Taming the Telomeres, a Thriller

by R. N. Shapiro

"Yeah, you might have a problem there. She wants to go back to the farm, but I don't think that’s reason enough to keep her here. I'm going to sign the release papers. Who’ll be coming to pick her up?"

  Andy looks at his watch – 3:30 p.m. He figures it’ll take him an hour to get there with traffic.

  "I will. How long until she is released?"

  "I’ll tell the staff you'll be here at 4:30."

  "Okay, great. Thanks for getting there on such short notice. I'll relay the message to Barbara."

  Chapter 59

  Drop for Drop

  Detective Holmes reads over the autopsy and toxicology reports. No suspicious marks on the body like bruising, cuts, or abrasions. The medical examiner concluded that the cause of death was "Fentanyl toxicity." Holmes flips to the tox report. He scans over the various drugs and chemicals and blood levels. Positive THC, meaning some marijuana use. No surprise there. Nothing of note except 30 mcg of Fentanyl – over three times the potentially fatal dose. Holmes shakes his head. Another Fentanyl overdose death.

  Holmes buzzes Rogers on his phone. "Have you read the Perless autopsy report?”

  "No, what’s it say?"

  "You were right, it's Fentanyl toxicity death. Three times the fatal dose actually. I was still thinking there might’ve been some other angle here but I don't see it now. No bruising or exterior marking on the body to indicate any other type of injury. Nothing at all from the fiber analysis, and no fingerprints besides his own. I haven’t heard anything about the laptop analysis, but we turned up nothing on his cell phone.”

  "I told you it’s an overdose. No mysteries here. Users have no idea Fentanyl can kill them just as quickly as it gets them high.”

  Holmes thinks a moment and then says "I'm going to call Mr. Perless and set a time to give him the bad news in person."

  Holmes reaches Kyle Perless at Café Loco and arranges to meet him there at 3:30 p.m., a slow time at the café so they can talk. It’s a few blocks from the police station and Holmes wants the exercise, so he walks over. They sit at a small round table near the window.

  “Can I get you some coffee or anything?” Kyle asks, trying to be a good host while inwardly hoping for news that will put the speculation about Kent overdosing to rest.

  "No thanks, I’m good. Mr. Perless, the reason I've come is that we just got the autopsy and toxicology report. The medical examiner studied your son's body and found no bruising or signs of a struggle or anything consistent with foul play. Also, you may recall that we did find a small baggie with patches in his pocket that have since been tested and confirmed as Fentanyl pain patches. The toxicology screening showed that there was 30 mcg of Fentanyl in the blood drawn from your son. That's over three times what’s considered a fatal dosage. The medical examiner concluded the cause of death was Fentanyl toxicity. Your son’s death will be listed as an accidental overdose, and we’re going to close the case. "

  "I’ll never believe that bull, Detective. What else have you done besides decide this was an accidental overdose? Did you look for suspects, someone who might want to kill my son? What if someone killed him?"

  “What do you mean ‘killed him’?”

  “Like, gave him a toxic dose or forced it on him?”

  “There isn’t any evidence of that. There are no motives, no enemies…I’m very sorry…”

  “What did you do to look for someone who could have…” Holmes cuts Kyle off mid-sentence.

  "Well, we've done a lot besides get these reports. We interviewed the entire staff at your café."

  "Yeah, but you never told me what you found."

  "Well we found that there was nobody that knew anything. We found no motive for any of your staff to want him dead. Even so, we still checked alibis on everyone. We even tracked a few of the staff on surveillance cams. We found nothing.”

  “Well, Sienna quit a couple days after he died with no notice. What about her?”

  “I’m glad you asked. We checked surveillance cams at her apartment and found nothing. She was home that night and came straight here the next day. Everything checked out.”

  "Well if someone was selling him illegal Fentanyl patches, did you try to find who sold him the stuff?"

