Chapter 21
Adam had worked messy crime scenes before. It wasn't the messiness, although that was bad enough; it was the aura of rage that seemed to permeate the crime scene.
"Uh … Boss?"
"You okay to lead on this Adam?" Mac asked with concern.
Adam squared his shoulders. He hadn't meant to seem weak. "Yeah. But actually, what I was going to say was I think I see the murder weapon. Over in the far corner near that filing cabinet.
Momentarily surprised, Mac gave a nod of approval of the fact that despite his obvious disgust at what was before them, Adam was already at work. What Adam had spotted was a theater laurel statuette, the kind of thing awarded to people attached to Broadway. It was a 3D metal design covered with copper and brass made to look like the classical theater motifs of Grecian column and the duo comedy/tragedy masks. Even from across the room it was obvious it was covered in blood and what was sure to turn out to be other human tissue.
Danny, who had come in behind both men, looked up to the ceiling and said, "That is a hell of a lot of cast off. Whoever did this was swinging hard, fast, and often."
Mac's monosyllabic response was, "Agreed." His facial expression was just as sparse but seemed to say much, much more. However, he remained silent and Adam finally looked at the other two men and realized that he was well and truly in the lead and would need to make the first move. After Adam suggested they cover up with paper coveralls the work of taking pictures and gathering trace continued until it was interrupted by Dr. Sid Hammerback arriving.
Adam's concern alerted Mac and when he turned he said, "Sid! What are you doing here?"
"Most of my staff somehow had the impression that they should take the day off with the rest of the city workers."
"The ME's office was not on the list of affected departments."
Annoyed yet calm Sid responded, "I am aware."
"And where did your staff get the idea that they were?"
"Supposedly from a memo circulated in my absence. The impression was that it was from me though no one can say why other than the letterhead the single piece of paper was printed on. However, that letterhead is six months out of date. But perhaps we should wait to discuss this until we take care of this poor gentlemen before us."
Mac nearly started grinding his teeth. "As soon as we get back to the office I would like to see a copy of this so called memo."
"I'd be happy to provide it only it seems to have evaporated into thin air."
No one in the room could mistake the fact that Sid was well and truly furious. He was still calm. Still in control. The casual observer would not even notice. But Mac and the other two men were not casual observers. It wasn't often that Sid got this kind of angry but when he did everyone knew to give him space.
"We'll get to the bottom of this Sid. Do you want me to call Hawkes?"
Sid shook his head. "No. He's already been on nine days straight and is going to come in this evening to supervise the night crew. I believe at the moment he is off checking on Don Flack. I can handle this Mac."
"Of that I had no doubt," Mac told the man, assuring him that he had confidence in him. That relieved Sid enough that he was able to set aside his anger sufficiently to perform the coroner's duties.
After a few moments Sid got up from the floor and said, "TOD would appear to be approximately midnight, very similar in time frame to our other victim, Mr. Wright. And likely very close to the actual TOD of our female victim as well, Ms. Eaton. Any particular significance to that time?"
Mac was going to answer but Danny nudged him and pointed with his chin towards Adam. The man stood perfectly still except for his eyes which were obviously looking at something but it wasn't anything in the room they were in.
"Adam?"
Adam startled a bit and blinked his eyes before focusing on Mac. "Uh … I was thinking."
"Obviously," Mac said sardonically. "Care to share?"
"Oh … er … it's what Sid said. What is it about midnight and I might … well … Emi asked me if I could design a Pac Man type game using the floor plan of one of the historic sights she's going to be … anyway … see it is a mystery game, people … mostly kids … are going to have to gather clues along the way and … yeah … so it got me to thinking about Pac Man …"
"Adam …" Mac said in his "get to the point" tone of voice.
"Yeah. Anyway. In the old Pac Man game you won by avoiding getting chomped. The really high scorers always seemed to be able to predict the paths that avoided the ghosts. Well, think of the security guards as the ghosts and our perp as a Pac Man … or Ms. Pac Man. If our ghosts … our security guards … have a specific path that they use, and they've used it exclusively and so often that it is predictable, then our Pac Man … I mean the perp … might now exactly when and where the best locations are for avoiding them."
Sid turned slightly away but not before Mac and Danny saw he was trying not to smile. Surprisingly Sid seemed to get an inordinate amount of enjoyment out of Adam's sometimes quirky thought process. Unknown to either Mac or Danny, Adam had gone to Sid and asked him for a letter of recommendation. He was giving serious consideration to completing his doctoral studies but he didn't want anyone else to know.
"Completing your doctoral studies? Are you saying that you've …?"
Adam gave one of his typical self-deprecating shrugs. "Yeah. I've been working on it off and on since I graduated … or at least when I had the extra bucks to pay for it. But you know … the full time job thing and trying to have a life kinda cut into study time. But I've got Charlie and Emi to think about. If finishing up adding a couple of letters to the end of my name keeps me employed then I'll do what it takes. I've talked to a couple of Emi's colleagues and run a couple of proposals for a doctoral thesis by them and they've helped me narrow it better but I'm still gonna have a hell of a time writing a dissertation."
"May I ask what you've generally chosen as your thesis?"
"Er … it's kinda … anyway it has to do with how the expansion of 3D technology could revolutionize forensics but never take the place of human oversight. I gotta clean the title up and make sure I don't give away too many industry secrets … like the nuts and bolts of all the equipment and programming I'm beta testing … but I think it's workable."
Sid had gladly written the letter thinking that if Mac wasn't careful Adam might just outgrow the lab before the lab could grow to keep up with him. The young man still had a ways to go with interpersonal relations in the office but that was often the way with extremely smart people; their mental acuity often outstripped their social acuity. It would be interesting to see if Mac could mentor Adam into a good balance of the two.
