Final Edge

CHAPTER 8

Lauralie Blodgett breathed deeply, taking in the crisp cool morning air, leisurely strolling the woods around the farmhouse, a quaint little white clapboard home. She had convinced Arthur to rent the house and property for their purposes. Although it had a useless fallen-in barn and shed, there was a fenced-in dog run that appealed to Dr. Belkvin's dog-loving nature.

"Hell, out here, you could let your dogs run free," she had told him. "Arthur, it's perfect!"

Arthur said it could be a sign that she wanted some stability in their relationship, indeed, in her life, that she had never enjoyed before, being an orphaned child without security. She hadn't dispelled Arthur's cockeyed notions, but rather allowed them to build in his lightly dusted sandy-haired head.

There were aspects of Arthur's little homey dreams that did appeal to Lauralie, but she had far too many unrealized plans to settle just yet into a life with anyone, much less a four-eyed Dr. Doolittle with a hairy mole on his right cheek.

She shook off any further thought of it, wishing to enjoy the moment amid the freshly watered earth and grasses, the leaves dripping still with last night's cleansing rain. Nature taking a shower, replenishing herself, she thought. It'd been forever since Lauralie had replenished herself, or simply taken some time for herself. Having learned the where-abouts of the woman who had taken her from her mother, Lauralie had spent untold hours researching, following leads, examining clues, exploring evidence, learning, and stalking her prey, planning and deciding how best to destroy her. She didn't want Dr. Meredyth Sanger to die quickly, but rather to suffer a long and torturous harassment, to be made to feel responsible for the deaths of others, and to lose her hold on her sanity, a fittingly ironic end for a professional sanity peddler. After all that, then it might be Dr. Sanger who would spend eighteen years under the control of an institution, told when to get up, when to eat, bathe, take her pills, sleep, get up again, and relentlessly repeat the process without deviation or question. To die inside slowly over years, knowing she was the cause of Lauralie's pain and the death of everyone Meredyth loved.

Birds chased one another among the juniper trees just ahead of Lauralie, catching her fascination, and the morning sun glistened on the still-wet dew. A faraway hawk cried out to its mate, no doubt spotting its prey on the ground. As she high-stepped through the tall grass, a soft murmur of insect activity surrounded Lauralie, creating a cloud of fairylike creatures captured in the morning sunbeams.

The stream that ran along one end of the property trickled in her ear as she examined the leaves on the variety of trees here, every sort of hardwood. It was a bountiful, beautiful location, an oasis of green amid miles of brown and red earth on all sides, and she wondered what had happened to the family that had once farmed here. She imagined the children all grown up, that they had abandoned the life here, going off to the big city, taking jobs in factories and mills, leaving the land. No doubt their grandparents and parents had each in turn died in the old house.

Lauralie fancied that she could feel their spirits in the clapboard farmhouse; she sensed their shock and amazement over her shoulder each time she wrapped and addressed a parcel filled with parts of the Lourdes woman. To anyone else, the old house stood empty and abandoned, but Lauralie knew better. While it had been abandoned by its previous tenants, it had never been completely abandoned by them. Fortunately, the ghosts of the house had no method of contacting the authorities about the use to which Lauralie had put the old place.

She could see the house through the trees, the kitchen screen door and the large freezer unit that Arthur had purchased for her, one of his earliest tests. She gave thought to Arthur, and how malleable he was in her hands as she found that kind spot in his heart, the one all balled up with his sex drive. Yes, Arthur was so kind to her, giving in to her every whim.

She strolled further from the house, deeper into the thicket, until she came on a neat little circle of grass surrounded by bush, an Alice in Wonderland clearing. An area blanketed with pine needles, a cushion placed here for her to sit against a tree and let the sunshine play across her face and body, warming her through her clothing, a simple cotton dress.

She thought that in another life she could easily have been happy simply being a farmer's wife. Perhaps she still could be, said a voice inside a niche inside a cubbyhole corner of her mind. After this was all over, perhaps she could convince Arthur to set up house here, to remain here for the rest of their lives. Arthur would do it too. He'd do anything for me, she thought, anything I want. Arthur is a dear.

