Authors: Robert W. Walker
She had slowed the fiche to a crawl now, and then to a complete stop when she came to the fall of 1984. It was harder to control the film at a crawl than it ought to be, but she took pains and carefully surveyed each of the adoption files handled by the county in 1984 and '85 for her own name, for Katherine Croombs, for Blodgett, or the convent orphanage name.
Meredyth brought the film record to a standstill to briefly review any document that appeared relevant, then she moved on. As she did so, she tried to recall being of college age in '84. She could hardly believe she was ever that young. In 1984 she was in her late teens, working toward her undergraduate degree. She had to have two terms of practical, applied sociology and psychology under her belt to move through the program to advanced applied courses, and what better way to achieve it than working within the Child and Family Protective Services that fall of '84 and spring of '85.
She recalled how she had excelled at the work in Child and Family Protective Services, how much of it boiled down to detective work and psychiatry. She was good at it, so much so that Mrs. Hunter almost convinced her to go into social work instead of carrying on with her plans to become a psychiatrist. She recalled how arrogant and hardworking and well liked by those in charge young Meredyth Sanger was, and that as a result, she was given far more responsibility that year than she had ever dreamt possible under the auspices of the social worker she interned with, a Mrs. Viola Hunter, a matronly woman with a prim bun and spectacles. Mrs. Hunter had been delighted to unload some of her crushing casework on an eager-to-please workaholic.
The experience could not have been more educational, inside a system both flawed and overtaxed as well as upholding ideals so lofty as to be unreachable.
Meredyth finally came upon the one record she had come for, the Croombs-Blodgett case. Katherine Croombs had agreed to give up her then-nameless child if the child could go to a nice Catholic adoption agency. Katherine had been raised Catholic, and now Meredyth recalled promising her that they would find a good Catholic home to place the baby girl in. Katherine had put down the father's name on the birth certificate, and had wanted the child to have her father's name, Blodgett, her father's full name being John Dancing Blodgett.
Meredyth's hand was all over the case; she had indeed managed the logistics of getting the newborn from Mercy Hospital and into the hands of a Sister Orleans at Our Lady of Miracles in 1984. It had been Sister Orleans—not yet mother superior—who had signed the necessary documents for a child she had christened Lauralie.
"Lauralie's revenge... her sick motive... it's all here," Meredyth said to the silence around her.
Meredyth tried to pull all the loose ends together, to make sense of this senseless attack on her, one which involved the murder of Mira Lourdes simply because of her name, Lourdes, as a puzzle piece, a crumb to spread before Meredyth, to guide her to the understanding of why...why Lauralie had in essence hired or lured a killer to do her bidding, to abduct and murder Lourdes in order to have the human body parts to wrap up and forward to Meredyth, and to the man she most loved, Lucas. "Literally piece by bloody piece, she means to wreak her revenge," Meredyth muttered to the screen as she saw a strange birdlike shadow flit across the glassine surface. In an instant, she realized that it had been someone's reflected movement directly behind her. She swept around, banging her knee in the fixed plastic seat attached to the microfiche screen. "Damn!" she cursed in response to the painful injury, the bang reverberating around the room.
Looking about, she found no one in her view, despite the reflection that had been right behind her, uncomfortably close.
But whoever had been there was gone, moving down the stacks toward the rear of the room. One of the staff, Meredyth decided, just flashing by.
Meredyth turned her attention back to the adoption papers, studying her own naive signature on the form, wondering if it was even truly official since she did not technically work for the department in which she was interning as a student. After all, this was an official document, and she had been a college student, not a licensed social worker.
"Shit," she muttered, "why'd I ever get so involved at the time? Why didn't I argue with Mrs. Hunter about taking on such responsibilities? I didn't have the right...way in over my head." Even so, she thought, how could anyone have predicted Lauralie's going on a rampage and becoming a multiple killer? Meredyth checked herself. If the clues were correct, the girl had begun killing at a young age with the murder of Sara Orleans.
She heard the pitter-patter of the staff person who had gone by, this time returning with more noise in her wake, as if not wishing to startle Meredyth. At least her mind said it must be a staff person or someone else doing research.
