To add to the revulsion of the scene, Lucas saw the pair of human teeth-also scattered from the fallen box-lying at a distance from the eyes, each having taken different paths. He intuited the eyes making a soft landing and remaining fairly close to where they had made contact with the plush carpeting, but the teeth he saw bouncing wildly, like a pair of dropped earrings, when the parcel was overturned. This would explain how far they'd traveled from the epicenter of the large stain where the liquid residue of the spoiling eyes had slipped from the Styrofoam-laced box. From this, he determined precisely where Byron had been standing when he had insisted on tearing open the delivery and subsequently dropping it.
Lucas went into the kitchen and banged around in search of something, the sound of silverware clattering off silverware as he rummaged, making her call out, "What're you looking for?"
'Tongs…found 'em!" he said, returning and going to the discarded packaging, and using the white Teflon tongs, he crouched and reached for the crumpled paper that had been wrapped about the box to examine the handwriting.
"Do you have to use my best tongs?" she asked.
"All I could find. Look here," he said, turning the block lettering on the package to his eyes. "It's the same block lettering."
He replaced the packaging precisely where it had lain. He then reached for the scripted note, another little poem from the look of it. "I'd swear it's the same handwriting as the package sent me. Only difference, return address is your private office downtown."
"It's a ruse; no one from the office would do this, no one."
"What about one of your patients?"
"Perhaps. We could start there. I have handwriting on all my patients, but it's most likely whoever did this would disguise the hand."
"Disguised or not, there'll be patterns. We'll get a top- notch handwriting expert to find them and rule in or out anyone you might suspect from your practice. Same for the cops you've counseled at the precinct, and any criminals you've interviewed recently."
"How can you suspect any of the men at the Three-one, Lucas? They're all grateful for my help."
"Does that include Lewis Adiwa, the guy you helped IAD nail for that prostitute murder?"
"He's in jail clear 'cross the state in Shackleford State Penitentiary. Clear to Abilene, Lucas."
Lucas shrugged. "Cells and bars don't keep men from operating on the outside. Not anymore. They've got civil liberties, phone calls, opportunities like never before. You see that new reality show on prison bands? Give me a break."
"Maybe Adiwa should be examined. He did threaten my life, but I really doubt any of your colleagues at the precinct could be behind this."
"I don't think you know how nasty cops can get when they're pulling off what they consider a joke."
"A joke! This is no damned joke, Lucas."
"I suspect it may be all a prank aimed at the two of us, concocted by Itchy Amie Feldman maybe, encouraged by others maybe, and given the means-the human tissues by Dr. Frank Patterson-whom I've had my run-ins with- maybe."
"That's a lot of maybes."
"Perhaps."
"And besides, it's…it's just too…too darned crazy. They'd have to be fools! They could lose their jobs for this kind of insane prank."
"Not if they come waltzing up to the door right now with a beer keg, pretzels, and claimed responsibility, and we all laugh it off."
"I'd have their badges, and they know it."
"Not if it can't be proven, and if The Itch-that is, Feldman, has someone working the inside of the lab with him, the lab guy will've known to use parts from a body long since buried or even cremated. Wouldn't take much to fudge the records and rob off pieces from a John or a Jane Doe autopsy."
"You think so? How do you do that, Lucas? Get into the heads of such sickos? It can't be easy or fun."
"A gift or a curse. I have a hell of an imagination, you might say."
She took a deep breath, considering more seriously his theory. "It almost makes me feel better, at least in one sense, to think it's all some sort of inside joke by the boys of the Thirty-first-as sick as that may be, but why pick on us, Lucas?"
"How many people you know that're jealous of a close bond, Mere? We have that. Others dislike us for it. Simple Psych 101."
"If it's true, it'll certainly narrow our search."
"I plan to watch their reactions tomorrow when I go in; you do the same."
"Damned juvenile behavior… typical cop crap," she muttered. "Bastards."
Lucas had offered an explanation she could handle with a great deal more ease, at least tonight. He mentally patted himself on the back for having calmed her. She was visibly more at ease, so long as she kept her eyes off the eyes. A hoax seemed far preferable to this being a horrible prelude to worse psychological attacks. It had the added virtue of an end in sight. Lucas asked if she would make coffee, sending her into the kitchen, away from the disagreeable objects littering her living room. She had taken a step toward the kitchen when a loud knock at her door sent a new shock wave through her.
"CSI Team, Houston Police Department! Open up, please!"
Lucas stepped to the door and opened it for young Ted Hoskins, a pale-faced twenty-six-year-old evidence tech with the CSI unit whose thick glasses, thin mustache, and stylishly cut hair made him look like a college boy. Behind Ted stood two others, a crime-scene photographer named Steve Perelli, and a young female intern he only knew as Lil. With them, hanging back, was the doorman who'd led them up to the Sanger condo.
"Detective Stonecoat," began Hoskins. "Guess this must be the place, the Sanger residence? Something to do with human body parts being found?"
"This is the place," Lucas informed them, and the two men filed into the living room area, followed sheepishly by the intern, being careful as they formed a kind of circle around the obvious evidence.
The concerned doorman called in to Meredyth, asking if she were all right. He'd been taken by surprise by the arrival of the CSI van with the city coroner's logo.
"I'm all right, Max," she said, going to the door and assuring him of the fact.
"Who died?" he asked her.
"No one, Max…I mean, no one that I know of. It's likely just a joke in extremely bad taste, but we have to be thorough all the same."
Meanwhile, Lucas explained to Hoskins, "Dr. Nielsen contacted me via dispatch as I drove here from across town. I received a similar package around the same time at my place. I briefed Nielsen on what to expect at both locations, and I assured her that it had nothing to do with anthrax."
"Where'd she get that notion?" asked Hoskins.
"Don't know where she got that idea."
A number of additional evidence technicians filtered in now.
"You still want that coffee, Lucas?" Meredyth asked.
"Sure…let's make ourselves scarce. Get outta the way here." He guided her back into the kitchen. She brewed a pot of coffee, while Lucas made a phone call to a friend on the force, Sergeant Stan Kelton. He informed Stan of what had happened, asking him if he'd heard or seen anything unusual about the station house that might cement Lucas's theory that it was all a stupid prank.