Children of the Fog

by Cheryl Kaye Tardif

  No reply.

  "Jasmine McLellan, it's time to wake up now."

  The woman in the bed remained still.

  Out in the hall, footsteps approached. Ben entered the room, followed by Jasi's father and Brady, her brother. Dr. Mohinder Habib entered the room after them and immediately picked up the chart at the end of Jasi's bed.

  "So?" Natassia said impatiently.

  When the doctor looked up from the file, his expression was guarded. That made her nervous.

  "When is she going to wake up?" she blurted.

  "We've been monitoring her stats closely," Dr. Habib said, his black eyes drifting to the bed. "Ms. McLellan has been only slightly responsive to antibiotics."

  Natassia frowned. "But she's getting better, right?"

  "Your friend is too exhausted to fight off the infection, and the swelling in her brain is impeding her recovery." Dr. Habib tried to smile. "She's in a very deep sleep."

  "You mean she's in a coma," Ben stated.

  The doctor nodded. "Yes, but she's still breathing on her own."

  Jasi's father looked stunned. "When will she wake up?"

  "I'm afraid we don't know when," Dr. Habib said gently. "The body often reacts this way when it's under attack. Some people wake up within days, once an infection is under control. Some remain in a coma for longer periods of time." He made a note on Jasi's chart and adjusted the IV drip.

  "What's the worst case scenario?" Ben asked.

  Natassia knew it was the one question everyone had on their minds.

  "Well, worst case—and I mean very worst—would be that we can't control the swelling in her brain or the infection in her arm." He turned away from his patient. "And if the infection travels up her arm toward her heart, we might have to take more aggressive action."

  "What kind of action?" Jasi's brother demanded.

  "Brady," his father warned. "Let him finish."

  Dr. Habib's expression darkened. "If the infection spreads upward, it could reach her heart or brain and that would complicate matters. There is a slim possibility that we might have to amputate her arm."

  Natassia let out a soft cry. "No!"

  "We might not have a choice," the doctor said quietly.

  Natassia moved closer to the bed. As she gazed at Jasi, her mouth tightened. I won't let them take your arm.

  "For now, her vitals are good," Dr. Habib said, moving toward the door. "We have every reason to believe she'll fight the infection and regain consciousness. When she's ready. I'll check in on her in a couple of hours, but I can assure you we're doing everything we can for her."

  Brady and his father followed the doctor out into the hall, while Natassia sank into the chair by Jasi's bed.

  "They might take her arm, Ben. Oh, God…"

  Ben placed a gloved hand on her shoulder. "Hey, you heard the doctor. She's stable and she's a fighter. She'll wake up soon enough, and when she does, she'll be bossier than hell."

  Natassia studied the woman in the bed, yearning for Jasi to open her green eyes. "Come on, Jasi. You've gotta fight this thing."

  Behind her, Ben said, "She's probably dreaming about lying on a tropical beach somewhere, sipping mojitos and getting that tan she always wanted."

  While her partners discussed tropical beaches and tanning, Jasi drifted on a turbulent river of unconsciousness, reliving flashes of conversations and glimpses of past murder scenes that all led her back to the one case that had hit close to home.

  Too close.

  She'd let her guard down, opened herself to a personal connection instead of her ordinary measure of distance, something she always strived for.

  In her drug-induced world, faces flashed before her.

  Brandon…Ben…Natassia.

  A burnt corpse floated past her on a cresting wave.

  Monty Winkler.

  The dream took her closer to the water. She saw her reflection. And something else just below the surface.

  She scrunched her eyes. What is that?

  Suddenly, a hand broke the surface. Fingers clawed at empty air, yet as quickly as it had appeared, the hand sank below, returning to its watery grave.

  No!

  A rush of emotions assaulted her. Death…loss…pain.

  Jasi was suddenly transported to the day she had returned to Divine Operations, the covert location of the PSI Division. Divine Ops was cloaked within an isolated, heavily guarded complex in the Rocky Mountains. Not even the one hundred or so residents of Divine, BC, knew what went on inside the complex—or underground. They believed the signage that stated it was a company called Enviro-Safe Research Facility.

