Adoption Read online

  Marty had arrived at the diner with her group of friends half an hour ago. He followed them from the campus. They were excited about the basketball victory, never turning around to look at anyone or anything. Like most college aged kids, they were oblivious to their surroundings and wrapped up in their own little worlds. “Worlds revolving only around themselves without much concern for anyone else,” he thought, continuing his vigil.

  Earlier, when the group entered Joe’s, he moved casually across the street walking behind the stores and businesses fronting the street - now closed for the day - watching as they ate their burgers. He watched their mouths move as they talked about their trivial thoughts. It was like watching an old, silent movie where the characters moved and spoke, but there was nothing to be heard. The only thing missing was the piano music that tinked along as the projector hummed in the background.

  Marty had first caught his attention when he stopped to buy a coffee at the doughnut shop a few weeks ago. The morning sunlight reflected off of her long, red hair. It shone brilliantly, cascading like a waterfall onto her shoulders, falling down her back another ten to twelve inches creating the appearance of a halo around her face.

  “A doughnut and coffee angel.” he thought, chuckling to himself as he stepped up to the counter to order his java.

  She was alone and sat on one of the stools by the front window watching the cars go by with their hot exhausts smoking into the cold morning air. Her face was perfection in his eyes. He wanted to go over and sit right down in front of her and to stare at her perfect features. He wanted to look deeply through her to see her future with him as the adoption process started once more. But, he needed to compose himself. Control, control, and control. Control is what kept him hidden, unseen, undetected. Smiling, he stood off to the side of the coffee shop taking small sips to prolong their first meeting.

  Over the next few days, he came to the coffee shop each morning at the exact same time to see if she was a creature of habit. Sure enough, she was there each morning, sitting in the same seat, eating the same kind of doughnut, looking out the window day dreaming and watching the passersby. “PERFECT” he had thought as he began to plan their new relationship. One step at a time was the only way to proceed. One piece of information always led to the next piece of information, and he could now start to learn more about her with each passing day.

  Once the decision was made to adopt this girl, he began to follow her after she left the coffee shop, adding to her portfolio of behavioral information. Each and every move she made through the course of any given day was essential for him to know in order to act on the day of the adoption. It would take time to learn which campus buildings she frequented and at what times, where she lived, what nights she usually went out, and what nights she stayed in, who were the people she hung with, what times of the day and night was she alone, and what would be the best time and place to adopt his “doughnut angel”.

  Over the next few weeks, he learned that she lived at home. She was a local and this would mean he needed to be even more diligent about the right time and place for the adoption. Local kids always draw more attention. Everybody knows them. More people are apt to pay attention to a local as opposed to a child from out of town.

  However, because she lived in town, he was able to use her street address to learn her name using census records from the town hall.

  “Easy as picking an apple from a low hanging branch” he thought smugly, relishing the knowledge of her name. “One piece of information leads to the next piece of information” played over and over in his head. Soon, he would have all the information he needed.

  Standing in the shadows outside of Joe’s, he knew the adoption would take place soon. Marty would be part of his family by the end of the week. He knew the time and place where she would join him and become one of his children.

  11

  The hospital in Milford was small compared to the city hospitals with their life-flight landing pads and sprawling parking lots, their thousand employees walking a never ending maze of corridors and hidden passages. Instead, Milford Hospital had a rural country look to its design and landscaping. The original, main building of the hospital, built in the mid-eighteen hundreds, was still the cornerstone of the facility with wings and additions sprouting out over the years from grants and charitable contributions. The face of the main building was constructed of wooden clapboards preserved meticulously over the century and a half the hospital served the area.

  Walking up to the entrance, my mind pictured the days when ambulances were horse-drawn wagons with a canvas stretcher and nurses dressed in a brilliant, white uniforms sitting in the back. A stark difference from the high-tech, motorized, emergency rooms driven by EMT’s more skilled today than the doctors themselves were over a hundred years ago.

  I took a detour around to the back of the hospital. The door to the morgue was in the rear of the building on basement level. I have often wondered why morgues are always located in basements. I heard the theme song from “The Twilight Zone” playing in my mind. “Great!” I thought. “I’ll have the friggin tune in my head all day now!” As I rounded the last blue spruce standing guard beside the door, I saw Jerry Bickford from the State pathologist’s office approaching from the opposite direction.

  “Good evening, Jerry,” I said.

  “Good evening, Chief,” He replied. “From what the Doc told me over the phone, it sounds like we have a really perverted murderer on our hands. Do you have anything new to go on?”

  “I wish we did. I’m hoping like all hell that Doc has found something from his exam that will help us. Glad to see you on this one, though. I appreciate your coming over so quickly. The more expertise we have on this case the better chance we have of nailing this sicko.”

  I was looking at Jerry standing next to me while we talked. He was good-looking, mid-fifties and also sported a full head of white hair. I wondered what it was with doctors and white hair. I supposed it was similar to the comparison that all small town police chiefs were balding “chrome domes”. I chuckled to myself holding the door for Jerry as we entered the basement.

