Serial

10. The Murder of a Murderer

     Monday morning greeted Bonbury with a heavy fog that lazily rolled over the city. The residents added an electricity to the heavy morning air, with many crowding the the downtown streets, setting up blankets and lawn chairs while they waited for the days main event to begin. Others put on costumes, did last minute decorations on ornate vehicles, and tuned their instruments.

      As the morning carried on the sun shone bright and the fog lifted. At 10 a.m. on the dot the parade began. Music filled the air as the bands from both Eastworrow College and Bonbury High performed a collaboration parade march they had been practicing for weeks. Vehicles pulled floats, many with over the top decorations, with people on top in costumes, recreating past town events. The crowd of citizens cheered wildly. The loudest voices that ran out were moms cheering for their children, many of which were forced to ride on floats in ridiculous costumes for the purpose of parental bragging rights.

Charlie Hines watched the parade from beside the busiest coffee shop in town. He clapped politely as the different floats passed, and gave an especially loud holler when his fellow officers walked parade. When the last float disappeared down the street and the music died down he went into the small shop, ordered two coffees, then began to walk down the street, now busy with people returning to their busy schedules.

      Charlie walked to the police station, located in the heart of town, and thus in the middle of where the parade marched. He walked into the quiet building with a bounce in his step, whistling a remnant of the parade’s music. The station was small, and it didn’t take long for Charlie to find Cris Dauer, sitting at his desk in a room that was usually bustling, but was now eerily quiet with so many officers helping out in the parade, by either marching or being on security.

      Cris barely looked up as Charlie placed the hot coffee on his desk. His nose was stuffed into old case files and reports, ones he had been looking over obsessively since the discovery of the body the week prior. Charlie sat at his own desk, pulled out some blank forms, and started catching up on his own paperwork.

     The two were awaiting a call from the medical examiner's office in Ernesting, confirming that the report was ready and the two could drive over to get all the details in person. Cris has spent the last few days in a sour mood, fussing about how long the autopsy was taking and making impatient and irate calls to Ernesting almost every passing hour. The weekend had not seemed to calm him at all.

     Finally, at 12:32 p.m. Cris’ phone rang. He had his jacket on and his keys in hand before he even hung up. Charlie rushed to follow him, stuffing a few more forms into his briefcase and Throwing away both his and Cris’ empty coffee cups.

     Cris barely waited before Charlie got into the passenger seat before he drove off. The hour drive to Ernesting was long and quiet, and Charlie spent the time scribbling out more notes in his paperwork as Cris muttered about the bad traffic. When they entered the city the muttering went to loud and angry exclamations at each red light they pulled up to, and Charlie could see Cris’ knuckles turn white as he tightly gripped the steering wheel.

     “Hey, relax Cris, the body isn't going anywhere.”

     Cris grunted and looked out the window. A woman stood on the street corner, scantily clad and talking to a car that had pulled to the side of the road. The exchange caught Cris' attention. “f*****g trash.”

     Charlie looked over. “People have to live somehow. It's not our jurisdiction. Let the Ernesting police deal with her.”

     “The Ernesting force doesn't do s**t. I should know I used to be a part of it. The just let these hookers, whores, and meth heads run around the city. Sometimes I think we need a f*****g culling.”

Charlie pretended he didn't hear his partner. He went back to his paperwork, reading over their report so far of the Bonbury John Doe.

     Finally the two arrived at the medical examiner's office. The office was located on the lower level of a large office building that held several doctors and specialists. Cris rushed into the building, down the well lit staircase, and charged through the door to the medical examiner's office, coming face to face with a young female receptionist with a look of terror on her face as he barged into the office.

     “Detective Cris Dauer. I'm here for the John Doe that was found by Bonbury.” He barked out his command, and slammed his badge onto the counter of her desk. The receptionist let out a small shriek, looked at something nervously on her computer, then pointed Cris to the doors he should go through. Charlie followed him after apologizing profusely to the young lady.

     The medical examiner was waiting for them in the examination room, wearing a set of blue scrubs and writing notes on a clipboard. Cris was starting to bark out his introduction once more as he was opening the door, but Charlie gently push past him and began to speak first.

