04.Final Edge v5 (46 page)

"Yet she was a child born of passion,"

"At least we see her coming. We understand her somewhat. Arthur didn't have a snowball's chance in Hell." She began walking toward the front of the house, Lucas at her side. "This dark in her soul, Lucas, it's a real black place, an abyss like the one the Biblical monster Abbaddon crawled up from. She's filled with this inky blackness. And she's out there someplace in the world lying in wait for us."

Six hours and too many cups of coffee to count later, Chang and company shut down the crime scene, and everyone left the farmstead while it was still dark, leaving yellow police-line tape over the doors and windows.

Chang had the two dogs transported to his lab along with Belkvin's body. Still the man's genitals had yet to be found. The two hearts were placed in separate coolers, each labeled and numbered. Each was also initialed with the supposed name of the owner: ADB and ML.

Meredyth and Lucas had remained until the end, and with the APB that had been placed on Arthur Belkvin's BMW and on Lauralie Blodgett, they felt relatively sure that someone somewhere soon must spot the vehicle and/or its occupant and call in for the reward.

Yawning, tired, headachy, Meredyth now lay her head on Lucas's shoulder as he drove for her ranch home. They had informed Captain Lincoln that since he intended on turning the case over to the FBI, they were taking some time away. Jana North could play host to the FBI, Lucas had told the captain, who, not wishing for any argument, had agreed. "You two have done a remarkable job of taking the case to first and goal, Lucas," Lincoln summed up in football terms. "Time others carried the ball into the end zone."

"Lauralie's the one who'll select the end zone. Captain. Watch out for her."

"She's eluded us, I'll give her that," Lincoln replied, "but not for long now. I think it's a good idea, you two stepping back, getting out of harm's way for the time being. Take a trip; get out of Texas altogether for a time. You are her primary target, Meredyth. Makes sense your not wanting to be a sitting duck here. When she learns she can't find you, she'll become frustrated, and she'll make a hasty, foolhardy move, and we'll be ready for the misstep."

The agreement was that any further packages arriving for either Lucas or Meredyth, either at their homes or at the precinct, would be handled by the FBI.

Lucas yawned again, needing oxygen to the brain. He feared he'd fall asleep and run off the road. He flicked on the car radio for music or a talk show to keep awake. It was miles yet to Meredyth's getaway. She'd fallen asleep on his shoulder altogether now.

A pair of headlights roared up behind him and around the car at a good twenty miles an hour over the limit, a sporty-looking expensive car, but he let it pass without thought. No way was he going to get involved with a speeder, and to get on the horn, he'd have to wake Meredyth off his shoulder. Besides, the sun would soon be up, and he wanted a bed and sleep, not a police station and paperwork to fill out.

Another pair of headlights came up on the rearview, but this driver remained at a safe, sensible distance, maintaining the limit.

CHAPTER 18

LUCAS STONECOAT BREATHED in deeply, taking in the dawn air as it streamed in through the window of the moving vehicle. As they passed below a covered bridge, he smelled the aged, gray wood and the pleasant greenery that graced the banks of the little river below. He had memorized the way to Meredyth's home away from home. He could see the shimmering edges of the lake in the distance, the waning moon creating diamonds along the lake's placid surface. He made out the beginnings of acres of white rail fencing that seemed to move with the grass and the rolling hills. He soon made out the stand of trees around the main house, and beyond this the stables. He thought of Yesyado, the thoroughbred horse he'd ridden the last time he was here. He thought of their excursion in the canoe, and their lovemaking on the bank. He had grown so fond of Meredyth.

Fond, he thought, mulling over the euphemism they had now for so long substituted for the word love—the real feeling they held for one another. He kissed her head where it lay on his shoulder, taking in the smell of her perfumed hair. He kissed her a second time, realizing she was completely oblivious to him. "I love you, Meredyth Sanger. Do you hear me? I love you."

She squeezed his thigh, letting him know that she had indeed heard the endearing words. "I love you too, you dumb Cherokee. I've always loved you."

"You're awake?"

"Not really, but I will remember this in the morning...."

"We're almost home," he informed her, changing the subject.

"I can't wait to hit the bed."

"I hear you."

