Authors: Daniel Syverson
In just a couple of hours, all this created a
carnival like atmosphere downtown. The Chief of Police was out of town, so the
Deputy Chief had to decide on what action to take, and what to tell the Mayor
and the news agencies. What
could
he tell them? He didn't believe the
story himself, and even if it
was
true, what was he
supposed
to
do? Arrest a man for being
alive?
He couldn't afford to aggravate the
local press. With the chief scheduled to retire in the next eighteen months, he
knew whatever he did would go a long ways to determining if he would slide into
that chair. The phone was ringing on his desk, both the private line, and the
office line. He ignored both, picked up the other phone, punched a free line,
and dialed an in-house number.
"This is Sanders. Send the Shift Lieutenant
up." Pause. "No, I don't want anything over the radio. God knows
enough has gone out already. Have him meet me in my office." Then he
buzzed his secretary. "Jenny, hold everything that's not involved with
this mess. Try to delay the mayor - tell him I'm, well, I don't know. Tell him
I'm taking a shit. Whatever. And bring in some coffee. Have the Lt. come right
in when he gets here. In fact, call Lt. Anders and have him arrange to have
about a dozen of the next shift come in early, including himself and the Sgt.
Have them both up here as soon as they get here. You writing all this down? -
Good. Oh, have the detective in charge of the case, who is it? Never mind, just
have them come up, too. What a mess."
* * *
Gerhard Richter hung up, and leaned back in his seat.
Not fifteen seconds later his phone began ringing again. This was in addition
to the other one, still ringing, still unanswered. That one had been ringing
since he entered the car. He didn't want to talk to anyone.
They had continued north along Highway 2,
avoiding the Interstate by cutting through the small towns of Rockton and South
Beloit, before crossing the border back into Wisconsin. They continued
following the Rock River, until the river began pulling further west. A few
miles later, he rejoined the river, a little before Janesville. Little time had
passed - only about forty minutes since walking out of the morgue. A few more
miles, and they would be there.
* * *
A small group was sitting around a several small
tables in the garage off the lower level of the morgue. The coroner sat at a
card table with two detectives. Her office had been taken over by techs who
were going through the security tapes. She was told one of the two men was
handling the case, and the other was the Chief of Detectives. He introduced
himself and the detective assigned to the case before sitting down.
Unnecessary, and pretty silly, as she had known both men for years.
Just a formality, but everything was going by
the book. The Deputy Chief wanted this done, done quickly, and done quietly. He'd
seen the TV stations setting up outside, and wanted this thing settled before
he had to go on the air. The Deputy Chief had punted the case to him, as Chief
of Detectives, not wanting to take any chances of screwing up his shot at
Chief. This meant that if he handled it right, the Deputy Chief would claim
credit, but if anything went wrong, guess who was to blame.
Another table, a smaller one, also collapsible,
came out of the Crime Scene van. The Crime Scene tech was filling out paperwork
there, and filing the evidence as it was collected. Kind of like on CSI, but
everything seemed to take a lot longer, and seemed a lot more boring.
Both Mike and Sue stood against the far wall,
waiting to repeat their part of the story, again, while Jenny waited in the
lounge upstairs. An officer was upstairs at the door to make sure no one else
came in, other than the other tech, who had come in to replace Tim, who was
taken to Rockford Memorial Hospital for observation.
"I don't know how
else to put this, Detective. The man was dead. Not almost dead, not in a coma,
but DEAD. Look at these photos.
Look
at them. Most of his organs are
outside his body. The hips, spine, and rib cage are completely crushed, with
bones coming out both front
AND
back. Both legs and hips are broken,
dislocated, and crushed. He couldn't get up and walk out, alive or not!"
"Just my point," responded the
detective. "Just my point. So we're missing something here. Somehow, they
got his body out, and must have had someone else walk out that just looked like
him."
"What about the camera? An identical twin
walked out, with the dead man tucked under the lab coat? Come on." Nancy
was referring to the security camera in the office. It clearly showed Mr.
Richter walking out, followed by a second man. The picture got kind of fuzzy as
the second man walked by in nothing but a lab coat, but clearly, no one else
had gone in or out. And, just as clearly, nothing was carried out. Gerhard
Richter walked in. Gerhard Richter walked out. Someone in a lab coat walked
out. Nancy followed them out. Nancy walked back in. Then, nothing for several
minutes, followed by two uniformed officers walking in.
"Besides, do you really think Tim went
catatonic because a dead man's twin sneaked in, and they tried to steal his
brother's body?"
The detective leaned
back in his chair, tipping back on two legs. "We better come up with
something, and fast. Questions are coming in a whole lot faster than answers.
What all do we actually know, I mean
KNOW,
about this guy?"
Detective Olson
flipped back in his notes. "Well, we have the name, address, and some
credit cards from his wallet. School ID from Madison, but the home information
looks iffy. The guy is definitely connected. If this is correct, he's the son
of the guy who runs some media conglomerate out of Germany. Rich guy.
Very
rich. The plate on his car comes back to some corporation, and we don't have
anything on that yet, just a name, 'Richter Communications', with a Chicago address,
but it looks like that's just another subsidiary of this Richter guy. I've got
a call in for more on that. No record on that name, no wants, no warrants.
Nothing in Wisconsin, either, but they're still checking. Just a driver's
license, tied to his student visa, clean. Supposed to call me later, but I'm
not holding my breath. No apparent connection to any of the other victims.
Listed on a student visa, consistent with the Madison info. Checking that now. State
department just called back with info on next of kin, including father, Gerhard
Richter. They're gonna send a photo. German embassy was notified last evening.
Unknown when father contacted.
