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  "You're stalling, Sid, showing off this palace of science. That isn't what I'm here for. What gives?” Dean finally asked.

  "Stupid to try and fool you, Dean ... but some people want to meet with you and get your impressions regarding the latest victim of the Scalper—that's what they're calling him in the press now, Scalper."

  "And who is it I'll be meeting, Sid?"

  Sid laughed a bit nervously. “A couple of cops that are assigned to the case, and their chief, and this guy Hamel, the shrink."

  "Why all the to-do, Sid? I don't get it. Certainly not because of the floaters thing in Chicago, unless you made me out as some kinda guru to these guys."

  "Not exactly that, Dean ... and I'm ... well, it's not exactly how I put it to you on the phone, old friend."

  Dean wondered what Sid was driving at when suddenly the double doors were pushed open and a stretcher was wheeled into the room, followed by the men Dean assumed he was to meet. The two holding back the doors, he guessed, were the detectives, while the two sauntering behind must be the police chief and the psychiatrist.

  There were quick introductions all around, Dean barely understanding that the two detectives were Park and Dyer. Dyer was quiet, moody-looking, maybe even pissed; and Park was certainly sullen. It was as if neither man wanted to be here. The chief, in a heavily accented voice, made the introductions, leaving Sid completely out, as if he weren't even in the room. Dean wondered if this were due to familiarity or contempt or both. Chief Ted “Slim” Hodges, large about the chest and middle, with a face that spread wide from the jowls and looked awkward below a cropped head of hair, wore civilian clothing, the buttons open for comfort, with heavy suspenders. He was loud, and saliva formed about the corners of his mouth as he spoke.

  But it was Hamel who drew Dean's attention more than the others, for here was the bull-slinger he'd heard Sid speak of, and he was an incredibly striking human being. Tall, slender, but not too slender, with wavy blond hair and thick lashes, he recalled to mind the rugged adventurer type, the underwater diver, the mountain climber, and the rhino hunter rolled into one. His icy, blue-gray stare nailed Dean where he stood as the attendent wheeled the corpse closer.

  "Dr. Grant, Dr. Hamel, our head of police psychiatry here in Orlando,” finished Chief Hodges. “He has been working closely with Park and Dyer here on the case."

  "Benjamin Hamel,” said the man, extending a powerful hand to Dean, and they shook firmly, each caught in the other's gaze. He didn't appear to be a man who took his work lightly, nor one who might make a quick or sloppy diagnosis, Dean thought.

  "We are here, Dr. Grant,” continued Chief Hodges, “to get a second opinion, in a sense."

  "Second opinion? On the corpse, you mean?"

  "Why, didn't Dr. Corman inform you?"

  Dean shot a glance in Sid's direction. Sid put up his hands. “I didn't want to bias Dr. Grant's autopsy in any way."

  "You wish me to do a complete autopsy on the victim?” asked Dean, surprised.

  "For the sake of thoroughness, you see, to leave nothing to chance."

  Dean listened to Hodges’ nuance as well as his words. With such a man, it was the only way to interpret what was being said. It appeared that Sid's situation here was not quite so cushy as he wanted Dean to believe, that something terribly wrong was afoot. The Chief of Police didn't make house calls to the morgue for second opinions on murder victims unless something had been botched, or someone was under investigation. Dean wondered how much of what he might say at this point would impact on Sid's future.

  "Are you men going to remain throughout the autopsy?” asked Dean, incredulous.

  "We'll be above you,” replied Hamel, a finger indicating the viewing section above.

  "And we'll monitor your every word,” added Hodges.

  "I see,” replied Dean, “how cozy. But suppose I choose not to become a part of such a performance?"

  "Then we will call in someone of our choosing,” said Hodges with a whispered aside—someone's name—to Dr. Hamel.

  "I see..."

  "Dean, as a favor,” asked Sid quietly.

  "Without knowing what this is all about?"

  "That's the way we would like it, yes,” answered Hodges.

  "A complete autopsy will take all day and night, and some tests will take longer still."

  "We are all quite well aware of that, doctor."