Then she saw the image of a young feminine face leering out at her from the screen, reflected from over her shoulder. Meredyth wheeled around a second time, catching a glimpse of someone ducking from sight. The image was young enough and pretty enough to be Lauralie Blodgett, but Meredyth could not be certain. Could the disturbed woman have followed her here from the precinct?
She heard something like a footfall beyond the stacks in front of her, and she inched toward the sound. Turning a comer of the stacks, she found no one and not a sound.
Whoever it was, she had ducked behind the stacks, hidden now by the shelves filled from floor to ceiling with binders and file boxes. Meredyth then noticed a mirror perched in a comer of the ceiling above the door, and in it she saw the movement of light and shadow that followed this mystery person's wake, but even this slight hint was gone as quickly as it appeared.
"Who's there?"
No one answered.
"Is there someone there?" she said, louder this time, reminded of the convent church, the finger in the holy water. This felt like dej vu!
Nothing, no answer.
"Damn you, who is there?"
A young black woman stepped from behind the stacks, asking, "Are you talking to me?"
"I'm being stalked," Meredyth told the stranger. "Did you see anyone else in here?"
"Not by me, lady."
"Did you see anyone else in the stacks?"
She replied, "There was a woman bumped me going down the aisle, but no guy, no."
Meredyth pulled out the photo of Lauralie Blodgett that she had ripped from The Lady yearbook and kept in her purse. "Is this the woman you saw? The one who bumped you?"
The young black woman squinted and bit her upper lip. "You saying you're being stalked by another woman?"
"Was it her? Is it her?"
"It was...it is."
"Then she's here." Meredyth pulled her .38 Smith and Wesson from her purse, and the black woman put her hands out, backing off until she reached the door and backed through it. Ignoring the black woman's outcry from the other side of the door, Meredyth inched down the aisle of the stacks, going deeper into the archives, searching for Lauralie Blodgett, recalling her and Lucas's theory that this woman killed her own mother. She would have no compunction in killing Meredyth if given the opportunity.
Behind her, Meredyth heard the trampling of courthouse security guards tumbling over one another in an effort to get to the bottom steps and through the door and at Meredyth. She realized that she could be shot dead before any explanation of her identity or her brandishing a gun could be made. Perhaps Lauralie had even planned it this way, but how? How did she know she'd be here?
She heard the clickity-clack of a set of high heels just ahead of her. She wheeled and leaped into the next lane of stacks, coming eye-to-eye with a terrified file clerk who dropped her handful of files and fled. Beyond the clerk, she saw an emergency door exit slowly closing.
She raced for the door and was about to snatch it open when from behind her, she heard the order, "Freeze! Drop the gun and freeze, now!"
It was a male voice, one of the security guards.
A second guard came at her from another direction, his gun also pointed, saying, "You've got two guns pointed at you! Do as you're told, Dr. Sanger."
She knew the man by name. "Roy, you know who I am. You know I'm not some lunatic. She was here. She went through that door. Let me catch her before she gets away."
"Who was here?" asked Roy Purdue.
The other guard shouted, "Drop the gun, lady! Now!"
She did so, sighing heavily. Roy poked his head through the exit door and stared outside for a moment as his partner picked up Meredyth's weapon. "Nobody out there. Dr. Sanger," Roy informed her.
"The .38 is registered. I carry a weapon for self-defense and would only use it in self-defense."
"We'll just let the police handle it from here, lady," said the guard she didn't know. Reading his name tag, she replied, "Listen, Lewis, I'm a forensic police shrink, and I'm being stalked."
"Police are on their way, Dr. Sanger," replied Roy. "This is a matter you'll have to resolve with them. Maybe you should call your lawyer, Dr. Sanger."
"I'll do that." She plunged a hand into her purse for the cell phone, and Lewis crouched, aimed, and shouted, "Freeze!"
"Damn it, I'm going for my cell phone."
"Forget it!" shouted a red-faced Lewis, snatching her purse from her. He now had her gun tucked into his belt, and her purse dangling from one hand, his gun still trained on her. "Cuff her, Roy," Lewis said shakily.
"That won't be necessary, Lewis. We just escort her to the door. Put the gun down, Lewis."
"What?"
"She's unarmed now, Lewis, and cooperative, so back off!"
"Give me my phone back. I'll call my boss, Chief Lincoln," she pleaded.
