Dr. Meredyth Sanger's tearful sea-green eyes widened on seeing Lucas at her door; she next threw the door open and leaped into Lucas's arms. In his arms, her body heaved, fearful and shaking in his fervent embrace. They had been close friends for a decade now, and they had tested the boundaries of that friendship to include a sexual interlude from which she'd backed off while Lucas had patiently awaited a time when they might renew their mutual passion for one another. She feared "losing herself" in him, analyzing what they had out of existence. They had argued heatedly, all that she'd needed to back further from the relationship and see to other men.
Lucas brushed her hair and held her against his chest. "It's going to be all right. It's going to be all right," he assured her, taking her face in his hands now, making her focus on his dark eyes. "I'm here now." Lucas wondered where her boyfriend, Byron Priestly, might be as she answered his thought for him.
"Byron left me alone with it…ran out the door."
"Are you kidding? He was with you when you opened the package, and he just ran out the door?"
"Said he could not put up with my patients and their sick claim on my time anymore, not after this. The sight of the eyes in the box scared the shit out of me, but it terrified him."
"Then I suppose he won't be back?"
"He wouldn't dare," she replied. "But Lucas, his prints're gonna be all over the wrapping."
"Why're his prints all over the packaging?"
"He insisted on opening it. I had put it aside…not wanting to deal with it tonight, in no rush, but him! No, his curiosity was burning a hole through his brain, so I gave in, chucked it to him, and told him to have a ball."
"And he got it right between the eyes, so to speak…two eyeballs. How prophetic."
"More like pathetic, his lack of balls."
"I can understand how a package with eyes might upset a fellow who calls himself By."
"Everything fell out, including the note, the CD, and the teeth…all over my carpet."
"Must've shook ol' By up."
"Shook us both up! Lucas, I've wracked my brain for anyone who might b? capable of this, and even my worst client is not capable of this-and to send a foul package to you as well. Lucas, who could be behind it?"
"On my way over, I wondered if one of your clients might be behind it. Perhaps one who somehow knows our history together? One who knows about our having worked cases together, and that we have been intimate with one another?" he asked.
"The first one I thought of was Herman Philip Teal, my weirdest at present, but as for knowing about the connection we have, Lucas, anyone reading the newspapers last spring, following the Walters case, would know how closely we work together." Meredyth had offered not only profiling advice on the case, but she had helped interview Samuel Irving Walters when Lucas had arrested him for the rape and mutilation murders of six teens-all male-all occurring in the concentrated areas of West University Place, Southside Place, and Bellaire.
Meredyth took a deep breath, nourishing her shattered nerves and calming in his presence. He had that effect on people. She focused on his reassuring power and gaze, and the soft words of encouragement and support. "You're all right now. We'll get past this together, Mere."
They still stood in the foyer, the door left to stand open, neighbors creeping from their doorways, curious but tentative. It was clear she wanted out of the apartment, to run out like her boyfriend before her; she certainly didn't want to go back into the condominium alone. But seeing the prying eyes of others, she pulled him inside and closed the door.
Lucas firmly said, "Point me in the direction of these wayward eyes, Mere."
Leaning against the door now, she simply pointed to the interior.
Across the room lay the pair of human eyeballs, still attached to the optic nerves that trailed after like the fantail of exotic jelly fishes. The sight had an unholy irreverence about it, the eyes lying askew in the thick pile of her plush gray carpet, fibers clinging to the gummy irises. The flesh was as freshly cut from a human corpse as the selection of human organ tissue sent to Lucas himself.
"What the hell's going on?" he asked aloud, expecting no answer but feeling a need to keep talking.