  Dean's eyes met Sid's, and now he remembered Sid as he really was, always the pain-in-the-ass. He'd get himself into trouble and dig it deeper until someone bailed him out. He hadn't changed, only Dean's memory of him had changed. In Korea, he had been a passable doctor, but in his case, going into forensics had been a much safer occupation, for the dead could not sue for a wrongful cut or clumsiness from a night's binge.

  "Please, Dean."

  "When you want me to begin?” he asked Hodges.

  "Now."

  "So this is her,” said Dean when he peeled back the white sheet from the red-haired woman he had only known through routine lab tests and a photo.

  Park cleared his throat and Dyer gasped at the still-gruesome sight of the mutilated scalp. Park, trying to be professional, shakily said, “We ID'd her as—"

  "Never mind,” pleaded Dean, his eyes riveted on the gash in the woman's forehead and skull. Blue-black beneath the cold hardness of death, the wound seemed somehow alive, a creature unto itself. “I'd just as soon not know her name right now, detective."

  "Of course..."

  Dean knew that Sid understood, even if no one else might. He just did not wish to know anything more about her—not yet, anyway. The least a forensics man knows of the victim, the better, at such an early stage. If he thought of her as a young woman with children, a husband, a nice home, as a woman with a fair name like Laura or Debbie, it would only serve to get in his way, erode his concentration, taking with it all that rooted him to stand firm before this perverse picture of serenity.

  The red-carpet treatment Sid had promised was red all right; red with murder and gore, and now suspicion. Who was on trial here, Sid, the two detectives? It didn't seem that Hodges was after Hamel—rather that these two men had worked out the game plan.

  Dean had thought the reports he'd read on the plane most satisfactory; perhaps a bit brusque, given the situation of scalping, an oddity beyond words, yet Sid hadn't left anything out, had he? Or was it Park and Dyer who were getting a shellacking? Odd, how they did things in Orlando. But Dean's sudden involvement was all Sid's doing, and the damned fool hadn't been straight with him. Maybe he was hiding some secret or vital piece of information ... but why?

  "We had all agreed, doctor,” began Hamel, a smile creasing his handsome, well-tanned face, “to allow you to do your own work in this case. Then we would tell you if Dr. Corman here had or had not overlooked evidence of a vital nature."

  Dean wondered if it were the paint the killer used. Then he wondered if it were a thousand other things Sid could have honestly overlooked. The situation was fraught with bad consequences.

  "We will leave you to your work now, Dr. Grant,” said Hodges.

  "Dr. Corman will assist you,” said Hamel, almost as an afterthought. “Perhaps he might learn something?"

  The dig was not lost on Dean. He wondered for how long Sid and Hamel had been at each other's throats. Dean gave Sid a shake of the head as the others filed out. But true to their word, they didn't go far. In shifts, for the next twenty-four hours, one and sometimes two of them were staring from overhead like vultures as Dean worked. Vultures in search of what type of carion—incompetence, neglect, stupidity, or a simple cover-up?

  TWO

  NIGHTFALL

  The direction she'd taken was not good, as it drove her deeper into the dark between the low-lying apartment buildings on Orlando's west side. Crime was high here, and Officer Peggy Carson knew the dangers that lurked in every shadow. But she had requested undercover work here because it was not unlike the frightful neighborhood she had grown up in a
s a child. If anything, she joined the police force to do what she might to counter the terrible loss of life and children in such squalor as this. Tonight, she had a tip on a drug dealer, whose apartment she'd had in her sights when from out of nowhere came a strange, shadowy figure that moved ghostlike through the back alleys of the sordid neighborhood. What struck her the most was the fact that the man looked, in the changing light of the street lamp, like he was white. In a black neighborhood of Orlando at this hour, that usually meant one thing.

  Could he be the big bust she really wanted?

  Peggy shored up her courage and tried to follow the elusive shape that flitted in and out of her vision, until she stood not knowing which way he had disappeared. Beside her the trash cans stood silent and smelly. Behind her was a wooden garage, nearly falling in with dry rot and age. To her left was the long tunnel of the alleyway, silent and gaping, like an enormous mouth. If she walked its length, she could be jumped from any direction. She could be raped—or murdered.

