Beneath the Cracks

by LS Sygnet

  "Zahar told me that they found Dupree on Hennessey Island."

  "Gambling?"

  "You were right about his youth obsession. He spends every weekend in the spa getting soaked in mud and wrapped in seaweed. I think Denton claimed to be working on this telomere research thing as a front to the boss, a way to give him the space he wanted for this other thing. What do you suppose makes a guy sideline a career that has legitimate promise with something so lethal? Not to mention crazy."

  Even though I was raised by a father who did something very similar, I had no answer for Crevan's question. Instead, I hooked my arm through his. "Let's go to work in the office. You look tired. Are you hanging in?"

  "I'm fine. It has been one hell of a long week. You've got to be as exhausted as we are, Helen. I should be asking how you're holding up. Have you been spending a lot of time with Maya at the hospital this week on top of this investigation?"

  "Not as much time as I should've," I said.

  We walked to Denton's cluttered office space. "Where to begin," I muttered. "I doubt my assessment of his mental state was far off the mark. He probably resisted treatment because the mania made him energetic enough to work nearly around the clock like Dupree claimed. Unfortunately, his organizational skills probably won't make much sense to people able to think rationally."

  Crevan pulled out the chair in front of the computer and woke the screen. "Yeah, he's got this thing password protected. I'd suggest that we haul it to evidence and let the techs work on cracking it, Helen. If he was as paranoid as we think he was, there's no telling what kind of safeguards he's installed to prevent people from seeing his work. Remember when he said it was proprietary and he couldn't share the details with us?"

  I nodded. "The last thing we need is to inadvertently wipe a hard drive because we're over-eager. There's a ton of paperwork in here. We can start going through that for the time being. Would you let one of the techs know that we need the computer taken right away?"

  Before we could begin making sense of Denton's files, the mess had to be organized into something more cogent. I started looking at the stacks of papers for trends in the topics. No rhyme or reason followed where Denton tossed his files. We uncovered everything from scientific papers he reviewed on legitimate research into telomeres to news stories printed out from sites like CNN and MSNBC with highlighted portions and scribbles in the margins.

  "Look at this one," Crevan passed one such item to me. "It's about the controversy over stem cell research. He highlighted the senator's quote about scientists playing God. I can't quite make out what he wrote in the margin."

  I stared at the almost hieroglyphic writing until my eyes blurred. "I think it says, he's attacking my work. They…something I can't read, and then, stop them."

  "This guy really was a nut job, wasn't he?"

  "That doesn't mean he wasn't brilliant or capable of growing a deadly crop in the greenhouse, Crevan."

  Briscoe shuffled into the room. "They found them bags we saw delivered yesterday morning. They're chock full of bundles of hundred dollar bills. Zahar thinks there could be a couple million bucks in there."

  "I don't get it," Crevan said. "Is the money coming in as payment for the plants, or is it financing by someone who wanted Denton to continue his research?"

  "Could be drug money. Let's not forget the methamphetamine in Cox's body when he died. We definitely know there's a drug connection beyond the poison burritos in this case. Some of it will be sent to the crime lab for testing. There could be traces of meth on the money," Briscoe said.

  "Have they found any evidence that meth was being manufactured here?" I asked.

  "Nothin' so far, but like I said. This place is friggin' huge. We could be out here for days, Eriksson – provided more bodies don't end up in the trash in the meantime."

  The sense of urgency was overwhelming. We had to find the gulty parties behind the mess in Denton's lab before they realized we were collecting evidence. My mind kept coming back to Denton's murder. It stood out for obvious reasons, and those went far beyond the method of his execution. We already knew that whoever was behind the crime had nerves of steel. Killing a cop was serious business, and generally considered evidence of a willingness to resort to any extreme in the furtherance of a crime. But strolling into a police division to execute a potential witness went beyond chutzpah.

  I glanced at my watch. Ten in the morning, Sunday already. Had it only been a week since all of this started? "Have we heard from anyone at the crime lab this morning?"