A step closer and the image was replaced, the eyes now looking like two smooth white Ping-Pong balls with tubular extensions, and strikingly dark, deep-blue seeds for pupils at each center. He wondered to whom the eyes had once belonged. Were they male or female? Mexican or American? Italian or Irish? Then he grotesquely heard the song lyrics "when Irish eyes are smiling " flit through his cop's brain. Had a roomful of cops been present, at least one or more would be humming the tune by now, putting into practice the time-honored black humor so necessary in dealing with such a horror as this pair of errant eyes presented. Eyes that followed you across a room…eyes that pinned an opponent, that popped a gasket, that darted for escape, that stabbed at the heart, that were windows to the soul, and that were only for you…All the cliches rushed to mind, doing little good against the edginess of the situation.
To add to the revulsion of the scene, Lucas saw the pair of human teeth-also scattered from the fallen box-lying at a distance from the eyes, each having taken different paths. He intuited the eyes making a soft landing and remaining fairly close to where they had made contact with the plush carpeting, but the teeth he saw bouncing wildly, like a pair of dropped earrings, when the parcel was overturned. This would explain how far they'd traveled from the epicenter of the large stain where the liquid residue of the spoiling eyes had slipped from the Styrofoam-laced box. From this, he determined precisely where Byron had been standing when he had insisted on tearing open the delivery and subsequently dropping it.
Lucas went into the kitchen and banged around in search of something, the sound of silverware clattering off silverware as he rummaged, making her call out, "What're you looking for?"
'Tongs…found 'em!" he said, returning and going to the discarded packaging, and using the white Teflon tongs, he crouched and reached for the crumpled paper that had been wrapped about the box to examine the handwriting.
"Do you have to use my best tongs?" she asked.
"All I could find. Look here," he said, turning the block lettering on the package to his eyes. "It's the same block lettering."
He replaced the packaging precisely where it had lain. He then reached for the scripted note, another little poem from the look of it. "I'd swear it's the same handwriting as the package sent me. Only difference, return address is your private office downtown."
"It's a ruse; no one from the office would do this, no one."
"What about one of your patients?"
"Perhaps. We could start there. I have handwriting on all my patients, but it's most likely whoever did this would disguise the hand."
"Disguised or not, there'll be patterns. We'll get a top- notch handwriting expert to find them and rule in or out anyone you might suspect from your practice. Same for the cops you've counseled at the precinct, and any criminals you've interviewed recently."
"How can you suspect any of the men at the Three-one, Lucas? They're all grateful for my help."
"Does that include Lewis Adiwa, the guy you helped IAD nail for that prostitute murder?"
"He's in jail clear 'cross the state in Shackleford State Penitentiary. Clear to Abilene, Lucas."
Lucas shrugged. "Cells and bars don't keep men from operating on the outside. Not anymore. They've got civil liberties, phone calls, opportunities like never before. You see that new reality show on prison bands? Give me a break."
"Maybe Adiwa should be examined. He did threaten my life, but I really doubt any of your colleagues at the precinct could be behind this."
"I don't think you know how nasty cops can get when they're pulling off what they consider a joke."
"A joke! This is no damned joke, Lucas."
"I suspect it may be all a prank aimed at the two of us, concocted by Itchy Amie Feldman maybe, encouraged by others maybe, and given the means-the human tissues by Dr. Frank Patterson-whom I've had my run-ins with- maybe."
"That's a lot of maybes."
"Perhaps."
"And besides, it's…it's just too…too darned crazy. They'd have to be fools! They could lose their jobs for this kind of insane prank."
"Not if they come waltzing up to the door right now with a beer keg, pretzels, and claimed responsibility, and we all laugh it off."
"I'd have their badges, and they know it."
"Not if it can't be proven, and if The Itch-that is, Feldman, has someone working the inside of the lab with him, the lab guy will've known to use parts from a body long since buried or even cremated. Wouldn't take much to fudge the records and rob off pieces from a John or a Jane Doe autopsy."
"You think so? How do you do that, Lucas? Get into the heads of such sickos? It can't be easy or fun."
"A gift or a curse. I have a hell of an imagination, you might say."
She took a deep breath, considering more seriously his theory. "It almost makes me feel better, at least in one sense, to think it's all some sort of inside joke by the boys of the Thirty-first-as sick as that may be, but why pick on us, Lucas?"
