Walker Robert W.

Scalpers

SCALPERS

by Robert W. Walker

www.Fictionwise.com

Copyright ©1989 by Robert W. Walker

For my big brother, James Wesley Walker, to whom I owe my scalp many times over, and who, once or twice, would have liked to have had my scalp.

PROLOGUE

He held up her limp form by her long, flowing red hair, which he wrapped tightly about his fist. With his left hand he reached for the knife, the blade clicking out with a noise like a viper's hiss. Unconscious, or half-conscious, he knew not which, the woman now would give over the prize he sought. It was this that made the hunt worthwhile. All the searching, the watching and waiting, all of it came to this end.

He had lured her away from the noise and crowd of the bar with a promise of a secret place where they could smoke grass. She was all for that.

She was not a beautiful woman up close, yet her flaming hair was irresistible, and her willingness made his work simpler. And now he held her radiant hair in his hand and pulled back so tightly on it that the scalp rose by degrees. It was this that made life bearable and worthwhile. She would be a fine addition to his collection.

A broken jaw had left her unconscious. She'd wised up at the last, torn loose from him and run into the trees in blind search for safety. They were miles off the main road. He tracked her easily, knocked her down, and pummeled her into submission. But that was then and this was now, a different time, a different woman.

Now it was time to enjoy her. He wanted to extend every enervating moment, yet he could hardly hold back as he played the knife over the forehead, just above the eyes.

He had lightly joked with her, and they'd spoken of the impending hurricane season, which usually drenched central Florida, sometimes for weeks at a time, despite the fact that the storm was way out to sea, or in the Gulf of Mexico. He told her lies about himself, from a bogus name to an imagined job teaching at the local high school, and that he sometimes enjoyed scuba diving in order to relax. She ate it up, especially the scuba diving, saying that, to her, took guts. She claimed to be a complete klutz in the water, even in the bathtub. He had countered with a smirky little remark about how he could teach her to dive for something in her tub, but that he'd have to be there with her for it to work. They'd laughed, giggled, kissed, and petted before he could wait no longer to take what he'd come for.

They had gone to her place. She'd apologized for the mess in the dingy little bungalow, which sat in a row of houses along a canal. There were neighbors on both sides of her, but trees obscured the view and the lights were out—and he felt safe to proceed with her as he'd planned. By the time they'd smoked two joints, he was ready to explode with anxiety and agitation, ready to take what was his. She kept asking him if he'd take her to the new theme park that had opened near Disney World sometime, a place called Wet ‘n Wild, to enjoy water sports of all kinds. He'd finally had enough of her palaver and raised up over her to knock her hard into a table lamp with his first blow. She was no trouble from that moment on—she was his. His and the little one's, but she hadn't seen the other one as he crawled through the unlatched window.

His scowling face would be her last earthly memory. She succumbed to the blows he rained upon her.

Now his large, cold hand knotted her curls and pulled the hair so tight that it simply lifted her weight, and with his razor-sharp knife he began carefully to cut away at her forehead, an incision an inch above the eyes. Blood began to collect in her eyebrows and over the closed eyelids as he worked the incision deeper, going up at the ends toward the crown. He was doing it, parting the scalp from the skull in a wide, rectangular pattern. He was scalping her cleanly and efficiently.

Even unconscious, she seemed to shrivel with the operation, contracting within herself, as if he were pulling her brain somehow through her pores. All he wanted was the brain crop of fire-red hair and the square of skin that nettled the hair together at its roots. In his haste he realized only now that the hair color was not natural. Still, it was something, and it must be made to do.

Working over her, he felt her body jerk as the scalp released itself, one section at a time, like an adhesive label in the way it peeled away—as if grateful and wanting and urgent.

It was his now, and she was left uglier than before, but it mattered not a whit. She'd die before dawn, and any disfigurement wasn't likely to disturb her then. He chuckled over the joking thought he had made: it wasn't often he felt amused, only at moments such as this, when he could lift the bloody, dank scalp up to the light and examine it to his full satisfaction. It wasn't likely to ruin her modeling career, he thought, recalling how she had shown him pictures of herself in tight skirts and tall boots, posing draped over stools and the back of a couch, when she spoke of how, if she'd like, she could be a model.

Orlando, Florida, as filled as it was with discos and bars, singles hangouts, shopping malls, and the weak and helpless and elderly, presented a challenge: a familiar, yet different, even odd terrain for him. The environment here was filled with strange monoliths, the dirt replaced by tarmac, bush all but nonexistent, but the prey—that remained the same: human.

Feeling good was easy when you could achieve what you set out to achieve, bring down the foe, skin it, tear off its hair. This negated all the illogical truths surrounding him, corrected the limitations of terrain and topography. So it wasn't a real jungle. When the prey was beneath the spear, a man was still a man in the deepest sense. A man could give vent to his spleen, his reptilian tastes, his reptilian brain, if he knew how to go about it.

It was this that made all the searching and waiting and wondering worth it, made life bearable, and rounded out the collection back at his digs. The girl would likely die of her wounds, and even if she did not, she'd seen nothing. He struck with the speed and accuracy of a leopard, knocked her unconscious, and brought his knife to bear. She never knew what hit her. She'd not even had a second to scream. Again he was confusing her with another victim. The little man told him so when he came slavering his way up her legs, slitting her skirt with his knife and beginning to take what he wished off her body.

The man he had pretended to be, to entice the woman to give herself to him, did not exist. That man had never been in the room with her ... he'd been only an illusion. What crawled in over the ledge and thudded to the floor, now that was no illusion, that was the little man with the power. While he himself worried all day long if the rains would let up, the little man fasted and prayed, telling his god they didn't hunt well in heavy, wet, rain-drenched clothing. The little man had to feel light, be ready to spring at a moment's notice.

Her long hair, limp with the weight of the scalp at the end now, tickled between his fingers. It was so like vines ripped from a trellis, the scalp the fruit, dripping blood. He held it up to the weak light coming from a nearby bulb. His eyes fastened on the long, red hair. It would be a beautiful addition to the home, and if found to be potent in its power, a fine ingredient in their next soup. Lots of things went into his stews and soups, strained out only after they'd released their potency through a steady boil, a day's patient cooking. But this, this looked to him like a wall ornament to accompany his macramé, and the other scalps tethered there.

All it needs is a good curing and drying out. He could put it up and take it down and fondle and caress it, rub it into his groin or chest whenever he liked, partake of it in a wholly different fashion. He liked to fulfill his needs, from hunger to tactile desires to capturing such a prize. It all went together to make of him a well-rounded personality. He laughed inwardly at the thought.

Hair was interesting and wonderful, but it wasn't hair alone that motivated him. Nor was it envy or jealousy, or a sick hatred of women brought on by his mother's cruel treatment of him—none of that nonsense. His desire was motivated by the potency factor of hair. All of life, according to scientists, resided in a single strand of hair, all the DNA of any individual. In a sense, he had just escaped with the soul of the dying “model.” Vain bitch ... beauty was only skin-deep, but hair—now that was forever. After all, wasn't it hair that made the beast so attractive to the beauty?

They wanted other things from the girl before they'd leave her to die here.

He wanted a patch of skin from her left thigh, some pubic hair for another ritual meal, more skin from around her breast—just a little nip—and he wanted her nails, painted and long as they were. Her toenails, too.

He went about the work of stripping what he wished from her, paying little heed now to the gory baldness or the satisfied look on the pinched features of the little man working at the other end of the woman. The little man's total concentration was on the items he had come to fetch, and he took them from his perch over her chest like a succubus. Ian tried to remember all the items his dwarf brother, Van, had come to fetch. Van took each item with careless cuts. Ian placed the scalp in a large plastic baggie and went about doing the same for the other items, each to its own bag. As he worked, he stuffed the full plastic bags into his sport coat pocket.

This would take time, and they did want to take their time over the still-breathing woman. Ian dragged her down onto the floor beneath a window in the semi-dark room where he occasionally looked out, listening to the chirping of cicadas, crickets, and an annoyed squirrel. He saw movement at the house next door, so he reached over to the lamp and flicked it off. They could see out, but no one could see in. Adjusting their eyes to the dark, they began to take their choice picks. It was not unlike the work of a medical doctor over a corpse, Ian thought as Van worked. Then a disturbing feeling of foreboding came into his head: a sinister feeling, a feeling that someone or something was, at this very moment, stalking them.

The victim regained consciousness and screamed before he dug the knife into her throat, cutting short her cry. She blacked out and began to bleed to death as Van, a little shaken, continued his incisions.

Had they done right in choosing this one, in coming here and carrying out their plan? Or had they made a fatal error? Ian cursed himself for the indecision and the sudden fear and doubt.

"It's going to be all right ... all right,” Van said, taking his hand, reassuring him with a squeeze and a munchkin smile. Then he got back to cutting up the dying woman.

ONE

O'Hare International Airport held no allure for Dean Grant. He'd had to sit in bars and lounges and cafes too often and too long at airports all over the country to find any fascination with planes and the people who moved them. He had had to wait too often for his bags, and he had sat in too damned many holding patterns to wish it upon himself again. “Holding pattern” was a nice way of putting it, a euphemism for incompetence and disorder, yet it might do for the Chicago City Morgue at times, too. Grant's thoughts were never far from his work and his workplace.

When he could, he flew out of Midway Airport to avoid the O'Hare crowds, from the cabs, buses, and cars going in, to the hawkers and press stringers that hung on like kudzu. But this time out, he hadn't a chance of getting to Orlando quickly from Midway, and for the past month—since his publication of a medical paper detailing the floater cases—news reporters had been dogging his every step, despite his advice that they read the article in M.E., the magazine for medical examiners who kept up with current practices and news in the field. Since his article's publication, filled as it was with startling evidence of a horrid serial murderer, the drowning deaths, and the possible involvement of killers remaining at large, Dean's phone had not stopped ringing. Boston, L.A., as well as Salt Lake City, San Francisco, and New York were continuing to uncover mysterious deaths that had gone on record as insoluble and which seemed to fit the modus operandi of one Angel Rae, a.k.a. Brother Timothy.

Officer Ken Kelso was following up the most promising leads in an effort to uncover a nest of Angel Raes, sick family members with the same mental aberration, people prepared to turn any helpless victim into a floater in order to float them to the “other side” in God's name, enjoying their work so immeasurably as to keep scrapbooks and pictures. However, to date no significant leads had surfaced. Ken was shuttling back and forth from Chicago to Boston and New York a lot lately.

Kelso, like Dean, had argued hotly for more manpower, to hire someone to compile and correlate all data that could be assembled on such deaths nationwide. Such things were time-consuming and costly. Dean and his friend, Kelso, kept after their superiors on this one, determined as two pit bulls. But bureacratic minds moved even more slowly than bureacratic wheels. As with everything in the Chicago police and crime divisions, the rule from on top was: Ignore it long enough and it will go away. The sad thing was, all that went away were helpless old people and children suckered into a pool of water somewhere, and convinced that drowning was the answer to life's problems.

The plane was finally on line for takeoff and the sound of the idling engines became a roar. Dean felt the power build in the jet as it seemed held against its will, then suddenly released to speed down the runway. Now it was a charge, the wheels beneath them unheard, whirring and bumpy, until the giant creature in whose belly he rode lifted off the ground.

As the plane slowly worked its way out of the pattern and wound around Lake Michigan, Dean felt better, finally on his way. Maybe a change of place and a change of people would help his troubled mind. Lately he feared he was beginning to act and sound like Irwin Cook, an old friend who had worked himself into an early grave over the floater business. Dean's own health was failing over it, along with his relationships with others: co-workers, friends, his wife, Jackie, and most of all, his knuckle-headed superior.

In the meantime, Sid Corman, an old friend who'd gone through Korea with Dean, and the Orlando, Florida, Chief Medical Examiner, telephoned with a request for Dean to help him out on a case which promised to be more bizarre and puzzling than even the case of the Chicago floaters. Dean had put Sid off for weeks, and in that time another beaten body had been found in Orlando, missing patches of skin and scalp.

When Sid first contacted Dean, he listened patiently to the larger man, whose voice boomed over the wires. He finally said, “Sid, we see a lotta battered people with pieces of scalp and skin torn away. I don't see what you're driving at."

"Damn it, Dean, this isn't just a little scalp, it's the whole damned scalp—you know, like in John Wayne's westerns, when the Indians get fuckin’ mad."

"You mean scalped scalped?"

"That's right."

"How many victims did you say?"

"Three so far, and now the whole damned city's going crazy for revenge or something. A guy just shot down one of our original natives on 436."

"Original natives?"

"A Seminole!"

"Indian?"

"Yes, damn it, right near here! Altamonte Springs Road. The papers put it down as another pissed commuter going nuts in the congestion out that way—we've got terrible traffic problems here, what with tripling our damned population—but it's not the roads, you know?"

"Sid, this is long-distance."

"Anyway, turns out under interrogation that this guy confesses to having shot the Seminole to put an end to the scalping murders. People're going nuts."

"What can I do to help?"

"I read about your work on the floaters up there—and, well, Dean, you're the only man I know that might come up with something we could've overlooked. Would you come and—"

"To Orlando? Just drop everything here, Sid? Come on!"

"You've got Sybil! She could—"

"She could, but I'm also breaking in a new man."

"Yeah, I heard about Huxsoll. How's he holding up?"

"He isn't, Sid."

"The hell you say! He went that quick?"

"He didn't wait, Sid.” Dean had a flash back to the funeral, a picture of the man's broken parents at the casket. He'd cursed the ugly disease that had taken a sensitive, caring man who was the best laboratory assistant Dean had ever worked with. Huxsoll had only been twenty-nine.

"Damn...” Sid had muttered, unable to say anything the least bit philosophic or useful.

"Precisely.” Dean had added that Huxsoll had left a note, saying he wished no one to suffer any further grief or pain on his account.

"Guess maybe if I had AIDS, I'd shoot myself, too."

"Warren jumped from the roof of his apartment building."

"Sorry, Dean ... really sorry."

"Makes you wonder about a lot of things, my friend, like when's it going to stop—"

"If ever."

Dean nodded at his end of the phone. “You always could finish a sentence for me."

"Dean, old buddy, you damn sure could use time away from that chilly city. Tell you what, you come on down, bring Jackie with you, and when we get a moment—"

"Jackie can't pick up and go parading to Florida anymore than I can, and even if she could—"

"Then what about you? All expenses paid, compliments of the Orlando City Police. Free citrus. Hell, boy, you're more famous now than Peter Hukros ever was."

Dean laughed at the reference to the famous pyschic. “They're not likely to roll out any red carpets for an M.E."

"Try me."

Dean hesitated a moment. “You've got that much pull down there, huh? Must be nice."

"Don't give me that shit, doctor. I know you've got that fat cop, Kelso, wrapped around your pinkie."

Dean thought of all the reasons not to make the trip. He also thought of all the reasons it might do him some good—and his standing at home, and the job downtown. Absence makes the heart grow fonder, he thought.

No doubt his taking some of the years of accrued vacation time he had coming to him would be frowned upon. Such an act would be construed as a cover for a job-hunting foray into the sunbelt. Orlando sends for Grant with a cock-a-mamy story about rampant scalping in order to woo him away from Chicago. Once he saw what Orlando had to offer ... all that. Even if it weren't true, he could jockey for better treatment and conditions at home, get some of that money they kept so tightly balled in their fists.

Besides, he'd been promising himself for years he would one day visit Sid's so-called “dynamite” set-up in Orlando, to see his sleek, modern forensics lab that was supposed to be housed in a newly built skyscraper overlooking a lake filled with boats. The building also housed all administrative law enforcement agencies in the rapidly expanding city where, by all accounts, new towers sprouted as quickly as beanstalks.

"I know you want to see some sunshine, and we've got it, even if it is December,” Corman promised.

"It'll have to be short, Sid."

"Have you back before Christmas."

Dean left off by saying he had to make arrangements, and told Sid it would take him perhaps forty-eight hours to get out of Chicago. Dean then set about making those difficult arrangements. His hardest task was talking with Jackie. She remained shaken at having nearly been a floater casualty herself, and her nights were frequented by Angel Rae's ghost. But Dean believed she must confront the situation to become whole again, and that his being so close at hand only made her hide within herself more. Dean was not at all sure if this time their marriage could survive the onslaught of his work. He'd convinced her to see a psychiatrist, to go to work at chipping away at the horror retained in her psyche from a close call with drowning and murder.

Chief Ken Kelso did not make Dean's junket to Florida any easier, either. In fact, they had had a fight over it. Ken thought him foolish and heartless to leave Jackie at a time like this, while Dean argued that it was necessary for her as well as for him. Kelso also tried to tell Dean he had much too much work in the crime lab to go off looking for more, and he reminded him of the ongoing investigation into possible links with other floating deaths across the nation. “Am I supposed to do it all on my own?” he'd screamed.

Sybil alone had thought Dean's taking off was great. It would leave her in charge at the lab, and she could lord it over the new man even more than she did now.

Telling Borel, their superior, was easy. It jolly well left a good feeling in Dean's heart because it left the little four-eyed pimp guessing and begging information all over the building. Dean had calculated right on that score.

Now he was on United Flight 217, with a briefcase full of news accounts and papers forwarded to him by Sid to review before his touchdown in Orlando.

Dean now opened up a copy of yesterday's Orlando Sentinel to stare again at the headline and the splatter picture across the front which looked vaguely like a poster for the latest horror movie. It was actually a colored photograph of a scalping victim. The sprawled, partially clad figure of a woman looked like a manikin dropped from a height, broken and disfigured. The head was ghastly, missing a wide splotch of hair and skin. Dean wondered how on earth police had allowed a photographer in so close to get such a shot, and how a responsible paper could come to the conclusion that it was proper to use it. But then, anything could be justified, and if community feeling was aroused enough, as it seemed to be, the mayor of the city himself may well have seen to it the papers got the photo. It could be a cautionary tale: lock your doors, and do not wander about after dark, for the thing that kills is loose again.

Dean saw that Sid, as expected, had run every test imaginable at the crime scenes, but had come up with only the minutest evidence. It appeared that Sid was looking for a miracle, and Dean was not at all sure he could produce one. The trip would likely do little more than bolster Sid's spirits, but if it helped, why not? Still, the whole case was as intriguing as it was disturbing.

Dean knew that scalping alone could cause enough trauma and blood loss to end in death, but he also knew that there were recorded cases of people who had survived the butcherous work of a scalper. He wondered if there was anyone anywhere in the state of Florida, or in the nation for that matter, who was going about today with his scalp missing, a ball cap pulled tightly across the forehead to hide the disfigurement. It was one of those thoughts that came in at him from out of nowhere, for no particular reason. But it led to a second thought: he wondered if anyone had ever lived through a scalping recently, and if so, could he or she identify—or help to identify—this assailant? If there were such a person, how would he go about finding him? Hospital records? Clinics, perhaps? Such a victim would have to create vivid memories at the late-night emergency ward. Dean wondered if the cops had given it a thought.

Tired, feeling drained, Dean nevertheless considered the many unanswered questions. He wondered if the guy who was responsible for the scalping might not be missing his own scalp, either due to a chemical accident or a war wound, or malformation at birth. For one reason or another, the killer seemed to have a bizarre fetish for this piece of skin and hair. Was he just a crazed bald man? Dean chuckled inwardly at the thought. A stewardess came by with the beverage cart, asking if he would care to have anything to drink. He ordered a Tom Collins and made a mess of moving his papers about locating his wallet. In a moment she was gone and he was left with his drink and his questions.

He scanned some of Sid's workups on the earlier victims and saw what he expected: multiple contusions, knife wounds, punctures. He noticed the killer's habit of not only taking the scalp, but leaving a design on the victim's head: a triangle, a circular pattern, a square. What was that all about? The victims’ hair color and gender didn't seem important. One victim was a man, middle fifties, small in stature. Dean wondered if there was any way to connect the victims. This was important, for if the victims knew one another or lived within a certain radius, then there was not only somewhere to begin, but it meant the killer's work was not completely and utterly random.

God forbid the killer did his work without knowing something about his victims. Without connecting them in some way in his mind, he was leaving no scent and no trail. A patternless, random killer, selecting his victims on a whim, at any time of the day or night and in any setting, was a law enforcement agent's worst nightmare. Such a killer was the hardest to catch. His or her movements left no trail; his so-called serial acts had no serial nature about them, beyond the dire results: bodies. All the cops had to go on were corpses. They could not put together much of a psychological profile, they could not point to a victim type which triggered in this killer the desire to destroy a given face, a given shape, a given creature with platinum hair or gray eyes. Instead, all answers were smoke.

An even more gruesome photo slipped from one of the files Sid had forwarded Dean, a picture of what was once a middle-aged redhead, the latest victim. She bore no resemblance to the others, beyond the ugly scar—a deep wound over the eyes. The shiny veins and blood pool beneath the layers of skin removed from the skull glossed in the photo. That strange, rectangular wound haunted Dean's mind as had the others. This time the killer had carved a rectangle out of the flesh.

The woman's head where her hair had been ripped from her showed ugly, scarred, puckered skin. The idea that someone was going about actually scalping people, men as well as women, even with this evidence before him, seemed more than ludicrous. It made Dean think of the woman, Angel Rae, who had stalked her victims to drown them out of a mistaken religious notion handed down by generations.

Dean felt the drink begin to calm him. He called for another and downed it too fast. He closed his eyes and began to think, only half-wondering where his thoughts might take him. Hopefully he'd sleep and wake up in Orlando. He didn't particularly care for flying and got through it only by keeping his mind busy, or on hold. He thought about something he'd read somewhere about the Plains Indians, who'd mutilated and scalped the bodies of General George Armstrong Custer and his Seventh Cavalry. They had done so for religious and ritual purposes—the scalp of an enemy represented the enemy's head taken in mortal combat.

If this modern-day scalper were some displaced Indian, his mutilation hardly seemed correct, even by eighteenth-century standards. The stalking of an unarmed, helpless woman for her scalp seemed a perversion of the notion of the right to slash away at a corpse you claim for having beaten in a fair and equitable fight. Still, a madman—and the killer was a madman—could be counted on to pervert any notion, be it social, psychological, or ritualistic. The mind of man hadn't, after all, changed in its physical makeup since the first men ran about wielding flint spears to kill game.

If Sid could be believed, today's popular, mistaken notion that scalping and the American Indian went hand-in-hand seemed to be motivating a backlash against reservation Indians outside Orlando. It was complete nonsense to blame Seminole Indians out of hand, Dean thought—or any other person of Indian heritage, because scalping was not ever an art exclusively Indian. It was Spanish, it was French, it was English, and it went back so far into man's history that stone-age evidence had been unearthed to support the now widely held belief that man had, from the time of fashioning the first deadly weapons, taken scalps.

All this Dean thought about as he sipped his third powdery-tasting Tom Collins at thirty-two thousand feet.

Dean's sudden fascination with Orlando started with his having stared down at the shining city and its mirrored buildings, separated like fine jewels in a jeweler's case. The downtown, if it could be called that, had nothing of the skyline of Chicago or New York. It was as if the city fathers had said there shall be no building to rival the stars or the sky, nothing to cast too long a shadow or interfere with the work of the sun. The work of the sun was to bake this sprawling metropolis, which had, since the last time he'd seen the place, sprawled at every conceivable chance and seemed to become a city of connected suburban townships.

Tourist attractions like Sea World and Disney World aside, Dean wondered if anyone in his right mind would settle here. But news of widespread growth and new industry, like the new Universal Studios and Disney Studios setting up shop here, drew people like bees to nectar, and given the year-round balmy temperatures, how many could resist? The climate even excited Dean, who was normally calm about such things as weather.

From the bright sunshine to the impossibly warm air that hit him like a wall as they exited the terminal for Sid's waiting car, Dean felt he was in another country. He hadn't felt such a transformation since the time he'd vacationed in Mexico. Orlando spread lazily amid the arched palms, hiding its bare, spots as best it could. From ground level, as from overhead, it seemed to be concealing something harsh and daunting just beneath its surface—something unseen. Superficially, like most cities, Dean decided, the place gave off an air of the unreal, as if nothing bad could ever happen here, so close to Mickey Mouse Land, so filled as it was with tourists and the people who made their living pleasing them. But here was Sid Corman, and here was the Orlando City Police Force. The city, like any other, had its soft and slimy underbelly, regardless of the sheen and tiles on top of what was lately being dubbed, “The Big Orange."

Maybe part of Dean's feeling had to do with the very real ugliness of Chicago in winter—brown, ice-scarred earth, bare, prickly trees, a white-gray, cold sky for months at a time. Here it was clean, save for the trash along the highways. There were sand piles, but no snow piles or street-blackened, sooty mounds for block after block. Here it never snowed. Dean's lightest trenchcoat wound up on his arm as he and Sid Corman ambled out of the terminal together.

From the air, the city had looked like San Diego. The center of the city was a low and unimposing skyline, and from it the arteries and veins of streets spread away, hugging the earth, it seemed, for moisture and relief from the sun and heat even in December.

Tourism was far and away the largest draw for the city coffers. But Dean had the feeling that it was hardly the only way to make a buck here, either legally or illegally.

Sid Corman looked robust and larger than Dean remembered, and when the two men found each other at the airline terminal, they warmly shook hands and exchanged an old greeting that dated back to their Korea days. “Seen the sunrise!"

"Damn straight, partner,” said Sid after the exchange. “Seen so many, I'd almost forgot all that nonsense."

In Korea it had been an expression used between combat personnel. “Seen the sunrise lately?” one would ask and the other would reply, “Yeah, up the captain's ass."

It didn't go over so well at the United desk.

The two M.E.'s laughed over it now.

"So good to see you, Dean.” Sid climbed into his side of the car, automatically unlocking Dean's door. The M.E.'s car in Orlando was a fully air-conditioned, full-sized Chrysler. Dean was impressed, but he tried not to show it.

"So good to see you,” Sid repeated himself.

Dean replied agreeably, telling Sid that he had had time on the flight to go over the copies of the files and photos he had sent him. “Looks like one hell of a psycho on your hands, Sid."

"You think it's the work of one man, then?"

"I saw nothing to indicate otherwise."

"There's lots of talk it's the work of a team of hoodlums."

"Who's doing the talking, Sid?"

"Cops."

"Do they know something they're not sharing?"

"Naw, it's just talk. Some shrink in the department has it that way ... you know how that is. Guy's an odd duck, name of Hamel. Says he believes it's the work of two men, or a man and woman working in connection."

"This guy Hamel give you any reason to believe him?"

"Lots of mumbo jumbo about strong wills overcoming weak wills, that the knife wielder is sometimes in the power of the one who plans the whole thing, then sends this shlep out to kill because he hasn't the stomach for it. Typical psychobabble that goes out to every division on a multiple-kill case, you know."

"But what's he basing this on? Evidence or bull, or what? How does he know there's a second killer involved here?"

"He doesn't. Nobody does. It was just an idea he tossed out, damned if people in Central didn't take the bait. Some of ‘em are actually arresting gay couples as a result."

"How many cops they got on this case?"

"It's got so big they're all on it."

"All?"

"From the lowliest traffic cop to the Mayor."

"Isn't that kind of nuts? I mean, given the fact you don't have any kind of a make on the guy?"

"Dean, I got some hair and few lint balls, and now they're looking for a light-haired, cheaply dressed man who probably shops at K-Mart."

Dean laughed hysterically, recalling how Sid had kept them laughing at the MASH unit where they'd worked together years before. “Pared it down considerably, didn't you, Sid?"

"Don't you know it."

He turned the car off the toll road and they were weaving through downtown Orlando.

"You know the type of case we got here, Dean.” He continued talking as he threaded through difficult traffic. “It's the kind where whoever gets the guy is going to wind up a hero in the eyes of the department, with a citation. Usually some faggot that's running nude through the rhododendrons, but hell, Dean, we're talking about a mass murderer here."

"Yeah, I seen that much."

"Hold on, you're about to see more."

"The redhead in the picture?"

"Came up with something interesting on the slides."

"Is that right?"

"It's going to blow you away, Dean, old boy."

"Anything like nail polish, or warpaint?"

"You bastard,” shouted Sid, staring across at him and almost hitting someone in his lane before he put his foot hard on the break. “How'd you know?"

"Just an educated guess. Where there's scalping, there's usually warpaint of one sort or another. The wounds were cut in shapes that mean something to the killer, perhaps, and I wondered if he might not use some sort of makeup on himself, or his victims, for some ritual purpose or other."

"Damn, Dean, you're a little scary, you know that?"

* * * *

Dean was impressed by the glitteringly clean hallways and offices of the Orlando Central Forensics Division and Criminal Detection Agency, OCFDCD, or DCD, as Sid preferred. Sid's office was more spacious than Dean's lab back in Chicago, and all stops were pulled out to furnish the place with the best furniture. Mauve and pastels captured the eye along with sparkling glass and steel. Even the paintings and pictures on the walls were chosen with care. There were thriving plants everywhere, too. The effect was sterile, and the decidely Floridian growth in the planters in the halls and foyer and Sid's office were an attempt, perhaps, to compensate for the calculated pink-ness of the place.

But when Dean was escorted to the slab room, it was like any other. There was an area with refrigerated drawers where cadavers were kept, and three operating theaters, since the place doubled as a teaching hospital. The clinical labs were beyond Dean's wildest dreams. He'd give his right arm to have any one of them in Chicago. The most modern equipment abounded, and there was even talk of setting up a DNA testing site on the premises, the newest technological advance in the war on crime. Sid had it all, and he didn't mind gloating about it.

"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 as 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.

"Dean, I just rushed through it, you know,” said Sid, sensing that Dean now understood.

"I can see that."

"You see what, Dr. Grant?” asked Hodges over the P.A. system.

Dean looked up for the first time in hours, having very nearly forgotten about the men watching. Dr. Hamel was gone. So was Park. Dyer and Hodges alone were in for the kill.

"Dr. Corman did not indicate that more than one size of knife wound exists on this cadaver."

"Is that not unusual, Doctor?"

"And he failed to mention in his reports the wounds in the armpits."

"Is that, too, not unusual, Doctor?” Hodges repeated.

"It shows sloppiness, errors made.” Dean didn't wish to say any more than absolutely necessary.

"Would you keep this man on in your Chicago operation, doctor?"

"Sid Corman's record cannot be overlooked here, Chief Hodges. Efforts made in haste, when people are breathing down your back, even in forensics, are made. Part of the problem—"

"Thank you, Dr. Grant.” Hodges stood, said something to Dyer, who rushed out, and continued, looking down on Sid Corman from behind the glass, as if Sid were a bug. “Dr. Corman, I'm sorry to inform you that this matter will now be taken up with the Mayor's office."

"Mayor's office?” asked Dean, amazed. “You can't be serious!"

"I am quite serious, Dr. Grant, believe me."

Dean looked in Sid's direction to find the other man shaking his head. He gazed back overhead to see that the chief had disappeared. “Sid, you want to tell me what the hell's going on?"

Sid switched the microphone off before he began to talk.

"Not too much, Dean—just that this woman here—” he indicated the corpse “—is the Mayor's niece."

"Oh, shit,” moaned Dean. “Great going, Ace. When you choose to screw up, you do it royally."

"What can I say? I didn't know at the time."

"That's no damned excuse."

"I know, I know...."

Dyer was suddenly back, his slim face suddenly alive, agitated with tension that Dean took to mean concern for Corman. But there was more to the excitement than this. “Just came over the squawk box, Sid, they're saying we've got another scalping victim."

"When?"

"Less than fifteen minutes ago."

"Where'd it happen?"

"West End area, near Second and Cook."

"Damn, miles from the others!"

Dean interrupted the two, asking, “Are they bringing the victim here now?"

"No, she's going to Mercy."

"She's alive?"

"That's good, maybe great,” said Sid.

"It's a lady cop, name of Carson, from our Westside Division, She's lost a lot of blood, but the medics got her stable.

"Outlook's getting better, Dean, old buddy."

"Don't get your hopes up until you talk to this lady."

"I think I'll get right over there,” said Sid. “You coming?” He tore off his surgical garb as he spoke.

Dean was too tired to say yes and too curious to say no. “What do you think?” he asked.

Sid smiled wide for the first time in many hours. “I'm glad I've got you on my side, Dean."

"That's crazy, Sid."

"Crazy like a fox."

"But you knew I'd see the errors, and that I'd honestly say so."

"That I did, and I also know you'll help me put this killer behind bars. And that, Dean, means more to me than my goddamned job at the moment."

Dean wondered about the last remark. Sid had spent a lifetime amassing a reputation, and no one spoke more fondly of his position than he did, Dean wondered just how far Sid was using him to repair the damage already done to his career. He likewise wondered how much Sid truly cared about the victims and potential victims he sought to help.

Such considerations aside, Dean was as anxious to see and speak with the sole survivor of the Scalper himself. A part of him was as calculating as Sid, certainly as curious and fascinated by the bizarre goings-on, about the psyche of such a perverse creature. A part of him wanted to do what he did best, and that was to put bad men behind bars.

"So many damned errors,” Ian moaned.

The dwarf snorted and blew his nose. "Quit whining."

"She was ripe for the taking, if it hadn't been for—"

"I suppose you think it's my fault."

"Did I say that?"

"Don't have to,” he replied from down around Ian's knees.

Having driven completely across town, they'd parked a few feet away and were now combing the downtown Lake Conway Park area for any chance encounter with fresh prey. It was way too late to go cruising singles bars, and Van didn't really want to sit in the car waiting. There was not much chance of a good evening.

"I'll tell you when to worry,” Van said in his distinct, gravelly voice. “You know what they say—worry only stresses you out, big brother.” Van was the name their parents had given him. It was the only thing they'd given Van. Their parents had no idea of the importance of their son, the power he would someday wield. Only Ian saw and understood the potential of the hairy little man born to them.

Superhuman, Van spoke directly to the forces behind life and death, light and darkness. He had friends in low places, indeed.

For most of his young life, Ian had watched the cruelty heaped upon Van by their parents; yet those years had been his brother's apprenticeship, when he had learned the dark and powerful crafts which gave strength and vigor to them both now, nourishing them far more than any parent might.

Early on Van was fond of pointing to his misshapen self, laughing, and with a wicked voice, saying, “Here but for the grace of Satan go I-an!"

Strangely, Van had garnered about him such force of character and strength that it often frightened Ian. He was ugly, yes—and deformed beyond anything normal—but his mind was quick; so quick, in fact that he spoke to the powers that kept him alive and nourished his existence in that stinking hole where they'd placed him, hiding him from the world, from themselves, keeping him chained like an animal. Perhaps Ian's parents had unknowingly played a part in his development for a greater reason which none could fathom. The gods work in mysterious ways....

"What do we do now? You're so smart,” said Ian.

Van shushed him, his attention on a park bench where someone appeared to be reclining. “All things come to those who wait.” Van's whisper was raspy.

"Yes, yes,” agreed Ian.

"Yes, yes,” repeated Van. “She's sleeping."

"Soft-looking, much younger."

"Black scalp's all we need to know."

They'd been charged to locate and return with a black scalp from a female. Van had gotten the word. “This time, no mistakes,” said Van. “Wait until I'm in place in the tree."

Ian, dressed in casual knit shirt and pants, eased toward their prey. He was tall and ruggedly handsome. He worked out at the gym, ran in this very park every morning, and played racquetball with co-workers by day. He made good money, plenty to pour into clothes for them both. Little brother's clothes, in fact, were custom-made, since he preferred a Dickensian appearance. While his clothes were of the best cloth and quality, sometimes Ian thought the style raggedy and antique-looking. But it was what Van was told to wear by them, the ones who spoke only to him. The only other clothes he ever wore were his robes, when summoning the powers to his side.

Ian realized the bulky clothes little brother wore also hid his malformed limbs, arthritic and emaciated, the club foot and tightly balled hands, not to mention his hairiness. He was covered with more hair than other men grew in a lifetime. He was born with hair all over him.

A cowl hood hid the fact that one eye was drooped and perched on the misshapen cheek, and that one ear was gone, bitten and shriveled from rat attacks when he was a mere child. The hood also hid his facial hair. Ian had read of diseases that caused unusual hair growth covering the entire body. His brother was as furry as a baboon, save for his bald head, where the skin shown in folds, was layered like that of a Shar-Pei dog.

Van was in position.

Ian stepped closer to the reclining girl, a runaway, by the looks of her, her large, oversized woman's handbag stuffed to bursting with her few possessions. Ian saw that she was indeed black. He felt reassured. They would have their black scalp after all, along with other choice selections. Already the thrill of the red hair now hanging on their wall was gone, cooled like sexual excitement after a climax.

Ian thought of all the countless scalps he had taken from people to appease Van and his insatiable gods; it was not dementia driving them, but an honest-to-God demon, an army of them, in fact, a legion bent on living out their hatred of mankind through Van. Ian had been told what to do by Van so as to prove himself worthy of the respect of the gods, who one day would speak to Ian, too. Van could make it happen with enough scalps.

Scalp-taking was pleasurable, besides. Van had always been right. In fact, it was what had gotten Ian through those awful years of separation from Van during the war, for always brother Van was close at hand, telling him what to do next: what to eat, when to get up, when to go to sleep, where to go, what to study, where to hunt, why they hunted, why they took the hair sometimes, the scalps of others. He knew so much, and Ian did, after all, owe him everything and could never repay him, not after saving him from a life of unimportance and boredom.

For the first eleven years of his life, Ian was kept away from Van, Van locked in a cellar below the house, deep in the remote woods where no one but the family knew. He was described as a demon, an evil and hideous monster, by Ian's parents, and Ian was beaten whenever he dared go near the sounds coming from below the house. But Ian managed to sneak down at times, and while shaking fearfully, he smuggled into his “retarded” little brother magazines and a special treat whenever possible. Ian felt the cruelty shown his brother as if it were shown to him; he felt the pangs and torture, and sometimes he was so carried away with empathy for Van that they seemed, the two of them, of one mind.

Deep within the ugly folds of Van's face, the eyes shone back at Ian and they were his eyes, his very own.

The girl on the bench saw Ian standing over her and she suddenly sat upright, realizing her situation. “Whatcha want, Mister? A little fun? You got any money, ‘cause it'll costs you plenty."

"Sure, sweet thing,” Ian said, pulling out a wad of bills. “How much do you think you're worth?"

"Go all night with you for...” she considered the wad of money ... “a hundred dollars."

"A hundred? Come on, you're just a kid."

"Some people like kids."

Ian tried to remain calm. He knew the transaction of words and coin was necessary to get her from point A to point B. If she got skittish for any reason, things could go badly, and they'd had enough of that tonight “All right ... how about fifty."

"Sixty-five."

"Sixty."

She looked at him as if she hadn't seen him before. “You're going to bust me, ain't you? You're a cop, ain't you?"

"Hell no, honey.” He tried to soothe her suspicion, but a look of panic flitted across her brow. She was pretty, her skin smooth. Too much deep red on her lips and the layers of three pairs of earrings gave the appearance of a Zulu girl, but the scalp, that above all was a beauty.

She began to move off and he cursed aloud. “Damn it, I just want a fast fix, honey, in the bushes over there. How about it? Sixty-five then ... sixty-five.” He pushed the cash at her.

She could not resist, and Ian wondered if it hadn't all been part of her act to get her price. She secured the money in her clutch purse and tucked that deep into her larger bag. “So, you got a place nearby, Sugar, or what?"

"I like nature,” he said, pointing to a thicket and some trees nearby. When they reached the woods, he spun her around and kissed her romantically, to which she responded with a sound like, “Yum."

"Howdya like it, baby?” she asked, rubbing her body into his.

"Dead,” he said, “I like it dead."

Her hand had reached his crotch and it startled her to find he was not hard. He grabbed. Then she saw the blade come up. “Jesus, no! No! God, God, no! Please, Mister, pleeeeeease!"

Then she felt something heavy and hairy lob from the tree above onto her shoulders with a horrid thud. It was perched on her shoulders, its legs over her breasts, kicking, bucking. It gave out a piercing little laugh. Ghastly-smelling, hairy hands held her hair back with a painful tug, her mouth clamped shut by the John. She believed her throat was about to be cut when she felt the blade slice into her forehead. Somewhere among the stomach-numbing fear, the sudden loss of blood, and the loss of consciousness—drifting so mercifully off—she recalled having seen something in the newspaper about some crazed nut going about the city scalping people.

Now that she was unconscious, they could continue without hurrying and have their various ways with the whore who had turned her last trick. What they couldn't take from the other black woman they would take from the whore-child.

"A fulfilling night after all."

"And a fulfilling breakfast to look forward to."

FOUR

Dean had said nothing to Sid the entire way over to Mercy Hospital, and Sid had returned the favor. Both men were tired and irritable, and filled with thoughts and questions. If Dean had had the strength, he might well have taken Sid to task over his method of having involved Dean in all this.

But Dean chose to hold his hostility in check, until a time when he could muster the energy it deserved. One thing Dean could not stand in a friend was lying, or telling half-truths.

At Mercy, Officer Peggy Carson had been in such agitation and trauma on arrival that she'd been given a strong sedative, and as it happened, she was unable to speak coherently to anyone. Dean managed a look at her, however, and both he and Sid recognized the familiar cut to the forehead. It certainly looked like the work of their madman, or men.

"How about taking me to my hotel, Sid?” Dean asked as they paced the length of the hall.

"Nonsense, you're staying over at my place."

"Sid, I think we'd both be more comfortable if I stayed at the hotel."

Sid frowned, but didn't argue the point. “All right, Dean, if you're sure."

Park and Dyer, the two cops handling the case, were at the end of the hall. Park's eyes were piercing, and Dean was beginning to dislike the man intensely. Dyer, by comparison, had soft, warm blue eyes that welcomed you. Dean and Sid nodded and joined the two detectives at the coffee machine, Dean fetching himself a cup.

"Anything?” Sid asked the cops.

"Not much, no,” replied Park, hiding something.

"You're sure?” pressed Dean.

Dyer shrugged. “She was kinda’ hysterical when she was brought in, saying something about midgets."

"Midgets?” asked Sid.

"She didn't say midget, midget-head,” Park said to Dyer. “She said she saw some small person, like a kid or a midget, acting as a decoy of some sort when the assailant caught her from behind."

Thank you for clearing that up, Dean thought. His attention, however, was on the secondary cuts on the body he'd autopsied. Dean now wondered if Sid was thinking along the same lines. The secondary cuts hadn't had as much force behind them, and the angle of attack was quite odd, sometimes upside down, with the serrated edge of the knife at the top. This might indicate an assailant straddling a victim about the midsection and stabbing at the lower body, upside down. He'd thought it a special kind of knife, perhaps a fishing knife, but now he wondered if the second killer could not be a small person, even a boy. A sick thought, to be sure, but a possibility they could not overlook, not anymore.

Sid scanned Dean's eyes, knowing his mind was working. All four men now sat around a table in the waiting room. “Plan to wait here all night, Park?” asked Sid.

"If need be."

"What about you, doctors?” asked Dyer.

Dean shook his head. “No way ... I'm dead to the world."

"Hodges only got on his high horse since the Scalper's activity has taken him up the social ladder, Dean,” said Sid, now sipping coffee himself. “Park and Dyer here have been in it from the beginning."

"Yeah, and now it's a cop that's been attacked,” said Dyer.

"Lucky she got away with her life,” added Park, dragging on a cigarette. Dean noticed his lighter had a Special Services insignia on it and realized that Park, like a lot of cops, was a Vietnam vet. “Used her gun like a siren. Smart lady cop. Probably what saved her life."

"Heat was turned up when the third victim turned out to be related to the Mayor,” Sid continued when the conversation flagged again. “That's why the burner's been turned up under my ass for an honest enough mistake. These guys understand the pressure we're under in forensics, don't you, Dyer?"

"Yeah, it's tough,” Dyer acknowledged when Park said nothing.

Park, casually and with a smirk on his face, said, “You'd never have known that last victim was in any way related to His Honor."

Dyer laughed without mirth. “I don't even think he knew he was related to her, Park."

"Prob'ly not."

Dyer tried to explain. “Her place was kind of a dump, in a very seedy neighborhood...."

"Then again, she was only a niece,” added Park.

"I'd like to see the crime scene sometime soon,” said Dean.

"Sure, no problem."

"What about tonight?” asked Sid.

"No, too tired, really. I need to be fresh,” replied Dean.

"No, no, Dean, you misunderstood, I'm asking Park and Dyer here if they found anything at the crime scene tonight of any help."

"Back-alley trash, Carson's blood,” replied Park.

"There was one thing,” added Dyer.

"What's that?"

"Maybe nothing, but Carson was clutching a fistful of little plastic bags."

"Bags?"

"You know, the kind you wrap your sandwich in."

"Trash,” replied Park, getting up and asking Dyer if he were coming.

"In a minute, Park.” There was now some irritation in Dyer's voice. When Park had left for their squad car, Dyer shook his head. “What a case that guy is. I've had all kinds of partners, but he's something else. Can't put two words together."

