Robert Walker - Final Edge

"Chalked up," Lucas corrected her.

"Yes, and I was strongly urged to get it off my desk and get onto the sixty-four or so other cases awaiting me."

"Dr. Chang never looked over the findings?" asked Lucas.

"No, he was away at the time, and Patterson was in charge. Not likely I would have gone over Frank's head in any case, being new on the job and not yet knowing how to tiptoe around him like I do now."

"If you had had full responsibility and freedom to pursue the case at the time, what would you have done differently, Dr. Nielsen?" asked Meredyth.

"I would have done more than simply express my condolences to the daughter as Feldman and the others did, releasing the body and ordering it sent to an undertaker of her choosing. They should have questioned the daughter far more extensively about her alibi; instead, they listened to her sob story of how she had just found and reunited with her mother. The men were falling all over her as I recall."

Meredyth displayed the photo of Lauralie. "Is this the daughter?"

Nielsen studied the photo. "Yes, that is her."

"We think she left us a gift at the convent," said Lucas. "Found this and a few ounces of blood in the baptismal at Our Lady." He showed her the index finger from what they suspected was Mira Lourdes's left hand.

"Like I said, no such thing as free lunch," Nielsen replied, wincing at the amputated digit.

"Sorry," said Lucas. "I thought all you coroner types were immune to such things as runaway body parts."

A waiter stood over them, gasped, and threw down the bill before Lucas realized he'd been traumatized by the thing nestled in the handkerchief. Meredyth grabbed the hanky, folding it away, but Lucas managed to grab it back. "Hey, that's still evidence."

"What're you going to do with that thing, Lucas? Take it to the witch doctor out at the Coushatta Reservation? See if we can get some voodoo input on the case?"

"Cherokee magic might surprise you, Mere."

"No amount of tobacco twisting and burning is going to help us here, Stone Man," Meredyth replied.

"Hey, I know you're frustrated, but you shouldn't knock what you haven't tried, Doctor," he fired back.

Meredyth dropped her gaze and wrung her hands together. "I'm sorry, Lucas. It's just this case is getting to me… she's getting to me."

"If you would care to leave the finger with me, Lieutenant," said Nielsen, "I can match the tissue against what we have, make a certain determination as to whether or not it is Lourdes's digit."

Lucas joked, "I thought I'd make a necklace of it, make it my Cherokee magical icon, but I am tiring of carrying it around." He handed it, wrapped in the handkerchief, to Dr. Nielsen. As he did so, Meredyth grabbed for the check. Lucas caught her hand and retrieved the check.

"I'm paying," she said.

"The hell you are."

Their waiter suddenly and noisily stormed out of the restaurant, tossing his apron at the boss. "Look at that, Lucas. The guy quit his job. I hope you're proud of yourself. Now give me the check. You've caused enough trouble tonight." Meredyth held one end of the check between her fingers, and he held the other end in a tug of war that ripped it in two.

Lucas firmly said, "It's my treat. You can leave the tip."

"Leave the tip for whom?" asked Nielsen, amused at the two.

"You are such a…a man!" Meredyth sternly said.

Nielsen laughed and said, "Are you two sure you're not married?"

Lucas laughed at this, and tossed down several bills to cover the meal.

In the parking lot outside, they said good night to Dr. Nielsen and asked her to keep their discussion private for now, sharing it only with Leonard Chang. She agreed without reservation.

"Whatever you do, say nothing to Frank Patterson on the matter," Lucas said.

"I have no intention of doing that."

They parted company with Lynn Nielsen. As they went for the car, Meredyth said, "Wish we had some notion of Lauralie's whereabouts."

"We find her, we find the boyfriend, and we can shut them down."

"Wish I could be a hundred percent certain one way or the other of any part I played in helping shape this woman's obsession. Wish I could see those records at the courthouse."

'Tonight? Open the Harris County courthouse records? That'd also take a warrant signed by a judge. Tomorrow's another day, Mere."

"Another day and possibly another horrible mailing to you or me or both of us."

He pulled her into his arms and hugged her close. "It'll be all right. I promise you, it's going to be all right."

They drove from the restaurant down a series of meandering streets until Lucas pulled to the curb in a residential neighborhood. An Interstate overpass sliced the street in two, and cutting his engine, Lucas said, "I want you to stay right here, Mere. I'll be right back."

"Where the hell are we, Lucas? And where're you going?"

"Katherine Croombs's house. There're lights on inside. I'm going to have a look-see."

"But without a warrant, what'11 happen?"

"I'm not going to break in, just determine if she's inside or not," he said, climbing from the driver's seat.

"And how're you going to do that?"

"Old Indian sleuth trick," he said, standing in the rain.

"What trick?"

"I'll knock." With that, he sprinted to the door.

Meredyth nervously watched him climb the stairs of the rundown tenement house. She listened to the whirring, whining, and roaring of cars, trucks, and buses whizzing by on the Interstate overhead. "Think I'd drink myself to death if I had to listen to this all day long," she muttered to the interior of the car. She glanced again at Lucas, now speaking to someone on the porch, an elderly lady who had probably caught him peeking in at Katherine's windows.

Then she saw Lucas coming back to the car. He opened the door, got in, turned on the ignition, and started away from the curb. "Dead end," he said.

"Whataya mean, dead end? What did you learn from the neighbor?"

"Says no one's been living below her. She's had an eye out for the daughter herself, wants to know who's going to pay the water and electric bills, neither of which were turned off. Says she's having it all turned off if she doesn't hear from Lauralie by morning."

"Then Lauralie did live there for a time after the mother's death?"

"Yes, for a month and a half. She says the girl went from saccharine sweetness when she first arrived to a bitch during and after the funeral."

"So the woman-"

"— Mrs. Crane-"

"— saw Lauralie at the funeral?"

"She was at the funeral, no thanks to Lauralie. She had to get the information from the police report in the Chronicle, and from there she called the funeral home for the details of when and where. Says Lauralie didn't invite her or any of Katherine's cronies, and when Mrs. Crane arrived with several others in tow, Lauralie hadn't a word for her or any of Katherine's few friends and neighbors. She also said that Katherine had been off the bottle and was making an effort to please Lauralie, allowing her to live with her, feeding her, buying her things, all that. But Mrs. Crane says Lauralie never showed the least gratitude or appreciation for Katherine's efforts. It's likely what drove her back to drinking that night, she says."

"So where is Lauralie now?"

"Got to be she's with the boyfriend, Mr. Mystery, his pad."

"Her personal butcher. You think he helped her in poisoning her mother?"

"According to Mrs. Crane, she never once saw Lauralie with a man. She came to think her a lesbian, and you recall Rachel's take on that back at the convent."

Meredyth mulled it over. "AC-DC as her needs required, depending on whom she felt a need to control or manipulate at any given time, be it Father William, Rachel, her mother, and perhaps the killer."