"Oh, and there was something else," Remo said. "I found something in a gash the BBQ made in one of the bodies."
"Oftentimes a tooth or claw is left behind after a particularly savage attack," Smith said. "Which is it?"
"Next mystery," Remo replied. "It's neither. Whatever it is, I overnighted it to you last night. You should be getting it some time this morning."
"I look forward to receiving it," Smith said, intrigued.
"Jeez, Smitty, you're awfully calm about all this," Remo complained. "These things have racked up a pretty hefty body count. I figured you'd want me to squash them."
"If it comes to it, that may be our only option," Smith said somberly, replacing his glasses. "For now we should concentrate on locating the creatures and returning them to BostonBio. Dr. White is the one person in the world suited to learning the true nature of what has transpired there."
Remo snorted derisively. "Humanity's destined for the short end of the food chain if we dump our fertilized eggs into that bottomless basket."
"I am aware of Dr. White's shortcomings," Smith admitted. "I have been studying her background information. She is quite brilliant but obviously unstable. Her assault against a local Boston television personality two days ago is just the latest incident in a long line of aberrant behavior. She has a police record going back to her college days. However, that does not make her any less important when it comes to understanding these animals."
"Is she on drugs?" Remo asked abruptly.
Smith frowned. "Most of the charges brought against her were drug or alcohol related. The last was two years ago. I believe police found PCP in her car."
"Bingo," Remo said.
"Is that significant?" Smith asked.
"No," Remo replied. "Just explains a lot."
Smith forged ahead. "In spite of her personal failings, Dr. White is your best ally in understanding these animals."
"If it's a choice between the lady or the tiger, I'll take my chances with door number two," Remo muttered.
Before Smith could respond, the text shifted on his monitor once more.
"Hold, please," he said, distracted.
Smith found that his computer had dragged yet another news story from the Internet. According to the identification code the CURE mainframes had given the latest data, it was cross-referenced with the two earlier suspected BBQ attacks. Smith scanned the report quickly.
"Oh, no," he said after he was through. His voice was hollow.
"What's wrong?" Remo asked.
"It appears we no longer have Dr. White's expertise to fall back on," Smith replied.
"Why not?" Remo asked.
Smith scanned the story again, on the chance that he had read it wrong the first time. He had not. "Another mutilated body has turned up," the CURE director said tightly. "This one on the grounds of BostonBio. The Boston Blade is reporting that the body is that of Dr. Judith White."
Chapter 10
Initial reports in the local press of the death of Dr. Judith White appeared to be greatly exaggerated. When Remo returned to the lab at BostonBio, he found the scientist upright, alert and in the middle of throwing a characteristic fit of temper.
"Get that thing out of here!" Dr. White screamed. Her beautiful face curled into wrinkles of intense displeasure as the forensic team attempted to heft the mangled body into a black-zippered morgue bag.
Remo was careful to avoid the wide area of drying blood that had spread out around the body.
As he walked by, he leaned in to get a glimpse of the ghostly white face of the latest BBQ victim. The glassy, frozen-in-death eyes of Orrin Merkel stared up at him.
Judith sat on a desk beyond the cluster of police and medical examiners. A cigarette dangled from between her perfect red lips.
"You're alive," Remo commented as he stepped over to her. There was a hint of undisguised disappointment in his tone.
Judith raised a single eyebrow as she peered over at him. Taking her cigarette between her slender fingers, she blew a huge cloud of smoke at the ceiling. "Isn't the Agriculture Department usually busy pimping out bees and stomping on boll weevils?" she replied sarcastically.
"I haven't graduated to bugs yet, so they assigned me to you. The papers had you dead," Remo pointed out. He glanced back, surveying the scene.
"The papers want me dead. Trust the Blade to screw up a free lunch. I'm the one who reported the body. They somehow twisted that into me being the body."
The police forensic team had succeeded in dropping the largest section of remains into the thick black bag. Remo saw that the stomach cavity had been ripped open. Like the corpse of Clyde Simmons the night before, the scientist's organs had been removed utterly. His abdomen was like an open, ghastly red bowl.
Remo nodded to the corpse. "Orrin," he said. Dr. White blew another cloud of smoke, this one from the corner of her mouth. "What's left of him." She didn't seem disturbed in the least.
"Shouldn't you ratchet down the Bette Davis act a few notches? After all, this does let your BBQs off the hook."
Although the freshly mutilated corpse of her lab assistant hadn't succeeded in agitating her, Remo's words seemed to. Judith stubbed her cigarette out on the desk's surface. Sliding to her feet, she beckoned Remo to follow.
They walked to a rear door of the lab, Judith allowing the last thin veil of smoke in her lungs to escape along the way.
She pushed the door open. The corridor beyond was lined with the pens from which the animals had been stolen two nights before. Remo was surprised to see one cage was occupied.
An odd-looking creature with huge, sad eyes looked mournfully to him as he stepped into the hall, which connected the two laboratories. The animal's foot-long legs were far too short for its large body. It moaned softly.
"A BBQ?" Remo asked, surprised.
Judith's face was serious. "I found it here this morning when I came in."
"These things have a homing instinct?"
Judith seemed hesitant to speculate. "I guess they must. Unplanned on my part. How else could it have gotten back here?"
"I went to the HETA meeting place last night. They were only planning on exchanging one animal. It got away."
"And this is it." She gestured to the BBQ. It backed away from her hand.
Remo shook his head doubtfully. "I don't know." He frowned. "If this is the one from last night, it would have had to travel twenty miles through pretty tough terrain."
"It might be something I didn't foresee," Dr. White admitted. "We've all heard stories about dogs and cats that travel clear across country in order to find their masters."
"Lady, that's not Lassie and you ain't exactly Timmy."
"It's possible," she stated firmly.
He pointed at the creature's stumpy legs. "This thing would have a hard time walking to the wall and back without collapsing. There's no way."
"Maybe it isn't the one from last night, then," she admitted. "Maybe it's one of the other ones."
"Yeah. And my vote it's the one that killed that guy near here the other night."
Dr. White no longer seemed as certain as before. "Possibly," she said. "But I'm not convinced," she added quickly. "These deaths could be the work of another animal. Or a human being." Inspiration struck. "A serial killer."
"Back at the Agriculture Department, we call that grasping at straws," Remo said. "The only link between the murders are those things." He nodded to the BBQ.
"Deaths," she interjected.
"What?"
"If they are the work of the BCWs-and I'm not conceding they are-then the proper word would be deaths. An animal does not murder. It kills. Perhaps to eat, perhaps to survive. But an animal does not murder."
"That's a tortured exercise in semantics," Remo noted.
"No," Judith said firmly. "That's the law of the jungle. Survival of the fittest." There was passion in her eyes.