  "Drug dealers don't generally come out of the woodwork when something like this happens. Everybody clams up. Because the patches are legally prescribed it's difficult to trace them. We know what brand they are, but every pharmacy in this area can fill that type of script, and none of them had any thefts either."

  Kyle looks down at the copy of the autopsy and tox report and flips through it without really reading it since it would be meaningless to him.

  “I still don’t believe any of this. It makes no sense.”

  "Well some things are self-evident. It's pretty evident that he got the Fentanyl illegally and died of an overdose. I’ve got nothing to support a homicide here, including no motive. I’m so sorry for your loss, and I wish I had better news."

  Kyle stares out the window to the street, holding his jaw slightly upwards, wanting to cuss, to shout.

  “You have no idea what it feels like, none.” He pushes the chair back and walks across the café, through the swinging door, back to the music store for his next lesson.

  Chapter 60

  Joker

  7:30 a.m. on a school day is a frantic time in the Owlsley house. David pours cereal and milk in a bowl. Usually his dad joins him, but this morning he stands a few steps behind his seat, listening to his cell phone with a serious look on his face.

  David is on his third spoonful of cereal when his mother whispers to him, “The cops just told Dad that someone broke into the office last night. He’s on the phone with Ed right now.”

  David finally manages to swallow the spoonful in his mouth and robotically takes another bite.

  “What about all of the diagnostic equipment, computers, everything on the desktops?” his dad asks Ed. “Do any of the network files appear corrupted or missing?”

  He waits for a response. “Excellent, excellent. What about the locked evidence room?”

  Another few seconds go by. “Amazing, no forced entry or missing evidence in there?”

  Soon after, his dad ends the call.

  “The cops talked to Ed. They couldn’t find any evidence of forced entry, just one unlocked ground level window. Somehow the intruder downed the alarm system from outside without using our code. Ed fast-forwarded through all the surveillance camera footage, and there’s a couple seconds where we can see the intruder wearing a mask and hoodie before he covered the camera,” his dad says.

  David’s mom asks, “What kind of mask?”

  “A Joker mask. The cops say there are thousands of them.”

  “That’s good they didn’t steal or trash anything. What do you think they would’ve broken in for?” David asks.

  “Hard to say. It may take days or weeks to figure out. They swept the doors and other areas for fingerprints and couldn’t find any.”

  David rinses his bowl in the sink and puts his backpack over his shoulder as he walks toward the door.

  “See you guys for dinner,” David says.

  “Have a good day David, love you,” his mom says.

  “Love you David,” his dad adds.

  David takes the long way to Middleburg Academy and locates a dumpster behind a grocery store. While still inside the car, he pulls a Joker mask, rubber gloves and gray hoodie from a small plastic bag. He looks at the gray hoodie without any identifying logo or labels and decides to keep it. Then he cuts the Joker mask into tiny pieces and puts them back in the bag. After confirming no one is around and that there is no surveillance camera, he throws the bag and the rubber gloves into the middle of the half-full dumpster.

  He cycles back through the events of the night before when he broke into his dad’s office and located Kent Perless’ laptop. He then downloaded all of the data from the hard drive. He stored it on a zip drive, then backtracked with another program to remove his digital
fingerprints.

  He figured the one person he would share his findings with would be Amanda, but definitely not yet, given her current frame of mind.

  Chapter 61

  B&O Magnet

  In “her room” at Aunt Barbara’s, Amanda finds a small notepad and handwrites a note. She folds the note and puts it inside a small envelope. Then she texts Charlyne.

  U R one of my BFFs, right?

  Yep. U home?

  Yeah. Got sprung tonight. Pick me up tomorrow after school? Want to visit B&O bridge overlook. Can U?

  Sure. Be there at 3:30, K?

  Text when U R a couple blocks away, I’m sneaking out. Kinda in lockdown.

  The next morning Amanda texted David who was assigned to take her back to school. She said she was sick and wouldn't be going. When David never came by Aunt Barbara discussed it with Amanda, who said she just didn't feel up to going to school.

