I watched the van disappear. Feeling cold inside and out.

“I want to see what this piece of dog shit’s got in his trunk.”

I turned. Slidell was pulling on gloves. After yanking the key from the ignition, he circled to the rear of the Hyundai and jammed it into the lock.

The trunk popped with a soft thunk.

An odor floated out. Sweet, acrid.

Familiar.

CHAPTER 35

IT WAS OUR worst nightmare.

And Ryan’s big bang.

Jaw clamped, Slidell lifted a Ziploc from a cardboard box holding other Ziplocs and a small plastic tub.

Through the clear side of the bag, I could make out four things. A silver seashell ring. A key on a red cord. A yellow ribbon. A pink ballet slipper.

We all stared. Dejected. Appalled. Angry.

“Whose ribbon?” My voice sounded high and taut.

“It don’t matter. This nails the sonofabitch.”

Slidell laid down the bag and chose another. It contained vials filled with a dark liquid that looked like blood. A third held hypodermic needles. A fourth had cotton-tipped swabs, a fifth wadded-up tissues.

“What’s in the tub?” Larabee asked.

Slidell pried off the lid. A noxious odor slapped our nostrils.

“Bloody hell.” Slidell’s head jerked sideways.

“Let me see,” I said.

Slidell extended his arm. Have at it.

Larabee’s breath caught. I think mine did, too.

I saw pale hair floating in muddy brown soup. An unrecognizable mass below.

“It’s some kinda body part, right?”

No one had an answer to that.

“Another souvenir?”

Or to that.

“You believing this? All the time the bastard’s stonewalling us, he’s driving around with this freak show in his car.” To Larabee. “Take the body parts. I’ll send the rest to the lab.”

Larabee nodded.

Yanking off a glove with his teeth, Slidell stormed over to the CSS techs. I couldn’t hear his instructions but knew what they were. Bag and tag everything, impound the car, burn the house down looking for more.

As Larabee sealed the plastic tub into an evidence bag, the techs pulled rolls of yellow tape from their truck and began securing the scene. Slidell hurried to his car and threw himself in.

I watched him gun up the street, mobile mashed to one ear.

Larabee decided to examine the tub first. He didn’t really need me, still asked that I assist. Said if there was anything requiring an anthropology consult, I could proceed with that while he autopsied Ajax.

I agreed willingly. I was jittery and on edge. Knew the annex would feel cramped and claustrophobic, peopled with the ghosts of five dead girls. Maybe six.

Besides, I had no ride home.

We were at the MCME by eight. After changing into scrubs, I met Larabee in the stinky room. Hawkins was busy doing prelims on Ajax, so we’d decided to proceed unassisted.

As I readied the camera, Larabee set the tub on the counter. I asked the case number, prepared labels, and shot pics. When I set the Nikon aside, Larabee gloved and raised his mask. I did the same. He opened the tub. Same stench. Same hair and shit-brown slop.

I took more photos, then, using a fine mesh strainer, Larabee poured the liquid off into a beaker. Unfolded and spread a green towel in the sink.

When he tipped the strainer, a glob dropped onto the cloth, spongy and slick and covered with hair.

Larabee used a probe to uncurl and lay the glob flat. It was thin in cross section, oval, approximately one inch wide by two inches long.

Larabee tested the glob with a probe. Lifted its tangle of hair.

My mind flashed a series of images. I saw flesh the color of curdled milk. Darkness at the end of each pale strand.

I felt a pang of nausea. Swallowed. “It’s scalp.”

“Human?” Larabee bent closer. “Could be.”

“Not could be.” Forcing my voice even. “It is.”

Larabee’s gaze cut to me. Without a word, he got the handheld magnifier, positioned it, and bent close. “I see what you mean. The hair is bleached.”

“It’s from Anique Pomerleau.”

“You’re kidding.” Twisting to face me.

“I assisted at the Pomerleau autopsy.”

“In Burlington.”

I nodded. “Pomerleau had three scalp lesions we couldn’t explain.”

“Areas of necrosis?”

I shook my head. “The tissue was gone right down to the skull. Each lesion was oval and measured roughly one inch by two.”

Above our masks, our eyes held. Larabee’s showed bewilderment. Mine undoubtedly showed revulsion.

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying the killer took”—I struggled for the right word—“specimens from Pomerleau and placed them on his victims.”

“The hair in Leal and Estrada’s throats?”

I nodded.

“The vials. Christ, he also took blood? Maybe used the Q-tips as swabs to get DNA?”

“I think it’s possible.”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

Larabee’s brows drew together. He started to speak.

At that moment Hawkins’s head popped through the door. “Ready,” he said quietly.

“Be right there,” Larabee said.

A long minute passed.

“Ajax was a doctor. He’d have the skill to draw blood. To incise tissue.”

“Yes,” I agreed.

“If the liquid in those vials tests positive as human blood, serology should fire it through for DNA sequencing.”

“I’ll phone Slidell,” I said.

“Thanks.”

Stripping his mask and gloves, Larabee hurried from the room.

After shooting a final series of photos, I repackaged the slice of scalp and placed it in the cooler. Then I went to my office.

Maybe it was fatigue. Maybe distraction. Slidell showed no reaction to my news. Just asked that I phone when Larabee finished the autopsy. He was at Mercy, talking to Ajax’s co-workers.

At three-thirty Larabee came into my office. His scrubs were dark at the underarms and stained with blood. Spatter on one sleeve reminded me of the electric icicles framing my neighbor’s front door.

I set aside my report and assumed a listening pose. The boss liked to share detail.

Larabee found no fluid or adhesions in the pleural cavities, no congestion or hemorrhage in the lungs, no infarction in the heart, no ulcer in the stomach, no fibrosis in the liver, no thromboembolism, no varices in the arterial, venous, or lymphatic systems.

Except for minor arteriosclerosis, normal in a man of forty-eight years, Hamet Ajax was in good health. He hadn’t eaten all day. Had only coffee in his stomach.

Larabee had observed the telltale cherry-red blood and musculature, as well as marked hyperemia, or blood engorgement, in all tissues. He’d noted hyperemia, edema, and diffuse punctate hemorrhages throughout the cerebral hemispheres of the brain, widespread degeneration of the cortical and nuclear ganglion cells, and symmetric degeneration of the basal ganglia, particularly the nuclei.

“Asphyxia by acute carbon monoxide poisoning.”

“Manner?” I asked.

“Tougher call.”

“Any hints at something other than suicide?”

“Not really. But I’ll wait for tox results before signing it out. I also want to know what they find in that house.

“And now.” His elbows winged out as he pushed to his feet, one palm on each knee. “I have a Christmas party to attend.”

“Holiday.”

“What?”

“Can’t forget Hanukkah.”

“And Kwanzaa.”

With that he was gone.

I passed none of the minutiae on to Slidell. Simply reported that Ajax’s death was confirmed as due to carbon monoxide poisoning. And that Larabee would know more when he received toxicology results.

I also called Ryan. As I laid it all out, I could picture him running a hand through his hair.

“So Slidell thinks the souvenirs nail the coffin on Leal, Gower, and Nance. And possession of Pomerleau’s DNA ties in Estrada,” he said.