  Briscoe shook his head. "I'd imagine they're none too happy with us for dumping a shitload more on them from this seizure, Helen. We've been runnin' those boys ragged all week."

  I pulled out my cell phone and made the call.

  "Forsythe." He sounded as weary as Maya looked last night.

  "Ken, it's Helen."

  "Yeah, we've been calling everybody in to help with the steady stream of evidence from Dupree Farm. Please tell me you're getting close to the end."

  "I'm afraid we aren't, but that's not why I'm calling. Before I get into that, you might want to call Chris Darnell and request back up to process through OSI's lab. We don't want anything missed because we're overwhelming your team."

  "That would be helpful. If you're not calling about those plants, which by the way, Billy Withers is personally helping us process, what can I do for you?"

  "I keep coming back to Brian Xavier and the borrowed uniform. I don't suppose you've had a chance to examine it yet."

  "Honestly, that sweat test for drugs is relatively simple," he said. "Once the sweat is extracted, we use ion mobility spectrometry and get a result in a matter of seconds."

  "How long will it take to extract the sweat?" I asked.

  "Not long."

  "Can you do it right away?"

  "Sure. Let me give you a call back when it's done."

  My phone was still in hand when Oded Zahar made an appearance in the office. He crooked one finger at me. "You need to see this. My men and I don't know what to make of it."

  I followed him out of the office with Crevan and Briscoe right behind me. Zahar wove a path through the interior of the lab, through rooms with expensive equipment, laboratory specimen storage units, more nursery areas with budding plants of unknown variety, and finally down a long corridor.

  The moment we started trekking down the concrete and cinderblock passageway, the unusual finding became obvious.

  "Cows," Briscoe shouted over the din. "Ain't that somethin'? The weird thing you find on a dairy farm is cows."

  I tossed a grin over my shoulder and followed Zahar to the end. He turned and pointed to the wall where several gas masks hung from hooks. "We don't know if there's some kind of contagion in here or not, but when we saw the gear, we figured it would be wise to enter with caution. You'd better put one on. This isn't the most pleasant room you'll ever encounter."

  The din beyond the door was already making my temples throb. I half expected to see a stampede when he swung the door open.

  Contrary to the chaos in Denton's office, the large barn area was remarkably neat. At least a dozen head of cattle were contained inside individual wooden stalls. The noise was the result of their hooves banging against the gates on the stalls in an irregular rhythm and the incessant deep vocalization of animals in apparent distress.

  Zahar shouted to be heard. "Any idea what's wrong with them? I've never seen cows act this way before."

  "Jesus!" Briscoe tugged at one of my arms. "Helen, is this what mad cow disease looks like?"

  Mad cow disease, or less commonly but more scientifically known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy was exactly what it sounded like – in the less common vernacular. The disease degenerated the brains of cattle to the point that it resembled spongy tissue instead of normal brain matter. It was pointless trying to offer an explanation over the din. I shook my head and shouted, "No!" Mad cow disease resulted in the inability to stand, let alone kick up the storm of
thundering hooves we witnessed.

  I jerked my head back toward the hallway where the ruckus of the cattle could be dimmed by a closed door. I pulled off my mask the second the door closed. "We need a vet to come out and euthanize these cattle."

  "You want to kill evidence?" Zahar's objections quickly passed the tip of his tongue.

  "We have to examine them internally, Zahar. How do you propose that happens if not through necropsy? Are you volunteering to get close enough to those animals for a thorough examination?"

  "A vet can sedate them, see if there's something that can be done."

  I shrugged. Any humane vet on the planet would agree with me that the kindest action would be to euthanize the poor animals. "We'll agree to follow his recommendation when he sees this for himself. How soon can you get someone out here?"

  "I'll have to make some calls. Saunders at our crime lab probably knows who to get out here to do the job."

  I nodded. "We'll be back in Denton's office. When the animals are neutralized and removed, that room will have to be thoroughly searched."

  Three hours later, after what felt like gallons of coffee and near toxic doses of ibuprofen for the headaches induced by mounds of evidence in the lab, Zahar showed up once more. "The vet has the animals euthanized, Eriksson. He wants to see you before they're removed."

