“That’s one of the oddities. Humans range from about forty-five to seventy percent water. Men around this age? Around sixty percent. The weight of the slime that we could gather from the other victims proves this. It doesn’t include water and so…where did the water go? You’ll notice there aren’t any puddles around.” Alec seemed to swing into lecture mode, and the arrogance vanished as the teacher emerged. “Then,” he added, “there are the traces of seaweed that I’ve found around all the bodies. I’m not certain where that came from, but that’s another mystery. And the third—there one element lacking from the remains, is sodium. The bodies have been drained of salt.”
“If you were to speculate, what would your theory be?”
He let out a soft sigh. “Honestly? I can’t give you one. I don’t know. I haven’t located any virus that could account for this, or any material that could have done this. It’s beyond my scope of experience. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll get to work here.”
“Can we have his wallet?” I asked.
Alec frowned, but nodded. “No, but I’ll open it so you can take his name and address from his license. Wait here.” He snapped on some gloves and, after motioning for the techs to lay out crime scene tape, began outlining what was left of the body.
Alec retrieved the wallet, wiping the gel off, then opened it and held it out. The license was behind a plastic protector, and I took a picture of it. He then slid it into a baggie and handed it to one of the techs, who placed it in a separate bag. Cops usually used paper bags to hold evidence, but I doubted they’d want what was essentially remains to leak through the paper.
“If you’ll let me do my work now.”
“I’ll finish filming this,” Erica said. “I guess that’s all for now,” she added. “Call me if you have any further questions. Are you going to contact his family?”
“Do you want us to?” Wager asked.
It wouldn’t be the first time we’d had to deliver bad news.
“No, we’ll do it. But you’ll probably want to talk to them. Meanwhile, I’ve sent over a dossier on all the other victims’ families. We already interviewed them, but you’re pretty good at finding out information we might not be able to gather,” Erica said. “Anyway, thank you for coming down. With five victims in as many days, we desperately need a lead. Stay in touch.”
As we left, I thought that the police were just as effective as usual. And with the corruption and lack of enthusiasm that infected the force, the body count only threatened to pile up.
CHAPTER FIVE
“Let’s head back to the office,” Wager said. “We’ll want to look up McMasterson, and also, we need to contact the families and ask for interviews. I’ve texted Herne, asking him to get Yutani onto researching. This case is escalating faster than we can keep up with.”
“What the hell do you think is attacking them? Any idea? I can’t think of any creature who can do that,” I asked.
“What about a spider?” Kipa said. “Some, like the brown recluse, have venom that produces a necrotic bite. How do we know there isn’t some crypto spider that can turn you into goo?”
I cringed. “I don’t even want to think about what kind of spider could turn a grown man into slug slime.”
I leaned back in my seat, watching the city pass by. The solitude of Kalevala had been both a blessing and a curse, and I realized I was going to have to adjust to being around so much noise and activity again. Bringing my focus back to the case, I tried to sort through all the Ante-Fae I had ever heard of, but none that I could think of had the power to dissolve someone.
We arrived back at the office, where Yutani was already running searches on McMasterson. Talia motioned for us to follow her into the breakroom. Herne was nowhere to be seen.
“Herne went to see the mayor, but he left us instructions. I have the names and addresses of the victims’ families. Not the one today, not yet, but the others. We’ll want to call and make appointments to talk to them as soon as possible. Yutani is looking up Ian McMasterson right now.” She emailed me the list of names and addresses, along with the information on who their loved one had been.
“How are we keeping their families from talking to the news outlets? It seems like this is primed for the tabloids to get hold of, given the mysterious nature of the deaths.” I frowned, staring at the list. Four men dead. Four families devastated. Four uncomfortable meetings.
“The police asked them to keep quiet because it might endanger the investigation. That threat does wonders to families hungry for justice,” Wager said.
“Then we continue with that,” I said.
“Your Ian McMasterson is a no-go,” Yutani said, entering the breakroom. “He lives in Vancouver, B.C., and he was down here to visit a business partner. He left for home on August sixth, and he’s been there every day. There’s no way he could be our killer.”
“Well, that puts an end to that theory,” Wager said. “What about the timeline of the murders?”
Yutani opened another document and showed it to us. Today was Tuesday. The first murder had taken place a week ago Wednesday. The next murder had been on Thursday. The third—Saturday. And the fourth and fifth—today. They had all happened down on the docks during the daylight hours. All five victims had been men, and nothing appeared to have been stolen.
I stopped as Talia received notice that an email from the medical examiner had come through. “Go on. We’ll wait.”
She left for her desk, then returned. “I forwarded the email to all of you.”
Yutani opened it on his tablet, and I leaned over his shoulder to read it.
From: Alec Leache, Medical Examiner
