I finally turned around. "There's no head and no hands." I pointed at small lumps in the blood. "Unless those are fingers. Was the body completely disjointed even down to the finger bones?"
Edward nodded. "Every victim has been almost completely dismembered down to the joints."
"Why?" I asked. I looked at Edward. "Where's the head?"
"They found it down the hill behind the house. The brain was missing."
"How about the heart?" I asked. "I mean there's the spine, almost intact, but I don't see any viscera. Where are all the internal organs?"
"They didn't find them," Edward said.
I leaned back, half-sitting on the table. "Why take the internal organs? Did they eat them? Is it part of some magical ritual? Or is it just part of the ritual of the killing itself, a souvenir?"
"There are a lot of organs in the body," Olaf said. "You put them all in one container and they can be heavy, bulky. They also rot very quickly unless you put them in some form of preservative."
I looked at him, but he wasn't looking at me. He was looking at the pictures. He hadn't given a lot of detail, but something in the way he said it made him sound like he knew what he was talking about.
"And how do you know how heavy the internal organs of a human body can be?"
"He could have worked in a morgue," Edward said.
I shook my head. "But he didn't, did you, Olaf."
"No," he said, and now he was looking at me. His eyes had been turned into two dark caves by the deep set of his face and a trick of light, or would that be darkness. He stared down at me, and without seeing his eyes I could feel the intensity of that stare, as if I were being studied, measured, dissected.
I kept my gaze on Olaf, but asked, "What is his specialty, Edward? Why did you call him in on this particular case?"
"The only person I've ever seen do anything close to this, is him," Edward said.
I glanced at him, and his face was calm. I turned back to Olaf. "I was told you went to jail for rape, not murder."
He looked right at me and said, "The police arrived too soon."
A cheerful voice called out from the front of the house. "Ted, it's us." It was Donna, and the «us» could only mean the kids.
Edward left at a goodly walk, trying to head her off. I think Olaf and I might have still been staring at each other when she walked in on us, but Bernardo came in, and said, "We're supposed to hide the pictures."
"How?" Olaf asked.
I took the candelabra off the table and said, "Put the table cloth over the door." I stood aside and let Bernardo drag it off the table.
Olaf said, "Aren't you going to help him? You are one of the boys, after all."
"I'm not tall enough to hold it up over the entire door," I said.
He gave a small smile, derisive, but he moved up to help Bernardo block the open doorway with the tablecloth.
I was left standing behind them with the black iron candelabra in my hands. I stared at the tall, bald man and was half-regretful that I wasn't tall enough to smash the heavy iron candelabra into his skull. Just as well. I'd owe Edward another favor if I killed one of his backups just because he'd scared me.
30
I COULD HEAR EDWARD in his best consoling Ted voice, trying to convince her that she didn't need to say Hi to everyone. She argued, polite, but firm, that of course she did. The more he tried to keep her away, the more she wanted to see. Call it a hunch, but I was betting it was me she wanted to see. The house was arranged so that you couldn't enter the three guest bedrooms without going through the dining room. Donna wanted to make sure where I was, and that I hadn't been in anyone's bed but my own. Or at least not in Ted's. Did she think that I was racing ahead of them to my room to throw clothes over my nakedness? Whatever the motive, she was coming this way. I heard Becca's voice.
Shit. I ducked under the rug across the door and nearly ran into them. Donna stopped walking with a small oomph of surprise. Her eyes were wide as she looked at me as if I'd scared her. Peter was watching me with cool brown eyes, as if it was all too boring for words, but underneath the perfect teenage boredom was a light, an interest. Everybody wondered why the tablecloth was in front of the doorway.
It was Becca who said it. "Why is the rug in front of the door?" I kept calling it a tablecloth because that's what Edward was using it for, but it still looked like a rug. Kids stick to the basics.
Donna looked at Edward. "Yes, Ted, why is the tablecloth in front of the door."
"Because we're holding it," Bernardo said from behind the improvised curtain.
She stepped close to the cloth. "And why are you holding it?"
"Ask Ted," Bernardo and Olaf said together.
Donna turned back to Edward. I usually know what Edward will say, but with Donna I was out of guesses.
"We've got the pictures from the case spread all over the room. They aren't something I want you or the kids to see." Gee, he went for the truth. It must be true love.
"Oh," she said. She seemed to think about it for a second or two, then nodded. "Becca and I will take the goodies through to the kitchen." She lifted a white, string-wrapped box, took Becca by the hand and went towards the kitchen. Becca was straining backwards, saying, "But, Mommy, I want to see the pictures."
"No, you don't, sweetie," Donna said, and very firmly led the child away.
I thought that Peter would follow but he stood there, looking at the door way, then glanced at Edward. "What kind of pictures?" he asked.
"Bad ones," Edward said.
"How bad?"
"Anita," Edward said.
"Some of the worst I've seen, and I've seen some awful stuff," I said.
"I want to see," Peter said.
I said, "No."
Edward said nothing, just looked at him.
Peter scowled at us. "You think I'm a baby."
"I wouldn't want your mom to see them either," Edward said.
"She's a wimp," he said.
I agreed with him, but not out loud.
"Your mother is who she is," Edward said. "It doesn't make her weak. It just makes her Donna."
I stared at him, trying very hard not to gape, but I wanted to. I'd never heard him cut anyone any slack for anything. Edward was not just judgmental He was a harsh judge. What chemical alchemy did the woman have to have won him over? I just did not get it.
"I think what … Ted is trying to say is that it isn't your age that makes us not want to show you the pictures."
"You think I can't handle it," Peter said.
"Yeah," I said, "I think you can't handle it."
"I can handle anything that you can handle," he said, arms crossed over his thin chest.
"Why? Because I'm a girl?"
He actually blushed, as if embarrassed. "I didn't mean that." But of course he had. But, hey, he was fourteen. I'd let it slide.
"Anita is one of the toughest people I've ever met," Edward said.
Peter squinted at him, arms still hugging his chest. "Tougher than Bernardo?"
Edward nodded.
"Tougher than Olaf?" And I thought more of the kid that he'd put the two men in that order. He knew instinctively which was the scariest man, or maybe it was just Olaf's size. No, I think Peter had a feel for the bad guys. It's something you either have or you don't. It can't really be taught.
"Even tougher than Olaf," Edward said.
There was a disgruntled sound from behind the rug. The sound of Olaf's ego getting bruised.
Peter looked at me, and the look had changed. You could almost see him thinking, trying to put my petite female self in the same category as Olaf's aggressive male presence. He finally shook his head. "She doesn't look as tough as Olaf."