Final Edge s--4 Page 8

  "Lucky SOB!" Casey shouted in response.

  Lucas had looked in on Itchy Arnie Feldman that morning for any sign of foul play on his part, but if Arnie was involved, his poker face gave nothing away. Not the slightest twitch or snicker. Lucas had also dropped in on the M.E., Frank Patterson, and dropped a few hints about what had occurred at his and Sanger's apartments, but didn't find Patterson the least bit edgy or revealing anything in his body language. The cruel incident looked, as time had passed and the day wore on, to have no hoaxsters behind it after all.

  Lucas walked the short way to the bistro, his insides screaming for a roast beef sandwich and a drink. In the back of his mind, he knew that the missing persons avenue, while a logical and methodical step to take, might net nothing. Still, he had no other lead at the moment.

  He stepped off a curb and a car screeched to a halt inches from his legs. Lucas stared at the driver, his jaw clenched as the man in the car laid on his horn and cursed. The irate driver then leaped from the car, rage on his face as he came toward Lucas with a tire iron.

  Lucas snatched out his badge in one hand, his Glock 9mm in the other, extending both to the charging bull's eyes. The beefy red-faced Texan stopped cold, gestured for clemency, backed to his door, climbed into his pickup truck, and roared off, leaving Lucas standing in the street.

  "What the hell's the matter with people?" he asked no one in particular as he holstered his weapon.

  In a moment, he carried on toward the restaurant, hoping Jana wouldn't keep him waiting long.

  CHAPTER 5

  At the crazy Calories Bistro on a one-block, one-way street in downtown Houston, two blocks from the precinct house, Lucas laid out the situation to Detective Jana North, starting with details of what some sick animal had forwarded to Meredyth and to him the night before.

  "So you think the parts might be related to one of our more recent MPs, huh?"

  "That's the prints I'm tracking, yeah."

  "Damned ugly business, and if I can help you get this guy and clear a case, Lucas, just tell me where and when."

  'Today, now. You can help me with the families, to ease the process of getting dental records for each of these young women." He pushed the hard copies run from the computer files across the table to her.

  "I heard there were teeth in the mixed bag of goodies sent to you. You're saying none of these three have dental records on file?" she asked while thumbing through the paper files, caught by the photos. "Nice work, narrowing the subjects to three."

  "I had help," Lucas said, explaining how he had gotten key search items from forensics, and how Purvis had revealed the victim had a serious vision problem.

  "Still, I'm impressed."

  "Computer did the rest."

  "Thanks to our interfacing program, Lucas."

  "And to your cooperation and all the hard work of months of loading all that information, Jana."

  She nodded, smiled, and toasted. "To COMIT-MP, may it bring us some resolutions."

  "Then you'll ride shotgun for me this afternoon, get these dental records I need?"

  She frowned. "Drop everything and race to your aid? Hmmm…all right, as a favor to you and Meredyth."

  "Thanks, I need this expedited. Any delay could cost us dearly."

  She nodded. "Understood. I'll do what I can however I can."

  "All I can ask."

  They ate and spoke of lighter things, the weather, the lottery, the home teams, the "up" economy. Using her cell phone, Jana called ahead to the families, telling them to expect her visit. After leaving the restaurant, they would go to the first address where they had to obtain proper release signatures to gain access to the needed medical records.

  They walked back to the precinct together, and from there took Lucas's unmarked radio car. As he drove, Jana North studied the files of the missing in more depth. "I remember this one case, Lourdes. Odd as hell how she disappeared."

  'Tell me about it."

  "Only what I know."

  She began the story, and Lucas looked across at her from time to time as he drove. Jana North was an auburn- haired, beautiful woman with sparkling blue eyes.

  The story of Mira Lourdes's disappearance, while sketchy, involved a so-called eyewitness. Lucas always took this news with more than a grain of salt, knowing that most eyewitness testimony proved false if not downright misleading.

  Before Jana could finish her story, they arrived at the home of seventeen-year-old Helga Muncie, a habitual runaway. Runaways more often than not were penniless and relied on hitchhiking to make their way across the country to high-profile places from Aspen, Colorado, to Hollywood, or such destinations as Panama City or Daytona Beach, Florida-magnet communities for teens on the run. Teens on the street proved easy marks for rapists and killers who might encounter them along the thousands of miles of Interstate they traveled to their various false Meccas.