  We walked past the requisite gurneys sitting empty on the sides of the corridors in hospital basement, with their used and crumpled sheets hanging off nearly touching standard, grey flooring tiles – silent memories of previous patients. The corridors themselves, dimly lit, added to an unsettled feeling people often experience when they are walking in basements, watching and listening for anything or anyone to jump out from the shadows and darkened doorways. We reached the door to the morgue and looked in through a small, oval, glass porthole. Doc Cavanaugh was standing over the examination table with his back towards the door. I knocked on the glass with the back of my knuckle. He turned, saw me peering in at him and motioned for me to enter.

  When he saw Jerry walking in behind me he said, “Jerry, my boy. Am I ever glad to see you!” He caught himself and quickly added: “Ron, I don’t mean to infer that I am NOT glad to see you, but you know what I meant. Oh! Shit. I’m glad to see you too.” We all had a short laugh and then Doc began: “I have just found something VERY intriguing while performing the thoracic part of the examination. Jerry, get a gown and mask and join me over here. I want your opinion. I may have just found the proverbial needle in the haystack.”

  While Jerry put on the green gown and surgical mask, I stood a few feet away looking at Christine lying on the table. People look so different when they are dead. Their skin color changes to a cold, drained, white hue with slight traces and blotches of purple shading. Their eyes no longer shine with the glow of life that was once inside their body. The glint and sparkle of clear, living orbs replaced with grayish clouds no longer allowing the world to enter, or, in Christine’s case, black holes of dried blood. There is not the slightest hint of movement within the now vacant shell of flesh and bone. There is no sound, no pulsing energy in veins or arteries. Capillaries on
the surface of the skin have no reddened color from blood cells that once flowed from the “Circle of Willis’ down to the tip of the big toe. One glance and you know the soul has departed and left its physical luggage behind. Christine Sawyer was no longer of this world. She suffered greatly during the last hours of her life, and now she was beyond the confines of this morgue and unaware of our presence.

  “Jerry.” Doc started. “When I began my initial exam of Christine a few hours ago, there was something I was looking at that bothered me, but I could not pin point exactly what that something was. It wasn’t until I opened Christine’s chest and abdomen and began the internal exam that I realized just what it was I had actually overlooked.”

  Doc moved over to a PC monitor suspended from a wall frame next to the table. On the screen of the monitor were colored graphs and tables displaying foreign looking data! However, as Jerry leaned closer to the screen, I heard a low, vibrating hum begin to resonate from his throat. I watched him review the data a while longer and listened as the hum turned into a “Holy Shit” that reverberated off of the morgue ceiling and walls.

  “Doc, you’ve got to be kidding me!” he blurted out. “What the hell! Do you know what this means? Of course you do, that’s why you have it up on the damned screen. I just meant…I mean, it caught me by surprise!”

  “Don’t worry about it, Jerry,” Doc said. “I had the same reaction when I first saw the results of the blood tests. That’s when I realized we had the answers to two very important questions. First, how did Christine Sawyer die?”

  Doc Cavanaugh had my full attention as he stood silently for a few seconds, as if he was waiting for a drum roll. “Go ahead, Doc. Just do me a favor and speak to me using words I can understand. I am not the best student in the world when it comes to understanding medical jargon.”

  “Well,” Doc started to speak and, at the same time, walked back over to the table, took Christine’s face gently in his hands and turned her head so that the right side of her neck was clearly visible. “When I began the initial exam on the outside of the body, I could find no signs of a struggle. There are no cuts, bruises, contusions or any marks that would indicate Christine was able to fight off her attacker for even an instant. The marks on her wrists and ankles show that she was bound after the abduction to keep her subdued. The removal of the eyes and lips are the only external signs of violence on the body. Therefore, I assumed, at the beginning of the exam, that her abductor used some unorthodox means to end her life. I thought perhaps the use of electricity, as it would leave very little external evidence of trauma to the victim. However, I knew there was SOMETHING that kept nagging at me, as if Christine was trying to tell me something. It wasn’t until I was performing the internal exam that the results of the blood tests arrived, and seeing Pancuronium on the monitor, my brain finally lit up. Pancuronium is one of three drugs administered during the process of lethal injection. When used by itself, without the other two drugs, the result is muscular paralysis, and, if administered in the correct dosage, will only cause paralysis. The recipient stays conscious throughout the ordeal and is aware of everything that is happening. The recipient can’t respond, totally aware, but not able to speak, move or make a sound. Christine was conscious when her eyes and lips were removed. It is my belief, that once he finished with the mutilation and torture, the killer administered the last two drugs that finally stopped her heart and released her from her pain. Once I knew that this was how Christine died, I went back and looked at the mark on her neck. There, hidden in the design pattern of the mark, I found three injection points. The killer injected the drugs into the right, carotid artery.”

  The look on my face must have given away the disgusted feeling turning my stomach, creating new rage inside my mind and my gut. If Christine’s killer had already been in custody, I probably would have driven back to the police station, locked myself his holding cell and torn the killer to bits with my bare hands. I did not want Christine’s parents to ever learn what Doc just shared with us. I would do my best to make sure they never did.