  When she gets Charlyne’s text, Amanda grabs her cell phone, puts a couple items in a small knapsack, and cuts through the back yard to find her.

  “Thanks a lot for picking me up, and I know it was weird asking you not to come to the house.”

  “I know everything is weird for you. Everyone at school is saying you got forced into a psychiatric hospital. Did you?”

  Charlyne puts the car in drive and starts pulling away.

  “Yeah, for no reason really. My aunt did it. I just don’t want to go to school, at least not yet.”

  “I get it. You’ve been through hell. I went to Kent’s funeral with Iris and David. It was terrible.”

  Amanda puts her hand up. “No details please. I wanted to go but I just couldn’t.”

  “So where exactly are we going now?” Charlyne asks.

  “It’s a beautiful park that overlooks the B&O railroad trestle on the Shenandoah River. Kent took me there. Have you ever been?”

  “No, but I kinda know where it is. Just point out some turns at the end, okay? Are you getting any tutoring since you’re ditching school?”

  “I really haven’t done anything since Kent died. I’ve just been trying to figure out things.”

  “Yeah, right. Why does something like that happen to a guy like Kent? I have trouble believing he OD’d.”

  “We didn’t have any secrets. He would’ve told me if he was doing drugs like that.”

  “Some of the seniors think he wanted to commit suicide because of what happened to his mom.”

  “That’s crap. He never talked about suicide or anything like that. Besides, I think he really liked me, so why…Up here at this next intersection is where you turn.”

  A few minutes later Amanda guides Charlyne into the area where she and Kent had pulled off. As they close the car doors, Amanda tosses her cell phone onto the front passenger seat. Charlyne notices.

  “You’re not bringing that?”

  “No. I don’t want to lose it out there.”

  However, Charlyne notices Amanda has a small knapsack slung over her shoulder. Charlyne pauses a moment, then decides to bring her cell phone.Amanda guides them along a path, the same one she walked with Kent.

  “Been here a lot?” Charlyne asks.

  “Just once.”

  As they walk along the path Charlyne looks back toward the road.

  When they arrive at the top of the path near the edge of the embankment leading out to the railroad trestle, they stop and look out on the Shenandoah River. The water is shimmering because of the sun, which is fairly low in the western sky by this time.

  “See that walkway along the trestle?” Amanda asks pointing.

  “Yeah, what about it?”

  “I’m thinking about walking along it. Wanna come with me?”

  “Are you kidding?” Charlyne says, never being much of a daredevil herself.

  “No I’m not. It’s one of the things I did with Kent. Actually he walked along it but I was too chicken.”

  Amanda steps through the broken fence and starts toward the tracks. Charlyne still hovers on the opposite side of the fence.

  “Hey, it says ‘no trespassing.’ You can’t go in there,” Charlyne partly screams.

  Amanda moves onto the narrow walkway beside the track, which has no handrail whatsoever. She still has the small knapsack slung over her right shoulder. Could it be even three feet wide? She’s got her back to Charlyne, who she knew wouldn’t come with her.

  “I’m just going partway, you sure you don’t wanna come?”

  “Don’t Amanda! If this is why you wanted to come here, it’s a really bad idea. Come back, please! You’re starting to scare me.”

  Amanda ignores her pleas and starts walking along the trestle. Charlyne watches, knowing there is nothing she can do except go out there and force her to come back or wait for her to return.

  “Amanda! Stop it! Come back!” After she walks another 50 yards at least, Charlyne cannot believe what Amanda does next. She sits down with her two legs draped over the edge looking out at the water. Charlyne has her cell phone in her back pocket. Who should I call? She is scrolling on her phone for Amanda’s aunt or uncle when she hears a sound.

  HONNN N-N-N-K-K-K! HONNN N-N-N-K-K-K!

  At first she doesn’t recognize the distant sound. But then she hears another horn blast, far louder. Terrified, she leans forward into the broken fence.

  “Amanda! A train is coming! Come back now!”