  In her dream world, Jasi found herself standing in front of Matthew Divine, the mysterious creator of the PSI Division. With shoulder-length gray hair tied in a ponytail and old-fashioned tortoise-shell glasses, the man could be easily mistaken for an aging hippie or a computer geek.

  The latter was true.

  "Hi, Matthew," Jasi said.

  She knew he wasn't pleased. Why should he be? She had another dead body on her hands, someone who could've been saved if she'd bothered to call for back up. Plus, she had a wounded friend who wouldn't have been shot if it wasn't for her stubborn refusal to follow protocol.

  "I-I'm sorry," she told him.

  A bright flash sent her muddled mind back to the case that still haunted her. The Parliament Murders. Memories flooded her mind. She couldn't fight them, or stop them. All she could do was remember.

  As usual, everything had started with a dead body.

  2

  Sunday, April 15, 2012

  ~ Ottawa, ON

  Jasi first met Monty Winkler at the Ottawa Forensics Unit, but shaking his hand was definitely out of the question. From the look of his bloated, blistered and undeniably dead corpse, Winkler wouldn't be shaking hands, hugging women or kissing babies any time in the future.

  As she approached the metal table, she was forced to do a double-take. Her gaze drifted from the corpse's face to the photo on her data-com screen.

  She frowned. "You sure this is my floater?"

  "The one and only," the pathologist said. "All week."

  "A slow week?"

  "Dead slow. For him anyway."

  Jasi held out a hand. "Agent Jasmine McLellan, CFBI."

  The woman removed a latex glove and wiped her hand on her lab coat before offering it. "Dr. Faith Copeland, keeper of the dead. Also known as the chief pathologist."

  Copeland was small and neat in appearance, her ash-blond hair twisted into a tight bun. Gold-rimmed glasses made her brown eyes appear even larger and softened the small lines that feathered the corners. She wore no makeup and didn't need any to maintain an attractive, yet serious, appearance.

  The pathologist yawned loudly, then blushed. "Sorry. I've been on this case almost twenty-four-seven. We're a bit short-staffed. You know, government cutbacks and all."

  "No need to apologize."

  Jasi knew all too well the hazards of a case like this one.

  "This victim is our number one priority," Copeland stated. "And I doubt any of us will get much sleep until you find his killer."

  Jasi turned her attention back to the body on the table.

  Winkler was unrecognizable. His unanticipated swim in the icy waters of the Ottawa River had put on an extra twenty pounds or more of bloated tissue. That was after someone had tried to fry his flesh—extra crispy. His body was unevenly burned and blistered, with most of the damage to his head, face and right side. Fish had feasted on one side of Winkler's head, and the underlying skin tissue clung loosely to muscle and bone, falling away in places like meat from the bone of an overcooked turkey.

  Jasi's stomach lurched and she studied the photo again.

  What happened to you?

  The smiling—and alive—Monty Winkler in the photo reminded her of someone, a comedian. The father in American Pie. He had the same curly black hair, a prominent nose, bushy eyebrows and dark intelligent eyes circled by black frames. A
man like him with average height, weight and looks would normally blend into a crowd, except that he had a charismatic personality that most people found very appealing.

  Married, with no kids, Winkler was a dedicated Member of Parliament and a firm supporter of gun rights, and although women hovered around him like flies, he'd always appeared committed to his wife.

  What was her name?

  Jasi consulted a file on her data-com. Ah, Marilyn!

  "Marilyn's going to take this hard, Monty."

  Her eyes wandered across the photo again and she glanced back at the decomposing body. "How can you be the same man who wielded such charm that you had college girls and married women practically swooning at your feet?"

  "Pardon me?" Copeland said, distracted.

  "Don't mind me. I have a habit of talking to the dead."

  "As long as they don't talk back."

  "So you're sure this is Monty Winkler?"

  Copeland nodded. "We made a positive ID from the DNA I pulled from his hair and matched to a hairbrush his wife brought in."