"Seems frustrated,” chanced Dean.

"Yeah, he works hard. We both do. We've been trying with all we've got to put some common thread together on this one—you know, identify the killer's likes and dislikes as to the kinds of victims he chooses, his geographic preferences, and with the first two that seemed a possibility. Then in comes the Mayor's niece—kinda down on her luck, but still a yuppie type—and now Officer Carson. Every possible lead we had has been shot to hell, as far as I can see."

"I'm surprised your Chief Hodges hasn't shown up,” said Dean, “or has he come and gone?"

"Hodges is strictly first watch, and off by noon or one o'clock to the golf course."

"Likes his nightlife, too, I'm told,” added Sid.

"So, if he can point the finger elsewhere...” began Dean, but let the thought drop.

"How does Hamel figure into the picture?” asked Sid. “I mean, he's somehow become a big cheese on this case. Last month he was a nobody, sitting in his office and playing with rubber bands."

"Hodges brought him in in desperation, for answers,” said Dyer. “He's certainly not getting any from Park and me."

"So Hodges gets Hamel to profile the killer, to soothe the mayor into thinking something's being done,” added Sid. “Meanwhile, if things are being poorly managed and botched, it's not Hodges’ department, but mine."

"Watch your backsides, gentlemen,” said Dyer as he got up to go. “Got to catch up with my pard."

"Thanks,” said Dean, rising.

"What for?"

Dean considered this. “For making up for Park, I guess."

"I understand why Park's reluctant to talk. He's really too damned new to the department to be handed such a case to begin with, and he doesn't always share his thoughts, or his actions with me, either.... So, don't feel unduly offended by the man, if you can help it."

Dyer rushed off.

"Park's new around here, hunh?” asked Dean.

"Yeah, well, there aren't too many people in Orlando, or Florida for that matter, who can claim to be first generation."

Dean emptied half the bitter machine-made coffee back into the machine, wondering if the thing would recycle it. He crushed the cup and tossed it in a container. Sid got up alongside him, and together they found Sid's car in the lot.

"Thinking about what Dyer said?"

"Yeah, that and the baggies."

"Yeah, weird, huh?"

"Not unlike our bagging specimens at a crime scene, Sid, if you ask yourself what happened to those chunks of flesh the killers made off with."

"So the Scalper is now the Scalpers, and they are collectors of specimens."

"One uses what might well be a scalpel, Sid."

"Points to a professional man, you think? A doctor?"

"Or maybe someone who likes to play doctor."

"Some warped-out, whacko Jack-the-Ripper with a fetish for hair?"

"Or maybe the guy next door, who turns into something else when the sun goes down."

"A hundred thousand maybe's."

They got into Sid's big car and pulled away. Fending off Sid's arguments to the contrary, Dean managed to get to the Hyatt Regency Hotel where he had made reservations. Arguing even as he drove away, Sid left him there for the evening to sleep and contemplate all that had occurred before and since his arrival in the city.

The voice on the phone was unshakably real, yet it could not be her, it could not be Angel Rae, the woman Dean had put an end to in Chicago this past summer. Yet her body had never been recovered from Lake Michigan, its assumed resting place, and there was always the nagging doubt that perhaps she'd somehow miraculously escaped her own drowning death. And that she had come back not in a quiet, haunting way, as in his oft-repeated dreams of her, but in a most real and vicious way. A way that meant Jackie was in trouble at this moment, with this madwoman stalking her, and with Dean over a thousand miles away from his wife, unable to do a damned thing but listen to the eerie, surreal voice coming through the connecting wires in a monotone, frustrating in its calm, deliberate choice of words. It drove him mad, this voice from his past that simply would not let go, lodged as it was in his brain, saying, “You've been too long at school ... Nurse Grant is mine now ... all mine, and she will be delivered, made free to float to the sky."

"No!” Dean shouted the instant the phone rang. Trembling in the air-conditioned dark, he lifted the receiver after the third jolting ring, trying to regain himself. It had been a nightmare, no doubt brought on by his call to Jackie at home. She wasn't home, and he tried to convince himself she was at the hospital, taking someone else's shift, but when he started to dial, he was gripped with a fear at not finding her there. He rationalized his not having called because of the lateness of the hour. So he hadn't spoken with her, and now she was calling him.

"Yes, hello,” he said into the phone, “Jackie?"

A ripple of fear fluttered through him. Could he possibly stand it if even a recorded word from Angel Rae were to come through the wire?

"Dean, old boy, sorry to wake you,” said Sid Corman.

"What the hell's it now, Sid? What time is it?"

"Four-twenty, and I'm sorry to do this to you, but—"

"Four-twenty?" Jackie hadn't bothered to call him, either.

"—but the son-of-a-bitch scalping crew has hit again, and this time it's a kid."

"Oh, Christ,” Dean moaned. “How old?"

"Sixteen, maybe seventeen, in a park not far from our offices downtown. The girl appears to be a runaway. She was most likely hustling and she just hustled the wrong guy—"

"Or guys."

"Want me to pick you up?"

Dean had told Sid to do just that, should another victim be found. Knowing how important the initial crime scene evidence gathering was to any case, Dean wanted to be on hand for this. If he was to be able to help Sid turn the murderous tide of this scalping crew, as Sid had put it, then he must be in that park before anything was disturbed.

"Did you tell the police what we want?"

"Sure, the moment you asked for it. Should be standard by now, but Orlando's sudden growth has put on a lot of green recruits."

"Don't waste time picking me up, Sid. Get to the scene and control the cops. Do your job."

"I'm at the scene, and I'm doing my goddamned job, Dean.” Sid's sudden anger was understandable.

"I'll get a cab. Just give me the location."

"Conway Park, north entrance, at the water's edge, can't miss it."

"Give me fifteen minutes."

"Hold on, Dean. We got a unit freed up to pick you up and bring you here. Be waiting out front."

"Will do."

Dean raced into his clothes. Soon he was standing in the early morning darkness watching a revolving light and siren approaching. Lodged deep in his mind was the voice of Angel Rae telling him that no matter what had become of her, she had effectively taken Jackie away from him.

"You Dr. Gant?” asked a baby-faced police officer with a modified punk haircut and a jewel in his earlobe.

"Grant, Dr. Grant,” Dean corrected him roughly. He got into the large white squad car and it raced for the downtown exit off I-4. Sitting in the dark rear seat Dean felt like a criminal and a failure—both as a husband and as a forensics specialist. Yes, he had put the Floater killer away in Chicago, and yes, Angel Rae and Brother Timothy were indeed dead. But no one knew how they lived on despite death, despite the vanquishing of evil by so-called knights of criminal justice like him. Because the evil lived on to destroy sleep and peace—and love and marriages.

FIVE

Dean wondered if there were any similarities between the killer in Chicago, who enjoyed drowning people to watch them float to God, and this vicious bastard who cut people's heads apart while they were still alive. It was suddenly and cruelly apparent that in the case of both the young Jane Doe in the park and Officer Peggy Carson, this son-of-a-bitch didn't care whether the victim felt pain.

"You're saying she was completely conscious when the scalp was taken?” asked Frank Dyer as he leaned into the discussion Dean and Sid were conducting over the nude and mutilated body of the black teenager.

"That's a distinct possibility, yes,” Dean said firmly. “And we both know that it was the case with Carson when the knife wound to her head was done. In the earlier cases, I could not say for certain, what with the multiple contusions and abrasions, any number of which could have been a killing blow. But this ... look at her. Other than the scalp removal, there's nothing beyond a patch of skin and hair in the pubic area."

"Was she sexually molested?” It was Park asking.

"No,” Dean replied.

"You can tell just like that?"

"I can."

"It's our man, or men, all right,” said Sid.

"Yeah, neuter cases,” agreed Park. “Pricks without pricks."

"Impotent, or sexless, or both, like Dr. Hamel said,” added Dyer.

"Maybe the Scalpers are working out some sort of religious fantasy, you know, appeasing some—” Dean stopped himself from exploring ideas aloud. He knew it could lead to an investigator down the wrong path. As it was, it sounded as though Dyer and Park were already confused enough by Dr. Hamel's assessment of the killers.

"Can you definitely say, doctors, that this young woman was killed by two men and not one?” asked Dyer.

"The wounds indicate two instruments were used. The head wound is neat, the tool a precision instrument, quite likely a scalpel. The other cut is careless, hurried, the result of a serrated knife, most likely a switchblade, and one that could cut much more deeply."

"I've seen scalpels that are made to close and switch open, Dean,” said Sid.

Dean agreed with a nod. “Whoever's behind this seems to have taken parts of skin and hair from each victim for a reason; and however sick that reason, perhaps if we could understand it, we might have a clue as to who it is we are searching for, gentlemen."

Sid nodded over the bloody corpse, recalling Dean's final assessment in the Floater case.

"You know,” began Dyer, sounding confused, “the wounds to this girl, they just don't seem enough to ... to kill a person, Dr. Grant. I mean, they are not that deep, and she hasn't lost near as much blood as I've seen in accident victims on the highway...."

"Trauma killed her in the end, Dyer. The trauma of having your scalp ripped from you is enough to devastate the mind and cause enough pain and fear to kill the average person."

"Only a few people in all of history have survived and lived to tell about a scalping,” said Park, surprising Dean.

"You've done some reading on the subject."

Park nodded, “Part of the job. Get to know the enemy, right?"

"Good strategy, yes."

Park ambled off, deciding there was no more he could learn from Grant and Corman. Dyer hung closer by again, taking in as much as he was capable of.

"Guess we'd best finish up here, Dean,” said Sid as Dean stared after Park. Park's quiet, rough exterior had reminded Dean of a young Marlon Brando, but the act was wearing thin. But Sid was right, and so Dean turned his attention toward the dead girl, whose bag had been rifled by the police who had discovered her. She'd had a change of clothes stuffed into the handbag, and a clutch purse with the usual makeup and loose change, but there was also a crumpled fifty, a ten, and a five-dollar bill which the murderers hadn't taken. They were not after money. They were not after sex. They were after scalps, and this night in particular, it seemed they were bent on gaining the scalp of a black female. Failing with Peggy Carson, they had found this poor soul.

Dean and Sid began the laborious work of clipping and brushing the body for fingernails and the residue of foreign fibers and hair. As they worked, dark turned into day, and Dean's knees began to throb. While they worked over the body, Dyer searched about the park for footprints they might take molds of, but there were none. Yet he found something else, a pair of surgical scissors which he promptly placed into an evidence bag, to be dusted for prints at the lab. Sid took custody of them.

When they were nearly finished, Sid suggested they lift the girl's arms overhead for a look at her armpits. “Once burned, you know,” he said.

Dean, Sid, Frank Dyer stared at the bare armpits which were not shaven, Dean guessed, but shorn, shorn with the surgical scissors discovered by Dyer a few yards away. But there was no blood. There were no cuts, no skin peeled away, just the clipped nubs of hair.

"Bastards like hair,” said Dean.

"We've gotta take clippings from this area, too,” said Sid.

"Right,” agreed Dean.

Dyer shook his head, wondering why, but saying nothing.

Sid began a casual search through his own surgical kit for the proper tool to take hair samples from the deep groove of the armpit. It took time and Dean saw a strange look come over Sid's face, and he then saw the empty space in Sid's black case where his scissors should be. Alongside the empty space were a pair of smaller nail scissors, and Sid, closing the valise to prying eyes, made do with these.

Dean watched Sid's work closely and clinically now, assessing his friend's method as he had not done before. Dean wondered if there could possibly be more to Sid's major oversight on the redhead. He wondered if Sid, for some as-yet-unaccountable reason, was hiding a great deal more than a lack of professional bearing in the case. He even allowed himself the ugly thought that Sid, in some other mental state, could possibly be the scalpel-wielding killer, who with his medical knowledge had faked the appearance of a second set of wounds that might look, even to a trained eye, like the work of a second murderer. But this thought was simply foolish, Dean told himself. Sid was no more guilty of this horrid business than his wife, Jackie, had been of the drowning of that old woman at her hospital. Dean's imagination was running away with him, and Sid could easily explain the loss of his surgical scissors and would do so if Dean put the question to him.

Then Dyer, watching as Sid cut miniscule nubs of hair at their base from the dead girl's armpit and carefully placed them into a bag no larger than those used by stamp collectors, said in disgust, “Christ, Dr. Corman, do you have to do everything the fuckin’ murderer did to her all over again?” Not answering, and with great care, Sid clipped and numbered the bag as Dean, equally calm, helped in recording the clippings.

"Like vultures,” Dean heard a uniformed cop tell another some distance off.

Dean took in a deep breath of the dew-wet air. He then stood, his legs aching, his back throbbing, his nerves on edge. “Dyer, we're here to speak for this girl through scientific investigation. We're not vultures, nor are we delighting in our work, not here, not now."

But even as he said it, Dean wondered if he were speaking for Sid as well as himself. Sid's surgical scissors were missing from his valise. Dyer had found just such a pair of scissors only a few yards off. Sid had lied to Dean before, and now this.

"What're you going to do with armpit hair?” Dyer wanted to know.

"Determine if it was cropped or torn out, determine if it was cut by one blade or two, as with scissors, like those you found, or a knife; match the hair against any found on the scissors from which, hopefully, we'll find prints."

"Forget the scissors, Dean,” said Sid suddenly.

Dean and Sid stared at one another for a moment as Dyer asked, “Whataya mean, forget the scissors?"

"They're mine,” said Sid. “I must've dropped them earlier. When I first arrived on the scene, my case popped coming down the incline, and ... well, they must have just come out. I didn't know until I reached for them."

Dean knew Sid was missing them earlier, when he had taken samples from the crown of the head and from the pubic area, but he had not said anything then. Now, faced with his own surgical scissors impounded as evidence in a slaying, he had to come out with it. His prints were on those scissors.

"You're sure, Sid?” asked Dean.

"Yes, it's the only explanation."

"Did anyone else see the case come open?"

"You think I'm lying?"

"Sid, you need some corroboration here. If these are your scissors, and they've been missing—"

"All right ... all right."

Dyer's face went from confusion to wonder in the process of Dean's interrogation. “What gives?"

"I didn't know the scissors were missing until I went to look for them. I don't know what happened to them, and now ... well, I must've dropped them somehow."

"Dr. Corman,” said Dyer, “this'll have to be reported."

"Dyer,” said Dean, “can you just give us time to run the scissors through routine tests first? They may not be Dr. Corman's. In fact, they may have the killer's fingerprints on them."

"Or mine,” added Sid.

"Do you know of any reason anyone would deliberately set you up, Sid?"

"I've got my share of enemies in the department, sure, but this?"

"Who'd be in a position to get hold of your surgical equipment?"

"Any number of lab techs, attendents—you name it."

"What about it, Detective Dyer?” Dean asked again stalling for time.

"Dyer! Corman, why in the hell didn't you contact me about this?” shouted someone from above them on the ridge, making Dean look over his shoulder. It was Chief Hodges, and beside him loomed the tall, slender figure of Dr. Hamel, the two of them looking like angry Gestapo figures out of an old movie. “I told you men I wanted first notice on this case!"

"We tried to reach you, Chief,” Dyer began to explain, but Hodges exploded.

"More goddamned excuses, Frank! I don't want to hear them. I want this freak caught.” Hodges and Hamel came down from the police barricade where reporters and people had gathered to gawk and speculate and wonder.

"We're finished here, medic,” Dean announced to the waiting attendents who moved in to take the body to the morgue. Dean urged Sid off. A glance in Dyer's direction told them nothing. They could only hope that Frank Dyer would cooperate, at least for now.

Before they could successfully escape, however, Chief Hodges cornered Sid and began to ask questions. “Anything new, Corman? What can you give me?"

"Nothing right now, Chief, except to say that it does look like the work of more than one man."

"Great ... a lot of help. Am I supposed to give that to the friggin’ papers?"

"I don't give a sand flea's fart what you give the—"

"Sid, Sid,” Dean urged him off, saying to Hodges, “Look, Chief, this has been rough on us all, and the best thing for everyone now is to get Dr. Corman and me back to the crime lab."

Hodges frowned but backed off and went for Dyer's jugular, transferring his questions and anger to the detective. Dean saw that Park stood far off, shaking his head, while the quiet, unassuming Dr. Hamel was on his knees over the victim, where he'd managed to get the medics to lay the stretcher down in the grass. Hamel looked like he was praying over the dead girl. Dean thought the psychiatrist was dedicated for a man in his position, to come out to the crime scene and view the body in such a way. It wasn't in his job description, Dean was certain, and yet the work of the Scalpers had affected them all very deeply, hadn't it?

Park had lit up a cigarette and stuffed his hands in his pockets.

A sergeant rushed down the incline to Chief Hodges, pleading in a polite way for the Chief to speak to the reporters. Dean and Sid watched from a distance, Sid saying sourly, “Hodges likes to play bigshot for the press and cameras."

"Is that right?"

"He has real ambitions to climb.'

"Close to the Mayor?"

"He likes to make you believe it."

Dean wondered about the Mayor's poor redheaded relation.

"The man knows how to stroke the press. It was he who convinced the Mayor to allow the photos of his niece to be splattered on the front pages. Convinced His Honor that it'd be like that television show, you know, America's Most Wanted, and it might have the effect of getting the whole city involved in this manhunt, but all it's done is cause chaos and panic."

But to Dean's observant eye, Hodges didn't look like a man who relished the idea of facing reporters now. Still, he pulled himself upward, heaving up both stomach and shoulders, and marched toward the crowd.

"Let ‘em through to take their pictures,” Hodges said, knowing this would appease the press more than any statement.

"I can't believe he's doing that,” said Dean, amazed.

"Watch, he'll turn it into hay. On camera he'll plead for anyone watching who might recognize the dead girl to come forward. Who knows, maybe someone will."

"Then Jane Doe'll have a name, at least ... and people to bury her."

"I'm starved,” said Sid as they drove for the Municipal Center and Sid's lab. With them they had all the samples taken from the crime scene. As always, when Dean had every shread of evidence gathered and every hair vacuumed from a body, every fiber and print and clipping, he felt like the custodial guardian angel of the deceased: the one long shot, the only possible hope remaining that the victim might have left her own message to her scientific pallbearer, and hidden within the folds of that message, the answer to the questions of who had so ruthlessly robbed her of life.

"How Brando about you?” Sid asked.

"What?"

"Hungry ... are you hungry?"

"Yeah, I guess I could eat, but—"

"In the lab, you mean, right?"

"I'm anxious to get started on what we've got,” Dean told Sid. “I need coffee and something in my stomach, and I need to telephone Jackie, and check in with my own lab, and maybe call Kelso in Chicago."

"Hey, my phone is your phone, Dean ... my office is your office, and please treat it as such."

"Thanks."

"Ahh, you're a pain in the ass sometimes."

"How's that?"

"You stand on ceremony too damned much, Dean. Cool it—relax a little. Di and I are taking you to Church Street Exchange, tonight ... whaddya say?"

"Church Street?"

"Orlando's newest attraction, kinda like Bourbon Street in New Orleans. Al Hirt-type bands playing, good food and drink."

"Sounds great!"

"You'll love it, and it's just a block or so from here."

"You think after a day like the one we've got ahead of us, we'll be up for partying?"

"Hell, Dean, we got to eat a sit-down meal sometime ... it might as well be I n a good restaurant. I'm paying."

Dean replied that he could, at the moment, use coffee and a roll. “But I'm damned anxious to look over what we've got here."

"We'll have some coffee brought in."

"Any word on the Carson woman at Mercy?"

"Nothing yet, but I'll be the first to know. I have friends at Mercy."

They pulled into Sid's parking place and took the elevator up to the labs, carrying with them the oversized black valise that contained vials, packets, and bags filled with samples. Dean carried a mold of a single footprint which Dyer had been able to locate after all.

"Damned footprint is probably mine, too,” said Sid.

Dean had taken the mold from Dyer just before leaving the crime scene, and he and Dyer had been the only ones who'd actually examined it closely. It seemed only half a foot, or a fist driven into the earth, or the ball of a child's foot, it was so small.

"I rather doubt that possibility,” Dean answered Sid groggily, still sleepy.

Coffee and croissants were brought in and the scientist in Sid kicked in. He was fast at work while Dean telephoned Jackie, finally reaching her at home.

"Where've you been?” Jackie demanded. “When you didn't call, I thought all sorts of horrible things had happened."

"I tried reaching you, but you were out—"

"When? At what time?"

"Jackie, it doesn't matter. I'm talking to you now, and I'm fine."

"When are you coming home?"

"I ... I can't say just yet."

"In a week, in a month, for New Year's?"

She was angry and her tone was biting.

"Listen, Sid's ... well, Sid's in a bad jam here, and I think I can help him out.... “Dean had no idea how long it would take, or if there would ever be a resolution to the case. Some cases resolved themselves, even serial cases such as this, when the killing simply stopped, the murderer's taste for blood coming to an end. But no one was counting on that ... least of all Dean.

"You do what you have to do, Dean,” she said, and for a moment Dean thought it sincere. “But don't lie to me. You're not there for Sid. You're down there for yourself ... yourself and your sick killer."

"I'm trying to help resolve a serial murder case, to save lives. You can understand—"

"Yeah ... I understand only too well...."

Dean knew what she meant: Angel Rae, and Jackie's near-death encounter with her. Jackie still had gruesome nightmares in which Lake Michigan was so filled with floating corpses you might walk across it over their backs.

"Are you still seeing—"

"Dean, a shrink's no replacement for you!"

"This dependence upon me, Jackie—it isn't good. Love is one thing, and I love you dearly, but dependence on another human being as much as this—it's destructive to both of us."

She hung up.

Dean started to re-dial, but then forced himself not to ... for her, he told himself, though wondering if it were not for him. He had been so bad at helping her through this ordeal. Perhaps he'd made all the wrong moves and said all the wrong things, yet his instincts told him he was right, that Jackie must face down her own fears rather than buffer them with his constant presence.

Dean dialed the number for Chief Kelso, but learned only that his friend was in New York City. He missed Kelso's camaraderie, his backup both professionally and personally. Dean thought about how Kelso had almost died with stab wounds not five months ago. Now he was chasing criminals again.

Dean checked in with his right hand and associate at the lab, Dr. Sybil Shanley. She informed him that everything was running smoothly without him. This had the effect of making him feel both secure and insecure at once. Getting right to business, he replied, “I'm sending you some samples and want you to run backup tests on some items for us, Sybil."

"It might have to take a back seat to—"

"No, Sybil, this takes top priority."

"How am I supposed to explain that to the boss?"

"Don't explain, just tell him your orders came directly from me, should he ask. I'll take the heat."

"That's easy for you to say. You're a thousand miles away."

"Sybil"

"Right, Dean. We've been reading about the Scalper up here. Sounds really sicko."

"Scalpers, sweetheart ... we think it's two men."

"God, really? That's—why, that's even sicker!"

Dean didn't bother to ask her why she thought so. Instead, he told her it was costing Sid Corman too much for them to yammer on his phone any longer. “How's the new man working out?"

"Great! Got him trained the way I want."

"Don't get yourself spoiled."

"Say, are you still dating Carl Prather?"

"Why the sudden interest in my love life?

"You think Carl might do me a favor?"

"Sure, he thinks the world of you, Dean—just as I do."

"Good. Here it is."

As Dean relayed his message to the former Gary, Indiana, policeman, now with the Chicago force, he saw that Sid was staring through the glass from the other room. No doubt Sid wondered just how many calls Dean planned to make to Chicago, and to whom.

"You got that now?” Dean asked Sybil. “Read it back to me."

Sybil did so. “This seems strange, Dean,” she said.

"Just do it, Dr. Shanley,” Dean said loudly when Sid opened the door and entered. “Talk to you soon."

"Hope you told Sybil hello for me,” Sid said.

"Yeah, and she sends her regards."

"Get Jackie?"

"Yeah, all's well."

"Didn't look that way from my standpoint."

"Sid, I'm going to work."

"Same old Dean."

"Yeah, that's right ... same old Dean, Sid."

Sid stared into Dean's eyes for a long time. “I'm the same old Sid, too. Maybe a little bigger around the gut, and my hair's thinned out considerably.” He ran his right hand over his scalp. “But Christ, Dean, I'm still your old war buddy, and if you're having problems—"

"No problems, Sid, except the one we're faced with right here. And I suggest we stop talking and get to work on it"

Dean left the office for the lab. Sid shook his head. “Same old Dean. Buries it all inside of him. The man's going to have a heart attack some day."

The pathologists went to work trying to match fiber and hair samples taken from the black Jane Doe with samples from earlier victims. It was mid-morning before Dean had what amounted to a positive, if preliminary, matchup between any of the strands of hair. He called Sid over to confirm what his eyes had already told him via the comparison microscope.

The hair Dean was working with was body hair, and at first the samples had been considered minor, since Sid's assistant had made the false assumption that they'd come off the victim. It was a natural enough mistake, and one that Dean himself might have made, given the circumstances and the earlier lack of evidence, or the theorem that more than one attacker was at work here. The fact that it was body hair, and not scalp or facial hair, further compounded the mystery. Yet a close analysis of the victim's body hair yielded a no-match, and in fact showed the hair to be that of a male, a third party, since the hair did not match that of either the victim or that of the primary attacker, dug out from beneath the victim's nails.

So Sid had been working with a complex of problems which had gotten away from him. Now there was thin, brown-to-sandy hair from the head of the murderer, and thick, coarse, dark and curly hair from the body of a second killer. The samples of body hair were far and away greater in number than those from the scalp, and there was no true correlation to be made between these either—they could not have come from the same man. All this the electron microscope had proved, yet the proof had been put aside, had gone unrecognized all this time.

Dean pointed out these facts to Sid now. They had found both kinds of hairs again on the latest Scalper victim.

Sid's phone rang almost as much as Dean's in Chicago, and again Dean paid no attention to it. This time, however, Sid had been summoned by his young assistant, Tom Warner. Something was afoot. Sid waved Dean over, cupped the receiver in his hand, and said, “Peggy Carson's come around, and she's talking."

"Damn, let's get over there."

Dean stopped in his mad rush long enough to tell Sid's lab assistant how vitally important the materials and slides they were working on were, and to leave them untouched. Then they were off for the hospital to speak to the only eyewitness they had in the case.

SIX

"Hold up, doctors,” shouted Dave Park, catching them outside Peggy Carson's hospital room, where they'd just spent several minutes getting past the uniformed guard. “Sorry, but we got orders to keep everybody out until Hodges says otherwise."

"She's alert and talking, isn't she?” Sid pointed out.

"Yes, but for now—"

"Park, back off,” said Dean, removing the other man's hand from his chest. “We're part of this investigation whether you like it or not. Now, please don't try to bully me again."

Park and Dean glared at one another. Park's firm look broke, his lip curling into a smirk. His eyes were like steel, his skin tawny—Spanish, or perhaps American Indian, Dean thought, though his light hair said otherwise. “All right, Doc ... all right. It's just that there are too damned many people buzzing around Peggy right now ... and she's been through hell."

"Does she know about the latest victim?” asked Dean.

Park breathed deeply and nodded, his hand going through his hair. He seemed to rock on his feet, and Dean wondered what he was holding inside that was ready to explode. Anger, hatred, bitterness, frustration—or all of them at once? More than Dyer, more even than Hodges, Lt. David Park was a bomb about to go off. Perhaps he should be having sessions with Dr. Hamel to explore these emotions before they conspired to overwhelm him.

Park must be in his late thirties, and he had a way of pinning a man to the wall with his eyes. The man had an unnerving quality about him. Was his anger directed at everyone else on the planet? Or was it such a frustrated anger at the Scalpers that it simply spilled over to whoever got near him?

"What's your problem, Park?” Dean asked him outright, unable to contain his curiosity any longer.

"Let's just say that I don't get it. I mean Dr. Corman here, in particular. He botches the lab report, and now he's on the scene to question the only eyewitness we have? You wrenched it out of me."

Sid bit his lower lip and said, “I'm interested in the truth just as much as you, Park—maybe more."

"Don't get me wrong, Dr. Corman. I don't suspect you of any willful wrongdoing. I just follow orders. If anything happens to Peggy Carson, especially if she knows something, my butt's in a sling."

"Has she said anything to corroborate our theory of two men—"

"Yeah, we're fairly sure it's two men."

This news was exciting for the doctors. “Excuse us,” Dean said, going into Peggy Carson's room only to find that the young black woman was heatedly arguing with Hamel and Hodges. Dyer stood back.

"I don't need an injection! I don't need time! Chief—” she told Hodges. “I know what I saw!"

"Dr. Hamel only asks that you—"

"Bull!" Peggy's forehead was one massive bandage, the white a glaring contrast to her chocolatey complexion and dark, haunting eyes. Despite her injury, she was strikingly attractive.

"You must allow her to rest!” insisted her doctor.

Dean tried to intervene, to talk to her, when Hamel suddenly agreed with the physician. “Officer Carson has undergone a great deal of stress, Chief, and I must agree—bedrest and quiet are absolutely required now."

"I know what I saw!” she repeated, her eyes fixing on Hamel as if he were evil incarnate. “Don't try to make me out a fool or a nut case!"

"Please, please.” The doctor ushered Dyer and the others outside, where Park, at the very end of the hall, again watched from afar.

"Obviously it's a delusion, suffered under stress. It happens,” Hamel was saying. Dressed in a light gray, three-piece pinstripe, Benjamin Hamel looked the picture of competence, but Dean wondered.

"Are you going to tell us what the woman said?” Sid asked after a minute.

"She's sticking to her story about the second man being a dwarf,” said Dyer.

"And you men find that a bit hard to believe?” asked Dean of Hodges and Hamel.

Hodges shook his head. “The woman's young, and it was her first encounter with a life-threatening situation on the street. A little guy, maybe. But a dwarf?"

Hamel quickly agreed. “When fear and pain control the perceptions, a psychosis of the first order can, and often does, come into play. A person might see dwarfs and pink elephants as easily as a man in the grip of delirium tremens."

"Delirium tremens?” asked Hodges.

"Alcoholics, when they need a drink,” Dean explained.

"Oh, yeah ... but Carson's record is clean of anything, so maybe Hamel's right—she just got too hyper under pressure and her thoughts ran away with her and started sending the wrong signals."

"Maybe,” said Dyer, “and maybe not. Don't forget that print I took."

"What do you suggest we do, Frank?” asked Hodges. “Comb Disneyland for every dwarf they've got?"

"It'd be a start."

"You do that, Frank,” Hodges turned his attention to Sid. “Anything new from the lab?"

"We have now established proof positive that it is the work of two men."

"Dr. Grant's doing you a lot of good, Sid. I heard about the scissors. Any match on them, Dr. Grant?"

"They were Sid's."

"Honest mistake,” said Sid.

Hodges bit off the end of a cigar, spat the nub into a trash container, and slowly lit up before responding. “Sid, I think you've got a right to know this. The D.A.'s over at your lab right now, confiscating everything that has the remotest bearing on this case, and soon—very soon, my friend—you will be indicted on charges of negligence, if not outright fraud."

"That's nonsense!” shouted Dean. “What proof do you have that Sid Corman is capable of—"

"Where were you between the hours of three and four this morning, Dr. Corman?” asked Hodges.

"Christ, I was home, in bed with my wife."

"That's not what your wife tells us."

"You bastard."

"Maybe,” replied Hodges, “but a bastard that will see you hang,"

Dyer left without a glance at Sid or Dean. Sid looked into Dean's eyes. “I swear, Dean, this is a set-up. It's got to be."

"I know that ... I know."

"You believe me, don't, you?"

"Yes, I do.” But Dean thought of his call to Sybil and the favor he'd asked of Carl Prather—to check on Sid's last place of employment in Dayton, Ohio, to determine if any similar deaths had occurred in the area at any time since the Korean War.

The idea that Sid could possibly have had anything to do with murder of such a hideous nature didn't sit well with Dean, yet there had been repeated incidents of failure on his part to uncover the killer. There had been the scissors, and the fact that the killer was using a scalpel, the tool of a professional man. Still, it was all quite circumstantial, and until Dean could match the hair he had lifted from Sid's desk against the hair back at the lab, he couldn't know for certain. And now, with the D.A. moving in to confiscate the entire lot, he might never get the chance.

"We've got to get a court injunction against the D.A.'s office coming in and disrupting our work, Sid,” Dean told him.

"You think that's possible?"

"You know any judges well?"

Sid breathed deeply and nodded. “Yeah, as matter of fact, the same judge that's my alibi for last night, Judge Karen Stuart."

An affair, Dean realized. Sid was having an affair with a courtroom judge. “Do it, Sid, or we're sunk."

With Sid going after an injunction, Dean decided it was time he talked to Peggy Carson. He waited for an all-clear before returning to her room. On entering he found her foraging in the closet for her clothes, her backside showing through the open hospital gown. Hearing Dean come in, she jumped and turned, clearly embarrassed.

"Oh, it's you,” she said, remembering his face. “Who are you?"

Dean introduced himself and watched her eyes light up with some recognition.

"Oh, yeah, really? I read about you. You're the guy—the doctor in Chicago who caught up with that weirdo who was parading around as a priest and drowning people in holy water, right?"

"Close enough, yes. Officer Carson—"

"Peggy, please."

He nodded and smiled, “Peggy, do you need help escaping?"

She returned his smile. “You can sweet-talk me anytime, Dr. Grant."

"Go ahead, get dressed. I'll see that the coast is clear.” It was obvious that with or without Dean's help, Peggy Carson wasn't about to remain in a hospital bed. He may as well do what he could to help, and in the process, he might get to know whether she was capable of knowing what she'd seen and experienced in that alleyway where they'd found her bleeding from a nasty head wound, which—if Grant got his way—she would soon be allowing him to probe.

Grant found the nearest stairwell, then returned to the room to find Peggy ready for escape. He coached her momentarily at the door.

"Walk down the hall as if you own the hospital, and talk calmly."

"You're so kine to come a-visitin’ wid mama, Dean,” Peggy said as they passed a nurse and an orderly going in the other direction. “S'long's we got support from our friends,” she droned on, “cain't nothin’ hurt us ... that and the Lord's will."

"That's the truth, Sister Jones."

They reached the stairwell, tsking repeatedly and shaking her head. "Jones? You couldn't come up with something a little more original than Jones?"

"I see why they made you an undercover cop,” he replied. “You were excellent."

"Thank you,” she answered.

"Once we get outside and into a cab, where do you propose going?"

"To the squad room downtown. I've got a lot of loose ends."

The only thing that might give her away as a patient was the bandage over her forehead, but she had wrapped a scarf about it, making it look like part of her dress. Dean found her filled with an impatient, strong inner force, and somehow she reminded him of Jackie before the awful ordeal that had so changed her.

"I suppose you want to ask me a lot of questions, but I'm not in the mood, believe me, to be ridiculed anymore. I know what I saw."

"I believe you do."

She looked at him as if for the first time. “Good. That makes one smart white man."

He laughed heartily at this. “I'll take that as a compliment."

"For you, but not for your race."

"Have you had lunch?"

"Are you kidding? It's up there.” She pointed in the direction of the room she'd just escaped from. “Wasn't nothing but juice and toast, anyway."

"Hungry?"

"You buying?"

"Yes."

"I know a place near the station."

"Fine, you name it."

"Rosie O'Grady's."

"You are hungry."

"Very.” Her smile was wide and energetic. Her mouth constantly reshaped itself, even when she was not speaking. Dean found her a hyperactive spirit of the best sort, and he guessed that despite all that had occurred to her, she loved her work and would be back at it within a day, if not sooner.

Dean flagged a cab and they were on their way.

"You know, they say there's no such thing as a free lunch, Dr. Grant."

"Please, call me Dean."

"And when a high mucky-muck like you asks somebody like me to call them by their first name, I know I'm paying. What is it you want to know?"

"Just exactly what you told Chief Hodges—no more, no less."

"You couldn't get that from the Chief?"

"Not without editorials,"

"Oh, yeah, Hamel. I don't like shrinks, as a rule, and he hasn't changed that for me one bit."

Dean considered this. “I suppose he's doing his job, as he sees it."

"Yeah—by calling me a liar."

"I don't think he meant—"

"Let's call a spade a spade, huh, doc?"

"All right, here's a spade for a spade—"

"Shoot."

"You'd be a very attractive—no, beautiful—girl if you'd only lighten up a little. Just because you're a policewoman doesn't mean you have to be tough twenty-four hours a day.” Damn it, Dean instantly cursed himself, for blurting out his thoughts. “Peggy—Officer Carson—look,” he said quickly. “I'm sorry. I had no business saying that. I was completely out of line, and—"

"No, you weren't,” she replied.

"What?"

"You're right ... about me, I mean. It's just that ... well, sometimes being a policewoman is difficult, and being a black policewoman is the pits. I have gone a bit overboard. Damn, I hate the gung-ho type, too, but working vice turns you into one of the enemy."

"Yeah, I know that feeling."

"You've worked vice?"

He laughed. “Not exactly, but sometimes I have these strange, overpowering emotions that turn me inside out and I wonder if I'm much above the people I help put away."

She nodded and slid a hand over his. “Yeah ... yeah."

Dean was surprised at her touch, and equally surprised at the sudden desire he felt for her as she moved closer to him. He hadn't shivered with emotion like this since he was a teenager. Still, Dean found himself resisting, pulling back, afraid of what was happening, knowing it could only lead to complications neither of them needed right now.

Sensing his reluctance, she said, “Your wife, huh?"

"How'd you guess?"

"It doesn't take a mind reader, Dr. Grant."

"I suppose you think I'm square, old-fashioned?"

"Shut up,” she said, covering his lips with her own when in a moment's hesitation Dean failed to pull away. She gave the cabbie a different address—her apartment. “I know a more private place where we can talk,” she said, her voice silky.

Dean could not deny that he wanted her, that every fiber of his being had been aroused by her the moment he'd surprised her in the hospital room. And it had been months now since he and Jackie had made love. Still, he fought for words to stem the tide. “But you're hungry, and I promised—"

She pressed her fragrant fingers to his lips. “Sex helps keep me on my diet. Call it body chemistry, Doctor."

Grant caught the cabbie eyeing them in the rearview mirror. Without further argument, Dean went with her. Soon they were stepping out of the cab and into her tastefully decorated apartment, down the length of a hallway and into her bedroom.

Part of Dean willingly and appreciatively put away the many badges that labeled him, the badges of policeman, doctor, and husband, allowing himself to experience fully the feelings that took his mind and heart and refashioned them under Peggy Carson's gentle touch.

She knew how to undress a man.

She knew how to touch and caress, and how to make him feel his emotions to depths he had thought long since calcified. And for what seemed a long time, he lay there reveling in her powerful hold over him, delighting in the transformation she had so calmly and suddenly made of Dr. Dean Grant. For a time he was transported to a place which was no place, a time which was no time, a world made up completely of nerve and impulse and fragrance and soft sound, all culminating in passion.

Then, somehow finding the strength within himself to combat his own weakness, he stopped her, got up from the bed, and began to dress, and silently she accepted this as if it were completely normal, completely all right. She asked for no explanation; she simply understood. “You know what I feared most when I was lying there in the hospital, coming around,” she said to him when she'd dressed and followed him into the living room.

"What's that?"

"That I'd been so disfigured, no man would ever look at me again."

He shook his head, “No, you'll never have that problem."

She laughed, pouring them each a drink. “I can't always wear this damned turban."

"Why not? It gives you mystery."

"You make me laugh, doctor. I like you."

"After what I just did to you?"

"You enjoyed yourself ... and so did I. No harm done."

Dean's brow creased in concentration.

"Have I upset you?” she asked.

"No, no, it's just ... I was thinking of my wife, Jackie. She went through a similar experience as your own, perhaps much worse. In Chicago last summer, my wife was almost drowned by a maniacal killer. You seem so strong. But she ... she hasn't been the same since."

"I see ... I'm sorry."

Dean glanced over at the clock, amazed that the entire day was practically gone. It was nearing four. “Christ, it's late, and you never did eat."

"Oh, yes I did,” she said coyly, bringing a smile to Dean's lips. “Besides, I've got plenty in the refrigerator."

He rose up on his feet and glanced about the living room, done in pale colors, beiges, whites. “You like white things, don't you?"

"Only some, and believe me, I'm very selective. I picked you, didn't I, Dr. Dean Grant? I like you for some reason I haven't figured out just yet ... but I will."

"I owe you a meal,” he said. “What about tonight?"

"No, I'm on desk duty tonight."

"Back to work, already?"

"I intend to jump right back in. Got it set with my partner and my captain. Work, my friend, like life, goes on."

"Which reminds me, I should check in with Dr. Corman."

"Don't worry about Sid Corman. The word is, he's okay, and downtown they say he's a shoe-in for an injunction, anytime he wants it."

Somehow Dean knew Sid would have the ear of the judge. “That's good news."

"Second-best thing that's happened all day, huh?"

Dean kissed Peggy in response, and said, “I've got to check in with Sid."

"I don't believe for a minute that our own city coroner has anything to do with scalping."

"What did you see in that alley the night you were knifed, Peggy?” Dean asked.

"Nothing of the guy that grabbed me from behind, but I could tell he was about a head taller than me. The other man was a dwarf, a curled-up dwarf."

"Curled-up?"

"Yeah, all balled up inside himself, somehow, you know—everything going inward, like ... like he was bowlegged, and his walk—it was like his feet were pegs."

Dean recalled the strange footprint taken in the park by Dyer.

"What is it?” she asked.

"Nothing ... go on."

"Well, that's it."

"What was this little man wearing?"

She frowned. “Strange clothes, really ... a vest over a heavy ... I don't know ... woolen thing that stuck out from his pants. His shoes were weird, too, like old, but it was too dark and I only got a glance at them before the other one grabbed ahold of me."

"Anything else?"

"Hair."

"Hair?"

"The little man was bald, but his hands and face were real hairy. It felt like a gorilla had a hold on me when he touched me."

"The little man grabbed onto you?"

"After I was cut and bleeding."

"You didn't just pass out when you were cut?"

"It was strange, because the cut, I don't know when it happened. I didn't feel the cut, only the blood running into my eyes from it. I was keyed up, and concentrating on firing off as many rounds as I could. He had ahold of my arms, but I just tightened my grip on my gun."

That was it, all that Peggy could recall before blacking out. Dean had to ask her the tough question now.

"Peggy, this is going to seem strange, and if it ... well, if it bothers you too much, then I won't ask ... but,” Dean began tentatively.

"Yes?"

"The wound."

"What about it?"

"I have reason to believe it was done with a scalpel. Very likely why you failed to feel the swift cut."

"I see."

"What I need to ask is, can I see it?"

This was hard for her. She hadn't wanted anyone to see it. All the time they'd made love, she had kept the bandage tied with the scarf, a surprisingly erotic touch as far as Dean was concerned. She was vain about her beautiful appearance.

"It could help us catch this madman. I wouldn't ask, if—"

"I understand ... at least I'm not on a slab downtown with you—” She let the thought drop.

Dean said, “I'm sorry. If there were any other way...."

"All right. You're the doctor."

She sat down, and Dean did a purely visual examination. He didn't need instruments to measure the forehead cut; his experienced eye could make a fair estimate of its depth. The gash was not so ugly as he'd expected, and he told her as much. “In fact, it's so thin and neat, anyone not knowing it was a wound might take it for a deep wrinkle."

"God forbid,” she said aloud, but Dean's words gave her courage and she got up from the bed and went to the mirror to examine the slash herself. Iodine had reddened the area, and the stitches looked ugly, but Dean was right. The cut itself was a neat parting of the epidermal layer, and when healed, would likely show no thick scar tissue. She'd been extremely lucky.

"What do you think about the cut?” she asked.

Dean placed a hand on hers. “You're going to be as pretty as ever, Peggy."

"I don't mean that. Is it the Scalper, or a copycat?"

"One and the same. The neatness of the incision, even in the heat of a fight, with your gun going off in his ears.... Yeah, it's the same guy, all right."

"You learned a lot from me today, didn't you, Dr. Grant?"

Dean bent to kiss her again, saying, “Yes—maybe more than I should have."

"My father always said you can never have too much of a good thing—knowledge,” she teased.

Dean went to the phone, asking if he could call a cab. “I've got my car in the garage downstairs,” she told him. “We're both going downtown. If you'll wait, I'll just be a few minutes getting dressed."

She rushed to do so, and when she returned, she was in her patrolwomen's uniform. It looked great on her. “No undercover work for a while,” she explained.” It was the one argument I couldn't win."

Dean laughed as they walked to the car.

SEVEN

The recent scalps were suspended on a thick, fire-blackened lug pole that Van had set into the old fireplace. Also dangling from it was a large black kettle in which other, older scalps were lovingly placed and stewed. Pubic hair, armpit hair, and droplets of skin and hunks of fat were tossed in. When called for, freshly clipped nails taken from scalping victims were added.