  Lucas pulled into the driveway of the Muncie home, left the motor running, and they climbed from the car under the gaze of someone peeking out from behind a curtain. As they approached the house, Jana took note of the yellow ribbons strung about the porch. Lucas rang the bell, and when a middle-aged woman answered the door, Jana took the initiative, flashing her badge and saying, "I'm Detective North with Missing Persons, and Detective Stonecoat here is with the HPD's Cold Cases Division. Show Mrs. Muncie your badge, Lucas."

  Lucas did as told, but the lady paid no mind to him, asking Jana through the screen door, "You have news of my Helga? Thomas! Come listen! They have news of Helga!"

  "Not exactly, but we're here about Helga, yes, ma'am," replied Lucas.

  "We'd like to get those dental records my office requested when you first filed the missing persons report on your daughter, Mrs. Muncie," said Jana.

  The father, Thomas Muncie, had come to the door, a gray ghost behind the screen, shouting, "Then you've found her! Haven't you? Dead, dead?"

  The woman went weak, collapsing into her husband's arms, as Jana North waved her arms and said, "No, no, no! We're only here to complete her file, Mrs. Muncie. We simply want the dental records in her file."

  "Then you've found someone-a body-fitting her description?" pressed the husband. "You want to compare her dental records with a corpse."

  "No, not exactly," replied Jana.

  "What then?"

  "We're investigating a possible homicide, Mr. Muncie," began Lucas, careful not to stir anywhere near the truth-a mutilation murder.

  "We want to rule your daughter and two other young women out by process of elimination, sir, ma'am," added Jana. "We need you to sign the release form for the records." Jana held out both the form and a pen. "Just sign on the bottom. I'll fill out the rest. It'll expedite matters…for your daughter's good."

  "Lies…lies," replied the man. "Examining the dental records means you've got a corpse."

  "All right…Thomas!" shouted the wife. "We do what they tell us. We got no choice. We got to cooperate." She cracked the screen door enough to take form and pen inside, where after a moment's examination, she signed.

  "If we thought we had your daughter, sir," said Jana through the screen, "we'd simply have you travel downtown with us to identify her remains."

  Mrs. Muncie had regained her composure, and Thomas simply walked off. Mrs. Muncie apologized for her husband in a whisper, and then she said, "Her dentist is Dr. Sullivan, 1240 North Belmont. I'll call ahead, so she will know you're coming." Finished, she pushed the form and the pen back through the cracked screen door and into Jana's waiting hands. Through the screen mesh, she added, "I want you people to let me know when Helga has been ruled out like you say, all right?"

  "Absolutely, Mrs. Muncie," Jana assured her.

  "Absolutely, really? You young people nowadays use that word to mean nothing-bahhh, absolutely! Everybody at that police station tells me they will absolutely get back to me, but it has been a week and not a word until you two show up on my doorstep asking for dental records. Two people I don't know. Where i
s Detective Ambrose? Where is Detective Sculley?"

  Lucas wanted to point out that it hadn't yet been a week, only seventy-seven hours, but he curbed his tongue. Jana handed the woman her card. "You can call me tomorrow afternoon, and any time. Detectives Ambrose and Sculley work for me, Mrs. Muncie."

  The woman stared at Jana as if seeing her anew.

  Lucas thanked Mrs. Muncie for the name and address of the dentist, and they stepped off her porch. "Moments like this make me feel ill," said Jana. "It's so difficult dealing with the loved ones."

  "Empty feeling inside, I know. Makes me feel like a scavenging crow." Lucas stepped up the pace to his waiting car.

  Leaning in over the top of the car, Jana said, "We try to get the relatives to forward us all medical and dental records when the case becomes official. Short of that, we try to get them to sign a release, so we can obtain records on our own, but a lot of people at that early stage simply have a psychological block about getting it done, you know?"

  "Can't say as I blame them. Can't imagine the pain of losing a child to oblivion, the not knowing, or losing a child to a vicious murderer and knowing, for that matter."

  "Not sure which is worse."