  Jasi tried to picture Monty Winkler as she'd last seen him on television. He was a well respected man, for a former lawyer. Unlike many of his fellow MPs, Winkler had kept himself in shape with a regimented routine of low-carb health food and running and weightlifting every morning. He'd looked damn good for a man nearing his fifties.

  But you don't make a very good-looking corpse.

  She hovered over the table, scanning every inch of Winkler's body. Unfortunately, the fire and the river had destroyed most of the physical evidence. And sitting in cold storage for almost three days didn't help either.

  "COD?" she asked without taking her eyes away.

  "In layman's terms, he drowned in freshwater," Copeland said. "There's a substantial amount of fluid in his airway and stomach, and his lungs are inflated. We were able to confirm the presence of diatoms, which we identified and were able to match to a specific section of the Ottawa River."

  "Which section?"

  "From Mud Lake—that's west of the city—to the MacDonald Cartier Bridge to the north. Ironically, he would have died soon anyway."

  "Why?"

  "There was blunt force trauma to the neurocranium. His brain was hemorrhaging."

  Since rigor mortis was fading, Copeland was able to carefully turn Winkler's partially shaved head so Jasi could view the injuries. The back of the skull was exposed. Fragments of parietal and occipital bone were embedded in a frenzied array of circular indentations, some of them overlapping.

  "Any idea what caused these wounds?"

  Copeland shook her head. "Never seen anything like it."

  "Could they be accidental? From the river maybe?"

  "No, not with this grouping so close together."

  "So he was hit on the back of the head numerous times."

  "With a heavy circular object," Copeland added, "approximately an inch and a half in diameter."

  Jasi chewed her bottom lip for a moment.

  "Why do you say he was hit with a heavy object?"

  Copeland strode across the room to a workstation. She tapped on a touch screen and brought up a 3-D hologram of Winkler's wounds.

  "There are ten of these impressions, Agent McLellan. Notice their depth. They're small in circumference, yet deep, meaning two things. The perp was enraged and the weapon had some weight to it, otherwise it would've broken or folded under pressure and left uneven marks, not these perfect circles."

  The pathologist zoomed in on the occipital region.

  "Each impression shows a slight angle of impact. I believe he was either hit from behind by a very tall man or he was kneeling or sitting."

  Jasi studied the hologram. "Maybe the killer used a metal pipe?"

  "Could be. But it's an odd way to wield a pipe."

  Copeland was right. Most pipe injuries were made with the side or length of a pipe, causing long, cylindrical wounds.

  "Maybe he was jabbed with a martial arts weapon," Copeland said.

  "What about defensive wounds?"

  "He couldn't have fought back. Toxicology report came back positive for flunitrazepam."

  "Flunitrazepam?"

  "You'd know it as Rohypnol."

  Jasi's heart skipped a beat. "The date rape drug?"

  "Flunitrazepam has sedative, paralytic and amnestic properties, which is why it's been a popular in rape cases. The victim loses muscle control and often ends up with anterograde amnesia and can't recall what happened."

  "Winkler wasn't raped, was he?"

  "No. My guess is someone wanted him docile."

  Jasi paced the floor. "Rohypnol isn't easy to get."

  "Not anymore. Ever since drug manufacturers started adding noticeable dyes to the tablets, we've seen less of it in the clubs and on the streets. It is available in injectable liquid, but you'd have to acquire it in Mexico or overseas."

  Copeland tapped the screen and brought up a holographic image of Winkler's upper left arm.

  "This is the injection site," she said, pointing to a small dark spot. "He was given a large dose."

  Jasi peered over the woman's shoulder at the body on the table. How could someone have gotten close enough to Winkler to stick him with a hypodermic?

  "The drug was administered about a half hour before the scalp wounds were inflicted," Copeland said. "He wouldn't have felt much, but he was conscious enough to know what was happening. Shortly afterward, he was lit on fire."

  "Jesus!"

  "The burn pattern is consistent with the use of an accelerant. What's unusual is that the regions here and here weren't burned to the same extent."

  Jasi studied the area the pathologist had indicated. The left side of the body was less burnt than the rest.

  "Do you think something was covering him?"

