island, I see a stunning Technicolor image of a naked corpse lying on its back. The details of the upper body hit me in a surreal rush: livid bite marks on the chest, bloody ones on the face, one bullet hole in the center of the abdomen, a contact gunshot wound to the forehead. The superfine blood spatter of a high-speed-impact wound has dotted the marble tiles like a monochrome Pollock painting behind the victim’s head. Arthur LeGendre’s face is a frozen shriek of horror and pain, shocked into permanence when part of his brain was blown out through the back of his skull.
I force my eyes away from the bite marks on the chest. The lower body has its own tale to tell. Arthur LeGendre isn’t nude after all. He wears black nylon socks, like a man in a 1940s porno loop. His penis is a pale acorn in a nest of gray pubic hair, but I can see blood and bruising there. I take a step forward, and my breath catches in my throat. Scrawled in blood across two cabinet doors on the wall of the island opposite the sink are five words:
MY WORK IS NEVER DONE
Rivulets of blood have dripped down the cabinet doors, giving the message an almost comical Halloween look. But there’s nothing comical about the pool of separated blood and serum under the elbow of the dead man. LeGendre’s antecubital vein was sliced to provide the blood for this macabre message. The tip of his right forefinger was obviously dipped in blood. Did the killer write the words with his victim’s dead finger to avoid leaving his own fingerprint in the blood? Or did he force LeGendre to write the message prior to death? Free-histamine tests will answer that question.
I need to start working, but I can’t take my eyes off the message. My work is never done. It’s a common phrase, so common I can hear my mother’s voice saying it in my head—
“You need any help, Dr. Ferry?”
“What?”
“John Kaiser,” says the same voice.
I look over at a tall, lanky man of about fifty. He has a friendly face with hazel eyes that miss nothing. He’s left off his title. Special Agent John Kaiser.
“You need help with your lights or anything? For the UV photography?”
Feeling oddly detached, I shake my head.
“He’s getting more savage,” Kaiser observes. “Losing control, maybe? The face is actually torn this time.”
I nod again. “There’s subcutaneous fat showing through the cheek.”
The floor shudders as Sean sets my heavy dental case beside me. Too late I try to conceal that I jerked when the vibration went through me. I tell myself to breathe deeply, but my throat is already closing, and a film of sweat has coated my skin.
One step at a time … Shoot the bites with the 105-millimeter quartz lens. Standard color film first, then get out the filters and start on the UV. After that, take your alginate impressions …
As I bend and flip the latches on my case, I feel like I’m moving at half speed. A dozen pairs of eyes are watching me, and their gazes seem to be interfering with my nerve impulses. Sean will notice my awkwardness, but maybe no one else will. “It’s the same mouth,” I say softly.
“What?” asks Agent Kaiser.
“Same killer. He’s got slightly pegged lateral incisors. I see it on the chest bites. That’s not conclusive. I’m just saying … my preliminary assessment.”
“Right. Of course. You sure you don’t need some help?”
What the hell am I saying? Of course it’s the same guy. Everybody in this room knows that. I’m just here to document and preserve the evidence to the highest possible degree of accuracy—
I’m opening the wrong case. I need my camera, not my impression kit. Jesus, keep it together. But I can’t. As I bend farther down to open my camera case, a wave of dizziness nearly tips me onto the floor. I retrieve the camera, straighten up, switch it on, then realize I’ve forgotten to set up my tripod.
And then it happens.
In three seconds I go from mild anxiety to hyperventilation, like an old lady about to faint in church. Which is unbelievable. I can breathe more efficiently than 99 percent of the human population. When I’m not working as an odontologist, I’m a free diver, a world-class competitor in a sport whose participants commonly dive to three hundred feet using only the air trapped in their lungs. Some people call free diving competitive suicide, and there’s some truth to that. I can lie on the bottom of a swimming pool with a weight belt for over six minutes without air, a feat that would kill most people. Yet now—standing at sea level in the kitchen of a ritzy town house—I can’t even drink from the ocean of oxygen that surrounds me.
“Dr. Ferry?” says Agent Kaiser. “Are you all right?”
Panic attack, I tell myself. Vicious circle … the anxiety worsens the symptoms, and the symptoms rev up the anxiety. You have to break the cycle …
Arthur LeGendre’s corpse wavers in my vision, as though it’s lying on the bottom of a shallow river.
“Sean?” asks Kaiser. “Is she all right?”
Don’t let this happen, I beg silently. Please.
But no one hears my prayer. Whatever is happening to me has been waiting a long time to happen. A slow black train has been coming toward me for a very long time, from very far away, and now that it’s finally reached me, it plows over me without pain or sound.
And everything goes black.
A female EMT is kneeling over me, reading from a blood pressure cuff strapped to my arm. The deflating cuff awakened me. Sean Regan and Special Agent Kaiser are standing over the EMT, looking worried.
“A little low,” says the tech. “I think she fainted. Her EKG is normal. Sugar’s a little low, but she’s not hypoglycemic.” The tech notices that my eyes are open. “When was the last time you ate, Dr. Ferry?”
“I don’t remember.”
“We should get some orange juice into you. Fix you right up.”
I look to my left. The stockinged feet of Arthur LeGendre’s corpse lie beside my head. Its legs and torso extend away from me at a right angle, down a different side of the kitchen island. I glance in that direction and see the bloody message again: MY WORK IS NEVER DONE.
“Any OJ in that fridge?” asks the EMT.
“Crime scene,” says Agent Kaiser. “Can’t disturb that. Anybody got a candy bar?”
A reluctant male voice says, “I got a Snickers. It’s my supper.”
“You on Atkins again?” Sean quips, and nervous laughter follows. “Cough it up.”
Everybody laughs now, grateful for the release of tension.
As I get to my feet, Sean reaches out to steady me. A paunchy detective steps forward