Steam rising from the brew was occasionally caught by holding a clear jar over the cauldron, condensation from off the soupy surface collected droplet by droplet. The special vapor provided a decidedly unholy water for anointment at the outset of the ritual feeding. Van used a small scepter, stolen by Ian from a church many years before, to toss the human dew.

Van and Ian lived more for this moment than for the scalpings, for it was as He had said. The potions and elixers and nourishment they took from the boiling cauldron gave them unlimited power and abilities over others. Through the union of Van's knowledge of darkness and Ian's ability to live in two worlds, to be in a position to influence adversaries who vowed to stop them, and to continue to lure such catches as the last one into the net ... these works were remarkable and good. By their deeds Ian and Van had pleased the Dark One now dwelling in their hearts and growing stronger there through each grim scalping.

Van had savage eyes. His little body was covered with hair, his features masked by the long, coarse strands, each one of which would in time become a full-blown demonic force, the legions of which were daily being released into this world through him. He had a double row of teeth, like that of a dolphin, and the extra teeth forced his jaw out, gorilla-like. His every movement, his every word held Ian in captive wonder; it was almost hypnotic. His mind kept Ian in tow.

Van's black robe, making him look like a creature somewhere between man and ape, had become a powerful symbol of the solemn occasion. It would soon be discarded and he would stand before the fire and cauldron and altar in full splendor, a mass of hair from face to foot. Only his scalp was bald, the pity being that this small portion of skin without hair kept Van in a state of incompleteness and impotence, as the Dark One could not blossom whole until Van was covered over completely with hair.

Van's lips thrust out now as he hummed the mantra he often used, a low, howling, doglike sound. The lips were huge and deformed and gaping, like the edges of a wound. The little nose was nonetheless too large for his face, with flat and flaring nostrils. His ears were strangely like cabbage leaves, and clumps of hair hung from the lobes like moss. Thick sideburns ran across his lower cheeks to merge into a heavy mustache. The brows were bushy, hiding the eyes. His large eyes were jaundiced and narrowed to pin-points of coal at the pupils. There was, Ian knew, an angry agony and hatred in their quiet centers, in the glazed, unwavering stare. Ian knew that Van hated all mankind, even Ian himself, and yet Ian understood and loved him all the same. It was a growing love, a love generated from guilt in the beginning, but now it was a love borne of admiration and respect, because little brother was doing it ... he was bringing evil into the world, he was carrying Him and a host of demons about in his thwarted body.

And they showed their growing approval in many ways.

The Dark One wanted Van's head. They wanted his entire body, including the cranium, for their plot, to grow in and out of his living cells and tissue, to penetrate the earthly plane. It was to this end that Van and Ian took scalps, fashioned the meals and soups and stews, and collected the DNA of others, for He and his legion partook of the meals too. And it was beginning to work. They both had seen signs of it, even on Ian's body, being prepared now for a second plot through which the demonic might plant seed, grow, and harvest in the physical world. Demons were just lost spirits, ghosts condemned to walk the earth without muscle or sinew, and he and Van were now providing them with what they needed.

"It's ready ... ready,” said Van, taking up the water steamed off the stew and sprinkling first himself and then Ian once more, giddy with excitement. Ian, too, was delighted in the black baptism, the reverse ritual that spat in the face of Christ. After all, the persecuted were now the persecutors, and the Anti-Christ had instructed them to rejoice in their debauchery.

"I feel them ... I feel them working through me."

"This time it will work,” Van assured Ian.

"Yes, yes ... yes."

He spooned out the soupy stew into deep bowls at the little table where Ian had to sit cross-legged to feed with the dwarf. “Wonderful,” he said, taking in great whiffs of the steam rising from the bowl.

Ian stirred the fatty chunks under the surface of the milk-gray mixture. They were like alchemists of old, searching for the formula for gold, except that their gold was everlasting life, via the power of the Dark Way. Ian could feel that power bursting at the confines of the little room where he was crouched, could feel it wanting to escape into the wider world, scratching to get out. Soon ... soon, Ian thought.

"Happy?” asked Van, who slowly disrobed, showing his hairy top first, then letting the robe slip away entirely.

Ian then stood and tore away his tie, shirt, and pants. Van examined him closely, touching, seeking for the new hairs that must be on his chest now, but looking disappointed. “You're coming along,” Van reassured his brother.

"Not fast enough,” Ian disagreed.

"Drink, eat, pray to Him who is our lord, seek Him in the flames there."

Ian did all these things, and when he finished, Van came to him with the freshly drying scalp, unable to wait any longer. “Put it on me,” he said.

Ian worked on the gooey gel that would attach the knatty, freshly taken scalp, and together they looked in the full-length mirror in the corner at their work. Ian, standing nude behind Van, had his face cut off by the mirror. Ian was tall at six-two, while his twin brother, under three-four, hardly reached the center line of the mirror. Their figures in the mirror seemed dark and smoke-like, ghostly even by the steady candle glow. They looked like Jack and the Giant, but in this case, little Jack was the creature. They looked like two people who had stepped out of time and come from the Dark Ages into the 1980s all of a sudden.

Little Van stood beneath Ian's armpit.

"It's got to work this time,” Van said.

"It will ... I just know it will."

"Come ... come to bed with me now,” he said.

They stepped to the bed in the corner and lay in one another's arms, Ian rubbing himself into the hair, trying desperately to gain strength from it. In their embrace, both began to cry.

"He is with you, Ian."

"I know ... I know...."

"And He commands we try again, forever if necessary."

"Yes, yes,” replied Ian, amazed at Van's strength. “Of course I understand, dear brother. The soft, down hair covering Van made Ian feel like a fetus.

"It'll come ... we will not always be weak."

"One day the world will be ours."

They hugged one another more closely, each exhausted, fed, and needing rest and time. They must allow the Dark One to cultivate his crop, must allow His sway over their sleeping forms, their sleeping minds. And they must allow for time, an important ingredient in the magic, time to allow the Dark Way to bear fruit, or to fail again.

As they rested, the rejuvenating powers of the elixir, combining with the strength given them by their god, would carry them onward. Ian dreamed of babies in the womb, of children with downy, peach-fuzz hair like that on the earlobes of young girls. Yes, that thrown into the cauldron might work. He must suggest it, he thought, dreaming now, asleep, wondering if babies as yet unborn had dreams.

Ian fitfully groped in the dark for his scalpel, for looming over him was a large, beautiful head of hair, a scalp so enormous it blotted him out. He gasped and raised his scalpel to slash at it. But it was no use, for He was a dream ... it was all a dream now.

He knew he was sleeping, yet his mind raced with the new idea, the new hope that could so stir him that he felt his brother, too, was dreaming the same dream. Shared dream ... shared faith. They were of one mind, and perhaps should always have been of one body. Maybe ... just maybe, a child's hair, innocent and unblemished ... maybe this was called for? Maybe even the fetal down of an unborn child in the soup? It seemed worth a try.

They had brought the black woman's scalp, filled as it was with power and energy, to their lair, and like cavemen of eons past, they cured the scalp, fascinated at every step of the process, from boiling it to placing it over the drying fire and finally stretching it on the rack made from the same rings little children used for their embroidery.

Embroidery was what they were doing, an embroidery of a very special nature, an embroidery which paid homage to the dark gods that had for all these years sustained them as brothers, and the dark powers that had allowed little Van to survive the molestation of his very soul by those who had had a hand in bringing him into this world.

Ian thought long and often on that fact, that if his mother had not had Ian, she would not have had Van, either. They were inextricably linked from the womb, but was it a womb shared by a curse or a blessing? Once that pact was made, the only source of comfort and solace left open to Van, deep in the darkness of that cellar for all those years, was to turn to the dark powers flooding his genes. It was all that nourished his soul. For within the folds of his wrinkled and hairy skin, beneath the odor and ghastly face and twisted limbs, there was a human soul. Denied by God and circumstance and parents, he had turned to another god: Satan.

Ian had never known Satan in the way Van did. Ian gave Van a name for his benefactor, but Ian could never directly speak with the Dark Lord. Ian hadn't been handfed by the dark creatures that provided Van with sinew and muscle and the blood of rats to feed on. Over the years Satan had wrapped Van in layer upon layer of disease and disfigurement and hair ... lots of hair. He had grown into an apeman.

Ian had read about other human beings down through the ages that had hair the full length of their bodies, most becoming sideshow attractions at carnivals, but he had not known until Van explained it to him that his condition was loosed on him from hell, not to plague Van, but to begin to wreak immutable power in the world of flesh.

Once each and every demon from the underworld had been given birth through the body of the hairy dwarf, the world would see a new order of being created.

Van would act as a sort of Adam for the underworld. The legions fed hungrily on the DNA of fibrous hair from all ages, sexes, races, meaning to fulfill the dream of a god, the dream of Satan, a dream told Van when he was just a boy, before he had language or complete understanding of his reason for being.

The remote house and even the fireplace had been rebuilt to accommodate Van's needs. There were no neighbors to complain of odors rising from the chimney or to snoop about, and they had a swampy marsh for a backyard, to discard anything that might go rancid. The place was so featureless, the lot so abandoned, that no one ever visited. It was perfect for the work this Christmas season.

Dean said goodbye to Peggy Carson in the homicide division of police headquarters where Park and Dyer had readied a lineup for Peggy, a lineup of dwarfs none of which remotely resembled what she said she'd seen that night in the alley. One of the little men had hairy arms, but that was as close as they came to Peggy's description of the molesting midget.

Dean found Sid in his lab, working away. He had a scowl on his face, and Dean wondered if it were meant for him. Apparently Sid had put a stop to Hodges’ plans, but it was certain he remained suspect so far as Hodges and the D.A. were concerned.

"Where the hell have you been?” Sid was angry. “I could have used your help today."

"You got the injunction, Sid, and you've managed to postpone the hanging, and you did it all on your own."

"Thank God Karen was in her chambers."

"So. Anything new?"

"We're running atomic tests on the hair strands, as you suggested, but tell me again why we should send part of our meager sample to Sybil in Chicago."

"Backup, Sid, pure and simple. And good sense, especially now, with people questioning your work."

"And what about people questioning my past, people poking into my life back in Akron?"

Dean dropped his gaze, trying to find words to explain. “Look, Sid, you haven't exactly been honest with me."

"So where are we now, Dean? Even? Well, even stinks."

Sid had undoubtedly heard from a friend in Akron that police in Chicago were running a check on his Akron past. “I had to know if there'd been any similar deaths in Ohio, Sid, when you were coroner."

"Well, your bloodhounds found squat, my friend. I've never in my life worked on a corpse missing a scalp until now."

"Good,” Dean said quietly. “Then maybe we can go on from here. No more lies between us, what do you say?"

Sid Corman's blue-gray eyes seemed solemn. Dean knew he wouldn't be forgiven soon, but he also felt justified in his background check on Sid. Even if Sid was a friend, Dean hadn't seen him in years.

"Are you staying on?” Sid asked tentatively.

"You know I will."

"Then let's get to work."

"You got it. You know, you weren't the only one I asked to have checked out."

"Who else—Hodges?"

"Park and Dyer."

"Really? Why them?"

"I don't know, but Park in particular has a disturbing way about him. He's a vet, too."

"What's this vet shit? We're both vets ourselves."

"I know, but he was in Vietnam."

"And that makes him a killer?"

"Not at all ... but it conditions some men to murder."

Sid nodded and suddenly cried out, “Oh, Lt. Park!"

Park was in the doorway and Dean had no idea how long he'd been standing there holding the door open, listening. “You could be right, Dr. Grant,” said Park, his steely eyes pinning Dean in place. “You ever hear the story of the scavengers over in Nam? Guys who scavenged the bodies of the dead—even their own—you know, for coin and cigarettes and gold teeth?"

"Can't say I have."

"A lot of true tales of horror come out of Nam, gentlemen. Anyway, a couple of guys in my outfit told a chilling tale one night we were on patrol, a tale about finding some bodies on a battlefield scalped—scalped clean of their hair, just as if some crazed Indian had done it."

Sid exchanged a look with Dean. “Could be our man,” suggested Dean.

Park took a long time answering, leaning against the doorjamb now, “Maybe ... maybe not. Maybe the guys in Nam are not the same guys here, maybe one's too short ever to have been in Nam. There are lots of maybes. And maybe the Nam story was bullshit I never saw it, the scalping. But stories went around, rumors that this guy had a sackful of Vietcong scalps he'd taken. Then rumors about dead grunts, our boys, being scalped came down the line, and the officers put out the word it was a Vietcong bunch doing the scalping, not one of our men. But by then we all knew the score."

Dean regarded Park for a long time before asking, “What can we do for you, Lieutenant?"

"We need something to go on, Dyer and me. We've spent all day dragging in dwarfs and sex offenders of every size and shape, and we've got zilch. We need more from you, Doctor."

"We're not miracle workers here, Park,” said Sid.

"So someone else has to die so you can run more tests, and then it all goes around again?"

"Trust me,” said Dean, “Dr. Corman and I are doing everything within our power—"

"Sure, sure ... so I heard.” He glared at Dean. “So let me save you some time, Dr. Grant. The answer's yes."

"Yes?"

"Yes, I worked a case like this one before, in Michigan, in a woodsy little community called Seneca, where a handful of people one year started showing up dead—scalped."

"Why in hell didn't you say so? Those records need reviewing in light of these recent deaths."

"They are being reviewed ... by the police."

"When was the other rash of killings? How long ago?” asked Dean.

"Two years, three months, and fourteen days."

"Isn't it a little coincidental you showing up here just when there's another outbreak?” asked Sid.

"Not in the least. It was my case then, and it's my case now. I'm on special assignment, and believe me, as soon as I catch this bastard ... or bastards ... you'll see my ass on a 747 headed for home."

"Who knows about this? Hodges?"

"He alone, yes, if he's managed to keep it to himself. That was the deal when I came on."

Something didn't ring true, but Dean wasn't sure what. “Dyer—does he know all this?"

"He's just been briefed."

"I bet he shit tacks, too,” replied Sid.

"Had you followed the killer here?” asked Dean.

"Not exactly, no ... not until the first scalping occurred. More than a year has elapsed since the Seneca deaths."

"In Michigan, was anyone brought in for questioning? Were there any arrests?"

"Nothing that could stick ... a handful of young bucks from an Indian reservation not far away, but the arrests were foolish to begin with. This killer, whoever he is, has his own reasons for scalping."

"Well, we have a lot of work to do,” Sid said, returning to his lab work. Dean saw that Park was curious about what it was they were doing. “We're running sub-atomic tests on the suspect's hair to determine the intake of arsenic, lead, silica, and such."

"That tell you what sort of diet the guy has?"

"Right. So far, it's a fairly anemic diet ... thin on natural foods. It might tell us something about occupation, and perhaps any medication. For instance, if the guy is a candidate for cancer, or is a diabetic. The chief constituents of hair are carbon, nitrogen, hydrogen, oxygen, phosphorus, and sulfur. But trace elements are as variable as fingerprints. These elements can only be determined through atomic bombardment."

"I see.” Dean knew the detective did not see at all, but he nodded anyway.

"What do you do with the soil samples you took out at the park?” the lieutenant asked.

"Sid and I are used to pursuing every small scientific clue. We've been indoctrinated in the methods of seeking microtraces, which comes down to applying adhesive tape everywhere."

"Yeah, I saw you press tape into the girl's scarf and onto her bag, and even her shoes."

"Several mosslike particles of soiled vegetation were clinging to her things."

"Not moss, Dean,” said Sid. “While you were away, Tom Warner ran tests on your ‘moss.’ It was flecks of fat."

"Fat?"

"Yeah, pure fatty tissue ... human fatty tissue, the girl's own, dropping in flecks when they cut chunks from her."

"Christ,” said Park.

"Well, as for the soil samples taken from the girl's clothing and from the surrounding terrain, I sent samples of it to my lab in Chicago for examination,” explained Dean.

Park shook his head, “Why to another lab?"

"This process will determine if she was indeed murdered at the site, and not merely dumped there after the scalping, if the two samples correspond."

"But why to Chicago? Couldn't that have been done here?"

Sid stopped in his work to listen for this answer himself.

"I have a soil specialist in Chicago. Besides, it's best that we have two such tests conducted at two separate labs whenever possible."

Park nodded, understanding. “Isn't it strange the scalp taken is always in the range of nine inches by four? When I was a boy, I don't know, I always thought of scalps as circular. Now someone's teaching me different, that they can be diamond-shaped, triangular, square. Did you know that when a U.S. cavalry trooper on the plains in the 1800's found scalped bodies, their Indian scouts knew immediately which tribe was responsible?"

"From the shape?"

"Shape, depth, additional markings of mutilation on the corpse's limbs, thighs, all that—yeah."

"You've gotten into this stuff pretty heavily, Park."

Park bit his lip, looking as if he were sorry to have gone on for so long. “Some, I guess."

"What else might you be able to tell me, Lieutenant?"

"About the armpit slashing..."

"Yes, go on."

"Well, American Indians would take any portion of unusual skin. Tattoos, for instance, were stripped from the dead in whole pieces, cured, and hung in teepees for decorations. They were highly valued. Armpit, crotch, and sometimes the entire upper half of a human skin from face to crotch was stripped away, depending on the strength of the enemy."

Dean had never heard of such things before. “Are you certain?"

"Peculiar value was set upon such things as good and powerful medicine. My grandfather was part Sioux."

Dean picked out the Indian features now, muted as they were. “You think our mad killers are making powerful medicine?"

"Could be."

"You think it's Indians?"

"Not necessarily, but if it so, the killers have reasons for what they're doing."

"The same way apemen had reasons, maybe."

"Doctor?"

"Anthropologists studying the skull of Ethiopia's Bodo Man—a predecessor of homo sapiens—removed some encrusted dirt and rock and deduced that the flesh had been stripped away from the head with stone tools. But at least the apemen had done the deed after the creature's death, that much could be determined ... but not the purpose.

"Hell, the Parthians took hair from slain enemies to decorate their weapons and clothing in the fifth century B.C. Trust me, it's a much older white tradition than it is a red tradition.

"It crosses all colors—all nations, actually,” Dean replied. “And it happened everywhere, in every time—the Mediterranean, Byzantium, Spain, the Carribean, Asia, you name it."

"And when neatly done, it may be termed a satanic accomplishment—I think that is how one white writer put it,” said Park philosophically, almost to himself. Then, to Dean, he added, “So, you've done a little reading on the subject yourself, Doctor?"

Dean nodded. “History is full of horror."

"I hope you find what it is you're looking for, Dr. Grant,” he said, indicating the lab. “See you later, perhaps."

Sid walked over to where Dean stood and said, “Wonder what that was all about."

"Don't know..."

"But I bet you're anxious to hear if his story checks out, right?"

"At this point, we can't overlook the man's past."

"Yeah, that story about Vietnam, now that was eerie."

"Eerie, yeah ... just eerie enough to be true."

Sid stared at Dean. “You don't really think there's a connection, do you?"

"A lot of killers find confession—even masked confession—a cathartic experience, Sid. It cleanses their hearts long enough to enable them to commit the next act."

"Park? One of our own cops? Come on, Dean."

"He shows up around the time of the first killing, gets himself reassigned here as a result of the first killing ... we've got to look closely at the dates and vouchers."

"But Dean, he didn't have to tell you all that stuff about Seneca, Michigan. He just did, and of his own free will. If he had anything to hide—"

"Smart move, if he is guilty, wouldn't you say? And from the start, my friend, I've had the feeling we're not dealing with a mental patient. This guy plans too well, leaves no trace, and controls an accomplice."

"You seem to thrive on this, Dean, but I'll tell you truthfully—I'd much rather get back to my lab work than to go shadow dancing with a frigging mass murderer."

"I wonder what Hamel, our resident shrink, thinks of Park. Be interesting to find out."

"You do that. I'm getting back to work right here. I don't know how long I can stave off the D.A., but I'm going to fight this damnable action all the way."

"That's the spirit,” Dean almost shouted. “I think now I'll see if I can't find Dr. Hamel."

"Sure, do that ... leave me to fight the good fight all alone,” began Sid, but he was talking to an empty room. Dean was already at the elevator and Sid frowned from his side of the glass.

The plaque on Hamel's door read Dr. Benjamin I. Hamel, Police Psychiatry. Dean hesitated at the door. As a rule he agreed with Peggy Carson: not too many police shrinks had impressed him. Stephens in Chicago was a rarity. He wished he had Stephens with him on this case the same way he wished he had Kelso by his side—people he could trust and be at complete ease with—but that wasn't to be and he must make do. These thoughts born-barded Dean when suddenly the door opened and Hamel stood before him, about to depart.

"Going to dinner?” asked Dean.

"I was planning a quiet meal at home ... but if you'd like to talk, sure, Dr. Grant."

"A quiet meal at home sounds nice. Do you wish to call your wife?"

"I have none. I'm alone."

"And you like your own cooking? That's good."

Hamel nodded. “What is it you'd like to talk about, Doctor?"

"I'd like your impression of the killers, and how you deduced the possibility of two men long before we did."

"All right."

"And I'd like to have your professional opinion on a policeman here."

"Park or Dyer, or both?"

"Park in particular."

"Interesting choice."

"Oh, why do you say so?"

"Man's a manic-depressive, with mood swings wider than a ball on a tether, the obvious choice. Dyer, on the other hand, is steady. Psychiatry is rather a simple science if one uses the God-given powers of observation we all have, don't you agree?"

"Sometimes that's the case, yes."

"But there are those who mask their perversions more ... successfully, you mean? Yes, that is also sometimes the case. But by and large, most human beings don't have the strength of will to carry it off. Most of us display our deficiencies in our relationships, either at work or at home."

"You won't mind discussing Park with me, then?"

"Chief Hodges has informed me you're on the case, and so, Dr. Grant, you have a right to know who your case partners are. Privileged information between a public servant carrying a gun and his psychiatrist is not so privileged as in the private sector. It's one reason we police “shrinks,” as we're called, are quite unpopular. However, Officer Park's been granted special concidera—"

At that moment Peggy Carson was coming toward them and Dean saw something flash in her eyes. On seeing Hamel, she immediately looked for an avenue of escape, but there was none.

"Well, the wayward Officer Carson,” said Dr. Hamel. “You, my dear girl, have been doubly negligent today—first skipping out on the hospital, and now missing our session. I see that promptness is not your strong suit, Officer. Tomorrow morning, nine sharp."

Peggy said a perfunctory hello to Dean, keeping it brief and professional, and then replied to Dr. Hamel “I don't see how wasting my time with you, Dr. Hamel, is going to serve the public or myself one bit, and if you please, read this, and no thank you, I will not see you tomorrow at nine. Good evening."

Peggy pushed an envelope into Hamel's hands, and turned abruptly, and disappeared the way she came.

"Peggy, Officer Carson, has been dodging me. We have some sessions together, the first of which has just come to an end without her,” the thin Dr. Hamel told Dean. The man's cheekbones, high to begin with, seemed enlarged now with a controlled rage toward Peggy Carson. Dean had seen it before, one part of a police department trying to do its job, at war with a second part. Often it boiled away to personality conflicts.

"Nobody relishes being cross-examined, especially by people tending to disbelieve them,” said Dean in Peggy's defense.

Dr. Hamel stared at Dean, studying him closely for the first time. “You don't seriously believe the second killer is a ... a dwarf?"

"We're onto evidence that could quite well corroborate the fact, Dr. Hamel."

Hamel gave Dean an enigmatic smile. “You do intend to live up to your reputation for the bizarre, Dr. Grant."

"It's not my reputation I'm concerned with."

"Of course, of course ... You realize, doctor, my concern for Officer Carson must include assessing the safety of people she will come into contact with daily. The department can't afford to have even the appearance of an hysterical woman on the street with a revolver in her hands, now can it?"

"Quite frankly, sir. I've never met a more level-headed police officer, male or female."

Dean and Dr. Hamel resumed their conversation over dinner at a nearby cafe-style restaurant which, while small, looked out over a busy downtown street from a second-floor perch.

"So, what sort of man goes about terrorizing people with a scalpel, taking scalps, with the help of a dwarf?” Dean inquired, interested in how Dr. Hamel would answer the question.

"A Wild West showman out of a job?” joked the tall, angular Hamel, who might himself have been a stand-in for Henry Fonda in My Darling Clementine. “Or a man who is fixing on hair, the scalp in particular, and in this fixation lies his motive. Here we probably have a man who has a nine-to-five job, either blue- or white-collar—a computer programmer, clerk, or plumber—but by night must feed an insatiable need for bloodshed of a most specific nature, bloodshed that involves the taking of another man's head."

"Head? By head you mean scalp."

"One and the same thing among barbaric peoples, you know. The scalp represents the human mind and spirit to the scalper. It embodies his spirit and all the energies of his being."

"What does he do with the scalps?"

"Who knows ... sleeps with them, stuffs mattresses with them, decorates his walls with them. It may even be assumed that he derives sexual gratification from them, and for all I know, he—or they—might very well ingest them."

"Eat hair?"

"If it brought you strength and power over others, wouldn't you?"

"These men believe that? Is that like a religion with some people, like maybe Hare Kirshna?"

"Not to my knowledge, no. But we're dealing with sick minds here. Minds that live for scalp raising."

"But this is all speculation, isn't it, Dr. Hamel?"

Hamel bit his lip, plunking down his wineglass and saying, “You've caught me, yes. I speculate a great deal on such crimes, as I know you must. It's part of my job. But like you, it is speculation based on an educated guess, educated by the killer himself."

"We're not so different then, you and I."

Hamel considered this. “No, but I don't cut up dead people, Dr. Grant, although I sometimes mentally slice open a dead man to understand the workings of his mind."

"You theorized early on that there could be two men doing the scalping. How did you arrive at that conclusion with so little evidence to go on?"

"Quite simple, really. If we look back at the multitude of such cruel serial murders, they often involve two persons or more. Your very celebrated Floater case in Chicago points at an entire family's involvement, and the killer herself was actually living out two personalities, correct? Angel Rae, the girl, and Brother Timothy, was it? Now, if you read as much as I do in the literature, it wouldn't take much to speculate that the Scalper is acting out some form of wish fulfillment and that his hand is directed by a domineering, powerful force, very likely a second killer, who has him mesmerized into doing what he's told.

"But most of all, I base it on the telephone calls we've been receiving. The murderers—one of them, at least—have called us, more or less owning up to everything."

Dean was speechless.

"And although it's hard for me to tell you this, well, we've had a tip-off. It concerns Corman and the forensic mistakes he's made."

Dean stared for a solid minute at Hamel, unbelieving. “Is this general knowledge? Do Park and Dyer know about this? Hodges?"

"Of course they do."

"Corman didn't say a word."

"Sid was never informed, Dr. Grant."

"You people don't need my help, you need an efficiency expert. One hand doesn't know what the other's doing."

"What did you expect of us once we began to suspect Corman of malfeseance?"

"You can't really suspect him of these hideous crimes!'

"Perhaps not, but he may be covering for someone else. It certainly points in his direction."

Dean bit his lower lip and shook his head thoughtfully. “Tell me all you can about this voice over the phone."

"Not much to tell. It was rather ordinary, with no accent, no inflections, rather a monotone, as if he were reading something he'd written down, or someone else had written down for him. Almost—"

"Yes?"

"Almost as if he were taunting us, enjoying it, and the business about being under the other's thumb, well, it could've been some nonsense cooked up, but if his voice rose even an iota, it was when speaking of this other one."

"So, on the basis of how many such calls did you do your diagnosis, Dr. Hamel?"

Hamel frowned. “Granted, making a prognosis of a madman over the wires is no mean feat, and I'm the first to admit its weakness, believe me, but there was something ... I don't know ... uncanny about the voice and the plea. I believe a part of him wants to walk through our doors, to give himself up."

"A lot of contenders for the part have, I understand."

"The holding cell's full of them, and I've got to interview every damned one, but until I find a man who's obviously living under the power of a second, more powerful personality, I feel safe in passing the would-be scalpers."

This made Dean think of the dual personality of Angel Rae again, and how she was dominated by her second personality, Brother Timothy. “You don't think our killer could be working out two personalities, one stronger than the other? Using two separate weapons, even, so strong is the belief he has in his other self?"

"I know this, too, is a possibility, but when the forensics errors were made, when I learned there were actually two distinct weapons used—well, common sense, you know, is a strong force, too."

"And just how did you and Hodges learn about Sid's errors ?"

"Through a casual remark by one of his technical people."

"Tom Warner?"

"Yes, I think it was Tom."

"Tell me again, Dr. Hamel, exactly how many times did the man professing to be the killer telephone you?"

"Unfortunately, only twice."

"Twice?"

"And then it stopped."

"Rather strange, isn't it?"

"Not at all."

"I mean, usually when a killer contacts a reporter, or a cop, or a man like yourself in a position of authority, it's a plea for help, to be stopped, isn't it?"

"Quite often, yes."

"And normally, despite the fact that he continues killing, he will contact again and again to pursue this need."

"The second time he called at my home,” said Hamel, taking a deep breath. “I have an apartment not far from here. I was totally unprepared to get a call there from this faceless killer ... shocked, in fact. I have an unlisted number, and the department wouldn't dare give it out. The first time, I was at my desk, it wasn't such a big deal, but the second call frightened the hell out of me, I can tell you."

"That is understandable.” Dean sipped his tea.

"The fact he could learn my number, and perhaps knew where I lived, and that he seemed to know we'd tapped my phone lines at both locations and so he never again even attempted contact—that, Dr. Grant, more than any other factor, convinced Hodges and me of the possibility that the killer was closer to us than we knew. Perhaps close enough even to have daily contact with us in the department."

"So you began looking in your own backyard."

"Interdepartmentally speaking, yes."

"And Sid's errors were blown out of proportion."

"On such a case, every error becomes a big deal, since we're all under the watchful eye of the public."

Dean had to agree, sipping more tea, watching Hamel closely.

"Anyway, there was no way to trace either call, and when we were prepared to do so, he never called back. It was as if ... I fear to say it ... someone closer to me than I wished to know had knowledge of my having had my phone tapped at home as well as the office."

"And that's why you and Hodges began investigating Sid Corman?"

"In light of the error, yes. What would you have done?"

"Has it occurred to you that it could be someone else close to you, and not Sid?"

"Like Park, you mean?"

"Like Park, yes."

"Park has a record of violence, but not recently. He seems to have gotten a handle on that, and—"

"Maybe he's taking his violence out in a different fashion. He told us of a strange story about a guy in Vietnam who reportedly took scalps. Has he ever repeated that story to you?"

Hamel's eyes lifted at this. “No ... never."

"He's a vet, you know."

"Yes, of course, but that doesn't—"

"Doesn't make him crazy, I know."

"Did I say the killer was mentally imbalanced?"

"What would you call him?"

"His actions are engineered by someone whom he is in such awe of, or fear of, that he cannot totally be held accountable."

"Doctor, the ‘other guy’ is a goddamned midget."

"Perhaps he is physically small, but you have no idea how powerful a dominant personality can be, do you, Dr. Grant? You've never known anyone who's made you feel insignificant and small and wasted, and good for doing only one thing, good for doing the bastard's bidding."

"Sounds like you have,” Dean said suddenly.

Hamel choked, realizing he had revealed more of himself in his words than he'd intended to. “My ... my father, and to some extent, my mother, yes, they were tyrants, they imprisoned me in a mental way, telling me I was ... well, you know how parents can tell you they're doing it all for your own good when it's really for theirs ... sorry, you don't want to hear my life story, I'm sure."

Hamel had come uncomfortably close to revealing what secrets he held deep inside. Dean had no idea what they might be, however. “What about Park?” Dean asked. “Do you think a man like him could be controlled by another man?"

"Frankly, if the circumstances were right, any one of us could fall under the spell of a cult leader, a powerful personality, a passionate lover—hell, no one's immune one-hundred-percent to the controlling influences of those around them. For instance, a man like you, you're married, aren't you, Dean?"

"Yes, I am.” Dean thought of Jackie.

"You love her, right? And out of love, you behave in socially acceptable ways, remembering sometimes to humble yourself before her—like when you forget a birthday card, right?"

"I don't see where that—"

"Multiply that feeling a thousandfold, Dean—do you mind if I call you Dean?"

"No, that'd be fine—"

"Benjamin, or Ben if you like."

"Ben."

"Anyway, imagine, if you can, Dean, someone coming along and sweeping you off your feet, just sweeping you right up and carrying you along, and effectively controlling you, even using you, say, for personal or sexual gain, or whatever it is they wish to get from you—money, or scalps—and hell, this control never stops, never ends, never slows down. In fact, you don't want it to, because you find comfort and love and security and all those good things in it. Maybe you find power, power you can't get anywhere else...."

Hamel continued on in this vein, and as he spoke, Dean thought of how he himself had so recently been caught up for good or bad in the power of Peggy Carson, in the thrill of being with her. Hers was a dominant personality, an aggressive personality which, in careful doses, might be invigorating and take on the look of freedom and fun, but he could not imagine allowing her much further into his life, and certainly Dean knew he must himself be in control. Dean tried to imagine the weak personality Hamel described, the person who fed on being under another's control, lived for it and withered without it. He thought of all the millions of Americans who wanted others to tell them what to do from letters to Dear Hearts columns to the How-To books they bought and read, on everything from gold to finances to making love. The only people making a gain from this nation of sheep were the merchants and advertisers, so far as Dean could see.

"Park,” continued Hamel, “most certainly. The macho front is often a giveaway to a weaker personality, a wall to hide behind which often crumbles when the person is alone with himself, or with a truly dominant personality or more powerful mind. Sometimes a latent homosexual lurks behind the façade, sometimes a secret drinker, sometimes a masturbator, but more often than not, a man who lives a double life, a man who might well enjoy being tied and beaten by a woman, say, or led into murdering others."

Dean had heard similar ideas from Stephens on occasion. It seemed Hamel knew his stuff. But it was growing late, and Dean wanted to get back to the lab before he missed Sid altogether. He also wanted to know if Carl Prather or Sybil had tried to reach him regarding Park yet. “It has been most interesting, Ben."

"Glad to spread it around,” replied Hamel, shaking Dean's hand. Do you play tennis?” he asked suddenly. “I'm getting a doubles match together for the weekend."

"I play, yes—but I'm sorry, I'm really not up to it at the moment, thanks."

"Pity. I'd like to see how you'd fare opposite me on the court."

Dean smiled at this, finally regaining his hand from Hamel, whose grasp seemed suddenly like a caress. Was the man gay? After winning the little tug-of-war over the bill, Dean left hurriedly.

Hamel watched him from the second-story perch as Dean moved with that purposeful walk of his, headed, no doubt, Hamel realized, back to his microscopes in the Municipal Building's labs.

That is a determined man, Hamel told himself. Dedicated, sharp ... razor-sharp. “But I don't believe Park's your man, Dr. Grant,” Hamel said to himself, draining his wineglass.

EIGHT

It was getting late.

Where in God's name was Hamel?

Chief Hodges had seen him go out of the building with Grant, and he wondered what they had to talk about. But he knew ... he knew. It was the Scalper case, it was all anyone was talking about, and all anyone gave a shit about anymore.

He was a lifer, his whole career given over to this job, his entire personal life as well. He'd built up an impressive record, a long and worthwhile record, a record any man would be proud of. He was honored at banquets and he had a room at home where the walls were literally lined with plaques.

He was a success at his chosen profession, and he meant to go right on up the ladder, next stop—the commissioner's office.

But did anyone trot out his successes, his record? Did anyone care to talk about it? No, all the press or anyone else wanted to talk about was the goddamned Scalper.

Hodges had to get ahold of himself. He heard Hamel coming. He didn't want to give away the fact that he was on the edge, now, did he? Christ, he told himself, get on the couch. He did so and stretched out, feigning peace and indifference as Hamel entered his office, saying “Ready for your session, Chief?"

Hodges lazily looked over his shoulder up at Dr. Hamel. “Oh, it's you, Doc ... must've dozed off. Long day, a rough one."

"Then it should be easy to relax, Chief,” replied Hamel, pouring the Chief a glass of ice water and taking up his position across from him in his easy chair. “I'm sorry to be late, but I was held up by—"

"Grant, I know ... I saw you two together."

"He's an inquisitive man."

"So I've noticed."

"At the moment his questions seem to be centering on Lt. Park."

"Park, huh? Did he...?"

"No, he got nothing from me of a personal nature on Park, no more than he would from the elevator operator or a doorman. You mustn't worry, Jake, that anything between you and me goes outside this room. Trust me."

"I do ... I just ... sometimes..."

"Worry, yes, I know, and that's bad for you, Jake, very bad for those ulcers."

Chief Jacob “Big Jake” Hodges had been an Orlando policeman since 1967. He had built a reputation on the backs of others, and getting near the top of the heap had cost him dearly. It had cost him his first wife and the kids of that marriage, a boy and a girl he never saw and seldom heard from, now that Doris had removed them to California. His career had cost him friendships, strong ties, meaningful ties that had nothing whatever to do with politics and back-scratching and ass-kissing, and finally, after all the sacrifices and losses, Jake Hodges was going to at last enjoy some of the benefits of the many and terrible sacrifices to his job. But that notion had been short-circuited by this crazed killer going about his city and making a mockery of his police force to the tune of several stories a day appearing in the papers. He wanted an end to it, and only one man seemed to understand that need.

Hodges leaned back into the couch and continued to explain his problems to Dr. Hamel, who like any good psychiatrist, listened well and interrupted not at all, asking just the occasional leading question at the moment the Chief most needed it. Hamel was the only man, woman, or child Jake could truly confide in. He understood ... he really and truly felt and empathized with his superior, and he wanted absolutely nothing in return. Jake had tried talking to Hamel about more money, more prestige within the department. Anything he wanted, Jake wanted to provide, because Dr. Hamel had, after all, provided Jake so much in the way of peace of mind.

At first Jake resisted the sessions when Dr. Hamel asked for his participation in the new program. Hamel wanted Jake to bare his soul in a group setting with other cops. He told Jake that if he were to act as an example to his men, a powerful man with hair on his chest, iron in his spine, and grit in his voice, the others would follow.

"The men look to you for guidance and direction, Chief,” Hamel reassured him with comforting words again. “Hell, a man like you, a man who's come up through the ranks the hard way? That means the world to them, and the compromise we worked out is having its effect on them, believe me."

The compromise they had worked out was a simple exchange, Jake's wants for Dr. Hamel's needs. Jake would undergo therapy, but only like this, one-on-one; Hamel readily agreed, knowing such information was soon to be common knowledge in the department. Each man knew that Jake Hodges would then be setting the example Dr. Hamel wanted, at least close enough.

A former beat cop in New Orleans thirty years ago, Hodges was, for all his faults, looked up to by the younger men, or so Hamel assured him again.

Jake knew he came to Dr. Hamel to hear such assurances. He knew his ego needed to be bolstered, his position reaffirmed in endless repetition if he were to survive another day, another night of his present life.

Married again, he saw no future for him and Sally. They could have no children. They were both too old, and Sally had drifted away, burying herself in her avocation, painting ... endlessly painting, fleeing into the seascapes she did, as bad as they were, losing herself in that other world of the canvas. Hodges told Hamel all about it, and Hamel understood, understood far more than Hodges had believed any other man could. Not that Hamel had admitted it in so many words, but somehow Jake knew, and he had made, for the first time in so many years, a new friend. Ben Hamel was closer in age to Jake than most of the people in the department, and Ben, too, must have had to make enormous sacrifices to get ahead. Not that he ever articulated those sacrifices in any specific terms, but speaking broadly, Ben knew exactly what Jake felt and why ... yes, why.

No cabby, busboy, or bartender could do that—know why a man felt depressed enough to suck on the end of a loaded gun.

"I know this Scalper case has your insides turned out, Chief,” Ben said to him now, “that your every nerve is feeling exposed now ... but you have to ride it out. A man like you, you can do it."

"The more I think of it, the more I'd like to take Corman's neck in my hands and break it, snap him like a twig! He's making me look bad in front of my city, my department, and the Mayor."

"But you don't know that he's guilty of anything more than excesses, the time away from the lab, a bit of fun with his judge, and it adds up to sloppy work."

"I won't tolerate it, not in my department. Never have, never will."

"The injunction hasn't helped your disposition."

"I'm working on getting my own injunction that'll overrule his, and when I impound all that evidence, I'll call a press conference, let the people of Orlando decide what to do with Dr. Sydney Corman."

"That's a big step, Chief."

"Bold ... bold's the word ... like my old self."

"Yes, you do like a fight."

"Been a scrapper all my life."

"Yes, I know."

Jake laughed heartily at this, his thoughts on a childhood incident. Another thing he liked about Hamel. Somehow Hamel unlocked the memories of his rough upbringing, which his mind had trundled off to a secret place in his brain like a sad treasure chest to be buried forever within him. Somehow Hamel had found the ephemeral key that unlocked the amorphorous gate which held back both the horrors and the pathos of that childhood which, till now, was blanketed in darkness, kept even from the keeper.

"What are you remembering?” asked Ben Hamel.

Jake laughed lightly again. “A fight ... a fight with my father. He broke my rib."

"Want to tell me about it?"

Jake did. He wanted to tell Ben every detail.

"Might be better than getting an ulcer over Sid Corman."

Jake knew it was the truth. Telling Ben about the nightmare of lost childhood was somehow like a soothing balm these days. A few weeks ago, Jake Hodges would have denied the possibility. He had always hated dredging up the past before, but with Ben, it was a calm and cathartic journey, and he could remain at a safe distance and yet see, really see for the first time, that the terror of those days was not his fault, that the guilt he carried within himself for all these years could be vanquished.

"Go on, Jake...” Hamel's voice was motherly and fatherly at once.

Tearfully, Jacob Hodges began the horror story of his thirteenth birthday.

Hamel sat back, breathed deeply, listening quietly. He was a good listener.

But while listening, Ben Hamel allowed part of his mind to slip away, to the image of Dean Grant. He wondered what Grant's questions over dinner had been hiding, wondered what made Grant tick, and if soon Grant would not return to him with more questions: questions pertaining to Hamel's police patients, or patients he saw in his private practice.

Grant might insist on Hamel's actually revealing privileged information, which Hamel would, of necessity, decline to do. Hamel might declare his confidentiality with his patients, the old but very real doctor-patient relationship. Then Grant would press him, asking him if he knew of any individual with a fetish that might turn him into a hatchet-wielding killer after skin and hair.

Hodges here, for instance, spoke of his nasty father, whose back and chest were matted with ugly hair....

Hamel could think of at least two other patients who had morbid fears and hangups which, in a pinch, might place them into the category of suspect. But Hamel's job was not to second-guess, judge, or condemn his own patients, and Grant would likely respect him a great deal more if he maintained the scruples he had come into the profession with. Besides, Hamel honestly did not think Hodges nor any of his patients was the killer, any more than he believed that Lt. Park was the killer.

Van didn't know about Ian's idea. Ian wasn't supposed to get ideas; Van was—Van had told him so. They argued over whether Ian's dream about children with long-flowing hair had anything to do with the purposes of the Dark One, who had for all these years spoken only through Van. All day in the Florida heat, among the palmettos and moss-covered trees of the reserve bordering on the hidden little place Ian had rented for them, Van had wandered and sat and talked to himself and mulled over the questions.

Van had been given a task to perform, and whether Ian helped or not, he must perform his work for the Dark One.

Bugs and mites and ticks climbed over him as if he were a dog, nestling deep into his hair. Food for the demons, he thought, and moved on. Mosquitoes plagued him, but he had to work out his problems. Ian was beginning to think he could just do as he pleased, coming to him with this notion that the Dark One had gone to him—him—with a sign, telling Van that his plan of gaining a scalp from every nationality, every race, creed, and color was failing! How dare he suggest it? They were far from finished, and his pretty brother knew this, didn't he?

Once again Ian had gone for the daylight hours to his job down in the city. Once again, as always, Van was left alone to wait and ponder, “Alone again, naturally,” as the song said.

He'd have to put Ian in his place.

He'd have to remind him how it used to be.

He'd have to take down the long whip made of the coarsest hair and beat Ian again, beat Ian as their parents once beat Van, to put him in his place. It was what the Dark One ordered. There was no other way, and this was no time to be soft.

Just then a lizard suctioned itself against the tree branch overhead. Van, feeling a pang of hunger and not knowing when he'd get back to the house, or even which direction he'd take to get there, eyed the lizard. Nice skin, he thought as his hand shot out in strike speed, trained to do so from infancy as a survival technique. He had the lizard in his grasp and wrenched it apart.

Moving on through the marsh that turned quickly into swamp, trying to find his way but without especial concern, Van nibbled on the food find, careful to save the skin for tanning.

