Authors: Robert W. Walker
"You can tell all that from just looking?" asked Tebo.
"Absolutely," replied Chang. "First impressions are usually right. Whoever cut out the eyes and removed the two front teeth, he knew precisely what to do and how to do it. Again, unless these tissues, organs, and teeth were already excised for him, which is Lucas's hopeful theory, this fellow has access to precision tools and is skilled in using them."
"Makes it the more horrible," said Meredyth, who had gnashed her teeth and gasped on seeing what had been forwarded to Lucas. Meredyth held a handkerchief to her nostrils to fend off the foul odors of the decaying matter sent to Lucas. "This has to be from a separate victim," she said now. "It's older, further along in decay."
"Your eyes and nose deceive you. Unlike the soft tissue of the eyes, left whole, these internal organs—hard tissue that has been split off from the organs—already have a strong odor about them. Like cutting into an onion, you release the odors." Everyone followed Chang's explanation. "These internal cold cuts, if you will, are actually quite fresh, like the eyes. It will be surprising if they did not come from the same source."
The out-of-place human organ materials were then quickly scooped into bags, which were sealed and removed, along with all the paper and wood and Styrofoam that had housed them. Chang said good night as his techs filed out.
Tebo took a deep breath and shook his head after the retreating CSI team. Lucas said to his friend, "Thanks for hanging on here all this time, Jack."
"No problem... don't mention it. Wonder why people always say don't mention it just after someone mentions it. Little late by then, right?" He laughed, trying to get the other two to laugh with him. They did not.
"Good night, Jack," Lucas said.
Tebo hesitated, something on his mind.
"What is it?" asked Lucas, certain it had to do with Eunice. She'd been here, seen the package, and she'd be spreading the word from here to the Coushatta Reservation by morning. The moccasin grapevine in the hands of a truly vociferous specialist was wonderful to behold.
Tebo knew Lucas's conclusion, reading it in his eye. "Never mind. We'll talk tomorrow. Good night, Dr. Sanger, Lucas."
They were alone with one another now, and Lucas asked Meredyth if she wanted anything to drink.
"I'll have some of that Mexican gin you like so much."
'Tequila? You?"
"If it'll help me sleep tonight, yes, unless you have a better suggestion."
"Well...matter of fact, I do have my own remedy for insomnia."
She gave him a knowing look. She knew of his drug habit, that it was linked to his accident and near-death experience of years before, that it helped him to maintain a front in his personal war against the pain that was ever with him. She knew he smoked marijuana and peyote for medicinal purposes, and at times he drank to excess.
She watched him go into his bedroom, and following, she saw him scrounge beneath the bed and come out with a cigar box. "This stuff won't leave you with a hangover."
"Promise?"
He pulled forth a pipe and his stash of Texas reservation peyote. "Old Indian cure-all. Come on, let's get comfortable." He led her back into the living room, tossed some pillows on the floor, and got down on the rug, crossing his legs. She sat alongside in her jeans, also cross-legged now.
"So, this is how you stay so loose," she said.
"You've known for some time, I'm sure. Poking around in my medical records. I know you've got friends in Dallas can tell you all about me." Lucas lit the pipe, took a long drag on it, and passed it to her.
Meredyth cautiously breathed in the smoke, and still she coughed, making him laugh. She tried a second puff, and succeeded without coughing this time.
"That's it, right, Mere. You're on your way to the Cherokee promised land now! I guaran-damn-tee you, darling," he promised. "Going where nothing bad can happen ever again."
"That's all I ask...at least for now."
CHAPTER 4
THE FOLLOWING DAY. Lucas awoke in Meredyth's arms, a place he had sought on and off for as long as they had known each other, but this time it felt right. He sensed her comfort in his arms, and he reached around her, holding her closer, tighter, filling his nostrils with the smell of her hair, all the while wondering when and how they had made it to the bedroom from the living room.
Her eyes came open, and she tenderly, longingly returned his embrace, until soon they were locked in a passionate kiss.
When she broke it off, coming up for air, she said, "That peyote works wonders."
"Here I thought it was me..."
"I was referring to sleep."
