Jaxon had just gotten off the phone with the Medical Examiner and was doodling on his napkin as he thought through what he’d just learned. They still had no name for the first kid in the pool and the autopsy had shown very little. He had died of asphyxiation caused by the inhalation of a chemical. Diethyl Ether. The ME thought a rag had been held over the victim’s mouth and nose until he passed out and then the killer continued to hold the chemically soaked rag on his face until the kid died. Mild bruising had been found on the face around the mouth and nose consistent with this theory.
Paul Bannon had died the same way. Asphyxiation. Same chemical traces in his bloodstream. Same bruising of the face. What was bothering Jaxon more than anything was the peculiar state of the first kid’s body. The ME had told him some of the boy’s internal organs were frozen.
“Are your refrigerators set too cold?” Jaxon had asked.
“I checked. They’re fine. The rest of him was not frozen but he had some patches on his skin that resembled freezer burn. I think this boy has been frozen solid and recently thawed.”
“How long?”
“I haven’t been able to determine that yet. I’m checking with a colleague in North Dakota. He has some experience with this kind of thing. I should know something within a day or two.”
Freezer burn? What the hell? Jaxon thought. This kid may have been missing longer then they originally thought. He’d have to start looking back months and see if anything came up. In the mean time, it was probably worth it to take a trip back out to the neighborhood and see if any of these kids had anything to tell him.
Luke had just picked up Ellie from her house and they were heading back to his place through the frozen streets when a car pulled up next to them and rolled down its window.
“Lucas Harrison, Eliana Pemberton. Can we talk to you a moment.”
It was the two cops who had been to Luke’s house that Sunday morning when they thought the body was him. Luke looked at Ellie and then back at the cops and shrugged. “I guess,” he said.
“Was Paul Bannon a friend of yours?” the one named Jaxon asked.
They both nodded. “He lived a couple of houses down from me,” Ellie said.
“Had Paul said anything to you two about being frightened or worried?”
They both shook their heads. “No,” Luke said. “He seemed normal to me.”
“Had he been absent from school more than normal lately?” The woman cop asked.
“No,” Luke said. “He was always there. He never missed a day unless school was canceled.”
“Did you guys get along?” Jaxon asked looking hard into Luke’s eyes.
He hesitated. “Yeah…I mean we were friends and stuff. He was mad at me for a little while when he had his stitches.”
“What stitches?”
“We would have these snowball fights and he had the bright idea to put ice inside of the snowballs. He hit my friend Jimmy in the arm with one and made his arm numb. The next battle we got him back, only he got hit in the face and had to have stitches. It was stupid, I know. We don’t use ice balls anymore.”
Jaxon turned and looked at the woman. She raised her eyebrows but said nothing.
He held up a picture and asked, “Do either of you know this boy?”
Luke and Ellie leaned in to get a better look. It was a shot of a face. A kid about Luke’s age. His skin was pasty white and his lips looked slack and lifeless. His eyes were mostly closed, but not because he was sleeping. One of his irises could barely be seen through the cracked left eyelid. It made Luke shudder involuntarily. He leaned back, looking away quickly.
“No,” Luke said and Ellie shook her head, a frown now on her face.
Jaxon put the picture away and Luke asked, “Was that the kid from the pool? The first one?”
Jaxon looked at Luke’s shoes, ignoring the question, and asked, “What size shoe do you wear?”
“Uh…I don’t remember. You’d have to ask my mom. I don’t pay attention to that kind of stuff. Why?”
“What happened to your coat?” the detective asked next, pointing to the rip in his sleeve.
“I’m not sure,” Luke said. “I think I ripped it on a branch while we were playing kick the can the other night.”
“On a branch, huh?”
Luke nodded and looked at Ellie who nodded too.
Jaxon reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a baggie. Inside was the piece that had been torn from Luke’s coat. He swallowed and his knees felt a little watery.
“I don’t think it was a branch,” Jaxon said. “I think you ripped it climbing the fence to the pool. This is the torn piece I have in this bag and I took it from the top of the chain link fence. Are you gonna stick with the ‘branch’ story?”
