Justice Keepers Saga - Books 1-3

Chapter 4-1

“What do you have for me, Jeannie?”

The forensics lab was a narrow room with a long steel table in the middle, green tiles on all four walls and fluorescent lights in the ceiling. Jean Simmons sat at a counter along the wall, staring into her computer monitor.

Tall and skinny as a post, she wore a white lab coat over her pantsuit, her brown hair pulled into a ponytail. “Oh, I"ve got plenty,” she said, nodding to him. “But I can"t say you"re gonna believe any of it, Detective.”

Harry Carlson strode into the room.

A tall man in a black suit and white shirt, he slipped hands into the pockets of his jacket. His square-jawed, dark-skinned face was marked by a small scar on the cheek, and his black hair was cut short. “Go on.”

Jean sniffed.

She wrinkled her nose as she stared into the computer screen, white light reflected on her face. “We"ve been going over the haul from the Penworth building,” she explained. “Some of it…well, I"d have to show you.”

Half the department had been going over that building with a fine-toothed comb for the last three days. The explosion that had gone off on the front steps had left a very large scorch mark, and one of the pillars along the front walkway had a three-inch hole through the centre.

At this point, it would be a miracle to avoid finding anything without tripping over half a dozen Mounties and CSIS agents. The media was positively abuzz with all sorts of theories. Harry had been forced to turn over most of the evidence, but he wanted some answers. When bombs went off in his city, he took it rather personally.

someHarry smiled, tilting his head to one side. He studied her for a long moment. “You sound frightened, Jeannie,” he said, brow furrowing. “Whatever it is, I"m sure we"ll get to the bottom of it.”

She swivelled around in her chair.

Standing up, Jean went to the steel table and stood there, gripping its edge with two hands. Only then did Harry notice the charred fragments of what had once been a sphere that could fit into your pocket. At least that was what the lab techs claimed. The casing was distinctly round.

“This thing is composed of a material that I"ve never seen before.” Jean said. “It"s some type of complex polymer, but there are no records of this compound.”

“No records?”

Crossing his arms in a huff, Harry frowned down at the floor. “You"re saying that you don"t know what it is?” he asked, raising an eyebrow. “Can"t you send it off to a lab for further analy-”

“No, you don"t understand.”

The look of worry on Jean"s face gave him pause. She stared blankly at the wall as if a ghost had materialized right in front of her. “I have sent it off to a lab,” she added. “The entire chemistry department down at Carlton is buzzing. They don"t know what it is either, and according to Dr. Farah, the compound is light, durable and unlike anything we"ve seen before.”

haveHarry frowned and looked up to fix his gaze on her. He felt sweat bead over his forehead. “You"re saying…” The words came out in a rasp, “you"re saying this thing is composed of material we"ve never seen?”

“Yes, Detective,” she replied. “That is precisely what I"m saying.”

preciselyWorry found its way into the pit of Harry"s stomach. This case had been setting his teeth on edge for the last seventy-two hours, and every time he thought he had something pinned down, another layer to the onion made him want to cry.

The explosion had been simple enough – any homemade bomb could explain away the damage to the concrete steps outside the Penworth building – but how exactly did one account for the hole through the pillar? Harry knew of no weapon that could do that kind of damage.

Then, when you factored in the stories about “giant orange lasers,” it began to seem more and more like he was living in an episode of the X-Files. He stifled a chuckle. All I need is a pack of Morley"s.

X-FilesAll I need is a pack of Morley"s.With a heavy sigh, he tried to put that out of his mind and focus on the task before him. “All right,” Harry said under his breath, “so, where does all of this leave us in terms of leads?”

Jean wore a frightened expression as she studied him, blinking like a deer caught in the headlights. “You haven"t seen everything,” she said, shaking her head. “Trust me, it gets even stranger.”

She used a pair of tongs to lift a small nub of metal from a tray. For a moment, she just held it there so that Harry could get a good look at the thing. It seemed to have been flattened, almost as if…“Good Lord, is that a bullet?”

Jean smiled, bowing her head to stare down at the floor. She offered a half-hearted shrug of her shoulders. “That was quicker than I expected,” she said. “Yes, that is a bullet but not one for any g*n I"ve ever seen.”

Harry bit his lower lip. He closed his eyes and gave his head a shake. “A slug from an unknown firearm.” This kept getting worse and worse. “Well, Jeannie, there"s just no getting around it now.”

“Sir?”