"Let's all go upstairs, Dr. Sanger. Greet the officers when they arrive," suggested Roy. "We can turn your things over to them."
Meredyth pulled away and walked briskly ahead of Roy and his friend through the stacks and back to the microfiche machine she'd been working on when she saw some-thing strange. Someone had ordered a hard copy of the record she'd come for. The paper copy lay in the tray, taunting her.
"She was here...she did this," said Meredyth, realizing how mad she must seem to these two courthouse guards. "I didn't order a copy of the record be made. She did. It's her way of telling me how close she can get any time she wants."
"Let's go upstairs, Dr. Sanger," replied Roy in his softest, kindest tone.
"It also means she's still in the building, still lurking in the shadows down here. We've got to do a search of this entire area, Roy!"
"No, Dr. Sanger, we're done here," declared Roy. "We're taking you upstairs, so please, come along."
She defiantly snatched the copy of the record of Lauralie's adoption as they led her through the door and to the stairwell. "She may have left fingerprints on the machine."
Neither security guard was listening now. They silently led her up to ground level.
The security guards turned Meredyth over to two uniformed policemen who had rushed through the courthouse security checkpoint, guns drawn. Meredyth's gun was turned over to the police, and one of them proceeded to handcuff her as she protested. "I'm a forensic psychiatrist! With the Three-one! I'm a shrink, a cop shrink. Check my ID."
Meredyth saw that people she had known for a decade, from the newsstand guy to lawyers and bailiffs and judges, all staring in disbelief. A crowd had gathered, mostly made up of civilians who populated the courtrooms in cases ranging from traffic tickets to murder trials. But among them, Meredyth caught a glimpse of Lauralie Blodgett stepping away, a smile on her face.
"It's her!" Meredyth shouted. "Stop that woman! It's her!"
But Meredyth was led out to a waiting police cruiser, its strobe lights flashing, and outside she had to face yet another crowd. The arrest was humiliating, and she was pleased when finally she could duck into the cruiser and be out of view behind the tinted windows. The handcuffs bit into her wrist, and when the officers climbed into the car, she pleaded with them to take off the cuffs, telling them to call Captain Gordon Lincoln at the 31st Precinct, again telling them who she was, adding, "What happened in the courthouse...it was all a big mis—"
"—misunderstanding," the two cops piped in, in unison.
"Yes ma'am, ahhh, Doctor," said the driver. "Frank, you want to call the Three-one and bother Gordo Lincoln with this, or you want to book the lady?" They had driven off the courthouse sidewalk where the cruiser had parked, blocking the front stairs to the courthouse main entrance.
"I'm the forensic psychiatrist who's working closely with Lieutenant Lucas Stonecoat on the P.O. murder case, the one all over the news."
"The Post-it Ripper case, you?" The two officers stared at one another, and then the driver stared at her through his rearview mirror. "You really got Police ID on you, Doc?"
"Yeah, but my hands are in cuffs and I can't get at my purse."
The driver pulled over some blocks away.
"What the hell're we doing, Tony?" asked the cop in the passenger seat.
"Check her ID, Frank."
"I have a permit for the gun," she told them. "I'm the police shrink at the Three-one," she nervously repeated.
"Wait, whoa up, Doc. Are you saying that you're the one who's gotten all those body parts by mail—the eyeballs and the hand?" he asked as Frank pulled open the back door and rifled through her purse for identification.
"It's her all right, Tony. Dr. M. Sanger, Ph.D., M.D., Houston PD Forensic Psychiatry, Civilian Personnel. What now?"
"Call Lincoln." Tony adjusted his uniform tie.
"No...no, call Lieutenant Lucas Stonecoat, please. He'll verify I am who I say I am."
"Hmmm...think we've established that much. Tell you what, Doc. How would it be if we dropped you at the Three-one and we all call it a day? I'll talk to security at the courthouse; not likely to be any charges."
"Sounds like a sound plan," she agreed. "Thank you, thank you both."
"Don't mention it." said Frank, a half-kidding, nervous tension to his voice, "not to anyone!"
"Sounds to me like you've been under a great deal of stress here lately, Doc," replied Tony from the wheel as they pulled away, going now toward the 31st Precinct.