THE VIRON CONSPIRACY (JAKE SCARNE THRILLERS #4) (8 page)

CHAPTER 13 - BYE-BYE BADGER

Gloucestershire, Southwest England

Ro
nald Brandman believed he had the most thankless job in the United Kingdom. As Deputy Director of the Department for Environment Food & Rural Affairs, the British Government Agency that tries to balance the country’s need for a safe food supply and a population’s increasing devotion to protecting its wildlife, he never made anyone happy. His own wife, Dora, was hardly speaking to him over the badger cull he’d ordered and was now overseeing.

Brandman
was on site in Gloucestershire, trying to make the slaughter run as smoothly and humanely as possible. Personally, he didn’t much care for the short, fat weasel-looking animals that were, he knew, probably a member of the skunk family, although there were some scientists who disputed that. What was not in dispute was the typical British citizen’s affection for the 40-pound mammal with the broad white stripe down its forehead. That stripe, or “badge,” he learned from his research, was the basis for the creature’s name. Many people considered the animal to be “cute.” Brandman wasn’t prepared to argue the point, but certainly when it came to choosing between killing a few thousand badgers, or risking Great Britain’s dairy industry, it was bye-bye badger.

But there is scarcely a wild animal or bird that does not have a British protection society of some sort in its corner. This,
Brandman marveled, sometimes lead to interesting conflicts. For example, hedgehog rescue societies will not release hedgehogs into known badger territories, since badgers prey on hedgehogs. Indeed, they are the only known predators of hedgehogs. Brandman, no fan of hedgehogs, either, thought that was one of the badger’s few redeeming characteristics.

The badgers, of course, have their own protection societies looking out for their best interests. Many people in Great Britain have a strong emotional tie to the badger
. Every English child has read
The Wind in the Willows
, in which a badger, in dressing gown and slippers, is a beloved character. Brandman also believed that since the little animals are tough, fierce defenders of their burrows and offspring, capable of fending off packs of dogs or much larger animals, many of his countrymen saw in the badger a reflection of Britain in its “Finest Hour.” But he knew that badger-loving predated the Nazis. While hunting badgers is common elsewhere in Europe, badger-baiting was banned in the United Kingdom in 1835. Since 1992 it is illegal to kill, injure or capture a badger.

In truth, for all their occasional fierceness, badgers are fairly innocuous nocturnal animals, rarely interacting with humans unless one of them breaks a leg in a badger burrow. When not eating hedgehogs, badgers subsist mainly on earthworms, insects and grubs; creatures that, as yet, are not on anyone’s protected list (although
Brandman was fairly certain some soon would be). But occasionally a badger will attack a lamb or a calf and wind up biting both the target and the ewe or cow protecting the young. The bites often become infected. Rabies was once a problem. The worry now was bovine spongiform encephalopathy, the dreaded Mad Cow Disease, which had popped up in several local dairy herds.    

Brandman
couldn’t as yet prove definitively that the badgers were responsible for a recent outbreak, but they were the most likely suspects, since several had been seen among the infected cows, some of which had been bitten. But Brandman’s agency was taking no chances. The fact that none of the badgers autopsied so far had shown any signs of the disease was troubling, but he was sure the animal was responsible. For one thing, badgers had been responsible for an earlier outbreak of bovine tuberculosis. For another, the usual culprit in an outbreak of Mad Cow Disease among cows was their feed, which in the past had been adulterated with animal byproducts. In effect, the cows were cannibals, albeit three or four times removed. In addition to their normal diet of concentrated grains, soy and corn, the feed contained pellets made from beef byproducts, primarily ground-up bone and brain matter. Some of those pellets, it was assumed, contained the prions of previously infected animals.

Which was why a small army of rifle-toting marksmen was roaming the woods surrounding the Gloucestershire
towns of Cheltenham, Cirencester, Stroud, and Tewkesbury.  Predictably, the hunters had engendered another small army of placard-wielding protesters from the Royal Badger Protection Society. The marksmen were tasked with culling the badger population by 5,000. The situation was fraught with danger. Since badgers primarily came out of their burrows after dark, the hunters were equipped with night-vision goggles and infra-red telescopic sights. For their part, the R.B.P.S. protesters sent teams in the woods dressed in bright yellow slickers carrying candles and flashlights to throw off the high-tech equipment.

