Author: Jerry J. K. Rogers
Category: Thriller
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Chapter 2
Detectives Green and Matthews flashed their badges as they worked their way through the crowd of news reporters, photojournalists, and spectators outside of the funeral home. A frenzy of camera flashes enhanced the light from the street lamps of the parking lot each time the medical examiners’ technicians couriered gurneys with covered bodies outside to waiting county vehicles. Working their way inside, the detectives passed through the foyer area where samples of food were being collected by crime scene investigators. Several bodies lay sprawled near the back exits of the chapel area leading into the foyer. Entering the chapel, they observed more bodies scattered throughout the sanctuary tended to by the coroners, medical examiners, and technicians both detectives knew were from the main Los Angeles offices as well as the Santa Clarita and High Desert facilities.
Policemen and crime scene investigators scurried about to collect physical evidence, take photos of body positions and the buffet tables, and gather anything else that may be relevant to the investigation. Other workers were placing bodies on gurneys, searching and tagging personal effects, spilled food, plates, purses, and camera bags. Looking for the lead city medical examiner, Dr. McKay, the two detectives found him near the front pews.
“Doc, how's it goin? What can you tell us?”
Dr. McKay finished examining the body of a young man considered 18 or 19 years of age, dressed sharply in a custom-made suit with silk maroon tie, sprawled on the floor in front of a bench pew. After scrounging through the suit jacket and pants pockets, determined that the deceased man carried no identification, only a Starbucks card and a set of car keys, the auto key emblazed with an Audi logo. The examiner glanced up at Detectives Matthews and Green and smirked, “I'd say they're all dead.”
“Very funny,” Detective Green responded.
“What are you two doing here? I didn't know you were assigned to this crime scene.”
“Our lucky butts got assigned to investigate the witness to this mess here. He turned out to be useless. According to the doctor, he was still in severe shock, so we ended up with some free time. We wanted to head over to see if we could find out some background on what happened for when we talk to him again. Any ideas? What about the time of death?”
“Well, according to all the other technicians’ examinations so far for the bodies we checked, the time of death seems to be between 2:00 and 3:00, best estimation closer to 2:30 based on liver temps.”
“That's about the time the witnesses outside said Stephen Williams came out,” Detective Matthews commented.
“Who's Stephen Williams?” the doctor inquired.
“The witness to what happened in here,” Detective Green answered. “You’re already taking out the bodies? Don’t you usually wait until a full forensics is worked up on the scene? Something like this should take at least a day or two to process.”
“Our boss told us this is special, and not to spend a lot of time working it in the field. They don’t want to panic the public if it was something supernatural. Rumor has it some higher-up religious leaders pulled some serious strings, even up at the federal level.”
“No shit?”
“Well, we still need to run tox screens, body exams, and crap. With nearly a hundred bodies, we should do that back in the morgue. Plus it'll be awhile before we get anything definitive.”
“What do you have un-definitive?” Detective Green asked.
“What do you think happened?” Detective Matthews asked, interjecting himself into the conversation and expelling a cough less raspy and congestive than the previous ones.
“Look around, could have been the food. Yet you notice that none of the bodies show any signs of distress from food poisoning? Not one of them regurgitated or expelled anything. Besides, with this many fatalities, they all wouldn’t have necessarily consumed the same thing. And some of them probably didn’t eat anything for that matter. So I’d rule out food poisoning at least right now. Maybe it was a gas leak. Who knows? It could have even been some sort of terrorist chemical attack. Your buddies in blue and the fire department didn't let us in until the building was cleared by hazmat.”
Detective Matthews studied the scene to see if anything of importance stood out while the doctor carried on with his explanation. Noticing the remaining bodies, he realized that all of their eyes were open and had a distinct fogging of the pupils and irises.
“Doc?” Detective Matthews asked. “Is it normal for all of their eyes to be open like that?”
“Hmmm,” Dr. McKay looked carefully into the eyes of the corpse of the young man. Not only were they fixed open, the natural color of the iris and pupils appeared cloudy, a distinct shade of gray he’d never seen before. Afterward he scuttled over to a couple of the remaining bodies, a middle-aged woman extravagantly dressed next to an older man in a nicely tailored suit with hair graying and a Nikon SLR camera, tagged with a “police evidence,” around his neck. The eyes of both bodies were rigidly open, the natural color of the iris and pupils foggy. The doctor looked about for other bodies to examine finding many already removed. Index card markers next to the doctor’s location identified the two offspring of the deceased he was currently examining. Other index marker cards were scattered about the pews. Hurrying over to the other side of the chapel to view another body as it was placed on a gurney, the same result; the eyes were open and cloudy. Dr. McKay knew he would need to review the photos and video to determine if the corpses already removed were the same. He returned to work on his original body still pondering the discovery the detectives had made.
“Ok Doc, I just got to ask, what’s going on here?” Detective Matthews asked, disturbed.
“Well first off,” the doctor replied, “I don't believe that crap about an angel doing this. Why, if they do exist and were here to give eulogies, would this one get a wild hair up its ass and decide to become a mass murderer?”
“You don't believe in angels?” Detective Matthews asked.
“No one to date has been able to produce a photo, video, or anything else to say otherwise. It's just been someone spouting off, ‘Ohh, I saw an angel.’ Come on, get real.”
“Then back to our earlier question, what happened here?” Detective Green asked again.
“Get back to me in the morning. Then I'll tell you what didn't happen.”