"Then you slept restfully?"
"I did, and I dreamed."
"A pleasant dream, I hope," he replied.
"Dreamed of a world of clouds to walk on and waterfalls to stand beneath, of a warm spray of water cleansing my body, and there were hillsides of flowers and roaming deer, birds overhead, a lake, a canoe, snowcapped mountains in the sky and reflected in the lake."
"Sounds like Indian paradise. The peyote payoff, I call it," he joked.
"It was beautiful, Lucas. A million miles of far away..."
"Were you alone or was I there?" he asked.
"You came into the viewfinder about the time I woke up."
"Figures!" He placed a finger to her cheek, tracing a line to her lips before he again kissed her. She leaned into him, and their bodies tingled against one another. He inched downward and buried his face in her bosom, nibbling at her neck, biting at her bra, and making sounds like a wolf. Lucas became hard and firm, and Meredyth responded by sinking her teeth into his shoulder and sucking on his skin, bringing up a red welt.
"You're now officially a marked man," she joked, and seriously added, "and no one, not even your Tsali, can have you now. And no one but I can be your cactus flower. Only me."
"I'm all yours," he promised, then gently rolled further atop her and passionately found her. Together they entwined, becoming one sentient being with a single purpose.
Their lovemaking rose to a crescendo and ended in mutual exhaustion, until she revived Lucas, and their playfulness turned again into burning passions that rose anew like a flame from the ashes. The loving continued for another hour in waves, eddies of shivering passion. Finally, they lay in the aftermath of their passions, their lovemaking over, and Lucas climbed from the bed. He began putting on his pants.
"Hey! Where're you going so fast, Injun?' she complained.
"I'm going to rustle you up some breakfast, sweetheart," he said with an exaggerated Texas drawl.
"Don't you think we ought to...you know...at least talk about what just happened?"
"Don't analyze it, Mere. It's why we've never made it as a couple in the past."
"What do you mean?"
"Oh, God, here we go."
"What do you mean?" she repeated.
"You...you and your...shrinking response! I'm beginning to think it's your coping mechanism, your way of pushing me away whenever we get intimate."
"Shrinking response...Clever, very clever, but what's that supposed to mean? And since when did you start using words like coping mechanism and intimate? You been sneaking episodes of Phil and Oprah?"
"I don't want to get into another disagreeable confrontation with you over a perfectly natural fondness we have for one another. Just let it be, like the song says."
"Fondness? Is that what this is, a fondness for one another? Is that how we wound up in bed together last night? And come to think of it, how did you get me in bed last night? And you call it fondness? We make mad passionate love this morning, and it's out of a fondness?"
"How do I know how we wound up in bed? If you don't want to accept the fact that I genuinely care about you, then blame it on the peyote."
"Seriously, how did we wind up in bed last night?" she asked.
"I don't know." He shrugged and disappeared as a pillow came at his head.
With him gone, she lay back in the bed, smiling, secretly pleased with the direction they had gone in. Perhaps this time the bond would be stronger than the sum of all her fears, fears that had kept her at arm's length from Lucas all the years they had known one another. He had always represented a dark and perilous ocean to her, a man she thought dangerous, a man who made her lose herself entirely at the end of his fingertips. She even feared telling him this simple truth.
She got up, showered, and dressed, and in a happy frame of mind, she found him in the kitchen, the sink having been thoroughly Ajaxed. With the smell of bleach and bacon competing, Meredyth attempted to continue the bedroom topic over breakfast. "Are we just going to call it a drug-induced stupor—what has happened between us—or are we going to pursue a lasting relationship, Lucas?"
"I would like to keep you, Meredyth, but not at the price of analyzing every action I take, every g'damn word I say."
"Whatever are you talking about? God, you can be so...so..."
"Fond of you? Like when I said the word, you felt compelled to ridicule it. I meant it in the best of all possible...meanings."
"What about love? Would you say what we have between us is love?"
He clenched his jaw and hesitated a moment.
"Well, Chief?" she pressed.
"Yes, damn it, I believe it is."
"Is what?"
"Is what you said."
"Is what I said? What'd I say?"
"You know...what you said."
