Jessica also wondered about its owner.
Kim found the crystal nicely weighted and warm to the touch, either the mineral stone or her own body temperature the source. Either way, it sent out emanations. She held firmly to it and concentrated.
“ Only some of this clutter comes from the victims. This rosary came from the very first victim's neck.”
Stephens filled his lungs now and puffed up, feeling relieved that the woman was human, that she was capable of a mistake. After all he'd seen and heard so far, he had almost begun to believe in wizards and witchcraft, and now suddenly he was not so uncomfortable as before. He now rocked on the balls of his feet as if winning a point.
Jessica noticed the unconscious clue, and wasn't surprised to hear Dr. Desinor correct herself. “No… not his neck. Found near the body, between the legs perhaps.”
“ That's very good, Dr. Desinor, but sorry, you're wrong this time. Nobody bats a thousand, as they say. This particular piece belongs to the unrelated, unsolved murder case. The case I mentioned before? Wherein there was no playing card left at the scene?”
She continued. “Crosses. It says look for the cross or crosses, flaming crosses.”
“ More with the crosses,” Zanek mentioned. “That could be significant.”
“ But I told you,” Stephens continued, “that this piece is unrelated, that it's a control piece.”
“ Crosses that madly march on,” Kim repeated. Not hearing him? wondered Jessica. Or not wanting to hear him?
“ What kind of crosses?” Zanek pressed on as if he expected to solve the baffling case here and now.
“ I would assume New Orleans is full of crosses,” said Jessica, unsure of Dr. Desinor now. “Church towers, graveyards, any number of windmill-type displays, crossroads even.”
“ What kind of crosses are you talking about, Doctor?” Zanek pressed now, as if on a scent, acting as a facilitator, leading her on.
“ Living crosses, burning crosses, crosses of blood and bile and tissue…”
“ Jesus, that sounds like KKK from where I come from,” repeated Stephens. “And the KKK are known gay-bashers, but as I said…”
“ Can't be sure…don't know for certain… unclear…” Kim Desinor was now saying. Suddenly she felt a sharp pang of fear and terror that sent her body into a paroxysm of rigidity. “Oh, Christ… God… help me! I'm cutting…he's… he's bleeding… I'm cutting and he's bleeding everywhere, God! God's blood everywhere!”
Jessica at first thought she saw Kim Desinor acting out the part of a helpless victim, warding off blows and trying desperately to defend herself with her bare hands against her psychic attacker, but on second look, Jessica saw a much different image: Dr. Desinor had become the attacker now, and she was raining blows with two clenched fists over some imagined victim at her feet. She went to her knees to better destroy her enemy, wielding the rosary still entwined in her grasp as if it were an enormous and powerful weapon in her hands.
The psychic's blows against Zanek's carpeting were so filled with rage, enmity and energy that Jessica was mesmerized by the powerful image that Kim Desinor now presented.
The woman's hands repeatedly flew skyward, and with the power of a U.S. Open tennis player, using both hands, she continued to maniacally stab at some unseen object before her. Then she suddenly collapsed and writhed, until a shocked Jessica rushed to her and worked feverishly to pry loose her grasp on the black rosary beads and the crystal cross.
Stephens, while both overawed and afraid, cried out, “What's happening?”
“ Who do you see? What does he look like? Can you make out his features?” Zanek pleaded, having gone to his knees alongside Kim and Jessica now he'd wrapped his arms about Kim, forcing her to end it as he rocked her there in his arms, telling her she was safe, that he had her, that they were in his office and nothing could harm her here.
Kim went limp in his embrace, and for a moment Jessica thought they looked like lovers.
“ God,” Zanek said to Jessica, “I've never seen her react like this before. Something evil about that thing.” He indicated the black rosary beads attached to the crystal, dangling now from Jessica's hand.
“ Is she all right? My God, I had no idea…”
“ She's all right,” said Zanek. “She's all right.”
Kim was coming back, but her mouth hung open, slack with fear and gasping.
“ It… it doesn't make sense…” Stephens began, wide-eyed, licking his lips. “The damned rosary came from a murder scene over a year old. Belonged to the victim according to the manifest, a separate unrelated case.”
“ Well, maybe you better look at it again,” suggested Zanek, angry with the other man's reaction.
“ No…” muttered Kim.
“ What?” asked Zanek.
“ No what?” added Stephens, hovering now.
“ No… no,” she countered. “It… the rosary belongs to the killer.”
“ Christ, are you sure?” Stephens asked.
“ Yes, I'm… quite sure.” Stephens's skepticism remained intact, as did Jessica's. Even if Kim were right about the rosary, she might simply have gotten vibes about a separate killer on the earlier case. It was highly improbable that such a killer, so filled with hatred for gay men, would go on a one-year hiatus, unless he'd gone to another territory and returned. And suggesting an actual link between cases on the basis of a psychic seizure didn't seem to Jessica what a detective or a court of law might call concrete evidence.
Jessica and Zanek helped Kim to the nearby divan, where she lay quietly for a moment, trying to regain her strength and composure. “The knife… the knife, big as a bloody sword,” she gasped aloud. “And…and what he… what he did with it… awful.”
Jessica saw a deep concern had come over P.C. Stephens, a shadow about the brow that spoke of disbelief. Was he having serious second thoughts about importing Dr. Desinor to his city? Was he wondering about the circus like atmosphere that bringing in any psychic was apt to create, or this psychic in particular? Jessica watched the thin-lipped man as he spoke. “That's… that's about it with regard to the weapon. Our for-ensics expert had maintained all along that it's near as big as a machete.” He seemed to stare down at Kim with a new and burning sense of wonder. “But… but how? How could you know that just from… from holding a rosary?”
“ I held the knife too. Look… look at my arms.”
Her hands and arms were red with a crimson hue as if bloodstained.
True stigmata, Jessica thought, amazed, never before seeing such a display. Kim Desinor's skin at the forearms and hands had unaccountably taken on the look of unwashed fresh blood. Jessica could even make out the spatter trails. She wanted to get a photo of this bizarre effect, but almost in a blink, the red hues, stains and stringlets of ghostly blood were gone.
Zanek and Jessica looked for cuts, but there were none, not so much as a bruise, just the red hue against the skin that had evaporated in a ghostly fade-out. Staged trick or real? Jessica wondered.
“ I had my hands in the boy's chest… reached in and cut out his heart…”
“ My God, she was acting out the killer's part,” Stephens raggedly whispered.
“ Get her some water, Stephens, now!” shouted Paul, sending the other man out.
He then held Kim for a moment, Jessica backing into a corner, silently looking on before asking again, “Is she going to be all right?”
But it was as if Zanek had forgotten Jessica's presence.
Jessica stared at the sight of a softer Paul Zanek, who was allowing his emotions sway as he caressed first Kim's cheek and next her shining, sun-dappled hair. The other woman had ither gone unconscious or was simply enjoying the attention Paul was giving her.
A spasm of nostalgia wafted over Jessica's mind as she looked on from her corner, her thoughts drifting back to the man she loved, the man she'd left in Hawaii, James Parry, whom she'd phoned the night before, assuring him that she was safe and that all was right in her world, lying through her teeth to him even as she wanted him to race to her.