Robert Walker - Final Edge

"In the flesh, so to speak," commented Hoskins in a lame attempt to lighten the moment if only by a hair.

Chang and Nielsen had laid out a white sheet on the table and placed the parcel atop it. "The sheet will catch any fibers or hairs that might go airborne on opening the box," Chang explained.

"Steve, get photos of this from beginning to end, please," said Lincoln.

Steve Perelli instantly found his feet and moved about the table, obviously glad to be working instead of staring. Using a compact film camera, he quickly began creating a photo history.

His hands gloved and steady, Leonard Chang next carefully cut away the plain brown wrapping from the box to reveal a liquor box beneath, the words Jim Beam prominently displayed. Chang then proceeded to cut away the tape holding the box closed. He next carefully pulled back the flaps, Perelli continuing to record it all with his camera.

Chang's face twitched slightly as he stared down into the box, and Perelli focused over his shoulder, both men privy to the still-vibrant color of auburn that was Mira's hair. Chang reached into the box and lifted out the dismembered head to the combined gasps of the men and women present, while Perelli somehow continued to roll film.

Chang held the head by a fistful of the wilted auburn hair, and he gently turned the eyeless face, examining all sides of the cranium for fractures or abrasions, but he found none. "Hair is damp, possibly indicating it was washed by killer, or simply wet from thawing out."

Liquid gruel dripped from the open gullet held over the white sheet. Chang reached a gloved hand up and into the gullet, stating, "The semicircle of the hyoid bone is shattered so horribly, it is unlikely she was strangled to death. Likely shattered by an ax."

No one said a word. The only sound was the quiet hum of Perelli's camera. Finally, Lucas asked, "How do you know it was done with an ax?"

'Two blows," replied Chang. "First blow not so neat as second strike of the ax, Lucas. My best guessestimate with naked eye."

Chang continued. "The lack of coloration around the wounded eyes indicate she was mercifully dead when the eyes were removed."

"Thank God for that much," muttered Dr. Purvis, holding a handkerchief over her mouth and nostrils, fending off the ever-growing odor of the contents of the box. She contemplated the eyeballs that she'd declared those of a young woman.

"However, coloration at the neck wounds-at least two wounds from what I can see," continued Chang, his eyes so close to the severed neck that his nose might be touching her hair, "gives me suspicion that she was alive when her head was chopped off."

"What kind of weapon do you suspect?" asked Jana North.

"A guillotine of some sort?" asked one of the polygraph men.

"A blunt blade, not a surgical tool, likely an ax, a dull one. Notice the jagged edges, the puckering and pigmentation of the skin around the wound, and the scarring at two separate angles."

Everyone remained silent, picturing such an attack.

The young sketch artist, Anna Tewes, suddenly and noisily knocked over her chair as she stood and pushed away from the table, rushing for the door, holding back her morning's breakfast. She had brought a cup of coffee into the room with her, and its contents had spilled over the white sheet, creamy brown rivulets creating competing little serpent trails moving toward the severed head that Chang had plunked there. Lynn Nielsen threw a cloth over the coffee while others in the room stared at Tewes's exit, thinking they'd like to make an escape as well, but everyone remained seated, calm save for Dr. Purvis's coughing jag into her handkerchief.

No one could miss the jagged edges, dirt, and particles adhering to the gullet; all of it spoke of a messy, blunt ax job. "Lizzy Borden took an ax and gave her mother forty whacks," commented Ted Hoskins. The comment didn't lighten the mood around the table.

Dr. Lynn Nielsen leaned in toward Chang for a closer look at the assaulted neck. "Dr. Chang is correct. There is nothing of the care we saw taken with the removal of the hand." Nielsen's Scandinavian voice echoed in the silent room, deep and rumbling. "That bit of butchery we determined to be accomplished with a rotary medical saw of the sort we use in autopsies."

"Those things are loud as hell, aren't they?" asked Lincoln.

"Only when going through bone or the skull," Nielsen countered.

"So whoever this creep is, either people are used to his noise, or it's perfectly normal given the circumstances, as in a butcher's shop," suggested Stan Kelton, who'd remained stoically silent until now.

"Yes, Stan, or an autopsy room," added Chang.

"Or he's in an area where the noise can't be heard," suggested Lucas.

Chang, expanding on these comments, added, "None of the previous parts of our Jane Doe-now Mira Lourdes-indicated cause of death, but now we know how she died. Here is our answer, a ruthless and clumsy beheading."

"But who is behind this circus of death, and why?" asked Lincoln. "Why all the care and preparation and surgical neatness and tidiness with each part after you've clumsily put an ax through someone's neck? Explain that one!"

"He's deemed it time to show us exactly how Mira died," said Lucas, "rubbing it in our faces."

"I fear it's more than that," added Meredyth. "It's almost as if the killer is playing some sort of endgame, the rules, boundaries, bonuses, and goals known only to him. He means to shock us, to make us play against our will, to force it on us. Behind it, I believe there's a cry…a cry for help."

Dr. Davies, gnashing his teeth, suddenly exploded. "A cry for help, Dr. Sanger? You call what this freak is doing a cry for help? I suppose you think he needs coddling as well? Foul murdering heathen." Davies stood and added, "Between pulling the woman's eyes and teeth out and now this, I've seen enough to agree with the governor about the future of the electric chair in Texas, thank you." Dr. Davies paced to the opposite end of the room, as far from the severed head as he could get.

After a silence, Chang continued. "Once Mira was dead, the killer began the autopsy cuts from the abdominal cavity, the removal of the eyes, die teeth, the hand most of us have seen."

Meredyth replied, "Apparently the SOB was disappointed by our lack of response to his earlier parcels, likely dissatisfied with the lack of play he's gotten in the press as well."

"Exactly," agreed Jana North. "Apparently he means to shock us more deeply into a greater response and achieve more media attention in the process."

Lincoln asked Meredyth and Lucas to share their belief that the killer might simply be seeking serial-killer status and fame in all his efforts. The others listened to the theory, nodding, contemplating its validity and any weakness it might have. Davies returned to his seat, jaw clenched, listening to the conversation.

Anna Tewes quietly and shyly reentered the room, going to her seat, which Lucas had righted and replaced at the table. She made no eye contact with anyone in the room, looking like a deer going for her nesting ground.

"Put it away, Dr. Chang," said Gordon Lincoln of the severed head, echoing everyone's sentiments. "I think we've seen enough of this horror."

Chang, with Nielsen's assistance, placed the head into a red and white ice-filled medical cooler, and Nielsen tagged it with a case number. The odors emanating from the head and the Styrofoam-lined cardboard box had begun to make people in the room choke and squirm in their seats.

"So, let me see if I understand correctly, Dr. Sanger," said Dr. Davies, staring at Meredyth. "You believe that this homicidal nutcase is sending us a wake-up call of sorts, that in escalating the size and awfulness of the body parts he's forwarded, that he's saying play my game and give me more media attention or else?"