"You don't happen to have any peyote on you, do you? Maybe some stashed in the car?"

"Are you nuts? This is a police car."

"Hmmm... just wishful thinking."

"How 'bout some of that stockpile of brandy or wine in your cellar?"

"Dad's cellar... but I'm sure we can find something to agree upon."

She lapsed into silence for a few moments, then spoke again. "Lucas."

"Yes, dear?"

'Tell me again why you pursued the fifty-year-old case of Yolanda Sims."

"Somebody had to do it."

"No, seriously...tell me why. What power on earth led you to it in the first place?"

"I don't know really...it's a mystery. I was so fixated on finishing the transfers, you know, from hard copy to disks. Had all my people working down in the CC room overtime, weekends, Sundays, and racing through, when Donovan lifts a box and tilts it coming down from the ladder, and this murder book slips out and hits me in the eye. The photos of the girl littered the floor. Later, when I could see better, I opened the file up, thumbed through it, was about to hand it back to Bill when I decided to just hold on to it for a while."

"But why did you pursue it?"

"Maybe it was just for me; maybe I'd sleep better at night knowing I at least tried after looking into that little girl's eyes. Her death photos didn't do it, but that one full head shot of her alive, smiling, her eyes intense...it just told me I had no choice."

"That's what I love about you wild Texas Cherokee tough-guy types, that streak of intense empathy, that big heart. It's a rare man who cares as much as you do. There's not enough like you in this world."

"I'll take that as a compliment."

She lifted her lips to his, kissing him as they turned onto the long, winding dirt road leading up to her family home. In the distance, the first rays of the sun blinked over the horizon.

"Parents still in France?"

"Right, but even if they weren't, they hardly ever come out to the old place anymore. They're kinda sorta down to the one house now over in Clover Leaf. Closer to the action, shopping, theaters, and my condo."

"We've made it. We're here."

"At last," she replied. "Home... safe...perchance to sleep."

"I think it was perchance to dream, Mere."

"I'll settle for sleep this time round. What about you? You must be as exhausted as I am."

It had been an emotionally and physically taxing twenty-four hours, and Lucas knew that he too, laying his head on a pillow, would be instantly out. "Brandy and bed and your embrace?" he suggested.

"Sounds good to me...sounds very good to me."

THE CHOKING ODOR of last night's French-fry grease permeated the all-night, all-you-can-eat, empty-of- customers M&M Cafe, the lone waitress and cook sleepwalking through a routine of gearing up for the coming rush of their usual crowd here on Route 4. The local morning crowd, Lauralie Blodgett imagined, would be trickling through the doors within the hour; what passed for a rush . hour here, twenty-odd miles from any road that might take her to the Interstate and escape. Escape did not appear promising, not from here.

She thought of the effect the deaths of Dr. Sanger's lover and her parents would have on her, how the woman would suffer for the rest of her days. The thought sustained her.

Lauralie Blodgett sat in the booth that looked out on the parking lot and her BMW, trying to enjoy a quiet moment over a plate of home cooking—meat loaf, tumip greens, mash potatoes, and gravy—and sipping at a Coca Cola, when the brown police cruiser pulled into the spot alongside what had been Arthur's car. The two policemen were laughing over something, one shoving the other as they climbed from their cruiser. In the trunk of the BMW lay the plastic-wrapped half corpse of Mira Lourdes.

She pictured flirting with the two officers in their Smokey the Bear hats—state troopers. She imagined smiling, nodding, blinking, and pawing catlike at them the way men couldn't resist. She searched her brain for an explanation about the car, should they suspect it stolen or wanted in connection with the Ripper crimes. She imagined one officer captivated with her, while the other insisted she pop the trunk to display her cargo, and their subsequent shocked reactions. They'd be catapulted from their obscurity to national fame just by virtue of having stumbled upon her at their local watering hole, the heroes of Harris County.

"That'll be the day that I die," she muttered, and the heavily made up blonde-wigged waitress looked over in her direction, only to see the two state troopers beyond the window in the faded twilight.

"Maury! Troops've landed! Put on two double cheeseburgers and fries!"

"What?" Maury called back from the kitchen. "What you say, Mary?"