"Sid?"
Danny brought Sid back to the present by telling him they were ready for the body to be removed. Sid turned and directed his assistants of the moment, leaving the other three men to finish up.
"Mac, should I tell the theater staff they can schedule a crime scene clean up or should we tape the room off?"
"What do you think?" Mac asked, putting the onus for the decision back on Adam.
"I'd prefer to seal the room off but I'm honestly not sure how much good it will do. Plus they're going to have opening night and there's stuff in here that the manager and his staff are probably going to need. I know under most circumstances we shouldn't allow anything to influence out decision whether to seal a crime scene off but … er … Boss, there were already some calls made by the Mayor's office on this case, I don't know … okay, I'm starting to talk in circles aren't I." Adam sighed feeling like a failure.
Then Mac surprised him by clapping him on the shoulder. "Welcome to my world. You're correct, if we tried to seal the room we'd catch it from several directions; however, we can seal it for twenty-four hours which would give us time to take the trace back to the lab and see if there are any obvious gaps that need reinvestigating. There are also large amounts of biologicals that need to be dealt with in terms of health and safety protocols. Let's seal the scene and then tell the manager he can have his insurance company schedule clean-up for no sooner than twelve hours from now."
And that's what they did. The manager wasn't happy but he wasn't exactly eager to enter his office after getting his first glimpse of it this morning either.
As everyone took care of the last minute double checking Mac and Danny both noticed Adam take out his phone several times and look concerned. Silently Mac signaled to Danny to find out what was going on. Mac stepped outside to give Danny room to work on Adam.
"Yo, what's up? Expecting a call?"
"No. Charlie is sick. I'm just checking on them. Charlie looks better but now Emi looks toasted. And I'm working a double and can't help."
"Aw man … is it this crap that's going around?"
"Shigella? Emi says no but I haven't even put Charlie on my insurance yet … I shoulda made time but I haven't. Now what if he's really sick? Emi keeps saying it's okay but …" Adam stopped and touched the Dropcam app on his phone yet again and swallowed when he saw Emi walk into Charlie's room carrying the boy. Emi was small so it made Charlie look bigger than he was but then he heard Charlie give a horrible, booming cough. "Oh hell … he's getting worse. I knew it. I … I …"
Danny was looking over his shoulder and then tried to hide a knowing grin when Adam's phone buzzed as Emi dialed in.
"Uh Babe?"
"You must have pressed the speaker. I could hear you talking. Stop worrying yourself to pieces. Charlie has a cold. He puked last night because of the fever. He managed to keep half a piece of toast down for breakfast and for lunch he had some chicken broth. I told him if he can keep that down he can have some more soup and he can have gold fish crackers to go with it. The cough is nasty sounding but it is more croupe than congestion, and I think related to the puking which irritated his throat and bronchial tubes. The steam bath with eucalyptus oil is already helping. And you forgot your lunch so you'll need to stop and get you something at some point … and make it more than that sludge you call coffee. 'K?"
Taking what she said in Adam asked, "Can … can I say something to Charlie?"
Emi put the phone to Charlie's ear while she sat holding him in her rocker she'd dragged into his room. "Uncle Da, I'm thick. My nothe ith thuffy and my earths feel hot."
"Aw Buddy, I'm really sorry you feel yucky. I … I'd be there … I mean I'll be there tonight. Okay? And I'll read you however many stories you want."
"Okay but don't let me breave on you or your nothe will get thuffy too."
"We'll work it out Buddy. Let me talk to Emimi please."
The little boy pushed the phone towards Emi and then buried into the quilt she was holding him in and promptly fell asleep. "You sure you're okay?"
"Adam, I'm fine. And Charlie will be fine as well. He's already settled down now that you've promised to read him a story tonight. Just stop wearing yourself to a frazzle over this."
They said their good byes and then Adam turned to Danny, red faced. "This being a parent stuff is … it's …"
"Yeah it is," Danny agreed. "You shoulda seen me the first time Lucy really got honest to God sick. Linds threatened to have me committed to Bellvue if I didn't calm down." Danny smiled nostalgically. "You'll do find Adam. It don't exactly get easier but … you learn. It just takes practice."
"I don't want to practice on Charlie … he needs me now already knowing what needs to be done."
Knowing some of Adam's feelings came from his upbringing … or lack of one by his own father … Danny tried to be sensitive to that when he said, "We all make mistakes Man, it's part of life. It's what we do with the lessons we learn from the mistakes we make that tells what kind of person we are." Pausing Danny finally said, "Don't measure yourself against your ol' man. Just because he failed you don't mean you're going to fail Charlie."
Adam froze for a moment, surprised anyone had dared to bring it up but then he realized he was talking to Danny and Danny didn't know how not to be daring. So Adam said, "I'm not really measuring myself against what my father did … because there'd be nothing to measure against. When any of us got sick it was either like we didn't exist or that we were faking it and we better stop … or else." Adam shook his head to break free of the memories. "I just want to do the right thing Danny. I always thought the right thing would be so easy to do but sometimes I … I don't know that I can do the right thing."
"We all feel like that sometimes. You just do the best you can and then you move along and don't make the same mistake twice any more than you can help."
Adam nodded. At this point he finally admitted there wasn't anything else he could do but what he was already doing and he needed to get back to doing his job. He took one last look around the blood and gore splattered office before sealing the door closed with yellow crime tape. He wondered, not for the first time that day, what Malcolm Holiday had done to find himself a murder victim. If they could find out what connected all three victims he was sure that it would lead to the murderer.