Lethality

Thursday, August 6, 11:45 A.M.

"Much as I hate paperwork, in some cases it's useful." Brenda let a stack of notes fall onto her desk. "Some cases." She eyed the stack, and then glared at Mewtwo. "Trees died for this, you know."

"Recycled paper," he replied, busy with his own stack. "You're sure about Leanne and John Philbin?"

"They didn't give me a vibe, but they're connected." Brenda cracked her knuckles, and started looking through the paperwork. Unlike Mewtwo, she actually had to write a little thing called a progress report. If she filled it with enough medical jargon, Dallas probably wouldn't even read it.

Which would be better then explaining they were clawing their way, very slowly, towards finding a suspect, but otherwise hadn't made much progress.

"We have made progress," Mewtwo said, turning in his seat to look at her. "We know the girls are clones, and that they were genetically modified. We know it's probably another clone killing our victims, because of the size of the hand and the strength needed to crush the neck. We know that we can arrest the scientists, and that we will."

"What I know is that we've been putting gods know only how many man-hours into this thing, and we still aren't close to having a suspect to haul into interview."

"That will come."

"Optimist."

"I am not-"

"Well, you're sure as hell not a realist. Don't worry, the shine will wear off eventually."

She ignored the narrow eyed look he shot at her, and dove into the files. It actually wasn't hard typing up her report. Once that was done, all she had to do was find the best jargon to make Dallas's eyes cross, and then she could send it off.

And print it out, because who trusted the inter-departmental connections, anyways? Only people like Mewtwo, who were, as previously noted, optimists.

Crazies, the lot of them.

She moved the files down beside her desk into a box, and yawned. "Desk work makes me sleepy."

"Detective, is there a point to that?"

"Cranky," she muttered. If she didn't get up and start moving, soon, she was going to throw her keyboard at his head. See how he liked that, because damn it. Damn it all to hell.

They had names. They had addresses. What they didn't have was the definitive proof that linked four scientists to a monstrosity. And they didn't have anything to use against those scientists, either, to get them to roll. And roll they would. Intellectual types like them? Squealers. Put a little pressure, mention the best of jail conditions, and they'd spill every damn thing they knew.

She flexed her fingers, and growled. She wanted to get just one of them- she only needed one- into an interview room. Then the fun could begin.

All she needed was enough proof to get a warrant. No point in hoping these psychopaths would grow a conscience and give themselves up. Not when they were this deep. The people on the side, if they knew, they'd probably be shocked and horrified at what they'd been helping along.

The phone rang.

Brenda turned her head and stared at it. Mewtwo looked over. They both looked at each other, and then Brenda picked up the receiver.

"Johnson, Detective," she said, and then went still.

Five minutes later they were in the garage. She'd never run down stairs that fast, ever, and hoped she'd never do so again.

"Going to need a black and white," she muttered, and ran to the rank and file's vehicles. And then skidded to a stop, because hot damn, there was a new car in her slot. Some angel of mercy had gotten her a new car.

Gloating had to take a back seat, though, since they were moving. "Three seconds to fix your seat, then we're going," she said, and peeled a bit of tape off the door. Keys. Cute.

Three seconds later, they were going, sirens at full blast. The car muscled through the traffic, the motor a deep, bass growl.

Halfway across town would be the mansions, one of which was owned by- someone, details didn't matter. What Brenda did know was that the mansion they were racing to had four dead bodies.

And one live one.

Thursday, August 6, 12:00 P.M.

Brenda ducked under the police tape, and attached a recorder to her shirt collar. She'd have made Mewtwo do it, but whenever he was in charge of the recorder the record was jumpy. Three cheers for telekinesis and forgetting where the recorder was supposed to be.

"You!" she snapped, and pointed at one of the uniformed officers on-scene. "Tell me what's going on."

The officer snapped to attention, and started walking. They had a distance to go; first to the gate, which was propped open and guarded by two police officers, and then beyond that to the house. The gate and yard had once been a shrine to mirrors and glass, and other shiny things, but not any more. Someone- their suspect, probably- had destroyed every piece of glass, mirror, crystal, and reflective metal in the gates and ornaments.

