“ Dr. Insley, I’d like to see what you do have. Is that possible?” Is it? Jessica secretly wondered, glad that Santiva hadn’t heard Insley’s remarks.
“ Yes, of course. Dr. Wainwright has some specimens laid out for you.”
“ Chief Santiva and I are engaged in a manhunt for a serial killer whose victims have been held underwater for a period of time, and whose bodies have been partially eaten by sea life.”
“ I see your problem is great, most assuredly… Dr. Coran, is it? Still, my… our interests here are fairly specific, well-defined research areas, and we… study specifically what is in the sharks’ digestive tracts, you understand, and certainly, we aren’t in any sort of search for incriminating evidence in your… in a murder investigation.”
“ I understand that.” Jessica knew she had to put the woman at as much ease as possible, but this lady had some recoil factor. Their coming into her domain like this had obviously unsettled her. “Look, Dr. Insley, we’re going to be in and out of here, doing our job as discreetly and as quickly as possible, truly. We have the helicopter waiting outside. It’s just that several bodies that have washed ashore along the Florida coast in the past several months have had obvious shark injuries. And if we can pinpoint the geography of the sharks, this might well help us with the geography of the crimes.”
“ Geography of the crimes. My… I’ve never heard such a phrase before. But if a shark attacked and killed someone, then its pack would likely have eaten more or less the entire body,” she countered.
“ We believe the victim was dead before the shark bites were made.”
“ So, you surmise a lack of blood, and therefore no feeding frenzy?” ‘This has appeared evident by the lack of blood around the wounds, along with a lack of any vital-”
“ You needn’t say another word. I understand, but still, sharks feed in groups. If a floating body were attacked by one, it’d be attacked by all; there’d be nothing left to wash ashore.”
Jessica frowned. “Well, that little mystery will have to await further information, I suppose. But for now, we’re interested in finding out what we can from the pieces… the parts you and Dr. Wainwright have uncovered.”
“ And continue to uncover,” said Wainwright, returning to them now. “There’s one in particular I’d like you to see, Dr. Coran. Come this way.”
Wainwright led Jessica into a lab, a room filled with many more workstations, microscopes, Bunsen burners and trays filled with test tubes than there were students to work them. Jessica wondered if Insley wanted it that way, or if marine biology had fallen off as a subject of interest for the young, or if so few students were being serviced here due to funding.
At the center of the room, a crane like device was lowered, and hanging from it was the opened, gutted carcass of a huge, lackluster white and gray shark.
“ This one came damn near to winning the tournament,” said Joel Wainwright. “It’s a great white. Perfectly beautiful creature, older than time itself. You know they date back two hundred million years? To the Triassic period, when all that separated Florida from the coast of Africa was an ocean the size of a wide river. They lived before the dinosaurs appeared, right alongside the crocodiles, and they’re so plentiful now in the seas that we run lotteries to catch them so that we can study them under our scopes.” “He is beautiful… or was,” Jessica commented, her eyes riveted to the once sleek exterior of the gray and white carcass, ignoring for the moment the huge rent to the underbelly. Then she saw the sac and fetal tissue that had been carefully placed in a nearby tank.
“ She-this time of year, we don’t take too many females, as they’re spawning, but Dr. Insley’s work requires a full study of the reproductive system and habits of the females and the males, so-”
“ Oh, do get on with it, Joel,” Dr. Insley insisted.
“ Anyway,” Wainwright continued as Santiva entered the semi darkened room, “she coughed up this.” Wainwright lifted a small, feminine forearm from a medical cooler, the sort of cooler which kept organ donations fresh. “It was lodged in her small intestine, which makes it fairly fresh.”
Jessica inched closer to the awful sight. The hand and most of the fingers were still intact, though green now with brown spots, and a golden wristband, embedded in a nasty gash, would have been invisible had it not mirrored the light with its metallic reflection. Wainwright had placed the entire thing under glass.
For a long moment everyone remained silent, staring, giving hushed homage to what this mangled piece of human flesh mirrored for each of them-their own mortality and connection with the dead.
“ I didn’t want to touch it-scientifically speaking-until you got here, Dr. Coran,” Wainwright explained. “Let’s put this under a bright light,” she calmly replied while her insides readjusted to what lay before her.
Soon the others were watching Jessica meticulously retrieve the thin, gold wristband from the gnarled flesh. It had been dented, gnashed and chewed as it was sifted through the shark’s powerful, razor like teeth, before being swallowed whole like a chunky cashew.
Jessica turned the gold beneath the light now and read a single word inscribed there: “Precious.”
“ What?” came a chorus of curious onlookers around Jessica. The two young students who’d been at the truck, having shed their outer protective gear, now joined the others inside.
“ There’s an inscription here, on the bracelet,” Jessica explained. “An inscription?” asked Aron Porter. “What kind of inscription?” asked Lynette Harris. “What does it say?” asked Insley. “It reads Precious.”
Santiva’s response was quick. “Who killed Precious?”
THREE
The human understanding is like a false mirror…
Pulse less arteries
Are like the fibers of a cloud instinct With light.
— Percy Bysshe Shelley
“ Just how many more body parts do you have on ice, Dr. Wainwright?” Jessica asked.
“ Quite a stack, actually. A couple of leg fragments, part of another arm, some feet and a cache of bones.”
Jessica turned to Santiva and said, “Tell the helicopter pilot to take off, but to remain on standby for our call. And Eriq-tip him well. And since we’re going to be here for some time, maybe a couple of days, you may want to get a rental car and rooms for us.” She turned to Wainwright and asked where the nearest hotel might be. “Two days, you estimate?” asked Santiva.
“ Hotels, around here? Sorry,” replied Wainwright. “Closest thing I might call a hotel around here is our dormitory, but it’s pretty stark. No room service, but you could dine with us.”
The prospect wasn’t particularly appealing. These people reminded her of the Addams Family for some reason.
“ Do you really figure it’ll take so long, Jess?” Santiva repeated.
“ Long enough so you can get that fishing trip in you’d hoped for, since you are in the Keys, after all. Go for it. But do like Spider said: Get a local guide.”
“ Now that I can help you with,” Wainwright proudly piped up. “Know one, do you?”
“ We know and use several, but Jabez Reiley, he’s the best, though expensive.”
“ Never mind the expense. Where can we get in touch with Mr. Reiley?” Jessica asked.
Eriq put up a cautionary hand to her, taking her aside and whispering, “But Jessica, won’t you need help around here, maybe to keep that dragon lady off your back?”
She returned the whisper. “I can handle the crone, and you’d just be in the way.” She then turned to Dr. Wainwright, telling him, “I want to see every single body part your people have discovered.”
“ No problem.”
“ And I want each one photographed from every conceivable angle; have you a good man for that?”
“ Aron Porter here is an excellent photographer. One of his gifts.”
“ Good… good… Then I’ll want some, if not all, of the body parts collected, boxed and protected with your best absorbent material, okay? I’ll want to take everything back to Miami with us.” Dr. Lois Insley had gone white by this time and had found a stool upon which to perch; she now leaned against one wall, making the noises of one about to hyperventilate. Jessica quickly approached the older woman and offered her a brown paper bag to breathe into, from a supply she kept in her black valise for reasons other than sickness. Brown bags were useful for certain types of evidence gathering, items such as blood spatters on cloth, items you didn’t want to smear or to have drying out in too rapid a fashion.