Eleven minus one minus one minus ten is negative one, and five minus four is one. One plus negative one equals zero. As opposed to one minus negative one, which equals two. Cool, but not relevant here.
“We need to head back to the squad room, update the board,” Detective Campbell said. “Try to make the bodies add up. Then we’ll talk to Dr. Curtis again.”
The drove the rest of the way in silence, and didn’t say anything until they were sitting in the office in front of the mostly filled in white boards. They studied what they had up there, which amounted to a lot of useless information that led them no closer to the perpetrator. Detective Campbell opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. They sat in silence for another few minutes until Sergeant Riggs couldn’t take it any more.
“We need another board,” Sergeant Riggs said. He went off in search of another one as Detective Campbell began sorting through the files and various pages of notes. Eventually he returned, pulling a partially wiped clean board behind him. The detective looked up from his impressive pile of papers to squint at the board.
“Man, Johnson already solved the Pierce case?” Detective Campbell asked, looking at the faint markings left. “After how he screwed us in the last case, that really doesn’t seem fair.”
His tone was light, but everyone in the precinct knew there was no love lost between the two of them. They tried to keep it professional, but there was a deep-seated animosity that ran between them, and no one quite knew why. There were rumors and speculations, mostly that it stemmed from a girl (though who stole the girl from who was a hotly debated point), but no one really knew. And no one was about to stir up a hornet’s nest to find out, not ever Sergeant Riggs. Though he had his own personal theory, and it had nothing to do with women. Personally, he suspected it involved a convoluted tale of a quince, a small stuffed cow, and a cup of Earl Grey tea, hot, though he’d never shared that with anyone.
“Not that I know of,” Sergeant Riggs said. He shrugged. “Don’t worry, I left him a photo of his board. It was the least I could do. Actually, that’s not true. The least I could have done was nothing. That’s a stupid expression, because it’s never followed by the least anyone really could do, unless it was nothing. But no one ever says, ‘I didn’t do anything – it was the least I could do.’ Probably because there’s an understood ‘morally’ in there that is silent. As in, it’s the least my conscious would allow me to get away with.”
Detective Campbell grinned. “I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear that. The part about the board, anyway. As far as I know, that board came from the storage locker. As for the expression, yes, you’re so right. Now get to work.”
Sergeant Riggs nodded. “Okay, so what say we use this board for the three outlying cases? And put the morgue bodies on those two?” He started arranging the boards in a semi-circle in the open corner of the room.
“I think you mean four outlying cases,” Detective Campbell corrected.
“Wait, there’s the Pearson guy, or the look-alike, if you believe Mrs. Mollycoddle, the mummified corpse, and whoever took Marissa Thomas’s place… what am I missing?” Sergeant Riggs held up his hands and theatrically re-counted on his fingers. Detective Campbell gave him a dry look.
“The case of Marissa Thomas at the funeral home. That is still a case. Forensics is analyzing the wax sample Porter was smart enough to take and save, and we have the tapes to go through, and some officers to interview. There’s something going on there, even if it’s not related to the main case.”
“Okay, and then we have the case of the thirteen missing bodies from the morgue. So five cases. Which may or may not be related.” Sergeant Riggs sighed. “Let’s start with an easy one. Mummy Man. We know nothing about him, other than he’s been inside a wall of a house owned by Mr. Todd Pearson for approximately ten years. And he’s dead. And mummified. And a guy. That about covers it.”
He wrote that down in a column under a hastily drawn head with a question mark over it, then drew a vertical line. “Next, we have Pearson, or Faux Pearson, as the case may be. Right now all we know is he’s a body in a wall and fairly recently deceased. Picture?”
“Gimme a second.” Detective Campbell plugged his cell phone into the computer, and after a few tense moments of swearing, the printer spat out a grainy photo of the man Mrs. Mollycoddle had positively identified as not Todd Pearson. Sergeant Riggs took the picture Campbell printed out from his cell phone camera and taped it to the board, then wrote down the little info they had under it, which amounted to male, deceased, and not too long ago.