  She sees Amanda turn and look in her direction but she’s unsure whether she hears her.

  Then Charlyne feels the vibration, starting in her feet and working its way up through her body. Seconds later she looks to her right and sees the large blue and yellow locomotive heading toward the bridge trestle and Amanda. The train must be going 40, 50, maybe even 60 miles an hour. Charlyne grabs for her cell phone and waves wildly to whoever is in the huge engine, hopelessly trying to gain anyone’s attention as the train barrels onto the trestle.

  Inside the lead locomotive the CXT engineer and the conductor notice the person waving just as they approach the trestle. They again blast their horn, and suddenly the conductor sees something near the middle of the trestle.

  “That’s a person! Throw it into emergency!” The conductor yells. The 50-ton train is loaded with coal and trails for about a quarter mile behind three engines. The engineer applies air brakes to all of the train cars and the engines. A train with this tonnage will take at least a quarter to a half mile to come to a stop. Both of them watch as the human figure gets closer and closer.

  The person now stands on the narrow walkway, not moving, not running, nothing.

  Surely the person must hear them. The conductor and engineer catch one more glimpse just before the locomotive blasts past. The conductor nervously clutches his portable radio receiver and frantically calls the train dispatcher.

  “Dispatch, this is CXT Train 1310, we may have just struck someone on the B&O trestle, in block, uh, 154, over the Shenandoah. The person was just standing in the middle of the trestle, never moved despite repeated horn blasts. Over.”

  “Train 1310, pull clear of the trestle. Examine front plow of the engine and determine what happened. We will await your reply to take action. Over.”

  “Dispatch, confirm you put a stop order on traffic on the block with the B&O trestle. Over.”

  “Train 1310, we have put a stop order on the track, giving you protection. Over.”

  “Dispatch, Thanks. Over.”

  Within a minute, the CXT conductor examines the plow on the side facing the walkway. There is a small but noticeable shear scrape no more than four inches long about four to five feet up on the plow.

  He reaches for his radio and advises his engineer he is proceeding to the trestle.

  Charlyne’s hands shake so badly she can hardly dial the numbers for Amanda’s uncle. Finally, his phone is ringing.

  “Andy Michaels here.”

  “Mr. Michaels, this is Charlyne Bennington. Uh, I’m not far from Sky Meadows Park and I’m with Amanda, and she walked out on the
railroad trestle and the train just went by, and I, I don’t know if she’s okay or not.”

  “What?! She’s where and what happened?”

  “I tried to stop her, I yelled, but she wouldn’t stop or come back and she went onto the railroad bridge. It’s the B&O bridge over the Shenandoah. I can’t see her on the bridge. I don’t see her in the water. I don’t know what happened… God… I don’t know what to say. Can you get here quickly?”

  “The B&O railroad bridge over the river?”

  “Yeah, that’s it. “

  “Charlyne, just stay put. Let me make some calls and I’ll get back to you. Just stay there. Did you drive?”

  “Yeah, I drove. You’ll see my car, and I’m up a little path. I’m going to stay up here where I can see the bridge.”

  As he makes this walk the conductor believes that whoever was standing on the railroad trestle was there for a reason. Another despondent soul using a train as their means to an end. He sees a lump on the tracks as he nears the place where the person was standing. He carefully kneels down and grasps a girl’s small backpack. It’s the kind that you just cinch at the top, so he pries it apart with his fingers. He peers inside the bag and finds an envelope. He pulls it out, and then notices a small gold necklace inside as well.

  Miller quickly concludes it’s a suicide note. He stuffs the letter back inside the knapsack. He looks down at the water below, wondering how someone could survive the long fall, especially if they hit her. He gets on his portable radio.

  “Dispatcher, Miller here. I’m at the middle of the trestle. There is no sign of the person, but I found a small backpack and what looks like a suicide note inside. There’s also a little necklace. No identification, but it was probably a girl. I’m guessing we clipped her and she fell into the water, so we need a water rescue crew. Over.”