Robert Walker - Final Edge

To most in the room, the scanner image was one gray mass of unreadable flesh. Both Chang and Nielsen looked hard at the monitor image in a kind of professional fascination.

Leonard switched off his light pointer and asked for the lights to come up. Once they did, the image diffused into gray nothingness. Chang lifted the box cutter, carefully leaned in over the box itself, and began opening the bulging parcel-measured during the break as thirty-two inches in width by forty inches in height.

Everyone watched in silence as the tape split noisily under the blade, and Leonard's gloved hands trembled slightly as he pulled back the flaps and everyone held a collective breath. Leonard stared down into the box. Lucas had never seen Chang go white before, but he did now.

"Doctor, are you all right?" Lynn Nielsen asked him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Chang shook it off. "As I said, it's her upper torso, jammed in tightly. The breasts have been severed and stuffed in as well. It will not all possibly fit into one cooler, Dr. Nielsen." Chang wiped his sweating brow with a handkerchief. "If any of you care to see it up close, it will be in my lab upstairs. I see no purpose in displaying it here as-"

"Thank God," moaned Anna Tewes.

"Yes, indeed," added Dr. Purvis.

Chang continued. "-as any further display here will not add to our knowledge of the killer or whereabouts of same." Chang lifted the box and hefted its contents onto the cart behind the monitor. The cart was balanced precariously, and the wheels, skidding as a result, almost caused the vile parcel to tilt over and spill out its contents. With lightning reflexes, Lucas shot out a foot and steadied the wheel, allowing Leonard to hold onto the box, right it, and steady it. Once all was safe again, Leonard, with Nielsen's help, exited with the cart and its strange cargo. Nielsen helped guide the cart to the elevators. They had left behind the forensic tools, the sheet, and the cooler. Using the sheet, Frank Patterson began to bundle these up.

Everyone else soon followed one another through the door, walking like pallbearers after having seen the latest pieces of Mira Lourdes come through the door. Hoskins quietly muttered to Perelli, "Lincoln's going to hit high-G when he hears about this."

Lucas and Meredyth remained behind, the sound of Frank's rattling instruments, as he rolled them up, like a sad litany accompanying the procession of the others. "All the coroner's horses, and all the coroner's men, could not put Mira Lourdes back together again," Frank said.

Lucas and Meredyth turned to stare at the man, who next said, "At the now-accelerated rate, we shall one day have all of Ms. Lourdes back…her back, front as well, side-to-side, up-and-down pieces, the over, under, above, and below of her."

"What is it you want, Frank?" asked Lucas.

"Just talk. Leonard at first held some notion he might miraculously stitch all the parts into one, but I suspect a judicious cremation of the parts is in order for the grieving family now. Otherwise, she's going to look like Frankenstein's bride in the casket."

Lucas pursed his hps and nodded at Chang's second in command in the M.E.'s office. "Sounds like a better plan indeed, Frank."

Lucas led Meredyth toward the door.

"Look here, you two, has it occurred to either of you that we need the full resources of the FBI on this case? And I mean right away, like yesterday?"

"We're told that Captain Lincoln is keeping them informed," said Meredyth.

"They're clamoring to come aboard, and he's keeping them informed?' asked Patterson, a slight man with pinched features. "We all know that the killer's use of the mail makes this a federal crime-screwing with the U.S. Postal Service. We also know that we can only keep control of the case if we invite their help and resources now, at our invitation," he repeated. "Otherwise, at any moment, they'll come swooping in and simply take charge entirely, waving us all good-bye."

'Technically speaking, Frank, the Ripper hasn't actually posted anything through the U.S. mails. Fact is, prior to the FedEx box, everything had been hand-delivered, save for the UPS delivery at the station house."

"What's your interest. Dr. Patterson?" asked Meredyth. "Do you think a high-profile case can raise your profile?"

"I have a well-established reputation in my field. Dr. Sanger, and I resent the implications of your question. As for my interest? It is the same as any citizen, any law- enforcement officer, the same as yours, Dr. Sanger."

"And that is?" pressed Meredyth.

"I want to see an end to this horror! To see the perpetrators apprehended and punished to the fullest extent of the law. Short of that"-he stepped up to the table and balanced his slight frame against it-"I'd like to see someone of Lucas's ilk here kill the perpetrators before they can take another inch off their victim. Think of it-treating her body like a frozen Popsicle, taking it from a freezer, slicing off this piece and that, returning it to deep freeze for another go at shocking you, Dr. Sanger."

"And you think the FBI can sooner end this thing than we can?" asked Lucas.

"Well, Lucas, you must admit, from all appearances, Dr. Sanger, and you by extension, have been led by the nose by a juvenile who, whether you care to admit it or not, has gotten you both where she wants you-on an emotional roller coaster. You've played right into the bitch's hands. You say she's manipulating her accomplice! What has she done to you, Dr. Sanger?"

"We're out ahead of her, Dr. Patterson. You can tell your pals in the federal building that," countered Meredyth.

"Out ahead of her? Everyone in this room tonight questions your objectivity, Doctor. As a forensic psychiatrist, knowing of such a personal stake in the outcome of any other criminal case, you would yourself recommend to Captain Lincoln that any officer or detective so closely linked to a suspect be removed from duty and certainly not placed in charge."

"Is that your opinion?" she asked. "Are you finished?"

"Yes, Frank is finished," said Lucas, taking her by the arm, escorting her out.

"Just one man's opinion," Frank shouted after them.

Lucas turned on him. "An opinion you've no doubt shared with the FBI?"

"I know my duty."

"And how much duty have you given the press?"

"I didn't go to the FBI. They came to me. I told them what I knew, what I gleaned from Chang and Nielsen, and today at the funeral parlor. The note left there-'Arm in arm, we'll wrap ourselves in the warmth of childhood carousels, to dream round and round in flesh pound for bloody pound.' This woman is in a competitive battle with you, Meredyth. You are a liability to this case unless handled properly by people who have had experience with such killers as this-the contrary murderer who will match you step for step."

Everyone on the task force had seen the note left in Zoradia Ortiz's coffin at the funeral home, written in the same hand as the previous cryptic communiques. As with the others, they gave profilers and investigators few to no clues. Everyone would be analyzing the meaning of "childhood carousel" now. Meredyth already knew it referred to Lauralie's life in comparison to Meredyth's "dream" childhood. Lauralie was at one end of the spectrum of this carousel, Meredyth at the other.

"So long as we have Captain Lincoln's confidence, Dr. Patterson," Meredyth firmly said, "Lucas and I will pursue this case as lead investigators on the task force that we and Gordon Lincoln assembled."

"I wish you only success and a speedy one at that." Patterson, his bundle of instruments held close to his chest, pushed past them and was gone. But the odor of his cologne, thrown on heavily to mask the odors of the coroner's lab, lingered.

"I think we can expect a raking-over in the printed pages tonight or tomorrow, Mere," said Lucas.