Eighteen
Alan escorted her back to the NYPD forensics laboratories, where they parted company. Jessica feared making any further commitment in their runaway relationship. She feared anything more with a man like Rychman. Like Otto, he lived too close to danger. As far as she was concerned, their love-making was an offshoot of the war they were engaged in, two people thrown together due to circumstances, their attraction the only thing bonding them. And yet, she cared deeply for Alan.
In the laboratory she returned to a project she'd begun the day before. Using computer graphics, she matched the ugliest wounds inflicted on the victims, trying to determine the exact nature of the weapon used against these women. She had programmed-in the depth of the wounds and the abrasive nature of the instrument used to turn flesh into jagged scars. She fed every detail to the computer. The computer's job was to find a weapon to fit the wound as closely as possible.
It was determined quickly that in the case of each victim all three rents to the torso had been done simultaneously, and not-as earlier suspected-one at a time. This explained the exacting parallelism of the wounds. The image that was slowly surfacing on the computer screen was that of a three-pronged garden hoe, the prongs sharply bent, the ends like ice picks with razorlike serrated edges.
The Claw lived up to his name.
She stayed with it into the evening, soon realizing that the computer's insistence on the perfection of the three simultaneous jagged lines signaled something else significant. For each of the long tears to be so similar, the pressure had to be extremely even. With a hand-held tool this seemed unlikely. But if not hand-held, what else was there?
Dr. Archer, fascinated with her tack, had become increasingly interested, asking questions. “You don't think the guy's got talons, do you?”
“ That's what the computer's saying; that it's the work of a bird of prey with talons created for ripping flesh.”
“ But that's impossible.” Archer suddenly realized that he had lost track of the time and said he must rush off.
Word was circulating in the building that Archer was up for Darius' vacant position, and she guessed that he had an important meeting regarding this possibility. “Good luck,” Archer said as he was leaving.
“ Good luck to you,” she countered, making him stop for a moment and stare.
She qualified her statement, “I mean… well, I've heard that you may be stepping in to… to fill… into the coroner's seat. Good luck.”
He bit his lip and dropped his gaze. “I… I… wouldn't take it if they offered… not under the circumstances. I'm not in Dr. Darius' league, anyway…”
Archer was so self-effacing, perhaps too much so. This was very likely the character trait that had kept him here for so long, working in Darius' shadow.
“ Actually, I think you'd do a fine job,” she told him.
He laughed boyishly at this. “Coming from you, Dr. Coran, that… that's quite a compliment.”
“ Go for it, Simon. God knows you've worked hard enough over the years.”
“ That's true enough, but it takes more than years of work and dedication… I mean, running this place? Me?”
“ Who they gonna call?” she quipped.
“ Hell, any number of good M.E. s across the country. Perhaps they'll even offer the job to you, Doctor.”
“ No,” she said with a laugh, “it's definitely not for me.”
“ Oh? And why not?”
“ I tried a big-city coroner's job once, in Washington.”
“ And once was enough?”
“ Too much politicking; had my hands tied at every turn. Guess I just didn't have the right… mind-set.”
“ Is it so different with the FBI?”
“ There're some problems with the Bureau, too, don't misunderstand, but in my present situation I'm given more latitude, more freedom, more…” She searched for the word.
“ Respect?”
“ Yeah, at least by most of the people I work with.”
He nodded. “A valuable asset such as yourself? They best respect you, Doctor.”
She blushed and looked away but kept talking. “As for you, Dr. Archer, you seem to function so well here. You know how to beat them at their own game.”
“ Beat them at their own game?” He was momentarily confused.
“ Politics inherent in the umbilical tie between the medical and the legal worlds. You've managed the office for Dr. Darius in his absence; you took care of everything and remained above the pressure. That's all rather commendable and they must see that.”
“ Yes, all true. Well, I appreciate the fact that at least you have noticed my contribution,” he said with a warm smile. “Must run now. Please, excuse me.”
Even as he spoke his last words to her, she managed to keep her expression convivial, although her thoughts were running toward darkness like a mouse down a drain pipe. She had begun to listen to herself as she complimented Archer on how well he had managed things during Darius' convalescence. Even as she spoke she had begun to wonder about Archer's part in Darius' cover-up; then she began to wonder if it wasn't Archer's cover-up, and if so, was he covering for Darius or for himself? After all, Archer had been in charge of several of the Claw cases himself. He was in a unique position to alter or obstruct the flow of the investigation.
The thought was like a wild horse galloping through her brain. She tried to catch a complete glimpse of it, but it was too fast. She needed time to mull it over, view it from all angles.
Was she being foolish? Alan's reaction to her suspicions about Darius now tempered her new suspicions about Archer. Had she targeted the wrong man? Would Alan understand if she went to him with her latest dark deduction?
Had Archer heard the innuendo in her voice? Had he seen any moment's hesitation or shift in expression that gave her away? His having to leave left her little chance to study any reaction, and finally she wondered if Luther Darius had ever entertained like suspicions, and if so was Archer aware of such suspicions? Was it possible that Archer was far more ambitious a man than he let on? And if so, to what lengths would he go to have Darius' position? If he began with lies and cover-ups which escalated with each Claw case in a blind attempt to gain prominence in the lab, and Darius learned of this and threatened him with revelation of the fact, what would the tightly bound Dr. Simon Archer do?
Was he capable of striking out at Darius? Had Darius' locker-room fall more to do with a blow than previously suspected? Worse thought yet, had Darius' jump from his hospital window been helped along by Archer?
The skittering, nebulous suspicions had taken on the complexity and color of a solidified and dreadful idea. While everyone else was busting their humps to bring in a maniacal killer, Dr. Archer was playing a sinister little game of his own right under their noses, so bent was he on being Luther Darius' heir.
“ Son of a bitch,” she muttered to herself.
But doubts lingered. Could Archer have killed Darius for the top rung on the ladder here?
Her mind was now racing faster than the computer, which was still refining the graphic display on the possible weapon used by the Claw.
Darius found out. He somehow stumbled onto the fact there were two sets of teeth marks, after all, and therefore someone within his organization was, or had been, tampering with physical evidence. It all made sense.
He suspected a number of people before getting around to Archer, but he finally had. Bringing this to light would ruin Archer's career forever. He'd never again see the inside of a forensics lab. Tampering with the medicolegal materials of the crime was against every precept of the medical examiner's office.
Could it be? she asked herself. If so, how could she best prove it? No doubt, Archer had by now covered his tracks thoroughly.
She could review the original autopsy tapes on every victim, cull through them for nuggets of information that might or might not lead to an obvious wrong done, but such an error could be seen as a mistake, a fumble or a bad judgment call. Even if she found out that Archer had ordered slivers of flesh taken before from each and every bite mark on the victims, the lab had such a jumble of tissue samples taken from so many bodies that she couldn't prove a thing, one way or the other. At best she might prove the NYPD coroner's office was guilty of being overburdened.