  They got in the car. Inside, Jana said, "Short of a DNA sample, orthodontia ID is still the most reliable method. Sometimes the teeth are all that survive by the time we uncover the decayed body of a missing person stuffed in a trunk, behind a wall, in a pipe, or anchored below some watering hole, river, or lake."

  Lucas backed down the driveway, nodding at her discourse.

  She continued, asking, "You hear about that case where we found three bodies within close proximity of one another down on the Brazos?"

  "Down around Rosharon?"

  "Three prostitutes all murdered by strangulation."

  Lucas pointed the car in the right direction and drove for North Belmont. "Yeah, yeah, I recall…all clumped together only twenty or thirty yards apart, killed over a period of weeks."

  "Dogs sniffed out the bodies from aboard a flatboat."

  "Aboard a boat?" Lucas glanced at her. "I heard they were found in the brush on shore."

  "No, no! They were weighted down with dumbbells lashed to them with wire fencing."

  "Dogs sniffed them out?"

  "Amazing noses those dogs, how they just lean out over the side of the boat and strike on the odor of a decaying body some fourteen, fifteen feet below the surface of running water. Some noses on those babies."

  "If memory serves, wasn't one of the victims so badly decomposed you had to call in a forensic anthropologist to reconstruct the facial features over the skull to get a likeness for the papers and TV?"

  "Another case, Lucas."

  "Shit, after a while, after so many, they begin to blend together. Sad commentary on American life."

  "State's talking about renting property from private farms and ranches to build more potter's fields to bury all the Jane and John Does," she said.

  "Nahhh…heard they're thinking now of buying up lands around the penitentiary at Huntsville for new fields and putting the inmates to work as grave diggers."

  "That'll never happen. Violation of their civil liberties. Can't turn the prison force into a state work force."

  "Legislature's sitting now, and they could change that. This is Texas, after all." Lucas swiped the hair from his eyes. "Yeah, I recall the case now," said Lucas of her original question as they turned onto North Belmont Avenue. "Guy doing the killing out at the Brazos park, wasn't he the-"

  "Ran the rowboat concession at the lake."

  "Right…right sick too."

  "Fucker was fat like Gacey, and he gave out free rides to the girls."

  "Pelhan, yeah…now sitting on death row, appealing his conviction, right. Tapping into his civil liberties."

  Jana confided, "I had the chance to shoot the bastard down like a dog when we busted in on him. He raised a gun to me. I should have let him have it."

  "Don't worry. He's bound for the execution chamber- eventually."

  "Yeah, but it's the eventually that pisses me off. Ten fucking years eventually, if not more, while the victims' families have to relive their grief and anguish over and over again. Man, I hate the creep's lawyer almost as much as I hate him."

  "Understood," said Lucas, squeezing her hand.

  "Got to tell you, this is my first case where all we have are eyeballs and teeth to go on."

  "Don't forget the salami slices sent to me."

  "Strangest nutcase you ever chased, I'll bet, hey, Lucas?"

  "Watch for the address, will you? Don't want to miss it."

  "By the time we get to the third address on your list, it'll be after hours for dentists."

  "Then we'll just have to continue this tomorrow morning, if you're free, that is."

  "After Dr. Sullivan's, I'd suggest Mira Lourdes's address."

  "Right, it's closer than the Nance place."

  The stop at Dr. Sullivan's for Helga Muncie's dental records went quickly, and they pushed on. They found Mira Lourdes's live-in boyfriend at the address in the file, disappointed on learning he was not her husband and so could not grant them access to medical records.

  Dwayne Ira Stokes told his own tentative version of how Mira had simply disappeared without a trace. Their last conversation had been about a car that sat glumly neglected out in the driveway, a car she was trying to sell.

  Stokes repeated himself a lot, Lucas observed. "My last conversation with her was like over the g'damn phone, and it like centered around that damned cursed car of hers."

  "What about the car? Why do you say it was cursed?" asked Lucas.

  "Because it was! Like everything that could go wrong with it, like did, man. So finally, I like convinced her to like sell it, you know, put a sign on the damn thing, place an ad in the Penny Saver, see."

  "And she was showing the car when she disappeared?" asked Jana.