"How many people you know that're jealous of a close bond, Mere? We have that. Others dislike us for it. Simple Psych 101."
"If it's true, it'll certainly narrow our search."
"I plan to watch their reactions tomorrow when I go in; you do the same."
"Damned juvenile behavior… typical cop crap," she muttered. "Bastards."
Lucas had offered an explanation she could handle with a great deal more ease, at least tonight. He mentally patted himself on the back for having calmed her. She was visibly more at ease, so long as she kept her eyes off the eyes. A hoax seemed far preferable to this being a horrible prelude to worse psychological attacks. It had the added virtue of an end in sight. Lucas asked if she would make coffee, sending her into the kitchen, away from the disagreeable objects littering her living room. She had taken a step toward the kitchen when a loud knock at her door sent a new shock wave through her.
"CSI Team, Houston Police Department! Open up, please!"
Lucas stepped to the door and opened it for young Ted Hoskins, a pale-faced twenty-six-year-old evidence tech with the CSI unit whose thick glasses, thin mustache, and stylishly cut hair made him look like a college boy. Behind Ted stood two others, a crime-scene photographer named Steve Perelli, and a young female intern he only knew as Lil. With them, hanging back, was the doorman who'd led them up to the Sanger condo.
"Detective Stonecoat," began Hoskins. "Guess this must be the place, the Sanger residence? Something to do with human body parts being found?"
"This is the place," Lucas informed them, and the two men filed into the living room area, followed sheepishly by the intern, being careful as they formed a kind of circle around the obvious evidence.
The concerned doorman called in to Meredyth, asking if she were all right. He'd been taken by surprise by the arrival of the CSI van with the city coroner's logo.
"I'm all right, Max," she said, going to the door and assuring him of the fact.
"Who died?" he asked her.
"No one, Max…I mean, no one that I know of. It's likely just a joke in extremely bad taste, but we have to be thorough all the same."
Meanwhile, Lucas explained to Hoskins, "Dr. Nielsen contacted me via dispatch as I drove here from across town. I received a similar package around the same time at my place. I briefed Nielsen on what to expect at both locations, and I assured her that it had nothing to do with anthrax."
"Where'd she get that notion?" asked Hoskins.
"Don't know where she got that idea."
A number of additional evidence technicians filtered in now.
"You still want that coffee, Lucas?" Meredyth asked.
"Sure…let's make ourselves scarce. Get outta the way here." He guided her back into the kitchen. She brewed a pot of coffee, while Lucas made a phone call to a friend on the force, Sergeant Stan Kelton. He informed Stan of what had happened, asking him if he'd heard or seen anything unusual about the station house that might cement Lucas's theory that it was all a stupid prank.
Kelton assured him, "If any such nonsense were afoot at the Three-one, Lucas, I'd've gotten wind of it. All the same, I'll sniff around, let you know."
"Let's get some air on the terrace," Meredyth suggested.
Taking their coffee with them, Lucas escorted Meredyth out onto the deck overlooking the twinkling lights of downtown Houston, the ever-changing cityscape in the near distance. They were thirty stories up.
Meredyth came from old money, and could easily have lived the quiet country club life of her friends-like Byron Priestly-and relatives, but she had chosen instead to become a forensic psychiatrist. Lucas admired her for the dedication and determination to achieve her goals and live up to her ideals.
She sat at the patio table, a light breeze playing whimsy fairy with her hair, rustling between the buttons of her blouse, causing a mild flap. The cool night air felt refreshing against her face and skin. Lucas stood behind her, his hands squeezing her shoulders as he surveyed the skyline. Here on the terrace, Meredyth had plants growing, and Lucas, hoping to distract her from what was going on in her living room, asked, "Whataya call these plants here? Is this one a geranium? Maybe plants is what I need at my place, you know, to brighten it up a bit."
She looked over her shoulder at him, frowning. "Other than that cactus flower in the comer, which you dug up and gave me for Christmas, Lucas, I've never put you together with plants, but you sound positively Martha Stewart tonight."