“We"re dealing with advanced technology.” Sweat broke out on his forehead as he said that, juxtaposed by a sudden chill that raced down his spine. “So, that means either the government is holding out on us…”

“No, I can"t accept that,” Jean said, shaking her head with enough force to send strands of dark hair flying. “The government cannot be withholding this kind of information.”

“Why not?”

“Because…Because…”

Pinching his chin with thumb and forefinger, Harry narrowed his eyes. “You claim the bomb is composed of an unknown material,” he said, nodding as he thought it over. “The slug comes from an unknown weapon.”

He could see the wheels turning in Jean"s head. Her eyes flicked from side to side as she considered the question. Eventually, she would come to the very same conclusion he had; there were only two explanations.

“Keep working on it, Jean,” he told her, clapping a hand on her shoulder. The poor thing shuddered as he did so. “This case is no different from any other. I want you to give me as much information as you can.”

“Yes, sir…”

Harry left her to her work. Knowing Jean as he did, he was well aware that the best way to get through her anxiety was to just keep busy. I"ll have to check in on her at least once a day, he noted. The poor thing might just have a breakdown.

I"ll have to check in on her at least once a day,The poor thing might just have a breakdown.Outside the lab, he found a long gray corridor with doors spaced at even intervals and bright lights that shone down on the floor tiles. One uniformed officer came shuffling toward him with his head down. “Detective.”

“Yes?”

As the man passed Harry, he spun around to walk backwards. His thick face was lined by wrinkles over the cheeks and forehead. “Your wife"s up in your office, sir,” he said quickly. “Asked to see you with some rather…colourful language.”

A flush burned through Harry"s cheeks. Closing his eyes, he shook his head with exasperation. “Thank you, Simmons,” he replied. “I"ll try not to keep her waiting any longer than I have to.”

“Your funeral, sir.”

A well-lit stairwell led up to the third floor, and when he arrived, Harry felt a wave of mixed emotions settle into his chest. Nearly six weeks of cold silence had passed and now Della wanted to talk. The terms of their separation did not preclude contact, but there was something of an unspoken truce between them.

He had planned on speaking to the lieutenant before forcing himself to endure his wife"s latest tantrum – if they acted quickly, they"d be able to keep stories of aliens from getting out of hand – but as Simmons had said, it was his funeral. If Della chose to kick up a fuss, she might just earn him a reprimand.

A long hallway stretched on from the stairwell to his office in the corner with a line of doors on the wall to his left. Some were open, allowing Harry to overhear the sound of his colleagues speaking on the phone.

He started up the corridor.

Harry frowned, looking down at the floor. Well, this cannot be good, he told himself. If she came all the way down here, it means she"s ready to spit bullets.

Well, this cannot be good,If she came all the way down here, it means she"s ready to spit bullets.His office was a simple room with white walls and a rectangular desk that faced the door. Sunlight came in through the window, filtered into thin bands by blinds that he kept half-closed.

He found his wife sitting in the chair across from his own. Dressed in a black skirt over dark stockings and a green blouse, she looked up to glare at him as he entered the room. Her face was a perfect oval, framed by golden hair that fell over her shoulders. “So good to see you, Harry,” she said with a curt nod. “You"re such a kind man to make time for the mother of your children. Such a kind man to try to prevent me from seeing my own daughters.”

Tossing his head back, Harry shut his eyes and took a deep breath. “I don"t want to force you out of their lives,” he said. “But I think we both agree there have been problems.”

“Problems?”

Crossing her arms with a sigh, Della craned her neck to stare at him. “And what problems would those be?” she inquired. “I do hope you"ll enlighten me.”

“Well, there"s the drinking.” He felt his face contort, then rubbed his nose with the back of his hand. “I"m sorry, Della, but a DUI is kind of pushing the limits of my ability to turn a blind eye.”

His wife rose in one fluid motion and made her way around his desk. She stopped at the window with her back turned, looking out on the street. “Why am I not surprised? Once again I have to listen to your sanctimonious crap.”

“Della…”

“You owe me a chance to see my daughters.”

“How"s that?”

“Maybe you haven"t been keeping track,” she muttered to herself. “I completed my last counselling session last week. We agreed to revisit the issue of custody when I did; so, I want the girls to live with me.”

“Absolutely not!”

Harry felt his face redden as he stared down at the floor. Scrunching his eyes tight, he tried not to tremble. “You are not fit to be a parent, Della! A few months of counselling won"t change that.”

fitSpinning around to face him, Della lifted her chin to fix him with a frosty glare. “I thought you might say that.” The menace in her voice made his stomach writhe. “Such a shame. But you can"t say I didn"t warn you.”