“ You don't write more than a thimbleful, Big.”
DeYampert pretended not to hear. “Every lab report Ward-law's done on the case. Hell, I'd have thought you'd be pleased.”
“ Maybe I am.”
“ Got a queer way of showing it.”
“ So, they're finally thinking the Gretna body's a copycat killing now, huh?”
“ You called it first, Alex. Landry knows that you beat out Wardlaw, the FBI M.E., and the psychic on this.”
“ Sure he does.”
Alex stood there seething, wondering, trying to guess the enemy's next move. Ben tried to make light of it.
“ It's no biggy, Alex, really.”
“ Christ, Ben, are you out to lunch on this? It's time you woke up, partner. They're replacing us on the case and you're doing a tap-dance routine.”
“ Landry wants us to stay on the case. He told me so. Besides, would it be so bad if we were reassigned, Sincy? Hell, we'd both sleep better.”
“ Landry… how long do you think Landry's going to remain in charge of the investigation now that the FBI's involved. Ben? What planet are you living on?”
“ Well, god damnit, Alex…” Ben's voice was an angry whisper. “If they want the case. I say give it to 'em lock, stock and barrel. Would it be so freakin' bad? Hell, you know how it's been like with Fiona, the kids? And what about you and your damnable inability to sleep, pal?”
Sincebaugh stared across at his partner, saying nothing.
“ We're burned out on this one. Alex. We both know it.”
Sincebaugh gave his partner a glare, wondering what was on his mind and with whom he'd been talking. “So, that's the latest opinion poll?”
“ Maybe you'd better just talk to Landry or… or go see this Dr. Coran for yourself.” A strange look flitted birdlike across Ben's eyes.
“ Something's up. What is it? I felt it the minute I walked in.”
Ben frowned, looking as if he'd been caught in a lie. “Seems the captain's called in our medium to lay hands on the body, and yesterday Alex, she told 'em all that the Gretna guy was poisoned by someone close to him and hacked up later. Said his head was cut off after death too.”
“ She put it on record, just like that? When?”
“ Late yesterday.” Alex looked away, shaking his head in disbelief. “At least you two agree… seem to be on the same, you know, wavelength. Coran's report's going to back her contention too. Least that's what Carl Landry told me.”
“ What the hell do we know about this Dr. Desinor, Ben?”
“ What, you want a full background check? She's a psychic… a trance medium… a psychic detective out of Florida… Miami area…” Ben watched him closely as he continued to speak, waiting for any sign of an explosion.
“ What else?”
“ Has her own detective agency it seems… an independent, freelances, you know. Did you really get any sleep last night, Sincy?”
“ Will you quit staring at me, for Christ's sake. Ben?” Alex moaned the words. “I don't need your mothering or your psychobabbling to add to this goddamn three-ring circus we already have here, okay?”
He rushed off for the nearby hospital police morgue in the basement at Tulane where Dr. Coran must have done her work beneath blinding fluorescent tubes in rooms without windows. Alex went for the stairs that would take him down and through the lonely tunnel, too impatient and upset to take the elevator. When he got there, the dingy old facility, normally empty and silent save for a wandering technician or two, was packed full with people. Captain Landry at the center along with the police commissioner, someone from the mayor's office-that deputy mayor by the name of Fouintenac-and the New Orleans FBI Bureau Chief, Lew Meade, a man who'd hounded Sincebaugh for months now on details about the Hearts case but would give nothing back, preferring to deal at a higher administrative level that kept him from getting his hands the least dirty.
Dr. Coran stood in the rear beside Dr. Wardlaw, the medical examiners both obviously distraught and displaced by the psychic, Dr. Desinor, who was center stage amid the dignitaries, all hovering over the latest corpse, the one snatched from the Toulouse Wharf section of the Mississippi. It took Alex a moment to realize that Dr. Kim Desinor's hands were actually inside the open chest wound of the latest victim. Obviously, she'd gotten over her fear of eels, the slimy intestines causing her no compunction. She looked in a state of raw ecstasy.
“ Captain Landry,” Alex began. “What the hell's going on here, Captain?” He heard the others shushing him, and he now saw the strangest light dancing deep within Kim Desinor's luminous eyes. She didn't look like the same woman.
Her eyes-which were not hers at the moment-rose from the corpse to him with shimmering intensity, a magnetic surge going between the psychic and the cop, a terrific fire which he could not fully comprehend, and yet he felt that she'd taken something from him.
“ Shhhhh!” Landry placed both hands on Alex's chest and hustled him back through the double doors of the autopsy room. “I thought you were advised by IAD to stay out for a while.”
“ You know damned well I've got too much invested on this case to slack off now or to-”
“ That's enough, Alex. You don't own this case anymore. It's gotten too big!”
“- or see it turned over to Stephens”-he didn't slow down or hear his captain-”and… and some psychic clown he's brought with him.”
“ Lower your voice or shut up, Alex, now!”
“ To hell with it, Captain! What's going on and why wasn't I advised about your bringing in a damned psychic in the first place, and by God, if you're going to hold a frigging seance in the morgue-”
“ You were advised!”
“ Bullshit.”
“ When's the last time you took a reality check, Alex? What the hell'd you think I was talking about to you in my office the other day or when I sent you out to the airport to pick her up? This isn't a game of backgammon, and it goes without saying that we don't work in a goddamned vacuum either. We've got the eyes of the nation on us now.”
“ So Stephens calls in a psychic and the press? Then he holds a… a bloody seance over a dead guy in the morgue with Wardlaw and Coran displaced and looking on?”
“ She's made significant hits, Alex. She's extremely good!”
“ You know how this already looks to the press, Captain? How's it going to look when word leaks out about her doing a reading of the corpse down here, huh? Answer that one, Carl. You, me, all of us are going to look like we're freaking out, that we're so fucking desperate that-”
“ We are desperate, Alex… we are!” Landry, a stocky man with a large neck and broad shoulders and smoldering, yet sad gray eyes, gritted his teeth and said, “You don't get it, do you, Lieutenant. This case is going into a new phase. Now you can either be a part of that new phase, or you can be phased out, all right?”
“ No way you're taking me off the case, Captain.”
“ Well, that's a relief! What a change of heart, Lieutenant. Believe me, at this stage, that decision is not entirely up to you anymore, Alex.”
There was a long moment of silence between them. Alex held his jaw firmly set.
Captain Landry continued hollowly. “IAD brought me some interesting footage today in which you play a major role.”
“ It was a simple bust, Captain.”
“ Simple? You read those guys like a book, presupposed their actions and stopped them cold before they committed an unlawful act, Alex. Now call that what you want, IAD could make trouble for you. Hanson and Hirschenfeldt wanted to bust your ass the moment you walked through the door today, believe me.”
“ Those clowns? That's bull and you-”
“ They think they've got the crime of the century in their possession, Alex, and you are the star. I convinced them to let it be for now; I convinced them good.”
Alex calmed a bit. “I suppose this is where I say thanks?”