No agent came to help Chang. The one he'd thought approaching continued on down the path to the bam. "I need help here!" he shouted up to the second-story window on hearing Fuller's voice still there.
"Hold on down there!" shouted one of the FBI agents from Meredyth's window.
"I asked for a couple of men here!" Chang shouted back. "We need to get her off this roof and into the van for transport."
The FBI agent shouted back, "I got a local guy with a cherry picker on his way. It'll help in getting her down from there."
"A cherry picker? We don't need no stinking cherry picker!" But the agent had ducked back inside already. Chang shouted louder, "Agent Fuller! I just need two men. She's getting ripe up here."
Perelli breathed a sigh of relief on hearing of the cherry picker, and he quickly found his way back to the ladder ahead of Chang, balancing his camera as he made his way down.
Chang returned to Lauralie's body and thought how shapely she was, and that she had a beautiful face for a maniac. He mused about the men in her life, all those she had used with such ease. "You could have been anything you chose to be, if only you had put your genius to a good cause. Why did you choose evil?"
"Talking to the dead, Dr. Chang?" Fuller called down to him.
Chang saw that he'd sent his team racing off toward the Brody house with their own evidence technicians and cameraman.
"So this is jurisdictional cooperation," he called up to Fuller. "We must do it more often."
While awaiting the FBI-ordered cherry picker, Leonard Chang had climbed down from the shed roof and had returned to the second-floor bedroom crime scene for another look. From there he got on his cell phone and rang Frank Patterson at the Brody house for an update there. Patterson picked up his cell and replied to Chang's question. "Maybe another hour, maybe two. Depends."
"You don't have two hours, Frank. Lincoln's on his way up the steps now, and Fuller's team is behind him."
"That's just great. Leonard. Now I've got to stop everything and play nursemaid to King Gordo?"
"Just walk him through the crime scene as you can best piece it together, Frank. Use the phrases I think, perhaps, and quite possibly a lot. That way no one can hold you to anything you've said, like being a politician, Frank…like running for office. Now tell me, what the fuck are you hiding over there in the upstairs bedroom? Something dangling from a ceiling fan?"
"Leonard, you of all people've got to understand. I've got my team concentrated on the three-count 'em, Leonard-three whole and undivided corpses as opposed to dealing with the slaughterhouse remains of Mira Lourdes upstairs. Three gunshot victims in the-"
"Then it's true, you've known about the Lourdes remains there and you've kept it to yourself? Why wasn't I informed, Frank?"
"As I said, my first duty, as I see it, is to determine how the Brodys died here, not how a half a decayed woman's body found its way through the door."
"I suggest you do precisely as Detective North and Captain Lincoln wish, Frank."
"North?"
"She's coming through the door with Lincoln as we speak. I have them in my sight. They'll want you to drop everything, Frank, to sort out the Lourdes woman's remains, as I do, Frank. Tell me, Frank, is it the entire rest of the woman or not?"
"It's all the rest of her."
"Thank God for that."
"Leonard, had you been here, you'd've done the same as I did. You'd've focused on the larger problem first- three bodies in the basement to process and bag, not to mention the walls we've had to cut through."
"Walls?"
"Blood-spatter evidence."
"Frank, photos would just as well suffice. The killer's not going on trial in her condition."
"Just being thorough, Leonard."
"You need me to look in, run interference with Lincoln?"
"No, everything's under control here."
Ten minutes later and Chang, looking through binoculars, saw Jana North pacing the Brody porch, waving her hands, and exchanging words with Captain Lincoln, who kept pace with her. Leonard thought it like watching a silent film without benefit of titles-frustrating. Still, the overall message was made clear when Lincoln suddenly took her by the arm, led her to his car, and they drove off, disappearing from view.
Chang sensed that neither Captain Lincoln nor the female lieutenant were happy with Frank Patterson or his decisions after actually viewing the final piece of divvied- up remains belonging to Mira Lourdes, and they'd likely had just as bad a reaction to dealing with Frank.
Leonard imagined the partial corpse in its indignant pose, dangling there in an airy, pastel-colored room, surrounded by teddy bears and other stuffed animals the teen had held onto, the ruffled curtains and bedspread, the walls no doubt graced with posters of Britney Spears, the Back Street Boys, and perhaps a poignant remnant of her younger years-say a painted wall sporting a character like Winnie the Poo and his thousand-acre wood. Candice Brody, unknown to Lauralie Blodgett, dead at thirteen, her room turned into a horror chamber.
Chang imagined the impact the scene must have had on Jana North, who by now had become so personally involved and familiar with Mira Lourdes's history, her nature, her life and loves, hobbies and preferences in music, eyeliner, clothing, and favorite TV stars and cartoon characters.
"All right, Frank," Chang said into his cell. "I'll be over soon. When I get there, I'd like whatever there is left of Mira Lourdes bagged and put away. That poor woman has told us all she's going to tell us, Frank."
"I'll do what I can when I can, Leonard. I'm only one person."
"Then use your people. Delegate. Get what's left of Mira Lourdes downtown now, and let's assemble her as best we can for burial or cremation…whatever the family wants. Let the family have some closure, Frank. Can you imagine the hell they've been put through?"
"Sure thing… absolutely."
Chang hung up, on the verge of losing his temper. The moment he hung up, his phone rang again.
It was Lincoln. "Thought I'd let you know, Chang, that business we discussed about Frank Patterson?"
"Yes?"
"I'm with you. The guy's a first-rate prick."
"Then you saw this morning's papers?"
"Yeah, I saw the papers, and I saw what was left of Mira Lourdes hanging from her decayed ankles in the little girl's bdroom. All this could be twisted to put Lucas and Meredyth in a bad light. Not only has the Chronicle identified them, but it makes my forensic psychiatrist and one of my best detectives appear somehow the cause of this nutcase's obsession-like as if their high profiles mean they asked for it or some such bullshit."
"And you think Patterson is-"
"Frank's sabotaged this investigation once too often, and the jerk upset Detective North to no end, so I pulled her outta the Brody place. Nothing more she and I can do here. We've decided to get back to Houston and zip over to the hospital. Get a firsthand look at Lucas, assess the situation there, give Meredyth our support, all that, you know."
"Sounds like a good move. Let's take care of the living."
"Yeah…yeah…" The unspoken words floated between them over the phone connection: If Lucas is still among the living. "So, Leonard, I leave the decision about Frank up to you. Me…the board, we're behind any decision you make regarding Frank Patterson."
"Thanks, Captain, but you know I don't need board approval or your okay to fire Frank."
'Technically, I know that, Leonard, but you'll want all the support you can muster when-if comes a time Frank should file a lawsuit for reinstatement or loss of pay and defamation of character-as if he had one."
"I appreciate your confidence and advice, Captain. I'm going over to the Brody home as soon as I can. Expect to close down all the crime scenes within one, one and a half hours."