     “Hello Doctor, I'm Detective Charlie Hines and this is my partner Detective Cris Dauer. We met last week outside Bonbury, and we're here for your report on the John Doe.” Charlie held out his hand and smiled pleasantly. The Doctor removed her mask and shook Charlie's hand.

     “Doctor Jules Johannessen. It's nice to see you boys again. I'm sure you're anxious to know the report.”

     Cris let out a loud scoff. His arms were folded and he stood straight and tall by the door. Dr. Johannessen ignored him, turning her full attention to Charlie and leading him to the table with the corpse of Henry Harris. Cris followed behind, knuckles white once more.

     “We'll start with the man. On our side we haven't been able to identify him through regular measures. Has your side come up with anything?” Dr. Johannessen pulled down a sheet that was covering Henry Harris’ face, showing his chalky corpse.

     “The van he was driving was registered to a guy in a rehab facility. There was no other ID in the van. Fingerprints and DNA in Bonbury doesn't seem to match to anything.” Charlie read off his notes.

     “Well I took the liberty of running his fingerprints and DNA through the Ernesting system-”

     “You what?” Cris growled. Dr. Johannessen just smiled politely back.

     “I ran his prints and DNA through the Ernesting system for you, and there was a match. A thank you would be nice.”

     “I thought you said you haven't ID'd him yet?”

     “We haven't. But there was a match to a cold case from almost twenty years ago. A young woman was murdered outside a bar, stabbed with a bottle to the back of the neck. The suspect at the time was eventually found innocent of the murder, after claiming he had been drugged. There wasn't much to go off of at that time.”

     “How does this relate to our guy?”

“     His fingerprints match the partials found on the bottle, and his DNA matches the saliva.” Dr. Johannessen handed Charlie a few papers from her clipboard, with the details of the cold case and the reports from the DNA diagnostics. Charlie flipped through them for a second before Cris grabbed them from his hands, flipping through eagerly.

     “Moving on to cause of death. That is pretty straight forward, he did die from asphyxiation. However, I don't believe he died inside the van.”

     “What makes you think that?”

     The doctor pointed to the dark bruising around the corpse's neck. “Notice where the bruising is. The rope would’ve had to have been pulled upwards to make this kind of mark. He was found in the van with his hand holding the rope down by his waist. If he had died from his own hand, the bruising would be pointing down towards his back, not up towards his head.”

     “There was some dust on his clothes that matched the sample from the road too.” Cris said this lowly, almost to himself. He was still reading over the old report.

     “Exactly. I believe somebody else killed him, then set his body up in the van to look like an accidental suicide.”

     “Why would they go through the trouble of making it look like autoerotic asphyxiation?”

     The doctor shrugged, “I'm no psychologist. They could've thought it would best hide the murder, or maybe there weren't any nearby trees. Or maybe they wanted to try and shame him. You'll have to find a different specialist for that.”

     “So let me get this straight then. This guy is now definitively linked to not just one, but two murders, and he himself was murdered?” Cris had now handed the report back to Charlie, and stared intensely at Dr. Johannessen.

     “That's not all either.”

     “How is that not all?”

     “As per your request. The toxicology report.” The doctor handed Cris another form. He poured over it quickly.

     “Rohydra? What's that?”

     Charlie looked up from the cold case report. “It's one of the main components of Rohypnol, or Flunitrazepam.”

     “Roofies? This guy was roofied?”

     Dr. Johannessen nodded. “Both Rohydra and small traces of tobacco was found in his system.”

     “Couldn't he have just been a smoker? Why is the tobacco important?” Charlie asked.

     The doctor pulled up his lips with a gloved hand. “The teeth. Do you see how white they are? Those aren't smoker's teeth. The lungs too. They were pretty healthy for a man his age.”

     “f**k. f**k!” Cris said it quietly first, then yelled it out. “Twenty years ago a woman dies. The prime suspect is found not guilty due to the date r**e drugs found in his system. Now, in twenty-f*****g-seventeen, another two body shows up. The girl was obviously murdered by the piece of trash man, who also has connections to the murder that happened twenty years ago, and ALSO happens to have been murdered and is found with the f*****g date r**e drug in his system. Who the f**k killed this guy?”

Dr. Johannessen covered Henry Harris’ body with the sheet once more, and turned to look up at Cris with another polite smile. “That's your job to find out isn't it?”