"No, I'm really interested."
"Yes, that's a geranium, no longer in full bloom, but the others at the end of the terrace, they're all hibiscus plants."
"Okay, you give them individual names, like pets?"
She laughed lightly. "I'm not one of these people who gives names to her plants, Lucas."
"I take that as a good sign."
"I love the cactus flower most, you know."
"Courtship," he said.
"What?"
"On the res, when a boy gives a girl a cactus flower, it's the beginning of their courtship."
"All this time and I never knew. Why didn't you tell me before?"
Lucas didn't reply, going to the plants at the terrace edge instead, running his fingers lightly over them. "Hibiscus…they're called hibiscus, huh? Sounds Greek."
"Greek or perhaps Latin, I'm sure."
"Interesting word, hibiscus. Interesting lilt to it, a single word with its own melody is rare. Hibiscus…think I bet on a racehorse once with that name."
"I'm sure you have."
He returned from the edge to stand again behind her where she sat sipping her now-lukewarm coffee. He placed both hands on her shoulders, saying nothing.
"Listen, Lucas, thanks for rushing over like you did."
"What else is a friend to do under the circumstances?"
"Most friends I have would do like Byron and run the other way under the circumstances."
"I didn't do much."
"Your being here is enough. So trust me when I say you don't have to make small talk and-"
"Small talk?"
"— and pretend an interest in my potted plants, Lucas."
"Whoa up there, Doctor. I'll remember that if and when I should make small talk and idle chitchat," he countered.
"All I'm saying is that you don't need to resort to pretense to please me or in some vain attempt to distract me from the fact someone's mailed me a set of human eyes and a pair of teeth, and that my living room's become a crime scene, and that my personal security-my home in the clouds here-has been breached and defiled."
"Easy, sweetheart."
She reached up with both hands and covered his where they continued to squeeze her shoulders. "That feels good," she told him.
They continued to hold hands while the evidence techs created a crime grid of her living room. "Do you really think the whole horrible thing is an elaborate stinking joke, Lucas, or was that just another attempt to get me to calm down?"
"If it is a hoax, the bastards've let it go too far now. The costs involved in sending out a CSI unit, the time and manpower in running all this as evidence in a crime, hell… can you imagine the heads that'll roll?"
"You've never liked Frank Patterson, have you? And as for Feldman, how long has that feud been going on?"
"Creeps, both of 'em, cut of the same cloth. One concern in life, self-gratification now! Couple of pricks of the first caliber."
"Sounds like you know it's them and calling it in to the crime lab was to get back at them maybe?"
"Stir their stew counterclockwise, you mean?"
"They cooked this up, and you plan to cook their gooses? You're as much a juvenile as they are, Lucas."
He came around to face her, hands extended. "No way I would be disrespectful of human organs, desecrating someone's body or bodily parts this way. You can't put me in the same nincompoop class as they're in."
"No, I don't…I mean, I didn't mean to imply that, Lucas. I have great respect for you, but be careful not to allow them to pull you down to their level."
He dropped into the cushioned metal chair across from her. "Not a chance. Look, so far as I know right now, Mere, what you and I received via hand-delivered mail is a felony, and it smacks of a far worse crime, murder. That's the way I'm playing this out for now." He leaned in over the table as he spoke, his body language and eyes sincere.
"So you've called the town crier-Sergeant Kelton- posited the theory of it's being a hoax in his head, so you don't even have to point a finger. Before daybreak, it'll be all over the precinct."
"I know, out in the open."
"Dr. Chang and Captain Lincoln will hear the story that human remains were stolen from the crime lab."
"And the proverbial shit hits the proverbial fan. But Mere, at this stage, it's as good a theory as any we have."
"Look, if it is a horrible hoax perpetrated by some bozos, I want the bastards to pay dearly for it. Don't get me wrong."
"Then we're on the same page."
They fell silent for a moment, in one ear the sounds of the people bagging and collecting the evidence inside, in the other ear the sounds of traffic and the city.
