“Grant?”
“Our go-to guy for toxins, yes.”
“Barring we find any toxins in her system, and given the nonfatal blow to the head, then Joyce Olsen expired of gross loss of blood-hemorrhagic shock,” Jessica stated for the recorder, to be transcribed later.
“A sure indicator she remained alive when he began his butchery,” added Sands, heavily sighing. “Hence the coloration around the wound itself.”
Under the bright lights of the lab, Jessica said, “A week to ten days she'd lain there in her own blood.”
Sands agreed, nodding. “It'd take at least that long for the larvae to be planted and to hatch.”
Jessica and Ira stared at the insect life phoenixing from the very womb of decay and death. “Kind of like new blades of grass wriggling amid the dead matted forest floor, wouldn't you say, Dr. Coran?”
“Almost a Hallmark card in there somewhere,” she replied. “But frankly, I hate the grubs.”
His eyes dimmed at once. She'd finally let him down. Then Sands groaned and winced with some internal pain.
“Are you all right, Dr. Sands?” “Old sciatica kicking up. Damn strange how the longest nerve in your body can be such an evil to you.”
“I am sorry to hear it. Do you have any medications, pain killers we can call for?”
“Any more and I will OD, no. Besides, they don't touch this thing* Nothing does.” Sands struggled on. “I'd say, from the position and angle of the wound over her left ear, that the killer hit her from behind,” he said.
“Yes, my guess is she turned her back on him, and she never saw it coming.”
“I agree. She was comfortable enough around him to turn her back on him.”
“And when she did, he brought the hammer down-one quick blow, so says the tattoo left behind,” Jessica said, directing a video camera to that area. “Blunt-force trauma from a rounded edge.”
“A ball peen hammer most likely.”
“The Claw in New York used a hammer to subdue his victims before he ripped them apart.”
“She was most likely unconscious when our killer ripped open her back, but the pain to the back, I suspect, would jolt anyone from an unconscious state. I fear our original diagnosis at the scene correct, Dr. Coran.”
“That she suffered greatly.”
“Most assuredly, she felt the great rent and tearing of flesh from her back, yes.”
Jessica nodded, her body rigid, braced. “Until hemorrhagic shock set in.”
“We can only pray for that small mercy,” replied Agent Reynolds, pacing before making his way to the exit, where he stopped and turned and filled the echoing room with his voice. “Creep did all that and had the presence of mind to strip away his clothes and destroy them, to use the mop to wipe out any tell-tale shoe or footprints, and to leave no trace of his DNA behind.”
“He's definitely an organized killer, one who thinks through his every move, planning for months at a time before striking,” replied Jessica, while her thoughts revisited the blood-painted, stiff and unyielding mop head. It, too, was being processed and analyzed for trace evidence.
“I gotta get outta here for now,” said Darwin. “Get some air. When you're finished here, Dr. Coran, I'll… I'd like to talk further.”
“When I get done here, I'm going to want to shower.”
“I'll see you get to your hotel. I'll be just outside.”
Jessica understood Darwin's need to get out. Back at the Olsen apartment, she herself had felt the walls closing in more than once. The only improvement in the situation here as opposed to what had been Joyce Olsen's safe little cozy corner of the world-home for her and her dog, Shep-was the reduction in number of people milling about and the sterile environment. In terms of space, the lab was close quarters, especially given the horrendous decay and mind-numbing wound.
A glance at her watch told Jessica the hour now neared 2 P.M. She marveled at how time seemed at first compressed, then stopped completely at a mutilation murder scene such as the one they had collectively endured today, and how amazingly time had vanished as a result of her focus and concentration on the job.
Sands now said to Jessica in a near whisper as he worked, “That boy Darwin's got a tear on for this monster. Can't say I blame him.”
“Darwin believes it's all the work of one man, these three separate murders.” Jessica hoped to get Ira's feelings on the matter.
“Covered his tracks well if Darwin is to be believed. Not an iota of DNA left at the other two crimes scenes. Kills at opposite ends of the country… unusual if it is a single killer. So who'd notice?”
“Who'd notice? Apparently Xavier Darwin Reynolds,” Jessica said, a half grin creasing her features. “I can't count the number of times intuition alone led me to unmask a killer.”
A valet stood outside Darwin's unmarked FBI car below a huge golf umbrella with the Wyndham Lakefront Hotel's logo clearly marked. He appeared to be held in check as he watched the arguing couple inside the car. A light drizzle had begun to speckle the lit windshield where Jessica and Darwin sat below the Wyndham's marquee.
“I am willing to accept your final verdict, Dr. Coran. I know you are the best the FBI has to offer.”
“You're that sure?”
The light drizzle began slapping hard at the car, turning into a downpour, encouraging Darwin to swear and pull further up under the crowded carport-canopy.
The young valet and a bellhop with another logo-stamped umbrella pecked on the windows. Reynolds rolled his down and popped the trunk from inside, saying, “Bags are in the rear.” He then turned to her and asked, “Well? Do we go over things tonight after you're refreshed or am I to leave?”
“All right. You can buy me dinner.”
“Thank you. I'm sorry to be so damned pushy, but we don't have a lot of time, Doctor, not if we're to stop this execution.”
“Give me half an hour and then call. We'll put our heads together on Robert Towne's behalf. No promises. That's the best I can do.”
Darwin grinned and almost crushed her hands in his. “That's all I can ask… all I can ask. Thank you, Dr. Coran. Thank you.”
As Jessica slipped from the car beneath the umbrella held for her, she stuck out a hand to the rain, enjoying its touch. “At last, something straight outta Mother Nature. Something real. I love it,” she muttered, while within she wondered when she had last been as passionate about a case as young Darwin Reynolds felt about this one and its relation to the impending Towne execution over half a continent away.
Jessica rushed for the warmth and safety of the well-lit lobby. Her mind kept at her, begging the question, When did you lose that enthusiasm and passion for hunting and running down evil, Jessica Coran? She wondered how she'd become so jaded and casual about something so absolutely awful, so terrifyingly and horribly unique as a murder case like this one-bodies stripped of their spines. To some degree she'd been thinking it was just another case, just another in a long line of jobs to be gotten through. Perhaps the time had come for her career with the FBI to be through. She wondered how many cases she compromised, how many people she hurt, including herself, while in her present frame of mind. A frame of mind she did not fully understand but one which painted her as an accountant in Hades-enumerating body parts, the remnant leavings of mutilation murderers- as if each body part formed just another bead on a rosary of evil, as if she were counting bones, organs and tissue for Sa-tan's ledger.
Darwin had followed her in. “I have a few things to do, but I'll call up to your room in thirty or forty, and we'll have dinner, and I'll leave you with the murder books from Minnesota and Portland.”
Too tall to stand below the umbrella held by the bellhop, Darwin had gotten wet. He'd helped load the bags onto a four-wheeled cart, and he had tipped both bellhops for taking charge of the bags, and the valet for allowing the car to remain in place for a short span.