with the FBI?"

"I know my duty."

"And how much duty have you given the press?"

"I didn't go to the FBI. They came to me. I told them what I knew, what I gleaned from Chang and Nielsen, and today at the funeral parlor. The note left there-'Arm in arm, we'll wrap ourselves in the warmth of childhood carousels, to dream round and round in flesh pound for bloody pound.' This woman is in a competitive battle with you, Meredyth. You are a liability to this case unless handled properly by people who have had experience with such killers as this-the contrary murderer who will match you step for step."

Everyone on the task force had seen the note left in Zoradia Ortiz's coffin at the funeral home, written in the same hand as the previous cryptic communiques. As with the others, they gave profilers and investigators few to no clues. Everyone would be analyzing the meaning of "childhood carousel" now. Meredyth already knew it referred to Lauralie's life in comparison to Meredyth's "dream" childhood. Lauralie was at one end of the spectrum of this carousel, Meredyth at the other.

"So long as we have Captain Lincoln's confidence, Dr. Patterson," Meredyth firmly said, "Lucas and I will pursue this case as lead investigators on the task force that we and Gordon Lincoln assembled."

"I wish you only success and a speedy one at that." Patterson, his bundle of instruments held close to his chest, pushed past them and was gone. But the odor of his cologne, thrown on heavily to mask the odors of the coroner's lab, lingered.

"I think we can expect a raking-over in the printed pages tonight or tomorrow, Mere," said Lucas.

"And a visit from the FBI soon after," she agreed.

"Creep Patterson. He's always chummed up to local FBI. I suspect he's shining their badges because he actually thinks it's his way through the back door. He's bucking for his own lab where he can call the shots-God help us! He knows he'll never be head of the HPD Crime Lab so long as Leonard continues to write up his annual evaluations."

"I felt the tension between them."

"Politics."

"Positioning."

They had started out the door and down the corridor when Stan Kelton met them in the hallway. "We may have a break in the case," he said.

"Whataya got, Stan?"

"Aside from some promising tips, we've located a school where Lauralie Blodgett registered for classes this year."

'Terrific! Where's the school located?"

"Harkness at Balboa, the Dean V. King School of Veterinary Medicine. I dispatched a radio car to the address she left with the registrar. They're watching the place, but won't move in until they hear from us regarding a warrant."

Lucas and Meredyth recognized the address as that of Katherine Croombs's place. "We've already canvased the place. She's not there, Stan."

"My, but she's been a busy girl," he replied.

Meredyth asked, "Stan, did they get a list of her classes and teachers?"

"It's on its way to us now. Let me check the fax."

They followed Stan to find the information waiting for them. Lucas and Meredyth closely studied Lauralie's registration form and signature. She'd signed up for three classes, two of which she was failing miserably. The third, Intro Surg Pro, she somehow had a B average in. The name of the instructor was A. Belkvin.

"What the hell is Intro Surg Pro?" asked Kelton.

"Introduction to Surgical Procedures. I know, makes your skin crawl in light of what we know about her," answered Meredyth. "And look at her signature, Lucas." Studying it, Meredyth added. "It may give us a glimpse into her personality. Notice the fanciful swirls, the looping Ls, the exaggerated crossing of the Ts, the G dipping so low, the capitals and the T's reaching so high."

"Sorry to sound like a broken record, but what does it mean?" asked Kelton.

"Means she's self-indulgent, a thrill-seeking exhibitionist freak, out for all the attention she can gather."

Lucas added, "She ought to've put all this negative energy into the theater. Could've been a hell of an actress, the next Vivian Leigh."

"She has her stage," countered Meredyth, "and her audience. All of us in the real world. The subject of an

APB, a BOLO. Certainly has our attention…subject of a nationwide hunt being played out on the front pages. She's created this lady of satanic divination who frightens us all; the bogeyman has become bogeywoman."

At the bottom of the faxed copy of Lauralie's registration form, in tiny, tight script, a hastily written note ran the length of the page. It'd been written, presumably by someone working in the registrar's office. It read: "Ms. L Blodgett is on verge of being dropped from classes due to failing grades and mounting attendance problems as she has failed to reply to repeated notices to see her counselor, Dr. Arthur Belkvin."

"Belkvin, as in her instructor in Introductory Surgical Procedures? The one class she's passing?" asked Lucas.

"Kind of odd, I agree," said Meredyth.

"What? What's odd, the note scribbled on her registration form?" asked Kelton, trying to keep up.

"That the only class she's getting a passing grade in is taught by her counselor," replied Lucas.

Meredyth added, "And yet, according to the note, she has failed to report into him regarding problems with attendance. Looks and smells like a rat."

"Certainly incongruous." Lucas reread the registration form. "She's signed up for Zoolog Anat-"

"Zoological Anatomy," interjected Meredyth.

"— and Ca Teeth Extr."

"Canine Teeth Extraction." It made them both think of the teeth extracted from Mira Lourdes.

Lucas said, "We need to talk to this guy Belkvin, see what he can tell us about our girl."

"Are you kidding, Lucas? I want to meet this guy and see how he stacks up against our composite. He could well be our Crazy Joe Boyfriend."

"Older man, weak, easy prey for her…knows how to use a scalpel, a bone saw." Lucas ran a hand through his long hair.