One art he knew well, that—the art of tanning and curing a skin. He'd learned it from dusty books in the filthy cellar he'd called home for eleven years. He'd also learned taxidermy. Maybe he'd stuff the lizard. One day, if Ian wasn't good, he promised to stuff him. Pretty brothers could be a bothersome thing. Still Ian had provided for him, helped him all these years, and he had returned from the war with all those scalps. Ian was the perfect balance, the lure, and Van was the trap. Like well-matched spiders, they worked together and all went smoothly until Ian started trying to run the show, lying about whispered messages direct from the Dark One, pretending to be clever, more clever than Van.

After all, it had been Van who'd thought of just the right and fitting punishment for their parents, and it was Van who'd brought the Dark One from the lower levels below the cellar all those nights. He knew what his Lord wanted, not Ian.

When Ian returned, he'd tell him so.

There'd be an argument. Lately Ian argued everything. Lately Ian was beginning to sound like a broken record. How smart he was, he'd told Van, to shift the suspicion to the police themselves, and would soon believe the police were irresponsible and stupid and how he laughed at his own so-called achievement. Then, when he told Van about having telephoned the police not once, but twice, Van beat him unmercifully, making of his back a patchwork of blood and flesh.

To this day Ian felt he'd done nothing wrong, that in fact, he had done a sensible thing. Telephoning the police twice!

Regardless, Van knew that Ian was growing in self-importance with each kill. Ian wanted to take more credit. He wanted more ritual time, and to talk directly with the Dark One. So, having been barred this, he was now fantasizing it.

Damn him, couldn't he understand that this was the one important thing in Van's entire, miserable existence? That his work with the overlord gave meaning to his wretched life? How often, how many ways did Van have to explain it to Ian? In the end, Van would become the Dark One, and through Van he would walk the earth as he had not done since the time of Christ.

Another day and Dean got the distinct impression that Dr. Hamel was avoiding him, paying no heed to his repeated messages. Dean finally located Hamel at midday, but the psychiatrist begged off, saying he was between sessions and late. By the time Dean found him again, it was getting late, nearly five. Hamel was packing his valise, preparing to leave the small room adjoining the squad room where he held his group sessions.

"Oh, Dr. Grant, I'm sorry—it's been hectic today."

"No need to apologize."

Dean saw that Hamel had filled a chalkboard with words which on the surface appeared random, as if he'd been giving a speech and had jotted down key remarks and phrases. He'd most likely been responding to questions posed by apprehensive cops, always ill-at-ease in a classroom setting, wondering why they had to know the difference between a manic-depressive and a schizophrenic, how to spot suicidal tendencies and homicidal tendencies. It was as simple as predicting the direction a bird will take when it flies, Dean thought.

"So, Dr. Grant, how goes the chase?"

"Slowly, steady as she goes."

"What can I do for you?"

"I've got a couple of questions."

"Coffee?"

"Sounds good.” They went to a nearby lounge and coffee machine, Dean opting for a Coke this time around. Seated now, Dean got right to the point. “Dr. Hamel, is it conceivable that a man with a disfigurement, something truly gruesome, might not then nurture a kind of reactionary mental disorder to compensate that disfigurement?"

Hamel thought for some time, not rushing in. Dean studied him as he pondered the question. He seemed intrigued by it, as most people in his profession would be. Dean had noticed that while Hamel packed his valise, a copy of the most recent Psychology Today had been tucked in the folds of his files and papers. To prompt him, Dean said, “Ever see anything to indicate such a possibility in the literature?"

"Yes, yes, of course ... often, actually."

"Any examples?"

"A man born with the facial characteristics of a rodent once went about New York City disfiguring his victims and robbing them of their clothes, locking them to bannisters and rails in public places. It was a show of defiance in his mind, a hitting back at the world."

"I see."

"Sometimes it's of a different twist. One man whose mother lost her arms in a tragic industrial accident went about picking up hitchhikers and promptly slashing off their arms at the elbow."

"Then it's quite prevalent?"

"Nothing like everyday, but yes, people manifest hatred and anger in a myriad of ways.” Hamel regarded Dean curiously now. “You have a theory along these lines regarding the Scalper? If so, I would love to hear it, but time draws me away."

Dean acted as if he didn't hear this. He'd spent all day trying to get to the man. “Peggy Carson's account of the dwarf who assisted in attacking her depicted him as a hairy man, with hair all over, except for the scalp. Now just suppose—"

"Yes, I see what you're driving at, like the forearm taker, like the disfigured face-slasher, the Scalpers are working out of some condition that is as much physical as mental, an intermingling of the two. Sharp, Dr. Grant."

"Do you know if Park has any relatives with any such disfigurements?"

"Park again, huh?” Hamel sighed as if disappointed in Dean.

"Why so defensive, doctor?"

"Anything Park has confided in me about his personal life—"

Dean opened his hands to the man in a gesture of pleading. “We're all on the same team, Doctor, after all, and despite your feelings toward Sid—"

"My feelings toward Sid have nothing to do with my decision to keep Lt. Park's profile confidential."

Dean could only stare at the man.

"Look, Grants, I've had a session or two with every cop here, it's part of the plan for the eighties, to upgrade. But you must know I cannot reveal the content of any such session. Hell, if I did, do you have any idea of the consequences?"

"Who has access to the information you gather, then?"

"The Chief, the Commissioner, if he wants to see it. And without Hodges’ okay—"

"Hamel, I understand about doctor-patient privilege, but we're talking about a deranged madman, on the loose and likely to strike again soon."

"And I'm trying to tell you that I have carefully created a program of trust between myself and the men of this department. I'm running sessions daily for groups of cops and doing some individual counseling. Now, how am I to maintain the trust of so many if ... if I turn over a file to you or anyone else?"

"No one would know."

"Not right away, and not from you, perhaps, but I would know, and they—” he waved a hand toward the squad room, “they are not fools."

"One file, in strictest—"

"No, sir. You must see, Dr. Grant, what a delicate position I am in here. Teetering on a seesaw, always, with these men. They look to me for help only if they know they can trust me completely, without any reservation whatsoever. I am expected to deal with their nightmares, help them overcome phobias and phantoms. Please, you must see why I simply cannot give you access, either verbally or in writing, to the privileged information between myself and these men. Here in the squad room, it's imperative that they trust me with the fragile, real selves they display so very seldom. Do you understand? Do you?"

Dean nodded, “You must understand, I had to ask."

He smiled again, engagingly, “I did ... I did expect it of you, sir, and you did not fail my expectations. Sid has done quite well to ask you in on the case. If anyone can locate and put an end to the career of this killer, it must be you."

Dean relented. “All right, Doctor, would you answer a general question for me?"

"If I can, of course.” Hamel looked like he wanted to be elsewhere, hugging his briefcase as they talked. He was, as always, immaculately dressed in a three-piece suit and tie. According to Sid, the man jogged to work from a nearby apartment, and was something of an insomniac and a real workaholic. He typically shaved and showered at headquarters, and he kept a week's wardrobe in his office. He looked fit, except for the pale complexion. He was somewhat bloodless, Dean thought. Obviously he had fair skin and he stayed out of the Florida sun as much as possible.

"You yourself said we should be concentrating on a man in house, somewhere on the force?"

Hamel arched his brows, frowned, and thought of the suggestion. “I said, and I repeat, it might be someone who comes into contact with the department daily, and that could just as well be the guy who empties the trash cans, or the guy who fills the vending machines. Look, I've got to go."

"Sure. Another session with Chief Hodges, huh?"

Hamel turned and gave Dean a half-smile. “Really, now, you don't believe that Jake is—"

"More to the point, Dr. Hamel, do you?"

"Careful, Dr. Grant, or you will find yourself being forceably removed from this case and carried to a plane by some of the Chief's men."

"You think he'd react that strongly to—"

"Slander? Yes."

"I don't work that way, Hamel."

Hamel half-smiled. “No, that's right. You deal in facts. But since working with Sid, you've lost some of your objectivity. Tell me, how long's it been since you last knew Corman?” He looked at his watch. “I must go. Please, if there is anything ethical I can do, anything not violating my own standards, let me know ... I'm your man."

Frustrated, Dean didn't bid him good-bye. Dr. Hamel might have the smallest bit of information, some word or phrase uttered between him and one of the men he counseled, if only he weren't governed by rules the killer failed to acknowledge. Perhaps the killer would not willingly reveal himself, but under the right conditions, men—even perverted men—spoke about their perversions.

He'd have to petition Chief Hodges to loosen Hamel's sense of morals regarding Park's file if he were to pursue the matter further, either this or take action on his own, cut through the red tape, and simply break into Hamel's office for the information he sought With Hamel being so stubborn, the file would be held inadmissible in a court of law, anyway. What did he have to lose by stealing it? And if it just so happened to lead to a second David Park and his guilty associate in murder, it'd be a moot point and Dean might be home in time for Christmas after all.

There'd been undercover cops alerted and on the case all over the city, and the public, in a panic, expected to awaken to grim news of another ugly offense, but it hadn't come. Dean sensed the lull before the awful storm, knowing they'd not seen the last of the Scalpers. Dean had spent a restless night puzzling over the questions he'd finally formulated and put to the reluctant Dr. Hamel. He'd gotten back to the lab at nine that morning and had worked steadily, except for a lunch with Sid and Tom Warner, the lab tech. An assistant coronor had only recently left Sid for a position elsewhere, and Tom was doing overtime until Sid could fill the vacancy.

According to Sid, this sudden loss of manpower had contributed to the recent poor showing of his office. Dean knew this could well be a part of it, but still, Sid was ultimately responsible, and he told him so.

As Dean found his way back toward the lab now, it was past six P.M., a grueling day for them all. Then he stopped cold at the stairs. At the bottom was David Park, holding an animated conversation with Tom Warner. Dean had surmised Warner was leaking information from the lab, but he'd thought it was to Hodges. Now this. It only heightened Dean's suspicions regarding both these men. They suddenly broke off, each going in the opposite direction. Dean cursed Hamel's stubborn reluctance once again. So much time had been wasted.

With or without Hamel's help, Dean was determined to learn more about the suspicious Lt. Park. Now might not be the most opportune moment, however, to attempt a break-in of Hamel's office, not without help. Sid had also gone for the evening, giving Dean his apologies—there was some emergency at home—telling Dean that he and his wife expected him for dinner at seven.

Dean knew he was going to be late, that Sid would miss him at the hotel, because Dean wanted very much to return to the lab and make an urgent call. What if it were Park, and what if he struck again tonight, Dean wondered. Maybe Hamel didn't give a damn about the rights of victims, about the suffering and terror these two maniacs were wreaking on an entire city, but Dean certainly did. Park wouldn't be the first or last policeman to go over the edge. While most chose to direct their sad turmoil against themselves by swallowing the barrel of a gun, Dean knew from his many years in this business that aberrations took all forms. Suppose this time the cop's rage was directed outward, at others, and suppose it was to do with a psychological disorder brought on by ... by God knows what, perhaps hirsutism for all he knew! Hirsutism was the medical term for excessive body hair in a male pattern, usually hereditary. Hormonal imbalance could cause excessive hair growth, or a lack of hair, and it needn't be Park's problem, but a problem for someone who, as Hamel had said, he was in awe of, the second, hairy little man-ape Peggy had described. Dean had wanted to discuss real physical aberrations and compare these ailments with mental ailments Hamel had come across in his time here, but Hamel wasn't about to consent.

So Dean must follow through on a course of action that would circumvent Hamel.

His first step must be to confirm his suspicion of Park, and bolster it well, for it was not at all well-founded. Had Sid's instruments not been tampered with, had Hamel not been contacted on two occasions by the killer who had some inside track on his phone and knowledge of his movements, Dean may never have considered the possibility.

He now unlocked the door to the darkened pathology lab, still and silent. Just as well, Dean told himself. He needed time to think this thing through clearly, and he needed privacy in order to get some much-needed answers.

He crossed the room to Sid's office, sat in a plush chair, and dialed Chicago, eager to hear from Sybil or Carl Prather. He prayed they would have some information on Park. But it was late in Chicago, too, and Dean was unable to get through to either one. No doubt the two lovers were together at Carl's or Sybil's, and Dean began to dig in his wallet for Sybil's home number, when he decided instead to ask the police operator in Chicago to patch him through to Chief Ken Kelso.

Dean waited a long time in the dark, in silence, half-certain Kelso would be as unavailable as Sybil at this point, perhaps off again in his pursuit of Angel Rae's sister, perhaps home in bed with his wife. The dark lab was peaceful, and Dean's eyelids grew heavy. He knew that if he half-concentrated on rest, he could fall asleep right here and now, and he semi-dozed to the sound of being on hold. That's how his mind felt at the moment, on hold, prepared to locate Hamel's office on the seventh floor of the building, to somehow break in and snatch Park's file, and perhaps one or two others. He dreamed of the detective work he must do.

"Yes, Kelso here."

Kelso's booming voice shook Dean up.

"Kenny! It's me, Dean."

"Dino, damn you! Where'n hell you calling from? The airport? You back in Chicago?"

"No, no! I'm calling from Florida."

"Ducky ... you're still there, huh?"

"In the thick of it, yeah, and great to hear your voice, too."

"Dean, you got shit for brains."

"At least I have brains of some sort."

"Do you have any—any—idea just what the hell you're doing, man?"

Dean was unsure what Ken was referring to. “I think so. I'm doing my best, at any rate, to—"

Ken cut him short, shouting, “To Jackie, goddamn you. She's not doing well alone, Dean. She needs you."

"Ken, despite our friendship—yours and Jackie's as well as ours—it's really none of your blasted business."

"The hell it isn't, Dean! Just tell me when you plan to get back home so I can give her that much."

"I can't rightly say, Ken."

Ken groaned at the other end.

"But you could speed up the process if you'd check on some information regarding a cop down here, name of Park."

Ken was listening. Dean told him what he suspected, and the fact Carl Prather was supposedly looking into his background.

"I'll see if I can run down Sybil and see what they've got, but whether it pans out or not, I think you'd better get back home, if you're interested in your marriage, that is."

"Thanks for the advice, Uncle Ken. You know I'll be home the minute I can."

"You better, if you want a home to come home to. Hell, Dean, Jackie and I know you. You'll be there until someone's put away. Are you and this old pal of yours any closer to a mark than before?"

"All depends on what you find on Park, Kenny."

Kelso took his number at the hotel as well as the lab. “Get back to you soon as I can. Meantime, take care of yourself."

"Oh, Ken, anything in New York on Angel Rae's sister?"

"Yeah, I got a lead."

This was exciting news but Ken sounded depressed about it. “So give,” said Dean.

"Could be a false trail, but if it's legit, Dean, the woman is here."

"In Chicago?"

"Unless it was just a stopover."

"Jesus..."

"Yeah, double-Jesus."

"Any ... you know ... floaters coming into the morgue?"

"Not any more than usual, but I've got Sybil alerted. She's managing very well without you, pal."

It was a dig and Dean knew it, but he let it go. News of the very real possibility of another epidemic of floating bodies didn't sit well. Suppose Angel Rae had sent word to her sister about Dean, about Jackie? Suppose another deadly and depraved mind was at this moment stalking Jackie? Suppose Jackie's paranoia of the past few months was not paranoia at all, suppose she really had been seeing someone following her to and from work?

"Ken,” Dean's voice took on an urgency, “you've got to do me another favor."

"Name it."

"Put a man on Jackie, just in case...."

"Already have, Dino ... already have."

"For how long?"

"As long as it takes."

"No, no—how long have you had a man watching her?” Dean wondered if this could be Jackie's problem. A cop had been shadowing her. “For how long?"

"On and off, I'd say one, one-and-a-half months, since we learned of the existence of the sister, and then I stepped it up when I learned she might be in Chicago."

"Christ, Ken, why didn't you tell me all this time?"

"Didn't want to alarm—"

"Alarm, you damned fool, that's just what you've done. I want you to call Jackie and tell her you've got a man watching over her, and inform her that he's been doing so for some time. Hell, Ken, she's been seeing shadows everywhere, and now I know why."

"My guy says he's never been spotted. Has she seen my guy? Have you?"

"She's felt him, damn it, and that's enough. Either tell her of his presence, or pull him off."

"Will do."

"Thank you.” They were about to hang up when Dean cried out, “Ken!"

"Yeah."

"Tell ... say to Jackie ... tell her I love her, will you, partner?"

Ken coughed and answered slowly. “I'm sure she'll like that, coming second-hand from me. Christ, Dean, call her up and tell her yourself."

They hung up, Dean wondering if he shouldn't do exactly as Ken suggested, and he started to, dialing the number of the hospital where Jackie was a nurse. But a noise far in the back of the lab disturbed Dean. He'd thought he was alone. In fact, he'd had to use the key Sid had given him to let himself into the lab. There had been some lights on in the lab, but the feeling had been one of aloneness, and now this odd sound, as if someone were lurking there.

The hair at the nape of his neck bristled. Was it Sid? Was it the Mr. Hyde side of the mild Dr. Jekyl lying in wait for Dean's return? Or might it be Park? Park and Dyer had been in and out of the pathology lab from the day of Dean's arrival. Park could have lifted Sid's scalpel from its resting place. Park could have placed it at the scene of the crime to throw suspicion onto Sid. The noise came again, louder this time.

Dean inched closer, wondering if he dare speak out to ask whoever was in the next room, where the slab and refrigerator compartments were, to come forward. But he didn't relish the idea of a tussel with a scalpel-wielding madman. Instead, he inched toward the light switch.

As he did so, he heard shuffling feet and a grunt. He heard someone tear open one of the refrigerated slabs, yank it out on its casters, then become silent.

Dean remembered now there was another entrance to the corpses on the other side. Whoever it was must have come from that direction. The slab room was in semi-darkness, but Dean could see the thin, tall form in dark clothes bending over the body of what Dean surmised to be the Jane Doe in the park. Had the damnable vulture returned for another section of skin, hair, or scalp?

With a sudden movement Dean snapped on the lights, causing a scream to come out of the police officer at the body, and when she turned, Dean saw it was Peggy Carson.

"Jesus, Peggy?” Dean held a hand over his heart, which was pounding so hard he was momentarily dazed.

Peggy, too, had been frightened, and she gasped for air, her hands at her breast and mouth, tears coming from her eyes. She'd been shedding tears for the dead girl, and now they came as a result of shock.

"You scared the hell out of me, Dean!"

"Hey, I heard someone come in, and it ... well, I'm sorry."

"I ... I wanted to see her,” Peggy indicated the dead girl. “It's ... so awful, what they did to her."

Then Dean saw Tom Warner, Sid's young, baby-faced assistant, in the corner, in shadow at the door. He'd been peering out, and he now looked stricken. It was obvious that Peggy had talked him into this against his better Judgment. Tom was one of those people no one took much notice of, and indeed, even now Dean saw little in him that might be lifted out to describe the man, say, for the benefit of a police sketch. He was of average height, with mousy brown hair, small of face, except for large glasses that bobbed up and down his nose in agitation. He had colorless, gray eyes, stood perhaps five-six, and weighed one-forty or -fifty, Dean guessed. In all the time Dean had spent in the lab, he'd been like a good butler, a gofer who did his job so superbly that Dean had forgotten of his existence until now.

"It's not what you think, Dr. Grant. Officer Carson has the permission of her superior to view the remains. She is ... on the case."

"On the case?” asked Dean.

"Let's say I've got a personal stake in it, Dean."

"Anyway,” said Mr. Thomas Warner, “if you will lock up, Dr. Grant.” He started to leave, “And I would very much appreciate this ... our being here ... to remain confidential."

"I hope I can keep that confidence, Mr. Warner."

It was all Warner wished to hear. “Thank ... thank you, doctor."

Dean gave Peggy a reproachful look, knowing she had no such clearance. Given the hour and the state of Tom Warner's nerves, Dean knew better. Now he glanced down at the ugly scar that remained of the dead girl's head. The patch of scalp taken was in a rough hexagram now, the skin around the wound having sunken in, as if to protect the naked area as best it could. Dean gave the shroud a tug, covering the dead, and with a quick push sent the drawer closing into the wall. Peggy stepped away from the pulled-to vault door.

"Why, Peggy? Why're you doing this to yourself?"

Peggy pointed to the vault. “That could just as well be me in there!"

"But it isn't."

"And that's supposed to make it all right? Supposed to make me feel better?"

For the first time Dean realized her inner vulnerability; why she had come on so strong with him earlier. It had been a successful attempt to hide that part of herself. She had braced herself by hiding in his arms, and Dean, consciously or unconsciously, had taken advantage of her a great deal more than she'd taken advantage of him. It was apparent now that she was in emotional turmoil, like a soldier in the field asking why she was allowed to live when beside her, not a few feet away, another just like her had been blown away. Maybe Hamel was right all along. Maybe Dean had played the fool, helping her to escape bedrest. Maybe Peggy needed those sessions with Hamel, and her resistance to the notion only compounded her need to talk out this horror. Maybe, like Jackie in Chicago, Peggy Carson could not function professionally without coming to terms with her newly found ghosts, ghosts hoisted upon her by an evil of incredible intensity, an evil still roaming the trashy backways and lurking in parks, just beyond the safety of this building.

"What are you going to do? Return to where you were attacked and sit around the street corner until you're attacked again—"

"That, Dr. Grant, is my job."

He shook his head. “No, no—your job is not to go out and knowingly commit suicide. Now, we've theorized, Sid and me, about the possibility that the killer's last two choices of victim were not coincidental—"

"Meaning what?"

"Meaning the bastards were looking specifically for a black female scalp."

"So the thrill of the white redhead's gone, huh? Who came up with this shit?"

"Yours truly."

"Are you covering again for Corman?"

"No, I don't have to cover for Sid. He's a good man, a good M.E."

"And I'm a good cop."

"And you don't need to prove it to anyone, certainly not by getting yourself a room at this inn!” Dean indicated the slabs.

"Don't worry, I'm not looking to check in here."

"Good. Now. You need that time off you've pushed aside, kid, and you need to talk about it ... not to stare into the face of a dead girl you feel guilty over."

"Bullshit. I just—"

"And maybe you really shouldn't be dodging Dr. Hamel.

Her face was steadily growing angrier and she exploded. “Just who the hell do you think you are, Dr. High-and-Mighty, know-it-all sleuth and poor hybrid imitation of Sherlock Holmes, Christ! Comin’ in here where you ain't wanted, tellin’ me I got to beware of—of—"

"Of yourself, Peggy—yeah, like my Jackie."

"I'm not your Jackie. I grew up in a way you couldn't begin to dream possible! Raped by my own father, into drugs in junior high, forty-two when I was fourteen!"

The phone rang. Dean let it ring, but stared back at it. It could be Ken with important information. It could be Sybil. It could be Jackie....

"Take it,” she said.

"Don't go anywhere,” he told her.

She wiped her eyes as he went into the other room for the phone. The ringing machine shattered the quiet lab. When Dean lifted the receiver he had an odd sensation of fear: the last time he answered a telephone call in the dark of a pathology lab, Angel Rae was on the other end taunting him, telling him the horrible truth of how she had Jackie.

"Grant,” he said cautiously, into the phone.

He was instantly relieved to hear Kelso's near-bellowing voice. “Kelso, anything?” he asked, anxious.

"Seems Park was with the Seneca, Wisconsin police, a town of some 32,456 people. According to Prather, who says he left a message for you to return his call, this guy Park was the highest ranking officer on the force there when a series of scalpings took place. He was under a lot of heat, and when the killings stopped and he could not solve the case, he lost his job and moved out. Some of that could be smoke created for guys like us who are snooping, you know. He might be legit, and in Orlando on special assignment attached to Hodges. Certainly would want a man with his experience with me if I were facing a case as weird as this."

Dean thought he heard a click, someone listening in. He looked up to see Peggy's whereabouts, but all he could confirm was the fact that she was gone. He cursed under his breath, causing Kelso to ask him what he was grumbling about now.

"Can't say how much I'd like you down here with me on this case, Ken. Sure is hard to know who a guy can trust when even the people who don't have a reason to lie to you do."

"Sid?"

"Among others. As for Sid, ah, I think we've got it resolved."

"Sybil mentioned the fact that you did a little digging in his dirt, too."

"Probably shouldn't have."

"Why? You'd do it to me, wouldn't you? I mean, if I were behaving irrationally? Which, by the way, brings me around to your behavior."

"I know, call Jackie. I promise I will."

"Tell her you'll be back by the end of the week. Tell her anything."

"Again, thanks for the advice."

"Oh, and Dean?"

"Yeah?"

"Careful down there, huh? I mean, if this guy Park is a psycho cop ... well, he's carrying a weapon at all times. You got a gun?"

"I packed one, but it's at the hotel."

"Asshole. Strap it on."

Dean thanked his friend again for the advice. “Any chance you might join me?"

"Would if I could, but I've already shot my travel allowance for the year."

"Ken, suppose Park were fired for cause up in Michigan—you know, suspicious behavior, maybe something more. Suppose the smoke isn't smoke at all, but real fire?"

"Yeah, I thought of that."

"Isn't there any way to find out about his true status?"

"Not if it's been masked by computers, to be corrected at some future date. The only one who might have the straight dope on him is the man in charge there in Orlando."

"Hodges?"

"Right."

"Know anything about Hodges?"

"A career man, like me."

"Okay, thanks again, buddy."

"No problem, Dino, and tomorrow I'll see if I can't get Hodges on the line, get the facts."

"He's more likely to cooperate if you use the telex so he can confirm who you are."

"Will do."

They hung up. Hearing Ken's voice, being reminded of Jackie's distress, made Dean again want to chuck Florida for home and leave this bizarre battle for other men to fight. But the screeching of car tires from a few stories below took him to the window, where he saw a squad car tearing out of the parking lot. The top carried the number 24 on it. Dean wondered if it could possibly be Peggy Carson. His mind flashed back to Peggy at the side of the corpse, and he wondered if, given her state of mind, she had not lifted an extension to deliberately eavesdrop on his and Ken's discussion. If so, she now knew of Dean's suspicions regarding Park. Could she possibly be acting on those suspicions in haste at this moment?

Dean quickly dialed dispatch downstairs, identified himself, and asked if he could be put in touch with Officer Peggy Carson at that moment.

"Officer Carson is off duty, sir,” replied the female voice.

"Can you tell me what her squad car number is?"

It took a moment for the response, Dean listening to the keyboard of a computer being punched repeatedly. “Twenty-four, sir."

Peggy had just taken her squad car without authorization, and that was enough for Dean to know where she was going.

"I need a car and the address of Lt. David Park,” he told the dispatch officer.

"The motor pool can oblige you with a car, Dr. Grant, but I cannot give out the address of an officer without form A-213 in triplicate, or a warrant from a—"

"Damn it, this is an emergency!"

"Would you like 911?"

"No, no!” Dean wanted to stop Peggy, not get her busted.

"I can beep for Lt. Park, sir. Have him get in contact with you."

"No, no—get me Dyer, Frank Dyer."

Dean would try another way for the address.

"I'll be happy to start the paperwork for the unit, sir, and when you come on down, Dr. Grant, and sign the form, then I could fill it out for you and run it through channels. I'm sorry, but it's policy now. I'll let them know in the motor pool you're on your way. And I have Detective Sargeant Dyer on the line for you now."

"Great."

Dyer came on. “Dr. Grant, what's up?"

"I need help, Frank."

"Anything I can do, you've got it."

"Is Park with you?"

"No, he's knocked off for tonight"

"I need transportation, a siren, fast."

"All right, meet me in the lot."

"Frank?"

"Yeah, doc?"

"Don't bring Park in on this one."

"Sure ... sure..."

Dean rushed out, unaware that someone stood at the end of the hallway in deep shadow watching his movements as he locked the final door and raced for the lot, bumping into strangers as he went.

NINE

Peggy Carson wondered if she should not call in her partner, wondered why she was driven to do this thing alone, driven to disregard the law and her own morals. Eavesdropping had never been her style. The cruiser sped directly for her destination, smoothly and silently taking her to the scalpers. She fantasized blowing their frigging heads off with her arsenal of weapons. The unit was equipped with a shotgun, and with her she had a .38 Smith and Wesson. A third gun, a long-barrelled .45, her own, was resting between her thighs at the moment.

It was seeing the dead girl, or what remained of her, and knowing in her heart that the girl had become a surrogate for death, a stand-in for Peggy herself, that was pushing the usually self-contained Officer Carson to a brink she had not known since childhood, when she had wanted more than anything in life to see a man killed.

As the car bumped over tracks and wound its way into Park's neighborhood, Peggy thought of the lonely Jane Doe on the slab. She would be alive today if Peggy had been killed that night herself. Dean said as much when he told her the killers had been in search of a black female's scalp. And now, with Dean Grant pointing the finger at Lt. David Park, Peggy felt she must do something—anything but go home. She felt an urgency like never before. She believed others like herself were at this moment being stalked by the bastards all the other cops were now calling the Scalpers. She wanted more than anything to blow their scalps off with her .45, and she wanted to see the little dwarf's body bleeding from as many holes as her shotgun could inflict. She wanted to see his body bounce from the impact of the weapon. And she wanted to see that cold son-of-a-bitch, Park, pay for his part in all this.

No, she couldn't just go home to an empty house and stay wide-eyed for ten hours, staring at the ceiling. Neither sex nor food nor any other band-aid solution was workable any longer. Nothing could stop the hurt but vengeance, vengeance for all those who had agonizingly died at the hands of butchers working over them while they remained alive. After seeing, really seeing, the truth, there was now no varnishing it or hiding from it. If she didn't take action, another black child would be dead tonight.

She had prior knowledge of Park's address, an apartment building near the bustling intersection of 436 and Interstate 4. The apartment complex was laid out like a Holiday Inn, a low-lying, rambling structure, wrapped around by a twisting parking lot filled with cars of every size and make. One of them she passed looked like Park's. He must be here. A confrontation was quite likely.

She pulled up to his door quietly and parked. Unsure what her next move might be, she tucked the .45 into her belt at the spine and unlatched the holster on her hip to free up the .38, opting to leave the shotgun on its rack. In a moment she was at Park's door, trying to see through the curtains into the dark interior. When she drove up she'd thought there was a light on, but not now. She rapped once, twice, three times and got no answer. She could've been mistaken about the light, but maybe not She knocked loudly again.

When it was obvious no one was going to answer, she determined the direction of the manager's office. The easiest way to gain entry was to flash her badge and “badger” the night manager into opening Park's door. It would be illegal entry, and anything she might gain from the process would be inadmissible in a court of law, but she had to know if Grant was right about Park or not ... and if he was right, perhaps she'd find a way to bypass the courts.

She turned to see a woman in an agitated state coming toward her, asking, “Can I help you, officer? What's the problem?” Keys jangled from a loop in the woman's jeans. The night man had turned out to be a woman.

"I need a key to this unit."

"Is there something wrong?"

"Possibly—and possibly just a false alarm. Got a call about a disturbance."

"Not from me, you didn't.” She began to bang on the door without result, calling out, “Mr. Park? You in there?"

"Please ma'am, the key,” said Peggy, taking out her long-barreled .45 as it was beginning to irritate her back anyway. “Or do I blow off the lock?"

The woman's eyes grew fearful at the sight of the gun. “All right ... all right.” She unhinged the key for Peggy and backed off, asking, “You want I should call the owner ... or anyone?"

"Not at this time. It could be a false alarm, ma'am."

"I'm going back to the office,” she muttered. “No one inside there anyway."

Peggy wasn't so sure and she was sweating badly enough to tear away the bandage over her forehead, revealing the still healing and stitched scar put there by the scalper. She took a minute to return to the unit and snatch out the shotgun, just in case.

Had he seen her pull up? she wondered. Was he inside, pretending not to be? She imagined him pressed against the other side of the door. On entering, he planned to jump her.

"Lt. Park!” she said through the door, “Open up, it's ... it's Officer Carson. I have to talk to you."

Still no answer.

She listened for sounds, breathing, anything. Someone peeked out the door next to Park's, curious, taking a good, long look at Peggy, who by now knew that whatever went down, she was not going to get through it gracefully and unseen.

"I don't think he's in,” said the neighbor. “He's a cop, works a lot of hours ... guess you know that...."

"Yeah, well ... thank you, sir ... I do know that. Tell me, does he live alone?"

"Never seen a woman with him, if that's what you mean."

"Ever see a man with him?"

"Yeah, on occasion, but I never gave it much thought. Why you asking?"

"Ever see a dwarf or a midget with him?"

"Hey, I don't think he's that kinky.” The neighbor laughed and closed his door.

Peggy inserted the key, taking in a deep breath of air. The door cracked, and she saw only a gaping black hole before her, and inside that hole anything might lurk. She reached along the wall for the light switch, her hand shaky. She felt like a little girl again, sleeping just off the floor, afraid to let her hand over the edge of the bed for fear of a rat she'd once seen larking there. She expected a meat cleaver to take her hand off at the wrist if she didn't immediately withdraw it. Then her fingers found the switch and a light went on.

The room was thrown into a dreary, shadowy pall, the single lamp on the switch far in a corner and covered with a god-awful green shade. The wall paper was an ugly dark montage of blades of grass or leaves with an occasional pink flower. The carpet was an institutional green shag that looked infested. All in all, whatever Park was paying for the place, it wasn't worth it.

Peggy found another light switch and this brightened the room a bit more, and she saw that it was a single bedroom with a small fridge and stove perched on a linoleum section of floor. She imagined that Park ate out a lot. But she hadn't time for wondering, she knew. She must search the place as quickly and cleanly as possible and get the hell out.

She began with a suitcase that had been set aside, and she was a bit fearful of its contents. She'd seen the movie Magic, and more than anything the thought of dummies and dolls coming to life to kill people sent shivers up her spine. If the dwarf were just that, hell, he could very well be inside the damned suitcase. She knew her thoughts were childish, but she'd seen the hairy dwarf, and he, or it, had not looked quite human. She pulled back the lid slowly, cautiously, her sense of touch registering the fact long before her eyes that the case was completely empty. Park must then have placed his things into the drawers to her right.

Peggy began a search there, stopping when she came to a paper notebook with pockets crammed with newspaper clippings, stories of scalping murders which had taken place in Montana, Idaho, Iowa, and Michigan. Most of the stories were photocopies, except for the Michigan ones. Peggy unknowingly staggered to the bed and sat down, her eyes and mind entirely focused on the evidence against Park.

Her mind became like a vacuum, taking in all the photos and headlines at once. She did not hear the noise in the rooms on either side of her any longer. She didn't worry herself with the possibility that Park might enter at any moment. She didn't hear the soft step of a man in expensive loafers as he peered from the blackness of the bath not four feet away, holding his breath, nor the dwarf who stood on the body that lay prone in the tub.

The man in the tub had the dwarf's large hunting knife plunged in his heart. They'd done their work and had been getting ready to leave when Peggy Carson arrived. It was only through sheer luck, the dark carpeting and the shadows of the place that she had not seen the splat of blood where the pair of brothers had dispatched Lt. David Park. This killing was not for hair, or scalp, or skin. This one had been for safety's sake, because Park, above all others, had tenaciously chased them across the country, never giving up, like a hound on a scent. This plan had been hatched by Ian and approved by Van.

The unexpected entry of Peggy Carson posed a new wrinkle.

Ian saw that she was absorbed in what she was reading, material they must turn to their own use and benefit now.

He stepped out silently, in slow-motion time, realizing she was armed and dangerous, as she had proven before, realizing also that it would be a struggle to keep Van from slicing her forehead and scalp where Ian had begun before, that he would want to finish the job started. But Ian had a far more fetching and possibly rewarding plan for Peggy Carson and the police, a plan that would screen Ian and Van long enough to get the baby scalp that Ian wanted before they must rush from this area where too much of their activity had come to light.

Ian had a handkerchief he'd doused with chloroform. Within inches of the concentrating reader now, close enough to feel the heat rising off her body, Ian struck, forcing the sleeping potion into her eyes, nose, and mouth all at once. He felt the kick and fight go out of her almost instantly, and in a moment Peggy Carson lay in his arms and the dwarf was straddled across her midsection, undoing her uniform, forcing a hand against her breast, cooing and getting excited at the touch of her skin. He examined the forehead and realized for the first time it was the same woman as that night in the alley.

Ian knew he was going to have to disagree and fight with Van this time.

"Let's do her right this time,” said Van. drooling onto his hairy chin.

"We can't, no ... no!” Ian whispered, pointing to the walls which were paper thin.

"This is too tempting,” Van whispered back, his long, uncut nails digging into the flesh of Peggy Carson's scalp. He then began to undo her belt and zipper, sniffing over her like a dog in heat.

Ian pulled him away from her, tearing out long strands of his hair to do so, he must tug so hard. “I said no!” It was hard to be emphatic and whisper at the same time, but Van was beginning to realize that the girl meant something special to Ian.

"Peggy's scalp stays. We don't harm her."

"Peggy?” he snarled at the suggestion, the big orbs glaring at Ian.

"I've got a much better plan for her."

"I want her ... I want to eat parts of her...."

"No! Not if you want the babies, remember the babies! The black scalp didn't work. Now we've got to try baby hair, like I said! If we kill this one, it'll only tell them we're still at large."

"No, no ... if we kill her, they'll still think he did it,” He indicated the bathroom where Park's body had been left.

"Be reasonable! You're always unreasonable when you ... when you're like this."

"I am being reasonable."

"No, no you're not. If Park scalped her, then how in God's name did she kill him with his own knife? Trust me, this time I know what's best for us both."

The grim, large lips of the dwarf parted in a lopsided smile and he nodded his head successively while getting ahold of his emotions. He did very much want to do the girl ... very much ... but something in Ian's voice told him that his brother was taking on responsibility and growing. “Yes, all right ... let's hear your plan."

"No time to tell it to you. Just help me bring Park's body back out here and place it right where you stabbed him."

"Oh, clever ... I begin to see...."

Dyer was incredulous. He didn't believe what Dean was trying to tell him as they sped toward Park's place. He didn't want to even consider the possibility that Park had anything whatever to do with the slayings—any more than he had wanted to believe Sid Corman had—and he didn't want to believe that Peggy Carson could be so stupid as to go after the man on such flimsy evidence, acting like Annie Oakley.

"Christ, Dr. Grant, it's crazy ... all of it! Why're we all focusing in on the department this way, like this perverted killing is something of an inside job? To my way of thinking, we should be focusing outward. To my way of thinking, these murderers are out there in the community, not in the department. Sure, Dave can be uncooperative and secretive, and he's been a real ass not to confide in me, his partner, about his true identity, but that hardly makes him a mass murderer. I mean, come on, Doctor."

"I'm sorry my investigation of his past got out, Frank."

"Yeah, well, sorry won't help if one of those two cops shoots the other when Peggy goes storming in, Christ."

"That's why I called you."

Dyer had killed the siren now that they were near their destination, not wishing to add to the chaos he expected to find on Park's doorstep. “I don't understand your job, Dr. Grant. I mean, you're a coroner, right? And coroners work with microscopes and slides, not guns and bullets, yet here you are, investigating people over the wires. That kind of stinks, you know that?"

Dean wondered if he should confess now to Dyer that Dean's contacts he, too, had been on Dean's list of people being surveyed by in Chicago. It wasn't the best of moments to do so. Instead Dean replied, “Everyone's suspect in a case like this, Frank, and you know exactly why we're all looking over one another's shoulder. Someone did take Sid's scissors to plant at the murder scene. Now, whether that someone is one of our scalpers or not, he's guilty of a crime. Besides, you know of the calls to Dr. Hamel, the contents of those calls."

"Park wouldn't have had anything to do with such a play."

"Who then? You?"

"Me? What the hell'd I do a thing like that for?"

"Sid fools around some, a lot, from what I've seen. You have a wife—"

"And kids, but you're clutching at straws here, doc. I'm not no goddamned killer, or liar, or the kind of man who would handle a problem like that by devious means. If you do a check on my record, like you did Park's, you might learn how I'd handle Sid Corman, if he ever went near my wife."

"Then you won't mind if I do just that—run a check on your past?"

He glared at Dean. “You're something of a real bastard, doc."

Dean considered his point briefly. “You get as old as me, Frank ... see as much as me ... if you remain a cop for as long as I have remained a coroner, and you'll have people calling you a bastard, too, believe me."

"Bastard,” Frank Dyer muttered in repetition.. “Park ... he's a bastard, too, come to think of it. This working like James Bond, on his own, it ain't no good for nobody, and it doesn't inspire confidence in a partner, believe me. Suppose he is close to the killer. Suppose he's hot on his trail, and suppose the killer turns around and pops him. Where does that leave the rest of us? Some bag of shit we got ourselves here, Doc, a caseload of four dead by scalping and more elsewhere from what you say, a so-called investigative team that so distrust one another, nobody can tell what's what. Just the kinda business that let the Boston Strangler do his handiwork for so long without ever being detected. Nice going, one and all."

Dyer was right again, but so far as Dean could tell, the screw-up had begun well before his arrival, at the top level, with Chief Hodges. “I agree one hundred percent, Frank, and I'd like to make a pact with you now. No more secrets between us."

Dyer looked across at Dean to take his measure. “Okay, fair enough."

"You remind me a lot of a cop friend of mine in Chicago, Frank."

"Oh, yeah?” Tough guy, or what?"

"Smart guy who cuts through crap like a razor's edge. How do you size up Park?"

"I say you've got the man all wrong. I say what he told you was pure truth, but hey, I've been known to be wrong."

"Thanks for the qualified observation."

After returning Park's body to the living area and unceremoniously dumping him at the spot where it would be determined Peggy Carson had killed him when he'd attacked her, Ian cooly gave Van orders to help him wipe clean all traces of the dead man's blood in the bathroom. “The tiles, the bath, sink, floor, everything."

"Do it yourself,” said Van, nastily, “I'm going to look at the girl."

"Damn it, Van, we're doing this to keep you safe from harm, from men like Grant!"

"I'm not afraid of Grant or any of those bastards you seem so in awe of, big brother."

"Van!"

"And you're getting just a little too smart for your own good!"

"We don't have time for this, please. Oh, damn it, I'll do it myself."

He worked until nothing was left on any of the surfaces. Then he guided Peggy's lithe body over toward the corpse and saw to it that blood was smeared on her hands and clothing. He had worked with rubber gloves on the whole time.

Ian went out to Peggy Carson's squad car, pulled open a door, and taken the shotgun. He pointing it at Van, telling him he could riddle Van's entire hairy little body with the pull of a trigger and then really become the hero of the hour, having bagged both members of the Scalping Crew. Van's face blanched beneath the wolfman features. “You'd do that to me?"

"If you don't get off her and agree to my plan as it stands, yes!"

Van laughed as he got down off Peggy, his mouth drooling. “All right ... all right, Ian."

After some pleading with Van, they left her there, the two slowing only at the door to make certain no one saw them. The dwarf scurried out ahead for the safety of the car. They'd had to delay their hunting because of Park and his feeble blackmail attempt Park had been onto them for some time, but he hadn't wanted to bring them to justice. He'd only wanted a payoff, a large payoff, and he'd wanted to talk to the dwarf, he'd said. The bastard had gotten just what he deserved. Nobody talked to Van but Ian.

And now Ian knew the flaw in his deformed brother's reasoning, but he was having a terrible time convincing Van of it, convincing him that the victims of the scalpings should of necessity have been innocent, virginal, young, and untouched, that this would more likely please the Dark One than all the scalps they might bring from such as Peggy Carson, the redheaded bitch, and that whore from the park. It was imperative now that they find scalps of children. It just made good sense. Someone pure of heart and experience, a soul Satan would delight in winning over. The magic Van wished to work via His power and Ian's genes and Ian's hair could very possibly take hold if the elemental ingredient was a virginal boy or girl, an infant, perhaps, a so-called angel of God. So, why couldn't Van see-this and understand? No, he was too stubborn, too set in his ways, inflexible, self-important, arrogant. Why could he not accept the fact that the Dark One had for once whispered in Ian's ear, told him what Van was unable to fathom or didn't want to, about kids, about innocent little kids.

All Van could see was anger and rage at any slight suggestion, yet everything Ian did, he did for Van. It wasn't fair, none of it, for even if they were ever to succeed, there'd be no place left for Ian anywhere, he knew that. And he knew that when they got home tonight, Van would beat him, and he'd stand for it, stand for it as he always had.

"You see Park's car anywhere?"

"No, but it could be on the other side of the complex.” Dyer took a deep breath and tried shouting, calling Park's first name. “Dave! Dave, you in there? Dave? It's me, Frank Dyer."

This got no response, but suddenly a light went on and inside someone screamed. “Peggy!” shouted Dean, “Peggy, open up!"

The door was being unlocked from inside, and when Dean pulled it open, he and Dyer stood face-to-face with a wild-eyed, frightened Peggy Carson, who fell forward into Dean's arms. “He ... left me no choice ... came up from behind,” she said as he carried her into the room, coming to a standstill when he and Dyer saw what remained of Frank's partner on the floor. Dean had prayed they would get here soon enough to stop any bloodshed, and his predominating fear was for Peggy, certain that Park would do her harm. But here he was, lying in a pool of his own blood in the semi-dark of the tawdry hotel room that he'd been living out of since his move from Michigan. Dyer, under his breath, cursed several times while Dean made Peggy as comfortable as he could in a straight-backed chair in the corner, since the bed was littered with an array of guns. Judging from her empty holster, at least one piece in the arsenal was hers. But Dyer had died of a knife wound to the heart, from all appearances. Dyer went to his knees over his partner, disbelieving his own eyes.