“It looks like a science-fiction movie,” one reporter commented. “More protesters will probably be shot than badgers.”

Brandman, standing with some assistants outside a wooded area near Cheltenham, flinched at the first shot coming from somewhere in the forest. It would be just his luck to be hit by a stray bullet. A few minutes later, one of the hunters emerged from the tree line holding a dead badger by the tail. For a moment, Brandman felt a twinge of regret as the shooter walked past him. It was actually a handsome-looking animal, with a fine, shiny pelt. The shooter threw the carcass into the back of a pick-up truck, where it landed with a sickening thump. There was another shot. Then a volley. Within a few minutes shots rang out regularly.

“Sounds like bloody D-Day in there,” one of his assistants said.

An hour later, the truck was full of dead badgers. Blood dripped from the rear gate onto the road. There was a flash from a camera. A damn press photographer had somehow managed to get through security. Oh, bloody wonderful, Brandman thought. Wait until Dora sees that photo!

The truck’s driver closed the rear hatch, got in the cab and drove away. He’d deliver his gruesome cargo to the Crown’s vivisectionists prior to incineration. Another pickup pulled into the spot.

It was all such a pity, Brandman admitted. But he was confident the badgers were the vector for the Mad Cow outbreak.

After all, all the cows involved in the current crisis, he knew, were fed exclusively on a grain and soybean mix made by the BVM Corporation in the United States, under the strictest guidelines and control.

CHAPTER 14 - FACE DOWN

“You ever see that movie,
The Thing
, by John Carpenter?”

“Yes,” Scarne said. “The first one was much superior.”

Detective Blaise Kanegi looked confused.

“The first what?”

“The first
The Thing
. Made in the early 50’s. Short on special effects but scary as hell.”

“The 1950’s?”

Kanegi was in his early 30’s, Scarne estimated, and realized he might as well be talking about silent movies.

“Yes. James Arness played the alien, as a kind of super vegetable. Later, of course, he went on to fame in
Gunsmoke
.”

“
Gunsmoke
?”

Scarne looked at the homicide detective.

“You have heard of
Hawaii Five-O
, haven’t you?”

“Sure. Show is bogus. They say they’re Hawaiian State Police. Only we don’t have a state police department in the Islands.”

Scarne wanted to say that he already knew that, but debating this particular homicide cop about Hawaii policing would probably be as productive as talking about old movies. As it was, he could hardly remember why they had even started talking about films. Fortunately, Kanegi got back on track.

“Anyway, that’s what it looked like. One of those yucky half-human, half-alien blobs with two heads and lots of limbs in
The Thing
. Every bone in their bodies was smashed.”

“You were there?’

“No. I responded to the murders at Campbell’s house. But I saw the photos from the ball field.”

It was Saturday, just before noon, and they were sitting in a small conference room in the Criminal Investigation Division of the Honolulu Police Department’s ultra-modern headquarters building on South Beretania Street. Scarne had flown out of O’Hare the morning after meeting Kate. The 13-hour, two-stop, flight had exhausted him and at 8 P.M. he checked into a Holiday Inn on Waikiki beach, where he grabbed a quick dinner and went straight to bed, fighting jet lag.

Kanegi had provided some much-needed coffee, the best police-station brew Scarne  ever tasted, although that wasn’t saying much and the fact it was restoring him to near normality might have had something to do with his high opinion. Scarne had brought two dozen donuts, most of which had been shanghaied by other cops on their way to the conference room. Scarne hadn’t yet assumed his fake-author persona. Kanegi thought he was a private investigator working for one of the insurance companies involved in the case. Noah Sealth had put in a call to his old partner in Seattle Homicide who in turn called in a favor with the Hawaiian C.I.D. The donuts were just a courtesy, but much appreciated by cops working on the weekend.

“Not much doubt as to the cause of death, I suppose,” Scarne said.

“Yeah,” Kanegi said. “You know what they say. It ain’t the fall that kills you. It’s the sudden stop.”

“And they were conscious when they hit?”

