The Superhero's Murder

by James Damm

  “The body is ready,” Tom said as he poked his head around the corner.

  Getting up from her seat, Juliet followed Tom as he led her through corridors and down several staircases. The room he took her to was a morgue and a team of doctors stood patiently over a sheet covering the body. Of varying ages, Juliet paid little attention to them as the lump of John’s body lay before her. The surreal experience captivated her attention until a figure to her right spoke.

  “Any luck with any of the neighbours and staff?”

  Juliet traced the voice back to Ethan. It had only been a few hours since they last spoke, yet the stress looked visible on his face. Still, he managed a faint smile.

  “The staff barely had any interaction with him bar an incident three weeks ago. The flat looked like a showroom: no personal possessions, toiletries or food. What we saw wasn’t where John Fitzgerald lived.”

  “You have been busy,” Ethan smiled, though the negative news registered in both his face and mind. The news that John lived elsewhere was another complication in the case. “What was the incident three weeks ago?”

  “John went to the bar in the building, and got so drunk that he could barely stand. Was muttering about not being able to take it.”

  “Take what?”

  “Your guess is as good as mine,” Juliet concluded. “Plus, he’s been missing for two weeks.”

  “Who did you hear that from?”

  “A man named Leo runs a website dedicated to tracking John Fitzgerald’s movements. There’s been no public sightings for nearly a fortnight.”

  “Christ,” Ethan said. “Any good news?”

  Tom and Juliet exchanged a glance. “I guess that depends on what you’ve got here.”

  “I’ll hand that one over to you,” Ethan sighed as he raised a hand toward the nearest doctor.

  With straw-like ginger hair and bags under her eyes, there was a sense of hostility in her. “Dr. Summers,” she said, introducing herself. “As I was just saying to Ethan, I’ve begun the autopsy. This kind of thing takes a few hours, and you’ve given me less than one. Don’t quote me on any hard conclusions. But so far the blood and initial findings are painting quite the picture.”

  “More good news?” Tom asked.

  “Where to start,” she stated. “Multiple stab wounds, over forty. Blood work has come back with traces of heroin in the system, yet nothing obvious to show why his regenerative abilities switched off. Further to that, we found things not conforming to previous medical examinations of him. There’s a tattoo on his chest and scarring predating the cause of death. That’s just what we have so far.”

  Juliet could read no lie in Dr. Summers’ expression or thoughts. All truth.

  “Could the heroin have switched off his ability?”

  “Not from what we’ve seen so far. The quantities in his system, to put it crudely, would be enough to kill an elephant, but an analysis of his kidneys and liver shows no damage. His body regenerated after his last consummation of the drug,” Dr. Summers said. Her feet were shuffling. Other doctors in the room pretended to be busy. Revealing the golden boy superhero had enormous volumes of one of the most dangerous drugs possible in his system wasn’t how they’d pictured their morning.

  “That’s why we brought you in,” Ethan stated. “In the hours leading to his death, John consumed significant quantities of heroin. A brief time later, someone murdered him. If we’re trying to establish a timeline, this is it.”

  “So you’re telling me that John Fitzgerald was a drug addict,” Juliet said, growing flustered.

  “I’m saying that John Fitzgerald had a cocktail of illegal drugs in his system upon his death, and depending on volume they could have been there as long as three days,” Dr. Summer replied. “With such an extraordinary patient, and how his regenerative abilities functioned remaining largely a mystery, I can’t accurately put a time on it.”

  “You mentioned a tattoo and scarring,” Tom chimed in. “What did you mean by that?”

  “On the previous medical reports there’s no mention of the scarring or tattoo. From what I’ve been able to see so far, they aren’t fresh. They’re what any good doctor would reference.”

  “So John has had past injuries, inconsistent with the records,” Tom stated bluntly. “No wonder they didn’t want knowledge that someone could harm him out in the open. Who oversaw the previous medical examinations?”