“Next up, Marissa Thomas.” He pinned her picture, taken from the morgue file, at the top of the board. Then he wrote down an outline of the sequence of events that had taken place since her death. “Nothing suspicious about her death, as far as we know, but something hinky certainly went on with her body.”
“Hinky?” Detective Campbell asked, an eyebrow raised.
“It’s a word,” Sergeant Riggs said defensively. “And, finally, the unidentified body that was swapped for Thomas’s. That we really don’t know anything about, and won’t until we figure out which body is the extra. That cover it?”
“That covers it. Now, back to the morgue bodies. We only have one left, and that’s the chainsaw case.” Detective Campbell wrinkled his nose as he leafed through the file. “I have to agree, based on the history of this guy, and the stills from the video, this really isn’t suspicious at all. Nathan Johnson. Male, age 27, highly intoxicated, decides to juggle a running chainsaw, a bowling ball, and… a feather pillow. He doesn’t even know how to juggle. Decapitation as a result. Whole thing on video.” He swiveled in his chair and started pecking on the computer keyboard. “A very popular video, apparently. Though YouTube has yanked it several times because it is… well, bloody, this current version circulating still has over a million hits. People are replacing the video as quickly as the site can take it down.”
“Okay, so chalk another one up for a Darwin Award. But other than that, you’re right, there’s not much suspicious about it. Even if his friends wanted him dead, for whatever reason, and egged him on, it’s still not a case. He was just an idiot.” Sergeant Riggs capped the dry erase marker and set it down. “If we could prosecute for idiocy… I probably would have had to long a rap sheet to become a cop.”
“And I really don’t see anything here that would make someone want him dead,” Detective Campbell said. “He didn’t have money to speak of, or enemies, wasn’t involved in anything… hinky.”
“You mock, but it’s a useful word,” Sergeant Riggs said.
“Anyway, none of the usual reasons to kill someone. That certainly doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a very unusual reason, but he certainly doesn’t top my list. Unless someone had wanted to steal the body because of the internet fame, but I’d have expected a video of the deed to have shown up now. Besides, didn’t Doctor Curtis say she’d already identified Johnson’s body as one of the ones there?”
“I believe she did. Have you checked for a video?” Sergeant Riggs asked, delicately. Detective Campbell’s ability to use the computer was an on again, off again kind of ability. Sometimes he could ferret out the smallest inconstancy in a victim’s computer records. Sometimes he accidentally set his screensaver to the Hampster Dance. It just depended.
“Yes, I’ve run a few searches, but I’ve also sent a request to IT. If they can’t find it, there’s nothing out there to find.” Detective Campbell stretched. “Shall we dash back over to the morgue and have another chat with Doctor Curtis? It’s all still speculative about Marissa Thomas, really, until we ensure that the doctor did not positively ID the body when she moved it.”
“And if she did?” Sergeant Riggs gathered up the files and stacked them neatly on the desk, then grabbed a fresh pocket-sized notebook and shoved it in his pants pocket.
“Then someone is lying. Either her, or the funeral home.” Detective Campbell tapped a pen against the stack of files.
“But the funeral home has the tape, so we do know the body was there,” Sergeant Riggs said, though there was a hint of question in his voice.
“She was there, yes, but when was she there? We only have their word that the tape was from the time period they said it was. There’s no way for sure to know when that was recorded. Never take anything as a given,” he said.
“Except what you tell me,” Sergeant Riggs said with a grin.
“Obviously, that’s different. Now, let’s get going.”
“Do we have time to stop and get something to eat?” Sergeant Riggs patted his flat belly. “I’m a wee bit peckish, if I do say so myself.”
“Peckish?” Detective Campbell raised an eyebrow.
“Another real word,” Sergeant Riggs said. “Geez, didn’t they teach you any vocabulary way back in the day?”
Detective Campbell scowled and swatted in Sergeant Riggs’s direction, but he’d already strode ahead and was out the door.
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