"Where's Meredyth?" Lucas asked, scanning the area for her when Stan Kelton rushed to him, telling him she was in the squad lounge upstairs with a pair of police-women and a cup of coffee, calming down.
Lucas was held in check when he saw what Leonard Chang's gloved hands now plucked from the white interior of the little coffin left for Meredyth. It was a human hand, a petite, feminine human hand, severed at the wrist in as neat and clean a cut as Lucas had ever seen. No jagged edges, nothing dangling, not so much as a thread of artery. The nearness of the cut gave it an unreal, mannequin appearance until Chang turned it over.
There was writing on the palm in black marker-a short laundry list of items. Everyone craned to see it more clearly. "What is it?" asked Ted Hoskins of Chang while Steve Perelli flashed shot after shot.
"What's the writing on the hand say?" asked Lucas at the same time.
"Reminders. Things she wanted to get on her next visit to Wal-Mart, I suspect," said Dr. Nielsen, her tall frame towering over Chang but not Lucas. "She was out of TP, hairspray, nail polish, and onions."
"She was left-handed," commented Chang, "to write this on her right hand."
Lucas recalled that Mira Lourdes was reportedly left- handed. He wondered if it could be her right hand he now stared at.
"At least we've got fingerprints now," said Dr. Nielsen, sighing.
Chang shook his head. "Look closer. No fingerprints." Chang put a magnifying glass over the fingertips, demonstrating how they had been burnt off with some sort of chemical. "The epidermal layers of skin have been altered."
"Acid bath?" asked Nielsen.
"Carefully applied. Likely over-the-counter item. Muriatic acid would be my guess."
"Kind you get at any pool store," muttered Lucas. "What the hell does this motherfucker want from Meredyth?"
"If we knew that, we might know better who he is," said Meredyth. She had materialized from the tunnel leading to the garage, two uniformed female cops with her. "We must have really pissed him off sometime… someplace."
Lucas wanted to go to her, hold her to him, and she read this clearly in his eyes, but they had made the pact to keep their renewed romance a secret for now. "We need to sit down, go over every case we ever worked together, and find this psycho before he decides to attack with more than these sick offerings," he said.
"I couldn't agree with you more," she replied.
The unspoken questions on everyone's mind were where the rest of the victim's body was, what would be forwarded next, and what kind of connection existed between the killer, Dr. Sanger, and Detective Stonecoat.
Lucas turned back to Chang. "What can you tell us about the victim from what this lunatic bastard has left us, Leonard?"
"Not much beyond her general size and weight. She was small-boned, not large, healthy by all reckoning. Freckled. The hand came from a fresh kill, like the eyes and organ slices. I'd need equipment and tests to tell you any more than that."
"Are you guessing it to be from the same victim?"
"One might suppose so, yes."
"Bastard is poaching off pieces of his victim to taunt us. It's sick."
Captain Gordon Lincoln, having heard of the latest incident in this growing cancer, drove into the lot, climbed from his car with some difficulty, and stood in a disarrayed overcoat thrown over his casual civilian clothes, a golf shirt and pants. His size and weight made him a force to be reckoned with, and he chewed on an unlit cigar. It was past nine P.M. and Lincoln's eyes burned with curiosity, confusion, and concern. "What in hell's going on, Stonecoat? Did I hear right? Another goody bag left for Dr. Sanger? After you gave chase to some phantom who breached the security of my precinct? Are you all right, Dr. Sanger?"
"Yes, I'm fine," she replied at the same time Lucas said, "You heard right, Captain. Some creep lured her here and saw to it she was alone with this sick gift he left behind. A human hand, female."
"We suspect it's from the same body as gave up the eyes and teeth, but we'll have to run tests to be certain. Captain," added Chang.
Lincoln exchanged a quick smile with Dr. Nielsen, nodded, and bent at his hefty waist for a closer examination of the severed hand. Nielsen leaned in and spoke in his ear, explaining both the lettering and the raw fingertips.