  She really didn't want to do it. But she had no choice.

  Bolstering her nerve, convinced that this was the only direction in which the suspect could have continued, she snatched out her service revolver and proceeded. This was the major problem with undercover work: she'd long since left the area she and her partner were supposed to be working, and they were not wired. She was effectively shut off, alone.

  Rumor had it the last of the Scalper's victims, the redhead, had also been a policewoman, and she now guessed that the rumor was very likely true. If it could happen to a fellow officer, then why not her? Hell of a way to go, she thought, chilled by the recollection of the news accounts and insider descriptions detailed by insidious people like Mitch Tobin. Tobin was a macho cop with a redneck philosophy that said if you puked, you weren't good cop material. She hated the guy.

  Now Raft, there was a good cop. Her partner, Mickey Raftlin, was called the Raft for his calm, easygoing ways. A no-nonsense guy, with no time for it from others, Raft just kind of floated to his own drummer. He was cool in his priest's outfit, with dark features, his mustache dangling to his chin on either side, and he made people believe in the Word if he had to take them down. He had the priest routine down great, and Peggy had learned a lot from her partner, but she knew she had plenty more to learn.

  A rattle up ahead, slight but distinct, told her someone was there in the deep shadow, watching. It had to be her man, but she'd blown it. He was waiting to jump her, knowing he'd been followed. No way was he going to make a drop. She could only hope he was stupid or brash enough to have the stuff still on him.

  "Okay, I got you locked on target, man!” she said firmly, a tinge of anger making the words bite. “Get your ass one step over here, now!"

  From out of the shadow stepped a strange creature. A small boy? Gnome? Dwarf? Fat, grimy little hands balled into fists and raised overhead, pleading with an animal squeal of fear.

  "What the hell,” she said more to herself than to anyone else. It was as if the tall man had transformed into something misshapen and ugly. Then she saw something in the little man's eye, a look that replaced the fear, and the eyes smiled wide with the gnome's grin. He was wearing a fanciful outfit, something out of Dickens’ England. “We've got you now,” squeaked the mousy little man just before she felt the powerful arms surround and engulf her.

  She held fast to her revolver, held on for her life, squeezing the trigger. One shot was followed by another until her gun was empty and she lay half-unconscious, her face against the pavement, her forehead bleeding profusely. She felt her life waning, slowly running out to mix with the early afternoon rain. She felt detached, apart from her body, and she knew she was either going to vomit now or black out, and she wondered what Tobin would make of her death. He'd probably have something thoughtful to say to the squad room on that score, something about women shouldn't be in undercover work except in bed....

  She thought, but could not be certain, that she heard people running. Running toward her or away, she didn't know. She distinctly heard people's voices, one man slapping his wife and telling her they weren't getting involved. Doors slammed. Lights went off. Then she blacked out, believing herself at the mercy of a knife-wielding midget and his powerful partner.

  Two rejects from Barnum's, she wondered just before everything went black.

  In her unconscious state, her mind replayed the night over eternally, and some portion of her brain became a chamber of horror, a hell in which the attack took place over and over in a continual, unending tragedy of events. She following him, stepping into his trap, calling out to a large, tall, dark-clad figure that had knowingly lured her here. In her nightmare, he took her flesh and scalp with ruthless and pleasing glee time and time again. In her nightmare, no one could help her. No one knew where she was and no one heard the shots, and those who did chose to ignore them ... all but the dwarf, who perched himself at the base of her neck and held her down for the knife-wielder to do his deadly work.

  He hadn't seen the gun in her hand, so the gunshots came as a deafening and fearful surprise. Still, he had held onto her ferociously as she fought. Her gun empty, the other joined him and helped subdue her long enough for him to slash her across the forehead, but it was no good. The shots had people and sirens coming from all directions. They must disappear immediately, to leave their quarry until another time, perhaps.

  He didn't even see the bloody gun until he'd grabbed hold of her. Then it was like having an angry mongoose by the tail. She spit and bit and squealed. Vile language spewed from her. And the little shit wasn't much better. He freaked, the gunblasts sending him clear down the alley. They were out of control and nothing had been accomplished.