"You know, Lucas, I like the way you call me Mere. Have I ever told you that you're the only one I know who calls me Mere, that is, aside from my mom and dad?"
"No, you've never shared that with me, Mere."
"My dad used it kiddingly. Called me Night-Mere sometimes!"
Lucas laughed lightly at this. "That's a good one."
"Fits, you mean."
"Maybe that too."
From inside, the click-click-click of the digital photographs being taken filtered out to them. They heard Dr. Leonard Chang's distinctive voice now, ordering that the poetic note and the CD be bagged and taken into evidence as well.
"I'm going to check on Chang's progress, and let him know about Byron's prints being on the wrapper. You might best stay out here. Can I bring you a drink from the fridge?"
"Yeah, there's some iced tea in the flask."
Lucas returned to the living room, where it appeared the techs were closing down their investigation. He saw that each eye and each tooth had been placed into separate baggies, and while each tooth was dropped into a pocket within a black valise, the two eyes were dropped into a medical cooler filled with ice.
Dr. Leonard Chang slowed Hoskins up, wanting to look once more into the depth of the eyes, holding them now in his gloved hands, staring through the cellophane bags. When Lucas came alongside him, asking him what he thought, Chang erupted from his inscrutable silence. "How horrible this must have been for Meredyth. How is she holding up?"
"She's gutsy; she's holding up." He told Chang about Byron Priestly's having handled the package. "Leonard, I'd like you and maybe Dr. Nielsen to investigate your labs for missing tissues, eyes, teeth."
"My labs? What're you meaning to imply, Lucas?"
"These items and those sent to my place-autopsy slices of human organs as far as I can tell-may've originated in-house as a sick joke against me and Meredyth."
"That would be in the worst taste imaginable."
"Yeah, tasted bad at my place too."
"What kind of package did this fiend send you?"
Lucas described the packaging as identical down to the Styrofoam-lined interior that soaked up much of the liquid residue coming off the warm contents. "The hand-printing job and the scripted poems appear the work of the same person, so I'm wondering the same thing you are right about now."
"Which is?" The slight Chinese M.E. looked piqued that Lucas should suggest that his thoughts could be read.
"Are the body parts from the same victim, and who is the victim? And could the victim have been a resident of your morgue?"
"I'll hang anyone who might have taken human tissues and organs from our labs, Lucas. There will be no mercy for such actions. No one working under my direction can take such despicable liberties. It can't happen, not in my morgue."
"Come on, Leonard. You know who I have in mind. Scratch the surface of the man and what've you got?"
"You want me to question Frank Patterson about this?"
"Just watch him carefully, and I'll keep my eye on Detective Feldman."
"Itch? Itch and his friend Frank. Scratch the surface, you say. Should we say it is a game of itch and scratch? You can't truly believe it, Lucas. That they could be so stupid, so irresponsible, so…"
"Despicable?"
"Exactly."
"Hey, only a hunch, but the two of them've become quite chummy lately, and Feldman's done worse, and he's a bad influence on Frank."
"I hope you're wrong. Meantime, analysis of the tissues will tell us something about the victim or victims- certainly whether or not all the tissues come from the same female and how long she's been dead."
"You already know she's a she?"
"Eyes are small but mature, feminine eyes, my guess."
"You're the best, Chang."
"I still must treat this as a crime, Lucas, and a possible murder, and not a stupid-ass practical joke. And since law- enforcement officials have been targeted, we will work around the clock until we have answers for you, Detective."
Houston, like most major American cities, had passed tough laws against people who targeted the homes and families of police and firemen, so prevalent had crimes against law-enforcement officials become, anything from stalking to attempted murder of police in their homes.
Chang was now examining the poem, holding it up to the light with a pair of tweezers. "Poor dear Meredyth," he said to Lucas. "The idea that such a monster as the kind we deal with gains entry this way…in her home…."
"Yeah, I felt the same way at my place."
"Screwy poem, but I'm no literary critic." He ordered Hoskins to slip the poein into a glassine case, careful not to smudge prints that might show up under a blue light.