  “Dr. Walters,” was Ethan’s answer. “We’ve been trying to get in touch. He’s a private doctor for the intelligence service. So far the commissioner is playing political football with the intelligence agencies to get an interview.”

  “So we have a victim whose whereabouts were unknown for two weeks. We don’t know his real home address and in recent days he had a jolly with some heroin,” Juliet said aloud.

  “In addition, this high profile and immensely popular victim’s murder is drawing more attention than any other case in recent memory,” Ethan added. “The chief of police himself is due to make a statement later this morning. All we can give him is that John’s abilities were probably exaggerated; we don’t know where the hell he’s been the last two weeks and, to top it off, he may or may not have been a drug addict.”

  “We don’t know that,” Tom responded, trying to cool the room. “There may be more to it or further explanations.”

  “It’s not like heroin is something you casually do one time,” Juliet countered. “The needles, the technique, and even getting hold of the stuff in the first place needs a level of knowledge. This won’t be John’s first time.”

  “Maybe he was injected against his will, to keep him delirious?”

  “Both could be right assumptions,” Ethan relented. “Either way gives us a start of finding out where he may have been in the days or hours before his death. When the time comes that we get a hold of this Dr. Walters, I’m sure we’ll learn the truth about his abilities. What about the tattoo?”

  Pulling back the sheet, Dr. Summers revealed a dead John Fitzgerald to the room. His body pale sliced to pieces. It was difficult to see the old scarring but using a scalpel Dr. Summers talked them through it, showing the previous wounds beneath the fresh ones. She also pointed out the damaged skin of a tattoo. On John’s chest there was a date: 05.05.2010.

  “Six years ago,” Tom stated.

  “True,” Juliet agreed. “I saw online he has a dead mother and brother. Could it relate?”

  Tom did the sums in his head. “They died before Cherwell. A few years after both, I reckon. What can you tell about the existing scars?”

  Dr Summers peeled back the covers further. “We have the fresh wounds leading to his death, but underneath there are older scars, burns and stab wounds. I can’t date them, but they’re not fresh. It’s workable they came before his powers kicked in in the army, but they’re significant and not noted in his records, which include the military days. The recent tattoo also disrupts that theory. All we really know about the onset of abilities is their frequent emergence in times of immense trauma. Wounds after John’s development should have regenerated. Anything before would be on record.”

  The soldier who saved the schoolchildren, the best of Britain. After the Cherwell School fire, there was worldwide media attention. For weeks nobody talked about anything else. John Fitzgerald was unveiled at a press conference, and the UK government revealed to the world what had been going on behind the scenes.

  The scientists could track the first case of a human being displaying abnormal abilities as far back as the eighties. During this time there was little more to the powers than seeing them as neat tricks. Telekinetic ability to move a pencil by a centimetre, or somebody able to heal from injuries in days that should have taken weeks. At this early stage there were no globally reaching press conferences. The anecdotal powers drew little media attention or government interest past a local level.

  The situation changed at the turn of the millennium. Within the intelligence agencies, the situation escalat
ed to something noteworthy. A boy, Marco Rossi, created a small fire playing in his room. A schoolgirl reported by her father as being able to read minds. Across the globe, a handful of people were popping up with unique abilities with their powers verging on dangerous. The intelligence agencies recruited those coming forward. Non-disclosure agreements and court super-injunctions blocking the reporting or wider revelation of these emerging individuals were put in place.

  With the growing emergence of such gifted people, the government decided they could analyse the phenomenon in existing intelligence agencies and circles, and the humans blessed with such unique talents would be put to good use. Britain gathered a handful of talented people from all over Europe and Juliet had been one of them – the schoolgirl turned into the government by her own father.

  “Partial prints on the bottle,” Ethan acknowledged, bringing Juliet back into the room. Ethan and Tom had been continuing to bounce facts and ideas off each other as her focus drifted. “They’re not complete enough to give us a match, even if we have them registered on the system. Although it’ll give us a head start on any suspect we bring in.”

