BLACK NOTICE. PATRICIA CORNWELL

“Then we should get DNA, too, from the swabs I’m giving you,” she said, getting increasingly unsettled.

I didn’t care. It no longer mattered.

“Of course, you can’t do much with the hairs,” she rambled. “Hirsute, no pigmentation. They would simply be consistent with each other, wouldn’t they . . . ?”

I wasn’t listening. I was thinking of Kaspar Hauser. He spent the first sixteen years of his life in a dungeon because Prince Charles of Baden wanted to make sure Kaspar didn’t have any claims to the crown:

“. . . no DNA without roots, I suppose . . .” Dr. Stvan went on. ‘

At age sixteen he was found by a gate, a note pinned to him. He was pale like a cave fish, nonverbal like an animal. A freak. He couldn’t even write his name without someone’s guiding his hand.

“The mechanical, block letters of a beginner,” I thought out loud. “Someone shielded, never exposed to others, never schooled except at home. Maybe even self-taught.”.

Dr. Stvan stopped talking.

“Only a family could shield someone from the time he was born. Only a very powerful family could circumvent the legal system, allowing this anomaly to keep on killing without being caught. Without embarrassing them, drawing unwanted attention to them.”

Dr. Stvan was silent as every word I said torqued what she believed and aroused a new, more pervasive fear.

“The Chandonne family knows exactly what these hairs, the abnormal teeth, all of it means,” I said. “And he knows. Of course he does, and he would have to suspect you know, even if the labs tell you nothing, Dr. Stvan. I think he came to your house because you saw his reflection in what he did to the bodies. You saw his shame, or he thought you did.”

“Shame.. . ?”

“I don’t think the purpose of that note was to assure you he wouldn’t try again,” I continued. “I think it was mocking you, telling you he could do what he wanted with sovereign immunity. That he would be back and wouldn’t fail next time.”

“But it would appear he’s not here anymore,” Dr. Stvan answered me.

“Obviously, something changed his plans.”

“And the shame he thinks I saw? I never got a good look at him.”

“What he did to his victims is the only look at him we need. The hair isn’t coming from his head,” I said. “He’s shedding it from his body.”

36

I had seen only one case of hypertrichosis in my life, when I was a resident physician in Miami and rotating through pediatrics. A Mexican woman gave birth to a girl, and two days later the infant was covered with a fine lightgray hair almost two inches long. Thick tufts protruded from her nostrils and ears, and she was photophobic, her eyes overly sensitive to light.

In most hypertrichotic .people, hairiness progressively increases until the only areas spared are mucous membranes and palms and soles, and in some extreme cases, unless the person frequently shaves, the hair on,the face and brow can become so long it has to be curled so the person can see. Other symptoms can be anomalies of the teeth, stunted genitalia, more than the normal number of fingers and toes and nipples, and an asymmetrical face.

In earlier centuries, some of these wretched souls were sold to carnivals or royal courts for amusement. Some were thought to be werewolves.

“Wet, dirty hair. Like a wet, dirty animal,” Dr. Ruth Stvan supposed. “I wonder if the reason I saw only his eyes when he appeared at my door is because his entire face was covered with hair? And maybe he had his hands in his pockets because they were covered with hair, too?”

“Certainly, he couldn’t go out in normal society looking like that,” I replied. “Unless he goes out only after dark. Shame, sensitivity to light and now murder. He might limit his activities to darkness, anyway.”

“I suppose he could shave,” Stvan pondered. “At least those areas people might see. Face, forehead, neck, tops of the hands.”

“Some of the hair we found appeared to have been shaved,” I said. “If he were on a ship, he had to do something. “He must undress, at least partially, when he kills,” she said.