Scalpers

FOUR

Dean had said nothing to Sid the entire way over to Mercy Hospital, and Sid had returned the favor. Both men were tired and irritable, and filled with thoughts and questions. If Dean had had the strength, he might well have taken Sid to task over his method of having involved Dean in all this.

But Dean chose to hold his hostility in check, until a time when he could muster the energy it deserved. One thing Dean could not stand in a friend was lying, or telling half-truths.

At Mercy, Officer Peggy Carson had been in such agitation and trauma on arrival that she'd been given a strong sedative, and as it happened, she was unable to speak coherently to anyone. Dean managed a look at her, however, and both he and Sid recognized the familiar cut to the forehead. It certainly looked like the work of their madman, or men.

"How about taking me to my hotel, Sid?” Dean asked as they paced the length of the hall.

"Nonsense, you're staying over at my place."

"Sid, I think we'd both be more comfortable if I stayed at the hotel."

Sid frowned, but didn't argue the point. “All right, Dean, if you're sure."

Park and Dyer, the two cops handling the case, were at the end of the hall. Park's eyes were piercing, and Dean was beginning to dislike the man intensely. Dyer, by comparison, had soft, warm blue eyes that welcomed you. Dean and Sid nodded and joined the two detectives at the coffee machine, Dean fetching himself a cup.

"Anything?” Sid asked the cops.

"Not much, no,” replied Park, hiding something.

"You're sure?” pressed Dean.

Dyer shrugged. “She was kinda’ hysterical when she was brought in, saying something about midgets."

"Midgets?” asked Sid.

"She didn't say midget, midget-head,” Park said to Dyer. “She said she saw some small person, like a kid or a midget, acting as a decoy of some sort when the assailant caught her from behind."

Thank you for clearing that up, Dean thought. His attention, however, was on the secondary cuts on the body he'd autopsied. Dean now wondered if Sid was thinking along the same lines. The secondary cuts hadn't had as much force behind them, and the angle of attack was quite odd, sometimes upside down, with the serrated edge of the knife at the top. This might indicate an assailant straddling a victim about the midsection and stabbing at the lower body, upside down. He'd thought it a special kind of knife, perhaps a fishing knife, but now he wondered if the second killer could not be a small person, even a boy. A sick thought, to be sure, but a possibility they could not overlook, not anymore.

Sid scanned Dean's eyes, knowing his mind was working. All four men now sat around a table in the waiting room. “Plan to wait here all night, Park?” asked Sid.

"If need be."

"What about you, doctors?” asked Dyer.

Dean shook his head. “No way ... I'm dead to the world."

"Hodges only got on his high horse since the Scalper's activity has taken him up the social ladder, Dean,” said Sid, now sipping coffee himself. “Park and Dyer here have been in it from the beginning."

"Yeah, and now it's a cop that's been attacked,” said Dyer.

"Lucky she got away with her life,” added Park, dragging on a cigarette. Dean noticed his lighter had a Special Services insignia on it and realized that Park, like a lot of cops, was a Vietnam vet. “Used her gun like a siren. Smart lady cop. Probably what saved her life."

"Heat was turned up when the third victim turned out to be related to the Mayor,” Sid continued when the conversation flagged again. “That's why the burner's been turned up under my ass for an honest enough mistake. These guys understand the pressure we're under in forensics, don't you, Dyer?"

"Yeah, it's tough,” Dyer acknowledged when Park said nothing.

Park, casually and with a smirk on his face, said, “You'd never have known that last victim was in any way related to His Honor."

Dyer laughed without mirth. “I don't even think he knew he was related to her, Park."

"Prob'ly not."

Dyer tried to explain. “Her place was kind of a dump, in a very seedy neighborhood...."

"Then again, she was only a niece,” added Park.

"I'd like to see the crime scene sometime soon,” said Dean.

"Sure, no problem."

"What about tonight?” asked Sid.

"No, too tired, really. I need to be fresh,” replied Dean.

"No, no, Dean, you misunderstood, I'm asking Park and Dyer here if they found anything at the crime scene tonight of any help."

"Back-alley trash, Carson's blood,” replied Park.

"There was one thing,” added Dyer.

"What's that?"

"Maybe nothing, but Carson was clutching a fistful of little plastic bags."

"Bags?"

"You know, the kind you wrap your sandwich in."

"Trash,” replied Park, getting up and asking Dyer if he were coming.

"In a minute, Park.” There was now some irritation in Dyer's voice. When Park had left for their squad car, Dyer shook his head. “What a case that guy is. I've had all kinds of partners, but he's something else. Can't put two words together."

"Seems frustrated,” chanced Dean.

"Yeah, he works hard. We both do. We've been trying with all we've got to put some common thread together on this one—you know, identify the killer's likes and dislikes as to the kinds of victims he chooses, his geographic preferences, and with the first two that seemed a possibility. Then in comes the Mayor's niece—kinda down on her luck, but still a yuppie type—and now Officer Carson. Every possible lead we had has been shot to hell, as far as I can see."

"I'm surprised your Chief Hodges hasn't shown up,” said Dean, “or has he come and gone?"

"Hodges is strictly first watch, and off by noon or one o'clock to the golf course."

"Likes his nightlife, too, I'm told,” added Sid.

"So, if he can point the finger elsewhere...” began Dean, but let the thought drop.

"How does Hamel figure into the picture?” asked Sid. “I mean, he's somehow become a big cheese on this case. Last month he was a nobody, sitting in his office and playing with rubber bands."

"Hodges brought him in in desperation, for answers,” said Dyer. “He's certainly not getting any from Park and me."

