Mercy (The Guardians Series 1)

by Wendy Saunders

  Chapter 6.

  ‘I thought you said he was hit by a car,’ Louisa frowned, glancing up at her brother as she gently fed a breathing tube down the throat of the unconscious guy on the table.

  ‘He was,’ Jake replied dubiously.

  ‘Well his clothes smell like a bonfire, it looks as if he has at least second degree burns, he’s almost certainly suffering from smoke inhalation and that’s not including any injuries sustained from the car hitting him.’

  ‘I didn’t see him…I just didn’t see him,’ Olivia was vaguely aware that she was babbling and that her voice was getting higher with a slightly hysterical note to it but she couldn’t seem to help herself, ‘He just appeared in the middle of the road. I tried to brake I really tried but I hit him.’

  Louisa exchanged a silent but concerned look with her brother.

  ‘It's okay Olivia,’ Louisa stepped away from the table allowing the nurses to attach various tubes and monitors. Drawing her away gently she gripped her upper arms forcing her friend to look up into her clear eyes, ‘Are you hurt at all?’

  Olivia shook her head. Louisa’s gaze swept over her shoulder to her brother who was hovering protectively behind her.

  ‘I called Jake straight away I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘It's alright,’ Louisa soothed her.

  ‘It’s not alright, I shouldn’t have been driving. I was tired and my eyes kept closing I was just trying to get home.’

  ‘Olivia,’ Louisa frowned, ‘have you slept yet?’

  She shook her head miserably.

  ‘For God’s sake,’ she muttered, ‘I bet you haven’t eaten either have you?’

  ‘I had a pastry this morning.’

  ‘Jake, take her down to the cafeteria and get a proper meal into her will you,’ Louisa shook her head in exasperation, ‘Then go and find Cathy Wilson she’s on duty tonight, she’ll find a spare bed so Olivia can get some sleep. Then come back and find me and by then I should have a clearer picture of his injuries.’

  Nodding in agreement he steered Olivia away. It didn’t take long to get some food into her; although she was so exhausted she barely ate anything. Figuring she needed sleep more than anything he hunted up the motherly and frighteningly efficient Cathy Wilson who he remembered fondly from his childhood. After all she had stitched him up after numerous scrapes and cast his broken arm when he was eleven.

  Cathy managed to find a vacant bed and Olivia was asleep by the time she face planted the pillow. Knowing she was in good hands under Cathy’s watchful gaze he decided to hunt up his sister and get some answers. He headed back towards the emergency room lost in thought when he heard his name called.

  ‘Chief,’ he nodded as the tall stern looking man approached him.

  ‘Jake, I hear Miss West was involved in a vehicular incident.’

  ‘Is that why you’re here?’ Jake’s eyes narrowed.

  ‘Actually I came to speak with Doctor Hughes with regards to Adam’s autopsy.’

  ‘Is it definitely Adam then?’

  Chief Walcott nodded.

  ‘He’s been ID’d by what’s left of his fingerprints and dental records.’

  ‘God damn,’ Jake muttered shaking his head.

  ‘Have you taken Miss West’s statement?’

  ‘About Adam?’

  ‘With regards to the accident tonight,’

  ‘Oh,’ Jake frowned thoughtfully, ‘yes I have, she says she was driving back home and the guy just appeared in the middle of the road. She tried to brake but she didn’t see him until the last minute.’

  ‘Is he still alive?’

  ‘He was last time I checked,’ Jake replied, ‘I was just heading back to check on his status.’

  ‘Shall we then?’ He gestured with his hand giving Jake no choice but to follow him back to the room where his sister was treating the injured man.

  ‘Doctor Linden,’ the Chief greeted Louisa as she busily scrawled notes, absently checking the machine he was hooked up to.

  ‘Chief Walcott,’ she replied stiffly.

  ‘Have you an update as to the patient.’

  ‘He is suffering from second degree burns to his upper thighs, a first degree burn to his left shoulder and smoke inhalation. He has what looks like a knife wound to his right forearm, which went clean through and a mild concussion.’ She tucked the notes into a holder at the foot of the patient’s bed and moved closer to the Chief.