“Spectators heard a scream just before impact. No way to tell who it was, though. My guess it was Vallance. He was the victim. Campbell knew what was coming. Amazingly, Vallance’s watch wasn’t even dented. Still running. Some sort of expensive sports watch. Got the time of impact from Campbell’s watch, which was smashed. Not that we really needed it. A couple of dozen people witnessed it and after a couple of seconds started making calls and clicking away with their cell phone cameras. You should hear the calls and see some of the photos that got on YouTube.”

“I did,” Scarne said. “What can you tell me about the other murders?”

“Brutal. Both mother and daughter had their throats slit, ear to ear. Blood everywhere. Son of a bitch knew what he was doing. Army probably taught him how.”

“No doubt it was Campbell?”

“His knife. One he was known to own. Their blood. His fingerprints. Suicide note.”

Kanegi took another donut. He was a good-looking Japanese-American with slicked-back black hair.

“Very convenient.”

Kanegi shrugged.

“Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.” He smiled. “Sigmund Freud. They made us all take some bullshit psychology courses. What’s your interest in all this, again?”

Scarne was ready for that one.

“If Campbell was unstable, maybe the whole thing could have been prevented. Insurance companies will have to pay out, but they might want to sue someone to get their money back. Maybe Campbell shouldn’t have been allowed to jump out of a plane with anyone.”

“Good luck with that, pal.”

“Can I get a look at the official report?”

“Sure. I have a copy back at my desk.”

“And the crime scene photos?”

“Got a couple in my files. The blowups and other stuff are in S.I.S. Probably shouldn’t have eaten so many donuts though. You might lose them looking at the photos.”

***

S.I.S., the Honolulu Police Department
’s Scientific Investigation Section, was on the third-floor. Kanegi insisted on taking Scarne there in person and the reason was soon apparent. The forensic technician Kanegi introduced him to was an attractive young woman named Moana Mendoza and Scarne could feel the sexual attraction between the two colleagues. They bantered easily and he wondered if they were lovers. The three of them walked over to her desk. There weren’t that many other people in the laboratory, presumably because it was the weekend. A couple of the technicians who were there called out hellos to Kanegi.

“This  is the only full-service forensic laboratory in Hawaii,” Kanegi said proudly. “Moana runs the DNA unit, which was one of the first of its kind in the United States.”

“How can I help you, Mr. Scarne?”

She was a petite, dark-skinned woman with a lively smile.

“I was hoping to see the crime scene photos from the Vallance murder case, but I’ll take anything on the DNA side you think is relevant.”

The police report, which included the coroner’s findings, which he’d read at Kanegi’s desk, was straightforward and told Scarne little he didn’t already know. The photos were gruesome but lacked detail. He really didn’t expect to find out anything more in forensics.

“What are you looking for, Mr. Scarne?”

“I’m just covering all the bases.”

“Like Vallance and Campbell did,” Kanegi said, laughing.

“Blaise, that’s terrible,” the woman said, but she smiled at the detective.

They were lovers, Scarne decided.     

“Well, there was nothing in the DNA evidence that was out of the ordinary,” Moana said. “I mean, the blood work and tox screens on the bodies at the ball field w
ere negative. Cause of death was obvious and confirmed.”

“What about the wife and daughter?”

“Their screens were also negative for anything illegal. And it was only their blood on the beds and the knife. The knife severed the jugular veins, carotid arteries and tracheas. Cause of death, exsanguination. They bled out. Campbell’s fingerprints were on the knife.”

“That’s what I told him,” Kanegi said.

“How about the time of death?”

“What do you mean,” she said. “Both women died almost simultaneously. I don’t recall exactly what time we determined.”

Scarne took out his iPhone. He’d written some notes to himself while going through the police and coroner’s reports. He scrolled through one of them until he found what he wanted.

“The time of death for the women was approximated at around 11 A.M.,” he said, continuing to scroll. “Basically the same time Vallance and Campbell died. We know that for certain because that’s the time Campbell’s watch was smashed and, of course, there were all those witnesses on the field.”

“You’re wondering how all four of them could have died at virtually the same time,” Moana said. “The answer is simple. The time of death for Vallance and Campbell can be confirmed, even without forensics, because of the watch and witnesses. But the other deaths can only be estimated, basically using a liver probe. Post-mortem lividity would be problematical because they lost so much blood. The probe measures body temperature after death. But there are variables. Ambient temperature in the home, which would change when the police got there and opened doors and the like. It’s pretty accurate, but not foolproof. They could have died an hour or more before the 11 A.M. approximation made by the coroner.”