Of course she knew better, that she had no future. She began to feel an overwhelming need for sleep. She hadn't been getting much rest lately, her appearance telling the story, and so in closing her eyes, she felt the peaceful voice of slumber whisper in her ear, gently calling her name as in a chant, the lord of sleep, Morpheus, a motherly matron in Lauralie's estimation, luring Lauralie into her soft arms.

Now that Lauralie's birth mother had crossed over, Lauralie felt certain the woman had come to a new realization of the error of her ways; Mother had learned her lesson, and she too beckoned with a soft voice inside Lauralie's head, asking to curl up alongside her daughter now. Sleep, sleep, with sunshine warming the eyelids.

As she dozed, her mind took her back to her upbringing at the convent for orphaned girls. She had been put up for adoption at birth, and only recently had she learned who her mother was, and more importantly, where the woman had been all these years. The horrible truth was that her mother hadn't been a world away, not thousands or even hundreds of miles off as Lauralie had always imagined, but worse, here in Houston all these eighteen years.

She recalled in her dream how she had shown up at her mother's doorstep unannounced, surprising the woman, who looked strangely like herself. "Are you Katherine Anne Croombs Blodgett?”

Her mother didn't have to answer, but the woman's parched lips parted, and she mouthed the word yes as if expecting this day to come all her life. From the first glance, and given die nature of the question, and the way in which Lauralie had put it to her, the woman calling herself Katherine Croombs nowadays knew the young woman on her doorstep was her daughter. The daughter she had abandoned stood before her, and after an awkward silence, Katherine invited young Lauralie into her ramshackle home on Groilier Street in a run-down neighborhood in the shadow of the Interstate overpass. As Lauralie entered the house, she heard the noise and felt the vibration from traffic overhead on the Interstate. Cars exceeding the fifty- mile-an-hour limit, whistling by at sixty-five and seventy, literally shook the little two-flat tenement rental home.

After their initial meeting, Lauralie took her time getting to know Mother Katherine Croombs and her lifestyle. She worked hard and patiently to win the older woman's trust. Lauralie provided her with money and stockpiled her with what seemed most important to Katherine-alcohol.

Later, when {Catherine died, no one questioned the woman's death by alcoholic poisoning, certainly not the authorities. No one ever knew or guessed the truth, that on the night of her death, Katherine Croombs Blodgett had learned the full extent of Lauralie's wrath.

Lauralie had tied her down to the bedposts, and she had force-fed whiskey into Katherine until it was coming out her pores. Officially, she drank herself to death. Unofficially, Lauralie had seen to it.

Lauralie had fulfilled her desire to kill her mother, but not before weeks of working her mother around to explain it all, to tell Lauralie how she could possibly have given away her own flesh and blood daughter. "Me, me, Lauralie, Mother. How could you give me away like I wasn't worth your time?"

After Lauralie's visits had become somewhat routine, Katherine, having had enough drink to loosen her tongue, finally tried to explain her actions, prefacing her words with, "Now…this isn't any excuse. I–I-I can't offer no excuse," she stuttered, "but-but-but it kinda explains where I–I was at, at the time, where my head was at…how bad it got. You see…sweetheart…I…I…I had a mental disorder, and a drug habit on top of that."

"You coulda gotten help!"

"Damn it, honey, I pleaded for help! I wanted help. I–I-I sought help, but they took you away from me because…because…I don't know the reason why, because I was so out of it, I–I-I couldn't follow what was going on, and so I–I put my trust in a woman working for the child welfare people."

"You were unwed too, and you didn't know who the father was, did you? You still can't tell me who my father is, can you?"

"He died a few years ago of a brain tumor."

"You lived together? As man and wife?"

"John and me, we ran into one 'nother on the street seven or eight years after I gave you up. He was limping badly, crippled from a construction accident. He was in bad shape, and I–I felt sorry for him and took him in. We lived together for the last ten years, helping one 'nother out. I guess you could say we loved one 'nother."

"John what? What was his name?" she pressed, even though she already knew the answer.

"Blodgett, I gave you his name, Blodgett."

'Tell me about Daddy."

"He was three-quarter Indian, Native American, part Mexican."

