Unable for the time being to locate Rychman, Jessica slowed long enough to retrieve a copy of the tape made while Darius and Archer were reopening the bodies of Olin and Hamner. She located a tape player and some privacy, listening to the report for any sign of friction between the two M.E. s. To her consternation, she could make out no such difficulties whatever, and this made her doubt her own earlier misgivings about Simon Archer. A straight arrow, Rychman had called him, and suppose he was? And suppose she raised questions about him only to learn that she had sullied his reputation for nothing? Suppose her imagination had run amok? It could cause enough of a stink that her superiors in Quantico might smell it. Yeah, just what O'Rourke would like most of all to come out of her investigation of the Claw. Hadn't O'Rourke gone behind her back to put Matisak in her way?
Her convictions regarding Archer hadn't yet solidified and she was already second-guessing herself: What would Rychman do? How would others react? Would everyone think her mad?
She was unsure what to do with her suspicion, but she knew that she wanted to pay a great deal more attention to Archer than she had. At the moment, she assumed he was meeting with the C. R and the mayor, his interim status as manager of the coroner's office being made permanent, naming him as the new M.E. in charge. Was it a dream he would sabotage for… possibly kill for? Men killed for far, far less.
She went searching for Alan, expecting to find a very upset man who'd no doubt respond badly to the irresponsible publication of Ovid's poem. Rychman, she learned, was in conference with Mayor Halle and C.P. Eldritch. No doubt he was being informed of Archer's new appointment and all of them were hashing out a public relations ploy to combat remarks in Drake's Times story, which alleged that the police had knowingly arrested the wrong man in the Claw case, and that he was not the author of the horrid poem. Telephones were shrilly crying out the message that the newspaper account had had a great ripple effect throughout the city, and that Jim Drake's career with the paper was solidified.
“ I'm afraid he can't be disturbed now,” Rychman's matronly secretary said to her, pursuing Jessica as she pushed by, anyway.
The men in the room fell silent the moment she pressed through the door, except for Rychman, who told his secretary that it was all right.
“ You may as well know, Dr. Coran, that the C. P here wants someone else to head the Claw task force, that I'm being held responsible for the leaks getting out to the press, and that maybe I'm the Deep Throat here… for Christ's sake.”
“ That's crazy,” she said, going toward the mayor. “Alan's done everything in his power to contain such information leaks-everything.” She realized now that Dr. Archer wasn't in the room.
“ We've traced this thing. Ames didn't do it,” said Eldritch, his thin frame almost quaking with his anger. “His secretary was grilled for hours, and nothing there.”
“ But Lathrope's people knew,” she countered.
“ All screened and let go.”
“ The secretary… she made copies that day,” replied Jessica.
“ She's the most likely, but she swears otherwise,” Alan replied. “I'm not a hundred percent convinced of her innocence but-”
“ Darius was the only other person to have any knowledge of it, and he's dead,” said the mayor.
“ No,” she countered. “There was also Simon Archer.”
They all stared at her. Rychman asked, “Archer? What could Simon possibly have to gain?”
“ You're considering him for Darius' position, aren't you?”
“ Yes, but it's not an appointment. He must go through various boards, committees, and compete with other applicants,” said the mayor. “Of course, he… he has solicited my backing and I… I gave it, of course. But why do you suspect… What possible reason would he have to… to sabotage Rychman's investigation in such a way?”
“ I'm not completely sure. Call it free association, but I believe he has some plan to… to dazzle you, sir, to ensure he gets the position as chief M.E. of the city, and the more sensationalized the case, well…”
“ That's… that is a very serious accusation, Dr. Coran. I hope you have some evidence to support it.”
“ At the moment, I have very little… only circumstantial.” She held up the tape she'd just listened to. “Proof that he knew something had been found is in here.” She then showed them the computer disk. “And in here is a computer representation of the weapon used by the Claw, a representation that I believe Dr. Archer himself could have created given the evidentiary materials in his possession, and yet he failed to do so.”
“ What the weapon looks like?” Rychman was instantly curious. “Let's see it.”
The C. P and the mayor were equally curious. Rychman led them to a secluded room with a computer terminal, and in moments Jessica had them staring at what she believed the Claw used on his victims. Rychman was amazed, as were the others. Before their eyes a graphic representation done in geometric red lines afforded them their first glance into the nature of the weapon, and with it the nature of the beast.
“ It looks like some kind of meat-cleaving glove,” said Halle.
“ It is that,” said Jessica.
“ Look at that,” said Eldritch. “You ever see anything like it before?”
“ Closest thing to it is a prosthetic hook,” said Rychman. “Kind you see on some longshoremen working the docks.”
“ Maybe the bastard's a sailor, then, a merchant marine.”
“ I think he's more into gardening tools,” countered Jessica. “Notice how similar the three prongs are to a hand-held garden hoe.”
“ Yeah… yeah,” agreed Alan, nodding. “You're right.”
“ You have absolutely no doubt that this is the weapon used on his victims?”
“ None whatever.”
“ How did you possibly come to-”
“ A special forensics program designed by my mentor, Dr. Holecraft, Washington's chief M.E. for over thirty years. He had for years dreamed of and worked on a program that would collect all information on the wounds inflicted, compute this to the last degree and reassemble it to mirror back the exact nature of the device used in an attack, from blunt objects to blades and even to caliber of a handgun via the bullet's entrance and exit wounds.”
“ But if you brought the program with you from Quantico, there's no reason to assume that Dr. Archer would have been proficient in its use, or had had the time-” countered Eldritch, who seemed anxious to defend Archer.
