“ That's right. Just enough, however.”
“ I suggest you look for any blood deficiencies, any illnesses which might show up in the bastard's blood.”
“ We are working on that already.”
“ Of course. It's just that, well, you may not know that this class of killer, a bloodtaker, is usually working out of some demented need which, strangely enough, has first manifested itself in some form of physical torment-a lack of red blood corpuscles, an illness, some deformity maybe. And if we could focus in on that aspect, who knows, maybe we'd at least be able to narrow the search, halve the haystack, all that.”
Jessica had read about effects of bodily deformities and illness on the minds of murderers. She understood where O'Rourke was coming from, but she wondered why the inspector hadn't brought it up at the meeting, why the 'lobbying' for Jessica's attention?
Leamy gave O'Rourke a perfunctory hello, taking Jessica a side. “I believe, Dr. Coran, your remarks were extremely useful. I know Otto thinks so.”
“ Thank you, Chief.”
His eyes lingered over her just long enough to make her uncomfortable when Otto stepped between them, saying, “I told you she was remarkable, and that we need her for an early profile creation of this Wekosha vampire.”
Leamy acted as if Otto was not in the room, his eyes returning to Jessica's as he asked, “You agree without reservation with Boutine? That these deaths are absolutely the work of one man with some kind of blood thirst?”
Jessica wanted to be firmer, but her words didn't sound very firm. “I… I'm leaning in that direction, yes sir.”
“ Leaning, huh? How do you account for the long delay between the killings Boutine here is trying his damndest to tie together? I mean most serial nuts of this sort may let a week or two go between slayings, but we're talking about months of elapsed time here.”
Jessica didn't hesitate this time. “There may've been no delay.”
“ Pardon?”
“ There's quite possibly many more undiscovered bodies.”
Boutine nodded in agreement. “If this guy's been working his way up to his present modus operandi, there's no telling how many bodies he's left in shallow graves all over the heartland.”
“ What is our next step, Otto?” asked Leamy.
“ Exhumations,” she blurted out.
“ Exhumations?” he asked, looking around at Otto.
Otto shrugged. “Jess, what've you got in mind?”
She shared her suspicions with the two men. “If we find the identical scar in the throats of the earlier victims, then we can be sure that we are dealing with the same man.”
“ Makes a lot of sense,” said Otto.
“ The reason for the slides,” she added. “Suffice it to say, the killer is very knowledgeable and shrewd. No ordinary butcher. His efforts to appear brutal were to mask his skill with a scalpel and a specialized instrument of some kind.”
“ The tube you spoke of,” Leamy said.
“ A spigot, through which he drained her blood, in a very controlled fashion.”
“ Yes, well… a medical man, a doctor?”
“ Why not?” asked Boutine. “Or a medic.”
“ Or a nurse,” she finished.
“ Any number of people with specialized knowledge of anatomy. A medical student, a mortician.”
“ Anyone who knows incisions,” added Leamy.
“ It was an incision of a very specialized kind, like… like a tracheotomy, except that instead of the windpipe, the killer punctured her jugular with a tubular instrument. Now, I've studied the autopsies on the earlier victims and not a word about this came out, because, I believe, the larger, superficial wound to the throat masked the truth, and in all previous cases a local man did the autopsying… and we all know how that goes.”
The others had to agree. The other cases hadn't been handled well. On each, the FBI had been called in long after the crime scenes had been disturbed and the pathology reports filed.
“ There is one thing they all have in common,” said Boutine. “It's what got me going originally. And that's the geography.” They all understood the geography of death. Most killers, even serial killers, worked within the confines of a strict geographical location, a certain area in a city, a certain town. This pattern was only broken when the killer moved away, and then it was repeated elsewhere, as in the Ted Bundy case. “This guy, if it is one guy, really gets around.” Boutine went to a map of the United States on the wall and he pointed out the various states where young women and one young boy had been found bound and hanging from their heels, their blood drained. He pointed to Wisconsin, Iowa, southern Illinois and Missouri. “A midwestern kind of guy, huh?” asked Leamy.
“ We've alerted every law enforcement agency in the country to be on the lookout for anything smacking of a Tort “You seem to have gotten off the mark on this rather slowly. Otto,” said Leamy. “Why?”
“ My people have been on it from the beginning, but we've been looking in the wrong place, in the wrong way. Now, with Dr. Coran-”
“ How so, the wrong way?”
Otto sighed deeply. “The killings had all the earmarks of satanic ritual, and what with all that's been going on in the papers and the news lately… well, like Jess says, this guy is shrewd. So-”
“ So he has the FBI, with all its manpower and equipment and communications network, wasting valuable time and personnel on running down leads to every local satanic cult in the midsection of the country. I get the picture.”
“ Until now, we haven't had any information pointing to one perpetrator. We knew they were taking the blood, but we had made up our collective minds that it was the work of a pack of satan worshippers. One reason is the fact we already knew that one man could not drink the blood of a full-grown person at one sitting, and these were strike-and-run slayings.”
“ And you're convinced now that Dr. Coran is on the right track?”
“ Absolutely.”
“ And you. Dr. Coran… you wish to dig up some mottled old corpses from grave sites here, and here, and here,” he said, pointing consecutively at Missouri, Illinois and Iowa.”
“ That is correct, sir, and it would help greatly if you could get the court orders on each.”
“ Now you want me to do your paperwork for you?”
“ You have great influence, sir,” she replied. He frowned. “I'll see what I can do. Have the details to me before five.”
“ Yes, sir.”
“ Thank you for coming, Chief,” said Otto as Leamy rushed away.
When the door closed on them, she hugged Otto and shouted, “We did it. We've got him on our side. Isn't that why you asked him to the meeting, really?”
He held onto her, enjoying the touch of the woman, savoring the moment. “You know, you're too smart for your own good. I ought to have the right to some secrets.”
Her laughter filled the room and amid it both of them heard J.T.'s intentional noise with the projector. He was still puttering about with the slides. He had been in the projection room the entire time.
Otto instantly let her go, and she lightly blushed and quickly asked J.T. to get the details of time and place on the earlier deaths to Leamy's office.
J.T. said, “Sure, soon as I put these irreplaceable slides into the safe. See you both later. Chief Boutine, Dr. Coran.”
There was an awkward moment between them now. Otto reached out a hesitant finger toward her cheek and said, “I'm sorry if I embarrassed you with J.T. It was-”
“ No, no need to apologize… really.”
“ I'm sure he got the wrong idea.”
“ He has… well, an active imagination. It's what makes him a good lab man.”
“ Maybe it's more than imagination,” said Otto, staring deeply into her eyes.
“ Yes, perhaps…”
She thought he was going to take her in his arms and kiss her, but instead, he reached past her for the door, snatched it open and turned out the lights, rushing out ahead of her as if he were suddenly afraid of her. She stood in the hallway a moment wondering about her success with the P.P. team, and wondering if she had not inadvertently upset Otto, and wondering about the sudden emotions that they had shared like juggling burning knives, too hot and sharp to handle. She wondered how much J.T. had heard and seen; she wondered if J.T. had felt anything in the room. She certainly had.