"What was his excuse for never coming for me? All the days and nights of my life, believing that one day one or both of you would come and take me home!"

Katherine turned her gaze away and walked off. She wrung her hands and shook her head, unable to find words.

"He never knew? You never told John Blodgett, did you, ever?" Lauralie asked. "You gave me his name on my birth certificate, but you never told him, did you?"

"No…no, I never told him. Not even on his deathbed."

"But why?" Lauralie pleaded. "Were you ashamed of me, your half-breed daughter? Was that another nail in my coffin, another reason to keep me your dirty little secret?"

"No, it was never like that. I–I-I was ashamed of myself, of what I'd become and for…for having to give you up, and too afraid of John's reaction by then, that he might leave me. He could have a violent temper at times too."

"I want a picture of dear old Dad then."

Katherine found a wallet-sized photo of a dashing, young man with a roguish smile below a full mustache. He had dark skin and black eyes, and the eyes looked mischievous and bold. Lauralie put the picture into her purse.

"I want to know more about this woman with Child and Family Services, the one who helped you out so much when you needed it. The one who took me away from you."

"But why do you want to dwell on that awful time, Lauralie? We have the here and now to make up for all those years."

"I want to know all about her, Katherine, Mother, please." Lauralie kept her drinking.

"She was a young woman, younger than me, but very smart about the law and legal aid, all that. In fact, she was a young medical intern, I think."

"Medical intern? Studying to be a doctor?"

"A psychologist, I think."

"Her name, Mother. In case I want to look her up, you know, thank her for all she did for you when you were completely alone."

"It's been so many years, dear. She most likely doesn't even live in Houston anymore."

"Her name, Mother, her name!"

"Mary or Merl or something; I can't recall the last name. Anyway, she led me into court, and next thing I know, you were being put in an orphanage, and me…I–I- I got so down on myself after that, well, I–I-I thought you'd be better off once you were adopted, once they found a good home and a loving family for you."

"I understand all that. I know you put your trust in this woman."

"I put my trust in the court, Harris County, the system, all these people telling me what I should be doing next. It was their job to…to find you a good home, something I couldn't've given you in a hundred years, baby."

"But you never checked to find out whatever became of me, did you, Mom? If you did, you'd've known I was never adopted. I've spent my entire life in that prison you condemned me to, that convent school."

"I'm sorry…so, so sorry."

'Tell me more about the woman who took me away from you! I want to know everything, every word she said to you."

"She came to the house, picked me up in a nice car, brought me down to the county courthouse, and she spoke up for me. She made out like she would see to it I got off drugs, away from the booze, that I'd get me a job, you know, and get better, rehabbed, and that someday…someday I could get you back…someday, but that day just never came, honey."

"How old was I then, Katherine…Mommie? How old?"

"Six months."

"Six months into the year of my birth." Lauralie calculated the month in 1984 of her mother's court appearance, and since Katherine hadn't changed cities in all these years, Lauralie knew where the court records would be housed for her case.

After killing her biological mother that night and sleeping alongside her for the first time in her life, Lauralie, the following morning, went searching for this Mary or Merl who had taken her away from the life she should have enjoyed with Mother. The chief cause of all Lauralie's grief, her Lifelong agony, the woman who had lied to her mother. The woman who'd stolen Lauralie's childhood.

Going out the door, waving to Mother's corpse that morning, Lauralie had felt a great sense of accomplishment. She had amassed a lot of information in a short amount of time without setting off the powder keg of emotions that might easily have led to an explosion between her mother and herself, which would have accomplished nothing. This way, Lauralie had gleaned all she needed to know; she had garnered useful stuff, ranging from her father's having died of a brain tumor and her mother's bipolar disorder-explaining much of Lauralie to herself- to Mother's drug problem, and how a separation in Lauralie's sixth month of life had been pushed through the courts by a court-appointed welfare worker with connections to the convent and the Houston medical community. An intern working her way up the ladder whom Lauralie meant to find and destroy.

The people at the shelter where her mother had gone for help had called in assistance from the Child and Family Services, and they'd sent someone to assist Katherine and her newborn, a child Katherine had only called Baby, a child Katherine hadn't even given a name to six months after Lauralie's birth. The sisters at the convent orphanage held a contest to name Baby Blodgett, and the winner was Mother Orleans with Lauralie.