"You can't even bring yourself to say it, can you?"
"Maybe because of the fact that you, Mere, have always made it clear that... that guys like Byron...or someone like him are more suited to you and your social standing and the lifestyle to which you've become accustomed."
"After last night and what he did, trust me, Byron isn't suited to me in any way, shape, or form. He's history. I should have known him better than I did."
"Oh, really? I didn't know. Then I'm the rebound guy...maybe?"
"No, Lucas, I've always..." Now she hesitated.
"Always what?"
"Felt great...fondness for you; it's just that I've also always... well, always..."
"Always what?"
"...also feared loving, that is, feeling fondly toward you as well."
"Come on. What's to fear?"
"You'll break my heart, one way or another. Your job for one. If I let myself love you as totally and completely as I want to, and something should happen to you...I'd be... devastated."
He stood and walked around to the table to her, and taking her in his arms, he kissed her anew. They embraced for some time, their clothing beginning to shed, when a phone call interrupted them.
"Damn, let it ring," she said.
He kissed her deeply, probing her mouth with his tongue. As he did so, he lifted the receiver and listened to the voice on the phone. He pulled back from her lips, held the phone up and away, covering the mouthpiece with his hand, and said, "It's Uncle Tebo. Curious if we know anymore about last night's goings-on." He then spoke into the phone and urged Tebo to have patience. "Not even Chang works that fast. By the way, tell no one about this. I don't want it broadcast in the Res Report at the Coushatta, any more than I want it in the Houston Chronicle, okay?" he finished, and hung up knowing he'd asked the impossible of Tebo.
'Take me home, will you, Lucas? I really have to change before going in this morning."
"Maybe you ought to take some time off, visit a relative or friend. Leastways go stay at your parents' house in Clover Leaf like Leonard said."
"Get outta Dodge, you mean? Run and hide? Nice try, and thanks for the protective thoughts, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let some nutcase chase me from my home and duties. No, I've got a full calendar both at the precinct and at my private office downtown. So, if you don't mind, sweetheart, get me there on time."
AS THEY PULLED up to Meredyth's condo, he pointed out the doorman and asked, "Is that the fellow who delivered the bundle of eyes to your door, Mere?"
"No, that's Max. You want the day man, Stu. Max comes on at ten P.M."
"So when does Stu come on duty?"
"Nine, nine-thirty in the morning, somewhere in there."
"Someone needs to grill him about who handed him the package. Maybe we can get a composite going."
"I'm sure he'll cooperate. I'll ask him to drop by the Thirty-first on my way out. Now stop worrying," she said, exiting the car. "You do love me, don't you?"
"I do, Mere. I've always loved you, but you know that."
"I haven't...not always, not when you were with Tsali."
"That was a mistake. I know that now."
She leaned in though the window and kissed him goodbye.
"Are you sure you're up to driving?" he asked.
"Worrywart. Lucas, I want my own car, and I want to walk through that door and up to my home without fear. I won't be run out of my apartment any more than I'll be run out of my life."
"Despite my misgivings, I respect your motives and wishes, so I am smiling and saying see you later, my white Anglo beauty."
Meredyth waved him off as he pulled away from the curb. In his rearview, he watched her go toward the safety of her door. Earlier, he had scanned the entire street, looking in all directions for anyone appearing suspicious or overly interested in either of them. The only one seeming to take notice of Meredyth was the night-shift doorman, who courteously opened the door for her as he chimed, "Good morning, Dr. Sanger. I do hope all is resolved and you won't have any further problems."
"Thanks, Max, and would you have Stuart ring me upstairs when he comes on? I have to speak with him."
"Sure, sure, Dr. Sanger."
"Thanks, Max, and for your concern last night and this morning."
"Don't mention it, ma'am. Only wish I coulda done more, Dr. Sanger. If you'd like, I could ride up to your place with you, have a look around before you go inside, if you'd like, I mean."
"That won't be necessary, Max. I'm the only one with a key, and it's thirty floors up. Not likely to be anyone lurking inside, but thanks for the thought all the same."
Max tipped his hat to her and nodded. "You're welcome, ma'am, Doctor."