"There was a CD left with the contents as well," Lucas informed the M.E., adding, "and ahhh, Meredyth placed it in her machine and played it."
"Where is the player?"
Lucas pointed it out. Chang pressed the play button and listened to a few bars of the old but popular tune, the singer's enthusiastic melody honoring "the time of my life."
Chang ejected the CD, slipped it into a plastic bag, and placed this into his black valise. "All this reminds me of that fan of mine who broke into my house a year ago." Chang gripped the back of his head and rubbed it in thought, looking rather Woody Allen — ish in clothes too baggy for his slight build. "This… this has to be unnerving for both of you."
"Like I said, Leonard, my first instinct was to think it a scam, you know, put together by some of the lunatics down at the precinct. At the moment, that suggestion has soothed Dr. Sanger somewhat."
"The lesser of two evils, you think?"
"Exactly."
"Feldman, hmmm…" He rubbed his chin in thought, trying to picture Arnie Feldman behind the prank. "Suppose you are wrong about Feldman. Suppose this is the work of some lunatic after all."
"Then we've got a real nutcase on our hands, don't we, Doc?"
"Perhaps in the meantime, while I am examining the eyes, teeth, and tissues, you might start an investigation with Missing Persons."
"I can put in the necessary calls."
"The eyes are fresh but with no ice crystals, Lucas. If it were from a corpse in the morgue, and this was done recently, there would be traces of ice. Whoever the victim is, her eyes are still pliable and firm. Not dry and breaking down from exposure to the elements or exposure to freezing."
"And that spells?"
"If not a recent-very recent-cadaver tampering, as you suggest, then a very, very recent missing persons case perhaps."
"I see. The death is recent, which might point to a recent disappearance, a recent-"
"— abduction-killing," Chang finished for him.
Lucas stepped away from Chang and into the kitchen, mulling over what Chang had said. He remembered Meredyth's request for iced tea, and he found it in the fridge, grabbed a clean glass and ice, and filled it to the brim. When he returned to the living room and passed through to the terrace, he found that Dr. Chang had gone out to talk with Meredyth. Lucas stepped into the middle of their conversation, the ice in her tea signaling his arrival.
Chang stood at the terrace rail, staring out at Houston's joyful skyline as it was being gobbled up by a fog. He seemed to be studying the clear demarcation where the blankness of night met the artificial orange glow of the city lights, lights that softly pushed back at space only to create a twilight meeting ground in between. The final effect created a swelling, growing smokiness around the tall buildings of downtown Houston. The effect seemed both real and unreal at once, composed as it was of reflecting colorful lights in battle with bleakness.
Chang seemed to be taking in the strange view as he consoled the psychiatrist. "My lab will work day and night to bring this lunatic to justice, whoever he may be, Dr. Sanger, be assured, and I am so sorry that you were put through this horror."
"Thank you, Dr. Chang, Leonard."
"I can't imagine the kind of brain we are dealing with, to send the eyes ripped from a young woman to terrorize a beautiful person like yourself, Meredyth. If you wish, of course, Kim and I will make room for you at our house for the night."
Meredyth sniffled. "That's so sweet of you, Leonard. But it won't be necessary. I can use my parents' home in Clover Leaf."
"Yes, and how are they enjoying their new place, Colony in the Glade? Father getting in a lot of golf there? Mother using the gym, maybe the pool?"
"They're in Paris."
"Really?"
"Anniversary."
"Long time since we last dined together, all of us."
Lucas now leaned over her and handed Meredyth the glass of iced tea, and she quickly grabbed it up and drank heartily while Chang informed her of the gender of the eyes. "They are those of a young woman, likely out of her teens, most certainly younger than forty. The teeth appear to be consistent with this finding as well."
"How can you be so sure?" she asked, setting her glass down.
"I'll know better once we have examined them under microscopic lens, of course."
"But how do you know the eyes belong to a woman?" pressed Meredyth. "I mean, it's not as if they had eyelashes attached."
