Kelton assured him, "If any such nonsense were afoot at the Three-one, Lucas, I'd've gotten wind of it. All the same, I'll sniff around, let you know."
"Let's get some air on the terrace," Meredyth suggested.
Taking their coffee with them, Lucas escorted Meredyth out onto the deck overlooking the twinkling lights of downtown Houston, the ever-changing cityscape in the near distance. They were thirty stories up.
Meredyth came from old money, and could easily have lived the quiet country club life of her friends-like Byron Priestly-and relatives, but she had chosen instead to become a forensic psychiatrist. Lucas admired her for the dedication and determination to achieve her goals and live up to her ideals.
She sat at the patio table, a light breeze playing whimsy fairy with her hair, rustling between the buttons of her blouse, causing a mild flap. The cool night air felt refreshing against her face and skin. Lucas stood behind her, his hands squeezing her shoulders as he surveyed the skyline. Here on the terrace, Meredyth had plants growing, and Lucas, hoping to distract her from what was going on in her living room, asked, "Whataya call these plants here? Is this one a geranium? Maybe plants is what I need at my place, you know, to brighten it up a bit."
She looked over her shoulder at him, frowning. "Other than that cactus flower in the comer, which you dug up and gave me for Christmas, Lucas, I've never put you together with plants, but you sound positively Martha Stewart tonight."
"No, I'm really interested."
"Yes, that's a geranium, no longer in full bloom, but the others at the end of the terrace, they're all hibiscus plants."
"Okay, you give them individual names, like pets?"
She laughed lightly. "I'm not one of these people who gives names to her plants, Lucas."
"I take that as a good sign."
"I love the cactus flower most, you know."
"Courtship," he said.
"What?"
"On the res, when a boy gives a girl a cactus flower, it's the beginning of their courtship."
"All this time and I never knew. Why didn't you tell me before?"
Lucas didn't reply, going to the plants at the terrace edge instead, running his fingers lightly over them. "Hibiscus…they're called hibiscus, huh? Sounds Greek."
"Greek or perhaps Latin, I'm sure."
"Interesting word, hibiscus. Interesting lilt to it, a single word with its own melody is rare. Hibiscus…think I bet on a racehorse once with that name."
"I'm sure you have."
He returned from the edge to stand again behind her where she sat sipping her now-lukewarm coffee. He placed both hands on her shoulders, saying nothing.
"Listen, Lucas, thanks for rushing over like you did."
"What else is a friend to do under the circumstances?"
"Most friends I have would do like Byron and run the other way under the circumstances."
"I didn't do much."
"Your being here is enough. So trust me when I say you don't have to make small talk and-"
"Small talk?"
"— and pretend an interest in my potted plants, Lucas."
"Whoa up there, Doctor. I'll remember that if and when I should make small talk and idle chitchat," he countered.
"All I'm saying is that you don't need to resort to pretense to please me or in some vain attempt to distract me from the fact someone's mailed me a set of human eyes and a pair of teeth, and that my living room's become a crime scene, and that my personal security-my home in the clouds here-has been breached and defiled."
"Easy, sweetheart."
She reached up with both hands and covered his where they continued to squeeze her shoulders. "That feels good," she told him.
They continued to hold hands while the evidence techs created a crime grid of her living room. "Do you really think the whole horrible thing is an elaborate stinking joke, Lucas, or was that just another attempt to get me to calm down?"
"If it is a hoax, the bastards've let it go too far now. The costs involved in sending out a CSI unit, the time and manpower in running all this as evidence in a crime, hell… can you imagine the heads that'll roll?"
"You've never liked Frank Patterson, have you? And as for Feldman, how long has that feud been going on?"
"Creeps, both of 'em, cut of the same cloth. One concern in life, self-gratification now! Couple of pricks of the first caliber."
"Sounds like you know it's them and calling it in to the crime lab was to get back at them maybe?"
"Stir their stew counterclockwise, you mean?"
"They cooked this up, and you plan to cook their gooses? You're as much a juvenile as they are, Lucas."
He came around to face her, hands extended. "No way I would be disrespectful of human organs, desecrating someone's body or bodily parts this way. You can't put me in the same nincompoop class as they're in."
"No, I don't…I mean, I didn't mean to imply that, Lucas. I have great respect for you, but be careful not to allow them to pull you down to their level."
He dropped into the cushioned metal chair across from her. "Not a chance. Look, so far as I know right now, Mere, what you and I received via hand-delivered mail is a felony, and it smacks of a far worse crime, murder. That's the way I'm playing this out for now." He leaned in over the table as he spoke, his body language and eyes sincere.
"So you've called the town crier-Sergeant Kelton- posited the theory of it's being a hoax in his head, so you don't even have to point a finger. Before daybreak, it'll be all over the precinct."
"I know, out in the open."
"Dr. Chang and Captain Lincoln will hear the story that human remains were stolen from the crime lab."
"And the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan. But Mere, at this stage, it's as good a theory as any we have."
"Look, if it is a horrible hoax perpetrated by some bozos, I want the bastards to pay dearly for it. Don't get me wrong."
"Then we're on the same page."
They fell silent for a moment, in one ear the sounds of the people bagging and collecting the evidence inside, in the other ear the sounds of traffic and the city.
"You know, Lucas, I like the way you call me Mere. Have I ever told you that you're the only one I know who calls me Mere, that is, aside from my mom and dad?"
"No, you've never shared that with me, Mere."
"My dad used it kiddingly. Called me Night-Mere sometimes!"
Lucas laughed lightly at this. "That's a good one."
"Fits, you mean."
"Maybe that too."
From inside, the click-click-click of the digital photographs being taken filtered out to them. They heard Dr. Leonard Chang's distinctive voice now, ordering that the poetic note and the CD be bagged and taken into evidence as well.
"I'm going to check on Chang's progress, and let him know about Byron's prints being on the wrapper. You might best stay out here. Can I bring you a drink from the fridge?"
"Yeah, there's some iced tea in the flask."
Lucas returned to the living room, where it appeared the techs were closing down their investigation. He saw that each eye and each tooth had been placed into separate baggies, and while each tooth was dropped into a pocket within a black valise, the two eyes were dropped into a medical cooler filled with ice.
Dr. Leonard Chang slowed Hoskins up, wanting to look once more into the depth of the eyes, holding them now in his gloved hands, staring through the cellophane bags. When Lucas came alongside him, asking him what he thought, Chang erupted from his inscrutable silence. "How horrible this must have been for Meredyth. How is she holding up?"
"She's gutsy; she's holding up." He told Chang about Byron Priestly's having handled the package. "Leonard, I'd like you and maybe Dr. Nielsen to investigate your labs for missing tissues, eyes, teeth."