"How did you know there'd be prints in the message?" asked Repasi.
Osborne added, "Yeah, Jess, where did that come from?"
"I smelled it, realized it was grease from fatty tissues. I just took a wild guess."
"Some wild guess," replied Osborne with a little shake of the head.
"I'd like to talk to Lorentian myself. Learn what I can about Chris. See if it helps," she suggested.
"My secretary outside has his number," replied Osborne. "Feel free."
Repasi followed her to the door and stopped her, asking, "Are you making it an FBI matter?"
"I think the killer already has, don't you?"
Both Repasi and Osborne exchanged a long stare, and they came to the same conclusion as J. T. during that moment of silence. Jessica finally spoke their fears aloud. "He may be just getting started."
Repasi instantly replied, "Yes, it's what he wants, isn't it? He'll continue to bait you this way, won't he? But what is his ultimate goal in all this?''
"He may"-she didn't want to believe it-"he may just want to outfox me."
Repasi twisted the invisible knife, adding, "He'll go on killing until someone stops him."
"And who's going to do that, Karl? You?" asked Osborne, a sheepish grin building on his face.
She drew in a deep breath of air. "It's either what he apparently wants, or it's an attempt to cover his true motive for killing Chris Lorentian."
J. T. instantly jumped on this theory. "Ingenious. Kill someone for common enough reason and mask it with a wild charade like this, calling you, Jessica, and getting the FBI chasing some mad lunatic when in fact the killer knew Chris Lorentian and he acted coolly, calculatedly in both the murder and in planning exactly how to throw authorities off. Could be… could be…"
"Are you going to…" Osborne's assistant cleared his throat with a handful of words and tried again.''Are you going to tell Frank Lorentian that his daughter died because some sick wacko crazy wants to play cat-and-mouse with you, Dr. Coran?" The assistant stood, arms across his chest, across the table from them, the younger man unable to hold his words back. ''I was there when the man identified his daughter's remains… what was left of her to identify, that is. The man crumpled."
She looked at Osborne's man. "I'm not sure what I'm going to tell the father at this point, Doctor, and I suggest no one speaks to the press of this until we've had time to learn more about this psychopath."
Osborne raised a hand and began to object, but she cut him short with, "Is that understood?" With that, she and J. T. left the autopsy room.
"What's next, Jess?"
"We find out more about Chris Lorentian. Where she went when she ran away, where she was staying and with whom. Her hideouts and haunts. Apparently she didn't run so fast and so far as she might've; perhaps if she had, she'd be alive today; perhaps she was being given sanctuary by a friend or friends?"
"So we find out who she hung with…"
"Who she knew. Where she was before this monster's path came to cross hers. We find out where she had her last meal, where she last bathed, where she last shopped, and we find out what her plans were."
"Sounds logical, but shouldn't you leave it to the local cops to talk to Lorentian?"
"I could, but I don't think the killer expects anything less from me. I've already abdicated the autopsy to Lester. God, I don't think I could've handled this one, knowing what we know… that she died because of… of some twisted sicko's attachment to… to me, because-"
"Don't do this Jess. Don't go there."
"— because some whacked-out, wackity-wack read about me in the newspapers and came after me, and-"
"Jess, Jess… don't do this to yourself. There's no way this is your fault."
"You think Frank Lorentian will see it that way, J. T.? I wouldn't blame the man one bit if-"
"Stop this right now, Jess. This young woman's death is not your fault."
Jessica fell silent.
They located Osborne's secretary, a pleasant, middle-aged woman with a broad smile who quickly looked up Lorentian's number and address, asked if they'd like for her to get Mr. Lorentian on the phone or simply to type out all the information for them. She also asked if they'd like a cup of freshly brewed coffee, rattling off several names of designer brands.
Jessica declined the coffee and took the address, thanking the woman on her way out.