"So Hodges gets Hamel to profile the killer, to soothe the mayor into thinking something's being done,” added Sid. “Meanwhile, if things are being poorly managed and botched, it's not Hodges’ department, but mine."

"Watch your backsides, gentlemen,” said Dyer as he got up to go. “Got to catch up with my pard."

"Thanks,” said Dean, rising.

"What for?"

Dean considered this. “For making up for Park, I guess."

"I understand why Park's reluctant to talk. He's really too damned new to the department to be handed such a case to begin with, and he doesn't always share his thoughts, or his actions with me, either.... So, don't feel unduly offended by the man, if you can help it."

Dyer rushed off.

"Park's new around here, hunh?” asked Dean.

"Yeah, well, there aren't too many people in Orlando, or Florida for that matter, who can claim to be first generation."

Dean emptied half the bitter machine-made coffee back into the machine, wondering if the thing would recycle it. He crushed the cup and tossed it in a container. Sid got up alongside him, and together they found Sid's car in the lot.

"Thinking about what Dyer said?"

"Yeah, that and the baggies."

"Yeah, weird, huh?"

"Not unlike our bagging specimens at a crime scene, Sid, if you ask yourself what happened to those chunks of flesh the killers made off with."

"So the Scalper is now the Scalpers, and they are collectors of specimens."

"One uses what might well be a scalpel, Sid."

"Points to a professional man, you think? A doctor?"

"Or maybe someone who likes to play doctor."

"Some warped-out, whacko Jack-the-Ripper with a fetish for hair?"

"Or maybe the guy next door, who turns into something else when the sun goes down."

"A hundred thousand maybe's."

They got into Sid's big car and pulled away. Fending off Sid's arguments to the contrary, Dean managed to get to the Hyatt Regency Hotel where he had made reservations. Arguing even as he drove away, Sid left him there for the evening to sleep and contemplate all that had occurred before and since his arrival in the city.

The voice on the phone was unshakably real, yet it could not be her, it could not be Angel Rae, the woman Dean had put an end to in Chicago this past summer. Yet her body had never been recovered from Lake Michigan, its assumed resting place, and there was always the nagging doubt that perhaps she'd somehow miraculously escaped her own drowning death. And that she had come back not in a quiet, haunting way, as in his oft-repeated dreams of her, but in a most real and vicious way. A way that meant Jackie was in trouble at this moment, with this madwoman stalking her, and with Dean over a thousand miles away from his wife, unable to do a damned thing but listen to the eerie, surreal voice coming through the connecting wires in a monotone, frustrating in its calm, deliberate choice of words. It drove him mad, this voice from his past that simply would not let go, lodged as it was in his brain, saying, “You've been too long at school ... Nurse Grant is mine now ... all mine, and she will be delivered, made free to float to the sky."

"No!” Dean shouted the instant the phone rang. Trembling in the air-conditioned dark, he lifted the receiver after the third jolting ring, trying to regain himself. It had been a nightmare, no doubt brought on by his call to Jackie at home. She wasn't home, and he tried to convince himself she was at the hospital, taking someone else's shift, but when he started to dial, he was gripped with a fear at not finding her there. He rationalized his not having called because of the lateness of the hour. So he hadn't spoken with her, and now she was calling him.

"Yes, hello,” he said into the phone, “Jackie?"

A ripple of fear fluttered through him. Could he possibly stand it if even a recorded word from Angel Rae were to come through the wire?

"Dean, old boy, sorry to wake you,” said Sid Corman.

"What the hell's it now, Sid? What time is it?"

"Four-twenty, and I'm sorry to do this to you, but—"

"Four-twenty?" Jackie hadn't bothered to call him, either.

"—but the son-of-a-bitch scalping crew has hit again, and this time it's a kid."

"Oh, Christ,” Dean moaned. “How old?"

"Sixteen, maybe seventeen, in a park not far from our offices downtown. The girl appears to be a runaway. She was most likely hustling and she just hustled the wrong guy—"

"Or guys."

"Want me to pick you up?"

Dean had told Sid to do just that, should another victim be found. Knowing how important the initial crime scene evidence gathering was to any case, Dean wanted to be on hand for this. If he was to be able to help Sid turn the murderous tide of this scalping crew, as Sid had put it, then he must be in that park before anything was disturbed.

"Did you tell the police what we want?"

"Sure, the moment you asked for it. Should be standard by now, but Orlando's sudden growth has put on a lot of green recruits."

"Don't waste time picking me up, Sid. Get to the scene and control the cops. Do your job."

"I'm at the scene, and I'm doing my goddamned job, Dean.” Sid's sudden anger was understandable.

"I'll get a cab. Just give me the location."

"Conway Park, north entrance, at the water's edge, can't miss it."

"Give me fifteen minutes."

"Hold on, Dean. We got a unit freed up to pick you up and bring you here. Be waiting out front."

"Will do."

Dean raced into his clothes. Soon he was standing in the early morning darkness watching a revolving light and siren approaching. Lodged deep in his mind was the voice of Angel Rae telling him that no matter what had become of her, she had effectively taken Jackie away from him.

"You Dr. Gant?” asked a baby-faced police officer with a modified punk haircut and a jewel in his earlobe.

"Grant, Dr. Grant,” Dean corrected him roughly. He got into the large white squad car and it raced for the downtown exit off I-4. Sitting in the dark rear seat Dean felt like a criminal and a failure—both as a husband and as a forensics specialist. Yes, he had put the Floater killer away in Chicago, and yes, Angel Rae and Brother Timothy were indeed dead. But no one knew how they lived on despite death, despite the vanquishing of evil by so-called knights of criminal justice like him. Because the evil lived on to destroy sleep and peace—and love and marriages.