Mayhem, Mystery and Murder

by John A. Broussard

  Jackson caught a glimpse of thin lips and a grim expression in the mirror, as she asked, “Do you realize I could turn you in for dereliction of duty?”

  “Yes. You have to do what you think is right, just as much as I do.”

  Van Damm glanced up at the mirror, then turned it back to its normal position. The rest of the trip continued in silence. Arriving at the apartment, they got out and began to put on their kevlar vests just as their backup pulled up.

  After checking her gun and slipping it back into its holster, Van Damm broke the silence. “Would you be interested in going out to dinner, tonight?”

  Jackson, who had also been inspecting his own automatic, almost dropped it before replying “Why, yeah.” Recovering from his surprise, he quickly added, “You bet.”

  “OK. I’ll pick you up at seven.” She paused before asking, “Remember how I said I took advantage of the fact that I’m a woman?”

  Jackson nodded.

  “I also take advantage of the fact that I’m a liberated woman.”

  BLOOD SPATTERS

  Lieutenant Turlow Jackson of the Robbery Division looked up from his morning paper. Lifting his cup, he said, “Coffee’s on and waiting.”

  The tall blonde who had just entered the kitchen managed a smile. “That, I really need, Lieutenant. More and more I can see the value of your presence. In pre-Low days I’d forget to turn on the coffeemaker, spend too much time in the shower and end up having to take off to the station without my morning fix.” With that, she kissed him on the forehead, poured herself a cup, held out a hand for part of the paper and sat down across from him at the kitchen table.

  Jackson smiled back. “I hope my presence means more to you than a guarantee of morning coffee.”

  The blue eyes peering over her section of the paper crinkled in amusement. “Much more.” She was only now getting used to actually living with a man and finding him there in the morning. The fact the broad-shouldered male with the milk-chocolate complexion also happened to be handsome, and was considered the catch of the department by the eligible, and some not-so-eligible, females didn’t hurt either. “You brighten my day—on those rare occasions when I get to see you during the day—and you most definitely brighten my nights.”

  “It’s been over a week since either of us have been called out at night. Let’s hope our luck holds.”

  Homicide Lieutenant Leola Van Damm held her finger to her lips. “Shh! You’ll put a hex on us.” At that moment his cell phone erupted, and they laughed in unison as he unhooked it from his belt and punched in the send button.

  “Looks like we get to go to work early, this morning,” he commented, as he replaced the phone. “A patrol car just got a B&E call and they want back-up. Not clear why. Let’s go.”

  Van Damm’s cellphone rang just as the two were buckling up, with Jackson behind the wheel and the car radio blaring a message from the station. As she listened to her own phone, she raised her voice over the sound of the radio. “Possible homicide. Looks like the day is going to be a busy one for both of us.”

  The car picked up speed as Jackson floored the gas pedal. “Your possible wouldn’t be on Hayworth Street by any chance, would it?”

  “How did you know? Oh. That’s your burglary call.”

  “You guessed it. And it sounds like a mess. Patrolman says the place is ransacked, blood all over, but no body.”

  Bracing herself against the dashboard as they took a sharp corner, Van Damm said, “Looks like we’ll have a day together after all—if we both live to enjoy it.”

  Amused, Jackson took a moment to glance in her direction. “Do I detect some criticism of my driving? Don’t sweat it. I’m the safest driver in the department.” A roll of her eyes was the response to the remark and to the abrupt stop in front of a bungalow on a steep hill where two patrol cars had preceded them. A uniformed patrol officer signaled to them from the porch.

  The scene was a mess. The front room had clearly been vandalized. The two officers, accompanied by the patrolman, who introduced himself as Martin Kelly, carefully waded through the debris. A room, which had obviously served as a computer office before the break-in, was even more of a disaster than the front room. The monitor was smashed. Both the computer and the printer looked as though a sledgehammer had demolished them. Files and papers were strewn across the floor. A laptop had its lid torn off and was almost completely crushed. CD’s and floppies made up much of the debris and had obviously been stomped on. In addition, the smell of gasoline pervaded the air.

  “We just barely made it in time.” Kelly remarked. “The place is saturated. Whoever it was must have been having trouble finding a match at the last minute.”

  “We’ll need the arson crew out,” Jackson commented as he unhooked his phone.

  Van Damm looked puzzled. Turning to Kelly she asked, “Where’s all this blood you reported? I don’t see a drop anywhere.”

  “Take a look in the bedroom, Lieutenant.”

  She did and, without stepping into the room, immediately phoned in for the forensic team. Jackson looked over her shoulder. His one comment was, “It’s a slaughterhouse.”

  Blood was splashed over much of the floor onto the bed. There were spatters on three of the walls, the chair, the dresser and other furniture. A pair of trousers on the back of the chair were smeared as well. While not as thoroughly ransacked as the front room, there was enough damage in addition to the blood to prompt Van Damm’s reply, “And it doesn’t look as though the cattle gave up without a struggle. Officer Kelly, would you check with the station to find out who the residents are here? Get as much background as you can. Occupation, workplace, nearest relatives… you know the routine.”