  “So, Doc”, I said, exhaling heavily. “What you are saying is that the person who killed Christine would have to have specialized knowledge about these drugs, how to administer them for a lethal injection, and more importantly, would need to know the right dosage of Pancuronium to use in order to paralyze the victim and keep the victim conscious at the same time.”

  “That is exactly what he is saying,” Jerry interjected.

  I kept talking not hearing what Jerry was saying to me. “We could be talking about: a person schooled in medicine or medical treatment; a prison guard or prison employee; someone in law enforcement, or just a person with the intelligence to go on line and investigate these drugs and their use. At least now we have a starting point. We have a place to begin and a direction to go in. Doc, what was the second something you alluded to a few minutes ago?”

  Doc Cavanaugh pointed to the mark on Christine’s neck and continued, “When I first looked at this mark, I thought it might be a brand used by the killer to show ownership of the victim, arrogance enough to “show” us he is the master of this situation, of this victim, of the police. But, I now believe, he used the branding technique to hide the injection points in order to heighten the drama and make it more difficult for us to determine the “what’s and whys” of his thinking. This mark was not put on post mortem like I originally thought when we were examining Christine at the pond. The killer branded her just before she was injected knowing we would look at the brand mark. The killer also knew, at some point, we would find the injection marks. In layman’s terms, the son-of-a-bitch is playing with us!”

  My thoughts went back to a statement Peggy made earlier as I was leaving the house. Was this person, who was responsible for killing and mutilating Christine Sawyer, also responsible for killing anyone else? Was this an isolated killing made to look like the type of crime a serial killer would commit? Did we, in fact, have a serial killer living in our small community? If so, how long before he tortures and kills again?

  12

  “Derek Larson to Chief Kosciak, Larson to Kosciak. Come in please.” My radio was sounding as I pulled out of the hospital parking lot heading back toward the station.

  “Kosciak, here, Derek,” I responded.

  “Chief, how long will it be before you return to the station?” he asked. “I have some very important information for you regarding the project you assigned me this morning.”

  “I’ll be there in about thirty minutes. I just left the hospital,” I answered, noting Derek purposely did not mention what project he was referring to. I wondered at that instant how many other young women might have disappeared, and if they were murdered in the same gruesome manner of Christine Sawyer.

  “Put a call into Ken Garber over at the State Police station,” I said. “Ask him if he can meet me at the station now instead of tomorrow morning like we discussed. Tell him I have information from Doc Cavanaugh that is extremely important - Kosciak out.”

  “Received Chief - Will do - Out,” he said; the radio going silent.

  Thirty minutes later I was parking my Explorer in front of the station. During the drive back from the hospital, I was thinking about the bizarre method the killer used to end Christine’s life. Lethal injection showed total premeditation on the killer’s part. Whoever this killer was, a lot of time was spent planning and executing that plan. The facial mutilation made me believe the killer was suffering from some sort of mental delusion. The lack of sexual contact with the victim intimated this was not a crime of passion. This was not the case of a raging husband catching his wife sleeping with another man or some jealous boyfriend retaliating after being dumped by his girlfriend for someone else. No, the killer’s thoughts were focused on something totally different. The killer was being driven by reasoning inclusive to only his thoughts. Probably a victim of abuse or abuses, a tormented, emotional inferno now raged wi
thin this sick and twisted mind. Interpreting the killer’s reasoning and understanding would help us solve this puzzle.

  “Why kill and mutilate?” I thought.

  Ken Garber arrived an hour after Derek placed the call. I was surprised he made it so quickly because it was already 10:00 PM and he was probably home when he received the call from Derek. Ken’s about six foot four with a full head of black hair. God, how I hate these guys with hair! His muscular, square frame is well-suited to his Massachusetts State Police uniform. The silver captain’s bars on his shoulders glistened as the lights in my office reflected off of them onto the wall, creating two spots of light moving across pictures of Peggy and the girls. His urgent stride told me he was anxious to learn what Doc Cavanaugh discovered during Christine’s postmortem. As he entered my office, I began to speak before we even began exchanging any type of greeting.

  “Christine was killed by lethal injection. Pancuronium was injected into her carotid artery to paralyze her, and after he removed the eyes and lips, he administered the last two drugs which stopped her heart.”

  “What the fuck! You mean to tell me she was CONSCIUOS when that bastard mutilated her face? That mother-fucking-son-of-a-bitch! Ron, I…,” He said falling silent, turning his head to look out my office window. Ken was obviously emotional about this case. Knowing the family for many years made this difficult for him to separate the personal from the professional. After a moment of silence, he continued, “Did Doc find anything else during the exam that might help us?”

  “No,” I said. “He found nothing else that would be critical to our investigation. He believes the mark on Christine’s neck was used to camouflage the entry points of the needles. Doc also said that there was no sexual abuse involved and no other mutilation done to her body. However, the news Derek shared with me when I got back to the station a little while ago will rattle you right down to the laces on your boots.”