  “Plus the lack of gloves indicates this wasn’t a professional hit.”

  “There’s a footprint in the blood too.”

  “These are strong starting points,” Tom said. “We getting anywhere on the CCTV footage or patrons of the nearby pub?”

  “I’d like if you could speak to the owner and the regulars. Most are being interviewed upstairs by my team. The owner has been in touch with police this last week himself. Someone dented a padlock on his gate something rotten late last week, looked like they were trying to smash it, and gave up. A few businesses have had petty break-ins in the last few months. Seems like it’s become a slight hot spot for drug addicts to make petty robberies they can pawn,” Ethan answered. “My team has got hold of a lot of the CCTV from business owners, more than happy to help – they’re combing through the last twenty-four hours to track comings and goings. It’ll take a few hours to compile, but I’m certain one of them will have picked something up. Unless we’re dealing with an invisible killer.”

  “I wouldn’t even joke,” Juliet chided. “The way this morning has gone already, I wouldn’t rule it out.”

  Chapter Six

  “Mr. Fitzgerald,” a voice broke through the concrete maze. “Mr. Fitzgerald, are you okay?”

  Eyes blinking into life, Mike stared at the police officer shaking him, another at the foot of his bed. The day, time and reality of the situation were all unclear. The charity of a drink was that it striped away memory. Mike forgot the last hour of a night, a name, where he lost his keys, and as life slipped away he had forgotten more than he remembered. Images remained, but they were only fragments; torn photographs only telling part of a story. Why were two police officers in his house? Anxieties jumped from one conclusion to the other, but before Mike could do much more he was rolling out of bed and past the officers into the bathroom.

  Slumping onto the floor, Mike heaved bitter, metallic bile into the toilet bowl. Head spinning and ribs aching, he felt like someone had beaten him up. Had they? No, images of the television screen came flooding back and Mike realised it was not all a feverish dream. Looking over at him, with pitying eyes and an equal measure of both revulsion and concern, Mike had no time to apologise to the officers. The ritual was painful, foul and humiliating, but as Mike sat with his head spinning and sweat covering his face, he knew he was long past the point of shame.

  One officer handed Mike a glass of water, which he swallowed before it came straight back up and into the toilet bowl. The officer gratefully grabbed the glass and went to get more water. Any excuse to get away from the bathroom.

  The other, less timid officer, spoke. “Mr. Fitzgerald, it’s about your son…”

  Mike momentarily met the officer’s eyes and an unspoken conversation confirmed that he already knew the required information. Mike hated the police. A long and heavy resentment that had never quite gone away. Back in the day while working in the pit and the strikes that came after, Mike had raged against brutal, tough men in uniforms with batons. Times had changed, the police were meant to be a friend now, but the uniform still instilled distrust.

  Officer number one returned with water and this time Mike could keep it down, although he remained hugging the toilet bowl. This one had pity, tried to ignore the rotten smell and decay of the property she was in and the state of the man before her. Mike knew the thoughts going through their heads. This was John Fitzgerald’s father? The hero who could fly, move objects with his mind and deflect bullets? How had he come from this?

  “We’re here to take you to London. They have the body, which needs identifying, and tests and interviews need to take place.”

  “How did it happen?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “Who did it?”

  “We don’t know.”

  “So what do you know?”

  “As soon as you’re ready, though our instructions are as soon as possible, we need you to pack a bag. You’ll probably be staying a few days so take anything you might need,” the officer paused, obvious that Mike had no clean clothes or even a bag. “I can ask somebody to clean up the place while you’re gone?”

  “They’ll need a skip,” Mike wanted to say. Instead he stayed silent, feeling enough of an inconvenience already.

  Mike put what looked to be the cleanest clothes he owned in a plastic bin bag and sat in the back of a police car. In some anonymous car park, Mike said goodbye to the two officers, gave them his keys and moved into a far fancier car with his own personal driver. A Mercedes with plush seats and a crystal glass alcohol set, Mike went to help himself and steady his nerves. They had emptied the alcohol. The driver barely caught his eye the entire way to London, unclear whether to extend professional or personal courtesy. This suited Mike just fine.

