Robert Walker - Extreme Instinct

They talked in the cab as the city that never slept seemed to be yawning in the morning sunlight, street cleaners running up and down.

"So, how did you sleep last night after all the excitement, Jess?" J. T. asked.

"About as well's could be expected. How about you?"

"Well, I admit, I was up pretty late," he replied, seeing a glint of deprecation in her sparkling eyes. ' 'I mean, after I left you to rest in your room, I joined some of the other revelers at the reception for the convention, but… got to admit… I had little fun without you, dear."

"It's okay, honey," she shot back with a smile.

"Tell you what, though: News of what happened on the seventeenth floor spread like wildfire through our little community of forensics experts."

"Is that so? And how much did you blow on the fire?"

He tried his best to look offended. "Hey, I didn't have to say a word."

"But you did?"

He shook his head and added, ''Those guys were putting the pieces together as if playing a whodunit puzzle, for the sport of it all, and by the time I got downstairs, everyone-and I mean everyone with an M.E. at the end of his or her name-had heard about your involvement-you know, the phone call-and that Lester Osborne and Karl Repasi were principal M.E. s on the case, and the poor victim, this Chris Lorentian, she'd been painted as some kind of shadowy figure somehow connected to Vegas's equally shadowy underworld."

"All that, huh? Damn it, I'd hoped to keep my involvement-my tenuous connection with the killer-to ourselves, J. T. Now look what you've done."

He held up his hands. "I swear to you, Jess. Everybody in the community had already heard before I got downstairs, really, honestly."

"You're sure of that?"

"I swear, Jess. I wouldn't lie to you about that. Most everyone I talked to had the story already."

"Repasi, you suppose? You suppose he spread it?"

"All it would've taken was a call to one of his pals. As for Chris Lorentian, most are chalking her death up to some sort of Mob-related revenge hit, not so much on young Chris as her father, whose business contacts are said to be serpentine. Oddsmakers are making book on it."

"Jesus, is there anything in this town they don't bet on?"

"No, no, there isn't."

The cab pulled around a line and double-parked alongside the civic center and city government building they had come in search of. J. T. and Jessica climbed from the cab and stood in the desert sun as it reflected from the blinding mirrored glass here.

Deep inside the building's multileveled basement, Jessica and J. T. found Osborne and Repasi working diligently over the dead girl's cranial cavity, where they'd cut her open to reveal the brain. "Fluids completely gone…"

"Dehydrated," they confirmed for the tape-recorded autopsy report.

Both Repasi and Osborne looked as if they'd gotten even less sleep than had J. T. Each man was tired and exasperated, perhaps as much with one another as with the body, from the sound of things. A third man, a young assistant to Osborne, tried to stay out of the cross fire.

Osborne, his bow tie dangling like a dead bird below his open collar, fired a fresh volley at Repasi. "Do you really, honestly, think cutting open her chest and snatching out her rack of vital organs is necessary, Dr. Repasi, when we know for a fact she was alive when she was put to the torch?"

"Thoroughness is my watchword, Doctor," replied Repasi, whose wild shock of hair hung in his face. He'd long since dispensed with his hairnet.

J. T. understood the tension, knowing its creator was in fact the mummified corpse itself, black and clothlike to the touch.

Osborne gritted his teeth, released pent-up air, and replied, "We have corroboration now. It's no longer just Dr. Coran's word. We have hard evidence she died of her burns! There's the killer's message, left in his own hand…"

Repasi coolly replied, a touch of his Polish-Romanian accent creeping in. He'd worked to control it over the years, but his obvious weariness now got the better of him. ''What about the blow to the temple that I found? I believe in being thorough, and if my name is to be on this autopsy report, then-"

"Then by all means, don't put your bloody name on it. I'll take full responsibility. It is my jurisdiction."

"And you invited my help, sir!"

"Is that what you call it when you invite yourself in on an autopsy, Doctor?"

Jessica cleared her throat to announce her and J. T.'s presence. They had both gowned up and wore surgical masks and gloves, their shoes wrapped in surgical booties. "Doctors, how are you?" she asked, not expecting an answer. "I trust all necessary information has been relayed to FBI headquarters? I put in a call to Eriq Santiva last night, left him a complete and detailed message about what's going on here," she white-lied, having told Santiva nothing yet about how the killer had contacted her. It wasn't the sort of information one left on an answering machine. "He's expecting crime-scene pho-"

"All done, Jessica, dear," assured Karl, his eyes narrowing in mock consternation with her. "You know I keep my promises. And as for Dr. Osborne and me… well, we are finished here, according to Osborne. What do you say, Jessica?" asked Repasi. "Are we finished?"

''Toxicological reports?''

"Indicate sedatives, a heavy dose," replied Repasi.

"Don't suppose you could possibly tell me if there were any needle marks below the scorched skin?"

"Impossible with the equipment here," Repasi apologized, but it didn't sound apologetic. "Still, I found a bruise to the temple after noticing a slight indention."

"In all that crinkled flesh? Good work," Jessica complimented Repasi.

"Blood indicated the same high level of sedatives," added Osborne. "Some consolation in that nerve endings would've been dulled when it happened. And time of death was as indicated by the fire call."

"Her nerve endings weren't so dull she didn't scream, Lester," Jessica countered.

He curtly returned with, "You know what I mean."

"Yeah, I do, and I agree with Lester, Karl. We know what killed her. She sounded doped up when she spoke to me. I doubt the internal organs can tell us a thing more than we already know, and given the state of the body… well, it's already disfigured beyond recognition, wouldn't you say?"

"Not entirely," replied Osborne's quiet assistant as he put away some instruments he'd just cleaned. "Her father identified her around four this morning."

"That's what held up the autopsy," explained Repasi, speaking over the assistant. "We're given to understand that everyone and everything in Las Vegas waits on this tyrant named Frank Lorentian. As for the autopsy, I think we'd best be complete and thorough. I thought thorough was your trademark, Jessica."

She ignored this, continuing, "And I'm sure the family is anxious for Lester to release the remains to them, right, Lester?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Mr. Lorentian's quite unhappy with us all."

J. T. added, "So, she was related to this big casino family."

"Closely, I'm afraid."

"The big man's daughter," added Repasi. "Read as much in this morning's paper."

Lester said sadly, "She'd been in the process of running away, it appears."

"How old was she?"

"Nineteen, dressed older but quite… immature, I'm given to understand. Frank Lorentian's known for being a doting father," Lester replied. "Lavished everything on her but what she truly needed, I suppose… At any rate, she was rebellious, wanted to make a life on her own, outside Vegas, you see, away from her father's lifestyle, so she disguised herself, struck out on her own, but didn't get very far, as you see."

"How long had she been reported missing?" asked Jessica.

"Four days, according to Missing Persons."