  He had held onto the woman for as long as possible. His blows to the back of the head had subdued her considerably, but the noise had been too much.

  "Hold onto her, hold on,” he kept squealing, piglike. “I want that black scalp."

  "You shittin’ take it then,” he burst out, angry and upset.

  "I ... I never done any cutting before,” said the dwarf.

  "You've sat and watched enough times."

  "I c-can't ... I don't think."

  "Forget it. There isn't time. Look!” He pointed out the police car that had just careened past the alleyway. “No time! We've got to save our own scalps. Hurry!"

  The little man was reluctant to leave the helpless woman. He snatched away the killer's knife and dug it deep into the wound that had already been begun, but the killer snatched his arm and tugged him away.

  "But we can't go back empty-handed,” wailed the dwarf.

  "Who said we would? Come away, now!"

  The trophy of the black woman's scalp was lost to them. The little one felt more than let down—he felt betrayed. Promises had been made, after all.

  Words like imperative, duty, mission, and cause slid in and out of the killer's consciousness. Meanwhile, the little man bitched and complained and threatened to harm himself, he was so upset. But there was nothing to be done. You couldn't do this thing with precision if rushed, and the hair must be parted correctly and with the love and devotion owed it. It just didn't make for good ritual method to do as the little man said, “Sever the head and take it with us...."

  She'd discharged her weapon with ferocious intent. He had had all he could do to hold on to the petite black woman. She'd lost control when the dwarf darted from his cover on cue, just as he always did. It was amazing indeed that the little bastard wasn't blown to smithereens. Thank God for that saving moment, for his death could bring people snooping, asking a lot of questions, questions they'd have difficulty answering.

  Still, the little one was right. They had gotten off with nothing save their own heads ... just ahead of the police units that raced to the scene like screeching banshees, shadows dancing everywhere. In those shadows, he and the dwarf man disappeared, melted away. He had failed. The dwarf would tell it all his way. He had failed to bring home the natty-curled scalp to add to
the collection. They didn't have a black's scalp. And it had looked so promising, for a time. He had taken the woman for a streetwalker when she began to follow him. He had wanted to turn, go back to her, entice her into the shadows with him with the promise of money, but no, he couldn't do it his way. As it was, she had caught them off guard. Sloppy.

  One day he'd just do it his way, and that would be a great day.

  THREE

  Dean was dead on his feet. One more glaring ray of light hitting his eyes would knock him over. The autopsy, as it stood, had gone routinely, save for the nature of the death, that the victim had not only suffered a loss of blood at the head, but was drained in several other key locations, primarily in the breast, where a nipple had been sliced away, and in the uterus, where an ugly, almost star-shaped gash had been taken, along with a patch of pubic hair and skin, a sick sort of second scalping. Whoever the bastard was, he was definitely out of his head to mutilate the body so brutally.

  When making any observation, Dean spoke into the microphone positioned just above him. Both he and Sid were now in the blue surgical gowns of the lab, but Dean had long before abandoned his constricting mask. The room was kept at a constant fifty degrees as they worked, and since the corpse had been refrigerated and an autopsy had already been performed, there was little to do in the way of incision.

  Dean knew that examinations of this nature often overlooked the obvious, that doctors looking death in the face hurried through, especially in mutilation cases. It could be forgiven of young and inexperienced men, but now he realized with a start what surely must have the police upset with Sid: separate knives had been used on the woman, and two other scars, nearly hidden from view, had been washed clean and had gone unreported on the charts. Beneath each arm, deep in the pit, more chunks of flesh had been cut away, using, again, a kind of childish slash to roughly conform to shapes, a circle and a triangle. The deceased had lost a great deal of blood from these wounds as well, yet Sid had ignored these on his reports. Furthermore, he had indicated the depth of the slash wounds and the possible size of one knife, instead of all the knives. One of the cuts in particular, the head cut, which pulled away the scalp, might well have been done with a scalpel, while the others had been caused by a jagged, longer edge.