Jessica and J. T. went directly for the Desert Imperial Palace, owned and operated by Frank Lorentian. They were quickly across the city, despite the congestion, thanks to a cabbie who knew every byway and back road. In fact, they faced more roadblocks inside the gambling casino than outside, designed as it was to keep people in the maze. And after several thwarted efforts to get in to see Frank Lorentian, they were finally led to the man's suite.
Lorentian looked like a shriveled gnome in his bathrobe and glasses, his skin a file-cabinet gray. His eyes, sunken deep, depressed, looked like those of a tortured ghost. His eyes looked through them rather than at them, a sure sign he remained sedated. From telltale signs about the room, he also appeared to have been drinking heavily, despite the certain caution of his doctor not to mix booze and pills, and despite the early hour.
Jessica thought the room stank of cigar smoke. When Lorentian turned his sad eyes away from them, he contemplated the world outside through a slit in the heavy drapery. In silence, he peered out at the desert sun and at the expanse of concrete that was dwarfed by the mountains in the distance. He worked at bolstering himself up, to stand tall and erect, larger than his own frame and depression allowed. When finally he turned to face them again, Jessica saw a devastated, shaken, physically hollowed-out, walking corpse, a man who might easily court death himself in a mad effort to find his lost child.
Lorentian's right hand was marred, missing several fingers. She imagined that in his youth, he'd been a rough, stubborn, hard-fighting street tough in Chicago or L.A. or perhaps New York, a man who generally got what he wanted. Jessica had seen larger-than-life photos of him adorning the walls downstairs in the business office, but somehow he had become a shell, the carved-out remains, a wandering shadow of the man in the pictures. She wasn't at all sure if he'd been in ill health for some time, or if this were the cataclysmic effect of his daughter's disappearance and now her death, but she imagined the latter was at work on him. She could imagine no worse blow to an indomitable spirit than the loss of a beloved child.
Lorentian was a small man in stature, and now in his expensive robe, he wandered the room, unable to make himself clear as he indicated a place for them to sit. The room screamed from outlandishly lavish furniture and decor, the floor-length windows covered in purple and burgundy, someone's idea of royalty. The false palace-penthouse suite-had become the father's mourning room, the ornate, crystal chandeliers ostentatious and vulgar alongside the decadent furnishings, which mixed Oriental with rococo. Jessica sensed a taste of vulgarity in the man as well.
"I'm Dr. Jessica Coran and this is Dr. John Thorpe, sir," she began.
"I know who you are!" It sounded an attack, the way he put it, but then he tempered himself. "I've been expecting you. Rollo from downstairs told me you were coming up." He looked anguished, caught on an unrelenting tenterhook that had risen from the depths of Hell to enter his entrails and tug and tear and rend from him all remnants of his soul. ''I know who you are, Dr. Coran, and I was told this… this bastard who killed Chris… he talked to you? Called you at your hotel room, so that… so that you heard her in the fire, heard her screaming?" His heartfelt anguish was unbearable. He looked into Jessica's eyes for her answer. "Well? What kind of human trash does this to an innocent child, and what connection do you have with this monster? What did he say to you?''
So much for professional silence, Jessica thought. Obviously Osborne, his assistant, or Repasi, or all three, had already spoken to Lorentian about the events of the night before in complete detail. We're all extremely sorry for your loss, Mr. Lorentian, she mentally ven
tured, instantly realizing that this kind of tiptoeing about wasn't going to suffice here. She said, ''Violence, it seems, is part of our human nature, sir; and no one is immune or safe from its influence."
"Indeed," J. T. gunned his agreement. "We're going to work hard, Mr. Lorentian, to locate the killer and bring him to justice. You can count on the FBI."
"FBI!" He spat his contempt. "Justice," muttered the gray-haired, ashen-faced Lorentian. "You think there can ever be any justice after this? Just tell me one thing: What did this bastard say to you, Dr. Coran?"
She shook her head. "He didn't say anything to me. He had.. he had your daughter do all the talking."
Lorentian's eyes welled up and he instantly wiped them with a monogrammed handkerchief. "Did she… did she suffer long?"