Katherine had not acted alone in her decision to give up Baby for adoption. Somebody with a name and a life of her own had strongly influenced and encouraged Katherine. Mother could not be held completely responsible for her misguided actions, so that someone else must also pay. Lauralie meant to lash out at society as well as the individual responsible for the theft of a child's life. It was the system as a whole at fault, to allow such things to go on unchecked. A system that dealt in infant children as if they were unfeeling plastic dolls with glass eyes and empty insides, as if she were a mannequin.

After killing Mother, she had walked down to the corner and boarded the Houston Metro for downtown and the Harris County courthouse, where she eventually uncovered and examined some extremely important eighteen-year-old documents, records that revealed the full name of that meddling Mary or Merl Someone her mother had confided in and trusted, a someone who'd promised Katherine-and by extension Lauralie-a reunion that never came, a someone now in need of a lesson about tampering with other people's lives-a Meredyth Sanger.

Lauralie startled awake, brushing at her hair, having felt something crawly scuttle across her brow and into her bangs. She leapt to her feet, pine needles clinging to her cotton print dress. She shivered at the tingling in her skin, realizing she'd slept for several hours, the sun now on the other side of the clearing. She'd been baked somewhat, but had been saved by the shade of the tree. She got her bearings by locating the house.

She knew Arthur was due back from his school duties soon. He'd complained of having missed too much class time, that he'd be missed, possibly called into the Dean's office and reprimanded. She had told him to go, that she could use some alone time.

He'd be hungry when he got back, she imagined. She walked back to the house, trying to decide on opening a can of Chef Boyardee ravioli for him or a can of tuna for sandwiches.

The greyhounds in the run barked at her as she neared the house. She threw rocks at them, shouting for them to shut up. Pushing through the door and entering the kitchen, she had to wiggle around the large freezer filling the room. "Just enough wiggle room," she said as she went about preparing a stack of tuna fish sandwiches for Arthur.

She caught a glimpse of her reflection in the dirty window over the sink. "The little homemaker, yeah…that's me."

Lucas threw his leather Stetson boots atop his desk, and leaning far back in his chair, scanning the Sims file again, he wondered if he'd missed a crucial piece of information. His phone rang. It was the front desk, Sergeant Stan Kelton, telling him that a large parcel had just arrived via UPS, addressed to Stonecoat care of the department. "Looking suspicious, no return address," Stan said, "so I called for the X-ray machine and-"

"You didn't nab the delivery man?"

"The delivery came through UPS, all legit, Lucas. We had no cause to hold him. I've got people looking into where the parcel originated from, both at the UPS address and the return address. Best we can do."

"Jerk likely used cash with UPS. Credit card and we'd have 'im. So what's the return address?"

"Lucas, we've got the X ray on it now."

"The return address, Stan?"

The numbers meant nothing to Lucas, an address down near the shipping channel on Lowe.

"You'll want to come upstairs now and take a look at this for yourself, Lieutenant."

"How bad is it, Stan?"

"Bad? All I can say is that your creep's been playing footsie up till now. This one's god awful bad, my friend."

"I'll be up there as soon as I alert Dr. Sanger and Detective North, Stan."

"I've got people already alerting them, Lucas. You're all to come down to the conference room off Captain Lincoln's office. See you there."

"Lincoln already knows about the package then?"

"Lucas, he insisted I keep him informed of anything else suspicious coming into the squad room. After what occurred with Dr. Sanger, he wants to be kept informed. His orders."

"Gotcha…understand."

Lucas arrived at the conference center moments ahead of Meredyth and Jana, the two of them chatting as they entered the darkened room, going silent on seeing what awaited them. On the wall screen, they saw the fuzzy video of the interior of the box addressed to Lucas. Staring back at them were a pair of blank, horrific eye sockets that dominated the terrible image of a young woman's head. The X- ray photo was black and white, like an old Bogart movie still.

"Some still life, hey, people?" asked Lincoln, stepping out of shadow and into the picture, blocking the screen.