  "A neighbor saw her talking to a couple of people, yeah, and like she looked away to wipe a dish or something, and she looked back out to where Mira and these people were, and they were gone, but they left their car behind, so she- the neighbor-she like didn't think anything of it, you know. Why leave your car behind if you're going to abduct somebody, you know? That's like how Mrs. Paulis was thinking, she said. Me, I was at work at the time. I work retail, odd hours, always being called in even on what's 'spose to be my day off, which it was that night."

  "Mrs. Paulis is the eyewitness I told you about," Jana told Lucas.

  "They all three took off in the cursed car," added Stokes.

  "And supposedly the abductors left their car behind?" Lucas asked, his tone incredulous.

  "That's right."

  "But the car she was selling is sitting in your driveway right now," began Lucas, pointing at the unfortunate, sad- looking Saab, its body littered with rust and dents. The FOR SALE sign was still in the rearview window.

  "Right, that's it. Damn car has a curse on it. Like a bad penny, it keeps coming back, but not Mira, she didn't come back. She took off with this couple and like never came back! I mean, at first, I thought maybe she just ran off; like we haven't been getting along too good lately, like sniping and backbiting, no biggy, but like annoying twenty-four-seven all-the-time stuff, you know."

  Lucas thought if he heard the words like or you know come once more out of Dwayne's mouth, he would strangle the kid. Dwayne appeared much younger than Mira's twenty-eight years. Lucas guessed him at "like twenty-two or three."

  "Maybe we should talk to this neighbor of yours, Dwayne," suggested Jana. "Get more details from her. You say it was a couple. Do you mean a man and a woman or two men?"

  "A man and a woman. That's what was so bizarre about it, why like Mrs. Paulis didn't think much of it, you know."

  "There's no record of any of this in the Missing Persons file, Dwayne," Lucas pointed out.

  "That's 'cause Mrs. Paulis's on vacation. The only one here having fun-in the Caribbean Sea someplace they sa
y. Missing Persons people talked to me. Told the same story, but they said they needed to hear it from the party of the first part, some shit like that, but Mrs. P, she was booked on a cruise, and now she's in Jamaica, 1 think." He laughed lightly, displaying a missing tooth. "Where I'd like to be," he added, "Yeah, baby, Jamaica…."

  "You don't remember me, Dwayne?" asked Jana. "I was — with the two detectives who questioned you that night."

  "Oh, yeah, wait on a minute…sure, now I recall. You kinda stood back, and you checked out the car."

  Lucas exchanged a side glance with Detective North, his accusing eye stem on hearing that Missing Persons officers had already gone over this ground and it seemed nothing had come of it. Jana ignored the accusatory glint in Lucas's eye and said to Dwayne, "Do you have a copy of the ad Mira placed in the newspaper?"

  "I got a copy on the porch, yeah." He went to fetch it. Returning with the thin local Penny Saver, he pointed out the ad. Jana began reading for any clues that might help them. It merely gave the year, model, and make of the car, condition, mileage, and contact number. Call Mira or Dwayne at 555-1220.

  Lucas had stepped away from Dwayne and Meredyth, stepping down from the steps of the brownstone home and going toward the small car on the lawn with the FOR SALE sign on it, staring at the Saab, wondering if anything in the interior or the trunk might tell a tale of violence. "Do you know it's against the law to park a car on your lawn, Mr. Stokes?"

  "It is?" he said from the steps. "Didn't know that, but look-it, it's not on the lawn. It's in the driveway."

  "We'll have to impound the car, Dwayne. Any objections?" Lucas asked, his own instincts leaning toward Dwayne's having made Mira disappear. "Any objections to us hauling off the car, Mr. Stokes?" he shouted.

  Dwayne stood shaking his head, saying, "Oh, hell, no. Haul it off anytime. I got nothing stashed in that ol' thing."

  Lucas ciphered it out. Mira had placed an ad in the local Penny Saver, had had a few interested calls, and she felt certain she was on the way to unloading the Saab, according to Stokes, when she simply vanished after a male/female team interviewed her, not for the car but for Mira. It seemed a bit far-fetched and fortunate for Dwayne that the only so- called witness to the abduction was gone to Jamaica. The story seemed a well-orchestrated fiction, the clever twist in it being that a couple and not an individual had abducted Mira.