“ Maybe after the twenty-first century the Bureau will show some balls,” Jessica Coran snickered.
Zanek gritted his teeth, a glare slicing across at Jessica which he quickly covered. “Still, we don't deny the needs of law-enforcement agencies today,” Zanek continued in his most officious voice.
“ To help in your decision, Dr. Desinor,” Stephens countered, “please have a look at these items I brought for your… inspection.” Richard Stephens's well-manicured hands now reached for three brown metal-clasp envelopes. He laid them out on Zanek's desk. Two of the packs were neatly creased and lay flat, while the third bulged with what appeared to be and sounded like metallic objects-likely a junk collection from a New Orleans police property room, Kim decided.
Stephens then tore open the first envelope and displayed its flat contents: an array of horrid police photos, one after another, of murdered young men, boys really. Two of the photos displayed bodies in remote, heavily wooded areas, their backs to the lens, faces turned away, features lost. The additional two dead teens lay on brightly colored, silken sheets, lying on their backs, their torsos half covered in bloody bedding. The fifth and sixth victims had actually been beheaded.
“ Can you, from these photos, tell me anything at all about these cases?” pressed Stephens.
She inched closer, on the edge of her seat, staring down at the photos now, the others watching her intently. She lifted each photo one at a time, her eyes closing now while her fingers wandered lazily across the placid and glossy surfaces. Something about such crime-scene photos touched people in a mysterious, dark corner of the brain, giving the mind over to the same sensation as when viewing a supposed UFO photo or a so-called ghost captured on film, but here, in a real photo shot of a real victim of violent crime, there seemed to be an aura about the corpse.
“ They are all victims of the same killer… except this one.” She discarded one of the two photos of boys found beheaded and lying in a forested area. Stephens's bushy eye-brows danced in response.
Jessica caught the unconscious body language and saw that Kim didn't miss it either. She quickly grabbed the second photo of the other beheaded boy and tossed it aside as well, saying, “This one too.”
“ Parlor tricks,” remarked Zanek. “Now try her on something substantial.”
“ The others are all related. At least the NOPD believes they are all victims of the same killer,” Kim continued, her eyes closing now, her fingers still reading the photos. “There is some awful common denominator which ties these victims and their killer together. He takes their vitality… their energy… identity… eats from their wounds… if not literally, figuratively feeds on them. I see strange crosses… black, rising birds…”
“ Then he's cannibalizing them?” asked Stephens.
“ Crosses?” asked Jessica.
“ I see large crosses, marching crosses… living crosses ablaze with fire.”
Stephens's eyes lit up. “What're you saying? That the KKK has something to do with the Queen of Hearts slayings?”
“ I just know what I see… crosses marching.”
“ Anything else?” asked Jessica.
“ These four were brutalized… sex organs amputated, and their hearts were cut out. Killer left his calling card, a queen of hearts.”
“ All information known to the public,” Stephens said, a little disappointed.
“ It's an unusual playing card, however,” she added. “Not plastic or paper product, something… softer, even… lacy?”
Information on the nature of the killer's calling card was not generally known, and had purposely been kept from the press and public, held back along with a few other particulars in order that a confession might more easily be dismissed or taken seriously.
Kim looked squarely into Stephens's eyes, reaching into his soul, and asked, “Does the killer make the cards? Does he stitch them out of yarn or silken string?”
Stephens was visibly unnerved. Swallowing became his preoccupation now, but to regroup, he quickly busied himself by placing aside the second flat envelope and going directly to the rumpled third, the lumpy one.
“ Well, Stephens?” Zanek pressed. “Is she onto something or not?”
Stephens breathed deeply and exhaled his answer. “Yes, remarkably accurate. Investigators have theorized that the uniqueness of the cards left in the cadavers marks them as personally handmade by the killer. They've been unable to locate their like in any novelty shop in the city. But you missed on one of the victims. He wasn't among the victims of the card-carrying killer, since no card was left with his body.”
This left Kim Desinor shaking her head, doubtful.
With fingers growing thicker by the moment, Stephens now shakily opened the unkempt brown envelope, spilling out its contents over the photos. A cascade of seemingly unrelated items skittered across Paul Zanek's desk: trinkets, keys and key rings, bracelets and swatches, rosary beads and necklaces, rings and earrings-one pair a set of crosses, another a purposeful mismatch or mishmash of satanic amulets-New Wave trinkets, skulls and crossbones; added to this were vials of makeup and lipstick, compact mirrors, assorted colorful combs, brushes, cigarette packs, colorful metal cigarette holders, intricate and delicate lighters, matchboxes, a broken pair of pumps, eyeglasses, a grip purse and feminine watches. Rounding out this montage now littering Paul's desktop were theater stubs, crumpled granola wrappers and several plastic playing cards, all the queen of hearts, all fakes, which Stephens now quickly scooped up and put away in a show of good grace under fire. Many of the items looked to belong to females.
“ More parlor games?” an exasperated Paul Zanek asked.
But Kim Desinor put up a hand to Paul's objections, stepping up to the littered desk and lightly sifting through the debris of wasted human lives. She picked over it, saying, “All the victims liked dressing up as women, didn't they?” Still, she browsed the flea-market items on Paul's desk, trying to find something that might speak to her. She discarded the grip purse and several of the jewelry items almost immediately, saying they were “not genuine.”
“ Did you bring any of the cards? The genuine ones, I mean?”
“ I didn't have time to get the real ones from the M.E. Crime lab's still running tests on 'em, but that all seems rather hopeless at this point,” Stephens explained.
“ Wait a minute, back up there,” said Jessica. “Do you mean you couldn't get hold of any of the cards?”
“ No, sorry. I couldn't.”
“ You've got problems in your lab then,” she assured him.
“ We… we are aware of some problems in the M.E.'s office, yes, and we're working to rectify them immediately, I assure you. Dr. Coran.”
“ I can understand why it'd be impossible to get one of the recent cards, but why can't you put your hands on one of the earlier ones?” Jessica continued.
“ Let's just say that the evidence hasn't always been handled with the care that it deserved… at the time.”
Jessica blanched and nodded, understanding only too well, recalling the intricacies of such problems in the New York crime lab when she was there, as well as the more recent political roadblocks she'd faced in Honolulu. She shouldn't expect less from New Orleans, she silently cautioned herself. Meanwhile, Dr. Desinor had discarded more than half the additional items before she touched a unique handmade rosary. It held a stunning unusual cross with an inlaid crystal, something your usual Catholic wouldn't wear since crystals were normally associated with mysticism, going counter to Catholic teaching, despite the indoctrinated and institutionalized superstitions of the Church itself. At any rate, the crystal made the cross and beads an interesting, eye-catching piece for Kim. It made the rosary something of an oddity, a maverick piece amid the typical clutter of a victim's pockets turned inside out.