No one laughed at the dark joke. Meredyth, Lucas, and Jana could make out the woman's thick, dark hair and features. It was unquestionably Mira Lourdes's head. In the black-and-white, grainy X-ray photo, the empty eye sockets gave the still-fleshy severed head the look and feel of a skull.

"It's her all right." Meredyth tore her eyes away from the image and dropped into a chair, holding back tears.

"That'd be my guess," Lucas said, agreeing about the identity of the eyeless woman's cranium.

Kelton stood by like a silent sentinel.

"Chilling." Jana fell, disheartened, into a chair.

"Crazy how even though we know Mira's body is out there someplace," began Meredyth, "that her body's in the asshole's freezer, chopped up to fit into boxes…and knowing the likelihood…the probabilities…that is, expectations being what they are…why then does this horrible puzzle piece have so devastating an impact as it has?" She wiped at tears with a handkerchief.

"Such a callous game he's playing," added Jana.

"A crude inhumane monster," agreed Lincoln, "desecrating her body like this."

"Don't you see, it's the killer's body language," said Lucas.

"What the hell're you talking about. Detective?" asked Lincoln.

"The bastard's speaking volumes to us."

"Lucas is right," said Meredyth. "He's showing us scorn, hatred, disdain. By deriding our societal beliefs, mores."

"Can you speak in English, Dr. Sanger?"

"For instance, our cultural and spiritual need to bury our dead, the concept of the sacrosanct body as temple of the soul, our core belief in the sanctity of familial ties, and on and on. He's pissing on all of it, and that's the message. Mira's body is merely the medium for his message."

Everyone fell silent, contemplating this.

"The medium is the message," said Lucas. "A severed eye, a severed tooth, a severed organ, a severed hand, and now the head. A pox on you and yours. A curse. He's cursing us."

"Whatever the hell he's doing, cursing or scorning, damn it, people, I want an end to this post-office-happy fiend," shouted Lincoln. Calming, he added, "People, we have to end this madness and end it quickly. This can't go on; it can't drag on!"

"We're on it, Captain," Jana said, trying to assure him. "We know something about this maniac. We know he's interested in trying to shake us up in a spectacular fashion."

"Is that a fact?" Lincoln's sarcasm spewed forth thick and biting. "What we know is that this creep is creeping us all out, but he's particularly interested in you two, Dr. Sanger, Lucas. He's got a bug up his ass for you! Why? He's got something personal going with you two and…and g'damn it, I want to know what the fuck it is."

"We think that he thinks that by choosing us as targets that he can grab off the front-page headlines, a most- wanted wanna — be," said Lucas.

"Key-rice…please, not another one. Will the Lord of Joe-has-a-fit deliver us."

"This monster is scratching to get into the Serial Killer Hall of Fame," Meredyth added. "Simple as that."

Captain Lincoln walked around to stand over Meredyth, placing a hand on her shoulder, seeing how distraught she had become and how she fought to keep her eyes off the image on the wall or the still-closed box sitting at the center of the table. Captain Lincoln calmly asked, "You mean he wants John Walsh or the FBI to come after him?"

"It's a theory."

"A theory? I need more than a theory, Dr. Sanger."

"What do you want from me, Gordon?"

"You're the expert on psychotic behavior, the demented mind, the maladjusted, discontented, rage-filled disenfranchised aberrant soul out there on every street corner, so you tell me, Doctor, are you convinced this is the maniac's motive or not?"

"I'm not completely convinced, no."

"And why is that?" pressed Lincoln.

"Because…because I keep feeling like there's a bell tolling in my ear, and it's ringing specifically for me and Lucas, that he's more interested in destroying our peace of mind than he is in acquiring a legendary reputation as a blackguard of negative fame. But on the other hand, perhaps he wants both."

Lincoln paced back around the conference table. He contemplatively muttered, "For whom the bell tolls, huh? It tolls for thee."

"All I'm saying is I feel we're being stalked for reasons other than his wanting media attention," Meredyth added.

