A Brother's Obsession

Chapter 4

The plastic tube slid in, and the trigger was pulled. The light yellow insulating foam spewed from the tube connected to the can and into the narrow opening, rapidly expanding. In seconds, the foam insulation pushed all the air from the available space.

Those who’d gathered watched as Detective Dan Felty released the trigger and saw the foam pouring out of the narrow opening at the mouth of the two-liter soda bottle. He’d planned to fill the bottle only halfway, but the thick goo began expanding so quickly that it overflowed the bottle before he could remove the tube.

Mac bent down and touched some of the still-expanding mass.

“It’s very thick and sticky,” she said.

About a dozen of their peers observed the experiment in the back lot of the Midtown Detective Bureau. Everyone on duty had heard about the bizarre call earlier in the morning and was curious about what had happened and why.

After about 20 seconds, the foam stopped expanding, and there was as much out of the bottle as inside.

Mac touched it again. “It’s no longer as sticky and it’s getting rigid.”

“And your guy filled someone"s throat with that stuff?” a watching officer asked.

“Yeah, he did,” Mac answered. “Even if someone were conscious, this stuff is so thick they would’ve choked on it.”

A voice in the audience asked, “So, what’s the purpose of your experiment?”

As Detective Felty started to reply, his phone went off, signaling a text message. He noticed Mac had got the same text, so he ignored the phone and answered the question, “We weren’t familiar with spray insulation and wanted an idea of what we were dealing with.”

“Any suggestions on what EMS should do if they find someone with this stuff blocking their mouth and nose?” another voice inquired.

Dan shook his head as Mac spoke. “Maybe the ME will have some thoughts we can share with EMS. We’re headed there next.”

Looking at her partner, she added, “They’re ready to see us. The ME wants us on-site, not on a video call.”

Dan picked up the bottle and handed it to one of the officers in the crowd so it could be passed around.

As the detectives headed to the car, Dan said, “What do you think?”

“The test using the bottle was interesting, but seeing how it expanded doesn’t help me understand why he did this. Did he know his victims? Were they random? Will there be more attacks? Was the foam a message after he killed them? Still no answers,” Mac said.

Several minutes later, Dan and Mac arrived at their destination and headed into the medical examiner’s office, a location with which they were all too familiar.

Their credentials gained them access to the old three-story building, and the pair waited while the receptionist paged the examiner assigned to their case.

Dr. Emily Bonter arrived a few minutes later and motioned for the detectives to follow her. She was of medium height with short blonde hair and wore blue scrubs and a white lab coat.

“Why is it when I see something weird, I always know it’ll be you two assigned to it?” she asked good-naturedly.

“What can we say, Emily? We’re more interesting than most of the others,” Mac responded.

Chuckling, Dr. Bonter nodded. “Well, in this case, that sure is true. That’s why I wanted you here instead of on a video call.”

Walking down a corridor, they entered Exam Room 6.

Mac’s nose crinkled involuntarily when she entered the room as the subtle smell of disinfectant and bodily substances hit her. The brightly lit room was always a little too cold for her comfort.

The two victims from the early morning’s events were stripped n***d and on stainless steel exam tables with plain white sheets respectfully covering them from the chest down.

Dr. Bonter explained, “This is all preliminary. I haven’t had a chance to complete the full autopsies yet, but I don’t expect to find much other than what I’m about to show you. However, the few things I have so far are quite interesting.”

Gathering around the male victim, she continued, “This is Colin Dandry. First, look at these X-rays of the head and neck.”

An X-ray was visible on the large wall-mounted monitor screen and it showed a single light-colored mass that occupied much of the head and almost all of the neck.

Emily explained, “This is a single piece of dried foam, which expanded, taking up all the space. Then it created the deformities by pressing against all the surrounding tissues when there was no place for it to go and it still was expanding. It extends a couple of inches into the trachea, headed toward the lungs and halfway down the esophagus toward the stomach.

“I watched a couple of videos online about spray insulation. As it expands, it will follow the path of least resistance.

“Eventually, it grew so much that it couldn’t move any more and started expanding outward, causing all the swelling in the neck and face.”

“I picked up some of this stuff at the store to examine, and it would have fully swelled in 30 seconds or less,” Dan added.

“Your experiment matches what I saw on the video,” the doctor agreed.

“Can you get it out?” Mac asked.

“Not in a single piece. I’d have to completely destroy the face and neck. I can chip away at it a little at a time, but that’d be very time-consuming, and I’m not sure what we’d learn. I’ll let the mortician remove it if they choose to. I did chip off a small piece and sent it to the lab. Maybe they can identify the brand of foam the attacker used.”

“We were asked to find out what EMS should do if they encounter another one of these situations,” Mac said.

Emily thought for a second and answered, “The foam will completely obstruct their airways and isn’t removable. It would undoubtedly be rigid by the time EMS arrived, and digging it out would take too long. Since there are only a couple of minutes where someone can survive with no oxygen, the only option I can think of is performing a cricothyrotomy.

“The paramedics would have to cut here on the cricothyroid membrane and insert a tube.” As she spoke, she pointed to the place on the throat where a surgical incision would need to be made.

“If the foam had not gone too far down the trachea, this might work. In Colin’s case, it’s too far down, but on the woman, it isn’t, and the procedure might have worked if performed quickly enough. I know the medics are trained for this, but I doubt many have ever had a reason to do it. Other than that, there isn’t anything they can do. Also, the chances that the medics would be close enough to get there within only a couple minutes of the foam being applied is almost impossible.”

They silently contemplated the information for a few seconds, and Dr. Bonter spoke again. “Another interesting thing is, I know what d**g they used in the darts. The toxicology shows a massive dose of pure medical-grade carfentanil.”

“Is carfentanil the same thing as fentanyl?” Dan inquired.

“As potent and dangerous as fentanyl is, carfentanil is a hundred times more potent. Ten thousand times stronger than morphine. They use it to sedate elephants and other large animals in the wild. It’s been showing up on the streets in addicts recently and is so strong that it gets cut a thousand times or more. The dose these two received was pure and quite lethal,” the doctor explained.

“Why would someone use a dose so potent?” Mac asked.

Dr. Emily explained, “A dart is an effective method of delivering medication. However, contrary to what you see on TV, when a person or animal is tranquilized with a dart g*n, using an appropriate dose, the medication goes into the muscle. It takes effect much slower than if injected directly into the bloodstream. Therefore it can take 10 to 15 minutes for the animal to drop.

“The way to speed the process up is to use a larger dose or a more potent d**g. My guess is your guy wanted them down more quickly than a survivable dosage would allow. Either he didn’t care if they survived, or his calculation of how much of the d**g to use was way off.”

The detectives pondered this for a minute, then Dan asked, “When you consider the carfentanil and the foam together, any thoughts as to his intent?”

The doctor chuckled. “I think those deductions are your area of expertise, not mine.”

“Yeah, that’s true, but we aren’t getting a good picture of what he’s doing. Clearly, he wants to take them down alive, otherwise, why not shoot them with a regular g*n?” Dan said.

Mac nodded. “So that suggests he wanted his victims alive when he used the foam.”

“That didn’t happen. They were dead, or at least not breathing when the foam was sprayed in,” Dr. Bonter said.

“Exactly,” Dan replied. “This means that whatever he was trying to accomplish was a failure.”

“Which means he’s probably going to try again,” Mac deduced.