"Damn it, you've killed him, Carson."

"Don't touch a thing,” Dean ordered Frank. “Call for Corman and bring my valise from the car, Frank ... Frank!"

One of the neighbors, having heard the disturbance, stepped into the doorway. It was the man Peggy had spoken to earlier, and he stared wide-eyed at Park, whose chest was a dried mat of blood, the hilt of a hunting knife protruding from it. “Holy shit, this one of those gags they play at parties?"

"Get him out of here, Frank, please,” ordered Dean, who looked up at the stricken eyes of Peggy Carson. “I could break your neck, Peggy, coming here like this."

"But I didn't do it, Dean ... I swear!"

Dean took her by the arms and motioned her to a chair in a corner. “Sit down before you collapse,” he said. Then he took in the room at a glance, analyzing it the way any policeman coming to the door would. On the bed lay two handguns, both Peggy's. Propped against a wall was Peggy's shotgun. Scattered and torn and tossed about the room were newspaper clippings and photocopies of news stories, and Dean, using his fingertips, turned one to read the headline:

TEEN FOUND MUTILATED IN FOREST GLEN WOODS.

Another used the word scalped. Dean then saw the scalpel at Park's side. Maybe they had the bloody Scalper after all. What a blessing, if it were so. There'd be no more such horrendous murders, no more need to go to sleep wondering if tomorrow the next victim would be found. He could go home to his wife and his own piled up work and spend Christmas, only a week away now, where he could feel in a Christmas mood, in the arms of Jackie, surrounded by a snow-whitened landscape outside their high-rise condo fronting Lake Michigan.

But there was much to prove before such fantasies could be made realities. Dean and Sid would have to be more thorough and relentless on this particular crime scene than on any of the previous ones they'd worked together. They were about to set out on a course to prove beyond any doubt, through scientific investigation, that David Park, part Indian, had developed a murderous rage against people and randomly ripped from them their scalps.

First in Dean's mind was the question of where in this small apartment were the scalps? That, above all else, would tie Park to the killings. When Dyer returned, his face ashen, Dean put him to work looking through the closets and beneath the bed for anything resembling a container, from a shoebox to a leather pouch. As Dyer searched and Peggy Carson began to regain enough control to repeatedly deny killing Park, Dean removed the long bowie knife from Park's heart and placed it, blood and all, into a clear bag which he promptly sealed and placed in the valise. As he did so, he said, “Office Dyer, you will witness this evidence gathering for the record please."

"Yes, sure,” Dyer's voice was still shaky. Obviously he had not found anything in the way of a shoebox yet.

"The long knife is of the type Sid and I were agreed upon as the second weapon used on the victims of the Scalper, Frank."

"I just can't believe it was Park all this time..."

"There's a lot of evidence to point to it. Note that now I have the scalpel put aside."

"Got it."

Dyer went toward the bathroom, going deeper in his search. When he looked into the dark interior of the bathroom, he saw something hanging from the shower curtain. He thought at first it was a pair of women's pantyhose, but when he flicked on the light, he gasped and backed away several inches.

"What is it, Frank? Frank?"

"The redhead's ... hair ... sc-sca-scalp...."

"Had to be somewhere,” Dean offered, stepping over the body and joining Frank, staring at the very clean and nicely cured, long-haired scalp. “Only the one, huh? Nothing else?"

"Maybe he tossed them after a while .. smells, don't it?"

It had an animal odor, yes, like wet leather. Dean went back to his case, took out a pair of forceps, returned to the scalp, snatched it off the rod, and stuffed it into another of his plastic bags. “What the hell's keeping Corman?” he wondered aloud. “Weren't you able to get him?"

"I know dispatch is beeping him. He's got to know by now."

"I'm not waiting all night for him.” Dean returned to the body and began taking scrapings, scrapings of coagulated blood from the chest and from the hands. “I'll want the clothing once he's transported, including the shoes,” he told Dyer. Dean allowed a momentary glance into Park's open eyes and face. It was always a mistake to do so, and now he wished he hadn't. They'd been talking earlier that day in Dean's lab, the man's mind active and alive, his muscle, nerves, and senses working, and now he was as lifeless and still as a mound of sand. Something in the dead man's eyes or expression told Dean he had been taken by surprise by Peggy Carson, shocked, perhaps, by her forcing her way in at gunpoint. But how, then, did he die as a result of his own knife?

Dean went to Peggy to ask her if she could now tell him exactly what had happened between her and Park. But Peggy seemed totally confused, telling him that she had not confronted Park, that he hadn't been in the room until she was grabbed from behind and choked unconscious.

"Choked?"

"Yes, and I must've fainted."

"Where were you when you were grabbed from behind?"

Dean sat at the very spot she indicated and glanced over his shoulder to where the bath was. “Had you secured the bathroom, Peggy, before going over the news clippings, you might not have been surprised by Park."

"No, I thought he was out ... thought I was alone. Then somebody grabbed me and I ... I lost consciousness.'

This sounded odd to Dean. He slipped out a slide from his valise and asked Peggy to exhale on it."

"What for?"

"Call it a breathalizer test."

"I wasn't drinking!"

"I just want a sample, Peggy, please. Humor me, all right?"

She looked deeply into Dean's eyes. Seeing the concern there, she did as he asked. He immediately treated the slide with a fixative, covered it, and clamped the two together. Later he'd analyze it in the lab.

"What in God's name!” It was Chief Hodges in evening attire. His bulk filled the doorway. “I was just across at Nero's when I heard."

"Come on, give me a hand,” Dean said to him.

"With what?"

"Spray."

"Spray?"

"Seconal."

"Oh, yeah ... that shit."

"I want the whole carpet covered with it,” said Dean.

"The whole damned carpet, huh?” Hodges wasn't use to taking orders, but the situation called for cooperation, and soon he was going about the room with the can of seconal spray as if it were Lysol.

"The bed, too, Chief."

Hodges frowned, but did as he was told.

"It'll highlight any blood spots, give us a trail, if there is one, tell us exactly where Park was when he died and if he did any twisting,” said Dean. “More to the point, we'll know if he died here, or was carried here."

"That's rather obvious, isn't it?” asked Dyer from his knees at the bed. He was searching between the springs and the mattress for any additional incriminating scalps. "Ugh," he said, his hand touching hair. “I think I've got another one, Dr. Grant"

Dean rushed to the spot, telling Dyer to keep his mitts off. With the foreceps, Dean again had the prized evidence put into a sealed bag. Dean had already gathered up the newspaper clippings, pointing them out to Hodges who, by this time, was embarrassed and delighted at once. Embarrased because he believed all that David Park had led him to believe, and had been led to believe so by someone in faraway Michigan as well. Delighted because now he could return to the Mayor and tell him that the Scalper was a thing of the past. The two scalps in Park's room alone were enough to convict him, in Hodges’ book.

Even so, the more evidence Dean and Dyer unearthed in the tiny apartment, the more Dean wondered. Something smelled here, and it was more than just the scalps. It would take a little more time for the seconal spray to work, and in the meantime, Dean went again to Peggy Carson and asked her questions. “Did you hear Park come up on you? Did he say anything to you?"

"No, nothing."

"When did you grab hold of the knife?"

"I didn't. I swear, I didn't see the knife until you and Frank came through the door. I didn't kill him!"

"Don't worry, Officer Carson,” said Hodges, “you did this city a service, and it's going to be written up that way. Don't be surprised if you get a commendation, young lady."

"I don't want a commendation for killing someone I had no part in—” But Hodges wasn't listening to Peggy. He merely continued on.

"But how did you know Park was the man who had attacked you before?"

"I was acting on information I ... learned from Dr. Grant, sir—but believe me, I swear it's the truth when I tell you—"

"Then Dr. Grant is to share the limelight as well. Right, Dr. Grant?"

"Hold your commendations, limelight and all your congratulations, Chief,” said Dean, who now turned out the light switch and asked Dyer to do the same with the light in the bath. The seconal spray turned splat marks and sprays of blood both large and small all about the room into eerie irregular shapes over walls and floor, but nothing on the bed. It were as if the blood was telling a tale. Most of the story was in the shaggy, near black-green carpet. The seconal told Dean Grant that Park's blood had created a clear and eerie trail between here and the bath. To Dean's trained eye it meant only one thing.

Pointing to the floor on the far side of Park's body where the seconal spray indicated more than one trail of blood from the bath to where the body now lay at the foot of the bed, Dean said, “Lt. Park's not the Scalper and he never was."

"That's nonsense,” said Hodges, not wanting to believe Dean. “No one can make that kind of judgment based on a can of spray—"

"Chief, Dean's right,” said Sid Corman, who entered in darkness from outside, where now a police barricade had formed to keep people back. “Park would have had to stagger back and forth two, maybe three times, to lose that much blood in that section of carpet from just a single knife wound."

"Bullshit,” replied Hodges. “I've known cases, even seen men with knife wounds to walk blocks to get to a hospital and survive!"

"Not with a knife shoved all the way into the heart, I'm afraid,” said Dean. “Besides, if all that blood on Park's chest is his, it's been pumping out of him for at least an hour. It's so coagulated that—"

"Shit, I saw a man once in a bar fight who took a knife to the brain, right down the middle, and he was rushed to a hospital. Didn't survive the removal of the blade, but he lived for hours after the initial—"

"The brain and the heart are two entirely different organs, Chief,” said Sid.

"God damn it, you two aren't going to tell me that we don't have solid proof against this crazed cop! We've got two scalps! We've got a knife and a scalpel! We've got all those news stories and the man's record with the Michigan cops. He was there and now he's here. We've got him!"

The lights were returned and the men squared off at one another with darting eyes. Hodges, understandably, wanted what all of the others wanted: an end to the madness in his city. “I want the same as you, Chief, but we can't whitewash this thing simply because it will please everyone to do so. Suppose for a moment that—"

"Screw you, Grant. This is no longer your concern. Corman's the coroner of Orlando, and if you'll just hand over what you've taken here, you can get on a plane for Chicago and we'll all be much better off burying our own trash."

"Burying, Chief? Or sweeping it under the rug?"

"You are no longer needed here, Grant. Now do you go, or do I have my officers take you out bodily?"

Dean looked to Sid for support. “Chief, please—let us do our job. Grant's concern is only for the truth,” said Sid. “Give us time to prove Park guilty, and we will ... we will."

Hodges gritted his teeth. He was a man unaccustomed to backing down from a directive already issued, or a fight he knew he could win. “You've got twenty-four hours.” Hodges then tossed the seconal spray can down and stormed out as an ambulance, siren blaring, rushed into the lot outside. This time, Hodges wisely dodged the press. His last remarks in the press had been an embarrassment even to himself.

Soon enough the tragic and awful tale of a cop turned psycho would be spread across the front pages, Dean thought, unless he could prove otherwise. At the moment “otherwise” amounted to a series of oddities about the scene and his own gut reaction. They were not enough to save Park, and whatever family he had, from the merciless scrutiny of the public. No one in Dean's position, no policeman on any force in the nation wanted to point the finger at an innocent cop, dead and unable to tell his side of the story—no more so than, say, the Pilot's Association wanted to see the finger pointed at a defenseless and dead pilot after a 747 crash. As much as he'd suspected Park of keeping secrets, Dean could not now condemn him out of hand as the so-called Scalper. Maybe, just maybe, it was exactly what the real killer or killers wanted him and Sid Corman and the rest of the city to believe. Time would tell. Time, and tests which they must begin immediately.

Talk outside was running to a lover's quarrel between Park and Peggy Carson. Sid had heard the wild rumor on his way in, along with the fact that Park had taken a knife to the heart.

"Lay you ten-to-one, Sid, the knife I took out of Dave Park's chest will fit contour for contour the wounds inflicted on our scalping victims."

"And the scalpel?"

"Neat switchblade job, just as you thought."

"You ever get a strange, kinda sick feeling, Dean, when you're right about such things? Almost like ... like if you say something, it then happens?"

Dean knew the feeling well. It was a kind of déjâ vu. When a man spent so much time thinking, contemplating, and gathering information on a case he'd become obsessed with, it was not uncommon.

"Yeah, Sid ... I know the feeling.” Dean then asked Dyer to take Peggy home. She was being charged with nothing, and in fact had been commended by the Chief of Police for bravery above and beyond the call of duty.

"Are you going to be all right, Peggy?” Dean asked her at the door.

"I ... I'm a survivor.” She managed a weak, less-than-persuasive smile as her hand went to grip his.

Dean almost said obviously, but instead, he gave her a warm hug. “Hopefully, by sunrise Sid and I will have made some sense of all this. As soon as I know—"

"Thanks ... thanks so much."

"It wasn't wise of you to rush out on me tonight,” he reprimanded her.

She dropped her gaze. “I'm sorry I betrayed our friendship. I just felt I had to do something ... and now this. I can't remember killing Park. I don't believe I did, and if I didn't—God, they might've killed me, too. When I came to, my shirt was torn open, my belt unbuckled, and the zipper on my uniform opened, and something ... or someone ... had touched me. I was shivering from it."

"Go with Frank now,” Dean advised her. “Get some rest, and tomorrow we'll talk more."

Dean turned to find Sid working over Dave Park's inert form. “What do you think, Sid?"

"What do I think? What do I think? Well, I'll tell you, Dean, old boy, I think we're both goddamned fools."

"How's that, Sid?"

"Figure it out, Dean. We're here ulcerating inside over a dead body and trying to put all the pieces together again, at least so no seams show while other doctors are in bed. I know you enjoy being a member of a rare breed, and I know that guys in our profession are in short supply, but that doesn't cut it with me anymore. I tell you, I'm about ready to hang out my shingle, become a G.P.” While Sid talked, he worked. He was taking a car vacuum to Park's body, the little machine sifting fibers, loose hairs, any minute evidence that could tell them something about how the man might have died.

Dean knew exactly what Sid's complaints were. He had heard them recounted a hundred times by every M.E. he'd ever met. Only a fraction of the medical examiners around the country were even qualified as forensic pathologists, and only a few of these worked at it fulltime. Maybe forty or forty-five doctors in the whole United States had the requisite extra five years of medical training and were full-time M.E.'s like himself.

When the money end of it was looked at, Dean realized why most doctors opted for hospital and private practice, where they could pull down $175,000 a year. Maybe Sid was right. Maybe the two of them, making in the neighborhood of $75,000 yearly, were fools after all.

Outside, Dean could hear a strident woman's voice, shouting such things as, “I saw she had blood in her eyes, I knew she'd come for no good reason. God help me, I just knew—I knew!—shouldn't've let her go bustin’ in, but I, I didn't know what else to do...."

Somehow, a sharp-eyed reporter had gotten through the door with the medics, and Dean found him looking over his shoulder at Park's remains just before the medics were allowed their way with the body, Sid instructing them to bag the clothing and deliver the corpse to Sid's slab room for an autopsy.

"Did the policewoman kill him, Dr. Grant?” asked the reporter.

For the first time Dean looked at the extra pair of eyes in the room. The man looked remarkably like Tom Warner without the glasses. “We're not soothsayers or seers, young man, we're pathologists. And pathology takes a great deal of careful reading of scientific evidence. I'm afraid I can't answer you one way or another at this time. Now please, if you will—"

"But Dr. Grant, your reputation, your years of experience ... can't you give me at least your best ‘guesstimate'?"

"Guesstimate—do you people want to print guesses and hunches and gossip, or do you want facts, figures and informed opinions?"

"We're in the business of reporting to the public, and the public has a right to know if it's true or not, if the Scalper has been killed by an Orlando policewoman tonight, a policewoman who was attacked by the Scalper not two days ago!"

"Yeah, all right, then ... you've already got your story outside in the parking lot. You don't need me to add anything to it."

"Can I take that as confirmation, sir?"

"You may not."

"But you said—"

"I said, if you were listening, that at this point nobody knows what happened here, and nobody knows if David Park was or was not the Scalper. Is that clear enough? Sorry to spoil the headline you'd probably already fashioned and sent to your editor. Officer, will you get this man out of here?"

"Come on, Murphy!” shouted a cop at the reporter. “How'd you slide in here, on your own grease, or VO-5?"

"Damned reporters,” muttered Sid. “They always want to try people in the press."

"Everyone wants assurances, Sid—assurances from men like us—that everything's right with the world again, and that God has seen to the punishment of the wicked."

"Ain't it the truth. Looks like we got an all-nighter ahead of us, my friend. Are you up for it?"

"Hodges hasn't given us much choice."

"Got a cot in the lab. We'll try and catch forty winks between tests. Got to keep the coffee coming, and somehow make my wife believe I'm working again."

"Come on, let's get out of here and get to it,” said Dean.

"Got everything?"

"It's all here,” Dean said, patting his valise, “all the real story, if we can rightly decipher it."

"Hate to imagine what tomorrow's headlines'll say."

"Pretty good notion,” Dean muttered as they arrived at the coroner's car and began putting their wares into the back seat. “I know I'll be misquoted, and have my words twisted or given some innuendo I hadn't intended—or taken out of context."

"It's an occupational hazard,” replied Sid. “It's why I try my best to leave the talking to others."

They pulled out of the lot, driving down 436 to Denny's for two takeout meals and coffee, and soon they were racing back downtown.

TEN

Van almost burst with squeals of delighted laughter, squeals of pleasure more happy that Ian had thought possible, and to add to the merriment, Ian snapped on a pounding Bob Seeger tape, the ear-shattering music causing Van to bounce in the back seat like a little kid until he bumped his head hard against the top, giving Ian cause to laugh. They were giddy with accomplishment. So much had been done to protect them from the creeping steps of Park, who'd followed them from Michigan. This feeling, together with the enormous feeling of a sense of unfolding fate, combined to fill them with excitement and anticipation. Their fate tied to beings more powerful than anything on earth or in the mythical heavens, beings that directed their every step.

They were now parked outside the outpatient clinic of Mercy Hospital, where Ian knew the string of helpless women with tots in tow to be never-ending.

"More than we can use. Just watch, I promise you, Van,” Ian vowed. “There, there comes one now.” Ian had seen her in and out of the clinic before. Diaz—no, Jimenez—and one of her kids on her arm. Ian pointed as he spoke. Van pressed his eyes to the glass, seeing them half a block away, mother and child. The streetlamps silhouetted their forms.

Van had reconsidered Ian's idea, his new, assertive nature. And the thought of getting a child back to the house in the woods to take all night with, as Ian had put it, pleased Van's sense of play, as well as his undeniable urge to have the child at his complete mercy. He told Ian he wanted a girl child.

Ian had obliged. There they were, just ahead, mother and child.

Ian said if they took no scalps, if they just kidnapped the child, then all the work of setting up Park would mean something. He actually ordered Van to not scalp the mother, forbidding it. Ian was indeed getting carried away with himself.

Still, Van promised. At the moment, he was so excited, he thought he was going to bounce through the roof of the Mercedes. He squealed in delight.

"Crouch down back there. If she sees you, it's all over,” Ian told him.

Van mumbled an obscenity as he complied, but from time to time he peeked out over the edge, unable to control his urges as the car slowly crept toward the prey. The hunt was on again.

"What's the plan ... what's the plan?” He whispered from behind.

"Shh!"

"What's the plan!"

"Follow her up the street. She's going for the bus stop."

"How'd you know that?"

"Going that way, trust me."

"Then what? What then?"

"I'll talk to her, say something..."

"What?"

"Something..."

"How close are we?"

"Close! Get down. There, at the alleyway. You just get ready when I pull her into the alley.” Ian told Van.

"Why're you bullying me?"

"Don't be silly."

"Nagging ... you're nagging."

"I am not, now will you get down!"

For now, Van would just say what he was expected to say, “Good ... good..."

Ian pulled the car alongside the woman and girl, tooting his horn in a quick salutation. Van, deep in the back, listened to Ian charm them, and Van felt proud he understood the nonstop change in plans as his brother spoke. Ian often did that, changed in mid-stream. He was trying to talk them into the car for a ride.

The woman had come to the window when Ian lowered it from his side automatically and called her by name. She said hello, recalling having seen him around the clinic. “Want a ride? I'm going that way."

"No, no...” she answered.

"No problem, really..."

"Naw, naw, sir, it is too far. Bus is place for me, bus to home..."

She stepped away from the car, snatching the child, perhaps thirteen.

"Do something,” Van whispered.

Ian got quickly from the car and went after the woman, saying, “I'll just walk you to the stop, then."

"Is not necessary,” she complained.

"But I want to, Mrs. Jimenez. You and your girl shouldn't be out alone so late.” He said it in his best, most polite manner, just the way his mother had taught him to speak to a lady. He continued talking to the confused woman amiably, about the weather and such, and asking her questions. “How many children do you have? Two? Three?"

"Four, it will be.” She patted her stomach, indicating she was pregnant. “Four ... four now ... a girl, I wish, but my husband, he don't want me to take the test to find out for sure."

From the back of the Mercedes, Van crept out and looked once more up and down the street, paying particular attention to doorways and windows, and the hospital's emergency room, where beneath the sign some nurses and orderlies took a smoke. He slipped quietly from the car to the sidewalk, his dark cloak masking the sheen of the two large knives he held beneath it. They were brand new knives, brought to him by Ian to replace the ones they had discarded at Park's. It was to keep the police from matching that knife to new wounds, or so Ian said. Ian knew a lot of things about the police. He knew how to be cautious. He had managed to keep them safe all these years.

He worked his way through the shadows to within a few feet of Ian and the woman, just passing where she stood and hiding deep in the dark of the alleyway. Ian, moments later, stopped her at the entranceway with more of his questions.

"Why ... why isn't your husband here? Is it too much to ask? If you're carrying his child? that he—"

"He is working, you know...."

Only a block away, the traffic bustled by. Just a block away, the woman might catch the bus and they'd lose their chance at her child. It'd been a spontaneous idea to strike again tonight, spontaneity brought about by exuberance. Van couldn't recall a time when they'd been so full of power, so proud at having done away with Park; Ian kept talking about making a fool of this man Grant, who Van heard of only through Ian. Ian was smarter than the entire police force, leaving the policewoman at Park's room with the body.

Ian had suggested they come to the clinic to get what they and their gods called for next, the ingredient that must work! Now, it appeared, Ian had been right to bring them here ... the payoff was close at hand.

The woman was raising her voice at Ian, now, and trying to pull away from him. But Ian, calm and resolute, said in a shocked voice, “My God, what is that?” He was pointing into the depths of the alley, giving Van his cue to show himself, but Van wasn't sure it was exactly the right moment. She was too far away from him. Ian needed to guide them into the mouth of the alley, closer ... closer.

But he was somehow managing it.

"Do as you're told and your daughter will not be harmed."

"Oh, please! Please, sir."

"Just do as you're told.” He had a knife held against the child's throat.

"Ahh,” moaned Van, making them turn to find him in the dark.

Mrs. Jimenez shouted for her daughter to run, and the child twisted free of Ian. Her legs worked like pistons down the alleyway, and suddenly she disappeared ahead of Ian, who gave chase.

Mrs. Jimenez, meanwhile, had gone down as a result of a blow from Ian and, angry as hell with her, Van repeatedly kicked her in the temple and leaped atop her with his long knife. She had fainted and lay helpless now. He'd do what came naturally, straddling her neck, grinning, the large carving knife in his hands. He ran it across her forehead, drawing an outline of the scalp he intended taking, drawing it in blood. Carving, he thought her unconscious when she made a final plea: "My baby ... !"

"Precisely," said Van, carving deeper. The scalp came almost willingly. When he looked up, holding the long, black tresses of the Spanish woman, he studied the dark in an attempt to make out where Ian had got off to. Then he saw him coming back, shaking his head, empty-handed. Van cursed his brother's stupidity at having let the child escape. At the very least, he thought, they had a fresh scalp. But when Ian had seen what Van had done, he crumpled to his knees beside him, telling him he was a damned fool. He reiterated it several times before saying, “We've got to take the body with us. Hide it, bury it—maybe in the swamp."

"Why? Why bother?"

"They'll know we're still at large!"

"It doesn't matter what they know or think they know. He, our great god, will protect us if they come near us."

Then the noise of approaching men frightened them off and they were forced to leave Mrs. Jimenez where she lay. Deep in the dark shadows was the girl, hiding, fearful, stunned and in shock, and suddenly terrified into running again when something in the dark beside her moved and reached out a skeletal hand to her. She only saw the hand and the eyes, deep in their sockets, staring up at her as if they were lying on the ground.

She ran back toward what she thought was the hospital, but her mind was out of control, and she wandered the wrong way.

Lionel Morton Silbey the Third lay in a dung heap of his own making at the end of the alley where he'd taken up residence since October of the previous year. He hadn't long been a resident of Orlando, or of Florida, but he liked it so far and believed he would make it his permanent home, permanent, at least, until his Maker should call for his infernal, inebriated soul. God forbid it should be as put-upon as his physical self all these years. First it was by the pain of a loss so great that to this day his heart might burst if he allowed an hour's sober thought to it, the loss of Chrissy, the only child of a marriage destroyed by Chrissy's disease, a brave little three-and-half-month-old child which asked only for life, but instead got a cruel, painful affliction Silbey could not any longer pronounce.

Where his woman was, he had no idea. The city he once called home, he had a vague inkling to be St. Louis. As to his parents, he'd washed their memories from his mind with a conscious flow of booze.

But Lionel had fallen on hard times here in Florida. He hadn't enough money to stay drunk, and people here, they didn't treat a man like him as they did in St. Louis. Here, the weather was kind to an alcoholic—but the people weren't. They made him go to the mission if he begged for handouts. Police arrested him every other night. Only the man that gave him the job of cleaning his kitchen, the Chinaman, gave him what he needed. The Chinaman understood Lionel and paid him in booze, which was all he wanted. It was a proper good bargain, as the British would say in that Limey talk of theirs, a bloody good wage for a bloody good job....

Lionel's thoughts were interrupted where he slept at the back of Chung Fat's Chop Suey House behind some cans when he heard a woman's muffled cry. He groggily straightened up, but froze when his bleary eyes focused on some odd commotion going on. He saw through the space between Chung Fat's trash cans what appeared to be a family. There was the tall, strong, straight-backed father, his arms tightly around the neck of the mother, who was far shorter and fatter. Then, down about their knees, was the little kid, playing around some boxes with what appeared to be two toy swords. The sight, dim and dark as it was in the poor light, and within the limited confines of a drunken eye, brought a phantom tear to the old man's eye. The sight made him think of little Chrissy, reason and eternal excuse for his own living death. These dancing figures before his eyes, this family, this was a taunting, hellish thing that God, in his infinite and mysterious wisdom, tortured a weak and lonely man with.

Lionel then saw the little kid, a boy from the look of him (yet there was something not boyish at all in his movements, his clothes looking like a shaggy-dog costume), pounce on the mother. He was kicking her violently as the father raced after a second child, a terrified little girl who gave him the slip, dropping into a recess just down from where Lionel was, trying to work her way back, closer. The violence terrified Lionel, and yet he could not tear his eyes away, wondering if the family were real or imagined, and wondering what, if anything, the boy might do next. He was soon rewarded with a ghastly show as the ugly child sat over the woman's head and began to carve away at her scalp, her scalp!

Lionel heard the woman's last words repeat themselves in his brain, "My baby."

The boy's sword was really a large knife! Lionel's thinned blood chilled at the next instant as if coagulating in his veins when, with the father returning, the boy jumped up and down on the woman's carcass, holding her hair up for approval.

Lionel reeled from the shock of what he was witness to. He questioned his senses, yet he had only just begun to drink this night, and had been nearly sober only two hours before. Was this a horror playing out in the real world, or something his fevered brain had prepared just for the third-generation Silbey, who'd had a great-grandfather who'd been a Confederate general?

He feared to glance again, yet he prayed and half-believed that another look at the awful scene would reveal that it had all been a delirious hallucination brought on by all the alcohol of a troubled life.

Taking a deep breath and closing his eyes in an attempt to banish the sight, Lionel looked out to where he'd seen the mutilation of the mother by the father and son. He was confident nothing, no one, would be there when he looked again.

But it was not to be so.

The two males worked over the corpse, trying, it seemed, to pry something further from it, or drag it away with them.

Lionel, sickened, filled with fear, wondering if he were deranged beyond all help now, still could not take his eyes off the horror before him. God, he felt alone ... and afraid. And if he felt so, what about the little girl, inching closer in the darkness, still unaware of Lionel?

If the murdering pair saw the girl or Lionel, they'd come for them, rip them open with their knives for some senseless end. Now Lionel saw that the boy was not a boy, but a very small man, a devilish gnome of some sort, perhaps a dwarf.

Shaken badly, Lionel lay back down, fearing to breathe, fearing to make a sound, fearing even to drink what remained of his Black Label. Then they were gone, hearing some commotion at the other end of the alleyway, and he thought that perhaps it was safe, though perhaps not. He then recalled the hiding girl, so like his Chrissy, so alone and unreachable ... for he knew he could not help her. Still, he looked for her and found she had moved even closer and had seen the horror as he had. He reached out a hand to her, to touch her, to determine if it were all a bad dream, when suddenly their eyes met and she got up and ran and ran....

Lionel wondered if he'd ever know if all this madness were real or not. He lay back, wanting only for sleep to overtake him. He lay this way for hours, waiting desperately for the Florida sun to return and blanket his alley with light; to burn away all the ugly sights from his mind, to show him that it had all been a most hideous nightmare brought on by his inebriated brain.

But when the light finally came, Lionel dared look to where the gnome and the other man had scalped the woman and he saw something large and bloody and attracting flies by the hundreds, and he realized the sun wasn't going to wash it away or burn it from his sight. He brought his knees together and huddled there, and he couldn't bring himself to take one step from his home behind the restaurant, which wouldn't open for hours. He needed a drink and saw his bottle, nearly full. He began slowly to drain it in an attempt to blot out the events of the night before and what lay out there, not twelve yards from him. He would talk to Mr. Chung Fat. He would tell him. He might know what do....

ELEVEN

Dean and Sid, despite the discomfort of having had very little sleep and the grandiose notion that one day they would chuck M.E. work for the ideal, high-paying work of an ordinary doctor, became so intensely involved in what had apparently occurred at Park's apartment that no one, no amount of money could have pulled them from the lab this night. So intense had their investigation become that neither man even knew that it was light out. But both knew that Park had been murdered by the Scalping Crew, even though it had appeared as if Peggy Carson had, in self-defense, killed Park, who'd been made to look the part of a mass murderer. They had more than enough evidence to prove it.

Hairs on Park's clothes were neither his nor Peggy's, but they matched up perfectly with the coarse black hair of one of the Scalpers. The turgidness of the body and the condition of the spilled blood proved Dean right, that Park was dead for at least an hour before Peggy entered the room. The blood trail was unmistakable, leading the two M.E.s to the same contention, that the bleeding man was moved in and out of the bathroom at one point—most probably when Peggy entered. There were also trace fibers of tawny, sand-colored hairs in the bathroom.

The knife plunged into Park was unquestionably the knife that had inflicted upper-chest and lower-region damage on earlier victims of the Scalpers. Its edges, when magnified, matched perfectly earlier magnification shots of the wounds. The scalpel, too, proved to be an extremely likely instrument for the head wounds.

The two scalps found were taken from the two most recent female victims, the redhead and the Jane Doe found in the park. If they were not evidence in the case, a good mortician would sew them back onto the deceased and bury them with their scalps intact. As it was, however, they must remain as the morbid exhibits they were, under lock and key.

As they had uncovered more and more possibilities, Dean came to believe that Sid, too, loved the work, and had simply been overwhelmed and bullied by his superiors at a time when very little else was going right in his life. Somehow he had succumbed to the criticism being leveled at him.

To help them during the all-nighter, Sid had called in Tom Warner, his lab assistant, and a young lady Dean had met only in passing. Warner did excellent work, Dean thought, but he was most uneasy around Dean, very likely due to the incident earlier with Peggy Carson in the slab room.

Dean and Sid talked as they worked, and it seemed almost like old times for the two doctors.

"What if Peggy was set up? Who'd have known she was going to Park's just at that time, Dean?"

Dean thought of how Peggy had learned about his suspicions regarding Park. He told Sid about this, and added, “Perhaps someone else was on that line, too? But my guess is that Peggy surprised Park's killers and they got the notion to put it off on Peggy in order to cover their own tracks."

"Yeah, more likely ... you know, the amount of blood on the carpet there, I'd be willing to bet those guys left Park's with blood on their shoes."

"Pretty good chance of that."

Both men knew how blood not only randomly lodged in cloth, but on shoes, and how, even if washed, often trace elements remained. Just a minute amount could tell Dean if it were Park's blood he found on a man's shoe, but then, whose shoe might it be?

By now they had drawn a schematic of Park's little room. Inside the refrigerator, after Peggy and Dyer had left, Sid had discovered a final and insulting piece of evidence to incriminate Park: a pickle jar filled with something besides pickles, filled with bits of human flesh that floated in the brine. It had even made Dean gag, and he'd thought he'd seen everything. For Dean it said one more thing about the real killers—that they were involved in some cannibalistic act as well as the scalping. Anyone who took the time to pickle something might find the time to eat it. Beyond Sid and Dean, only the killers knew of this final evidence of Park's supposed depravity.

The more they looked, the more both men felt that the entire thing was a put-up job, Sid at one point raising the specter of doubt over Peggy Carson with a few casual remarks. “Strange that of all the people attacked by the scalpers, she alone escaped with her life."

"She's a cop."

Sid frowned, “So was Park.... Listen, pal, I know you find her a dreamboat, but take a step back and ask if she's tough enough to self-inflict that wound. And if so, and if she starts talking about some midget, and that gets us all going one way when it's hardly likely—and then she turns up in a room full of incriminating evidence designed to incriminate Park ... well, you figure it out."

Sid was brainstorming the way any good M.E. must, and it did have the effect of making Dean wonder, but Dean just didn't believe it possible. He believed Peggy Carson just another victim, however lucky.

"To believe her, Dean, you have to place her in the clutches of this blood-thirsty killer twice, twice, and she lives through it all. Pretty farfetched, isn't it?"

"Now you're thinking like an M.E., Sid, but I think you need to direct your darts elsewhere."

"Elsewhere, you say ... might not you be a little less objective nowadays, Dean?"

Dean wondered how in the world Sid could possibly know of his feelings toward Peggy. Was it suddenly general knowledge? Had he simply been too protective of her the evening before—Sid, a trained observer, not missing it? Or had she said something to someone who passed it along to Sid?

"Look at this and tell me what you see.” Dean instructed his colleague to glance into an ordinary microscope at a slide.

"All right.” Sid looked into the light at the configurations there. “Want to tell me what it is I'm looking at?"

"A slide I prepared at the scene, taken before you arrived. It's Peggy's breath."

"I don't get it."

"We can run this through for trace elements, and what do you bet we find chloroform, or some other asphyxiate?"

"How can you know?"

"Call it a guesstimate, like our reporter friends. But Peggy complained of blacking out. If we assume she's telling the truth, and if we don't find excessive alcohol on her breath, then we might assume it's something in the nature of chloroform. And if that's the case, then along with our pickle jar, my friend, we have at least two items no one else knows of except the killers."

"Let's run the slide through the tracer, then. What're we waiting for?"

Everything had taken much time, due largely to the deliberate care both men were taking keeping accurate records. Warner was put in charge of these and told how very vital they were, that everything discovered in the lab was of an extremely confidential nature, that careers and lives hung in the balance—including his own.

The slide was deposited in an oval machine which fired a laser beam at its center, turning Peggy's breath back into gas. The beam shut down and the gaseous residue was spun at high speed like a miniature cloud in the chamber until it reached the high speed necessary to separate the atoms of one element from another. This done, two graphs resulted, printed out via computer, showing both the quantity and density of each element. The process took several hours—though without the laser, it would have taken a day and a night. While the test was being run, Dean caught some sleep.

But it was fitful at best. Dean had a recurrent nightmare, one he'd learned was common to many people, a dream of panic over an examination being given to him. He sometimes arrived late for the exam and entered having had no knowledge he was supposed to take it. At other times, he could not find the examination room and spent the entire time racing from door to door in search of it until, finally finding it, he learned that time had run out. Psychologists theorized that the exam dream which so many people shared wasn't at all what it must first appear to be; apprehension and fear of ineptitude and inability. Instead, it was the mind's way of telling Dean that he had beaten the exam fear in the past and could do so again. It came on as a result of an impending test of a man, a test or difficulty Dean must face, fight, and overcome. For Dean it meant facing down the Scalpers as he had faced down Brother Timothy and Angel Rae.

Something warm, like sweat, began to pour from Dean's sleeping head, draining down the sides of his temples—and irritating his ears. The sweat was thick, gummy—when his sleeper's hand reached up to wipe it from his blinking eyes, he realized with a start that the perspiration wasn't sweat, but blood. Where his hand touched his forehead, he had no scalp, only a gaping hole through which his brain fluids drained and mixed with the blood, his life going slowly out of him with the mixture....

"Dean ... Dean.... “It was Sid's voice coming through to him, and Dean pulled open a door in his mind to an exam room in which all the students in the class were large-headed, puffy-eyed dwarfs staring back at him and grinning. The teacher was a shadow man with Sid's voice and now, coming into focus, Sid's face!

Dean awoke with a start, Sid shaking him gently, calling his name.

"Damn!” Dean muttered to himself, his hand instantly registering the fact that he'd not been scalped in his sleep, that it was all a nightmare. What the hell would the experts say to an exam dream that ended in a bloody scalping? His breath came short and his body was damp with perspiration.

"You were having a bad one, Dean ... thought I'd better wake you. You okay?"

Dean was a bit disoriented, but tried not to let Sid see how shaken he'd become. It all seemed to have come over him in an earthshaking, violent instant. One moment he was having an uneasy but familiar bad dream, one so familiar that he'd begun analyzing it in his sleep, wondering when he would awaken. Then, suddenly, he was sure that he'd awakened to find himself scarred and bloodied. But his familiar nightmare had simply taken on a new and bizarre twist, responding, he assumed, to his present troubles. “I'm okay ... okay, Sid. Bad dream.” He tried as best he could to make light of it, but Sid, knowing something about bad dreams himself, wasn't convinced.

"Just sit down here a minute, Dean. Want some coffee? Jean, get us a cup over here, will you?"

Dean's massive chest heaved with a great intake of air, and he found his way to a window, taking the coffee from the lab tech as he went, but the window was sealed; there was no way to open it. “Could use some real air,” he moaned.

"Come on, I know where there's some,” said Sid, escorting Dean to a room with oxygen tanks in it. He hooked one up to a mask and Dean took in a few breathfuls, making him feel better instantly.

"Working too hard, my man,” said Sid. “Not enough sleep."

"Yeah, I suppose so."

"I played a part in your bad dream, huh?"

"No, can't recall that you were—"

"You called out my name."

"For help, I suppose."

Sid smiled and nodded. “Count on it, pal. Oh, yeah, your breathalyzer on Peggy?"

"Yes?"

"Traces of chloroform, just like the magician predicted. You're good, Dean ... damned good."

Dean shook his head, “You'd have caught it yourself if—"

"No, not a chance!"

"—if you'd been there sooner and seen the condition that Peggy was in. When I could smell no alcohol on her—"

You're just damned good at what you do, doctor. I would have missed it, and it does support your contention that someone else, a third party, came into that room where Park died. That, with our combined belief that Park had to have been dead earlier, had to have been moved in and out of the room—I mean, we've got Peggy and Park off their respective hooks, but it still leaves us with who done it? Who is the Scalper—"

"Or Scalpers, Sid."

"Right, Scalpers."

Tom Warner located them. “Dr. Corman, Dr. Grant, I thought you'd like to see this.” He handed Sid the morning paper. Dean stood and looked over Sid's shoulder. It was pretty much as Dean had predicted. The story hinted at a liaison between Carson and Park, and did more than hint at the possibility that Park was the deadly Orlando Scalper. Dean scanned for anything in quotes with his name behind it. He was mildly pleased to see that he was kept out of it, except to be mentioned, along with Sid, as an investigating coronor who would be performing an autopsy on Park.

* * * *

Time passed, and still they ran test upon test on the Park murder evidence.

As they worked, Dean asked Sid, “Any truth to Peggy and Park's having had a thing going?"

"Let's just say that Peggy Carson doesn't like sleeping alone, Dean. I mean, she's not a whore, but she doesn't care for long nights alone."

"She ever ... you ever..."

"She wouldn't take me up on the offer. But you weren't the only one she said yes to."

"How'd you know about it?"

"This ain't Chicago, Dean ... word gets around a smaller operation like ours, you know, as to who's going with whom. The only secret I've ever been able to keep is me and Karen the judge, and now that's been blown to hell."

"And Diana, does she know?"

Sid frowned, “Di and me, we've sorta drifted apart—quietly but effectively drifted way apart. Kids are interested in other things, too. Take a lot to get us all into the happy niche we were in when I returned from Korea, let me tell you...."

Sid sounded deeply saddened over the condition of his family, a trace of guilt in his voice. Dean thought again of Jackie and his relationship, which had, until the Floaters case, been so strong he'd felt nothing on earth could wedge them apart. Things fall apart, people change; it was funny how all the old clichés suddenly took on powerful meaning in a crisis, Dean thought. Words seemed empty until you were drowning in a quagmire of them, in a situation out-of-hand, a circumstance that screamed for fast, sure ropes to bind a man's wounds.

Life was filled with wounds.

Wounds and pitfalls: deep and gaping wells into which people plummeted without the slightest notion they'd ever been near the edge. The condition of marriage—or any relationship, Dean believed—was a microcosm of the larger, dangerous territory of life. A relationship between a man and a woman was peppered with minefields, large or small, but often deadly. Mind fields, actually, since most were linked to emotional time bombs ticking away, ready to explode over the weakening of some small detail.

It wasn't something the therapists or the manuals were likely to help people with, but rather one of the countless truisms people learned by experience. Getting out of the situation was done either with finesse or with foolishness. For many, the easy way out was a word shouted in anger: divorce. It presented a quick-fix route to tying off the loosened and severed ropes of one's mental balance and emotional needs. Remove the object—in this case a person—of distress from sight, and pretend it never existed.

For Dean himself, it was an ugly word to be ranked alongside cancer: it was a cancer of relationships.

The very thought of divorce for him brought on an image of a barbed corkscrew that turned hideously round and round in his stomach. The awful instrument was turned on memories, and it made an ever-widening cut.

Dean decided he could not waste a moment more in telephoning Jackie to tell her he loved her, and that he planned to be on a plane for home tonight. Sid could now finish up this case without him, regardless of the fact that somewhere in the city, or maybe far from the city now, the Scalpers had left a trail to a man named Park in order to escape. It might very well mean that their scalping days were over, for now if Dean and Sid kept quiet to the press, the killers could do as they wished, so long as no one was ever again mutilated for a scalp. No, they didn't have the guilty parties behind bars. No, they had not yet identified the killers. No, justice was not served, and yes, an innocent man and his memory had been destroyed in the process. So what, Dean's exhausted mind told him, so what? He was no avenging angel. He was only one man, a man who had more pressing personal and professional problems awaiting him at home.

Sid's face drained of color when Dean told him of his plans, but he understood. In a controlled fashion, he thanked Dean for all he'd done. “You've been a considerable godsend, Dean. You saved my ass and put my mind right. I needed your support, and you gave it."

A look at Dean's watch told him it was already late afternoon. Sid had allowed him to sleep much more than he should have. He had much to do if he was going to make his way back to Chicago and Jackie.

"Peggy Carson came by, Dean. She tried to get me to fill her in on what we've found, but given the situation, I stonewalled her. This isn't the time for leaks, and you know how word gets out, guys like that reporter Evans last night. Hell, they're everywhere—"

"You did the right thing, Sid. Keep the jar and the chloroform between you and me. Don't even bring Tom Warner in on it."

"Warner's okay, Dean, just a little green."

"Defend him if you like, Sid, but like many of us, he's also easily swayed by a pretty face, and if by a pretty face, no telling who else might control him. Frankly, given all that's happened around here, with your scissors turning up like they did ... don't know if I wouldn't clean house, if it were my house to clean."

Sid looked down the corridor to where he'd last seen Warner. “You really think ... naw!"

"I didn't say he might be the killer. But if you can't be sure your people are with you one hundred percent, no matter how dire the situation, well, old friend, you've got people putting little pins in your balloon and the results can be ... explosive. How, for instance, did Hodges know enough to double back on your reports early on in the case? Who provided the odor for them to sniff at?"

"Tom?"

"Like Dyer told you, Sid, watch your backside."

