“There's always the exception. But speaking of fantasy life…”
“I miss you, too, darling.”
“Another reason to join you on the case. So suppose that this Millbrook, Minnesota, place was in fact his first time, and it frightened hell out of him, learning what he was capable of?”
“So he lives with it for a long time, and then something else in his life intensifies, and with a sudden volley of stress placed on him, say the death of his mum, the loss of his income, a bout with depression all at once…”
“And so in Oregon later,” mused Richard, “he has a new and overpowering urge to do it all over again, to again kill?”
“And the same thing happens in Milwaukee,” she added. “But it's not like he's a loose-cannon, spur-of-the-moment type who leaves a trail of clues. Rather he goes at this thing in calculated fashion, hence the drawings. This is highly organized, premeditated stalking and butchering.”
“Certainly doesn't appear anything random about it, save perhaps how he selects his victims, and even then there may be some hidden agenda. All of them being matronly in age and appearance.”
“This creep apparently wants the bones still wet with the victim's bodily fluids and blood, because his damnable brain is telling him that something special resides therein, the victim's soul perhaps, her anima perhaps.”
“Imbued with the essence of the known victim,” suggested Richard. “Look here, I've finished up with that North Korea affair in China. To great ends, I might add.”
“Congratulations again.”
“I tell you the mucky-mucks running the country are so like the Russians of the fifties, that they could still screw it up. I could push them from the bloody balcony in a heart's beat. It's like stepping back in time going to Beijing, and not only did they destroy a lovely name for a city- Peking-but the pollution is horrendous as well. And what's frightening is that they are meat eaters in a country where not so much as a single swine, sheep, goat, bovine, antelope, deer, dog, cat or chicken may be found, only birds and rats.”
“Can it be that bad? Really?”
“Really, yes! All livestock lost to extremely poor planning to say the least at the last emperor's feast I suppose, where he kept a continuous feast going for fifty years, every day of the year, every hour of the day and night for his thousands of honored guests like there was no tomorrow. It's no wonder-”
“Black market thrives,” she finished for him.
“No wonder they love to go to the zoos and stare at the animals in the cages, and why they hunt down and eat wild animals like those cats, celts are they called, suspected of carrying SARS?”
“It's sad really.”
“Now, except for what you can get on the black market, everyone is served some sort of mystery meat at every meal-a true mystery, my analytical sweetheart. One you could certainly sink your teeth into.”
“What do they tell you when you ask about the food?”
“Chicken… everything is chicken or fish. Even the meat with the four-inch bony tail, chicken. Sometimes they get cute and tell you it's the fish that walks on land.”
They laughed over this and said tender good-byes, blowing one another kisses via the video link.
“I'll call you from Millbrook when I can!” he shouted and hung up.
Just like Richard to drop everything to help out, she thought. She knew no other man who'd be so willing to get involved in such a nebulous cause.
Jessica put away her PCS Vision phone and dropped back on the bed, exhausted and hungry. Still no call from Darwin. She wondered what had become of him when there came a knock at her door. She remained in her terry-cloth robe, her hair still stringy from being wet.
She went to the door and peeked through the one-way telescopic peephole and found Darwin on the other side with a large room-service cart filled with food.
“I took the liberty of ordering!” he shouted through the door.
She pulled it wide, shaking her head at him. “What is this?”
“I feared you'd be too exhausted to come back out after all you've been through, and I know how I am after my evening shower. Last thing I wanna do is go back out. Just wanna curl up is all,” he spoke as he wheeled the cart into the center of the room.
“You can be honest, Darwin. You saw a woman dead on her feet and you took pity.”
“Ahhh… that, too, yeah, so I brought dinner to you, along with the murder books.”
“You had the casebooks all along?”
“Trunk of my car.”
“You do have it all worked out, don't you, Darwin.” She closed the door and grabbed a huge strawberry and dipped it into a small vat of chocolate, chomping down, famished and unable to wait.
Agent Darwin Reynolds arranged everything on the balcony at the table there, even the two thick facsimiles of autopsy and police reports bound in the covers of what police officials called murder books-all the paper that made up the Sarah Towne murder investigation in Oregon and the Louisa Childe murder investigation in Minnesota.
“A working dinner then,” she said, accepting the chair he held out for her.
Jessica lifted the cover off her meal, a steamy chicken marsala with a side dish of spaghetti in marinara. Between bites, once he sat down and joined her, taking up his meal and pouring wine, she told him about Richard Sharpe, who he was to her, and how he was on his way to Minnesota.
“To do what in Minnesota?”
“To find whatever blood or DNA evidence might help the cause.”
“DNA evidence? But authorities in Millbrook told me they had no DNA evidence from the crime scene.”
“Perhaps there's something hiding in the old evidence lockup. We don't any of us know for certain, now do we? If anyone can inventory the evidence and see beyond the obvious, it's Inspector… ahhh… Agent now, Richard Sharpe.”
“Maybe this Sharpe fella can rattle their cages. I'll certainly keep my fingers crossed.”
“Sharpe has indeed rattled a few cages in his time, and I'm betting Millbrook's finest will be no match for a former Scotland Yard investigator.”
“Those guys in Minnesota who worked the case seemed genuinely concerned and professional.”
“You want to explain your disappearing act?” she asked.
“Whataya mean?”
“Where you've been all this time, if you had the murder books in your trunk?”
“Phone calls. I still have a life.”
“I'm glad one of us has, and one day I damn well will carve one out for myself.” Jessica got quickly back to Richard. “Agent Sharpe cares, and he will do a thorough job in Millbrook, leaving none of the proverbial stones unturned.”
“I doubt he'll find anything useful after three years. What blood they processed all turned out to be the victim's. Don't really see that going there is going to, you know, accomplish anything. Still, I do appreciate his help.”
She forked up more food, famished from the long day of not eating, of being unable to stomach anything. Wiping her mouth with the large cloth napkin, she said, “Millbrook police are as prone to mistake as any agency, and autopsy folks make errors more often than I care to tell. We're not all as adept and agile as the perky young things on CSI, Darwin. And Richard is trained on the scent that ineptness leaves behind. Trust me. Or rather, trust Richard Sharpe. He has absolutely perfect instincts.”
Darwin replied, “One of the detectives on the case passed away not long ago. The other guy keeps his cards close to his chest, and he hates it that this case has gone unsolved. Damned angry and defensive about it.”
“What's your point?”
“Sharpe is going up against a wall there in Millbrook. I mean I appreciate his effort, but it will be a wasted one.”
“We don't know that.”
The sound of the street, like a strangely languorous melody rose up to the balcony where they dined. Jessica asked him what he knew of the medical examiner who had prepared the autopsy report on Louisa Childe.