  “I have some of that information already, Lieutenant. There were two patrol cars with four of us who got here about the same time. The others are still out questioning the neighbors.” He took out his notebook. “So far, none of them seemed to be aware of the burglary until we arrived. The resident—he rent’s the place and he’s the only one living here—is a Dr. Harmon Lewison. He was the one who called 911 on his cell phone while the burglary was in progress. He works in some sort of science lab. So far, we haven’t found anyone who knew him much more than to say hello, but he’s lived here for over a year. No visitors that anyone knows of. I’ll check on where he works and who the next of kin are and get back to you.”

  “Thanks. What do you think, Low?”

  “Well, first of all, it doesn’t seem to have been a robbery. There’s his wallet, watch and glasses sitting on the table next to the bed, right out in the open.” Before continuing, he surveyed the bedroom and walked back into the living room. “There’s something else that’s puzzling. It looks like there was one hell of a fight, but Kelly says the neighbors, at least the ones questioned so far, didn’t hear anything.” As he spoke, they were almost deafened by an eighteen-wheeler dropping down into a lower gear as it crawled up the steep road in front of the house.

  “There’s your answer, Low,” Van Damm shouted. “Neighbors wouldn’t recognize an earthquake with that going on.”

  “What’s traffic like that doing in a residential neighborhood?”

  “Temporary detour while they’re replacing the sewer line along Claremont. Desk sergeant said yesterday that half of his calls are complaints from irate citizens living along Hayworth.”

  “Are you going to call in the King of the Spatters?”

  Van Damm nodded. “For sure. Kerry King will be delighted to see this bedroom. He’ll take endless pictures and spend days with computerized models to explain what happened. In the meantime, forensics should be able to get a quick blood type, but I think it’s safe to guess that after we get DNA confirmation it’s definitely going to be Lewison’s blood.”

  “So where is he? I don’t see how he could possibly have walked away.”

  “He can’t be far. I’m going to have the station start checking the local hospitals.”

  Jackson walked back to surve
y the bedroom from the doorway. “No way could he have left here under his own power. So now the question is, why did they take him with them. There must have been more than one intruder to be able to move someone who was as badly wounded—or as dead—as he must have been. And why bother to take him in the first place?”

  “Because they didn’t get whatever it was they came for.” There was anger in Van Damm’s voice. Her phone rang as she spoke. Covering the mouthpiece, she said, “It’s Kelly. He already has word back. Widower. No known relatives. Kelly contacted the landlady. A Mrs. Francisco. Her story is pretty much the same as the neighbors.’ He was a quiet loner. His rent is paid up six months in advance. According to her, Lewison works, or worked, at a lab called BioGem, located in the warehouse district.”

  “BioGem! We just investigated a break-in there three nights ago. There wasn’t anything missing. No ransacking. But the alarm on the safe scared them off. Hold the fort here, and I’ll go talk to them. This is no coincidence.”

  “Scene-of-crime crew will be here any minute. They can handle things without my help, and I can keep in touch with them by phone. King’s also on his way. He certainly doesn’t need me around. Let’s go. I want to get these characters. From the looks of this place, it’s pretty obvious they’ll stop at nothing to get what they came here for. And taking Lewison away in the shape he must have been in…” she shook her head in anger and exasperation.

  BioGem’s Vice President in Charge of Operations, Phil Cartlett, had just arrived as the officers pulled into the company parking lot. The small, dark-haired man’s surprise at the visit was replaced with visible consternation and shock at the news.

  “You don’t mean Harmon’s dead?”

  “We can’t be sure,” Van Damm answered. “We’re not even sure the blood in the apartment is his. Forensics just called to tell me it’s AB positive. Would you have any record of Dr. Lewison’s blood type?”

  “Yes. Definitely. Come into the office and I’ll check his record. All employees have to have a complete physical, at least once a year. As I told Lieutenant Jackson when he was here before, we deal with sensitive biological material, so we have a complete health record of all personnel.”

  Jackson had briefed Van Damm on what he had learned about BioGem’s work but, since Cartlett obviously enjoyed describing the enterprise in some detail, neither officer interrupted the monologue except to steer it in the direction of Lewison’s specific research area.

  “Harmon’s our most valuable employee. He’s working on what could be this century’s major medical breakthrough. The idea is simple and almost as old as blood transfusion, itself. But Harmon is the first one to actually demonstrate it can be done, though so far only on animals. Essentially, to put it in layman’s terms, he has found a way to reduplicate the organic components in blood—white and red cells, blood plasma and so on. As you may know, ninety-seven percent of blood is water. Well, with the proper apparatus, the catalyst Harmon has devised, and the inorganic materials needed to replenish the blood supply, what he’s able to do is to draw blood from a guinea pig, then add the catalyst, the nutrients and sufficient water to double the amount of liquid. Within a few minutes he has twice the amount of blood he has withdrawn and can immediately re-inject it into the guinea pig. No adverse reactions.”

  Van Damm picked up on the point immediately. “So, if this invention works, patients wouldn’t need transfusions. Their blood could simply be circulated through the apparatus, and for every pint going in they’d get back a quart.”