  This time, we took a shortcut to the lab's barn facility on the outside of the building. The fresh air and sunshine invigorated me more than the coffee had.

  "Dr. Wozniak says there's nothing harmful in the barn, that the masks were likely used because of the smell of waste soaking into the hay in the stalls. He thinks the place was probably due for another thorough scrubbing."

  "Is that all?"

  "You need to talk to him. I'm afraid some of what he said went over my head, Eriksson."

  Dr. Wozniak was directing his assistants in removal of the dead cows. He saw Zahar leading me through doors large enough to accommodate a semi-truck trailer. "Dr. Eriksson?"

  "Yes, what have you learned?"

  "I suspect that these animals are full of cancer," Wozniak said. "I see evidence of gross abnormalities without opening a single carcass. Do you have any idea what this research facility was doing?"

  "He claimed it was telomere research. If you suspect cancer in his test subjects, it would certainly bear out that theory. He probably activated cancer cells in the course of his experimentation."

  "It explains my preliminary findings. Do you have any idea how rare breast cancer is in cows, doctor? There are only a few dozen cases documented in over a hundred years, yet I felt the tumors in the milk sack of the first cow we euthanized. They were impressively advanced," Wozniak shook his head in disbelief. "Testing telomeres should never be conducted on live animals, certainly not on this scale or at this stage. Absolutely not on cattle. Do you have any idea how many times these animals had to be shot with tranquilizers before we could get close enough to euthanize them?"

  I had no idea, but Wozniak didn't expect an answer. "Zahar said you thought the animals were being tended otherwise, that the barn had been cleaned, but was in need of another change of hay."

  He nodded. "Though I can't imagine why anyone would keep cattle on a concrete floor. It's a wonder these poor animals could stand at all." One of the carcasses rolled by on a transport dolly, and Wozniak stopped it. "Look at this animal's hoof, Dr. Eriksson."

  Instead of the smooth, hard surface one imagines on cattle, the hoof was grooved and uneven, looked abnormally thick.

  "Like I said, whoever is responsible for this has a lot of questions to answer. I'd like to have the other cattle on this dairy farm examined for similar treatment."

  Something clicked in my head, staring at a hoof that looked like a calcified fist. "Dr. Wozniak, have you ever prepared a cast of an animal's hoof? Like an impression that could be used for comparison to an injury?"

  Briscoe and Conall, who had followed from Denton's office, listened quietly to the discussion until now.

  "Son of a…that's what killed our homeless guys, isn't it? They got kicked so hard by these crazy cows that it ripped their guts open." Briscoe stomped in a small circle and kicked up a cloud of dust.

  Wozniak stared at me. "Well?"

  "A slight exaggeration. Nothing was ripped open, but there was a consistent internal injury to a few men who I suspect were hired to tend to these cattle." I walked to one of the open stalls. "If a man of say, Detective Conall's height was standing here and suffered a kick from one of the cows, where would the impact point be in your opinion, Dr. Wozniak?"

  He positioned Crevan next to the door, pocked with dings from the deceased former occupant of the stall. "I'd say middle-upper abdominal area. Is that consistent with the injury in the homeless men?"

  "You tell us," Crevan said. "Would a kick like that have enough force to rupture a diaphragm, for instance?"

  "Sure. Ordinarily I wouldn't think so, but considering the condition of these cattle, and the…is there such a thing as psychosis in animals, Dr. Eriksson?"

  "Not in the sense that we understand psychosis, but I understand what you're saying. There was a noticeable change in the behavior of these cows, and a high risk for injury based on that atypical behavior."

  "So the homeless deaths really were accidental," Tony muttered. "I'll be damned."

  "That didn't justify dumping the bodies, Tony," Crevan said. "There was still a criminal act involved, one that lead to Cox's murder."

  "Right," I said. "Even if the deaths of the homeless men were accidental, they couldn't report them. To do so would've risked exposing Denton's horrible research. I think this building has proven why the guards out here carried automatic weapons."