"No, not at all," Jessica half-lied, knowing that Chris did not die instantaneously, that is, without the time it took for the dying heart, mind, nerves, and cells to shut down completely; the death process, even amid flames, took a certain amount of time. Instantaneous death came only with explosions or high-velocity impacts such as airplane crashes in which the body became fragmented in the blink of an eye, as with ValuJet Flight 592's crash in the Everglades. Fire victims, such as Chris, did not circumvent the dying process. Few people ever died instantly. The phrase, "he died instantly" was something the living consoled themselves with, but death came in stages for a trapped fire victim: Once the fire has reached you, you might pray to the fire god for the smoke to render you unconscious, for the fire itself will burst your skin after the initial blistered epidermis has been fried off; next the blood is boiled to a searing pitch, followed by shock, followed by the lethal failure of multiple organs and loss of consciousness and heartbeat. All of this takes time, even under the heat of a directed torch.
When Lorentian remained silent, Jessica again spoke, leading him to where she needed him to be in his thinking. "We want to see this bastard fry, Mr. Lorentian, fry in Nevada's electric chair, you understand?"
"We don't got the chair in this state. They do lethal injection or gas. Either way it's too good for this… this… What kind of man does this kind of thing?''
"Maybe for this creep, they'll make an exception," suggested J. T.
He stared long and hard at J. T. but only replied, "Maybe.. maybe somebody will…" The innuendo resounded clearly enough.
J. T. said nothing in reply.
"We're afraid-no, we're sure that this fiend will kill again, Mr. Lorentian. We need your help."
He turned to look at Jessica, some of the old man's fire churning in the sad eyes now. "My help? You want my help?" He laughed. "Government people wanting my help. And they send you, of all people. The way I hear it, this bastard was pandering to you, Coran, when he killed my little girl, that he gets his rocks off by insulting you with this phone-in murder. Some are saying you chased this pervert here, cornered him here, and this is the result, my little girl is dead."
"No, no, sir, there's no truth to that."
He ignored her. "Maybe I ought to hold you responsible for this, Dr. Coran."
The gloves had come off, and the tranquility in the old gangster's voice was more chilling than any temper tantrum.
J. T. shot to his feet and firmly said, "Just a minute, sir. None of this is Dr. Coran's fault. She didn't drive this man to his madness. She didn't create his fixation. The storm was out there and moving toward your daughter independent of Jessica."
Jessica stood beside J. T. now, placing a hand on his arm, the gesture telling him she preferred to fight her own battles. She now stepped closer to Lorentian. "We knew nothing of this killer before yesterday, before his first contact, and I don't know why he chose to contact me, Mr. Lorentian. Again, I say, we need your help, sir, before the… before he strikes again." She then turned on J. T., holding up a hand to him, saying, "It's okay, J. T. Mr. Lorentian has every right to be upset. We're all upset."
"I don't see how I can help you, so if you please… leave an old man to his grief."
"Sir," J. T. interjected, his hand up like a schoolboy, "we're all shaken and upset by the events that have-"
"Upset… you're upset. My world has crumbled, and you're upset."
"Maybe another time," J. T. suggested.
"We need to know where your daughter was staying, with whom she spent her last hours, sir," Jessica pleaded. "We have a killer to track."
"If I'd known where she was, I'd have dragged her home. I didn't have no idea then, and I don't have no idea now."
''You checked with all her friends?''
"Yeah, of course." He began pacing again, his body language telling Jessica that he meant to hide something.
"And they were all honest with you?"
"As far as I was able to tell, yeah."
"And you had no reason to doubt any of them?"
He hesitated. He stepped about the room more. He paced back toward the drapes, stared out again, and finally, he again approached the doctors. He wrapped his arms about himself like the king of Siam in The King and I while Jessica continued to read his body language and patiently awaited his reply.
He finally admitted, "She was being closely watched."
"Really?" Jessica was legitimately surprised. "You had her in your sights? The whole time?"