"They are fully mature orbs, but slightly smaller than those of most males, so unless we are dealing with stunted growth or a male dwarf, which is highly unlikely, I am eighty- or ninety-percent certain they are the eyes of a middle-aged or a young woman in her late teens or early twenties."
"An educated guess," commented Lucas.
"One most likely corroborated by closer analysis, blood and serum tests, and DNA typing. And I intend, at Lucas's suggestion, to see if there is a match in DNA typing to any recent visitors to my autopsy rooms, morgue, or labs. If there is any sort of nonsense going on behind my back, I will determine it and prosecute anyone found to be involved."
"I'll be looking into Missing Persons tomorrow morning, Meredyth," Lucas informed her. "On the off chance this isn't the work of that beer-guzzling crowd down at the squad room."
"Oh, really?" she replied.
"It is at my suggestion," Chang explained. "The eyes show no signs of decay whatsoever, and no sign they were ever frozen. If they came from my labs, it is likely they would have spent some time in a freezer unit."
"I see."
Lucas leaned against the railing now, giving her a reassuring smile. "We'll soon know who's behind this ugly business, Mere. Tomorrow I'll coordinate efforts with Jana North."
"Jana, yes, of course."
"See if Missing Persons has someone recently gone missing without a trace…see if maybe there's a piece of this puzzle they can help with. Once we get a fix on who she was, then we can get a fix on who she knew, what happened to her, and how parts of her came to visit us."
"Why wait till tomorrow? Why not get on it tonight?" she asked.
"It's almost two A.M, Mere, and we're both emotionally and physically spent. Besides, we need to see what Leonard's experts can tell us. Aside from that, by morning, I'll have a copy of Perelli's photographs to work with."
"You don't really hope to match severed eyes to a photograph of a missing person?" she asked.
"Doubtful, but I'd like to have the photos to help explain the situation to Detective North and, when and if the time comes, to Captain Lincoln when I nail the bastard behind all this. As for matching the teeth, that ought to be far easier and more scientific. Whether she came from Leonard's lab or is in a missing persons file someplace, she'll have dental records. Reason we have procedures, right, Leonard?"
Chang nodded reassuringly at all of Lucas's conclusions. Leonard then said, "Well, Lucas, now I go over to your place with Hoskins, Perelli, and the others. See what we have there."
"My friend and landlord is minding things there, name's Jack Tebo."
"Aren't you coming?"
"I'll meet you over there."
"Don't leave me alone here, Lucas, not tonight," pleaded Meredyth.
Lucas corrected himself. "We will follow you over, Leonard."
Dr. Leonard Chang's expert team of technicians made short work of the soup-layered, thin-sliced autopsy cuts in Lucas's kitchen sink; unlike the scene at Meredyth's place, the criminal contents were contained all in one area, except for the note left by the killer. It lay on a sofa table where Tebo had left it. Lucas pointed it out to Chang, and Tebo, who had tried to stay out of the way, now tried being helpful, about to grab the note and pass it to Chang.
"Don't touch it!" shouted Chang.
Lucas confessed, "We already have. Both of us. Sorry, but we tampered with it before realizing how serious the situation was."
"I expected as much from Dr. Sanger, but you, Detective Stonecoat, you should know better," chastised Chang.
Lucas weakly apologized again, but as with Meredyth's reading of her note and playing the CD-handling both- Lucas had felt compelled to act as he did. "A knee-jerk reaction to being attacked in this twisted manner," Lucas told Chang now.
"No doubt." replied the M.E.
"Like I said, at first I thought it was a sick prank."
"Prank, this?" asked Perelli as he snapped shot after shot of what lay in Lucas's kitchen sink.
"Maybe some of the guys down at the precinct or the morgue. You know how they can be, sick SOBs that they are. Keep it to yourself, though, will you, Perelli?"
"You don't think I had anything to do with it, do you?" asked Ted Hoskins, his eyes riveted on Lucas for a reaction.