“Or an hour later.”

“Yes. And if it wasn’t for all the other evidence, that might be a problem.”

“Given the earliest possible time of death,” Scarne said, “could Campbell have killed his wife and daughter and still made it
in time for the skydive?”

“No problem,” Kanegi said. “The airport is only 10 miles from his house. He could have killed them at 10:30 and still theoretically made it to the jump in time. As it was, people who saw him just before takeoff said he came into the briefing late and seemed harried.
Said he ran into traffic. But we checked. There were no traffic jams. It all fits. He offs his family, rushed to the airport and takes care of Vallance.”

“Still seems like he was cutting it pretty close,” Scarne said.

“Poor choice of words,” Kanegi said. “But, hell, he was crazy. He didn’t bother to cover his tracks or clean up the house. He could have written the note on the computer before he murdered the women. No, he’s our guy.”

Scarne was basically convinced. Only the times of the respective deaths nagged at him, but even that was easily explained. Still …

“I’d like to see those photos now.”

***

They were as bad as advertised. Unlike the smaller versions in Kanegi’s file, these were large and detailed. Moana Mendoza called them up on her computer and showed Scarne how he could enlarge them.

He first viewed the shots at the ball field, where the men’s splattered bodies did resemble some sort of alien life form.

“Jesus,” Scarne said.

“Yeah,” Kanegi said. “Bet you’ve never seen anything like it.”

Scarne, who had done some recovery work at Ground Zero in the months following 9/11, let the remark go.

“That’s Vallance on bottom,” Kanegi continued. “Campbell’s face is buried halfway into his head
. See the watch on the arm? That’s Campbell. It’s smashed all to shit. You can’t see Vallance’s watch in these pictures. They found it when they disentangled them. Like I said before, it was still keeping perfect time. I feel like calling the watch company. They could probably use it in their advertising.”

Moana punched him lightly in the arm.

“Takes a licking and keeps on ticking,” Scarne said.

They both looked at him.

“Hey,” Kanegi said. “That’s pretty good. Maybe I will call the watch company. Do you mind?”

It was a line from an old Timex television commercial that probably dated from the
Gunsmoke
era. But Scarne didn’t want to rekindle a trivia debate so he didn’t say anything. It was one of his grandfather’s favorite jingles.

“Be my guest,” he said.

Next, he brought up the murder scene from Campbell’s house. No one made any jokes about those. There was nothing even remotely funny about a dead child. Even though she had undoubtedly seen the shots before, Moana visibly tensed. The bodies were sprawled across the bed, with the wife half out of it on the floor. Looking at their faces and the gashes across their necks was one of the hardest things Scarne, in a life full of hard things, had ever done.

He had seen enough and was about to turn away from the screen when he noticed something.

“What’s that on the two pillows?”

Scarne used his finger to point to two very dark blotches on both pillows.

“Lots of blood, of course,” Kanegi said. He seemed a bit annoyed. “From their throats.”

“Isn’t that pattern strange?”

“What do you mean?” Moana said, leaning in.

She wasn’t annoyed. She was interested.

“Were they face up when their throats were slit?”

“That’s how the bodies were found,” Kanegi said. “Nobody moved them before these shots were taken.”

“But it’s obvious they were face down on those pillows when they were killed. Otherwise there wouldn’t be that much blood pooled like that.”

Scarne looked at
the forensic scientist for confirmation.

“You’re right,” she said. “It looks like they were face down and bled directly into the pillows. If they were face up the pattern would be different. Off to the sides a bit more.”

“Why would they lie face down and let their throats be cut?” Scarne asked.

“Maybe they were asleep,” Kanegi said, a little uncertainly.

“That late in the morning, with a baby down the hall?” Scarne said. He looked at the woman next to him. “This is more consistent with them being tied up and then killed.”

“That makes no sense,” Kanegi said. “Their hands weren’t bound when we got to the house. And there was nothing in the coroner’s report about any ligature marks on their wrists.”