Brenda made a mental note: their suspect had prodigious strength, probably on par with a fighting-type pokemon.

Mewtwo turned his head and nodded. If she hadn't been busy, she would have kicked him for reading her mind.

"Sir," the officer said. Under a late summer tan, his face was pale, eyes wide and horrified. "I can get you the first on-scene, if you would like."

"Do," she said. "Then tell me what you know."

"Yes, sir." The officer paused just long enough to pull out his radio, and nearly drop it. Mewtwo caught it, and handed it back. The kid smiled- kid was what he was, fresh out of college and probably this was his first brush with death that hadn't been prettied up in a funeral home.

Brenda tuned out the request for the first on-scene, turned to study the house. A lot of windows, a lot of pale gray brick that looked cold, unwelcoming. A fountain at the top of the drive, right in the middle, so a car would have to drive around in order to drop off its passengers.

Fancy, pretty- in a cold, untouchable way. And every ground floor window was shattered.

"Took some time," she muttered.

"Yes, sir," the officer said, and cleared his throat. "Ah, as far as I'm aware, there are three bodies inside the building, one outside to the far rear of the property. The ET's are here, and are prepared to transport the bodies to the medical examiner at your order."

"Pictures?" she asked.

"Two rolls of film for the bodies," the kid replied. "The medical examiner sends his apologies, by the way, but he can't make it over here in time to do an on-site study."

Brenda arched one eyebrow, and looked over at Mewtwo. "Your job to find out why," she said. "If its transport, then a black and white should've picked him up, drove him over. If it's something else, I want to know what's more important then four dead bodies."

Mewtwo nodded, and then looked over. "I believe this is the first on-scene," he said, and folded his arms.

Brenda was tempted to copy him. Sergeant Meeks was well known in traffic, and word had trickled out to the rest of the department. He was thorough, dotted his i's and crossed his t's, but he was a racist, sexist, moronic bastard.

As a woman, as a woman of color, she wondered how he'd take her.

She saw him glance at her, peg her, saw the sneer he didn't bother hiding. After all, he was the one with the rank. She was just a detective, a woman, black, he was a sergeant, male, and pure white bread.

It was almost amusing how Meeks focused on Mewtwo. Well, her partner did appear to be a white male, and Meeks would be more comfortable dealing with that image then her. Or with reality.

"Sergeant," she said, deciding not to make an issue out of his stupidity. "Detective Johnson, and Officer Smith." She nodded at Mewtwo. "What can you tell us?"

Meeks was shorter then Brenda, had thinning brown hair and a gut. If he cared about his physical disadvantages, he didn't let it show. He paused, just long enough to make a point of his rank, and then focused on Mewtwo as he talked.

She could've had him pinned to the ground, cuffed with his own handcuffs in five seconds, but that wouldn't have gotten anything done. Better to let it pass.

"Well, seems there was a party going to be here tonight. Lady showed up to help start setting up, found a mess. Called us before going in, but didn't stay in the car like she should've. Went into the house, and saw the first body. Two others, and my partner found the fourth. The ones in the house are all male, pretty damn dead. One in the back's a little girl, which is why you got called in."

Brenda looked up at Mewtwo, and could practically read what he was thinking. One, that he would have rather talked to Meeks' partner, and two, that there wasn't any doubt that the little girl was a clone.

Damn it.

"We'll see the girl first," Brenda decided.

Meeks gave a quick, choppy nod, and just about turned on his heel. She wondered if it was her reputation that had him so quiet. Well, she'd take being ignored over being verbally poked any day. If he did poke at her, she'd have to punch him. The last place you wanted a fight was at a crime scene.

It was a bit of a hike around the house to the back corner. The body had been left in the south-east corner, in a grove of trees planted on the bank of an ornamental pond. Prettier then anything you'd find in the city. Magikarp swam in the pond, apparently clueless as to what was going on up out of the water.

