Taking a deep breath, the sun glinting stonily in her eyes, Kim Desinor replaced her dark glasses on her face and backed away from Jessica with a swift nod, returning to the sanctuary of her escort's car, where Ben deYampert told her he'd be happy to see her to her hotel.
Sincebaugh had disappeared in the crowd, tugging someone away from Commissioner Stephens. Kim's eyes followed Sincebaugh out of curiosity, and now she realized that Alex was suddenly ensnared in what was a quiet but bitter discussion with an unknown man.
“ Sure, yes, Detective,” she replied to deYampert. “Say, who's that with your partner over there?”
“ Oh, that'd be Captain Landry, ma'am.”
“ I see. Maybe on the way to the hotel, you can tell me what you know about the previous victim found-where?”
“ At the Chantilly Pier in Gretna,” he replied. “Tell you all about it.”
“ How's your partner going to get back?”
“ Don't worry about Alex. Landry and him have some differences to iron out.”
“ Me, you mean?”
“ Hey, it's nothing personal with Sincy…Alex, ma'am. Just that he doesn't believe in changing horses midstream, if you get my drift.”
“ And what about you, Ben? You consider me a risk?”
“ Me? Well, ma'am, I told Alex that seems to me that we're not riding a horse but a two-humped camel at the moment, and if switching from a camel to a horse midstream has any merit, then by God… well, I'm willing to give it a try.”
She laughed lightly at this. Ben she liked instantly. “Tell me about Gretna, and after that tell me about Victor Surette.”
“ Surette? You know about Surette?” Ben's voice rose audibly, displaying his amazement on his sleeve.
“ I know a little about him, yes.”
“ Really? You thinking like Alex?”
“ I don't know. What's Alex thinking like?”
He hesitated, holding the door for her. “Ahh, maybe best not to discuss it just now with you; it's kinda between partners, you know.”
“ Sure… sure, I can respect that.”
“ Good… good…”
He marched around the car, grimacing at himself as he went, and in a moment they were pulling away from the wharf and all its excitement, heading for the bridge that would return them lakeside. To the locals, to simplify life, there were four directions in New Orleans: lakeside, riverside, uptown and downtown.
Once over the Mississippi again, a few blocks into the bustle of the city, she said to Ben deYampert, “Alex thinks that Surette was the first, doesn't he.”
“ What, huh?”
“ Alex believes that Surette was the first Queen of Hearts victim, doesn't he, Ben?”
“ Christ, Dr. Desinor, you're good. Got to hand you that. How'd you come to that reckoning when you've been in the city for what, less than two hours?”
14
And I find more bitter than death the woman, whose heart is snares and nets, and her hands as bands.
Jessica Coran marched up to Stephens and said, “I want to see yesterday's victim immediately.”
Stephens turned from the reporters who were pushing forward, attempting to get a word from the woman they only knew as Special Agent Jessica Coran of the FBI. He took her aside while his aides dealt with the press. “Wouldn't you care for a break, something to eat maybe, a chance to unpack?”
“ Right now, no, just yesterday's body. Can you get me to the morgue without a lot of hubbub and press on my heels, Commissioner?”
“ Sure, sure… we can arrange that easily enough. You've got to transport the evidence of this crime scene anyway, right?''
She nodded, agreeing to the protocol that said she must at all times be under guard so long as she was transporting medico-legal evidence.
“ I must say I was a bit disappointed in our psychic friend this morning,” he confided in what seemed an unnecessarily conspiratorial tone.
“ Yes, well… no one bats a thousand, as they say, and being upstaged by the eel… well, it effectively shut down the show, didn't it? What is it actors say about working with animals?'' Jessica immediately regretted the theatrical comparisons, knowing that Kim didn't deserve this and wondering why she felt so compelled to view the psychic detective as her competition.
Stephens now led her to a police car, ordering the uniformed officers there to see that she and her evidence arrived safely and efficiently at the precinct, where every item would become part of a manifest of murder. The integrity of the evidence depended upon a scrupulous cataloging of each article and substance she'd collected at the scene, all of it then placed under lock and key to maintain the integrity of the data.
This was quickly done after a ride across the city, and from the evidence room, it was a short walk to the morgue via a tunnel that ended at the lower depths of the Tulane University Hospital extension, a highly regarded state-of-the-art teaching facility.
Inside an hour and a half, she was standing over a stainless-steel, revolving slab on which yesterday's nameless victim lay cold and earthen to the touch, the flesh and features turned to a claylike caricature of what they had once been. Into the room stepped Dr. Franklin Wardlaw, and for a moment the large man with his piercing, steel-gray eyes simply stared over his mask at Jessica as if she were lost.
“ The autopsy was only begun yesterday when I was interrupted by your superior Meade, P.C. Stephens and a political hack by the name of Fouintenac,” Dr. Ward law began, his voice like a biting metal file in her ear. She'd ostensibly replaced the man in his own hospital.
She didn't know quite what to say, but she could empathize with the scene he described. “Removed while in the middle of an autopsy? That's unconscionable, really.”
“ Fouintenac-whom I've never seen before-did as nice a job on me as this poor slob got.” He indicated the decapitated body lying before them. “I was curious about the decapitation, you know, since it was such a departure from the other victims and-”
She agreed instantly. “My thought too, absolutely.”
“ So here I was, staring down at the wounds, when P.C. Stephens had me bodily removed. My lawyers are fighting that action now, and have gotten a cease-and-desist order against the city and Commissioner Stephens until we go to court. The injunction holds for the time being, Dr. Coran, and so we are stuck with one another, I'm afraid… at least for now.”
She didn't miss a beat, replying, “In the meantime, then, I will assist you as best I can, Dr. Wardlaw.”
This only made him stare even harder at her, as if he suspected her of some false pretense-and to a degree, he was correct. It was a standard line meant to place the local M.E., pathologist or crime lab technician at ease. Still, she felt some compassion for the older medical professional who had slipped from grace. So she continued, saying,”And I can only hope you will accept my presence here in the spirit in which I've traveled here, to offer my full cooperation and that of the FBI.”
“ You have no idea the embarrassment, the shame they've caused me. Well, I'm not taking it lying down, and Stephens will be sorry for the day he sided against me.”
“ I was M.E. in Washington, D.C., some years before I became an agent, Dr. Wardlaw. I know about the ugly political aspects of the M.E.'s office.”
“ You were on staff at what hospital?”
“ Washington Memorial.”
“ As a junior pathologist?”
“ No, no… I was their M.E., the designated city coroner for D.C.”
“ Really? I must say that's impressive for one who looks so young.”