"The return address, Stan?"
The numbers meant nothing to Lucas, an address down near the shipping channel on Lowe.
"You'll want to come upstairs now and take a look at this for yourself, Lieutenant."
"How bad is it, Stan?"
"Bad? All I can say is that your creep's been playing footsie up till now. This one's god awful bad, my friend."
"I'll be up there as soon as I alert Dr. Sanger and Detective North, Stan."
"I've got people already alerting them, Lucas. You're all to come down to the conference room off Captain Lincoln's office. See you there."
"Lincoln already knows about the package then?"
"Lucas, he insisted I keep him informed of anything else suspicious coming into the squad room. After what occurred with Dr. Sanger, he wants to be kept informed. His orders."
"Gotcha…understand."
Lucas arrived at the conference center moments ahead of Meredyth and Jana, the two of them chatting as they entered the darkened room, going silent on seeing what awaited them. On the wall screen, they saw the fuzzy video of the interior of the box addressed to Lucas. Staring back at them were a pair of blank, horrific eye sockets that dominated the terrible image of a young woman's head. The X- ray photo was black and white, like an old Bogart movie still.
"Some still life, hey, people?" asked Lincoln, stepping out of shadow and into the picture, blocking the screen.
No one laughed at the dark joke. Meredyth, Lucas, and Jana could make out the woman's thick, dark hair and features. It was unquestionably Mira Lourdes's head. In the black-and-white, grainy X-ray photo, the empty eye sockets gave the still-fleshy severed head the look and feel of a skull.
"It's her all right." Meredyth tore her eyes away from the image and dropped into a chair, holding back tears.
"That'd be my guess," Lucas said, agreeing about the identity of the eyeless woman's cranium.
Kelton stood by like a silent sentinel.
"Chilling." Jana fell, disheartened, into a chair.
"Crazy how even though we know Mira's body is out there someplace," began Meredyth, "that her body's in the asshole's freezer, chopped up to fit into boxes…and knowing the likelihood…the probabilities…that is, expectations being what they are…why then does this horrible puzzle piece have so devastating an impact as it has?" She wiped at tears with a handkerchief.
"Such a callous game he's playing," added Jana.
"A crude inhumane monster," agreed Lincoln, "desecrating her body like this."
"Don't you see, it's the killer's body language," said Lucas.
"What the hell're you talking about. Detective?" asked Lincoln.
"The bastard's speaking volumes to us."
"Lucas is right," said Meredyth. "He's showing us scorn, hatred, disdain. By deriding our societal beliefs, mores."
"Can you speak in English, Dr. Sanger?"
"For instance, our cultural and spiritual need to bury our dead, the concept of the sacrosanct body as temple of the soul, our core belief in the sanctity of familial ties, and on and on. He's pissing on all of it, and that's the message. Mira's body is merely the medium for his message."
Everyone fell silent, contemplating this.
"The medium is the message," said Lucas. "A severed eye, a severed tooth, a severed organ, a severed hand, and now the head. A pox on you and yours. A curse. He's cursing us."
"Whatever the hell he's doing, cursing or scorning, damn it, people, I want an end to this post-office-happy fiend," shouted Lincoln. Calming, he added, "People, we have to end this madness and end it quickly. This can't go on; it can't drag on!"
"We're on it, Captain," Jana said, trying to assure him. "We know something about this maniac. We know he's interested in trying to shake us up in a spectacular fashion."
"Is that a fact?" Lincoln's sarcasm spewed forth thick and biting. "What we know is that this creep is creeping us all out, but he's particularly interested in you two, Dr. Sanger, Lucas. He's got a bug up his ass for you! Why? He's got something personal going with you two and…and g'damn it, I want to know what the fuck it is."
"We think that he thinks that by choosing us as targets that he can grab off the front-page headlines, a most- wanted wanna — be," said Lucas.
"Key-rice…please, not another one. Will the Lord of Joe-has-a-fit deliver us."
"This monster is scratching to get into the Serial Killer Hall of Fame," Meredyth added. "Simple as that."
Captain Lincoln walked around to stand over Meredyth, placing a hand on her shoulder, seeing how distraught she had become and how she fought to keep her eyes off the image on the wall or the still-closed box sitting at the center of the table. Captain Lincoln calmly asked, "You mean he wants John Walsh or the FBI to come after him?"
"It's a theory."
"A theory? I need more than a theory, Dr. Sanger."
"What do you want from me, Gordon?"
"You're the expert on psychotic behavior, the demented mind, the maladjusted, discontented, rage-filled disenfranchised aberrant soul out there on every street corner, so you tell me, Doctor, are you convinced this is the maniac's motive or not?"
"I'm not completely convinced, no."
"And why is that?" pressed Lincoln.
"Because…because I keep feeling like there's a bell tolling in my ear, and it's ringing specifically for me and Lucas, that he's more interested in destroying our peace of mind than he is in acquiring a legendary reputation as a blackguard of negative fame. But on the other hand, perhaps he wants both."
Lincoln paced back around the conference table. He contemplatively muttered, "For whom the bell tolls, huh? It tolls for thee."
"All I'm saying is I feel we're being stalked for reasons other than his wanting media attention," Meredyth added.
Lincoln continued to pace the room. "I want everyone who has been involved on the case in any way, shape, or form to come down and have a look at what this mother-fucker's shoved in our faces in our own house. Call in Chang, his CSI team, Purvis, Davies, anyone in your department who's been helping out, Detective North, Dr. Sanger, and get them all down here pronto! We begin to end this terrorism here and now. Call it an ad hoc task force, but get them here. We'll open your UPS box, Lucas, with Chang's people in attendance. All right, everyone, go out, make the necessary calls, get your heads together, and get back here ASAP."
In a matter of twenty minutes, everyone who had had any hand whatsoever in the strange case of what was being called the Post-it Ripper stepped through the doors of the darkened conference room to stand and stare at the ugly image on the wall. Dr. Tom Davies was the last to enter, finding a seat near Chang and Nielsen. At one end of the table sat Jana North and the two men who had interrogated and polygraphed Dwayne Stokes. In addition, Jana had called in the two men who'd gone over Mira Lourdes's Saab. Stan Kelton, Lucas, and Meredyth sat at the other end. Between and among them sat various evidence technicians who had handled segments of the evidence gathering and/or specimen analysis from the crime scenes at either Meredyth's place, Lucas's apartment, or the police garage. Among them were photographer Steve Perelli and evidence tech Ted Hoskins. Alongside them, Dr. Catrina Purvis sat tapping a pencil nervously atop a notepad.
Finally, Anna Tewes, the sketch artist, was moving about the room, averting her eyes from the screen, busy handing out the updated description of the suspect. The new sketch, a blending of actor Richard Thomas's features with those of Microsoft's Bill Gates and director Ron Howard, included the hairy mole, black eyebrows, blond head, larger ears, and thicker glasses. The additions, courtesy of Stu the doorman, had transformed the bland "happy face" original.
With all assembled, Captain Lincoln pointed to the eyeless image of the severed head on the wall, and informed them, "Our crack team of detectives here, armed with a photo of a missing person, has told me this box you see at the center of the table contains the severed head of a young woman named Mira Lourdes, ladies and gentlemen."