Weirder and Weirder
Reed’s
Realm
Reed Hackman sat next to Martin in a row of folding chairs,
Reed’s
stray thoughts, and the rest of the meeting, were broken by Reed’s cell phone ringing the theme from the TV show Cops.
Martin
looked up at Reed hearing the tone and started to chuckle, as did several
others. The speaker, or the police
chief, did not look amused.
“Hey,
don’t even go there man!” Reed whispered
in a low voice, pointing a finger at Martin who was trying not to laugh out
loud. “Sorry, Chief,”
he said.
Reed stood,
waived pardon to his fellow officers, then stepped out
into the hallway to take the call.
Before flipping up his cell phone he glanced at the small window on the
face of his phone to see that it said:
Dana Fox
555-002-1933
“Hello,
Dr. Fox, how are you today,” Reed said.
“I am
doing well, thank you. And yourself,”
the doctor asked in return.
Reed
stepped closer to the wall to allow a passing police officer by.
“I’m
fine. It’s funny you called. I was just about to call you. Have you found out anything?” Reed asked settling
his back against the wall.
“As a
matter of fact, I have. If I am not
interrupting you at the moment I would like to discuss this with you. Are you fee to talk,
Detective?” Dana asked.
“Actually,
if it’s not any trouble, I think I will just come down to your office. I’m dying to get out of this place. Would that be okay?” Reed asked.
“That
would be the best thing. I was trying
not to take up a lot of your time,” Dana responded.
“You’re
never an inconvenience, Doctor. I will
see you in just a few minutes,” Reed added walked back toward his office.
As Reed went
through the front door of the City of
Reed
walked towards the general area of the same door where Dr. Fox had met him
before.
“Dr. Fox,
there is a Detective Hackman here to see you,” Reed
heard the receptionist, a different woman than his first visit, say from behind
the desk.
She hung
up the phone and shuffled papers around before saying, “Dr. Fox will be right
with you, sir.”
As Reed
turned to say thank you, the door opened and it was Dr. Fox. She stood in the doorway holding the door
open. She wore her usual white lab coat
and her hair loose around her shoulders, its dark waves popping sharply off the
fabric.
“Hello,
Detective,” Dr. Fox greeted.
Reed
walked over and turned sideways to pass between the doctor and the opposite
door frame.
“It’s good
to see you, Dr. Fox.” Reed returned.
She closed
the door, making sure that it latched behind her, before turning to walk down
the hall towards her office and exam room.
“So how
have things been going, Doctor,” Reed asked.
She looked
over at Reed and gave him a surprised look as if someone had asked her if she
really knew what planet she lived on.
“Well, you
should know,” she stated.
“How is
that?” Reed inquired putting on his best fake confused look.
“Well,
let’s see. You keep sending me all these
crazy bodies of men that all have abnormal issues and surprises that, at bare
minimum, have been the cause of many hours of overtime, with accompanied lack
of sleep on my part,” she said looking at Reed with a small hint of a smile on
her face.
“Please
forgive me for that, Doctor. I only work
with the best, and I heard that you were the best. Was I misinformed?” Reed asked, looking at
Dr. Fox with a smirk.
“I guess I
can’t very well argue with that, can I?” Dr. Fox returned with a bigger smile
on her face.
They
reached the entrance of her office and exam rooms. The doctor opened the door and motioned Reed
in first, once more holding the door for him.
“Thank
you,” Reed said as he walked through . “Are we heading back to the exam room again?”
“Actually,
why don’t we go to my office and have a seat and go from there,” Dr. Fox said.
Instead of
going straight and heading into the exam rooms like Reed had done the first
time he came to speak with Dr. Fox, she tuned right and led Reed down a small
corridor that went to a small but adequate office for her paperwork as a
coroner.
Upon
walking into her office, the first thing that Reed noticed was that all the
certifications and awards were perfectly spaced in precise rows on the wall and
were perpendicular to her desk. Reed was
almost as impressed with the attention to detail and time it must have taken to
get all the various sized frames to be so flawlessly placed, like some sort of
pristinely solved mathematics illustration, as he was with all the accolades
that they represented.
“That’s
some wall you have there,” Reed said.
“Impressive.”