"As far as the facility here, no signs of
any forced entry down here. You can see how the door is locked. Security
monitors show no entry through the ambulance entrance here, in fact, only
entries since last night were from upstairs. We had two more bodies come in
early this morning, after things got started, but they're being held
separately, with one of our guys watching them and the rest of the area. Needed
to keep the bodies cooled down, but we didn't want to contaminate the scene. I
reviewed monitors for the previous twenty-four hours, and no one that looks
anywhere close to that came in, so no one was hiding ahead of time. Of course,
that still wouldn't account for where this Richter kid would have disappeared
to.
"We can't corroborate the temperature drop,
but mist can be seen on monitors, possibly frost on metal railing, but the
pictures aren't good for that. We're also running a background on the tech,
just to be on the safe side, as well as the rest of the staff." He looked
up, and glanced at the coroner and doctors, "Sorry, folks, no offense."
Mike snorted, "No offense? Of course we're
offended, but I guess we don't have any choice, do we. You know who we are. You
seriously think we've got nothing better to do after a major wreck than try to
set up some kind of publicity stunt?"
Olson ignored the outburst. "One last
thing- it was a longshot, but the doctor here and I went through each of the
other bodies, just to make sure there were no switches. Everything else was OK."
The chief detective stood up. "Well, I have
no idea what's going on. But I'm sure as hell going to find out." He
closed the little notebook he'd been jotting his note in, sticking it back in
his jacket pocket. "Needless to say, don't say anything to anyone, and
stay in touch, in case we have more questions, which I'm sure we will. If you
can think of anything, and I do mean ANYTHING, no matter what, call one of us
right away. I have to see the Chief now, and try to figure out what we're going
to tell people."
Mike suddenly had a thought. "Hey,
detective, I just thought of something. The samples. We took some tissue
samples from him and to send down to Atlanta."
"What will they tell us?" asked the
chief detective asked. Olson pulled out his notebook again.
"I don't know if they'll tell us anything -
they're just routine - drugs, alcohol, stuff like that, but there was something
odd on X-Ray. Probably nothing, but I just wanted to let you know."
"They still here?"
"Yeah, but they're ready to send. We don't
have the equipment to analyze them."
"Maybe the State Crime Lab could. Maybe we
should send them over there."
"With all due respect," Mike replied, "Your
lab is geared toward the criminal angle. Whatever happened here, it's way past
our level. They need to go to Atlanta if we're gonna get anything."
The Chief thought about that for a moment. "When
will those come back?"
"Some of the results, probably a couple
days. Others, longer."
The Detective nodded slowly. "Okay, go
ahead. Just let me know when they come in." He turned to the other
detective. "Keep on them, and see if we can get a priority on those test. Somehow,
I think a couple of days may be too late for any useful information."
* * *
He was right.
They had ridden for hours, stopping only to
feed, water, and briefly rest the horses. The wound on her stomach burned, but
it got no worse. After several meals, many water stops, and swallowing who
knows how much trail dust (the scarf was worthless against the dry dust raised
by the horses), she could still taste the blood-star mixture. Or maybe it was
just in her mind. Did it matter which?
She was exhausted. They had gone for two full
nights, purchasing new mounts when the current ones could go no further. They
had not slept during this time, other than the few moments stolen while feeding
their mounts. Dawn was again approaching, and she knew she could go no further.
They slowed to a walk, approaching a large country home with neatly trimmed
hedges surrounding it. There was no sign of life. Unusual. People rose early,
well before dawn to start. The estate was obviously well cared for, requiring a
large staff. Where...
She noted some motion along the hedge. Looking
more closely, the hedge seemed to be moving, as if alive. Too long without
sleep? Her escorts did not seem to notice, but her eyes were sharp, her
attention suddenly focused. What magic was this?
"Jonas!"
"Jonas!"
It was one of her escorts, the one that seemed
to be in charge (although with no more than a dozen words exchanged between
them since departure, she really had no idea).
The hedge stopped moving, and nearly a dozen
faces, wrapped with branches and painted darkly arose from behind, below, and
within the hedge. As they stepped out, in front of the finely manicured decorations,
she saw that each was well armed, with what appeared to be both swords and blades
of the finest materials. Where was she? Who were they?
Three men stepped forward, taking hold of the
halters, guiding the horses toward the house. Another came forward to help her
down. She slid, more like collapsed, from the saddle into someone's arms. She
was carried into the house, and placed on a bed. She wanted to ask, but dropped
off, and was asleep before the helping hands placed a blanket over her.
* * *
She awoke, not knowing where she was, what time
it was, even what day it was. She looked down. She was wearing clean clothes. She
noted clean bandages on both wrists and ankles. She raised her gown. The wound
on her stomach had been cleaned. There was no redness, no infection. Just the
very clear symbol, so visible on the outside, and on the inside, more. The
pain was almost gone, though her stomach was still tender. When she ran her
finger over around the almost healed wound, something felt funny. Different.
Something was different.
* * *
It wasn't so much that something was different -
it was that nothing would ever be the same.
* * *
She would always wonder who, and what, and
certainly, why. Those, and many other questions. Most would never be answered.
* * *
After resting for another day, she was taken by
wagon for another two days to the outer edges of her own kingdom, near the
river that flowed downstream past a rocky knoll she remembered from years past,
which left about two additional day's ride.
Here she was released, and put upon the horse
that had been tied behind the wagon. She was given two skins of water, and some
meat and bread wrapped in rough cloth. The escort in charge finally spoke
directly to her, looking straight into her eyes for the first time.
"Tell no one. Show no one you wounds,
especially your belly. Your seed shall be as the moon, ruling the night. But
they must wait, and watch, and know their place, for their rule is temporary. They
serve another."
Before she could ask more of the cryptic
warning, they turned and rode off with the wagon, leaving her to return home
with much on her mind.
* * *