  ‘His injuries are not consistent with being struck by a vehicle.’

  ‘Beg your pardon?’

  ‘I can find no bruising or soft tissue damage consistent with being stuck by a vehicle.’ She shrugged, ‘the concussion was likely caused when he struck his head on the road. You’d have to check the road and Olivia’s car for evidence or rather lack of it but I suspect she stopped just in time and he simply collapsed from his injuries in front of her car.’

  ‘That seems awfully convenient,’ his eyes narrowed suspiciously.

  ‘You are more than welcome to get a second opinion; in fact I think I insist on it.’ She replied coolly.

  He returned her cool gaze with one of his own, the corner of his mouth curving a fraction almost as if he were amused.

  ‘Are these his clothes?’ He moved towards the clear plastic bag on the table at the side of the monitor.

  ‘Yes,’ she replied as she watched him pull the clothes out filling the air with a pungent smoky odour.

  His brow furrowed as he took in the strange historical looking clothing.

  ‘This is what he was wearing?’

  She nodded again.

  ‘It is Halloween it’s probably a costume, with the town’s history so closely linked with Salem some people like to go the historical bent with their costumes.’ She watched as he began to rifle through the pockets, ‘he has no ID on him, the nurse already checked.’

  The Chief continued to ignore her as he pulled out what looked like a stick of graphite wrapped in string and a folded piece of paper. He slowly unfolded it and his brow rose.

  ‘Well what do we have here?’

  Louisa looked over his shoulder and gasped.

  ‘Oh my God,’ her hand went involuntarily to her mouth. The picture he held in his hand was a very detailed sketch of Olivia’s face.

  ‘When you interviewed Miss West did she confirm whether or not she recognised the victim?’

  Jake shook his head as he frowned.

  ‘She said she didn’t know him.’

  ‘Well he seems to know her,’ he murmured. ‘When will he be fit to be questioned?’

  ‘He’s being kept sedated for the moment; we will reassess his condition in the morning. If there are no complications and we can remove the tube, maybe some time late tomorrow.’

  ‘Very well,’ he nodded, ‘I will check on his progress tomorrow.’

  His phone suddenly rang and he unclipped it from his belt. After answering it briefly he turned back to Jake.

  ‘I’m needed back at the station,’ he put his phone away; ‘If you’re done here you can go and retrieve the autopsy report and bring it by the station.’

  ‘Yes Sir,’ Jake nodded.

  ‘Oh and Deputy,’ he stopped as he reached the door and turned pointedly back to Jake, ‘I don’t think I need to remind you that anything pertaining to the Autopsy is confidential and not to be disclosed to any non law enforcement personnel.’

  ‘Of course Sir,’ Jake replied.

  The Chief nodded as he turned and strolled out of the room.

  ‘Jackass,’ Louisa mumbled under her breath.

  ‘Louisa,’ His voice held a note of warning.

  ‘You can’t tell me you’re not worried,’ she hissed. ‘He’s got it in for Olivia and you know it.’

  ‘He’s just pursuing a line of investigation, everything he’s doing, whilst I may not like it is completely justified.’

  Maybe, but I don’t trust him.’

&n
bsp; ‘Don’t worry Lou,’ he tugged on her arm pulling her into a hug, ‘I’ll get to the bottom of this I promise.’

  ‘Okay,’ she replied grudgingly.

  ‘I’d better go see Doc Hughes before he leaves for the night.’

  ‘I’ll see you later then.’

  ‘Yeah, I’ll be back after I’ve dropped the report down at the station so I can drive Olivia home. I had Brody over at Walkers Auto tow her car home besides I don’t think she should be driving until she’s caught up on her sleep.’

  She nodded as she watched him disappear out of the door before turning back to the unconscious man on the bed.

  ‘Just who the hell are you,’ she murmured, ‘and what the hell do you want with Olivia?’

  Doc Hughes was generally a very happy go lucky type of guy. He had a middle age paunch, a beard as grey as his hair, well what was left of it anyway and a quick smile. Jake couldn’t remember a time when he didn’t have a wink and a roll of cherry life savers in his pocket. It was strange to see him like this, bent over his desk scribbling furiously in his notes, a deep frown marring his forehead as he muttered to himself. Suddenly he seemed so small and old.