Sid had a lot to think about. Dean got his things together from the lab and started out. Sid stopped him at the door. “I sure wish you didn't have to go, Dean, but I understand. Really. Have a safe trip, and I'll keep in touch."

"Before you take anything to Hodges, make sure it's everything. Overwhelm him with the evidence and he'll have to back whatever play you make."

"Right, standard practice time. I guess I let a lot go by the wayside here. Too cushy a job. Tell you what, if Hodges throws me out, I may show up on your doorstep."

"Brr! Don't forget Chicago winters!"

The two men laughed as Tom Warner looked on with what might be envy in his eyes. Dean noticed the assistant had begun to rummage near Sid's office, and now he stepped inside with some papers in hand to lay on Sid's desk.

"Sneaky fellow, that Warner,” Dean said.

Sid turned to see Warner in his office where both jar and chloroform result lay exposed. Sid rushed to the attack, shouting at Warner, whose face drained of color.

Dean chose the moment to escape without further discussion. Sid could give his regards to Chief Hodges, Frank Dyer, and Hamel, if necessary, but Dean wanted to say a personal good-bye to Peggy Carson. It only seemed right. He'd return to his hotel, shave and shower, get a change of clothes, and from there make his flight reservations and telephone Jackie. He'd then have a brief and final phone talk with Peggy Carson, unsure what he might tell her beyond the fact that both he and Sid Corman knew that she was telling the truth, that she had not killed Park, and that the case was now in Sid's hands.

As Dean was passing through the lobby of the municipal building, Frank Dyer came racing after him, shouting for his attention. Dyer seemed shaken.

"Corman tells me you're leaving."

"That's right."

"Because of Hodges, last night?"

"Among other things."

"You can't do it."

"Yes I can."

"All right, all right, you can ... but you may like to do some reading while you're running away.” Frank tossed a police report at him, which indicated that the Scalper had struck again, this time killing a woman and almost the woman's child as well. “Last night, after Park?” Dean could hardly believe it. “Why the elaborate set up to make Park the fall guy if the killers then go out and announce to the world they're still on the loose?"

"Hey, we're not dealing with rational people here."

"Oh, but the set up at Park's that was rational, calculated."

"Double personality, then, a schizo, right?"

"Has to be. What about the kid, you talk with him?"

"Her. A little girl named Nola Jimenez. She was in shock when found wandering into traffic."

"When do you intend to talk to her?"

Dyer shook his head. “She saw her mother murdered."

"And she may be able to give us a clue."

"Not for a while. The trauma center has her, and there's no way to get to her for the time being. What do you care, anyway? You're heading for home."

"I care, Frank ... that's my problem."

"Good, then maybe you'd like to talk to another witness to last night's homicide?"

"Another witness? Who, where?"

"Sid didn't tell you anything about it. He said he was about to when you got it in your head to run out on us, like Hodges wants. Hell, man, we need you here now more than ever!"

"You're sure, Frank, this isn't the work of a copycat killer? It still makes no sense that they should attack again after the setup at Park's. Did you question the woman's husband, boyfriend, relatives—anyone? You know as well as I do that more than eighty percent of crimes committed against people are by people they know—"

"We've got a witness says one man he saw was pintsized, a dwarf."

"Damn, then it was them. Where's this witness?"

"Sobering up, downstairs, in holding."

"A drunk?"

"He was in the alley where they did the woman, says he saw the whole thing. When we arrived he was there. He didn't call it in, he says, ‘cause he didn't have a quarter and believed he was hallucinating from the drink. Says he didn't dare move, though, the whole time. He was in behind some cans, in a doorway. Says the girl hid right alongside him for a little bit, before racing off. The dwarf was after her. Says the other guy was normal in size, well-dressed ... said the dwarf looked like a refugee from a circus, like a clown or monkey, covered with hair, except for a section of head—"

"The scalp?"

"You got it."

"These two make no sense. There's no pattern, no handle here, except maybe..."

"Maybe what?"

"The other victims stack up each a different nationality or color. Now here comes a woman named Jimenez, Spanish—"

"And her kid. We might've had to call it double homicide if the old man can be believed. Nobody outside the few of us on the case—and Peggy Carson—knew of the dwarf. And Peggy was sworn to keep it in house. The papers, the TV people, nobody knew. Now we've got this old souse who says right out it was a dwarf and another man. So you tell me—is it or isn't it our Scalpers?"

"Guess these men are truly driven,” said Dean. He struggled for an answer within. The killers so far had displayed an unusual fixation on hair, and if the drunk could be believed, now a desire for the scalp of a child. Hair had always been the killers’ reason for taking a life. A child's scalp now, was that the new atrocity they planned for the city? It was as if just thinking the awful thought made it so. Like Sid, Dean felt like he was the cause of the horror, rather than an agent bent on ending it.

"You see now, Doc, why you can't go?"

Dean saw all right: he saw red. It was as if the killers had done this animal thing to taunt him, to send a clear message to him that no matter what he did, they were freely going about the city taking life wherever and whenever they chose.

"What do you know about the victim?” Dean asked Frank.

"Mother of three, carrying her fourth, a Spanish lady name of Jimenez, Emanuella Jimmenez. Family's in shock, pestering the hospital for the kid."

"Where did all this occur, Frank?"

"She was being helped out by family services, treated as an outpatient at Mercy. She got counseling there, medication and treatment. Her doctor is, was, Dr. Martin Zodese. We talked with people at the hospital, which was the last place Mrs. Jimenez was seen before it happened."

"Last night, while we were working over Park's remains..."

"Sometime between eight and ten, Sid puts it at. I'm surprised he didn't tell you about it, but then, I don't have what you'd call a stellar witness, and maybe ... maybe you're right ... maybe there is no connection and the old bum just conjured up what he saw out of his head...."

Dean considered every possibility. A strong desire tugged at him to go on with his plans, his life. Hadn't he a right to that much? But an equally strong professional sense of determination tugged the other way.

"I think, Frank, I'm going to my hotel, freshen up, get some rest before I make any decisions, okay?"

Dyer nodded. “Sure, sure, Doc, I understand."

"Need a lift, stranger?” came a female voice from behind him, and Dean turned to face Peggy.

"I can catch a cab, Peggy."

"You trying to dodge me, Doctor?"

"No, no ... just very tired."

"Then let me drive you."

"All right, we need to talk anyway."

"Just my feeling exactly."

Behind him, as they went for Peggy's personal car, Dean heard Dyer say, “I know whatever you decide, Dr. Grant, will be the right choice."

Dean wasn't so sure anymore.

Peggy, on their way to the Hilton, tired of the silence, reached across the seat and squeezed his hand. “Been a tough time for you, I know."

"For you, too. I understand you're suspended from active duty, pending—"

"Pending, yes. Internal Affairs been all over my ... my behind."

He nodded and breathed in a deep whiff of her perfume, and it reminded him of their intimate encounter. “I.A.D. can do that, drive you to even look guilty as well as feel guilty—but don't let them. Forensics has already cleared you of the murder, Peggy. It was them, the Scalpers."

She let out a pent-up breath of air. “I was hoping you'd give me some idea what's going on. You're the man with the answers around here."

"I wish it were so!"

"I'll put my money on you.” She was silent for a while, then. “Makes people do crazy things, being out of control."

Dean was trying to formulate what he wanted to tell her, what he must keep from her, as he and Sid had agreed, for the sake of the case, to release no details. His silence made her go on. “There wasn't ever much between Park and me. Two nights, that's all ... two nights, and he was so cold and uncommunicative, well ... I decided he wasn't worth the extra effort, not at all like you. It happened before you arrived—"

"You don't have to explain anything to me, kid."

"Kid? Don't start talking to me like I'm your baby sister!"

"You could be."

"With my skin color, not hardly. Dean, don't shut me out. All right, maybe you've had second thoughts about us, and understandably, but is that a reason to stonewall me on the case? Christ, who has more right to know what's going on than me? Look at this!” She tilted her officer's cap back and displayed the scar at her forehead.

"We know you were drugged, Peggy."

"Drugged?"

"I can't say anymore than that at the moment."

"You've said enough."

"Absolutely."

She breathed deeply. “Good ... good."

"I was going to get on a plane this afternoon and leave, Peggy—"

"Without a word?"

"No, I planned to say good-bye."

"And now what?"

"Now ... now, I don't know."

The car pulled into the Hilton parking lot and Dean got out. “Dean,” she said from where she remained sitting, “I'm sorry if ... you know, if I broke faith with you. You're a good and decent man—"

Dean put up a hand to her, smiling across at her. “Hey, Officer! Ease up on Peggy Carson, will you? She's got as much a right to happiness as anybody, I promise you.” He was getting his things from the back seat when she said, “Anybody ever tell you, Grant, you've got a heart of gold?"

"Go, get outa here."

"You're sure?” Her smile was an inviting at this moment as the first time Dean had met her, and again he wanted to hold her close and bury himself in her, but he knew now that it could only lead to greater problems.

"Yeah, Peggy, I'm sure."

"Friends then."

"Always, always."

Dean watched her drive away.

TWELVE

A shower, a shave, and a phone call from Jackie changed Dean's outlook decidedly, and helped him to decide his next course of action. Jackie was in much better spirits, due in large part to her learning that the shadow she felt following her for some time now was only a policeman assigned by Ken Kelso to watch her. The fact meant a lot, and she was grateful to Dean for passing it along. Like Dean, she was angry with Ken for having done such a thing without either her or Dean's knowledge.

"I don't know when I'll speak to him again,” she had said.

Like Dean, Jackie was feeling terribly lonely and lost without her partner, but they reaffirmed their love for one another over the telephone, and she reaffirmed her faith in him by telling him to remain in Florida to complete his work, to do what he had gone to Orlando to do.

"There's more to do than you know,” he protested.

"Any less, and I'd say you were sluffing off."

"It could go another month, things are in such disarray here."

"Sid's work is that bad?"

"It's not just Sid ... it's the whole homicide division. One of the cops we were working closely with has ... well, he's dead."

"Dead?" Her one-word reply had a definite tremor to it. "How?"

"The killers got to him. He was working alone, a real maverick, and they got to him first."

She was silent for a moment. Dean pictured her in his mind's eye, tall and lovely, energetic, filled with opinion and dedication, and committed to her work as head nurse in pediatrics at Rush-Presbyterian Hospital. “You will be careful, won't you?"

"Absolutely. I'm no hero."

"I couldn't stand to lose you."

"I love you, darling."

"I love you too, very much."

"And as soon as I can—"

"Hurry home, yes...."

Now Dean was alone with his thoughts, the fatigue held at bay by the shower and a short nap. He paced about his room, mentally going over the evidence gathered to date. It created a pattern in miniature of the killers. It implicated someone, if they could only link it all to the individuals responsible for this horror.

The phone rang, shattering his concentration. It was Frank Dyer.

"Dyer, where are you?"

"Mercy Hospital, glad I caught you. I got a doctor here who says he saw Mrs. Jimenez, the dead woman, talking to a guy who was driving a Mercedes just before she died."

"Mercedes? You get plate numbers?"

"Dream on. But this guy says he's seen the car at the hospital before."

"Does he know whose car it is?"

"He's not sure. Lot of doctors here drive expensive cars. Our boy's an intern, drives a Honda cycle."

"Still, there are only a limited number of Mercedes that can be in that staff lot at any given time."

"Exactly, and I'm on it. What about you, doctor? You still on the case?"

"Yeah, for now I am."

"Great ... great. I'll let you know what I find out. Once I get a list of names to work with and possibles, I'll get back to you."

It might pan out to nothing, or Dyer's rundown of the Mercedes could lead to a break in the case. They were due for some luck. A number of clues already pointed to at least one of the killers being a medical man, or at least in close proximity to medical supplies, capable of moving in and out of medical settings without unduly disturbing anyone.

Dean went downstairs to the lobby of the Hilton to the Hertz rental booth. He was soon pocketing a key, and with his medical bag in hand he started for the car, which was somewhere in the depths of an underground lot, a section numbered C-17. The lot was empty and silent. Dean was unable to find the car or anything like a marker for a moment, until he saw, far off, the yellow Hertz banner. Suddenly he heard the sound of a motor behind him. He glanced over his shoulder and saw that it was a Mercedes. He stared hard to see the driver, but like many Florida cars, the glass was so darkly tinted it was impossible to see within. Dean's heart skipped a beat as he mentally took down the plate number, a New York license. The car had eerily crept up on his heels, as if following Dean, like some obedient dog. Dean thought of the many ways he could die, thought of how Park had had the killers suddenly turn on him as he was about to close in on them, and the thoughts caused beads of perspiration to turn into watery rivlets dripping down his face. Finally, having had enough, he felt for the .38 he had strapped on at the last moment before leaving his room, the gun which Ken Kelso had advised he carry with him at all times.

The wheels of the Mercedes suddenly squealed. Dean whipped around, gun in hand, to face down the driver of the car.

The car had come to an abrupt halt Dean heard the snap of locks on all four doors, a commotion inside the car. Then a back window slid down halfway. “Is this a stickup?” asked a man who must be near ninety, delighted with the prospect.

"Grandpa! Close that window!” someone shouted at the man.

Grandpa said in his best cursing voice, “Shit, if he wants to, he can shoot the damn window out! I say we negotiate for our release!"

"Police!” said Dean, identifying himself, showing his badge. “I would like—"

"Oh, the police, Fred! Tammy! The police!” said Grandpa, his white head showing as he exited the car and came out with his hands up. “Just like TV, ain't it?"

The younger man, perhaps fifty-five, and his wife got out of the car, and Dean saw that they were all wearing bright, loud clothes, the old man in Hawaiian shorts. Dean realized immediately that he'd overreacted to the slow-moving Mercedes that had come up on him the way it had ... they'd simply been searching for a parking space.

Dean apologized, saying he was on the lookout for a stolen Mercedes, and he thought for a moment that—

"Police harassment, that's what this is,” complained Tammy, a white-haired forty-eight-year-old, long on makeup, short on weight control.

"Please accept my apologies,” Dean said as he rushed for his rental car. Behind him he could hear the cackle of the old man.

"He weren't no Don Johnson, was he?"

Pitching his bag into the medium-sized Chrysler, Dean drove for downtown. His return to the lab would, he hoped, be welcomed by Sid, and maybe the friction between him and Hodges would by now have dissipated. As Dean drove out of the garage into the street, he saw the Mercedes leave as well. Funny, he'd thought they were searching for a parking place. He imagined for a moment the bizarre scene of a scalping murder in which a woman was not only brutally scalped, but her unborn child was ripped from her as well, and standing tall over the body were Tammy, Fred, and Grandpa in Hawaiian shorts. There were so many bizarre twists to this case that the thought wasn't funny.

A second look in his rearview mirror told Dean that the sleek, gray Mercedes he now saw had an altogether different license plate than Fred and Tammy's. This car had no plate on the front. As the driver suddenly veered off, Dean saw that it had a Florida plate, but it was too far away for him to make out the numbers.

Dean gunned the gas pedal and the car sped back to the cream-colored Municipal complex downtown. Inside was the booze hound who had slept and cowered within sight of the murder of the Jimenez woman and her unborn child.

* * * *

"I told you all I know,” grumbled the broken-down old drunk with the tattered gray coat, baggy pants, and grease-spotted tie. He fumbled with a hat that looked older than he did. His white hair was a wild mass of explosive strands waving above him with the wind stirred up by a ceiling fan. His jowls and gums had long since caved in, his teeth gone. Dean imagined his liver was also in sad shape. From the way Dyer kept his handkerchief close by his nose, Dean imagined the old guy smelled pretty bad, too.

"Just give us some idea what this man looked like,” pleaded Frank Dyer, exasperated with the old-timer. Dean imagined Dyer had been at it for some time.

"And I ain't lying, son, got to have a drink bad—real bad, you understand, son?” said Frank Dyer's stellar witness, brought in for questioning.

Dean watched through a one-way glass, and suddenly Chief Jake Hodges, taking a personal interest in the case, blotted out Dean's view of the old man, coming at him like a bull, asking, “What year is this, Mr. Silbey?"

"Year? What year?"

"Do you know what year it is? What day?"

"Course I do. Nineteen and—and eighty..."

"Eighty what, Mr. Silbey?"

"Keep civil now, son ... it's eighty, eighty-seven, no, eight."

"Who's the President of the United States?” asked Hodges."

"I tell ya', I gotta’ have a drink bad ... real bad,” said Silbey. Dean entered the room where he and Silbey were to confer.

"Who's the goddamned President of the—"

"Randolph Fuckin’ Scott!” Silbey glared at Hodges, then laughed at his own joke, saying in Red Skelton silliness, “Fooled ya', didn't I ... course it's Ronnie Reagan ... or did that rag get taken off the Bush! Ha! Say, can't a murder witness get a drink around here?"

Dean saw they were getting nowhere with the old man, and he thought how differently Ken Kelso in Chicago would handle the derelict. Dean exited and returned fifteen minutes later with what he hoped to be a remedy for the old man's memory. By now, Hodges had disappeared, and Dyer, too, had given up. Dean was sorry to have missed Dyer; he wanted to tell him about his decision to stay and see the case to its conclusion. Dean almost missed old Silbey, too, who was being escorted kindly to the nearest exit, and told thank you and good-bye by a female officer that he doffed his hat at.

Dean caught up with the old man on the street, frightening him at first, but calming him down with what he displayed, a pint of Jack Daniels.

"Huh, hmm, not bad stuff,” said the old critic. “All right, Don—” He shaded his eyes from the bright sun.

"Dean."

"All right, I'll sit and talk a spell with you."

Dean found a park bench outside the municipal building.

"Mr. Silbey, you want to help the police, don't you?"

"Well yeees, but ... I was left here alone by Mr. Fat, and I got awful dry and they started in angry at me, the big ‘un."

Dean stared away at a tree to catch his breath. The old man smelled like the scummy bottom of a trash can.

"Well, now, you're all set, old-timer, and welcome to it."

"You're sent from the heavens, a real godsend,” said Silbey.

"No, Mr. Silbey, I'm with the coroner's office. I'm Dean Grant—call me Dean."

"Thank you, Dean,” Silbey said after another swill, smiling an almost lovable, toothless grin, his wrinkly, leathered face covered in white stubble. The drink had its desired effect for them both. Silbey the Third, as he began to call himself, quickly improved in his communication skills, speaking out loudly against police brutality of a mental nature. Two large swallows on the pint bottle effectively emptied it to a remaining quarter. It was like a balm for the man. Dean took the container and tucked it away, making the old man grimace.

"What'd you do that for?"

"You'll get it back if you'll tell me what you know."

"That'd take ... well, a lifetime!"

"About the killing the other night."

"You ... you believe me? That I saw it? Swear I did,” he told Dean, and then with great detail, Silbey went into the horrid act, standing and displaying with his own hands and arms how the little man chopped and cut away the woman's head to get at the prize he wanted. He moved off some distance, pacing off the space between the killers and himself. Then, finishing, he said, “What in God's name do you suppose they did with that blood-soaked thing, Don? What? Going to have nightmares over this, I know, lessen I can stay bombed. Can I have it back?"

"Sorry, sir—not just yet. Can you tell me anything at all about the man ... the big man, I mean."

Silbey begged off. “Not much to tell. Was dark ... and he looked like just any other guy."

"His clothes, what about them?"

"Good clothes, nice, well dressed, yeah."

"Sweater, shirt sleeves?"

"Sport coat, I think."

"Color?"

"Green, no, light blue."

"Color of his hair?"

"Hair ... hair?"

"Yes, his mop,” said Dean, tugging at his own hair.

"Too dark to tell. Regular ... nothing special. But the midget guy, he was covered with black hair, real black. Thought it was a coat at first. Looked almost like a monkey, I tell you."

"Height, weight?"

"Like I told the cop, I was flat on my back. Even the dwarf guy looked thirty feet tall to me."

Dean nodded, relenting. “Will you give me a call if you can remember anything else, Mr. Silbey? Anything at all?” Dean jotted down two numbers on a card he handed the old man, who kept his eye on Dean's pocket, where the bottle had disappeared. Dean gave in, handing it to the man.

"You mean I'm free to go now?"

"Yes."

"Listen, I ... I work at Chung Fat's..."

"The little joint on the alley where the body was found?"

"Yes, sir, and ... anyway ... had to take a whole day off, you know, to be here ... think maybe I ... I could get, you know, something for my trouble?"

Dean smiled at the old cuss, knowing he was beyond help or even pity.

Dean reached into his wallet and pulled out a twenty. “Think this'll cover your loss of wages, Mr. Silbey?"

The man's rheumy eyes lit up and he grinned wide. “Yeah, thank you kindly, Don.” He snatched up the bill and his bottle and rushed away. Dean watched the old man's departure for his known haunts, watched him shake all over half a block off, filled with a mix of joy and palsy and booze.

How much was his testimony worth? Perhaps a dime and a nickel in a court of law.

Dean took the elevator for Sid's pathology lab, which occupied most of the fifth floor and a few rooms in the basement, as near as possible to the municipal morgue. As Dean made his way to the labs on the upper floor, he mulled over all that had happened, concentrating hard on the certain connection between a pair of murdering scalpers who'd attacked Peggy Carson, and the killers of the Jimenez woman, as well as her unborn child, a part of which they'd also taken, according to Dyer.

Assuming that Silbey actually saw what he claimed to have seen through the haze of his alcohol, it simply was not likely that two separate man-and-dwarf murder teams could be at work, committing such acts in the same city. Such a notion was more farfetched than believing the old drunk had in fact seen what he claimed.

And if this were so, then what had motivated the killers to turn from scalping lone, helpless victims to attempted abduction, as Silbey had indicated. They'd chased the child down the alley. Would they have scalped the child, too, for a double murder? As it was, they'd snuffed out the life of the child Mrs. Jimenez was carrying. At any rate, it was a sure break with previous acts, their usual M.O. Had their deadly fetish with hair taken a new and even more horrible twist? Had they some new bizarre ritual which required a child's scalp? Dean shuddered at the thought.

For now, and perhaps always, little Nola Jimenez could tell them nothing. Her mind had buried the terror, wiped it out as if it had never happened. She was asking for her mother, the doctors said.

Through the glass partitions of Sid's inner office and the pathology lab, Sid saw Dean coming. Sid was on the phone, but his arm shot up and he waved Dean in, his face telling Dean of his delight at seeing him back.

"Dean!” he said, holding his hand over the mouthpiece when Dean came in. “I thought you were outa here! What's up? Forget something? Good to see you!"

"Why didn't you tell me about the Jimenez woman?” Dean replied sternly.

"Not now,” said Sid, pointing to an extension phone in the lab opposite Sid's glassed partition. “Pick up on three, Dean, this could be important"

"Who're you talking to?"

"M.E. up in Billings, Montana."

Dean pursed his lips and nodded, taking up the other phone. But it was silent at the other end. Growing impatient, Dean began talking with Sid over the extension. “Who is this guy, and where is he?"

"Checking records, Dean ... takes time."

"Why the hell did you keep the Jimenez business from me?"

"Look, Dean ... you were dead on your feet, and ... and you were on your way—"

"That's no—"

"Got somethin’ here,” said a gruff voice from Billings, and then the man cleared his throat. “Whole thing was handled by Stimson years ago, Dr. Corman. What's this all about?"

Sid capsulized the situation in Orlando better than Dean thought possible, finishing with the fact that he'd read stories and clippings collected from the dead officer, Dave Park, which led him to contact Billings’ authorities.

"I see ... I see,” replied the man at the other end, who Sid now introduced to Dean and Dean to him. They were speaking to Stimson's replacement Dr. Trenton P. Neubauer, whose more lucrative medical practice usually superseded his work as parttime M.E. Neubauer took a moment to confess he knew a great deal less about forensics than he'd like, but that time and pressures didn't allow for him to work at it fulltime. “We do what we can, when we can up this way,” he finished.

"But you have records on this unsolved double murder in 1958, Doctor?” asked Sid.

Dean made a face through the glass at Sid and raised his shoulders, wondering what he was talking about.

Neubauer cleared his throat again and began to speak matter-of-factly of a grisly double murder which, according to record, was the first reported case of death by scalping in the States since the turn of the century, since the end of the Indian Wars in the West.

"George Stimson used to talk about it a lot, specially as he got older, always said it was the very worst thing he'd ever seen; said the man and the woman had suffered terribly, you know, not having died right off, just thrown into trauma and left so long.... It was bad, real bad, and Stimson always felt pretty poor, being as how he and the police up here couldn't prove a strong enough case against the Injun that done it to see him get the chair. They got him off light, really, for manslaughter, as he was boozed up out of his mind at the time and didn't know what he was doing. Found him that way in his pappy's old place on the reservation."

"What can you tell us about the two victims, Dr. Trent?” asked Dean, warming to the old man's voice, which had a kind of Mark Twain singsong to it.

"They were a married couple, far out on Sioux Creek Road. Had bought an old house, a large house, and fixed her up, not too awfully far from the site of an old Indian massacre.... Lot of Indian and cowboy and soldier history out these parts. Anyway, the Bennimins had a son, I believe a ward of the court until he was eighteen, which was maybe three years after his parents were killed. Boy come home from school one day and found the parents dead. It was big news here, back in ‘58. An old Indian testified against his son that it was him that done it, a boy name of Parker. Some say he was last of the Quanna Parker line, but there ain't no way of telling that."

"Parker ... Park...” muttered Sid.

"Say what?” asked Neubauer, who sounded at least sixty.

"You were not the physician of record, Dr. Neubauer?” asked Dean.

"Oh, hell no, that'd be Stimson. Stimson got me out here when I was a much younger man.” He chuckled with some fond memory.

"This Dr. Stimson, did he do an autopsy on these people—what were their names?"

"No, no autopsy needed was the feeling in most cases back then. You ought to know that ... and Stimson was a friend of the family. Appears he did what was required of him. Anyway ... no, no autopsy was done, ‘cause the cause of death was quite apparent!"

Dean sighed, “Yeah. What was the name, the victims, this married couple?"

"Bennimin, Helen and Hamilton Bennimin."

"What about the boy?"

"Ian, I think Ian Bennimin."

"And you say he was twelve at the time, in 1958?"

"Yes sir, that'd be about right."

Sid asked, “Whataya’ think, Dean?"

Dean was silent a moment before he began thinking aloud. “Scalping starts in Montana; Park's sent up for a double murder as an Indian on a drunk, learns the law behind bars, follows the killers from Montana to Michigan and then here. Only other name we've got is this kid, Ian..."

"What's that?” asked Trent.

"Dean, you think the kid might've—"

"What's that?” repeated Trent.

"Dr. Trent, this young man, Ian, do you know if he ever returned to his family home?"

"As a matter of fact, yes ... he did."

"Does he still live there?"

"No ... place was pretty rundown, and after a few years he moved out. But house and property's still his. Pay's the assessor every year."

"Maybe we ought to talk to the assessor's office,” suggested Dean.

"Did this fellow ever marry?” asked Sid.

"Ever marry?” Trent repeated the question before mulling it over. “Naw, I think not. Don't know ... think not."

"Ever join in any local community groups, clubs, Elks, V.A.?” Sid was driving at the loner aspect of the young man traumatized after finding his parents dead.

"No, nothing—but he was a veteran."

"Vietnam?” asked Dean.

"Yes."

"Dean?” interrupted Sid, “You thinking the kid did a Lizzy Borden number on his parents? That first double murder?"

"Lizzy Borden?” asked Neubauer.

"Was this kid disturbed, emotionally or—"

"Not in the least, so far as records indicate."

"Do you have any information on the boy? Where he relocated to?"

"Sorry, not a thing.” Trent didn't sound sorry. He sounded suddenly defensive, unable to believe what he was hearing.

"What precisely do you have on this Bennimin boy?” asked Dean.

Neubauer was silent for a moment. “Got the usual county forms, ward-of-the-court forms, birth certificate, and some other nonsense."

"Birth certificate?"

"Yes, sir."

"Read it, please."

Neubauer made an impatient noise with his teeth, but said, “Whole damned thing?"

"Just what's filled in the blanks, please, it could be important.

"It's your dime."

He then began reading each line and suddenly stopped. “What is it, sir?” asked Dean.

"Strange..."

"Sir?"

"Says here there was two boys ... twins born to the Bennimins."

Dean looked across at Sid through the glass partition separating them. “Same age, two boys, lose parents—"

"And only one is taken into custody by the courts?” finished Sid. “What happened to the other boy?"

"Oh, that explains it,” said Neubauer suddenly.

"What?"

"Other boy was a stillbirth. Explains a lot ... no name on the second certificate. Twins or not, we do separate birth certificates."

Dean and Sid thanked Dr. Neubauer for his time and hung up. “How did Park become a cop, with his record?” Sid asked Dean.

"Changed his name, relocated, took the tests, passed with flying colors, settled down in a small town in Michigan where he traced the killers?"

"He must've read every newspaper in the country for information."

"Or paid a clipping service to do it for him."

"I can't believe the police computers haven't matched any of these crimes,” said Sid. “Park was right on this guy's behind. Look at these news stories."

Dean looked over the clippings. Other than the ‘58 occurrence outside Billings, there was a one-inch story on an old woman who'd lost her scalp in Iowa and a second about a female victim, characterized as a hooker, in a suburb of St. Louis. A third story was from a small-town paper in Ohio, the victim a young street tough. The final Stories covered a serial killer in northern Michigan in and around Park's town of Seneca. The dates on the stories spanned the years 1958 to 1989, ending with the recent spate of scalping deaths in Orlando. Maybe Park had done better work than all the police computers in the country, but Dean knew that computers only know what people tell them.

"Damned Park,” muttered Dean. “Why wouldn't he confide in us, Sid? Why?"

"Conditioned against it, I suspect, and don't forget, he didn't particularly like me. Nor did he look clean. The wrong guy going into that room of his the other night would have put him down as the killer and gone home to his wife, kids, and VCR."

"Just wish the man had trusted us."

"I think he was working up to it, Dean, when he opened up the other day."

Dean frowned and took in a deep breath of air which he expelled in exasperation.

"Hey, let's eat,” said Sid. “You like Chinese, don't you?"

Dean saw that it was past two, and neither of them had eaten. He was hungry, and he did love Chinese. “You ever hear of a place called Chung Fat's?"

"Chung Fat's, yeah, down near Mercy Hospital, but Dean, trust me, you don't want to eat there."

"All right, lead on, Sid. I assume you saw the crime scene where the Jimenez woman died."

"That's not a good enough reason, Dean, to eat at Chung Fat's."

"Why didn't you tell me about the Jimmenez ripple, Sid? Why'd I have to hear about it from Dyer?"

"Hell, Dean, Dyer's got nothing, a big zip, he's.... “Sid lowered his voice, looking about the restaurant, a place called China Basket, traditional Oriental decor, with a large garden of bonsai vegetation and waterfall at the center, paper lanterns strung everywhere, the walls lined with pen-and-ink artwork, delicate and beautiful and mostly canvas, with the simplest of lines. It reminded Dean of a place he often took Jackie to back home. But Dean saw that it was a place where a lot of cops and city workers from the nearby municipal center came for lunch, and he understood Sid's cautioning himself.

"The man's gotten not a whit further investigating the case. And that so-called witness of his, what a joke! Dyer's desperate, what with Hodges on his back and this thing with Park coming down around him. You know that ol’ Frank's pissed with himself because he actually blames himself for Park's getting killed? That's how screwed up Dyer is just now."

"That's crazy."

"Agreed, but he said something about Park asking him to have a meeting with him for dinner, and Dyer was too busy with some family business. Now the man's down on himself."

"I guess we all internalize our mistakes, huh?"

Sid hefted his glass of beer and made as if to toast the statement. “So right."

"But regardless of Dyer or anyone else, you should have had the decency to bring me up to date after this latest—"

"Hey, Dean, you were walking, on a plane, remember? Homeward bound. Jesus, Dean!"

"I wasn't on the plane when you got word, Sid."

Sid frowned, his manner and voice taking on an apologetic air. “Dean, I just felt you'd done more'n enough of bailing my ass out here. I ... I just didn't want to complicate a decision you were already having trouble with. Hell, I know you've been fretting over Jackie, and getting home, and well, there simply was nothing even you could do for this Jimenez woman."

They'd ordered, and now their food came. For a time they ate in silence, Dean watching Sid struggle with his chopsticks. “Never did get that down."

"And never will,” replied Sid, switching to a fork.

Dean's dexterity with the chopsticks made Sid wince.

"Show-off."

"One thing's apparent, Sid."

"What, that the killers aren't very bright? First setting up Park, staging everything down to Peggy's having stabbed him in self-defense? And then going out the same damned night and offing another victim for her scalp? I thought of that, believe me."

"An urge to kill, had to scratch it, driven to it?"

Sid smiled wryly, “Logic of a maniac? Or just nature at her most twisted?"

"Or the two heads of this monster at odds with one another."

Sid pursed his lips, pushed his dishware aside, and nodded. “One calculating, the other driven ... maybe you've got something there."

"From the killers’ point of view, Sid, we know one thing for certain."

"Which is?"

"All scalps are for the taking, even a child's. It's their right, their religion, maybe."

"What do we do next, Dean? Any ideas how to set fire to their church?"

Dean drained his tea and took a deep breath before replying. “I talked to the old man who claims to have seen the dwarf. The description matches Peggy's."

Sid shook his head. “You know just as well as I do that the old man was likely given cues and suggestions by Dyer to come up with that damned dwarf. Frank Dyer's like any other cop, Dean; half the time, during interrogation, they provide the answers to questions posed to a witness, one way or another!"

Sid seemed bent on disproving the supposed connection.

"Dyer's learned also that the killer drives a Mercedes,” said Dean.

Sid looked stricken. “Hell, we're not back to me, are we, Dean? God, I was with you at Park's, and I backed you one hundred percent on the facts, didn't I? Didn't I?"

"Sid, you've got a Ford LTD!"

"And a Mercedes which is mine, not the city's!"

"I didn't know.” Dean said hesitantly, “Are you..."

"What? What, Dean?"

"Are you on staff at Mercy Hospital?"

"On call at the trauma unit, sure, but—"

"Christ, Sid, someone put Jimenez and a Mercedes together, and damned if Dyer's not finding your name on a list right this moment as a suspect!"

Sid spilled his beer all over the white linen tablecloth. He was shaken, his face ashen, and an animal look of fear flitted across his features before he verbally fought back.

"This nightmare's got no end. Dean, a lot of us doctors drive that make of car. The “doctor killer,” it's called. Jesus ... could begin to think me guilty,” said Sid. “Next thing you'll want to know is if my parents were brutally murdered in an old house in Montana in 1958!"

"Sid, Sid!” Dean objected. But Sid stormed out, knocking over Dean's teacup as he did so. Dean jumped up, shouting for him to stop, then paid the bill and quickly rushed out. In a far corner of the restaurant, Tom Warner watched the two pathologists, his face set in anger.

Sid was walking briskly away when Dean caught up to him, saying, “Slow down, will you, Sid! We've got to work together, pool our knowledge and experience. I don't think for one minute you're guilty of these horrid acts!"

"Thank you, Dr. Grant, and can I count on you at my trial to stand by me?"

"Listen, Sid, please—answer one question straight."

Sid cooled, finding an ice cream vendor and buying them each a cone. “What question?” he finally asked.

"Tom Warner, Sid, where was Tom Warner last night? Does he have access to your keys? Could he have taken your Mercedes last night?"

Sid stopped walking and looked into Dean's eyes with agitation distorting his strong features. “You know, you could be right. I did get him to admit to spying on me. He begged to keep his job ... said some rubbish about his own being threatened if he didn't cooperate with Hodges. Old Jake Hodges has been after my ass for a long time."

Dean considered for a moment Hodges’ part in all this. He didn't seem to fit in neatly as a killer trying to frame Sid, yet there was no way to know in the end. A mass murderer could be lurking in the most innocent-looking man, or woman; Dean knew this from experience.

"Don't go falling apart on me, Sid, damn it,” Dean said. “I need you. We've got to stop these crazy bastards before they strike again, before anyone else is mutilated. They butchered that woman, and they damn sure would've done the same to the girl if she hadn't escaped."

"God ... I can't see mild-mannered, mousy Tom Warner as ... as capable of that kind of ghastly behavior."

"How well do you know Tom?"

Sid considered this. “Not too well. Went to medical school in your neck of the woods, University of Illinois."

"Childhood?"

"Never talks much about it, but I recall something about Saginaw—"

"Michigan?"

"Illinois."

"Ever see his records?"

"Not recently, but they're down in Personnel."

"Did you fire him?"

"Damned straight I did."

"They know that in Personnel?"

"Not yet."

"Come on, let's have a check."

They had arrived back at the municipal building on foot, the walk a calming one on the mild Florida winter day, refreshing, clearing Dean's mind. As they climbed the steps, Sid said, “Oh, by the way, Sybil Shanley called. Said it was urgent. Wouldn't say what about. She was kinda cool to me, actually."

"I'll call her later. Let's look Warner over."

"I'll just let the switchboard know where we are,” said Sid, going to the lobby's information desk and speaking briefly with the young woman there. He seemed to take more time than necessary, leaving Dean waiting. When Sid rejoined Dean, he had calmed considerably, and he said, “You know, Tom's too damned young-looking to have been the boy in Montana in ‘58 who may have axed his parents at the age of, what—fifteen?"

"True, but what happened in Montana may not have a damned thing to do with what's going on here, anyway. According to Neubauer, the fifteen-year-old had nothing to do with the deaths of his parents, right?"

Still, what Sid said made Dean wonder. He calculated the age of the young man who'd lost his parents in the brutal double murder back in Montana. The man would today be forty-five, Dean's and Sid's age. Every shred of information dishearteningly led back to Sid Gorman like a boomerang. Was all of it coincidence?

Dean tried to imagine a secret Sid Corman, a man who, after so many years of dealing with the dead, cutting into corpses to find solutions, had gone off the deep end to begin to use his scalpel on the living. He tried to imagine Sid with an accomplice who was a dwarf. He tried to imagine Sid cutting on a living person, leading a double life as a scalper. Impossible, even in his wildest thoughts. It was just too farfetched, too at odds with the Sidney Corman Dean had known since Korea.

Sid seemed to sense Dean's thoughts, staring across at him on the elevator ride down to Personnel.

Thomas Lloyd Warner, aged twenty-eight, born in Saginaw, Illinois, attended Saginaw High School and graduated from Northern Illinois University, and went on to the University of Illinois Medical Center in Chicago to become a doctor. Failing this, he became a laboratory technician and assistant with a police crime lab in Nebraska, and from Nebraska he went to Florida. There was nothing in his well-documented history to link him with Montana or any lies other than those he'd recently perpetrated against Sid Corman.

"I suppose you'd like to look over my file now,” said Sid, handing it to Dean.

"No, no way, Sid. I believe you're innocent. Warner may have believed differently, who knows, and then tried to help things along for Hodges, at the Chiefs urging. Being a weak man, Warner was only too willing to go behind your back."

"But to plant evidence against me?"

"Tom Warner was nowhere near the murder site that morning in the park. Do you recall who was?"

"Dyer found the bloody scissors, but you don't think...?"

"I had thought it was Park, but not anymore. And that first day I entered your lab and was faced by the welcoming committee—"

"Dr. Grant, there is a call for you, long distance,” said the well-dressed personnel manager who had allowed the doctors access to the records they sought without argument.

"Sybil,” said Sid.

But it was Ken Kelso, with an edge to his voice. “Dean, I got you, finally. For awhile I thought you were on a slab somewhere down there. Christ, I got news for you."

"What is it?"

"All circumstantial, but a bit too coincidental for my liking. One of the names on the list you sent up for checks—"

"Yes?"

"I think we struck pay dirt."

"Hold on, I want Sid Corman in on this ... Sid, pick up on line 3."

Sid did so as Kelso held off his information. “Seems, Dino, that there was a guy by the name of Ian Benjamin, a shrink. Anyway, this Dr. Benjamin was practicing psychiatry in Saugatuk, Michigan during the years when a number of scalping deaths occurred up that way, in and around Park's town of Seneca."

Dean swallowed hard, “Benjamin? You're sure?"

"You think it could be our Montana boy?” Sid asked Dean.

"What's that?” asked Ken.

"Go on, Ken,” said Dean. “What about this guy Benjamin?"

"Well, Seneca's a little town, so they called in Benjamin, and he worked on the cases on an ad hoc basis. And I was looking at this list you sent Carl Prather through Sybil, and it hits me that the name Benjamin Hamel and Benjamin, well, they're not so far apart, you know. And then I see he's not just another doctor, but a shrink, and I figure if Park is chasing somebody as far across the country as he has, then maybe he's onto someone in particular, someone like this guy Benjamin."

"If that were the case, why didn't he tell someone? What was he waiting for?"

"Who knows, blackmail, maybe. Didn't have the goods quite together yet? Building a solid case?"

"Or maybe he wanted both the killers, since we proved there were two men working in tandem."

"Christ,” moaned Sid, “you don't suppose Park was trying his level best to finger me as the second killer, do you?” asked Sid.

"Could be ... a lot of red herrings leading to your doorstep, Sid, some planted in the minds of quite a few people hereabouts by Hamel."

"Hamel ... Jesus ... I can't believe it ... he acts so, so queasy about the stiffs, and coming in here."

"Guilty conscience, maybe."

"Any way to identify this guy Benjamin so we know we're accurate—that it is Hamel, Ken?"

"Damned force in Seneca's kinda short on protocol."

"Meaning?"

"Usually you call in someone to help out on a case, like a shrink, or even a psychic. Well, you get their prints on record, at least. Seneca doesn't have an ink pad, it appears, much less a photo of the guy, and even if they did, they'd have to take the U.S. mail route to get the picture to us—no FAX machines or anything."

"Then all we've got is the similarity between the two names,” said Sid.

"We're in personnel records now,” explained Dean, “and we'll see what we can find out about Dr. Hamel."

"Good procedure, happy hunting.” Kelso said his goodbyes and rang off.

"I don't get it, Dean, about Park and Benjamin. I mean, he must've known the shrink had changed his name and that it couldn't have been just coincidence that where he goes the Scalpers follow, right? What was Park's game?"

"Ken may've been right, since Park had to carefully build his case against his killer. He had to because he himself had served time for just such a killing."

"Right."

"And the second killer entering the picture, Seneca authorities never knew it! It came as a total surprise to Park, and he may've thought he couldn't fully avenge himself on Hamel until he got the other man, too, the guy we know only as a dwarf."

"It's all too bizarre, Dean...."

"Truth is stranger than fiction."

"But if Park, I mean ... wouldn't Park have confided in Dyer, at least?

"My guess is that Park tried to convince Hamel that he was no threat to him, that he was called in by Hodges as a result of a chance remark made by Hamel himself, perhaps."

"As a matter of fact, that's how the Chief put it to me once,” said Sid, trying to follow Dean's meanderings.

"Hamel tells the Chief that he worked with police in Michigan on a similar case, which boosts Hamel into high-profile status with Hodges. Hamel draws up his profile of the killers, refuting your original findings in the process—or rather, drawing attention to the oversights which he knew to be there in the first place. Meanwhile, Hodges makes contact with Michigan and enters Park. Hamel gives Park a phony reason for the name change, creditors, or an old girl friend he's trying to lose, something.... Meanwhile, Park sees evidence pointing in other directions, and for the first time he learns there are, indeed, two killers instead of one. He then reassesses his original theory and it's all the time Hamel needs to get to him and frame Park himself as the Scalper."

"It almost makes sense ... Park done in by Hamel, if—and it's a big if—Ben Hamel and Benjamin are one and the same man."

"Take it a step further, Sid."

"What?"

"If Hamel and Benjamin and Benjamin—the boy—are one and the same...."

Sid's eyes widened at the prospect. “It's just too pat, Dean. Can't be that lucky, can we?"

"Let's find out."

Sid asked the personnel manager for the file on Ben Hamel. Dean half-expected the file to have been lifted, but in a moment it was delivered to them, no questions asked, the lady merely saying, “All information is to be held in strictest confidence, Sid, do you understand?"

"Terry, we're after a murderer here, we're not concerned about credit references or wife beatings."

The woman turned a bit crimson as Dean rifled through the papers. They looked very official and were quite clean of any connection with either Michigan or Montana. Dean cursed under his breath. It seemed that everywhere they turned there was a dead end, another useless waste of time.

Sid took the file from Dean, repeating the gesture of going through the transcript which told him Hamel was a graduate of the University of California at Los Angeles, that he practiced for a time in that city, and that he relocated to Florida, where he began a practice in connection with Mercy Hospital. His work there brought him to the attention of Chief Hodges, who was in the market for a man of his expertise. Sid, too, thought it a dead-end nothing.

"Sid, is it at all possible that Tom Warner could have snatched your keys at any time, made duplicates, and returned them?"

"I think not, but I couldn't swear to it."

