“Yes,” Copperwaite readily replied, eyes beaming, “come to learn what we might from your famous profiling division.”
“Looking for help?” she asked. “Then you've come to the right place. Our experts are the best,” Jessica assured, dropping into her desk chair thinking, My feet are killing me, not realizing until now that the Britons, unlike Santiva, had remained standing until she sat. How awfully British of them, she thought with a touch of disdain, but finding that she actually liked the affectation.
Santiva asked, “How goes it with Horace, our Tattoo Man?”
'Tattoo Man's become quite the celeb corpse since arriving at Quantico. Everyone wants a look at him. I peeled a section of his skin for ink and tattoo experts to have a look at.” She now fingered some of the books on her shelf, still reclaiming her invaded space. “You wouldn't believe the lineup outside the autopsy room to get a look at this guy's skin.”
Santiva laughed heartily in response. “Speaking of horror, gentlemen, Dr. Coran is currently involved in a most interesting and weird case of murder, and a particularly brutal one at that.”
Jessica picked it up from there, adding, “The man died of rabid dog bites to sixty percent of his body, and he was conscious the whole time. I see no blunt trauma, inconsequential organ disease, and I rather doubt that toxicology will report anything but inconsequential blood alcohol and barbiturate levels.”
Santiva grimaced. “So the man was both alive and lucid when the animals attacked him.”
“Unfortunately, yes. Prelim autopsy report will indicate that he died of the attack, the shock setting in before the rabies could take him out. But believe me, it was one slow, agonizing death.”
“So then, it's true that someone actually set him up to die in this gruesome fashion?” asked Eriq, shaking his head over the image.
“No longer just possible, highly probable,” she replied, pushing back in her chair, working out the autopsy kinks. “Someone loaded those dogs with the disease and used them as lethal weapons, turning them into voracious, mad wolves. After having been bitten ninety to one hundred times, escaping over that junkyard fence, Mr. Tattoo Man would've been paralyzed with pain. There was no way out, no escape.”
“I've had any number of peculiar cases over the years myself,” put in Sharpe, who now sat alongside Copperwaite, “but such a death… horrible.”
Copperwaite tried on a smile for Jessica, adding, “We can match your American horror stories horror for horror over the centuries. We've been at it a great deal longer.”
“Is that so?” She looked at Sharpe for an answer. While Sharpe's penetrating gaze engaged her, the other man fiddled with a notepad and pen as if trying to learn their use for the first time. He flipped through the pad, obviously searching for some questions he'd meant to pose. Stuart Copperwaite, Inspector Sharpe's right hand, as you Yanks would say, she thought she heard him thinking.
“So, you gentlemen of the Yard have come calling on the colonies for help,” she quipped.
“Stuart and I have come a distance on this crucifixion case, you see. Awful business.”
“Indeed, you've come a great distance.”
“To ask for your assistance, Dr. Coran.”
“But you have it already.”
Sharpe, obviously a man of few words, tossed a manila file folder he'd been holding close to his chest since she'd walked in the room. The file came cascading across her already cluttered desk, crime-scene photos spilling from it, crime-scene shots of crucifixion victims-three in all.
“Three bodies? There've been three now?” she asked, her quick perusal of the photos confirming the answer.
'Two men and a woman,” said Sharpe.
“And you're certain it's the same killer at work in all three deaths? “Same MO.”
“Precisely,” added Copperwaite, “detail for detail.” Jessica's whiskey voice took on a tone of doom. “Then it's a serial killer you're after, one who crucifies his victims. I knew about the woman found in the park, but I thought it a freak thing, a onetime incident, not likely to be repeated.”
Copperwaite lamented, “So hoped everyone.”
“Would you have a concerted look?” asked Sharpe, his finger jabbing at the file folder filled with pictures of the victims.
“Yes, let's have a look,” she replied, bracing herself for the crime-scene and autopsy photos, for even though she'd studied thousands, such images still caused her stomach to grip and her throat to go dry.
The crucifixion-death autopsy photos proved no exception, each more ghastly than the one before it. Obviously, no crosses in the photos, no shots of the primary crime scene, only the remains of the victims, which had been left at various dump sites.
Sharpe now added another file for Jessica to look over, this one displaying full-body shots and facial features of each victim, the Christ-wounds, including the side wounds clearly visible in these shots which detailed the wounds to each extremity as well. Jessica now put aside the horrid photos of the crucified victims, saying, “Your killer seems to prefer a more mature victim, I'd say.”
“Yes, average age comes in around fifty,” agreed Sharpe.
“And he's not particular as to the victim's sex.” Jessica stood and paced to the window. “During my career, gentlemen,” she began. Her eyes fixed on a troop of young and energetic FBI cadets doing evening calisthenics out on the lawn to the barking rhythm of a drill instructor. “I've seen asphyxia death in all its myriad forms, from asphyxiation by water to choking by hand to autoerotica and old-fashioned self-inflicted hangings, but this… This is absolutely unusual and rare: murder by crucifixion.”
“Exactly how rare is it, Jess?” asked Santiva.
She pointed to the books he'd been thumbing through. “I'm willing to bet my pension you found nothing in your research, Eriq.”
Jessica looked out across her office. It had recently been enlarged as a kind of thank-you from Quantico's powers that be, a rare FBI reward-an office rivaling the size of Santiva's own. Hers looked out across several partitioned laboratories where practitioners of the forensic arts worked like so many alchemists each day and night.
Jessica leaned forward in her chair, one hand on her pulsating temple. With the other she lifted another book from the shelf, doing her own quick reference, then held it up and said, “Nothing… not a word on death by crucifixion. It just isn't in the modern literature of death investigation. It's rare, quite rare in the long history of murder and homicide annals, yes.” She continued, waving an arm. “Extremely rare business, especially since the Dark Ages. So few cases in fact, most books on forensics and pathology say not a word about it, as you found in rummaging around through my books, no doubt.”
“Rare indeed,” replied Sharpe, “but it would appear, Dr. Coran, that someone the other side of the Atlantic is in dire straits to change all that, perhaps make it a bit less than rare?” The man's commanding voice, filled with bell-like resonance, along with his British accent, fell soft and pleasant on her ears.
'Tell me, Dr. Coran,” continued Sharpe, “what have you learned about crucifixion death since we last spoke on the phone?”
“Interesting thing about crucifixion, gentlemen…”
“Yes?” asked Sharpe.
“The weight of the body on the outstretched arms interferes with exhaling, due to the intercostal muscles which-well, suffice it to say that in a hanging state such as crucifixion breathing would become impossible. The normal rhythm of inhaling and exhaling would painfully and slowly cease due to the exertion of pressure on the lungs and the inability to lift the rib cage.”
“Rib cage?” asked Copperwaite, fingering his own ribs.
“In normal breathing, we lift our rib cage to bring in air. A man on a cross, arms overhead, he can't do this. Exhalation is impaired as well, given that it's passive and due to gravity pulling at the body.”