“ You know, I've lived all my life in New Orleans, and I've spent the last six years on the NOPD, working my way up to sergeant detective, Homicide Squad. Guess it takes a case like this to make you wonder why a man'd subject himself to this line of work, huh?”
When he got no answer from Jessica, whose attention now was riveted on the body, deYampert merely continued on. “I got a wife and kids at home; they don't hardly know me anymore. I'm telling you, if something doesn't bust loose soon, well… I ain't so sure I want to keep on as a detective.”
She finally looked up at the doughy-eyed, large man and offered a half smile of reassurance. “Hang in there, Sergeant. We're going to get this bastard and soon.” Even as she spoke the words, she realized how cold and routine they must sound, but she only made things worse when she went on. “But if you're looking for psychoanalysis, see Kim Desinor over there. I understand she's a shrink as well as a psychic.”
“ Is that your idea of a consoling word, or do you have something concrete or useful to share with us?” asked an acerbic man now beside deYampert who quickly introduced himself as the principle detective on the case, Alex Sincebaugh.
She looked over her shoulder from the kneeling position she'd taken alongside the horrid corpse. The fire in Alex Sincebaugh's eyes was a sharp contrast to the cold, watery yet barren gaze of the corpse.
“ Why'd he leave this one's head intact?” asked deYampert of her, as if she had some magical dust to spread which would reveal the answers to all his questions.
“ I don't think he's really interested in heads as trophies,” she coolly replied.
“ We figured with yesterday's vie,” deYampert continued, as if still hoping for the pixie dust, “that he was increasing his attacks, but we never figured on finding another body within twenty-four hours.”
Jessica had no reply for such a statement, certainly not here and now. She'd need considerable time in the lab to look over the evidence of both recent kills. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that Dr. Kim Desinor was pacing the wharf, seeking out an area where she might receive some psychic emanations, Jessica supposed, but the doctor of head and haunt seemed at the moment only to be frustrated. Continuing to gather what trace elements she could from the waterlogged victim, scraping out the nails, knowing that the water had likely already gotten her real trace evidence, Jessica made short work of the preliminaries. At the same time, she kept an eye on Kim, who had now reached into her purse and pulled forth the rosary beads but seemed hesitant to clutch them, dropping them back into her purse instead.“So, do you have anything of substance for us? Dr. Coran?” Sincebaugh pressed. “Wardlaw, your M.E.,” she began to Sincebaugh's audible groan, having to forge ahead over the man's pained expression. “Anyway, he tells me yesterday long-distance that he was able to get some semen from the previous victim's mouth which he's running DNA scans on now. He theorizes that it could be from the killer, and if so… who knows, maybe we can leam something about this guy's physical makeup-racial identity, probable height, weight, color of hair, eyes…”
“ Wardlaw's just as likely to botch a DNA test as any other test he runs.”
She looked up again at the rankled cop. “Well, I see there's no love lost between you, but amazingly enough, there were some hairs and fibers found inside the corpse which didn't belong to the victim.”
“ Semen? None of the others had any semen in their mouths.” DeYampert was working on this puzzle.
“ Exactly… and none of them had had their heads severed either, and nor does this morning's package. Everything intact except the missing heart and genitals.”
Sincebaugh was nodding appreciatively. “I'd had similar un answered questions about yesterday's 'package' as you call it, Doctor. So, Frank's on top of that one, huh? Going at it through DNA testing. Just where is officer Frank Wardlaw this morning, Dr. Coran?” Sincebaugh asked while struggling with some inner turmoil that Jessica couldn't quite put her finger on.
“ I assume he's at his crime lab. I really couldn't say.”
“ I would've assumed he'd be here. How're you two getting on, then?”
“ We actually haven't as yet met-face-to-face, that is, Lieutenant.”
Damn thorough of Frank to catch the semen, thought Sincebaugh. Wonder what's up. Now that the famous Jessica Coran had hit town, was Frank going to finally do his job? “Just the same, Frank ought to be out here, don't you agree?”
“ He… he wasn't called out, so I'm told.” She blinked in the morning glare in P.C. Stephens's direction, her long lashes like butterfly wings.
“ Wasn't called? Really?”
“ Yes, really. He's…well, guess you'll hear soon enough, but it's not my place to tell you.”
“ Tell me what?”
“ He's currently under some, I don't know, attack…”
“ What the hell's that? FBI euphemism for investigation of misconduct and impropriety?”
“ Both in and out of the lab, I'm afraid.”
“ Damn, so you're taking charge altogether on the forensics end? So we trade off Frank's alcoholic problems for your…press-magnetism?” He pointed to the array of cameras on the bridge, the reporters held back by uniformed cops. “I didn't invite the press, but for the time being, yes to your question, and in particular on this case. Wardlaw's staff will see to the routine calls.” Ben and Alex exchanged a glance. Things were happening fast.
“ So Frank let the Hearts case blow him out of the water,” Alex mumbled to deYampert.
“ Maybe his bleeding heart did him in,” said Ben, and both men laughed at the inside joke.
She knew how callous and jaded cops were, that it came with the territory, but she empathized strongly with the unknown Dr. Wardlaw, who'd fallen prey to the case he was working. She imagined it could happen to any M.E. or pa-thologist who got too emotionally involved in a case, and without thinking, she blurted out, “The man's hurting badly both emotionally and professionally, gentlemen. I don't suppose you two have ever been there?”
“ It's hard to muster any sympathy for Frank, Doctor, so don't even try,” replied Alex curtly.
“ Is he, you know, psychologically impaired over the case, or did the booze do him in?” asked Ben.
“ That's the common belief, yes,” she replied, leaving her response purposefully vague because she didn't herself know all the particulars. The M.E.'s predicament made her wonder if someone would one day be speaking the same epitaph over her when she finally flipped out over a case.
Sincebaugh was now also thinking about Wardlaw's emotional response to the Hearts case, the ramifications of it all. Not only had the case had a powerful emotional effect on Alex, but on others as well. He had given little consideration to its impact on Wardlaw or Landry or even Benjamin deYampert, who'd been beside him the whole time, so wrapped up was he in his own reproach and turmoil and the damnable nightmares plaguing him thanks to the most bizarre case of his tenure as detective in the NOPD.
Something in Jessica's steely, glinting eye made Alex now look over his shoulder at the psychic, Kim Desinor, whom he'd been ordered to fetch and bring here before he and deYampert had even had a chance to view the body. It stuck in his craw that he and Ben were sent like a couple of welcome-wagon ladies to greet the psychic whom Landry had notified them about.
Landry had said that it was out of his hands, that the Department's top people had requested it of the mayor, for Christ's sake, and that the mayor, a superstitious SOB, had readily gone along with the idea of hiring the psychic to come in to do her touchy-feely thing over the case evidence. But nobody had warned him that the psychic would be allowed here at the crime scene, to rummage about as she liked. What the fuck had happened to proper protocol? And what was the famous FBI forensics guru, Jessica Coran, going to think of the Department, or how a backward police precinct in New Orleans conducted a murder investigation? He momentarily thought of all the evidence-gathering he and Ben had done, his thick notebook filled with detailed drawings of the crime scenes, notes and sketches which he'd pored over and stared at at all hours of the night, none of it giving up anything remotely helpful to determining the killer's identity.