“ God, and I thought all the really bad and horrible stuff was caused by modem-day stressors, the times, alienation, disenfranchisement, big cities, isolation in an uncaring, jaded modern world,” said Sharpe.
Pinwaring vigorously shook his head. “Those who fail to understand the lessons of the past are doomed to commit its errors over and over, and perhaps those who do understand the lessons of the past are doomed to repeat them as well. I'm not sure. Jury is still out on that one, but in the Roman mind, the laws governing murder-the most inescapably despicable act on the planet-were quite simple, really: If you bring on someone else's decay-the pollution of the temple of the soul of another human being-then you repay murder in exact kind. In fact, they believed a murderer paid over and over throughout eternity; that there was no forgiveness for a capital crime, and there was no escaping one's punishment for the greatest crime man can commit.”
“ A far cry from our judicial system today,” complained O'Brien. “Christianity's influence.”
“ Perhaps we need a little more Roman thinking in our courts today,” Jessica agreed. “Can I quote you on that, Jessica?” asked O'Brien. “No, you may not. I've got enough problems left over from the last time you quoted me.”
“ Hey, that story brought our man out, didn't it?” asked O'Brien. “Just as you had hoped, if I don't miss my guess.”
“ No comment.”
“ Fair enough.”
“ You realize that if this madman from Iowa is reading his Bible literally, he will interpret the passage in the same sense that I have,” said Pinwaring.
A silence fell over them all. They were left alone with a terrible image and their thoughts.
Pinwaring added, “While this epistle has been interpreted in various ways throughout biblical history, the particularly pernicious interpretation that troubles you all so greatly now is a viable one for anyone reading the passage. It is perhaps a most twisted version of 'render onto Caesar that which is his'-your very flesh if you are found guilty of the law of ultimate sin. In other words, when convicted of murder in Rome, Caesar exacted a horrifying price. The Roman authorities saw to it that a killer's sinful flesh was baptized in the decay of his victim, and to assure this, the convicted was lashed hand to hand, foot to foot, cheek to cheek, if not to the back. Believe me, the Romans experimented with every conceivable position-some quite crude, to be sure.”
“ Where was this done?”
“ Always out in the sun, in an arena or plaza as an object lesson for the populace.”
“ So barbaric,” said Richard Sharpe.
The graphologist, Nagby, began to squirm and hold back her last meal. Finally, she jumped up and rushed from the room, threatening to vomit, no doubt in search of the ladies' room.
“ Before there was Nazi Germany, there was Rome,” commented O'Brien. “Absolute power corrupts absolutely.”
Pinwaring sadly added, “I'm afraid your worst fears may be ongoing as we speak, that Judge DeCampe's abductor means to make his victim slowly, painfully, and torturously decay to death via the decaying remains of his son.”
“ It fits with every step he has taken.” Jessica admitted aloud what they were all hopefully thinking: “If she is alive, she must be going insane.”
Everyone pictured DeCampe still alive, still enduring this horrendous torture. It had only been two days since the abduction.
The thought of Kim learning the truth frightened her now more than ever. How soon would Kim come to the truth? That DeCampe was indeed alive, yes, but also strapped to a decaying corpse.
“ God, I hope we're wrong,” moaned Shannon Keyes, whom Jessica guessed to be thinking in the same direction as she. “I mean, since the guy's kid was electrocuted in the Texas chair, why wouldn't the old man retaliate in kind? I mean Marsden said the old man had a cattle prod, right? And… and he did use it, didn't he? Used electricity to overpower her. She's likely already been zapped and fried by this SOB.”
“ It would be a merciful alternative to… to slowly decaying to death, lashed to a corpse,” Jessica agreed. Still, she could not get Pinwaring's words out of her head long enough to believe in Keyes's alternative theory, and she guessed that not even Keyes was buying it.
'To carry out his plan, he has to have a place where he feels safe, at some distance from the rest of the world,” Jessica said aloud. “He's had to vacate Iowa, and he was wily enough to know that it would be the first place we'd descend upon once we learned about his son's recent execution and the part DeCampe played in it, his going there for the body, and taking away two coffins with him. So he's had to have planned out carefully where he is holding Judge DeCampe, and it will have to be an isolated piece of real estate.”
“ Real estate somewhere in the vicinity of D.C.?” asked O'Brien.
“ We suspect so. Listen, we've got to get back to the command post, O'Brien, Father Pinwaring. Give our regards to Dr. Nagby.” Jessica ushered Richard and Shannon out, whispering in Keyes's ear, “No wonder Kim is still suffering psychic hurts.”
Keyes replied, “DeCampe is still alive and still suffering.”
“ Undergoing Roman justice, I should say,” added Richard.
“ Vengeance.”
“ Unnatural revenge if ever there was.”
They made their way back to the waiting car. Jessica said, “This means Kim's going to continue to weaken along with DeCampe, should she find out the truth, and perhaps even if she doesn't.”
“ I fear you're right,” Keyes agreed.
Jessica explained to Richard what had occurred at the hospital with Kim. “Has she any chance of pulling out of it?” he asked.
“ There's always a chance,” she replied.
Keyes added, “I'm sorry about your friend.”
“ People can die from so-called psychosomatic wounds, can't they?” asked Sharpe.
“ They can… and they have,” replies Keyes.
Jessica had read of documented cases. Her heart felt like the proverbial dead lump of coal so often referred to-cold and hard. She feared to allow herself to feel, and she feared what her mind proposed.
FIFTEEN
Unfathomable to mere mortals is the lore of fiends.
When Jessica, Richard, and Shannon returned to the operations room, Jessica called the task force together, saying, “It's a new game, people.” Jessica paced the ops room. She told them what had come of the visit to the Washington Post newsroom, cursing under her breath as she finished. “This SOB sold his house through RE/MAX, they tell us from Iowa. The letter to the Post was mailed from Virginia. We're going to concentrate our search in the D.C. area and all around D.C. That's every state surrounding us: Maryland, Virginia, Pennsylvania, New York. We canvas every RE/MAX realty in the book within a hundred mile radius of D.C.”
“ What about other realtors?” asked one of the team.
“ RE/MAX RE/MAX! That's our connection. Get hold of the 800 RE/MAX number, and put them to work. Chief Gorman in Iowa said his guys had run over a For Sale sign, said it was RE/MAX. Suppose he shopped RE/MAX for his safe location? Suppose he has one of those telephone book-sized available listings through RE/MAX, which he planned to use in Houston but then had to use in our area instead. Suppose the g'damn old fox never left the D.C. area?”
“ Else he had a place here all along,” suggested Keyes. “We should call Iowa back, have them run down if the family had any land holding in the D.C. area.”
“ We'll do that; in the meantime, we have to contact every realtor in the area.”
“ That's a lot of real estate offices to cover,” replied J. T.
“ Lew, get on the police band and ask after any crimes that might have a connection with real estate in any way, shape, or form in the past, say, seventy-two hours.”