Lincoln mouthed the words written across the palm of the severed hand. "Sad business…terribly sad," he muttered.
"Handwriting on hand…printing actually, doesn't appear the same as on package," Chang said.
"I suspect the victim was in the habit of writing messages to herself on her hand. Lot of people do it," said Meredyth, who now had a chance to examine the awful contents of the third ugly parcel.
Lincoln straightened up with a mild groan. He ordered everyone's silence on the incident, knowing it would be the precinct buzz before midnight and leaked to the press before dawn. "Chang, I know this is already first priority in your lab," continued Captain Lincoln, pacing, "but anything…anything more you can do to speed up our evidence-gathering and knowledge of this SOB will be appreciated."
"We're doing all we can to expedite matters, Captain, I can assure you," replied Chang.
"I'm sure you are. Keep me posted." Lincoln took Lucas aside, escorting him to his car, out of earshot of the others. "Do you have any inkling as to who might be behind this, Lucas? Are any of your loony street connections or snitches telling you anything? Any word from anyone fresh off the reservation? Didn't you have some enemies on theres? Wasn't there a thing between you and a woman there that got messy?"
"That was my cousin's wife, Tsali, and it hasn't a thing to do with this, no."
"Any connection possibly to Zachary Roundpoint?"
"Sir, I can assure you there is none whatsoever."
"Then you do admit to knowing Roundpoint well enough to know he has nothing to do with this shit?"
"IAD's cleared me of all those charges, Captain. You got the report. I do not have any personal relationship with Roundpoint or anyone in his organization."
"But FBI approached you and suggested you help them to infiltrate Roundpoint's operation, to wear a wire."
"I turned 'em down. I got no juice with Roundpoint."
"All right…all right, don't get testy. I'm just throwing out ideas here, brainstorming. When you brainstorm a case, no idea is too radical for consideration. Nothing personal, and when and if the Feds start up anything with you, Detective, remember, you're under my command, and I stand by men under my command. Kee-mo-sabe?"
Lucas could feel his jaw tighten. He had a good idea where Lincoln would be standing if and when a federal grand jury were convened and Lucas were called to point a finger at Zach Roundpoint, one lone lieutenant of Native American descent against the power of the U.S. Government. An old story, Lucas told himself.
Lucas told his captain, "Meredyth and I suspect that whoever's behind these foul mailings will be someone we have a history with."
"Both of you?"
"Yes, both of us. It'll be someone we may've put away, or a relative of someone we put away. Remember the vengeance Jimmy Lee Purdy took out on Judge DeCampe after his death? Through the twisted thinking of his deranged father?"
Lincoln breathed deeply of the stale parking lot air and fumes, considering the horror of the case that had brought Lucas Stonecoat so much federal attention, the case of an abducted and cruelly tortured appellate court judge and personal friend of Lincoln's. Maureen DeCampe had been abducted in a municipal underground parking lot, not unlike this one, forced into a coffin, and transported across the country to a deserted farmhouse. The sentence against her was carried out by a maniacal old man thinking himself a prophet of God or some such nonsense. Isaiah Purdy, hearing his executed son's voice in his head, believing his son to be God or God's angel, had followed Jimmy Lee's orders to fulfill his last request. Isaiah lashed her to his son's decayed body, holding her hostage to a slow death for a week before Lucas and Meredyth had helped to discover her and put an end to her misery. The old man's plan was to kill her via rotting her flesh as it came into contact with the rotting flesh of his dead son. The poor woman still had lingering psychological scars. Cooperating with the FBI, Lucas and Meredyth had helped save the judge's life. However, Lucas had come under suspicion by the Feds himself when they targeted Roundpoint for a series of killings in North Dakota, all related to a hate crime involving a young Native American. Someone had seen to it that the boy's killers met their end when federal prosecutors announced they hadn't enough evidence on anyone to bring charges.