This time, the little girl wasn't so little, had her eyes open, mouth parted. Blood smeared the back and sides of her neck, though she hadn't been cut.

Inside the house was going to be messy, Brenda could tell.

Instead of the white tunic-styled dress the first two girls had been found in, this one was in kakis and a pale yellow blouse. Probably because she looked like a pre-teen, or young teen, instead of a ten year old child. Her face was thinner then the first two, hair cut to her ears. Her muscles were slender, like a file clerk's, instead of thicker, like a runner's, like the first two.

Blood speckled the shirt, a rusty red handprint was just over the heart. Feeling for a pulse, Brenda guessed, and stepped back.

"I want her flagged for priority," she said, and turned towards the house. "Let's take a look inside."

Inside was a bloodbath.

Death hadn't come easy to the men, but it had come quick. They took the bodies from the front of the house, since they'd been strung out from the front door to the back.

The first man had fallen in the- Brenda could think of it only as a 'Grand Entrance'- and his expression, what was left of it, was shocked.

His throat had been torn out. Whether that had come before or after he'd been beaten to a pulp- cheekbones smashed, nose broken, teeth knocked out- was better asked by the ME. Hades would find out.

It'd take fingerprints or DNA to figure out who the poor bastard was. Brenda was betting on him being either Dekker or Mallory. They had been keeping a clone here, babysitting, and gotten killed by their own creation. The other possibility, that this poor soul had just been an innocent bystander killed in his own home, was hard to swallow.

Blood had congealed on the carpet, spilled over onto the wood floor. There was splatter, up onto the ceiling, from the throat. It was a nasty, messy scene, and the Crime Scene techs were already working it. She gestured at the ET's to bag the body, and headed for the next.

Another man, caught from behind in the hall. He laid face down, in a pool of his own wastes. Strangled, Brenda thought, even before she got a good look at his neck.

Ties really were nooses.

"Our suspect's inventive," Brenda said, looking up at Mewtwo. "Didn't waste time, just hammered at them. Strangled this guy with his own tie." She turned to the returning ET's and nodded. "You can take him out."

The third body was in the kitchen. The windows overlooked the backyard, and everything was pale tile and gleaming metal. Blood had been splattered over almost every inch of the kitchen. The cause of death, an oversized steak knife, was still wedged in the victim's chest.

Female, this time, from pure-blood Hoenn stock, Brenda judged. Nothing but surprise and horror on her face. She lay where she'd fallen, one arm crossed over her chest as she'd tried to protect her vitals. Death had leached the color from her skin, so she was an ash-gray, instead of dark, dark brown.

"Gwen Thompson," Mewtwo said, looking up at Brenda. "Her picture was attached to several of her reports. Fingerprints will confirm, but unless she has an identical twin…"

"Wounds make it hard to judge," Brenda said. She crouched down beside the body, careful not to kneel in the blood. She could count seventeen stab wounds right off. "Sure wrecked her suit."

"Rage. These three, their murders were fueled by rage. The girl in the backyard wasn't."

"No." Mewtwo's eyes were troubled. If anyone could recognize rage killings, she supposed it was him. Brenda had never been so pissed off she'd killed. "Our girls were… I don't know, I'm tempted to say that the suspect considered them mercy killings."

"What?" Mewtwo shot her a look.

Brenda straightened up, and then tensed. Meeks cleared his throat, and was already sneering when she turned around.

"Mercy killing? What sort of stupidity is that?"

Brenda clenched one fist, and sneered. "The sort of stupidity that comes from nearly a decade in homicide, Meeks," she answered, dropping his rank. It rankled, she could see that in the dull red flush across his cheeks. "The sort of stupidity that comes from seeing this-" She waved at the body, "-and seeing the other victims, and knowing the difference between overkill and the bare minimum." She took one careful step forward, only because she didn't want to mess up any of the blood spatters. "If you were in homicide, I'd listen to your opinion. As you're not, shut up."

She was throwing her first punch before he'd even started to speak. She pulled the blow, her knuckles only a hair's width away from his nose. "Go stand perimeter," she said.