  My cell phone rang. I held up one hand. "Eriksson."

  "Sorry it took so long to get back to you, Helen. It's a madhouse around here and getting worse. I finally got the sweat test done on Brian Xavier's uniform. We called Xavier over for a drug test just for confirmation."

  "Methamphetamine?"

  "Oh yeah, in the sweat but not in Xavier. Does that help you?"

  The forgotten printout from Ben Karen's dry cleaning business was in my purse, tucked into the console between the seats in the Expedition. I felt an inexplicable urgency to review it in more detail, with a database or two in front of me to check criminal backgrounds against the names. "It helps more than you know. Thanks, Ken."

  Before I could relay the information, one of Zahar's men yelled, "We've got a trap door under the hay in one of the stalls."

  The unit fell into formation and disappeared below with guns drawn. Zahar warned us to stay put until whatever was below was cleared by his tactical team. Seconds ticked by and seemed like hours.

  Finally Zahar shouted from below. "All clear. We found the meth lab."

  Chapter 35

  Sneaking away from Dupree Farm wasn't going to be easy. Briscoe and Conall's Crown Victoria was destroyed in the shootout with Dupree's security guards. Zahar and his men were expanding their search of the farm to include more than the initial warrant had stipulated after the meth lab was uncovered. Darnell showed up by late afternoon for an update. Briscoe started the tour of everything we discovered.

  "Crevan, could you get a couple of techs in here to box up all of this paperwork from Denton's office? I'm gonna go find Zahar and see if they've found anything else to further overwhelm CSD."

  I glanced at my watch. Six fifteen. By the time I got back to Darkwater Bay, it would be close to eight. One of the vans from OSI was stuffed full of evidence and ready to return to the city. I slipped out of the research building and snagged the tech before he climbed into the van.

  "Hey, could you drop me off at Downey Division? Conall, Briscoe and I are stuck out here without a vehicle, and I drew the short straw getting back to the city to pick up a replacement."

  "Sure," he grinned. "Hop in. I'm ready to roll."

  I glanced around – one last look to make sure no one who noticed I was leaving would
care, and scrambled into the van. Exhaustion hit me before we were through the gates. I apologized for being poor company, curled up as best I could in the passenger seat and indulged in a power nap.

  Darkness – and fog – had fallen by the time the crime scene tech pulled behind the building at Downey Division. He shook my shoulder lightly. "Hey, Dr. Eriksson, we're at Downey."

  I rubbed my eyes and sat up. Short trip. I thanked him for the lift and slipped inside the back of the building. I watched until the van was out of the lot and driving down the street before returning to my car.

  The smart move would be going upstairs to search the names on the list provided by Ben Karen. I had a feeling that Briscoe and Conall, not to mention Darnell, were aware that I lied again, and that Downey might be the first place they'd look for me. I couldn't wait another two hours for them to catch up to me, nor could I endure another vote by committee on who would close this case and how that would be accomplished.

  I climbed into the Expedition and retrieved the list from my purse. Most of the names were women, which I had noticed when I originally scanned the list. That had been my mistake. Now one name jumped out at me. I cursed my oversight. Jessica Blake.

  I thought of the young man at the shelter who so slyly pointed me in the direction that led to the first clues about Preacher being fingered as a cop by the patron's at Uncle Nooky's bar. Shit. Was that a calculated move to learn what the police were doing about the death of one of our own? Blake is probably a fairly common name. Still, I don't believe in coincidences, which was what my internal dialog kept returning to.

  Johnny's penthouse was a hell of a lot closer to Downey Division than my home in Beach Cliffs. Would the guy at the front desk let me up? I threw the car into gear and decided to give it a shot.

  A glance at my eyes in the rearview mirror gave me pause. I looked like death warmed over. Then it hit me.

  Maya probably didn't know a thing about what had happened at Dupree Farm in the last eighteen hours. And the tech left her with a laptop from the morgue for her web cam autopsy of Dr. Denton on Saturday. MSUH was blocks from my current location.