  “Exactly. I needn’t tell you the implications of this invention.” He went on to tell them, anyway. “Blood donations would be virtually unnecessary. Furthermore, the apparatus is relatively simple, since it’s chiefly a filtering device. So its cost is nowhere in the range of some of our modern diagnostic equipment such as magnetic resonance machines. The catalyst, since it’s just that, can be used over and over again. The nutrients are really not much different from an ordinary vitamin supplement with minerals included.”

  “Millions?” Jackson asked, cryptically.

  “Millions is a very conservative estimate of what this invention is worth, Lieutenant.”

  “So that was probably what the burglar was after here the other night?”

  “In retrospect—we certainly didn’t know it the other day—it most certainly seems so.”

  “Would Dr. Lewison have been likely to have had that information at home?”

  Cartlett looked distinctly unhappy as he nodded. “Very likely. In fact, probably none of the information is here. This was simply where he did his laboratory work. He didn’t have any lab materials at home, but he had state-of-the art-computers there—at least one PC and one laptop. Harmon preferred his own company. No relatives that I know of. His wife died several years ago and they had no children.

  “Here, at the lab, he did have a couple of lab assistants, but they were chiefly maintenance workers—washing out containers, taking care of the guinea pigs and the like. He did all of the technical work himself. I don’t think he had any other interests besides lab work and research.”

  The remainder of the day found Van Damm back at the crime scene and Jackson off on other burglary cases. It wasn’t until after work, when they had decided to treat themselves to a restaurant meal, before they found time and opportunity to go over what they now called the Lewison case.

  “King is ecstatic,” Van Damm said as she started in on her salad. “He must have taken a hundred photos with his fancy digital camera—close-ups, panoramic scenes, you name it.”

  “Did he make any guesses?”

  Van Damm looked serious as she pushed aside the salad plate to make room for the entrée. The waiter had evidently been listening to the conversation and her next words caused him to withdraw hastily. “Blood is all he can talk about. You know what he’s like. He just loves to speculate. Says the blood spatters on the wall were probably a knife or bullet wound to the aorta. If so, it was almost immediately fatal.”

  “That doesn’t fit with the 911 call. I listened to the tape. Lewison sounded groggy, but very much alive. Of course, he could have been killed during or after the call. He was definitely interrupted immediately after giving the operator his address. And his cellphone was smashed.”

  “King checked to make sure it was all blood from the same person. His first reaction was that it looked like a couple of people contributed to the mess. But, no. It’s all the same type. Too much to think that’s just a coincidence. DNA should settle that. King also says it could have been an arm or leg artery, but he considers that unlikely.”

  “So maybe he wasn’t stabbed or shot or whatever until he was actually making the call.”

  “But King says it really doesn’t look that way. He says he’ll keep at it and get back to us if he can say anything more definite. He sounded like a kid in a candy store. I only hope he can come up with something more definite.”

  “Sounds like you really want to get these characters.”

  “That’s putting it mildly. And King should help me to do just that. There’s not much question but that he’s the country’s top expert.”

  “How anyone could get excited over blood spatters is beyond me,” Jackson said with a headshake, then added, “Cartlett’s sending one of his computer people down to the station tomorrow. Between whoever comes out and our crew, they’re going to try to do something with the hard drives and the diskettes. I’m not too hopeful, but we might get some idea about what’s missing.”

  “What about lab notes?”

  “Those are definitely gone. Cartlett says Harmon did keep some handwritten ones, but they were pretty sketchy, and they’re nowhere to be found. Most of his work went right into the computer—his laptop—which he carried back and forth to work.”

  “You know, Low, if we’re right and someone was after that invention, it had to be someone knowledgeable. And it looks to me as though they were trying their best to destroy any information about the discovery th
at they didn’t take with them. As of this moment, BioGem is left high and dry.”

  “I’m ahead of you. BioGem was approached by a British outfit—Sera Labs— that’s working on something similar, but isn’t anywhere near as advanced as Lewison was.” Jackson looked grim as he added, “And we had just as much luck running down any likely suspects boarding a plane for Britain as you did canvassing the hospitals for someone drained of blood. And, if Sera labs is involved, it doesn’t mean they sent anyone over to do the task. Local hit men could have been the perps. I have a feeling we’re at a dead end.”

  An angry and ambiguous shake of the head was the answer she gave him.

  In the following days, both officers moved on to more promising and more pressing cases, since the Lewison incident did look more and more like a dead end. DNA, based on hair samples from Lewison’s bathroom, simply proved their original guess correct as to the source of the blood—all of the blood. The Spatter King could report only that, whatever the wound, there must have been a struggle to account for the widespread blood evidence. Some additional drops of the same blood by the back door convinced Van Damm and Jackson that a dead, or near-dead, Lewison had been spirited away shortly before the police arrived. But, beyond that—nothing.

  The computer experts came up with little of significance. No murder weapon was found, no witnesses discovered, no suspects. Only occasional speculation, about what might have happened, sporadically sprinkled the conversations between Van Damm and Jackson in the following days. It was the former who suddenly broached the subject early one Sunday morning, as they were both lying in bed luxuriating in what they hoped would be a day off. “But there couldn’t have been any trucks going by that time of morning.”