Bierdsley saw the eye at the center of shadow along the dead girl's forehead a moment before it disappeared, and for a nanosecond he believed in the supernatural and in mermaids. Then he saw a silver-looking reflection replace the eye. Finally, he located and flipped on his flashlight, placing the beam to the dead girl's forehead. As he did so, he found himself in a graceless motion going to his knees opposite his partner, “Jesus…” escaping his lips.
Both officers gasped in response. The dark blotch was indeed a large cavity the size and length of her forehead; in fact, what ought to be her forehead stood out as a void, and inside the void another dying fish struggled for air in a losing battle. It made Bierdsley wonder what kind of fight the young woman had put up. Now in its death throes, the small cod began to blow out its gills, wink wide and flutter.
“ G'damn old man was right. That is a big sum-bitchin' hole,” Lamar said. “I thought he was talking gunshot. Ain't never seen anything like this, Wayne.”
“ It'd take a cannon to make a hold that big; besides, it's too damn neat around the edges for a gun blast. OK, we gotta get that fish out of the cavity,” Bierdsley insisted.
“ Now wait a minute. It's not our job to go fishing inside somebody's splayed open head for no fish.”
“ Captain Abrams!” shouted Bierdsley.
“ Yes?” Abrams had been standing alongside the deputies the entire time. “What can I do you for?”
“ You got something I can use to spear a fish? Maybe something like clamps?” Bierdsley didn't want to place his hand inside the hole. “How the hell's there room enough for a fish inside her head anyway?”
“ Wayne, you're messin' round with the crime scene when you tamper with shit. You know that, so let the damn fish be.”
“ Close-range sawed-off shotgun, maybe?” asked a man who'd gotten down to the boat before a single Jacksonville cop had. “I come to find out what happened, relay the news to the rest of the people tied-to here.”
Plummer and Bierdsley exchanged a look of exasperation. “We told you, Mr. Swantor, to get back of that police line and stay there. You can't help here.”
A Jacksonville policeman tugged the curious yachtsman back. “You believe that guy?” asked Bierdsley. “Some guys with money think they can get away with anything.”
Another Jacksonville cop came aboard and looked over the body from a safe distance, remaining in a standing position. “You guys need help?” he asked.
“ No… something's just weird here.” Bierdsley hunkered down closer, and he leaned in over the body, flashing the beam ahead.
Lamar added, “She's been cut open somehow like a goddamn can opener was put to her head. Cut clean through the bone.”
The Jacksonville officer pulled out another flashlight and the beam somehow motivated the fish in the victim's head to dart out, which caused the officers to all jolt back and laugh at themselves all at once. Their laughter ceased as they stared at what the lights now revealed.
The forehead was indeed gone, so too was the crown, which had been shaved of hair. A large, half-conical-shaped doorway had been removed from the top of the eyebrows toward each ear and up and over the crown. The cut had gone through the cranial bone. It had created a kind of open trapdoor large enough for a small hand to enter.
Lamar moaned to the dark sky overhead. “Lord God in Heaven.”
Captain Abrams, a Georgia-born fisherman, added, “May God forgive us all.”
“ It's worse,” said Bierdsley. “Take a look inside the hole.”
Lamar fearfully did so.
Bierdsley knew he was near gagging. “Whoever did this, he… he took her brain.”
“ What the fuck for?” asked the Jacksonville cop.
Bierdsley muttered, “Sick fuck.”
More city cops arrived boat side, asking if the deputies needed any help. Lamar was doubled over the keel, puking into the St. John's, garnering laughter from men who had not viewed the body. Bierdsley invited the others aboard to have a closer look. Soon there were several men joining Lamar Plummer in polluting the river.
Word had spread, and next came the sheriff of Duval County, Lorena Combs. She stood tall and sleek in her uniform among the men, and even after looking over the corpse, she held in her dinner. “On the quick, I want this crime scene secured. No one on the boat or near the body until I say otherwise.”
“ But, Sheriff,” complained Captain Abrams, “the harbormaster wants me outta this slip. Me, I gotta get my boat back out to sea. Can't lose another day. Can't you just take the dear little thing off my boat and off my hands?”
“ Take some time off, my friend. Your boat is a crime scene, Captain, and it could be a while. FBI's going to want to see this.”
“ But… but…”
“ Until I say otherwise.”
He scrunched his face up at her and gnawed on his pipe. She simply walked back to her squad car and asked dispatch to put her through to Quantico-FBI Headquarters. As she did so, she saw the harbormaster and a fellow on his arm trying desperately to get closer to the crime scene, rubber-necking as they approached.
“ Christ, do we sell tickets next?” She shouted orders to her men to get all civilians, including journalists, back.
Quantico, Virginia The same night
JESSICA Coran downed her cup of coffee as she worked late into the night, pushing through her office door with her free hand, and thinking about the telephone call she'd had from Richard. He had called from the plane, still en route to China. She smiled with the memory of his voice in her ear.
Stepping into her office, pushing errant curls from her eyes, she instantly realized someone was seated in the semi-darkened room, deep in shadow. She looked up to see Eriq Santiva, her boss. For a long moment they glared at one another like adversaries in a duel. Her highlighted auburn hair contrasted sharply with the white lab coat she wore over her clothes. She pushed past the dark-featured Cuban-American to take a seat behind her desk. She was angry with him for having sent her live-in lover, Richard Sharpe, on another overseas assignment. Somehow Richard's impeccable credentials were always at the center of Eriq's decisionmaking lately.
Eriq stood and paced the room before he again settled into a chair, this time opposite her. She'd just come from an autopsy, her hazel eyes tired and weary. She hadn't expected to find her superior waiting here in her office, impatient for the results of the autopsy, but here he was.
“ Aren't you getting tired of playing gofer for Senator Lowenthal?” she bluntly asked him.
“ I resent that, Jess.”
“ I resent my office being used this way, Eriq. If Lowenthal were not a senator, this case would have never crossed my desk, let alone yours.”
“ Sometimes, Jess, you have to play ball with these guys. Like it or not, the FBI is mired in politics.”
Politics has no business in decisions regarding scientific investigation. We established that years and years ago.”
“ Politics aside, the man is a friend of mine, and he's distraught over his daughter's death, after all, and he wanted the best-you.”
“ Eriq, it's an easy spot. Any pathologist in any hospital in the country could have-”
“ But they didn't at Bethesda! They took it on the doctor's word that his wife had developed complications from some sort of food poisoning.”
“ Yeah, right, food poisoning by strychnine. Something her husband doctor would know all about.”
“ Then you found the murder weapon?”
“ My protocol will be complete by tomorrow. You can fetch it for the senator then.”
“ That'll be fine, Jess.”
“ The wife was killed by person or persons unknown, by use of ingested strychnine poisoning. Not very creative on the husband's part if he did it. Hair and fiber aren't much use since they shared the same space before their estrangement. With no struggle, she left us little to work with.”