  At some point or another Mike drifted into a dream, a heavy alcohol-induced experience with vivid sights and sounds. In it two boys, who never turned to reveal their faces, kept running away inside the concrete maze. Mike would chase them, lose sight of them in a panic, only to spot them again at the edge of his vision. Frantically, he chased after the children, yelling as hard as he could with no sound escaping. The two children laughed, skipped and played until Mike could finally see neither at all.

  Awake again, Mike had no sense of time. A sudden shuddering deep from within his stomach sent him sprawling to the floor of the car. The contents of his body long since emptied, only retching remained as sweat poured from his face.

  In that moment decades flashed by: the day John was born, two boys playing with a ball in the street and rapidly, incoherently chatting about a film. There was bath time, stories and excited faces on Christmas Day. But there were also tears, pain and hurt.

  There was once a time when Mike had come home to witness a scene in his front room. Maggie and a friend were playing with the boys – David, the older of the two, barely able to walk at that stage. Slathered in makeup, wearing a pair of his mother’s red heels with a glittery pair of shades, David was happily toddling about the place to everyone’s amusement. As Mike surveyed the scene, his oldest boy in drag and two grown women enjoying the spectacle, a dull rage filled him.

  Mike didn’t utter a word, pulling a beer out of the fridge and taking a seat in the corner as he watched. Maggie, the sweet obedient wife, picked up on the atmosphere her oblivious friend didn’t. Calm in the corner, Mike’s eyes never left his wife, who blushed and tried not to meet his gaze.

  “I think it’s probably time for me to get the boys cleaned up and down for a nap,” Maggie whispered to the friend.

  The friend offered help, Maggie rejected it, and within five minutes the family was once again alone. Maggie immediately turned, a realisation dawning along with a guilty voice. Mike hadn’t even left his seat, hadn’t even said a word, and Maggie was already apologising. Clear leadership was discipline and control.

  B
efore a second more of begging could fill the room, Mike was on his feet, the back of his right hand smacking hard against her face. The world seemed to pause for a moment after he made the connection. Maggie’s hand pulled to cover her face. “Mike, you hit me,” she mumbled in shock.

  Mike loomed over Maggie, fist now relaxed by his side. Down on the floor John was oblivious while David looked up at his parents, trying to make sense of the situation. What he learnt was that everything in life needed an authority, a mechanism to bring it back under control. In a company there needed to be a boss; a family also demanded a leader. Without it, Mike’s family would be chaos.

  “It was fun Mike,” she had tried to say but his voice overruled her.

  “If we had it your way, I’d be raising a pair of poofs,” Mike spat. Her eyes were crying silently, her makeup running down her face. “Go clean yourself up, the boys don’t need to see you in such a state.”

  The memory was neither the start of it nor the end, just a random point in-between. Like everything Mike came into contact with, the marriage wilted and festered. It failed not because there was nothing worth staying for; they had two lovely young boys and a comfortable home, but because there was no prospect for it to become anything worth having. At the time Mike did not see it but he did now; he’d dropped the reins even then. It was never a case of needing to be drunk all the time, rather Mike could not handle being sober. Every day his compass needed a drink to remain steady. The social camouflage of a friendship group based around booze hid it well, but that did nothing to slow the decay behind the scenes. No matter how much he tightened the grip, tried to keep in control, the foundations were crumbling.

  The driver had permitted one stop, Mike grabbing a pack of cigarettes that the driver covered and a coffee from a service station chain. He offered one of the death sticks to the driver, a heavy-set man with a stern face who shook his head. Mike considered an attempt at a conversation as the man waited with him, but nothing was forthcoming, and Mike suspected the driver was there more as an escort than if he’d been left to his own devices on a random mode of public transport.