  ‘Hey Doc,’ Jake announced himself as he stepped further into the room, trying to ignore that chemical smell he had always associated with death.

  ‘Ah Deputy Gilbert,’ Doc Hughes straightened up, absently pushing his spectacles back up his nose, ‘I was expecting Chief Walcott.’

  ‘I’m afraid he was called away and asked me to collect Adam’s autopsy report.’

  Doc nodded.

  ‘It’s not just a case of picking up the report, there’s something I need to show you,’ the chair scraped noisily against the floor as he stood, ‘If you’ll follow me deputy.’

  Jake followed him reluctantly into the back room, this was always the part of the job he hated but thankfully it didn’t happen very often.

  Doctor Hughes stopped and clicked open a small square stainless steel door and reached in to pull out the drawer.

  ‘I hope you’ve a strong stomach deputy,’ he warned.

  Now Jake wasn’t shy about death and it most certainly wasn’t the first corpse he’d seen but nothing prepared him for the stark and gruesome reality of Adam’s remains. When they’d found him in the woods he’d barely resembled a man but the Doc had quite obviously taken a great deal of time and painstaking effort to stitch him back together. It almost looked like Adam again except for the long stitched up incision which ran from his forehead down the bridge of his nose to his chin onto his throat and down his chest to disappear under the crisp white sheet. Similar incisions ran the length of both of his arms as well as the standard Y shaped incision fanning out from his chest. It was obvious Doc had tried to give the guy some sort of dignity in death but the result was a frightening resemblance to Frankenstein’s monster.

  ‘Doc why does he look so…’ Jake swallowed deeply as his mouth ran dry… ‘flat.’

  ‘That was one of the things I wanted to discuss with the Chief,’ Doc Hughes shook his head. ‘His bones are missing.’

  ‘What?’ his head snapped up, ‘Some of his bones were taken?’

  ‘Not some…all.’

  ‘How is that even possible?’ Jake frowned in confusion.

  ‘Well it’s not,’ Doc scratched his head thoughtfully, ‘but it’s true. I even x-rayed the remains to be sure, but there’s not one single stray vertebra, phalanges or Metatarsus. Some of these bones are tiny and if the skeleton had been removed surgically you would expect a few to be missed but there is nothing left.’

  ‘What do you mean if they were removed surgically, what other way is there to remove bones?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ he sighed, ‘I don’t have an answer to that, all I know is all his internal organs were still attached and in situ.’

  ‘I’m sorry Doc layman’s terms please; it’s been a long night.’

  ‘If the bones were removed surgically, not only would you have to slice through layers of skin, soft tissue and muscle but you would have to use extreme force to essentially rip the bones out of the body, in particular with the pelvis, spine and rib cage this would result in severe damage to the internal organs. You would also expect them to have been displaced but all his organs were still in perfect condition. They were attached to all the veins and blood vessels and exactly where you would expect to find them. I cannot explain it; it’s as if his bones just simply disappeared.’

  ‘Jesus,’ Jake raked his hand through his hair. ‘Do you have an official cause of death?’

  It’s a whole smorgasbord,’ the Doc shook his head and shrugged helplessly. ‘Massive trauma, shock, exsanguinations – that’s massive loss of blood’, he explained seeing Jake’s confusion ‘take your pick, any and all of the above could have caused his death.’

  ‘Was he still alive,’ Jake swallowed convulsively not really wanting to know the answer and hating that he had to ask the question, ‘Was he still alive when they cut him open?’

  Doc nodded sadly.

  ‘We can only hope that with the shock he would have lost consciousness pretty quickly.’

  ‘I really hope you’re right Doc,’ Jake frowned, ‘I knew Adam and he was a good guy, he sure as hell didn’t deserve this.’

  ‘There is one more thing,’

  He pulled the sheet down further to reveal an ugly blackened welt on the left hand side of his chest. It was circular and with what looked like two coiled serpents entwined in the shape of an S, only instead of being vertical it was depicted horizontally across the centre of the circle.

  ‘That’s weird,’ Jake muttered, ‘It almost looks like a brand of some sort.’