"The other night he let Peggy Carson into the slab room to view the Jane Doe. I didn't tell you at the time because—

"Christ, Dean, he did have a duplicate set of keys made. He had no clearance from me to come and go at will. He punches a clock, for Chrissake!"

"I think we need to find and corner Mr. Warner. If he was working for Hamel..."

"Creeps ... we're surrounded by creeps."

"But first, I have a call to make. Can I use your phone to call L.A.?” Dean asked the personnel lady.

Sid flashed his eyes at her, and pleaded, “Terry? We're talking important, here, we're talking police business."

"Guess we're all on the same team, but when time comes for me to send in my phone requisition, you, Dr. Corman, are going to be billed."

Dean allowed the sparring to go on around him until he got through to his connection with the University of California at Los Angeles. He then asked for the Registrar's Office. “Going to verify or deny the transcript of one Dr. Benjamin Hamel,” he told Sid.

Dean got through to a parrot-voiced woman in charge of transcripts. If she looked as she sounded, Dean was sure he was in for an argument. He identified himself and said his interest was in hiring a man named Benjamin Hamel for the Chicago Police Crime Division as a psychiatrist. He wished to verify his having graduated at the university. “Benjamin I. Hamel,” Dean finished.

"But sir, I can't give you information over the phone anyway, and since there is no—"

"I simply wish to verify if he did or did not graduate. You can tell me that. He may be a fraud, and I do not wish to hire a fraud."

Annoyed, the woman said, “Please hold.” And Dean did hold until he became annoyed.

When she finally came on again, she said flatly, “No, no Benjamin, but I do have a Catherine, Dave, Earl, Mark, Mike, Trisha, but no Ben—"

"You're absolutely sure?"

"There's no question of it."

"Would you please try under I. Hamel?"

"Dear man, I have looked at all the Hamels we have and there's no I."

"Ian,” said Sid into Dean's ear. “It's Ian."

"Ian,” Dean repeated it to the woman long-distance.

She tsked into the phone, “Sir, there's no Ian."

"Please, one more check."

The exasperated woman gasped. “All right, what is it?"

"Benjamin, last name, please look for an Ian Benjamin."

"Do you have any idea how many records we have?"

"I might venture a guess, but time's important here, madame, very important."

"I'll have to go back to the microfiche again. Hold on."

Dean waited while Sid looked up Tom Warner's address and jotted it down. The waiting became intolerable. Dean knew the clerk was intentionally prolonging the moment so she might come back on and say no and then hang up. He wondered if she'd gone to lunch after four more minutes of agonizing.

"Dr. Grant?” she came on.

"Yes?"

"Yes..."

"Yes, meaning what?"

"Yes, that's all I can tell you, Dr. Grant. This information is privileged by law, and I cannot indiscriminately—"

"Please, answer yes or no to this: have you in front of you a copy of a transcript for an Ian Benjamin?"

"Yes."

"Born in 1943?"

"'44."

"And hails from Montana?"

"Yes, now I can say no more, except to point out there are two other Ian Benjamins who have also graduated from here."

"Thank you ... thank you."

She hung up. Dean immediately scanned Hamel's record again and saw the telltale signs now, signs of tampering with the name. Hamel must be Bennimin. He pointed this out to Sid.

"That bastard ... it's been him all along."

"Dont’ jump to conclusions before—"

"Conclusions—hell, Dean!"

"—before we have all the facts. All we know for certain is that Hamel, or Bennimin, lied about himself in order to secure a position on the police force here."

"A careful check with the Michigan authorities and I bet they'd find other false recs on the prick ... oh, sorry, Terry."

"Not on my account, please,” she said, “I think Hamel's a prick also."

"You've had difficulties with him?” asked Dean.

"Pushy ... after a girl says no, he doesn't know enough to let it go. Buys you a drink and thinks you owe him an all-nighter. Well, not in my book, and not the way I was raised."

"Terry—Miss Cross,” said Dean, reading her nameplate, “please keep everything said here this afternoon between us."

"I understand. Not to worry."

"Thank you again. Come on, Sid."

"Where to?"

"Outside."

"Where we going, Dean?"

"I hope this judge friend of yours likes you an awful lot, Sid."

"Come on, Dean, I can't hit her up for another—"

"Just a warrant this time, Sid."

"A search warrant for Hamel's place?"

Dean had scribbled two addresses on a piece of paper and tucked it into his pocket. He now snatched it out and asked Sid if he knew where both were. One address was close by, an apartment complex, the one Hamel jogged from. The other puzzled Sid, It was a P.O. box number, not an address at all, in rural Wekiva, at least an hour away, longer if you ran into traffic.

"Copy these down for yourself,” said Dean. “Dyer and me, we'll be going ahead with a move-in, so get the warrant to cover all known addresses for the man, understood?"

"It could take some time, Dean."

"I thought this case had top priority around here. Get Hodges after the judge, if you have to. We've got to stop Hamel before nightfall."

It's almost five now. We'll never make it."

"Go!"

"Maybe a stakeout at the hospital's in order."

"Done. Now go!"

Dean rushed next door to the police precinct, seeking out Frank Dyer for help. Peggy Carson shouted a hello, but he put her off, going for Hodges’ office, intending to get the Chief behind them, but learning that Hodges was in Tampa and wouldn't be back for hours. Dean put out a call for Frank Dyer. Peggy began to follow him around, sensing something was up, but he tried to avoid making eye contact with her.

Who's the dwarf? Dean kept rummaging about in the back of his mind for an answer. Some poor slob Hamel had roped into his sickness, a former patient under his control? If it came time for a name to be forthcoming from Hamel's patient records at Mercy, a dwarf in therapy shouldn't be too hard to locate. But with time running out, they must concentrate on Hamel. Dean had the distinct impression the guy had a mysterious rural address for a damned good reason. He guessed the bulk, if not all, of the horrid evidence they might gather against the Scalpers could be found at the receiving end of P. O. Box 939 in Wekiva.

"What's happened, Dr. Grant?” asked Peggy at his side. “Dean, I've got a right to know."

"Not now, Peggy,” he put her off. “Dyer, Lt. Frank Dyer,” he told the woman at dispatch, “urgent from Dr. Dean Grant, Scalper case."

THIRTEEN

Dyer was rushing to the scene of a family disturbance, a code 12, when Dean's urgent plea for his return reached him. So far he had not been reassigned a partner. He had to complete the call before he could return. This took time, but not as much as it might have, had Dyer not invoked the new Florida law that allowed an arresting officer to file a complaint against someone causing a disturbance, in this case a man who was a repeat offender at wife molestation. Dyer, with no time to waste on counseling the couple to help settle their difficulties, simply cuffed the man, who started to struggle, but was quickly subdued. Dyer's nose was bloodied by the thrashing man before he finally got him onto the street, where a unit pulled up to help out. They took the man off his hands.

Rushing back downtown, Dyer used his siren. Grant sounded as if he really needed him, and it had come as a surprise that Grant was still in the city. The story Dyer had told him about the pregnant woman must've done it. That, and maybe Peggy Carson.

Grant was outside the station house waving him down when Dyer drove in. Peggy Carson and her partner were in a heated discussion not far from Grant, Peggy no doubt already sick to death of desk duty and the depression that hung over her since Dave Park's death. Dyer drove direct to Dean, who got in, saying, “Frank, we may've just stumbled onto the identity and location of the Scalpers—at least one of them."

Peggy was now within earshot. Overhearing, she said, “I want a piece of this."

"Peggy,” Dean said, “this could be—"

"No more dangerous than trying to sleep at night. I'm in, Dyer, you've got to let me in."

Dyer said, “She's proved herself to me."

"We don't really have time to argue the point,” replied Dean. “All right."

"My partner, too. We'll back you up. Where's the location?"

"At 611 Church, apartment 3C, Dr. Hamel's place."

Dyer's mouth dropped. “Are you sure?” he asked.

"The bastard,” said Peggy. “We're right behind you."

"No sirens, Peggy. We don't as yet have a warrant."

"Gotcha."

The two squad cars, one unmarked, made their way to Hamel's apartment complex. Dean wondered what they might find.

Dean explained to Dyer about the rural box number. Dyer knew the Wekiva area and said he liked to hunt at the reserve there. When they got to Hamel's apartment, no one answered their knock. Reaching into his breast pocket, Dyer pulled forth a set of tools, indicating to Dean that if he was willing, Dyer could get him inside. Dean mulled it over. With no sign of Sid, and with the growing conviction that the apartment was kept for appearance sake only, he gave Dyer the go-ahead.

Peggy and her partner waited back. Dean and Dyer returned to them shaking their heads. “Nothing,” said Dyer.

"Place doesn't even look as if it's been lived in,” added Dean.

"A front, maybe,” suggested Peggy.

Dyer nodded. “If Hamel's what you say he is, that might fit. Let's get out to Wekiva and locate the second house, if there is a house attached to this box number of yours."

They started out. There was still no sign of Sid, no word, and it was nearing 6 P.M. On the way to Wekiva, Dyer asked to be patched through to authorities there, and he got a Sgt. Joseph Staubb, who was excited at the prospect of helping Orlando with such a big case. “Anything, anything we can do—''

Dyer read the box number to him. “Can you shake loose your postmaster? Get some kind of street number to go with this? It could be vital"

"No problem. Don't worry!"

"We need the info immediately—we're on our way to your office."

"Don't worry—we'll get a fix on the location to that box."

"Thanks, Staubb. Over."

"Just hope it's not a postal box,” said Dyer.

Dean didn't want to consider the possibility of yet another dead end. As if the thought were a gremlin come to haunt him, the radio crackled anew and it was Staubb already.

"One question for you all, Lt. Dyer."

"Yeah, shoot"

"You do have a warrant, sir?"

"It will be forthcoming."

"Sticky about warrants over this way since the Pattison thing,” he said blankly. “Best have it before—"

"We'll have it.” Dean wished he could be sure of it.

Sid Corman couldn't find her honor, Judge Karen Markham. He went to her courtroom but it was empty, a single bailiff picking up the day's notes, books, and paraphernalia. He sought her in her chambers, but again had no Luck. Finally, he asked the bailiff.

"She's gone to her dentist."

"It's important I see her, urgent, a matter of—"

"I know, life and death.” The bailiff was dry and calm, a thick-set man with large eyes, a depressed chin, and heavy bags under his eyes.

"I'm the coroner, Dr. Corman, and I need a search warrant to stop a pair of mass murderers. Now do you think you could get her on the phone and back here?"

"For that?"

"Yes, damn you!"

"Oh, all right. But she's not going to like it."

"Tell her I twisted your arm!"

Sid thought about his reputation and his standing. It had fallen off considerably, and how much one might attribute to the careful work of Dr. Benjamin I. Hamel, one might only guess. Dean had likely uncovered only the tip of the iceberg. Sid thought about his grueling job. The pressure, especially at times like this, could be devastating to one's peace of mind.

Sid knew that his job was on the line. With a search warrant, he was sure he'd be vindicated. Without it, he would continue steadily downhill. Sid recalled what had initially gotten Dean thinking that Park was the killer—the connection to Vietnam. Now he recalled with a chill that Hamel had once told him that he'd been in Vietnam. Why that fact had escaped notice before, Sid didn't know.

The rash of killings in the Michigan north woods between 1979 and 1983 could have been the work of Hamel and his strange partner. Hamel had come on in the department here in 1986.

A routine call to Hamel's office had told Sid that the good doctor was out. He was out a lot, Sid thought now, recalling times in the past when he'd tried to get the man.

The bailiff returned with a dour expression. “Sorry, Dr. Corman. She's under the drill."

"Damn! People are waiting."

"Sorry."

Sid started out, but the bailiff stopped him. “Judge O'Dell's in his chambers, I think."

"O'Dell...” Sid knew he'd be impossible, but he had to try. “O'Dell—thanks.” O'Dell was a hippie in the sixties and he didn't believe in busting into anyone's home at any time for any reason. For Sid to convince him, he'd have to be at his most persuasive, and he'd have to bring evidence—lots of evidence. He returned to the lab for an arsenal of papers and tests, and he was prepared to lie to Judge O'Dell that one of the strands of hair they'd used had been taken from a brush used by Ben Hamel. That ought to get the judge's attention.

"G'luck, doctor,” the pudgy bailiff had wished him when he'd left the courtroom, but Sid knew he needed more than luck.

All this time Hamel had gone on and on about a weak person being led by the nose by a stronger personality, and all along it had been Hamel leading this poor, misbegotten dwarf into murder, multiple murder and the destruction of an unborn child. Sid wondered how many times this sick duo had played over the helpless victims of their combined madness.

He knew he must not let Dean down. He knew he must play his part in bringing an end to Hamel's multiple murders, murders committed since ... since the death of his own parents by scalping ... since his first double murder back in Montana. Dean, too, must by now have come to the same startling conclusion.

It was near dark again, the time when Van grew in strength and power over all things, including Ian. No matter that Ian did so much work, no matter that it was Ian who located the women and set up the victims. It was Van who had brought up the demonic powers that now engulfed their souls and protected them from all harm, both past and present, and surely in the future. It was his gifts, his knowledge, his liason with the dark beings that kept Ian from remembering Montana, or recalling having taken the hatchet to his unsuspecting father first, his sleeping mother second. It was Van who had instructed him and guided his hand. Ian had let Van escape and helped him to the top, expecting his brother to do as he said, scamper to the woods to live freely like the animals in the books Ian had stolen and given to Van in his cellar prison.

But Van had a hypnotic eye that set Ian in motion, guiding him to do what he did to his mother and father. He was filled with a venomous hatred for them both, and given what they'd done to him, Ian, even at a young age, felt he must devote himself to Van or face a similar fate to that of his parents.

People came to see their parents, and they took Ian away while Van hid in the deep woods and foothills. But Ian, the authorities believing him in a state of traumatic shock, never forgot that his brother was still alive and waiting for his return. And return he did, many years later, with a large bag of scalps, just as Van had foretold. Then as now, Ian knew how and where to procure the scalps Van insisted on having.

He was supposed to die in the cellar.

Ian's parents tried to kill him there.

They withheld food for days, weeks. He learned from the powers in the dark to feed himself. He survived.

They injected him with something that was supposed to end his life, but he somehow miraculously survived.

Ian slipped down to him, unafraid, pitying Van, who was without a name, without a bed, without light, locked away and chained to a wall, given a cat bed to sleep in. To remain alive, he ate his own dung, and talked of a special day, a day when all would come right.

When he began growing the hair—uncontrollably, Ian had thought—he explained that beneath them, there in the cellar, lurked creatures that came up through the cracks and grew within him after he ingested them, and these now emerged as hairs on his body. He predicted that once his entire body was covered in hair, each hair would leap from its base and become a full-blown demonic force to wreak havoc on all that shunned Van.

The first evidence of the truth of this dark prophecy came to Ian one night in his night-blackened room, the demon telling him to ready the ax, to take it to the cellar and release Van.

That had been many years ago, and yet it seemed only yesterday.

Wise demonic voices say only fools rush in, and so Hamel waited outside, like a puppy dog, like a trained seal ... waited long and hard and patiently until it had become absurd, wondering how much longer, until longer had stretched into night, hours of night. Several times he stormed into the back bedroom and parted the clothes in the closet and almost, almost pounded open the hidden door, but something stopped him ... Respect. Respect and fear.

Tonight, his head aching, every muscle strained to the limit, Dr. Benjamin Ian Hamel raised his cognac glass to his lips and sipped. In the sparsely furnished old house, he'd rented for several years now, the cognac was one of the few pleasantries he indulged in, save that which he lived for, his little brother and those powerful forces guiding him, those that had brought Van back to life and given him, along with his hair-covered body, incredible strength and sense of purpose ... all the things lacking in Ian himself.

"Dr. Benjamin Ian Hamel,” he said to his dusky reflection in a mirror in the dimly lit room where he paced. “Not a killer, really, not in the usual sense of the word,” he told himself. It was for a higher purpose, his purpose ... for the hand that guided him, there in the dark before his fire, in the secret room.

But the doctor was getting impatient. He wanted to pick up something and throw it through a window. Van was an ungrateful little bastard, after all. All this time alone in there, with the results of their work, him talking with the master, him getting all the credit, while Ian waited outside like some attendant. All this time ... since they'd taken the scalp and other parts from Mrs. Jimenez's lifeless body, Van, alone, had been in there with it, not allowing Ian entry.

Each time Ian had so much as nudged the door silently open to have a peek, Van gave out with a banshee howl, that wretched, horrendous sizzle following it, like an enormous viper were circling about the dark room.

But the time Van was taking wasn't good. It didn't bode well. It had never taken this much time before ... never. Of course, he was giddy at having the long-trailing scalp, caressing it, coddling it to his hairy self, and they had never tried this sort of magic before. It was a hunt of a new and different kind, and it made Ian wonder if early men, like bears, did not, on occasion, eat their young.

Ian had begun to think Van's new broth just another failure, which meant Ian must procure yet another scalping victim, unless the dark beings could think of some more atrocious sacrifice they must make to become worthy subjects. Ian still believed an innocent child's scalp a good idea.

Ian went to the panel at the back wall of the closet and gave a tentative push that caused a squealing creak. He wanted just to peek inside, but this was impossible without giving himself away to Van. But this time there was no angry squeal or growl of disgust, only a soft, melodic voice saving, “Brother, enter ... enter...."

He sounded and looked exhausted, sweat glistening on his few bare patches, including his scalp. Beside him on the floor was a lump of fetal flesh cut from the dead woman. He had a large, bubbling pot over the fire and an empty bowl on his small table, but Ian could see that mostly he had just lain with it, covering his rotund bald spot, blubbering, begging the process to work, both of them feeling it might be their last chance.

"Have you eaten enough?” Ian asked.

"Four bowls full should be enough!"

"More, then!"

"No, it's no longer fresh ... the hair's power has left it. It's like someone somewhere has put a counter-spell on it, Ian.” The dwarf was crying. “Ian, Ian?"

"Yes?” Ian's heart bled for the little man.

"I ... help me ... help find another."

"We will ... we will.” Ian could not, dared not say no. What might happen if it came to that? Would Van destroy Ian, stew up his flesh and hair for mustard plasters to lay across his cranium?

"Take me to the place where babies are ... I want another baby ... a live one this time."

Ian recalled the same plea made a hundred times over, except now the watchword was “baby.” “All right ... all right."

Van dressed in his cloak and sandals, going through the secret closet door that effectively hid his small and comforting little room from the rest of the house and the world. They passed into the kitchen. He found a stool and opened a cabinet where some seven knives hung on hooks. He spent awhile selecting just the right one for this night's work, then he took some time to decide on a second dagger, an ancient scimitar, this one ... very special, as it belonged in his father's collection in Montana.

"What's taking so long in here?” asked Ian, coming back into the kitchen, dressed in his clean knit shirt and sweater and fine, plaid dress slacks, ready to make the trip to Mercy Hospital for another go-round.

Van was ever so eager for it all.

FOURTEEN

Outside Hamel's house, in the dark, pulled off the road, Dean, Dyer, Peggy, and her partner sat in waiting along with Sgt. Staubb. They still had no warrant, and seeing the lights and movement about the house, they stayed well back. Locating the place was no easy task. Staubb had had to find an old mail-delivery man who knew of the cabin at the end of this dirt road to which even the U.S. Mail did not go, since it was too far off the beaten path. This was the house that belonged to the box number at the post office where Hamel picked up what little mail he got. According to the single postal employee at the country post office, there was very little mail, in any case.

Hamel's house was surrounded by forest, and it backed against the publicly held Wekiva preserve, which had, at least as far as Dean could tell, been left to return to its natural state. Palmetto bush lined every exit, and moss-covered trees created a canopy over the back road.

"Are we just going to sit here?” It was Peggy's voice coming over the radio to Dyer and Dean. “I say we get in close, and see what we're looking at."

Staubb came on over his box, clearly in charge here. It was his area, his play. “We might get our units out of sight,” he suggested. “I mean, if we're spotted too soon, before that warrant gets here ... evidence you're seeking could be destroyed in the meantime."

"What do you suggest?” asked Dean, sending his own message.

"There was a little section six or ten yards behind us where I think the units ought to back off the road."

"He's right, Dr. Grant,” said Dyer. “If Hamel decides suddenly to come out, and if he spots us..."

"Let's do it."

"Where's Sid Corman?” asked Peggy in exasperation.

Dean was wondering the same thing. Quietly, the motors kept to a mild hum, the headlights out, all three units backed toward the space off the dirt road Staubb led them to. Waiting while the killers were within their grasp was like restraining the vengeance of God, Dean thought, so hard for mortals like him and Dyer and Peggy, in particular.

In place now, they sat in the dark, listening to crickets and cidadas and for the sound of an approaching vehicle that might be Sid.

"Heads up! Something happening at the house!” said Peggy's young partner, Mark Williams.

Dyer snatched a pair of binoculars. Squinting, he tried desperately to see what was going on. “See anything?” asked Dean. Lights had gone out at the house.

"No dwarfs, if that's what you mean ... but that's Hamel, and he's going to the garage."

The garage was a shack, and now Dean heard the doors being opened. “Can I have a look?"

Dean peered through the binoculars through the pane in front of him, finding it difficult to focus, but once he did, he saw that Hamel had pulled the doors wide to reveal a Mercedes behind them. He read off the first three numbers on the plates before it backed from his view and tore out of the yard and straight down the road toward them. Dean imagined Hamel could see them all as they stared at him from their poor hiding place; but no, he sped by, giving them no notice whatever. Dean saw no sign of a dwarf on the seat beside Hamel. It was too damned dark.

"God, they're going after another victim,” said Dean.

Dyer got on the horn and put out a a coded APB on the car, giving the first three numbers of the plates. It would be picked up and shadowed at the very least, he assured Dean.

"What do we do?” asked Peggy over the radio, “Just let him go?"

"I'll put a man on him,” said Staubb. “He won't get lost."

"Where the hell's Sid with that warrant?” Dean wondered aloud.

"On his way. Why don't we just go ahead?"

"Not without the paperwork,” complained Staubb. “I can't let you do that."

"Suppose this guy's out for more blood, another child yet to be born tonight, Staubb?” argued Dyer.

Staubb looked into Dean's eyes. “You think that's a possibility, Dr. Grant?"

"A very real one, yes."

"You sure your man's on the way with a signed and sealed search warrant, you sure?"

"Yes,” said Dyer.

"We're certain of it."

Staubb considered his situation and his options a good deal longer before giving the word, but finally he gave in. “Do her."

The cars moved in, the headlights turning the old place into an eerie, haunted house. It was built low to the ground, but up on cinder blocks, and Dyer spoke of growing up in a house a lot like it, spoke of playing as a child beneath it. This made Dean think of the dwarf and wonder if he ever “played” here. There was a large, squeaking, wraparound porch in need of repair. Part of it was screened in against insects. A peeling green paint outlined every window and doorway, contrasting with a long-ago faded white which had become gray. Overhead, as Staubb had indicated earlier, a chimney fire sent up spirals of the strangest smelling smoke.

"What the hell is that smell?” Staubb asked several times.

The house was rambling. This they could see from the outside. Staubb, a meticulous and careful lawman, had gotten a set of keys to the house from the local Century 21 office, where he had learned the house was leased to Dr. Hamel. They had no trouble with the locks, and this surprised Dyer and Dean.

Entering, they found a light switch, but the lamp that went on barely lit the room, sending deep and scurrying shadows in all directions. There was a brown wash to the entire interior. It was fairly clean for a man living alone. The floors were clear of dust, clothing, and tossed newspapers, and tabletops were equally clean. If they hadn't seen Hamel leave in his Mercedes, they would not have known he was using the place.

Peggy grabbed ahold of Dean's hand. “There's something eerie about this place. Feel it?"

Dean felt something, but he wasn't sure what—not just yet, anyway.

They had to proceed single-file down a hall off which stood several equally unused bedrooms. The kitchen at the very end had a door going to the empty, silent back yard. Except for a few crumbs and palmetto bugs rolling, the kitchen, too, was clean and in order—no dust, but looking as if it were never used. Nothing was out of its place save for a step stool.

"Something's strange,” said Dyer.

"What's that?” asked Staubb.

"Where's that smoke coming from, outside?"

"Don't see it coming from in here,” said Dean.

"There was a fireplace in the kitchen and in one of the bedrooms,” said Staubb.

"But no fire in either one,” said Peggy.

"Hell, it's got to be here somewhere,” said Staubb.

"Start looking for a false wall, gentlemen,” instructed Dean. Peggy joined in the search, snatching a flashlight from her belt. The silence that descended on the house as they shuffled about was complete and utterly disquieting to the soul. Dean felt entombed, as if they were on the brink of some discovery he'd rather not find. But he was so certain that Hamel was their man, and seeing him pull off in a Mercedes only added to that belief. He couldn't believe he'd been so blind to the truth for so long.

Peggy had wandered off in another direction, and Dean, determining that he'd entered the wrong room, turned to see her standing in the doorway, shaking.

"Someone's ... something outside, Dean,” she whispered. “I heard a noise. I think he's come back."

Dean went toward the front with her, his flashlight off. In the dark, with the others searching the house, Peggy might've imagined the noise, but there was no sense taking any chances. Dean slipped quietly past her and went toward the doorway. Then he heard it, the footsteps of someone on the creaky old porch.

Dean whipped out the .38 he didn't like to carry and preferred never to use, indicating to Peggy that she was to remain silent and to warn the others. She tiptoed toward the back of the house to do so when suddenly the front door creaked open.

Dean leveled his gun at the man's head and cocked it, freezing the figure in the dark before it said, “Jesus, Dean, is that you?"

"Shit, Sid, why're you lurking around?"

"I saw the cars outside, but it was so quiet in here, I thought he'd gotten you all."

"Do you have the warrant?"

"Yes, right here."

"Great."

"Doesn't look like much here anyway."

"Back here!” shouted Dyer, apparently before Peggy could warn him of the supposed intruder.

Dean and Sid rushed to join the others. In the larger bedroom, along a wall where a chimney stood, Dyer had touched the chimney to find the stones warm. “There's two sides to this chimney. We've got to go through the wall here."

"Where's Staubb, where's Staubb?” asked Dean, looking around in the dark, not seeing him.

Staubb half-stumbled into the room. “I ... I found it ... God, think I'm going to be sick."

Staubb rushed for the rear of the house and emptied his stomach, retching several times before he could straighten up and return. Peggy guided the others to where she had seen Staubb earlier, and they found the open closet door and the false wall. It opened inward on a dingy little room that looked like a cave. Peggy's flash went ahead of them, and in its glow Dean caught snatches of what it was that made the big sergeant gag. The walls were lined with hair patches and scalps, some strung together. A dwarfed set of furniture gave the room an unreal appearance, and over the embers of the fire, in a large black kettle, something smouldered and lightly bubbled. Dean somehow knew that Staubb, his flashlight in hand, had entered and looked too closely at what was circling about that kettle. It made Dean's stomach churn, made his mind race back to a whirlpool in Chicago where an old woman and an old man had been drowned for the sake of a pervert's idea of glory. It didn't take Dean's imagination to know what was in the bubbling water. He held Peggy back from the room, telling her to remain outside.

"Dyer and I'll take it from here. Sid, I left my valise outside on the porch ... will you, please...?"

Sid, shaken, staring into the bowels of the lair, didn't readily answer. Instead, he repeatedly said, “We were right about Hamel, Dean ... right ... right."

Staubb heard the request for the bag and went for it.

"Jesus,” said Dyer, “we got enough here to hang Hamel ten times over."

"But he won't hang,” said Peggy.

Dyer and Dean looked at her.

"She's right,” said Sid.

"He'll be declared mentally incompetent. He'll be put in a mental hospital for the criminally insane."

"He is insane,” said Dean firmly. “Our job is to prove him guilty, and get him off the streets, put him and—"

"Look at this, Dean,” said Dyer, who had begun to dig around in the little room and light candles that sat about the tables. Dean stared at a baggy but tiny set of clothes hanging from a hanger. “The dwarf,” Dyer said.

"Looks like a little kid's clothes."

"Then there really are two of them,” said Dyer.

"I told you it was a dwarf,” said Peggy.

"The brother,” said Dean suddenly, a flash of insight hitting him.

"The what?” asked Dyer.

"Hamel's brother?” asked Sid.

"Bennimin had a twin brother, Sid."

"Yes, but he died at birth, remember?"

"One thing you can't count on, Sid, is old medical records made out in little hamlets. Suppose the dwarf is the brother that was supposed to have died?"

"But they were twins."

"All the more reason for this warped and perverted idea they have, and how they work so much ... in concert."

"But twins?"

"Yes. One was deformed at birth, his growth stunted, his existence kept a secret from the world at large, apparently, since the authorities, after the death of the parents took only one boy into custody."

"Sounds crazy..."

"Yeah, just crazy enough to be true,” said Dean, still mulling over the possibilities.

"Where the hell's the dwarf now?"

"With his brother, and if they're together, they're on a hunt. We've got to find and stop them!"

"I'm gonna call in some more units down here,” said Staubb, “in case he decides to come back."

"Do that, and Sid,” said Dean, “pack all this evidence up neat and proper."

"Whoa, where are you going, Dean?"

"Dyer and me are going to Mercy Hospital. Dyer told me that Dr. Hamel's been on call at the hospital for several years. He may be on his way back there to lure another woman into that alley for his brother."

"For his brother? Dean, Hamel's the killer here, Hamel."

"Look at this place, Sid,” said Dean, pointing to the dwarf's quarters. “Everything about this house tells us one thing—the bloody dwarf's in charge here, not the brother. The dwarf is the strong personality, and Hamel, or Bennimin, is the weaker personality, led to his actions by this—this.” Again Dean opened his palm to the stench-filled room.

Peggy Carson stopped Dean and Dyer at the door. “I want in on this, to see it through."

"To kill Hamel, that's what you want, Peggy,” said Dean.

"Is that so awful?"

"He's a sick man, Peggy."

"He should be put out of his misery, then."

"Along with this dwarf-brother,” agreed Dyer.

Dean stared at the two cops, seeing they were determined. “We've got to do this by the book, if we possibly can. You see that, don't you."

"All right,” said Peggy, “if we possibly can."

FIFTEEN

The squad car carrying Dean, Dyer, and Peggy Carson raced from Hamel's wooded lot for the highway, sending up a dust cloud behind them. Dyer, once on the pavement, flicked on the siren. The car careened onto a second street, wound to another, and was suddenly on the interstate for the quickest route back to the city. In the distance, Dean thought he saw the shimmering windows of a new downtown building, but on nearing this, it turned out to be another large hotel on the strip just outside Disney World. Downtown buildings were so low to the ground, it was hard to tell precisely how far away they might be. All Dean knew was that there simply was no skyline, as in Chicago.

The drive back was like a scene from a western, Dean thought, seeing Peggy check each of her weapons and then the shotgun braced beneath the dash. Dean had taken a back seat, knowing it was time he stepped back to allow the police the next move. Dyer, too, checked his .38 with his free hand. The clip flipped onto his lap. Peggy took it from him and closed the clip, returning the weapon to him. Maybe they were right, a quick and efficient end to a madman might very well be preferred by everyone—not least of all, the survivors of the crimes. Dean recalled how he'd felt on seeing the first scalping victim, and believing he'd seen the worst, on then being treated to the horror of the pregnant woman robbed of her unborn child, and finally what lay atop the bubbling water in the dwarf's room.

"I want that fucking dwarf,” said Peggy.

"I want Hamel,” replied Dyer.

"Remember, these are sick men,” said Dean uselessly. In fact, his saying so probably told the cops that if the killers were taken alive, they'd likely be imprisoned in a mental facility, and to a cop's way of thinking, that was no justice at all.

"Just stay clear when the shooting starts, Dean,” Peggy told him.

Dean felt his own .38 at his breast, but said nothing.

The city lights came into view, and soon they were exiting the interstate for a road lined with fast-food joints and car dealerships, the siren blaring, the lights flashing, people staring after them.

In five minutes they were within sight of Mercy, and Dyer cut the lights and siren, slowing and cruising. Another unit passed them. An APB had been put out on Hamel and his car. Dyer waved down another unit and rolled down his window to ask if anything was known. The lights at Mercy showed the hospital sign in disrepair, some people lighting up cigarettes beneath. Peggy stared down an alleyway on their left, trying to part the sea of darkness with her stare. Dean saw only the dimly lit face of the officer in the unit as its window came down slowly in response to Dyer's waving hand. Then Dean saw the hat brim of the other officer and the lapel of a neat sport coat and half-wondered about it when suddenly an explosion in front of his eyes made them close and his mind reel as parts of Dyer's skull showered him where he sat. All in an instant the horn was blowing, the car heading for a flight of stone steps, Peggy screaming and fighting with both the wheel and Dyer's bloody form. Dean saw the other squad car racing off at top speed.

The car jolted to a stop that sent Dean forward into the seat bloodied by Dyer's blown-away face. Peggy screamed again, crying, an angry edge to her tears as she shouted, “Bastard! The bastard."

It had been a miracle Peggy hadn't been killed along with Dyer. Dean reached way over the body and snatched open the car door, allowing Dyer's body to spill out. Peggy had managed to slip the gearshift into Park, but the horn blared on, stuck.

It had all happened so fast. “I thought it all a mistake that,” said Peggy, making no sense. “Knew it ... felt it..."

"Easy, Peggy,” Dean called over to her from where he was, on his knees over Dyer, whose heart was still pumping.

"Dyer's dead now,” said Peggy. “Damn ... damn!"

Another squad car rushed in, the siren whirling down, and it made both Dean and Peggy jump, thinking it was Hamel returned to finish what he'd started. But Peggy recognized the two men who dropped to their knees behind the doors and shouted, “Drop it! Carson? That you?"

Dean and Peggy breathed in relief, Dean shouting, “We need to get this man to emergency! It's Frank Dyer!"

"Jesus!” moaned one of the other officers, seeing what little remained of the side of Dyer's face.

"Too late,” said Dean quietly.

"What? What?” asked Peggy coming around.

"Frank's ... he's dead, Peggy."

She buckled, caught at the last moment by one of the other policemen.

"What the hell happened? What happened?” shouted the other cop hysterically.

"Police, we thought it was,” said Dean, “he's somehow gotten hold of a squad car."

"You get the number?"

"No ... it happened so fast."

"Let's get Carson over to the hospital. She's got a nasty gash over her eye."

Dean realized for the first time how badly hurt Peggy was. She must have slammed into the dash when he hit the seat ahead of him.

Dean's mind raced ahead of Hamel. Where would he go now? Dean tried desperately to think like him, to second-guess him, but in doing so, he must more likely second-guess Hamel's deformed brother, the twin that had supposedly died so many years ago.

"You're bleeding, too, Dr. Grant,” said one of the policemen. A crowd had gathered round to watch now, some pointing at Dyer.

"Cover him up, will you?” said Dean, taking off his coat for the purpose. “Dean lifted Dyer's .38, got to his feet in a daze, and put the gun into his belt. He then put out his hands for Peggy. “I'll take her across to the hospital."

But medical personnel from the E.R. had rushed to them now, and they took charge, forcing Dean, too, onto a stretcher.

"I'm all right, damn it,” complained Dean, knowing his heart was racing, knowing he could black out any moment, trying to remember something vital, something he must pass along to ... to whom? Dean felt the welcome of a shutdown of all his senses come over him and it was too inviting to say no to. He was faint one minute, and then everything went black.

Dr. Benjamin Ian Hamel and his brother moved steadily down Interstate 4, Van wanting to go home, saying it was necessary, that there were important momentos they must pack if they must leave as Ian said they must.

"Damn it, there'll be more cops there!"

"How? How did they know, Ian?"

"It's that bastard Grant. He put it together somehow.'

"I thought all was safe after Park was killed. You said—"

"I know what I said, damn it, but ... but Grant just wouldn't let it go."

"He'll follow us ... like Park before him."

"Maybe..."

"He will,” said Ian emphatically. “He will ... unless we can stop him somehow, tonight."

The police band was running and the chatter became of interest to Ian, who shushed Van. "Listen."

"Repeating, officer down, location Mercy Hospital, another officer hurt."

"Grant was in the back seat of that car,” said Ian.

"Are you sure?"

"I saw him."

"Then he's back there at the hospital. We could sneak back, and if we could get—"

"No, no, they're all looking for me. I'd be spotted in a moment, arrested ... and then..."

"What then?"

"We go home, like you said. If Grant's at Mercy, I've got a fair idea where Sid Corman is, and if we have Corman, Grant is sure to follow."

"Ian, what about the baby, the new baby?"

"It will have to wait! The whole city's looking for us."

"I hate this Grant ... I hate him."

"You'll get your chance at him."

"Goody."

"We've got to take his friend alive, Van."

"Why alive?"

"So Grant will do exactly as we say."

Van looked across at Ian, the determination on his brother's features reassuring him. All these years Ian had taken care of him, helped him, made amends for eleven years of torture that he alone endured physically while Ian, upstairs in a comfortable bed, sleeping with the lights on, endured the mental anguish of Van's plight, since they were connected.

In fact, they were so connected that Ian felt the creature's anguish and pain. Ian, even as an infant, knew—had always known—that he had a secret other self locked away, mistreated and detested by his mother and father. He saw images vague but real of his other self there in the dark basement. He knew that Van—as his parents spoke of the other in hushed tones—was denied even the barest of animal needs. He was Ian, and Ian was he, but they could not understand this. They set about a course of torture and abuse bent on allowing Ian's second self to die once they were told, and it was then that Van's consuming hatred of their parents consumed Ian as well until together they exploded in a killing rage.

Now a man named Grant was trying to hurt Van, and Ian wouldn't allow it, not ever.

Sid Corman knew why he was left with the results of the Scalpers’ work here in the den of perversion, surrounded by wall hangings of human hair, furniture covered in human skin, bedding stuffed with scalps. He knew now why Dean had to leave the cleanup to him. This was far worse than any floater case, far worse than anything in Sid's experience. The sour odors he could manage, and the sight of the walls and furniture he could stomach. Sid had never in all his entire professional life as a coroner felt so sickened as he did now. Never in all his time as a medic in Korea had he been made ill by the sight of a corpse with missing head, limbs, gaping holes. Nor had there ever been a diseased corpse that he could not deal with professionally, coolly, objectively. Not even a floater could cause Sid's strings to come apart. But this ... this diced-up floater was wholly different from anything he'd ever witnessed. This carnage and boiling of portions of Mrs. Jimenez and her fetus to feed the perversions of two distorted minds, this was more than any man should have to bear.

After some time in the hidden room, taking photos, collecting the necessary evidence, putting off the inevitable, Sid scooped out the remains still intact. He tried not to allow it, but jarring the mush got to him, and he threw up repeatedly on the hearth below the black cauldron, which remained scaldingly hot, the steam rising with the smoke of embers still red.

"You okay, Dr. Corman?” asked Mark Williams, Peggy Carson's partner, who along with Staubb had remained behind. The kid had rushed to the kitchen, found a cup, and brought Sid some water.

"Thanks, Williams."

Staubb was outside, preferring it that way. With a few other officers he'd called in, he was beating about the bushes, just in case the murderous little dwarf was out there somewhere watching the proceedings. Staubb, Sid had decided, had become spooked considerably, but Sid could understand why. Williams, normally a happy-go-lucky, bright-eyed kid, was currently somber, his face green, his eyes forlorn.

"I'm fine now ... I'll be okay,” replied Sid.

"Ain't nothing to be ashamed of."

"I'm not ashamed,” said Sid, taking a syringe and sucking up the residue left in a deep brown soup bowl on the little table. He then took forceps and lifted the bowl itself into a plastic bag.

"Why ... don't you take these bags carefully out to your squad car and ... put ‘em in the trunk,” said Sid, handing Williams some of the items he'd chosen to take downtown. Both men knew Sid was fighting down bile.

"Sure, sure ... no problem.” Williams rushed to it, knowing Sid wanted to be alone with his stomach. Williams plowed through the wooden-floored house noisily.

Sid controlled it, got hold of it, fought it back just long enough to allow Williams to return as he lost it again at the hearth, where now he was on his knees and bent over, pushing the vomit into the embers with a fireplace shovel.

Williams continued to make Sid uneasy. “Enough here to drive any man to his knees, turn you to religion,” muttered Williams. “My mother always says you got to have religion in your life to ... to fend off the bad times, she says, the real bad times ... calamities, but I don't reckon she meant anything like this, but she does worry ‘bout me all the time, being a cop.” The kid was going on out of nervous hysteria, Sid realized. He'd seen it before.

"Why don't you go on outside with Staubb, huh?"

"Sir?"

"Staubb may need your help outside."

"Yes sir, I'll check on that."

Williams was only too glad to return to the outdoors. Fifteen minutes later Staubb turned up, informing Sid that the woods around the house had been secured, and that nothing was found. He had his units returning to their normal duties.

Sid said a thank-you, but kept working.

"Me and the kid will be just outside. Give a holler if there's anything you need."

Sid got ahold of himself now and returned to the necessary work. He wanted to nail Benjamin I. Hamel to a cross, really crucify the bastard with every nail of evidence he could compile now, nail both him and his sick little accomplice.

Sid allowed his anger and hatred for what they had done to flood his mind. He would work better, faster, and more efficiently if he could hold that thought over those that made his stomach turn. “Going to nail the scum,” he repeated to himself in a kind of mantra as he completed his part in this nightmare.

Sgt. Joe Staubb, and Peggy's partner, Mark Williams, were having a smoke, even though Williams didn't smoke. Each man, the one in his second year and the other an old veteran of policing, had a case of shot nerves from what they'd seen deep inside the house. It dredged up in Staubb an old, forgotten line out of a poem or something he'd read somewhere, something to do with how when a man stared into the unknown, he could count on it staring back. Yeah, that was it, and he shared the thought with Williams, but Williams hadn't seen as much as Staubb—he'd remained away from that cauldron. All he'd seen was what was half-hidden by Sid Corman's broad shoulders. All the kid knew was that the coroner himself was losing it inside, and that told him to keep a safe distance if he wanted to “maintain."

Staubb, trying desperately to find something to laugh about, pointed to the brown-and-gold sign out front of the house and lightly chuckled, saying, “This place puts a whole new meaning to those real estate ads, don't it, Williams?"

Williams chewed on the inside of his mouth, tossed down the cigarette only half-burned, crushed it out, and said, “Over two million sold..."

Staubb smiled and added, “We're the neighborhood professionals."

Williams laughed, and Staubb, caught up in the macabre humor, now laughed with him, giving him a whack on the back.

Williams and Staubb felt a surge of manliness return to them, Staubb feeling it to his core, when each heard one of the radio units crackling to life out in the dark ahead of them.

"Yours or mine?” asked Williams.

"Yours."

"Be right back."

"Right"

Staubb knew from the little time he'd spent with young Williams that the kid would make a better-than-good cop if he stuck with it long enough. Most cops got out of it long before they gave themselves a real chance to gain a true understanding of police work. That it was, after all, public service work, seldom as glamorous as Hollywood portrayed it, or as gory and horrifying as tonight.

Staubb saw the lights in Williams’ unit come on as the kid settled in behind the wheel and snatched up the radio. Something seemed to agitate the kid, his relaxed posture going stiff, his free hand going to his face, rubbing it all about, as if concerned he'd forgotten to shave.

"Something up?” Staubb called to him as he neared the unit.

Williams stuck his head out through the open door. “Code 10 at Mercy Hospital ... just caught the tail end of it ... some kind of shootout."

Code 10 was the area call for “officer down.” Staubb's normally blustery face showed his concern. “You think it's a coincidence?"

"I don't know."

"Could be Dyer. See if you can get more info out of Dispatch, kid."

"Yes, sir."

But getting through was impossible. It was as if all hell had broken loose. The squawk box was filled with chatter of Chief Hodges having called an all-units in sector six—the Mercy Hospital area—to converge on the scene. A suspect in a double cop-killing had taken a unit numbered 11, shot and killed Frank Dyer, and was presumeably making an escape.

Airport, train, and bus terminals were being covered; highways leading in and out of the area were sealed off. But there was no information on Peggy or Dr. Grant.

Williams got out of the unit and walked back to the porch with Staubb, asking him what they ought to do now.

"Right now we wait for Dr. Corman to finish up his work inside. He's taking photos now, and then you're out of here. I'll call a couple of my men back here to housesit for the night."

"But maybe—"

"They wouldn't be stupid enough to come back here, not now,” said Staubb. “And if they do"—he patted his .38 Smith and Wesson—"we'll get ‘em. You'd like that, wouldn't you, Williams? Blow their heads off? Give you some satisfaction after all this shit. Now keep trying to get more information. I'll let Corman know what's up. Williams watched Staubb go back inside the house and he turned to the dark, facing the unit where he'd left the front door ajar. It was the only light for miles.