“ But he was proficient in its use, and he did have the time.” She stopped him with upraised hands.
“ You're sure of this, Dr. Coran?” asked Alan.
“ The program was sent to the NYPD M.E.'s office two months ago, and Darius didn't seem to know that it was on hand when I asked him about it. Of course, then he became excited about its use, and he asked me-since I'd had practical experience with it-to do the honors. I've been working on this image ever since. But prior to this, for whatever strange reason, the program wasn't being used.”
“ Perhaps Archer was incapable of using it.” Eldritch's hands went skyward. “I, personally, have a phobia when it comes to computers.”
“ Archer and every medical examiner in the country wants this program. It's being tested now in a number of cities. One of them, from the beginning, had to be New York.”
“ So the question arises, why wasn't it being used?”
The mayor's question resounded about the room.
“ Are you certain of your suspicions of Archer?” Alan pointedly asked.
“ I'd stake my reputation on it.”
“ And are you equally sure that Dr. Archer dragged his feet on providing this information?”
“ I don't know that with hundred percent certainty. As I said, my… my instincts are based on circumstantial findings. But I do know that he knew something had been found in the Phillips cadaver. Dr. Darius confided in him.”
“ I see.”
“ That still doesn't prove he told the press about it,” said Eldritch.
“ No, no, it doesn't, but he's the only one you haven't talked to.”
“ But we did talk to him,” said the mayor.
“ About this very subject?”
“ He denied having known anything about it. Said he had been left out of the loop since your arrival, Doctor.”
“ Then I suggest you speak with him again.” She popped the tape into a player beside her. She had earlier cued it to the spot she wished Rychman to hear. Darius' distinctive voice was followed by Archer's, a clear exchange of the information Archer claimed now to have no knowledge of. It wasn't the worst of his lies, she guessed.
She hazarded a tentative word. “If he'll lie about this… what else is he capable of lying about?”
“ What do you mean. Doctor?” asked Halle, dumbfounded.
“ I fear that he only forwarded selective information out to Quantico, that which would back up his theory of the crime, that the Claw is a single individual.”
“ My God,” said the mayor. “If this is true… think of it… It could ruin us all if a bastard like that Drake fellow got hold of it.”
“ Drake doesn't have to get hold of it,” said Rychman, “all he has to do is imagine it. Half what he writes is pure conjecture.”
“ And the other half?” said Eldritch. “Half-truths have been destroying us in the press-you included, Dr. Coran.”
“ I've learned it's best to ignore my critics,” she countered. She knew that Rychman was taking most of the heat that had been flamed by Drake's biting, irresponsible series. “Lathrope's secretary has ties with Drake,” Alan said. “She's just as likely a candidate as Archer, more so even.”
“ But you saw the woman, you heard her,” countered Eldritch.
The mayor added, “I believe she was telling the truth, else she would not have told of her former involvement with the man and his phone call pleading for the very information we were grilling her about.”
Rychman conceded that he felt Marilyn Khoen was being honest with them, and he was trained to know a liar when he spoke to one. He considered his senses more reliable than a polygraph, which Marilyn had agreed to take.
“ When I think of how I charged into Ames' place,” said Rychman, falling into a chair, “accusing everybody in sight… damn… damn…”
“ So what're we going to do?” asked Eldritch. “About Archer? How're we going to trip him up, if he is indeed behind all this?”
“ The man appears unflappable,” said the mayor.
“ I'll be working a great deal closer now,” Jessica said, “and I'll keep my eyes wide open, you can be assured of that. But we need something to shake him up. I suggest a wholesale investigation of Dr. Darius' department, from mislaid toe tags to broken beakers. I suggest a call for an exhumation of the first victim or victims. I suggest a second autopsy of some of the victims, perhaps Dr. Darius' autopsy as well. Chalk it up to a departmental investigation of what appears shoddy practices since Dr. Darius first fell ill. Give it to the papers, if you like.”
“ Not at all bad,” said Eldritch, thinking like the politician he was. “Hey, Rychman? It'd certainly take some of the heat off of our asses, move it downstage, so to speak.”
“ No, we give the papers nothing,” countered Rychman. “We investigate our own in-house, and the M.E.'s office is part of the network of government offices serving the people. We leak this to the papers and we're no better than Archer, if he's guilty. Who knows, he may have just been following orders.” This made Eldritch blanch and fidget.
Jessica thought of her initial suspicions focusing on Darius instead of Archer, and she felt ashamed of herself but proud of Alan for standing so firm on his friend's memory.
“ Don't be a damned fool, Rychman,” said Eldritch, standing in Alan's face now. “You can't possibly think I had anything to do with some alleged wrongdoing in the M.E.'s office.”
“ Screw it, Eldritch. I'm not handling any allegation aimed at the coroner's office in the damned press. I'll do it, but I'll do it by the book, using IAD.”
“ Internal Affairs is fine,” said Mayor Halle, “and should Dr. Coran's fears be borne out, then we go to the press.” The mayor didn't appear anxious to deal with differences between Rychman and Eldritch here and now.
Eldritch backed off and Alan struggled to hide his pleasure.
“ You will keep us posted every step of the way,” Eldritch told Rychman before barging out.
The mayor stopped at the door, turned and looked back at Coran and Rychman. “Keep up the good work, people. Little wonder we've had difficulty catching the Claw if what you say about Archer is true. Imagine it… If he's guilty of subverting information vital to the case, he's… well, he may be an accessory to murder.”