Dark Intentions

Chapter 10

Mackenzie Bell sat at her desk talking on the phone with a detective with the Pima County Sheriff"s Department.

“Detective Jenkins. This is Mackenzie Bell with TPD.”

“Just call me George. I assume you’re calling about yesterday’s attack in the park?”

“That’s right. We’ve had three people shot with tranquilizer darts in the last couple of days. All have died. I was wondering if your incident might be related,” Mac said.

“I’ve been following your cases, and the incident we had would’ve been only a few hours after your first one. There were two 12-year-old girls. They’re part of a school running program and were jogging together in Coleman Park. They run there together almost every day.

“Suddenly, a guy steps out of the bushes and points a long-barrelled weapon at them. We believe it was a dart pistol from the description and photos we showed them.”

“Did they survive?” Mac asked with concern in her voice.

“Yea, they’re fine. That’s where it gets weird. The girls say as soon as the guy looked at them, he seemed surprised and scared. He just stared at them and didn’t shoot. After a few seconds, his gun started shaking, and he collapsed to his knees, crying. That’s when the girls turned and ran for help. By the time we got deputies there, he was long gone.”

After a few seconds to think, Mac said, “Were they able to give you a description of the guy?”

“Nothing reliable, other than the gun. One of the girls said he was young, and the other said he was older. They do agree he had on a ball cap, but one thought it was blue, and the other said green.”

“Did he say anything to them?”

“When he was crying, he said something, but they couldn’t understand what it was. Nothing else.”

“Did you find any evidence at the scene?”

“Nothing. The girls were quite scared and aren’t even exactly sure where on the trail this happened.”

“So, George, what were your impressions of what happened?” Mac asked.

“If I had to guess, this guy was waiting for his victim to come along and jumped out when he heard the girls. I don’t think he was expecting kids.”

“I guess we’re lucky he doesn’t want to shoot kids.”

George Jenkins said, “There is more to this than just not wanting to shoot kids. If it was just that, and the wrong target came along, his reaction to them wouldn’t have been to collapse crying. There was something more. Maybe he has kids of his own, maybe not. But they triggered something in him.”

“Yeah, I would agree with that. Did you learn anything else?” Mac asked.

“No, nothing,” Jenkins said. “What about the attacks you’ve had? Mind sharing the details?”

Mac spent 10 minutes filling George Jenkins in on the investigation. When they disconnected, they agreed to keep each other informed of any new developments.

When she hung up, she noticed Dan watching her with interest from his desk that butted up to hers.

As Mac was filling him in on her conversation with the detective from the sheriff"s department, a message popped up on her screen asking if she had time for a quick meeting. Before she could type a reply, her partner did from his computer, stating they’d both be available in two minutes.

“Mac, did you see the message from Emily?” Dan asked.

“Yup. Let’s see what she found.”

Wanting to be away from the noise of all the others working in the room, the two detectives headed down the hall to the large conference room. The lights came on automatically as they entered. There was a large oval table with twelve seats, and Mac took the one by a computer permanently installed on the table. Soon the 60-inch wall-mounted computer monitor lit up. They could see Dr. Emily Bonter standing in an autopsy suite in the medical examiner’s office.

A wall-mounted camera in the conference room faced the table and wirelessly connected to the computer. This allowed Emily to see everyone in the room.

“Hey, Emily. Can you hear me?” Mac asked.

“Hi, guys. I hear you fine.”

Dan spoke. “Excellent. What do you know?” he inquired.

“Several things. I just finished up the preliminary assessment on Ron Parker. First, your subject is still learning and experimenting. He must have decided the carfentanil is too potent, so this time he switched to ketamine,” Dr. Bonter explained.

“So, how’s that different?” Dan asked.

“Ketamine is still an anesthetic and can be used on people or large animals, depending on the dose. Think about it like this – carfentanil will sedate an elephant and ketamine is often used on horses. So not as potent.

“The dose he delivered would have been close to lethal for a human, but it takes longer to take effect. This time the victim had time to fight and run, and he did fight back.”

“How do you know?” Mac asked.

“When he was run over on the highway by several vehicles, he sustained many broken bones. I did a full-body X-ray, and one of the few things not damaged by traffic was his right hand, but there’s a fracture in the fifth metacarpal bone. That type of fracture is often referred to as a boxer’s fracture and is what we see when someone punches something extremely hard. The fracture was fresh, and I don’t think it happened on the roadway. I think he punched someone a couple of times, very hard.”

“We found blood at the site of the attack,” Mac verified. “Maybe this guy did some damage to his attacker.”

“Did you find a puncture from a dart?” Dan asked.

“Yeah, in the left buttock.”

“Anything else interesting?” Mac inquired.

“I found a bunch of cactus needles in his right shoulder but nothing else. I’ll let you know more when I finish the internal exam. However, I did have a thought,” the medical examiner said.

“What’s that?” Dan asked.

“Carfentanil is being seen on the streets occasionally. Dealers can cut it up to a thousand times to make it less lethal. So, while it’s quite dangerous, there’s good profit for them. However, it’s difficult to obtain the pure medical grade your guy has. There just isn’t much of the stuff available. Ketamine, on the other hand, is a different class of drug. One is a narcotic, and the other a sedative. The abusers of one aren’t likely to use the other. The one place these medications cross paths is in large-animal veterinary medicine.

“You might want to look into veterinary pharmacies, zoos, cattle ranches, and large farms and see if they’ve had any break-ins reported. It isn’t a certainty, but the assailant may have gotten both drugs from a single place.”

Nodding, Dan said, “That’s good. Real good. We’ll look into where the drugs came from.”

“Well, that’s all I’ve got right now. You two go and find this guy. He’s given me too much work already.”

“Thanks, Emily. Let us know if you learn anything more,” Mac said as she disconnected the call.

After a minute, Mac said, “If you want to look into hospitals for people coming in who may have been punched hard enough to do damage, I’ll start looking into any cases of thefts of large-animal tranquilizers.”

“Agreed,” Dan said, glad to have a plan.