Visions In Death

"You don't know how hard this is going to be."

"I have some idea." She shook her head, and her face was already bleak. "No, you don't. I've done this before. It's worse than you can imagine. I'm not going to ask you to go back or hang around the edges, because you won't. But I'm saying, if you need a break from it, take it. Walk away for a while. Others will, believe me. There's no shame in it." She, he thought, would never walk away. "Just tell me what you need me to do."

She had the back of the house cordoned off. While the dogs and droids were sent in, she took a team into the house. It was dank and foul inside, dark as a cave, but when she called for lights, the place illuminated like a torch.

No dark rooms for John Blue, she thought.

He'd killed them in the bedroom, the smaller of the two.

His room, Eve assumed, whenever they'd made the trip here. There were locks on the outside of the door old locks.

Locks she'd undoubtedly installed to keep the boy inside.

Lock him in the dark, as her mother had locked her.

So he'd killed her there, on the stained mattress, lying naked on the floor. Killed others there, in her image.

She saw lengths of red cord, remnants of women's clothing, and the smears and stains of blood that had dried on the mattress, on the floor.

"Everything bagged and tagged," she ordered. "I want a full sweep. Personal items of some of the vic's may include their identification. When it's done, I want the porta-lab and tech in here to get samples of the blood. We're going to ID every victim he brought here." "Lieutenant?" One of the team stepped up. He wore his full protective suit, but had yet to attach the mask and filter.

"We're locating them." "How many so far?" "Dogs just found number seven, and it doesn't look like they're done." "On my way." Feeney hustled over to join her. His Mrs Feeney suit was smeared with cobwebs and muck. "Found a Robo-dig in the basement. Looks fairly new. Been used." "Why use a shovel when you can use a machine? And one that makes a manly hum. Neighbors could've heard that." "I'll dispatch some uniforms, start the knock on doors." "Get it started." She pulled on her protective suit, carried her mask out into the rain.

Found seven, she thought. No, they hadn't finished yet.

She knew exactly how many more would be found.

Droids scooted along the uneven ground. One of the dogs barked, and his body went into a shiver of wagging as he snuffed along the ground. At his handler's signal, he sat, waited.

He'd done his job. And they put up the marker for number eight.

Eve walked to Whitney who stood under a wide, black umbrella. "Sir. Do you want me to begin evacuation?" "Eight." His face was set like granite as he stared out at the scene. "This is your procedure, Lieutenant."

"Evac can confuse the dogs. It would be my choice to leave that until we believe all remains are located and marked." "Do so. There's nine," he murmured.

They worked, inside the house, outside in the rain. Dozens of cops moving like ghosts in their gray gear. Dogs barked, droids signaled, and flags were marked on the ground.

"Call them off," she ordered when thirty minutes passed without an alert. "Move in the evac team. Let's have some lights," she called out as she started across the spongy ground.

"Two evac teams, one far west, one far east. Morris." "I'm with you." "I need IDs as soon as possible. Sooner." "I've got dental for the missings on the city list, and those we've culled from this area. It doesn't come up to this number." He sca

"Muddy now as well. It'll take awhile for the robot diggers to get through this muck." "Can you operate one?" "I can, yes." "Get this man a machine," Eve shouted out, and turned to Roarke. "Start due south. Morris, assign one of your guys to Roarke. Let's get this done." She shoved on the mask, engaged the filter, and strode toward the first marker. She stood, much as the search dog had, and waited.

"Got remains," the operator a

She saw hands first, fingers laced or what was left of them. The filter couldn't mask the full impact of what death slowly does to flesh. But still she crouched, came closer, as the shell of a woman was unearthed.

Her hair was long. Longer than it had been at death, Eve thought. In one of those mysteries, hair continued to grow after life winked out. It was dark with dirt, but it would be light brown.

You're found now, Eve thought. We'll give you back your name. The one who did this to you is boxed and caged. That's all I can do.

"How long she been in there?" Eve asked Morris.

"Few months, maybe six, I'd say. I'll tell you more when we get her in." "Get her out," Eve said, and, straightening, moved to the next marker.

The false twilight the rain brought deepened toward night.

The air was cold, damp, and carried the pitiful stench of death. Tagged bodies lay bagged beside gaping holes in the earth until they could be transported. Remains lay on tarps shielded by tents while the ME's team worked to identify.

The yard took on the look of a mass grave.

Overhead, the media copters circled, spun out their lights.

Word was more reporters were camped on neighbors" lawns.

It hadn't taken them long. Even now, she assumed, the scene where she stood, the misery and horror of it was being relayed to screens all over the state the country. The damn world.

And people sat in their homes and watched. Grateful to be warm and dry and alive.

Someone brought her coffee, and she drank it without tasting it, without thought. Snagging another, she walked to Roarke.

"This is the third I've done." Absently, he wiped rain from his face. He shut down the machine, boosted it aside so the hand team could work. "And you were right. It's worse than anything I could imagine." "Take a break." She handed him the coffee.

He stepped back and shoved up the mask as she had done.

It barely helped now in any case. Beneath it his face was pale, damp with sweat. And grim as a grave.

"I won't be put in the ground when my time comes," he said, quietly. "Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, whatever the hell, I won't make that transition in the bloody dirt. I'll take the fire, quick and clean." "Maybe you can bribe God and live forever. You've got more money than He does." He managed a small smile to please her. "It's worth a try in any case." He drank coffee, and looked, was unable not to look at the horror surrounding him. "Sweet Jesus, Eve," "I know. His personal cemetery." "I was thinking his private holocaust." And she stood with him for a moment, in silence, listening to the mournful sound of rain pattering on the bags.

"Morris has ID'd a few, through dental. Marjorie Kates, Breen Merriweather from the city. Lena Greenspan -thirty-year-old mother of two from three miles away. Sane Parker, twenty-eight, adult ed instructor, worked at the local school. Some of them are going to be street people, or LC's.

But we'll ID them all. However long it takes, we'll ID them all." "It matters, who they were, where they came from, who loved them. You have to make it matter or they're just rotting flesh and bone after all. They're only what he made them.

Isn't that so?" "Yeah." She watched as another was bagged. "And they're more. Much more than he made them."

When it was done, as much as could be done then and there, Eve stripped off her gear, tossed it into the pile for sanitizing and disposal. She wanted a shower. She wanted hours in hot water, as hot as she could stand, then more hours in oblivion.