“Impressive
maybe, but not good enough it seems when it comes to the two mystery men that
you have sent me,” the doctor responded as she took a seat behind her
desk.
“Please,
Detective, have a seat,” she said, pointing to one of the chairs with her
opened hand.
The
playful tone that had been in the air flowing back and forth between them had
suddenly been blown out of the room completely.
The friendly smiles and playfulness had now given way to a feeling of
total concentration and seriousness in a split second transition.
“This
doesn’t sound too good,” Reed said as he sat down.
“Let me
explain,” Dr. Fox said as she placed both of her hands on the desk in front of
her. “You know, I have not been in this
business long enough to call myself an old pro.
I don’t claim to know all the answers when a case comes in. However, having said that, I have always
taken great pride in being able to find and locate the critical information
needed to find out about the last moments of someone’s life. It is not always easy, but these are real
people and no matter what kind of person they were before they left this world. I still feel the responsibility to find out
all the details and evidence needed to determine the cause of death. In a best case scenario, I find the evidence
that helps lead you to the hands that performed these terrible acts.” Dr. Fox reached up and adjusted her glasses,
then leaned forward, resting her hand on her desk in front of two closed files.
“I feel it
is my duty to those who have died and to all those that loved them for whatever
goodness was in their heart. With time
and hard work, I have always been able to put the pieces together no matter how
hard it was,” Dr. Fox stated.
She
hesitated for a moment and took a deep breath, speaking while exhaling. “Then you sent me these two cases, and for
the first time in the twelve years that I have been doing this, I am
questioning my own findings. I can tell
you what the causes of death were. You
could look at them and tell me that yourself.
Cause is not hard when a huge chunk of a body is ripped off, but it is
not as easy as that. I have to answer
all the questions of why and how, and I don’t like the answers that are coming
to the surface,” she said, pausing.
“I don’t
understand, Doctor,” Reed responded, knowing he had a confused look on his
face. “What do you mean?”
“Well, let
me go straight to the question that you posed to me on the phone. Do I think these cases are related to each
other?” Dr. Fox took a quick look at her desk and opened both case files before
continuing. “I believe that they are
indeed related to one another.”
“So you
did find a link,” Reed stated.
Dr. Fox
pulled two pictures from the folders. One was of Kerrigan and the other of
Simmons. They were both comparable
photos that held the images of each man’s head, neck, and partial chest. She turned them around so that Reed could see
them right side up. Then she reached
into the outer left pocket of her white lab coat and removed an ink pen.
“Let’s
talk about the obvious first comparisons, which are the wounds to their
necks. Just speaking about the nature of
the wound itself, it is very unique.
This isn’t a typical fatal wound that you would normally see. Sometimes you get the occasional puncture,
but more often than not a neck wound is a clean slice that is made with a sharp
edged object like a knife. So to have a
wound that is more like a rip or tear is very uncommon. I have not ever seen a wound such as this in
my career and now I get two of them in a very short time frame. Very unusual,” Dr. Fox added.
She then
reached back over into each file and brought out two sheets of paper from each,
setting them over the respective pictures to which they belonged.
“These are
the toxiologicals from both men. There are the normal variations that you
would see when looking at blood work from two different individuals. However, if you look at the bottom of the
report you will see all the, quote unquote, foreign substances that were found
in their systems. They both had traces
of different narcotics in their system.
I want to point out this particular abbreviation and number,” Dr. Fox
said, pointing at information at the bottom of Kerigan’s
report. “Now look and compare that to
the one on the Simmons’ report. “What do
you notice, Detective?”
“The
abbreviations are the same along with most of the numbers,” Reed responded.
“Do you
know what those are?” Dr. Fox asked.
“I‘m
sorry, you’ll have to help me out with that, Doc,” Reed said.
“Those are
both enzyme markers telling us that there was an enzyme foreign to the body
present.” Dr. Fox looked up at
Reed. “And this particular marker is
telling us that both of them have high traces of the same enzyme which, in this
case, was Bromelain.”
“Bromelain,” Reed said with questioning
surprise. “Isn’t that the enzyme that you said was the blood thinner you were
having a hard time accounting for in Kerigan?”