  ‘That would be my guess, from the tissue damage I would say it’s been burned into his skin.’

  Jake pulled out his phone and took a close up picture of the mark.

  ‘I’ve included pictures in the Autopsy file.’

  ‘Thanks,’

  He watched as Doc covered Adam’s remains with the sheet. Sliding the drawer back in with a steely hiss he closed the door.

  Jake quietly followed him back into the office.

  ‘It’s a terrible business,’ Doc sighed as he handed the file over to Jake, ‘I never thought I’d see something like that again.’

  ‘Again?’ Jake’s head whipped around so quick he almost gave himself whiplash.

  ‘Didn’t the Chief tell you?’ Doc frowned.

  ‘No he didn’t,’

  ‘Let's see now,’ Doc sat back down at his desk removing his glasses and thinking back, ‘it's been about twenty years, must’ve been the summer of ‘94. Late summer there was a spate of murders, four in total I believe. I didn’t do the Autopsy on the first victim, Maryann had just been diagnosed with breast cancer and I had taken a leave of absence. Ted Newman was the Doctor on duty at the time but I remember him telling me the victim had all his bones removed. He was absolutely baffled by it.’

  ‘You said there were other victims?’

  Doc nodded, ‘I don’t recall all the details, like I said Maryann was real sick but from what I can remember the victims all had various body parts removed.’

  ‘Was anyone ever arrested?’

  ‘Not that I know of, Chief Walcott was just a green deputy at the time so you’d have to ask him. He had more access to the case than I did. But from what I understand the killings stopped as abruptly as they started.’

  ‘When did they stop?’

  ‘August time, the only reason I remember that is because it was around the time of all that unpleasantness with the Wests.’

  ‘You mean the fire and the deaths of Isabel and Alice West?’ Jake asked.

  ‘That’s right; I took Maryann to the funeral, of course the little girl, Olivia, wasn’t there. Not sure what happened to her at that point but I remember hearing at the time that Charlie had been arrested for the murder of his wife and mother in law. Such a sad business that, I knew Charli
e and he loved Isabel, would never have thought he was capable of hurting her.’

  ‘Okay then, thanks for this Doc. We’ll be in contact if there are any further questions.’

  ‘You do that Deputy.’

  Jake stepped out into the hallway and took a deep breath allowing his head to fall back against the wall. God Damn it, if the original murders had stopped right after Charles Connell had been arrested for the murder of his wife and mother in law it didn’t take a genius to figure out why Chief Walcott hadn’t mentioned it to him. Jake raked a hand through his hair in frustration. He needed to get his hands on the original case files from ‘94 and see if Charlie was ever a suspect, he also needed to check and see if he was still incarcerated.

  A sudden ringing startled him out of his thoughts, breaking the stillness of the corridor as he pushed away from the wall and pulled his phone out, recognising the caller ID.

  ‘Hey Brody,’ he greeted, ‘did you manage to get a good look at Olivia’s car? Was there any damage?’

  ‘Not that I could see, the front end seems fine; I don’t think she actually hit anything. I did tell the Chief that when I dropped the car off.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ he stopped walking, ‘why would Chief Walcott be at Olivia’s when he knows she’s still here at the medical centre?’

  ‘He wasn’t at the West place, he was at the station.’

  ‘Why didn’t you just drop her car straight home if it was clear it hadn’t actually been involved in an accident?’

  ‘Sorry Jake,’ Brody apologised. ‘My brother called and said the Chief wanted the car towed to the station to be checked for forensics.

  ‘God damn it.’

  ‘Sorry man,’

  ‘It’s not your fault Brody, thanks anyway.’

  ‘Look as soon as they’re done with it I’ll pick it up and drop it back to her no charge.’

  ‘I appreciate that,’

  No problem, call me as soon as it’s cleared to go.’

  ‘Will do’ Jake muttered as he hung up the phone.

  He knew damn well why the Chief had Olivia’s car towed straight to the station and whilst he was pretty much a hundred percent certain he wouldn’t find what he was looking for, it made him very uneasy. The Chief obviously had a real problem with Olivia and with his influence in the town he could make life pretty uncomfortable for her if he chose to.