Lincoln continued to pace the room. "I want everyone who has been involved on the case in any way, shape, or form to come down and have a look at what this mother-fucker's shoved in our faces in our own house. Call in Chang, his CSI team, Purvis, Davies, anyone in your department who's been helping out, Detective North, Dr. Sanger, and get them all down here pronto! We begin to end this terrorism here and now. Call it an ad hoc task force, but get them here. We'll open your UPS box, Lucas, with Chang's people in attendance. All right, everyone, go out, make the necessary calls, get your heads together, and get back here ASAP."

In a matter of twenty minutes, everyone who had had any hand whatsoever in the strange case of what was being called the Post-it Ripper stepped through the doors of the darkened conference room to stand and stare at the ugly image on the wall. Dr. Tom Davies was the last to enter, finding a seat near Chang and Nielsen. At one end of the table sat Jana North and the two men who had interrogated and polygraphed Dwayne Stokes. In addition, Jana had called in the two men who'd gone over Mira Lourdes's Saab. Stan Kelton, Lucas, and Meredyth sat at the other end. Between and among them sat various evidence technicians who had handled segments of the evidence gathering and/or specimen analysis from the crime scenes at either Meredyth's place, Lucas's apartment, or the police garage. Among them were photographer Steve Perelli and evidence tech Ted Hoskins. Alongside them, Dr. Catrina Purvis sat tapping a pencil nervously atop a notepad.

Finally, Anna Tewes, the sketch artist, was moving about the room, averting her eyes from the screen, busy handing out the updated description of the suspect. The new sketch, a blending of actor Richard Thomas's features with those of Microsoft's Bill Gates and director Ron Howard, included the hairy mole, black eyebrows, blond head, larger ears, and thicker glasses. The additions, courtesy of Stu the doorman, had transformed the bland "happy face" original.

With all assembled, Captain Lincoln pointed to the eyeless image of the severed head on the wall, and informed them, "Our crack team of detectives here, armed with a photo of a missing person, has told me this box you see at the center of the table contains the severed head of a young woman named Mira Lourdes, ladies and gentlemen."

A photo of Mira Lourdes was thrown up on the wall beside the X-ray image of the head in the box, and Leonard Chang maneuvered the photo image to overlay the X-ray image. It formed a perfect match, down to the high cheekbones.

"Now you know who you've been gazing at since your arrival. A young murder victim, and the bastard that killed her, this Post-hole guy the press is chewing up our asses to know more about, has the temerity to dump this on my doorstep, here at the Thirty-first-our house, folks." Lincoln moved around the room, pausing to let this sink in. "Mira Lourdes's severed head."

"This is the fourth parcel this creep has forwarded to us, all addressed to either Dr. Sanger or myself," said Lucas.

Lincoln continued, saying, "We are now going to open the second little present addressed to Lieutenant Stonecoat care of the department via UPS. Lights up, please."

Someone near the switch gratefully brought up the lights. "Dr. Chang, I bow to you," Lincoln said, dropping into a chair in a near genuflection. "Open the damned box, and we'll all have a firsthand look at what this madman has seen fit to send us."

"In the flesh, so to speak," commented Hoskins in a lame attempt to lighten the moment if only by a hair.

Chang and Nielsen had laid out a white sheet on the table and placed the parcel atop it. "The sheet will catch any fibers or hairs that might go airborne on opening the box," Chang explained.

"Steve, get photos of this from beginning to end, please," said Lincoln.

Steve Perelli instantly found his feet and moved about the table, obviously glad to be working instead of staring. Using a compact film camera, he quickly began creating a photo history.

His hands gloved and steady, Leonard Chang next carefully cut away the plain brown wrapping from the box to reveal a liquor box beneath, the words Jim Beam prominently displayed. Chang then proceeded to cut away the tape holding the box closed. He next carefully pulled back the flaps, Perelli continuing to record it all with his camera.

Chang's face twitched slightly as he stared down into the box, and Perelli focused over his shoulder, both men privy to the still-vibrant color of auburn that was Mira's hair. Chang reached into the box and lifted out the dismembered head to the combined gasps of the men and women present, while Perelli somehow continued to roll film.

Chang held the head by a fistful of the wilted auburn hair, and he gently turned the eyeless face, examining all sides of the cranium for fractures or abrasions, but he found none. "Hair is damp, possibly indicating it was washed by killer, or simply wet from thawing out."