“Wow, you were listening last time,” Dr. Fox said with a short lived
smile. “Yes, it is one and the same, but
unfortunately, I am no closer to knowing why it was found in either of the
men.” Dr. Fox looked up at Reed, the
frustration evident in her green eyes.
“You know, Detective, it is very rare that you find these results at all
compared to the norm. It would be like
winning the lottery and getting struck by lightening on the same day,” Dr. Fox
paused and looked at Reed for a moment.
“Having two bodies like this would be like hitting the lottery and being
struck twice within a few days of one another.”
“Great, so you’re telling me that I’ve got an unknown serial killer on
my hands here,” Reed asked.
“Actually, I don’t think you are, Detective,” Dr. Fox offered. “As a matter of fact, I’m not sure that these
two men were killed by the same person at all.”
“I don’t understand. Everything
that you’ve told me has not only proven to me that these murders are connected,
but taking into consideration the rarity of the facts that are present, I can
only deduce that they were both committed by the same person,” Reed said.
“At first glance, I agreed with you.
However, if you look at the Bromelain enzyme
tags, you will notice that they are slightly different. I was curious about the differences and I did
some additional research. I ended up
contacting the University of Hawaii and spoke to a professor there. He is a
molecular botanist in charge of biotechnology resources at the university. He’s done research on Bromelain. I was told that the small differences in the
two enzyme tags were due to the fact that even though the enzyme was the same,
it came from different sources of origin,” Dr. Fox explained.
“The professor found this to be curious because the only existence of
the Bromelain enzyme is in plants and can not be
produced by any other living thing, animal or human,” Dr. Fox said. “The samples I produced for him, however,
appeared to be an animal derived variation.”
When the Doctor did not elaborate, Reed prompted her with a wave. “Could the enzyme be based on DNA from Kerigan and Simmons?”
Dana Fox shook her head, a distant look on her face. “No.
The DNA markers from both samples were different, but neither were human. He
couldn’t find a match for the DNA to any animal.”
Reed stood up from his chair and walked around behind it, then leaned
down and placed his hands on the back.
He said nothing, looking silently at the floor. He didn’t know what to think or feel about
what he was hearing.
“Detective?” Dr. Fox said, with no
response from Reed.
“Detective Hackman?” she called to him
again. “What are you thinking?”
Reed moved back around to the front of his chair, completing a full
round trip before sitting back down.
”Honestly Doctor, I don’t know what to think,” Reed spoke, shifting his
attention back to Dr. Fox. “I just don’t
know.”
“I’m sorry. I wish I had better
answers for you,” Dr. Fox said with a somber tone.
“No need to apologize. The facts
are the facts and you have done an outstanding job in bringing the facts of
these cases to the surface. It is not
your fault if they don’t seem to make a lot of sense,” Reed offered. “It seems that every step of this
investigation has been like this.”
Reed stood up once more and Dr. Fox did the same.
“I can’t thank you enough for your efforts on these cases, Dr. Fox. You have been invaluable,” Reed said,
extending his hand to her. “I just have
to go and catch whoever is doing this and hope that I can do that before
someone else gets sent to your office.”
Dr. Fox extended her hand in return.
“Thanks again for all your time, I can show myself out,” Reed said as he
turned to walk out of her office.
“Detective,” Dr. Fox called out just as Reed was almost to the door.
Reed turned once more to face her.
“Yes,” Reed said.
Dr. Fox paused as if she was searching for the right words to say.
“Be careful out there, okay? If
you come face to face with whoever or whatever
committed these murders, just know that they must have great strength to cause the
ripping wounds that are apparent on the bodies.
Considering that with the other unexplained facts—” Pausing, Dr. Fox
walked out from behind her desk and looked at Reed intently. “Just be careful.”
“I will, Doctor,” Reed said,
looking at the Doctor in a new light.
Having a friend outside of the force didn’t feel like such a bad
thing. There was a pause as the two
continued to look at one another in silence.
Dr. Fox was first to break their break from reality. “Well, I will let you know if I happen to
discover anything else that might be of some help to you,” she said as she
walked behind her desk and started shuffling the file papers back into their
folder with a nervous jitter.
“Thanks again,” Reed said, watching her.
They shared a short smile as Reed finally nodded, and walked out of her
office door. As he moved down the
corridor, he continued to wonder just what the hell was happening in