  The smile Copeland gave her had the effect of taking ten years off the woman. "Watch closely, Agent McLellan."

  The pathologist tapped the touch screen and the hologram began to fold in as if Winkler were sitting down. Then the 3-dimensional form rotated on one side.

  "He was lying on his left side when the accelerant was poured on him," Jasi observed.

  Copeland nodded. "In a small, restrictive space. He didn't die from smoke inhalation, although there was some smoke damage to his lungs. He was dumped into the river shortly afterward, still breathing."

  "What's the estimated time of death?"

  "TOD is between eleven p.m. and two a.m. on April 13." She grimaced. "Friday the 13th, to be exact."

  "Did you send your report to the CFBI?"

  "Yes, and I uploaded an image of the wound pattern."

  Jasi did something next that made the pathologist gasp. She strode toward the corpse on the table and leaned forward, her nose barely an inch from the scorched flesh. Shutting her eyes, she inhaled deeply.

  "Agent McLellan?" the woman said, concerned.

  "I have a keen sense of smell. Oversensitive olfactory nerve."

  She wasn't really lying. Then again, she couldn't exactly tell the woman that she was hoping traces of smoke still lingered on Winkler's body, enough to set off her psychic abilities so she could enter a killer's mind.

  She inhaled again.

  Nothing. Not one flash. Not one sick, twisted thought.

  She shivered.

  The dead won't speak to me.

  She thought of the young girl who had haunted her nightmares ever since she was a child. The girl waited each night in the closet of her dreams, a pink skipping rope strangling her last breath. She'd never said a word either.

  "You okay?" Copeland asked.

  "Yeah."

  The woman eyed her suspiciously. "I hope you don't mind me saying this, Agent McLellan, but you look awfully—" She broke off, closed her mouth.

  "Young?" Jasi chuckled. "I get that all the time. But trust me, Dr. Copeland, there isn't much I haven't seen."

  The look Faith Copeland gave her was one Jasi had seen a million times before. In her father's ey
es. The look said, "Why in God's name would a young woman go into such a depressing and dangerous line of work?"

  Because of Mom, she wanted to tell him.

  The pathologist patted her arm. "Seeing death the way we do, day in and day out, has a way of making you value your own mortality."

  Jasi raised a brow. "Meaning?"

  "Life is for the living, Agent McLellan."

  "Yeah, but I have to find justice for the dead first."

  Out in the hallway, Jasi pushed Copeland's dire warning to the back of her mind and searched for her partner. She found him standing near the information desk, chatting with a smiling blond who looked fresh out of college and eager to make his acquaintance.

  "Hey, partner!"

  "Took you long enough," he said, moving toward her. "I was getting bored."

  She smiled wryly. "Didn't look like you were bored."

  Eleven years her senior, Agent Benjamin Roberts gave off an air of quiet confidence. At thirty-six, he had several commendations for solving some of Canada's most gruesome, high profile murder cases. Jasi counted her blessings that she'd been paired with Ben and not one of the older PSI agents. Most of them thought she was too young to be a good field agent. Except Ben. He was a patient team leader, a top-notch profiler and her best friend.

  While he led her to an empty alcove, she studied her partner. Lean, six and a half feet of muscle and agility—and a Psychometric Empath to boot—Ben wore a navy blue Armani suit with ease. Not many men could it pull off, but Ben was at home in a well-fitted suit, the way most men practically lived in their favorite pair of old jeans. Armani was his middle name.

  Or it should be, she thought.

  She was sometimes tempted to ask him how he could afford such clothes. Sure, they made good money, but not that much. Regardless, there was more to Ben than he let on. One day she'd find out his secrets.

  "So what did you get off Winkler's suit?" she asked.

  He shook his head. "What little was left of it was tainted by fire, water and decomp. What about you?"

  "The pathologist was very helpful. Can't say the same for Monty Winkler."

  "No vision?"

  "Not a flicker. The river washed away all traces of smoke. I couldn't smell a thing other than decaying body parts, but we did get a COD. Monty Winkler drowned, and there was prior blunt force trauma to the back of his head."