Liquid gruel dripped from the open gullet held over the white sheet. Chang reached a gloved hand up and into the gullet, stating, "The semicircle of the hyoid bone is shattered so horribly, it is unlikely she was strangled to death. Likely shattered by an ax."

No one said a word. The only sound was the quiet hum of Perelli's camera. Finally, Lucas asked, "How do you know it was done with an ax?"

'Two blows," replied Chang. "First blow not so neat as second strike of the ax, Lucas. My best guessestimate with naked eye."

Chang continued. "The lack of coloration around the wounded eyes indicate she was mercifully dead when the eyes were removed."

"Thank God for that much," muttered Dr. Purvis, holding a handkerchief over her mouth and nostrils, fending off the ever-growing odor of the contents of the box. She contemplated the eyeballs that she'd declared those of a young woman.

"However, coloration at the neck wounds-at least two wounds from what I can see," continued Chang, his eyes so close to the severed neck that his nose might be touching her hair, "gives me suspicion that she was alive when her head was chopped off."

"What kind of weapon do you suspect?" asked Jana North.

"A guillotine of some sort?" asked one of the polygraph men.

"A blunt blade, not a surgical tool, likely an ax, a dull one. Notice the jagged edges, the puckering and pigmentation of the skin around the wound, and the scarring at two separate angles."

Everyone remained silent, picturing such an attack.

The young sketch artist, Anna Tewes, suddenly and noisily knocked over her chair as she stood and pushed away from the table, rushing for the door, holding back her morning's breakfast. She had brought a cup of coffee into the room with her, and its contents had spilled over the white sheet, creamy brown rivulets creating competing little serpent trails moving toward the severed head that Chang had plunked there. Lynn Nielsen threw a cloth over the coffee while others in the room stared at Tewes's exit, thinking they'd like to make an escape as well, but everyone remained seated, calm save for Dr. Purvis's coughing jag into her handkerchief.

No one could miss the jagged edges, dirt, and particles adhering to the gullet; all of it spoke of a messy, blunt ax job. "Lizzy Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks," commented Ted Hoskins. The comment didn't lighten the mood around the table.

Dr. Lynn Nielsen leaned in toward Chang for a closer look at the assaulted neck. "Dr. Chang is correct. There is nothing of the care we saw taken with the removal of the hand." Nielsen's Scandinavian voice echoed in the silent room, deep and rumbling. "That bit of butchery we determined to be accomplished with a rotary medical saw of the sort we use in autopsies."

"Those things are loud as hell, aren't they?" asked Lincoln.

"Only when going through bone or the skull," Nielsen countered.

"So whoever this creep is, either people are used to his noise, or it's perfectly normal given the circumstances, as in a butcher's shop," suggested Stan Kelton, who'd remained stoically silent until now.

"Yes, Stan, or an autopsy room," added Chang.

"Or he's in an area where the noise can't be heard," suggested Lucas.

Chang, expanding on these comments, added, "None of the previous parts of our Jane Doe-now Mira Lourdes-indicated cause of death, but now we know how she died. Here is our answer, a ruthless and clumsy beheading."

"But who is behind this circus of death, and why?" asked Lincoln. "Why all the care and preparation and surgical neatness and tidiness with each part after you've clumsily put an ax through someone's neck? Explain that one!"

"He's deemed it time to show us exactly how Mira died," said Lucas, "rubbing it in our faces."

"I fear it's more than that," added Meredyth. "It's almost as if the killer is playing some sort of endgame, the rules, boundaries, bonuses, and goals known only to him. He means to shock us, to make us play against our will, to force it on us. Behind it, I believe there's a cry…a cry for help."

Dr. Davies, gnashing his teeth, suddenly exploded. "A cry for help, Dr. Sanger? You call what this freak is doing a cry for help? I suppose you think he needs coddling as well? Foul murdering heathen." Davies stood and added, "Between pulling the woman's eyes and teeth out and now this, I've seen enough to agree with the governor about the future of the electric chair in Texas, thank you." Dr. Davies paced to the opposite end of the room, as far from the severed head as he could get.

After a silence, Chang continued. "Once Mira was dead, the killer began the autopsy cuts from the abdominal cavity, the removal of the eyes, die teeth, the hand most of us have seen."