"Del and Nolan're here! Troops're here!" shouted the waitress, her manner telling Lauralie that the troopers were regulars who apparently came to the M&M diner routinely each dawn.

Lauralie's mind raced with concern about the police, watching them intently, while the answer to a puzzle played out in her head as well. Mary and Maury. She put it together with the M&M on the big neon sign outside; that waitress and cook must be the M and M who owned the place. Simultaneously Lauralie listened to the TV news anchors on the tube in an overhead corner. She reveled in having created so much chaos, fear, and wonder, and she was pleased with the coverage up till now. In fact, she had fed on the power of knowing she alone was in control of this situation the press had dubbed the Post-it Ripper killings. The TV news and talk shows were now talking about it virtually twenty-four hours a day. The talk show hosts and anchormen and women ghoulishly picking over Mira Lourdes's bones, trying desperately to put her death together with various police raids across the city of Houston and last night's raid on the farmhouse. Reports praised police work in raids that had netted information that connected the murdered Dr. Arthur Belkvin to the Ripper case and the fugitive, Lauralie Blodgett. They then flashed her school photos on the screen along with a hot-line number. The TV cut back to a roomful of commentators and armchair profilers, expectant and anxious, awaiting the next chapter in the story that Lauralie was writing. One even had a chart of which parts of the Lourdes body remained to be delivered to authorities, and which had already been severed. They didn't have her heart. Lauralie felt certain that Dr. Meredyth Sanger must understand the significance of the hearts she'd left on display at the farmhouse.

She only half-heard the TV now, her attention on the two cops coming through the door as one stopped and pointed back at the car beside their cruiser. "Two News has learned that two high-ranking officials with the Houston PD to whom the Ripper has communicated..." The two policemen made tentative steps back toward the lot and began inspecting her car, moving about it like a pair of flies, curious and growing more so.

"The killer in this case does not fit any of our normal typologies when it comes to serial-killer profiling," came the voice of a so-called FBI expert on the TV over the counter.

From her booth, Lauralie pointed to the TV and said, "I know more about that shit than anyone on the planet."

The waitress looked more closely at Lauralie now, studying her features as if trying to place her. "Yeah? Really? You don't look old enough to know a lot about crime fighting."

"I know more than that idiot profiler, more than any newscaster, more than anyone in law enforcement, more than all the damned politicians and religious leaders! More than even God himself if only there was a God, which I have never particularly relied upon, Mary."

The waitress unconsciously touched her name tag and recalled giving the young woman her name when first waiting on her. "You shouldn't say such things about God, honey."

"Mary, Mary, quite contrary, Mary, Mother of God... no, I don't hold faith in the Exalted One, despite or because of the years I've spent behind the black gates of Hell."

Mary stared at the stranger, trembling now, giving herself away in the eyes and wavering lower lip. They both realized in the same instant that Mary had recognized Lauralie's likeness as the woman law enforcement wanted for questioning. Considered armed and dangerous. The waitress's eyes moved off Lauralie a moment too late, going to the big plate-glass window, determining where the two troopers had gotten off to.

The TV news anchor was again relaying the story, with video, of an isolated farmhouse on Old Hazard Creek Road in Waller County, not terribly far from here, where the mutilated body of one Dr. Arthur D. Belkvin, a veterinary doctor and instructor at the Dean King School of Veterinary Medicine, was found in a commando-style raid by police—in an apparent failed attempt to locate Belkvin and an accomplice alive. The raid was the culmination of a week-long missing persons investigation in which authorities knew the missing woman had already been killed since her chopped-up remains had been mailed piece by severed piece to several high-ranking police officials in Houston.

"Liars!" Lauralie shouted at the TV. "They were only sent to the famous forensic shrink Dr. Meredyth Sanger and to her lover boy Lieutenant Lucas Stonecoat, and that's all. So why don't they name that bitch, huh? She's the cause of all this."

Mary, frozen in place, said nothing and did not move. Again Lauralie stared up at the TV to see her yearbook photos displayed.

"I got what I wished for, Mary. Finally...wanted." She laughed. "Wanted by everybody now...hell of a price on my head, you know that, Mary? Mary, Mother of God, you think you'd like to collect on that bounty, Mother dear?" Lauralie again laughed.