Meeks paled, and left. Brenda sneered after him, and turned to the body again.

"I guess we're going to have to talk to the girl who found them," she said. "Want to bet she's on our scientist list?"

"No bet," Mewtwo answered. "I know she is."

Thursday, August 6, 12:35 P.M.

The woman introduced herself as Elizabeth Taylor. She seemed to have her emotions well in hand; despite having found three people violently murdered, she showed only a few signs of stress. Her hands trembled, and her lips were pressed together into a thin, white line, but she apparently wasn't the type to have hysterics.

Brenda mentally growled, and shook the woman's hand. There was no way Taylor had killed anyone. Timing was wrong, and with her crutches, she couldn't have managed even a fraction of the violence. Unless she'd beaten someone over the head with a crutch, she wasn't a killer.

At least, not one that used her hands.

And she couldn't grill Taylor either, not yet. She would though. That was a promise.

"Ms. Taylor, thanks for speaking with me. I'm Detective Johnson, and my partner, Officer Smith."

Taylor arched one pale eyebrow. "Johnson and Smith? How… common."

"It takes all types," Brenda replied, and sat down. The couch probably cost more then three months worth of her mortgage payments, and it wasn't even half as comfortable then the one she had at home. She'd pulled that one off the street before garbage day. "I just want to go over the facts with you for my investigation. Details matter, even the smallest ones."

Taylor nodded, and folded her hands. "Ask away."

"You've stated the reason for your being here as 'helping set up for a party', that's correct?"

"It is. My friend, Dr. James Mallory, was going to celebrate his re-engagement with Gwen. Dr. Thompson. This would have been the second time they got married, and I think it might have lasted this time." She looked sad, but not as if her friends had died. As if the stock market had dropped a couple points overnight, maybe.

Brenda glanced up at Mewtwo. Three out of four right off the bat. This was too easy. Even considering that Taylor didn't know they were investigating her, this was too easy.

"What time was the party scheduled for?" Mewtwo asked. "It's a bit early to start setting up, isn't it?"

Taylor smiled slightly, and shrugged. "Well, I admit, Gwen and I were going to gossip a bit. Once we start talking, we don't… didn't… get much done." A deep, shuddering breath, and Brenda was almost amused to see the tears that suddenly sprung to life in Taylor's eyes. She had the pathetic, helpless woman down, and the tears only added to her air of vulnerability.

"You came up to the gates and saw them broken?" she asked, and Taylor blinked away the tears.

"Yes, I did. I called for the police- I thought it'd been a home invasion, or vandalism, or something like that. This is a safe neighborhood, but not perfect."

"You were told to stay in the car, weren't you?"

"Yes. But I had to make sure my friends were alright."

Uh huh, Brenda thought. Sure you did. "I'm sorry for your loss, Ms. Taylor."

"So am I, Detective," Taylor said. She was pure ice queen now, eyes hard. "Very much so."

Thursday, August 6, 12:40 P.M.

"Her story was obviously fake," Mewtwo said, trailing after Brenda. She nodded, but didn't respond. "Why didn't you pressure her?"

"No Miranda," she replied.

"You could have Mirandized her."

"Mewtwo, she had a reasonable story. Just because we know its shit doesn't mean she knows that we know its shit. With me so far?"

He snorted, but waved one hand in agreement. They both avoided a patch of broken glass, the remains of some unidentifiable lawn ornament. Mewtwo took especial care of where he put his feet. He, after all, didn't have shoes. The Detective did.

"Okay, so she's trying to sell us a shit story. This is where the public assumption that all cops are morons actually does us some good. We can go back later and ask to talk to her about it again, clarify a few details now that she's had some time to get her feet back under her, so to speak." Brenda's grin was feral, and Mewtwo found himself copying it.

"And then you break her story into tiny pieces, I take it?"

"Something like that, yeah."

End Notes

Ah, but Brenda, will this Elizabeth Taylor survive for a second interview? Next chapter- fun with autopsies!