"Obviously not… not entirely, anyway. I… knew where she was… for the first two nights… of her disappearance." Talking about this was difficult for him, as if his stomach were tossing dry tennis balls into his throat, as if all the guilt and remorse were lodged in his chest and vocal chords. ''She somehow… found out I knew… got angry… at Sharon and… and sneaked off from her as well."
"Sharon?"
"Sharon Pierson. Her… one of her best friends."
''Who was on your payroll?''
His eyebrow arched upward and darted toward Jessica, an indication he was impressed. "Sharon owed the casino. It was her way.. of paying me back."
"This Sharon calls you up with the deal the moment Chris shows up at her place?''
"No, it was my suggestion… should my little girl appear. I got the distinct impression she might've been hiding out at Sharon's. Chris"-saying her name aloud was painful for him as well-"she'd run off before. I thought I'd give her time to… to cool down, you know? Figured she'd be back soon enough, but by the third day… and with Sharon swearing she hadn't seen Chris, I dropped a dime to a friend on the force to locate her."
"Did this friend file a Missing Persons report?"
"We don't work that way, no."
"But there was a report made out on her," countered J. T.
Jessica suggested, "Her friend Sharon? When you called Sharon, she had thought Chris had returned home, and she told you so, right? And Sharon made the official call to the police? Is that how it happened?"
"Close enough…" He nodded and fell into a seat, looking like a deflated balloon. "Like Shakespeare, huh?"
"Sir?" asked J. T.
'' The Comedy of Errors.''
More like the tragedy of King Lear, Jessica thought but did not say.
Lorentian went on, "I thought I had it covered, where she was staying, and I was right. But she slipped out on Sharon, 'cause she knew Sharon owed me and would keep me apprised. We figure she heard Sharon talking to me on the phone. Money… she hated it and she loved it, sweet kid… sweet Chris." He was overcome with grief, the tears freely raining now.
''Do you have any idea why the killer would have written a message about your daughter's being a… a traitor, sir?" she now asked.
"A traitor?"
"Any sort of traitor, to any sort of… cause?"
"A rebel, maybe, but a traitor?" He sadly shook his head. "No… no. She was a bit"-he paused, swallowed hard-"she was a bit rebellious, feisty… gone back to the hippie lifestyle, the way she dressed, the damned tattoos, the religious icons she wore, all that, but that's natural in the young, isn't it? Traitor? No… no.. the word has nothing to do with my Chris."
"Any former boyfriends w
ho might've categorized her as such?" suggested J. T.
"No, nothing like that going on. I woulda known. She hadn't an enemy in the world."
"How about you?"
The lion roared, "I was her father, not her enemy!"
"I meant, sir, anyone have reason to call you a traitor?"
"None," Frank Lorentian said with a cold eye and a coy laugh, his tone implying that he had more enemies than he could count on fingers and toes.
"Can you or your secretary provide us with a list of Chris's friends, their phone numbers and addresses?"
"See Virginia downstairs. She'll arrange it." Then he turned his glassy stare on Jessica. ''One thing, lady: If you don't catch this SOB, and if you don't destroy him, I'll be even more upset with you than I already am. One thing you can count on… a sure thing, as they say here in Vegas. Now get outta here, both of you."
The naked threat wore not so much as a veil.
Again, Jessica told the man how extremely sorry they were for his loss, but this prompted only a deeper and more dangerous silence. It was a silence that told them the interview was over. The two medical people left Frank Lorentian standing once again at the covered windows, peeking out on a world he had helped to create, a world he no longer felt at ease in, a world that had so altered him with the horrible murder of his child that Jessica wondered if he would ever fully be a part of this world again.
SIX
Fear not, nor be afraid; have I not told you from of old and declared it?
And you are my witnesses!
— ISAIAH: 44:8
Outside, in the hallway, Jessica leaned against a wall and said to John Thorpe, "God, I never get used to this part of the job."
J. T. nodded. ''Always tough dealing with the family, any family… but this guy seems a bit loopy, and dangerous."
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