Williams felt a sensation akin to fear, a feeling of foreboding, a sincere and sickly notion that he was never going to see any other light in his life again, that this night was never going to end, that he and Staubb and all the others were somehow stopped in time—out of time—trapped in a ghoulish zone where cops and killers cohabited, feeding off one another for a thrill and a kick....

Silly, you're just being silly, he told himself. He returned to the unit, pleased to stand in the glow of the light in the cab. The surrounding darkness was like a wall creeping in at him. He shuddered involuntarily, and this made him clench his teeth in anger. He was angry at the men who could put such fear into him, angry at himself for allowing it. Staubb was right, it'd be so gratifying to put a bullet through the sons of bitches....

But for now, he'd better get back on the horn, find out what was going on; for now he needed to sit down under the light and feel safe again for a moment, gather up his nerve again, steady himself.

Get on inside, he said with a final look into the dark all around, thinking he'd heard some movement in the palmetto leaves on the other side of the unit. Wind ... rabbit ... armadillo, maybe, the woods in Florida were full of the things. Get into the unit and onto the box, he told himself again.

Williams did so, slipping into his front seat, leaving the door ajar, the light on in the cab. He picked up the receiver and was about to speak into it when suddenly he was grabbed around the neck and he felt something cold and whiplike slide easily across his neck, followed by a sudden, wet and warm rush over his Adam's apple. Suddenly he realized his throat had been cut.

His eyes saw something dark and hairy on his shoulders, humped over the seat, with enormous eyes and a slavering grin beneath an apelike jaw. Feeling fainter by the second, Williams ripped at his holstered gun only to find this idea hopelessly beyond him. He was unable to unlatch the snap, and even if he could, the weakness pouring into his limbs told him he'd be unable to lift the heavy pistol even if he could work his fingers round it. With his eyes now trained straight ahead on the unsuspecting Staubb, whose eyes were on the house, Williams tried desperately to put his weight against the horn, to warn Staubb, and that was his final thought, the world going completely dark as his eyes rolled back in their sockets.

Williams’ body flinched and fell forward, hit the horn and made it blare, making Staubb jump and wheel, his gun in his hand. He called out to Williams again and again, seeing him under the light of the squad car, slumped over the wheel. Then the horn stopped and the kid's body melted from the car and lay on the ground, his neck crimson with blood.

Staubb's heart skipped a beat. Whoever got Williams was in the squad car, probably in the back seat. Staubb inched closer, his revolver trained on the back windows, his eyes trying desperately to see his enemy. “Come outa there, now! Hands up!” he cried.

But all was still. Staubb wheeled at the sound of a thrush that whizzed past and into the brush. He looked all about him, then trained his eyes on the car once more. As he got closer, he began to believe that it was empty, that whoever had slit Williams’ throat was gone. He whipped open the car door and saw the black-brown creature deep on the floorboard, an odd sound coming from it. Staubb realized it was the dwarf, and that he'd been here all along, watching the house, watching them, and waiting for a chance like this. Staubb cocked his weapon, wanting nothing more than to blow the bastard out of this world. He could do it without remorse after what he'd seen, and now Williams lay at his feet.

But the shot went astray with the sudden plunge of an enormous knife into Staubb's back, directly between the shoulder blades. Staubb's body slammed into the car. The big man thrashed about and put distance between himself and his attacker, but his gun had been lost, dropped with the nerve spasm sent through him with the blade that still protruded from his back. He looked into the eyes of a well-dressed, clean-shaven, handsome man his own height. His mind registered the fact it was Hamel. Staubb lunged at the man, his large hands wrapping about his neck, squeezing, turning into a vise. Hamel was going to die with him, Staubb told himself, determined to make it so. Somewhere behind and overhead, Staubb half-heard the screams and cries of the dwarf, who leaped from the top of the squad car onto Staubb's back, driving home yet another knife into the big policeman, this one going through his neck.

Staubb fell over the top of Hamel, holding onto the killer's throat as if it meant holding onto life. The breath stolen from Hamel was the breath that kept him going. But the bastard dwarf plunged his knife in and out again, twisting it until Staubb had nothing left to give. All his major arteries to and from the heart had been severed. Staubb died bloody atop Hamel, who was now gasping for air, the dwarf working to push the large body from his brother until he was free of the dead man.

Hamel choked and gasped and rubbed his neck as if to revive the bruised tissue on the outside with a laying-on of hands. The dwarf looked over the contusions with much attention and anguish, repeatedly asking Ian if he were all right.

Hamel staggered to his feet, saying, “We've got to take the other one, Corman—alive."

"Yes, I know ... and there he is."

Corman stood on the porch, having come out to see what the shot was all about. He stood there like a statue, his features in deep shadow. “Do you think he's armed?” asked the dwarf.

"Only one way to find out.” Ian stepped toward Sid Corman, who suddenly raced into the house and tried desperately to bolt the door and seal the house from entry.

"Remember the plan,” Ian said as they closed in on the house they knew so well, going for the root cellar stairs, which would lead up into the kitchen cupboard.

"I remember ... but if he doesn't cooperate, it's sssssssss!” He made a throat-cutting gesture. “Then we'll take his hair."

"We've got to make the plan work! If we fail, they will destroy your power, strip you of the hair, dissolve the dark energies."

He looked into Ian's eyes, deeply and long, shaking his head. “No, no, we cannot allow it. Do what you must, Ian, to stop them."

"Follow my plan to the letter. We must take Corman alive. He must stand trial as the Scalper."

He laughed raucously as they approached the cellar and lifted it, Ian begging for silence. “We must take him by surprise."

"Then we get Grant?"

"Then we get Grant."

Together the brothers went into the black hole in the earth. Quietly they made their way to the rickety old stairs and ascended cautiously, Ian in the lead.

Ian was getting more and more pushy ... more and more uppity, Van thought. When this was over, after they had found a new home place, he would teach Ian a good lesson, remind him who was who and what was what.

But for now, Ian was right. For the moment these two cursed doctors had to be shown what was what....

SIXTEEN

Grant thrashed about on the stretcher as he was being wheeled through the E.R. at Mercy Hospital, his mind fighting for consciousness, a deep-seated knowledge disallowing him to return to complete unconsciousness. He sensed that Sid Corman and the others at the house where Hamel lived were in terrible danger. Coming around, his eyes opened on the doctors and nurses caring for him, and on Peggy.

"Now, now, lie back there,” said a reproachful nurse applying pressure to Dean's chest as he tried to get up. “You'll only do more harm—"

"I'm all right ... have to get out—"

"Orderly, please,” said the nurse.

But by this time Dean was on his feet and making for the door. The two policemen who had helped them earlier were just outside, and they caught him, forcing him back inside. “I've got to get a call through to that house, to warn—"

But no one was listening, or Dean was sounding so full of gibberish he could not make himself understood. He felt woozy. Had they given him a sedative?

"Just lie right back down here! You big hunks think you can overcome a shock like that easily, but let me tell you, it's easier said than done,” the nurse's voice droned on.

Dean needed to call the number he'd jotted down, Hemel's place. He needed a car to get back out there. He needed to escape these self-important, would-be Florence Nightingales. He saw his opportunity when the nurse whipped white curtains all around him and said, “The doctor'll only be a few minutes, and then we'll find you a nice room."

The moment she left, Dean got up and slipped into a second curtained room which was unoccupied. Somewhere behind him, he heard a voice telling someone that the girl's condition was much worse. He then stepped into a doorway that led him down a corridor and out of the building on the other side. Still dazed, not thinking clearly, Dean only knew that for some time Hamel had been secretly planting the idea that Sid Corman was the killer. Hamel had somehow influenced men as disparate as Hodges and Warner to work for him in this regard. Hamel had to be on his way back to that house for a final frame of Sid Corman. With Sid the only one walking out of that house alive tonight, it could stick.

And somehow Hamel knew that Dean would come for him. Something in Dean's dazed mind told him it was so. Hamel had remained one step ahead of them the entire way, first with Park and now with Dean.

Dean circled the building, wondering if he could not get back to Dyer's squad car. But it was no good ... the car was being towed off, and there were cops everywhere.

Then Dean saw an idling ambulance.

It was his only chance, and he ran for it. In a matter of minutes, he quietly pulled out of the E.R. lot and was on his way. A block off, and he found the controls for the siren and began to speed back for Wekiva and Hardscrabble Road, praying his memory of how to get there would not fail him.

Sid feared desperately for his life as he went about the old house, locking every door and window against the pair of killers outside who had mutilated Williams and Staubb, and who now were coming for him. Sid felt like the man in the cult classic, Night of the Living Dead, as he searched for ways to board up the place against the intruders. His only other hope was the phone, but the moment he dialed 911 and began to shout out his situation, the line, along with the electricity, went dead.

Now he searched about the kitchen for a weapon. He never carried a gun, had never had any use for one until now. He thought of all the weapons outside in Staubb's car, in Williams', thought of all the firepower they'd had, and of their training, and none of it had saved them from this fiendish duo.

Still, Sid yanked out drawers and tore open cabinets until he found an arsenal of knives hanging inside one cabinet. Two hooks were missing carving knives. These, no doubt, were the weapons used on young Williams and Staubb, and soon to be used on him, Sid gruesomely surmised.

"Bastards!” shouted Sid, taking down the largest knife he could find. Suddenly a door opened inside the kitchen and the two killers rushed Sid high and low. Sid saw into the basement, saw the flash of the banging door against the fridge, saw the blur of the dwarf and Hamel coming all in an instant, and he reacted with vicious intent, bringing his knife at Hamel's eyes. The blade plunging deep into the forehead and brain just before Sid was knocked unconscious by a powerful blow from Hamel with the hilt of a pistol.

Van stared in wide-eyed horror at what Corman had done to his brother, Ian, who lay on the floor, stunned, the knife protruding from his head, dead center on the top of the frontal lobe. An X ray would surely show that the two halves of the brain had been severed, yet Ian breathed and was talking calmly as if he felt no pain.

"This ... got to get it out ... fix it,” said Van, wrapping his mangled hands about the handle, readying to remove it like an arrow from a wounded soldier on the frontier, like in the comic books.

"No, no! Not yet,” said Ian from deep within himself. “Don't remove it."

"But—"

"I'll be dead in minutes."

"There's no blood..."

"Take it out, and I'm dead ... before that happens, I want you to take a graft from me ... try my scalp, Van. We're brothers ... twins, even ... and maybe..."

He looked thoughtfully down at his brother and after a long pause said, “It could work ... maybe it could ... and if so, you won't die, not at all, you'll be part of the final accomplishment."

"Then we won't need to kill Grant, or him over there, or anyone. They'll be pleased to herd themselves before us for daily sacrifices, and you ... you'll be a god, Van, a god."

"Yes ... yes, I see ... yes.” He reassured his brother as he began the scalp-taking.

Ian squealed with the pain, jiggled and went into a spasm of pain before the shock and trauma of his wound and the scalping took him. The dwarf took his bloody prize, dripping it across the aged linoleum and into his hideaway, where he plunked it into the still-hot cauldron. While it cured and stewed, he would see to Dr. Corman.

"On my own now,” Van told himself sadly, “but I always said that one day it would be so."

He knew that Ian was brilliant and that his plan still was workable if Grant should show up tonight, as Ian had anticipated. Instead of just killing Grant now, Corman would be held responsible for the death of Benjamin Hamel as well. Yes, it could work ... it could ... if Grant played out his part.

He returned to the kitchen and with much effort dragged Corman by the heels into his room. There he tied Corman's hands and feet, gagged the man, and propped him up near the fireplace, where Grant would instantly see him and rush to his aid.

Now it was a waiting game, but Van could not resist taking a quick, hot scoop of the broth being made with his brother's skin and hair. It would sustain him this night. Miracles did happen, as when he'd found the black creatures in the basement of his upbringing that nursed and suckled him....

As he fed, stirring the scalp, his face aglow from the embers of the fire, he shed a tear for Ian and for himself. Existence after this, if he could not become one with the beings that had nurtured him all these years, was hardly worth anything. He determined that if Ian's scalp, applied to his own, did not fulfill the bargain of the dark beings, then he might himself take a final life—his own.

But time was needed ... time to allow the processes to take place, to test the possibilities. That time might only be found if Grant and Corman were dead and put away. He looked for the best spot from which to spring out at Grant when he entered.

SEVENTEEN

Weaving dangerously, Dean took the turn onto the dirt road called Hardscrabble too late, and the ambulance tore onto the soft shoulder out of control and sideswiped a tree before coming to a halt. Dean got out, shaken and reaching for his .38 only to find it gone. He'd lost it somewhere between the hospital and here, he thought, before proceeding on foot toward the house at the end of the cul-de-sac. He had already called for backup, using the ambulance radio, explaining as best he could why he'd stolen the unit.

He saw carnage ahead of him, two bodies lying inert outside Peggy Carson's squad car, and soon he knew the two uniformed men were Staubb and Williams. He lifted Staubb's gun, which was a few feet away in the sandy soil, preferring it to wrenching Williams’ from its holster. Dean then checked the clip and found it all right, a single shot having been fired. Both men had been quietly dispatched with knives, telling Dean his hunch had been right, that the killers had returned here.

Dean neared the house at a crouch, fearing he'd find Sid Corman dead, propped up with a gun in his hand, or strung up, leaving a suicide note of confession forced from him. Dean feared he would be too late, much too late.

Dean leapt to the porch to avoid the squeaking stairs, but the porch sagged with a groan beneath his feet. If Hamel and that bastard brother of his were inside, they knew he was outside now.

The door rattled against his attempt to open it. It was secured tight. There would be no quiet entry, Dean told himself, no way. Still, he must try the rear, and so he cautiously made his way toward the back. There he stared through a window at a man's form lying in the dark interior, Sid's he guessed, and something snapped inside him.

He broke the glass on the door and let himself in, rushing to Sid where he lay alongside the oven. Lifting Sid's head he saw a horrible gash where his forehead ought to be. Dean swallowed a scream, until his eyes, adjusting to the light, saw that it was Hamel! Hamel without a scalp! Benjamin I. Hamel, scalped and murdered in his home on Hardscrabble Road in Wekiva by ... by whom?

"Sid?” Dean called out, going further into the house, toward the bedroom and the false closet and wall where the dwarf lived and fed himself, where Sid must now be....

"Sid? Sid, can you answer me?"

Dean saw there was a candle burning on the table, the only light in the odorous room, save for the glow of the dying embers at the fireplace where that black witches’ cauldron still bubbled and gurgled. Stepping closer, inching nearer, Dean saw Sid's feet and legs, then his chest. He was bound and gagged, his features in a shadowed corner next to the fireplace.

"Sid!” Dean rushed in to help his friend, snatching at the rope binding his feet, which was not rope at all but gut, human gut, dried and cured and turned into rope as strong as hemp. Dean grabbed for a scalpel he kept in an inside pocket to cut away at the stuff. While doing so, he cringed at the realization of what it was he held in his hands. Slicing through the tough, dried string, he freed Sid's legs and then, seeing terror in Sid's eyes, snatched away the suffocating gag in Sid's mouth. The instant he did so, Sid shouted, “Behind you!"

But the warning came too late. At the same instant Dean felt the catapulting stool hitting him in the back of the head, stunning him. He staggered a moment, dazed, when something else slammed into his back and shoulders. It was the dwarf, straddling him, a knife slicing away at his head and shoulders. A tear to his breast bone, a swish by his eye, and then the blade came down, a curled scimitar driving into his shoulder. Dean threw himself down, rolling over with all his weight, the sound of Staubb's .38 sliding from his belt to some dark corner of the room. Another sound, an animal sound of pain, had commingled with Dean's own screams that echoed Sid's.

"Where is he? Where the hell is he?” Dean shouted.

"I'm not sure. Get me loose,” cried Sid.

But the dwarf rocketed himself at Dean's back a second time, coming out of the dark. Again the knife slammed into Dean, and this time the cut was deep and painful, slicing his left arm at the bicep, blood pumping out onto Sid as Dean fought in the small space with the madman, trying desperately to cut him with the scalpel.

But the dwarf leapt away again and once more the room was still, silent, the deadly thing somewhere nearby, accustomed to seeing through the shroud of darkness. He knew where Dean was, but Dean could not see him.

"My hands, Dean, so I can help you! My hands!"

But the wound to Dean's arm and the blow to his head had effectively stunned him. He did a stumbling dance toward Sid, seeing him through the haze, hearing his plea only half-real, when suddenly the evil weight was on his back again.

With a revulsion and hatred Dean had never felt before, he reached round with bloodied hands and got firm hold of the thing by its arm and shoulder and flung it with all his might into the hearth, where for an instant Dean's eyes focused on the hairy beast with the enormous red-embered eyes, its nostrils flaring, the huge, curved knife looking like its horn.

"Dean!” shouted Sid. The knife-wielding dwarf slashed first his right, then his left leg, skittered past him, and disappeared yet again.

"Under the corner table—no, the other corner!” Sid shouted. “The gun, get the gun!"

Dean, the pain of his arm intense, reached under the table. His hand felt metal and he wrapped it round the gun and snatched it out only an instant before the sound of the scimitar told him he could have lost the hand.

Backing off from the dark corner, Dean tried desperately to see the evil hiding there, to blow it to pieces.

"God damn it, Dean, get me loose,” Sid cried behind him.

Dean backed cautiously to where Sid remained propped near the fireplace, stumbling over Sid and reaching round to undo the hands, when Sid shouted another warning. Again the devilish dwarf was on Dean, who rose to his feet, trying to dislodge the thing from his back, holding firmly to the gun, using it as a pummel against his attacker.

With a wild, wheeling twist and push, Dean sent himself and his attacker hard against the far wall, knocking the air out of the dwarf and flipping him forward. The creature's small body skittered once more into shadow, a squeal of pain pealing from him. Dean didn't dare look away from the place where the thing had pulled itself. He leveled the gun, preparing to fire, when he realized the dwarf was on a shelf at eye-level, and not on the floor, and that he was coming through the air at him for a final blow, the knife coming right at Dean's eyes, when Dean ducked.

The dwarf's miss hurled him hard against the hearth a second time. This time Dean was ready for the bastard, for at the very moment Dean ducked, he also wheeled and brought up the .38, trained it on the dwarf, and sent the hammer back.

But Dean stopped cold to stare at the pleading eyes inside the ugly, deformed head, deep beneath folds of skin and hair. They were Hamel's eyes!

This must be Hamel's supposed dead twin brother, after all.

Dean stared for a moment, mesmerized by the man's eyes, as the dwarf lifted the knife, preparing to throw it.

Sid, his legs free, had worked his way closer to the fire and the pot. Now, suddenly and viciously, he kicked the lug pole free, sending the scalding, putrid stew over the hairy animal at the hearth, making it squeal in pain. Suddenly it snatched up its brother's scalp and raced madly for safety, disappearing. The dwarf was badly scalded, and Sid, too, had been burned by the water. But Sid ignored his own pain as Dean freed him from his bonds. Dean was angry with himself for not having killed the ugly, hairy thing when he'd had the chance. His moment's hestitation had now allowed the gnome to disappear again, this time out of the room and down the corridor, a final door slamming deep within. Dean breathed a little better and helped Sid from his remaining bonds.

"I thought the bastard had you,” gasped Sid. “You're bleeding like a pig, Dean!"

Sid worked to tie off the arm, the worst of the wounds the dagger-wielding little creep had inflicted.

"Where do you suppose that thing is now?” Sid asked.

"Your guess is as good as mine."

"You think you can walk?"

Dazed, Dean wasn't sure. “Maybe we should wait for sunrise."

"Maybe we ought to get in one of those cars outside and get the hell out of here."

"Run off by a dwarf, you and me? Two big-deal guys like us?"

"I think we've both had enough heroics for one night. Besides, there's another one lurking somewhere."

"Hamel? No, he's dead ... I found him in the kitchen."

"Oh, yeah, now I remember—I got him in the head with a kitchen knife just before I blacked out."

"And his brother took his goddamned scalp."

"He what?"

"That ugly gnome took Hamel's scalp."

Sid shook his head. “Good God, Dean!"

"Exactly. That's why we've got to see this thing through, see this ... this creature dead. It's not human."

"All right, but we stay together. I don't care how short that guy is, he's bloody strong—and dangerous."

"There should be backup units coming."

"Did you ask for bloodhounds and helicopters? He's very likely deep in the wildlife preserve by now. It's all swamp, marsh, and palmetto bush, very hard to maneuver even by daylight ... not to mention wild things like cottonmouths and alligators."

"Maybe we'd better wait, then."

"Be wise to, but that'd be out of character for you, wouldn't it, Dean?"

"How's the leg?” Dean asked. Sid tied off a second bandage for him.

"I think the bleeding's stopped. You were damned lucky."

"How is your leg?"

"Burned both ankles, as a matter of fact, but I'm trying not to think about it"

"You burned him pretty good, too,"

"Think it'll slow the little bastard?"

"It might. Come on."

Getting through the long house and to the outside was scary in itself. Dean felt like a little figure in a video game, afraid of opening the next door, or stepping through, knowing that the killer could be waiting at every turn. But they got to the porch without incident. Down the dusty road came the glare of successive headlights, reinforcements. Over the siren noise, Dean heard something like a chicken scratch, and he suddenly jumped down from the porch and stared up to the darkened roof, half-expecting the creature to leap at him again. But it didn't come; nothing was up there.

Where had the noise come from?

Sid raced to meet the others, waving at them. Dean had another thought as the cars, their headlights flooding the yard now, showed some streaks coming up through the cracks on the porch from beneath.

He was there, under the house. Dean just knew it. But to catch the animal, everyone must somehow be alerted.

They needed to fan out. Dean tried to convey this message to the noisy, gung-ho policemen jumping from their units.

"The suspect's a dwarf,” Sid told them as Dean indicated the underside of the house, pointing, unsure whether or not the gnome had caught on to their next move.

Cautiously, after having had a full look at Staubb and Williams, and with jokes to one another about midgets and little people, the cops fanned out, trying to circle the rambling, L-shaped house. Not six feet off were the woods.

Flashlights streaked into the underside of the house and suddenly a shot rang out on the far side. Dean heard the sounds of running feet and rushed to where the gunshot had been fired. A policeman named Mike had filled a stray dog with buckshot, the animal still thrashing until another officer put it out of its misery.

"There! Over there!” shouted another cop, hearing something moving off through the bush.

The chase was on, Dean armed now with a 12-gauge shotgun, Sid beside him with Staubb's .38, everyone fanning out, trying to ensnare the killer in a human net.

"He's armed and dangerous,” Dean told the men.

"Armed with what?"

"So far as we know, only a knife, but it's his weapon of choice."

"Hear that, men?"

Up and down the line, the word was passed as the manhunt moved into the dark woods.

"Going to send two of my men back to make a call for dogs,” said the officer in charge, Staubb's superior. “We ain't letting this bastard get away."

"You better tell your men to shoot at anything that moves out there, Captain,” said Sid. “This guy will look like a wild boar out here, he's that hairy and little."

"I'll pass that along."

Sid's warning went down the line. The two cops were sent back in a team for the dogs. It would be well into daylight the next time they saw Hamel's little brother.

Aching from his wounds, the one in his arm in particular, Dean found he could not recall a time in his life when the morning's first light had ever meant so much. The dogs and additional men had arrived, and finding the scent of the killer from some discarded clothing in his hovel, the search was resumed. The man most knowledgeable about the dogs was given the go-ahead to let them loose, come what may, after Dean and Sid together had recalled the events of the night, explaining how they had cornered the last member of the so-called Scalping Crew.

"It's a certainty that this little man has lived off the land before,” finished Dean, recalling the years he'd lived alone at that Montana homestead while his brother was placed in county home. Sid reminded Dean that the dwarf also had had to fend for himself the entire time his brother was in Vietnam.

"So,” continued Dean, “this killer could live out there in your swampland for any number of years, unless he's rooted out now."

"Nothin’ could survive out there,” said one man.

"Not for long,” agreed a second officer.

"Dogs'll get ‘em,” said the dog man.

Dean realized they didn't truly understand what they were dealing with. Finding this pervert in the dense marsh of Wekiva had led them to the banks of the Wekiva River, along which some homes stood, the property of people who were carrying on a running battle with Orange County to remain in the preserve. Dean knew that every man, woman, and child in the preserve was now in danger, and that it had been a good move to send deputies to every house to issue warnings. But this weakened the number in the central posse, and it also divided them into dangerously small satellite groups. Everyone present had seen what the dwarf had done to Mark Williams and Joe Staubb.

For over an hour now the dogs had been running far and wide, baying, going in a southeasterly direction and then cutting back northerly, coming closer to the camp again, as if confused and circling—or had the dwarf circled back? This was the running argument among the men as the sound of the dogs increased, nearing, closer still.

"Just like a ‘coon hunt,” said the dog man, grinning wide, a two-day-old growth of hair on his face. “Don't worry, my dogs have run men before ... no problem."

"Why've they turned back?” asked Sid, his legs propped over a log, the scalded ankles causing him great pain.

The dog man spat out a wad of tobacco. “Turned their prey is my guess. Got ‘em on the run and he's so turned ‘round he don't know which way's up. If we just wait long ‘nough, your criminal's going to come runnin’ right into your arms."

"Too easy,” Dean said. “Not this weasel."

The dog man returned in a moment with word from the captain, Staubb's superior, a man named Todd Daniels. “Captain says it's time we go to meet up with the dogs. Told ‘em we should give ‘em bit more time, but he's got ants in his pants."

"Don't we all,” said Dean.

The group was some thirteen armed men now, counting Dean and Sid. The first sign of the sun filtered in through the thick brush and palmetto, scrub oak and palms. The forest was so dense here that Dean expected to see monkeys in the palm trees, but all he saw were curious squirrels and a flaming-red cardinal. Somewhere at the other end of the human chain they formed, Dean heard somebody shout a warning about a cottonmouth. No shots were fired and the line moved onward, forming a wide net, toward the sound of the dogs, which were now closing in.

Sid had not exaggerated the wilderness aspect of the tropical flatlands. Grass was up to Dean's armpits wherever there was a break in the trees. No rocks, no stones, no bumps in the land here, only miles of exotic vegetation, some plants Dean had never known existed, strange and beehive-like in their crusty coverings, plants that did battle with a sun that by 10 a.m. set the place aflame. The entire effect was that of a foreign and wild place.

"Damn sure wish I was back at the lab,” complained Sid, sweat glistening from every pore.

"Damn sure I wish I was back in Chicago."

Sid managed a half-smile. “You've proven to be a good friend, my friend.” Sid's last word ended in a groan.

"Leg hurt?"

"Both legs hurt like hell ... real bad,” he admitted.

Dean had looked at the scald marks and one of the officers who'd come on had thought to bring a first-aid kit. The burns were wrapped now, but the pain and the throbbing, if anything like Dean's arm, must be difficult to put pressure on.

"Why not hold up here, Sid, until we can come back for you?” Dean suggested when they came to a clearing with a little shade.

"Not on your life, Dean ... been nearly killed twice by that ... that thing. I'll be damned if I'll risk it a third time."

"But if—"

"No, no!” he was adamant and, Dean realized, scared. “Keep moving."

"Downriver!” shouted the captain, taking a cue from the dogs’ baying and the dog man, who suddenly bolted and raced in that direction, shouting, “I think they done got him, boys!"

He fell.

He got up.

He ran.

It had been an endless repetition all night long.

Fall, get up, run.

Sometimes he'd lie there long enough to try to think, but they gave him no time.

The dog sounds frightened him. He imagined the dogs tearing him to pieces. He sensed this was going to be his end, and neither Ian nor the dark powers would stop it. Ian was gone ... they were gone. Now it was Van, alone again, facing certain death—or capture. Neither ending particularly appealed to him.

Death meant the end of all the many years of hard work to get as far as he and Ian had come. Death by gnarling, angry dogs meant destruction of all that he had toiled for, an end to the satanic power growing within him. For his failure, too, the death would be not only a painful one, but made everlasting and endless by the very powers he had served so long, the dark ones who'd nurtured him in his infancy and childhood.

He remembered the black woman well.

He even remembered the black man who, from time to time, came in the company of the black woman.

Then they stopped coming. All he ever saw afterward was the dish, like a dog plate shoved onto the top stair of the basement. But he never forgot the dark ones who'd come and nurtured him, kept him alive during those crucial early years.

He would fight back as he'd always fought back. He wouldn't just lie here and wait for the dogs to pounce upon him and rip him limb from limb. He must think like Ian, develop a workable plan.

He snatched off his oxblood-colored vest and attached it to a limb. Taking a piece of brush, he dusted his trail as he backed from the vest down toward the river again, which he'd crossed once before, nearly drowning in the process. He didn't want to return to the water, but an animal fear drove him toward it.

He backed down now into the water, which enveloped his hairy form. He got deep down, feeling the muck tug at his knees, there on the bank, hiding among the reeds, waterlillies, and branches where a slender green snake slept so soundlessly on a limb he at first believed it part of the branch.

He knew he, too, must become part of the land, to disappear before the eye of any unsuspecting person or animal that happened by. In the water he had a chance. It would erase his scent. It would erase him.

Then he heard the voices of men on the other side of the river, heard them noisily sloshing through the shallows. He darted into a small alcove covered thick with algae, the surface a green mush he parted as he went.

The dogs were bringing the men, and he realized for the first time that he'd gotten turned around in the unfamiliar landscape. He silently cursed a man named Dean Grant.

He did not see the slow, deliberate movement at his back, and when, out of the corner of one eye, he did spot it, he took it for an aged, water-blackened log moving with the current. But he felt no current in the little cove. Another glance, closer this time, and he saw the two enormous eyes at the snout of the log, realizing it was alive. The gator moved at Van with ease, grace, and the certainty of a meal.

A chilling scream, like that of a banshee, froze Dean and the other men in place where they stood almost shoulder-deep in the river, holding their weapons overhead. The scream sounded to the dog man like that of a Georgia bobcat. The dogs, too, had been startled by the cry, like that of a woman in terrible distress, Dean thought, but his senses told him it was the dwarf. “It came from that way, opposite the dogs,” shouted the captain, leading the column of men.

They fought with the river to get to the other side where it narrowed, the dogs rushing by them, when Dean saw that one of the dogs up ahead had a little vest in his mouth which appeared to have been dredged from the water—it was soaking wet. All the dogs stood in a semicircle about an algae-infested alcove off the river. There before them was an enormous monster of an alligator, rolling about in the water, tearing one dog to pieces as the other animals yelped and barked and snarled, still keeping a safe distance.

Putrid water, algae, and the tussling animals could not hide the welter of blood discoloring the surface of the water.

"My dog! It's ... it's Queenie! Damn it, Captain, do something! Do something!"

"Look!” shouted Sid, seeing a piece of ripped clothing floating among the algae. Dean swiped at it with a stick, dredging it toward them. Even with the algae clinging to it, the clothing was easily that of a child ... or a dwarf.

"Think the alligator got the bastard?” asked Sid.

"A fitting Florida end to the man,” said Dean, satisfied even more by the blood he found on the little cloak. “But we've got to be sure, Sid."

Dean stepped to where the captain stared over the feeding gator. The dog man was still shouting in the other man's ear about his dog. “We've got to kill the alligator, Captain."

"What the hell for? The dog's done for."

"We've got to know for sure if the dwarf went before the dog."

"Hell, you heard the scream!"

"That's not enough, not with a killer like this!"

The captain relented when the dog man said, “Shoot the ugly bastard. He killed Queenie,"

The gun was raised, a powerful hunting rifle, and the large-caliber bullet went right between the animal's eyes. Its body kicked and shivered with the impact. There was a moment's thrashing, and it lay still at last. “Snatch him outa there,” ordered the captain, and two of his men took it by the tail. It took a third to get the giant beast onto shore.

"It's going to be hell getting him back to the lab,” said Sid.

"To hell with the lab, Sid,” said Dean, “this is fieldwork. You men, turn the animal onto its stomach."

"What the hell's he doing, Captain?” asked a confused officer.

"Cutting the thing open to see if the gator got more'n a dog."

Dean's scalpel slit the outer layers of the underbelly of the animal. A second, deeper slit caused the beast to pop open like a ripe watermelon, and the odors drove even Dean to take a step back. Covering their noses and mouths with handkerchiefs, the two pathologists began another cut into the stomach lining and esophagus and all that lay in between. With ungloved hands they probed and began to pull forth large, undigested remnants of Queenie.

The dog man was going berserk behind them, calling Dean a ghoul. He was restrained by the others.

After ten minutes, Dean, his hands bloody, stood up. Sid went to the river's edge to throw water on his face. “Nothing human inside this animal, Captain ... not a single bite."

"Gators travel in packs,” said the Captain. “Another one must've gotten our man and was gone before we got here. Hell, you got the torn clothes, the blood! Take it back to your lab and see if it ain't human blood or the dog's ... just see."

"Even if it is human, Captain ... it's not good enough."

"Well, it is for me. We're satisfied, just like the damned flies are satisfied,” said the captain, pointing to the gator carcass. It was already infested with insects. “Come on, Stewart, gather up your remainin’ dogs. The County'll pay for Queenie. Come on, all of you men ... we're going home."

Dean stared out into the blank, empty, uncaring swampland ahead of him. Somewhere out there right now the evil could he staring back at him ... or it could've been swallowed whole by this guy's mate, Dean thought again with a glance at the dead gator. Maybe, if, likely, possible ... all the qualifiers ... was that how it would now end, after all he and Sid, Peggy, and the others had lived through, after the long trail of dead bodies that had brought him to this time and place?

"Come on, Dean ... come away,” said Sid. “Get the blood off you. Let's cross back."

Dean looked into his friend's clear, watery eyes and saw a tired man still fighting down pain. “Yeah, let's get back to city streets and congestion. You can keep this wildlife refuge business for stronger men than me."

"Are you satifed the little creep is really dead?"

"No ... not really."

"Me either."

"We'll test the cloak for human blood."

"It'll only prove he cut himself with that damned knife of his."

"We may never know, Sid."

"Unless one day somewhere we read about a brutal scalping murder...."

They crossed the river, lagging behind the cops, Dean supporting Sid. “Right,” agreed Dean sadly. “Could go crazy waiting for that one."

"God, Dean, those two bastards were really sick."

Behind them Dean heard the sound of sparrows flittering about and a strange cackling bird, which sounded like a cross between a jay and a crow, his cry a staccato. He heard fish, probably mullet, jumping, and he heard small, furry animals leaping from tree to tree, some on the ground. Then came a sudden snap of a twig, a sound usually made by the human animal. It made him wheel and stare once more into the dense green forests of pines, oak, and palms fighting for space at the river's edge. But he could see nothing remotely human in the landscape.

Sid tugged at his friend. “It's over, Dean ... the dogs ran him up on a gator and that's that."

"Yeah, sure ... I can believe that."

"To sleep at night, we both have to."

"A sobering thought. Let's get the hell out of these woods."

And so they did, returning to the house where the killers had feasted on death.

EPILOGUE

Some weeks later, Dean was back at his own lab in Chicago working on more routine matters when a package arrived from Florida. It had the rubber stamp of Sid's lab in the upper left-hand corner, and Dean ripped the small package open hastily, curious. He and Jackie had just finished opening Christmas packages a few days before, on New Year's Day, holding the celebration they'd missed on December 25 until then. Dean wondered if Sid was now playing Santa Claus. “Some sand, no doubt,” Dean told Sybil as she looked on. Sybil had done an excellent job of maintaining the pathology lab in Dean's absence, and Dean had spent the day alternately telling her so and filling her in on all the details of the scalping case in Orlando. Unlike Jackie, she was fascinated with all the gory details.

Dean lifted from the unwrapped box a small book, aged and crumbling, no thicker than the end of Dean's thumb, the pages a brownish-yellow. It seemed ready to fall apart. A note fell from the box as Dean slipped the delicate book from it. “What the hell is this?” he wondered aloud.

Sybil snatched up the note and handed it to her boss. “What's it say?"

Dean read it aloud. "Dean, thought you might like to see this. It was found beneath some boards in the old house the Bennimin boys used here in Florida as their headquarters. Light reading. When're you coming to Florida with Jackie just for the sights? Don't be a stranger." It was signed, "Sid."

Dean saw there was no title on the worn cloth cover, and he believed, from the look of it, that the title had simply worn away. Though he opened the cover carefully, pages pulled off the binding, breaking even with his light touch. He saw inside the title: Treatment, Curing and Preserving of Tissues.

It was an ancient textbook on taxidermy, used by the dwarf as a guide to his hideous taxidermy.

The book was so old that its author filled the pages with questionable, personal asides on skin and hair, speaking of hair as the source of vital strength and magic power, “for the life principle resides therein."

"Jesus," moaned Dean.

"What is it?"

"Listen to this,” said Dean, reading aloud: “Hair belongs to the element of earth, as it is a tangible; to the element of water, since it is free and flowing; to the element of fire, since it is fed from the furnace of the brain; and from the element of air, since it is light and can be blown by the wind."

"That's ... crazy."

"To you and me, yes ... but the way it reads to a madman? Ian Bennimin and his deformed twin, looking for answers? Apparently, there was more method to their madness than we knew."

"Method?"

"Listen to this. It—hair—is animal, since other animals also have hair; it is special to humans, since no animal has hair quite like a man's; it is vegetable, since it is parasitic, like a plant. Hair is both living, since it grows, and dead, since it is without sensibility. As such, it forms a link between this world and the next. It has its own life ... it grows more rapidly than anything else and continues to grow after the death of the body."

Dean thought of all the mythical and magical religions and superstitions surrounding hair, from the tonsure of monks to young virgins having to shave their heads in order to symbolically give their heads over to deities.

"God, I sure hope that alligator really did get this creep,” said Sybil.

"You and me both ... you and me both,” agreed Dean, putting down the book, feeling strange just holding it. Yet he was drawn back to it all day long.

Sybil began to regard him. It was that same look she'd shown when he'd first suspected wrongdoing in a little girl's “accidental” drowning in a Gary, Indiana quarry so many months ago. She looked at him as if he was not only strange, but unstable as well, and he didn't like the reaction he was getting from her. Yet the book drew him to it like a magnet.

Each line he read, he tried to decipher through the mind of the deformed Bennimin child, possibly as it was read to him by his beautiful brother. Dean tried to interpret each section and imbue it with meaning as it applied to the meaninglessness of multiple murder by scalp-taking. He put every line side-by-side with what little he knew of the deadly brothers and their horrifying acts.

The integration of so many pieces of the puzzle was slow in coming. Yet Dean persevered, trying desperately and perhaps futilely to understand that which could not possibly be comprehended any more than the mind of God: the mind of a madman. His hammering away at the little book was slow-going, too, and he hadn't gotten beyond page 13 before the day was out.

At closing time, when Sybil gave him an uncalled-for hug and a “welcome back,” Dean took the slim volume with him to finish at home.

Earlier in the day he'd spent time with Ken Kelso, assuring his friend that he was definitely back in the city of Chicago in both mind and body, and that Orlando's problems were once again Sid Corman's concerns, not Dean Grant's.

Dean took a ribbing from Ken about becoming a celebrity, saying that Johnny Carson had called to ask him on the Tonight Show, but that Ken had had to decline for him because he was damned well needed in Chicago.

"Besides,” added Ken over lunch, “they didn't say word one about my going on the show."

"As what?” Dean had jested.

"Hey, you forget I strum a guitar."

"Which makes sounds like an accordian. Now there's a novelty!"

But then Ken became serious, telling Dean that the leads on the Rae sister had turned cold as ice. Dean suggested that since it appeared no one was calling any longer about Angel Rae and the case involving undue numbers of corpses found floating face-down in pools and lakes, maybe Ken ought to let things rest.

Finally, Dean said to him bluntly, “No use getting an ulcer over it."

"You're one to talk."

"Meaning?"

"I heard tell of the little book Corman sent you from the tropics."

"Oh, Sybil, huh?"

"The kid's just worried about you, Dean. What about it? Case closed? Or not?"

"She should probably do less worrying about me and more about her work."

"Come on, she's shaped up beautifully. While you were gone—"

"And I'm getting a little tired of hearing how well things were run while I was gone!"

Ken laughed at this, first lightly and then it became a full-fledged belly laugh. “Come on, let's have lunch,” he said when he got control of himself. “I'm buying."

Dean smiled and laughed with his best friend, and as they made their way to a nearby deli-style restaurant, he did some thinking aloud, sharing his thoughts with Ken, trying to explain what had gone down in that Florida swamp, droning on about the finale brought about via the inevitable publicity.

"Can't tolerate newsmen,” said Ken loudly, purposefully, knowing the place they were in was full of them, “Vultures ... most of ‘em, anyway."

"Our guys are? You should've been with me in the land of sunshine and oranges."

Over pastrami, Dean detailed how the press operated over the Scalper case. Newspaper, radio, and television coverage had just about exhausted every possible angle on the case, all but the one Dean and Sid decided to keep to themselves, since, on analysis of the blood on the dwarf's clothing, it had turned out to be animal blood, the dog's.

Now that the sensationalism had petered out, the case had become old news, like everything else, and the story writers were anxious for some new tale of terror they might feed to their seemingly insatiable readers. The papers had taken fiendish delight in retelling the events leading up to the end, and television accounts had quoted Orlando's Commissioner of Police as having retired Chief Hodges along with the closing out of this case. The pressure from the top for the man to take an early retirement wasn't even disguised. One or two newsmen had taken gruesome delight in unraveling the chief's hold on the department—all to the good, Dean felt in the long run. It came out that Bennimin, a.k.a. Ben Hamel, had been brought on by Hodges and that Hodges had been seeing the shrink regularly. The entire investigation of the Scalpers was then, in fact, shadowed easily by the bloody pair.

Meanwhile, Sid Corman's position in the department was safe—and the peace of the city of Orlando was secured. In fact, Sid was proclaimed “the watchful eyes of the city,” a valiant hero wounded in the battle against the most notorious criminal pair in the history of the city.

As for Dean's own notoriety, it had doubled, even quadrupled, not surprisingly. The year 1988 had become one of horror, the kind upon which men like himself built a career. What with summer casework involving the floaters here in Chicago, and the winter weeks he'd spent in Florida tracking the elusive Scalping Crew, Dean knew he could write his own ticket downtown, get some much-needed equipment and additional help.

The Orlando papers in particular had made much of the fact that he, like Sid, had been wounded in the struggle with Ian and Van Bennimen. His arm was still in a sling, in fact, and stiff as a board. Dean had been designated by the press as the man who had masterminded Hamel's downfall. His photograph, exhibited alongside an array of scalps which some enterprising photographer had arranged in a montage of bad taste, blared it to the world: Dean Grant, Chicago Medical Examiner, Scalps Hair-Raising Duo.

"I tell you, I never posed for that damned picture!” he'd had to shout at Ken Kelso, who was showing it around in the lab on his return.

The stories were picked up by every major network and news agency in the country, and some overseas. Dean's reputation as one of the nation's top M.E.'s was given solidity as a result, yet Dean felt himself a failure. If he'd been smarter, sharper—if he'd read the signs—he might have put Hamel out of business sooner—and much more neatly. Maybe Dyer'd be alive, and maybe even Park as well, the unsung hero, the man to whom Dean pointed again and again as being the bull terrier in all this. But news agencies thrived on live heroes, men who walk away from the wreckage. Survivors.

Dean had even gotten that raise he deserved, along with more funds for the lab, a promise of an additional M.E. position to be filled before spring, and monies earmarked specifically to combat serial killers nationwide, monies that would go into a computer network that might avert unnecessary death via matchups on pattern killings before such evil struck again. This business of relying on clues via the brutal work of the killer himself—it simply had to go. There was no place for it in a modern program.

Regardless of it all, however, Dr. Dean Grant did not feel the hero. In fact, he hadn't ever felt the hero. Heroes were supposed to know when and if they'd beaten down a foe, destroyed an enemy, snuffed out a dragon, cut down an evil knight. And while the papers went with the official notification that both the Bennimin brothers were dead and could therefore be of no threat to anyone again, Dean knew nothing of the kind. All that was certain, he knew, was that tomorrow, or the next day, he'd be face-to-face again with some tormented and ugly form of humanity, some horror of the worst kind, another human monster like the dwarf and his equally twisted brother, Dr. Benjamin Ian Hamel.

It was three in the morning when Dean finally shut the taxidermy text. There was no date of publication, it was probably worth a small fortune to some collector somewhere. It had probably been found by the dwarf in that Montana basement years ago, in the wall or below the floor, cherished by him and Hamel as their bible. It was filled with lurid and wrongful notions of anatomy and physiology, with an occasional flight into the metaphysical. The whole thing was an esoteric diatribe, intended only for a select group, a master taxidermist putting down his thoughts—often far afield of taxidermy and leather curing—for a small group of adherents.

It made a mockery of the old saying, “Believe in something, or you'll believe in anything...."

And with that thought Dean, his wife molding her body close to his, went to sleep, forcing his mind to free itself of the horrors of his work and this life.

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Content

Walker Robert W. Scalpers