Meredyth replied, "Apparently the SOB was disappointed by our lack of response to his earlier parcels, likely dissatisfied with the lack of play he's gotten in the press as well."

"Exactly," agreed Jana North. "Apparently he means to shock us more deeply into a greater response and achieve more media attention in the process."

Lincoln asked Meredyth and Lucas to share their belief that the killer might simply be seeking serial-killer status and fame in all his efforts. The others listened to the theory, nodding, contemplating its validity and any weakness it might have. Davies returned to his seat, jaw clenched, listening to the conversation.

Anna Tewes quietly and shyly reentered the room, going to her seat, which Lucas had righted and replaced at the table. She made no eye contact with anyone in the room, looking like a deer going for her nesting ground.

"Put it away, Dr. Chang," said Gordon Lincoln of the severed head, echoing everyone's sentiments. "I think we've seen enough of this horror."

Chang, with Nielsen's assistance, placed the head into a red and white ice-filled medical cooler, and Nielsen tagged it with a case number. The odors emanating from the head and the Styrofoam-lined cardboard box had begun to make people in the room choke and squirm in their seats.

"So, let me see if I understand correctly, Dr. Sanger," said Dr. Davies, staring at Meredyth. "You believe that this homicidal nutcase is sending us a wake-up call of sorts, that in escalating the size and awfulness of the body parts he's forwarded, that he's saying play my game and give me more media attention or else?"

"Quite possibly, yes."

Catrina Purvis asked, "Or else what? That if we fail to share what we know with the six o'clock news, that he'll send larger sections of his victim, and possibly parts of another victim and another until he gets what he needs from us?"

"He's always sent a written note before now, Dr. Chang," said Lucas. "You'll want to look closely inside the box."

Meredyth, seeing confusion written across many of the faces in the room, explained. "In each of the earlier treats, the Ripper was considerate enough to forward a handwritten note, and in one case a CD."

"Is there anything else in that bloody box, Leonard?" Lincoln asked.

While Leonard tipped the box, searching for anything in addition, young Anna Tewes, a handkerchief over her mouth, her curiosity greater than her embarrassment, found her voice. "What kind of CD was it?"

"Music from the film Dirty Dancing."

" Time of My Life'?" Tewes asked.

Lucas nodded to a collective groan.

Leonard Chang announced, "There's something at the bottom of the box, a note, swimming amid the fluid left by the decaying head."

"I am detecting the odor of formaldehyde below the odor of decay," said Nielsen.

"Yes, quite," said Purvis. "The head spent some time in a formaldehyde solution."

"Folded paper," added Chang as he fished for it and plucked it from the soup in the Styrofoam-lined box. As Leonard Chang held it up to the light, everyone stared at the spoiled, folded note that dripped of foul and runny liquid. Chang dropped the messy note onto the white sheet beside the medical cooler, which Nielsen removed to a chair beside her, giving everyone a clear view of the opening of the folded note.

Using his gloved hands and tweezers, Chang carefully plucked open the sticky folds of the note and plastered it down. Lucas came close, Meredyth inching alongside, both looking over Chang's shoulder. Perelli squeezed in as well, rolling film.

"What the hell does it say?" roared Lincoln.

Lucas read the note aloud, "'Works of magic oft do require cool heads of logic and fathomless eyes of fire….' It is written in poetic lines."

"What the hell does that mean?" asked a frustrated Captain Lincoln.

"Like his motives, the killer's little rhymes may only have meaning for himself, a kind of mirror only he is reflected in, you see," suggested Meredyth.

"Come again?" asked Hoskins.

"He's obviously psychotic, so it becomes necessary to appease only himself. Classic symptoms if we read between the lines."

Jana North said, "Or his written messages and the music may be just another way to taunt you and Lucas, to piss you off, Meredyth."

"The son of a bitch is doing a good job of that,"

Meredyth agreed, feeling a smile flash over her, allowing a diminutive laugh to escape. But she didn't feel as brave as she wanted others in the room to think, as her eyes scanned the blurred words on the blood- and bile-stained note:

Works of magic oft do require cool heads of logic and fathomless eyes of fire….