Belkvin…Belkvin," Stan Kelton began to chant. "Sounds damn familiar somehow."

"What's the number of the school, Stan?" asked

Meredyth. "I want to get this Professor Counselor Belkvin on the line."

Stan read the number off as Meredyth called from Stan's desk. The others listened to her side of the conversation. "I see…yes…agreed…absolutely. We can do that, uh-huh, yes, sir, Dr. Price. You have my word. We will look in on him. Can I get the address, phone number? That'd be good too, yes." She abruptly hung up, leaving Lucas and Stan to stare at her satisfied smile.

"What?" asked Lucas.

"Seems our Dr. Arthur Belkvin has been AWOL… classes canceled without notice twice over the past two mornings, and this A.M. he's again a no-show, but this time not even a notice given. The department chairman, Dr. Charles Price, said they've been unable to reach Dr. Belkvin at his home or his practice. Said it was becoming a concern for them."

"Belkvin," muttered Stan Kelton. "I tell you, that sounds familiar. Hold on a minute."

Stan returned to his desk, having to tell a growing number of people, both police officers and civilians, to hold their respective pants and requests while he conferred with his junior officer. Between the two men, they rifled though hundreds of phone-line tips as yet to be placed on the computer cross-referencing program. "Here's one of them, Sarge," said the junior officer.

"Here's the other," announced Kelton. He then handed the two reports to Lucas and Meredyth to review while he helped clear away the growing numbers confronting him.

'Two calls, both saying their vet fits the description of Mr. X in the Chronicle," said Lucas. "You'd think we'd have some similar tips from the guy's students at this King vet school."

"Students don't read anything but what's on the curriculum these days, and as for picking up a newspaper or watching CNN, they're too busy with role-playing video games and going to the movies to concern themselves with current events. I've taught, I know. When the D.C. Sniper shootings were going on, none of my students had an inkling until I put them onto it, and you know how saturated our lives had become with it."

"Scary."

"I got Dr. Arthur Belkvin's full name, SS number, street address for home and practice from Dr. Price," Meredyth told him. "And maybe now Jorganson can ram through search warrants for us?"

"If the bastards won't give us a go-ahead, we'll call in the ITRT again, but for the sake of building a case against this guy and Lauralie, who I suspect we will find living with him, let's go the warrant route first."

"So long as we put this investigation in motion."

Lucas grabbed the desk phone and called the D.A.'s office, telling Harry Jorganson what they'd uncovered. "Sounds like plenty of probable cause, and since the courthouse incident, I don't think I'm going to have trouble finding a sympathetic judge, Lucas. Meet you at the man's practice. The home warrant will come by way of my legal aide, Phil Merrick."

"We'll make the raids simultaneously. I think the noose is around the right neck, Harry."

No sooner had he hung up Stan's desk phone than his cell phone rang into life. He picked up to find Jana North speaking in an excited manner. "We got a an interesting development over here in Missing Persons, a report filed on a doctor of veterinary medicine gone missing for forty- eight hours, Lucas. The report was filed by his receptionist, a MariLouise Jones."

"Go on."

"Says her boss has missed appointments, surgeries, and such. Also says he looks a little like the artist sketch on our killer. This doggy doc's name is-"

"Arthur Belkvin," Lucas finished for her.

"Right, but how the hell'd you know?"

"We've got a warrant for his practice and home in the works. We have reason to believe he's the male half of the Post-it Ripper duo."

"I want in, Lucas."

"You've got it. Take a team of your best to this address."

He gave her the home address. "Phd Merrick from the D.A.'s would meet you there with a warrant. We'll cover the man's practice. Careful, these people are armed and dangerous."

"Imagine it, Lucas, our big bad boogeyman who cuts people into cubes turns out to be an animal lover…a doggy doctor."

Lucas hung up. "Let's get over to the clinic. Detective North's people're going to coordinate the raid on the house."

"I'll be damned," said Meredyth.

"What's that?" asked Lucas.

"Lauralie's little game takes on a new twist. She selects a man named Arthur at a vet school named King to do her bidding. King Arthur…Morte de Arthur's, the funeral home? Is it only coincidence?"

"A king with a set of surgical tools and hairy mole on his cheek."

"She's using him just as she's used people all her life."

Lucas said, "Says here his office is on JFK Drive, South, the seedier side of the Sixth Ward."

"Let's go."

"I want in," Kelton said.

"For sure, Stan. Get us a tactical team for backup, and put Chang on notice we may call for him or Dr. Nielsen at either or both scenes. Ahhh, tell him we'd prefer Frank Pat-terson be kept out of it. Will you do that, Stan?"

"Consider it done. And I'll bring Lincoln up to par as well."

"See you at the kennel and surgery then, Stan."

"Count on it."

Lucas and Meredyth located his car, a sense of hope, of impending closure wanting to rush into their hearts, but they warned one another against it, keeping it at bay, dammed up by a cop's normal caution in the face of optimism, a reining-in emotion called prudence, which spoke the language of care and vigilance. They had been wrong before; eyewitnesses had been proved wrong in case after case. The professor and veterinarian could well be missing for a thousand and one reasons, none having the remotest to do with Lauralie Blodgett or a murder spree. They could be entirely wrong about Belkvin.

Nevertheless, Lucas intended serving two warrants to open up his entire life to their scrutiny.