"No…never crossed my mind, Ted. I know you'd be no part of such as this, no."
"Well…it does look like precision cuts from liver, spleen, kidney, and pancreas," Chang thoughtfully mused as he poked a retracted scalpel at the materials inside the box. "I can understand your thinking it came from a crime lab. The slices are the work of a careful professional, or someone who has studied autopsy work. Certainly someone using the right tools. Amazing what an amateur can do with the right tools. Remember the I-10 sniper? Turned out to be a kid with his first scoped AK-74."
"You can tell all that from just looking?" asked Tebo.
"Absolutely," replied Chang. "First impressions are usually right. Whoever cut out the eyes and removed the two front teeth, he knew precisely what to do and how to do it. Again, unless these tissues, organs, and teeth were already excised for him, which is Lucas's hopeful theory, this fellow has access to precision tools and is skilled in using them."
"Makes it the more horrible," said Meredyth, who had gnashed her teeth and gasped on seeing what had been forwarded to Lucas. Meredyth held a handkerchief to her nostrils to fend off the foul odors of the decaying matter sent to Lucas. "This has to be from a separate victim," she said now. "It's older, further along in decay."
"Your eyes and nose deceive you. Unlike the soft tissue of the eyes, left whole, these internal organs-hard tissue that has been split off from the organs-already have a strong odor about them. Like cutting into an onion, you release the odors." Everyone followed Chang's explanation. "These internal cold cuts, if you will, are actually quite fresh, like the eyes. It will be surprising if they did not come from the same source."
The out-of-place human organ materials were then quickly scooped into bags, which were sealed and removed, along with all the paper and wood and Styrofoam that had housed them. Chang said good night as his techs filed out.
Tebo took a deep breath and shook his head after the retreating CSI team. Lucas said to his friend, "Thanks for hanging on here all this time, Jack."
"No problem… don't mention it. Wonder why people always say don't mention it just after someone mentions it. Little late by then, right?" He laughed, trying to get the other two to laugh with him. They did not.
"Good night, Jack," Lucas said.
Tebo hesitated, something on his mind.
"What is it?" asked Lucas, certain it had to do with Eunice. She'd been here, seen the package, and she'd be spreading the word from here to the Coushatta Reservation by morning. The moccasin grapevine in the hands of a truly vociferous specialist was wonderful to behold.
Tebo knew Lucas's conclusion, reading it in his eye. "Never mind. We'll talk tomorrow. Good night, Dr. Sanger, Lucas."
They were alone with one another now, and Lucas asked Meredyth if she wanted anything to drink.
"I'll have some of that Mexican gin you like so much."
'Tequila? You?"
"If it'll help me sleep tonight, yes, unless you have a better suggestion."
"Well…matter of fact, I do have my own remedy for insomnia."
She gave him a knowing look. She knew of his drug habit, that it was linked to his accident and near-death experience of years before, that it helped him to maintain a front in his personal war against the pain that was ever with him. She knew he smoked marijuana and peyote for medicinal purposes, and at times he drank to excess.
She watched him go into his bedroom, and following, she saw him scrounge beneath the bed and come out with a cigar box. "This stuff won't leave you with a hangover."
"Promise?"
He pulled forth a pipe and his stash of Texas reservation peyote. "Old Indian cure-all. Come on, let's get comfortable." He led her back into the living room, tossed some pillows on the floor, and got down on the rug, crossing his legs. She sat alongside in her jeans, also cross-legged now.
"So, this is how you stay so loose," she said.
"You've known for some time, I'm sure. Poking around in my medical records. I know you've got friends in Dallas can tell you all about me." Lucas lit the pipe, took a long drag on it, and passed it to her.
Meredyth cautiously breathed in the smoke, and still she coughed, making him laugh. She tried a second puff, and succeeded without coughing this time.
"That's it, right, Mere. You're on your way to the Cherokee promised land now! I guaran-damn-tee you, darling," he promised. "Going where nothing bad can happen ever again."
"That's all I ask…at least for now."