Luke decided to remain silent.
Jaxon opened the door and stepped out of his car. The woman did the same on the other side and walked around the front of the car to stand next to Jaxon.
“Alright,” Jaxon said, “I know you guys were in the pool area. We have footprints that we can match up and we have this torn piece of your coat. What I want to know is what did you see? You don’t have to be afraid of anything happening, we just need to know what’s going on. How about helping us?”
Luke looked at Ellie and then down at his feet which he shuffled in the snow. “We were in the pool but we didn’t see anything.”
“What were you doing in there in the dead of winter?” asked the woman.
“We were trying to skate on the ice but it was too thin. She almost slipped in but I grabbed her. Then we left.”
“That right?” Jaxon asked Ellie.
“Yes, Sir,” she said.
“And you didn’t see a thing? No body in the pool? No footprints in the snow? Anybody else hanging around the area?”
Luke and Ellie shook their heads, no.
“Just you two?”
Luke and Ellie nodded, yes.
Luke watched Jaxon look at the woman in exasperation and she shrugged her shoulders. He knew they weren’t buying it but he didn’t know why they weren’t arresting them or something. He was pretty scared but he wasn’t going to admit anything he didn’t have to. Ellie was looking like she was going to throw up and he hoped she could hold it together.
He turned back to Luke and said, “I don’t believe you two.” He pointed his finger at both of them, one at a time. “Something is going on and I’m going to find out what it is whether you tell me or not. A murder investigation is a serious thing and obstructing justice can get you both thrown in jail. Do you understand what obstruction of justice is?”
Luke nodded, as did Ellie.
He waited. Finally he said, “You have nothing else to add?”
Luke shook his head no and he could see Ellie out of the corner of his eye doing the same thing.
“Fine. If you think of anything else to say call me on this number.” He handed them both a business card. “Don’t be surprised if we pay a visit to your parents soon.”
They both got back in the car and drove away. When they were gone, Ellie started to cry.
Luke and Ellie were back in his basement, the TV was on but neither one was watching it. He was holding her as she sobbed into his shoulder. They had made it into his house and down the stairs without anyone seeing them. Ellie had been crying non-stop since the detectives had driven away. He couldn’t seem to console her. She mumbled things he couldn’t understand so he just held her and stroked her hair as she sobbed.
She finally got herself under control, lifting her head off of his shoulder and looking into his eyes.
“What are we going to do?” she asked. “My mom is going to kill me.”
“I don’t think they know everything,” Luke said. “If they did, they would’ve asked us more stuff.”
“They knew we were in there. I bet they know John and Jimmy were there too.”
“Maybe. Their footprints were all over the snow, like ours, but they probably don’t know who they belong to. I think they’re just trying to find out who killed Paul and the other boy.”
“But they acted like we did it. He looked at me like I was a killer. We haven’t done anything.”
“Yeah-that bothers me too. I felt like they were blaming us or trying to get us to confess something. I wonder if they know who that other kid is.”
“You’re not going to ask them are you?”
“No-I’m not going to call them for anything. We need to just leave stuff alone and this will all go away.”
“I hope so,” she said. “Just when William Smith backs off, the cops show up and start harassing us. I can’t take too much more of this.”
“Me neither.”
They were quiet for a moment and she rubbed her face drying her eyes. He reached up and brushed a tear from her cheek and she grabbed his hand, pressing it to her face. “Will you keep me safe?” she said.
“Always.”
She smiled finally, and then kissed his fingers. That smile could brighten his world no matter how bad things were. She was everything to him and at that moment, he would die for her if he had to. He just hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
Jaxon turned to Sally and said, “Do you believe them?”
“They’re keeping something from us,” she said.
“I agree. With kids though, who knows if it’s important or not. They could have been in there smoking his mom’s cigarettes and afraid to tell us about it. Could be absolutely nothing.”
“Could be everything, too.”
He nodded, quietly navigating the streets back to the station.
“They did look scared,” he finally said.
“Wouldn’t you if someone like us came up and started grilling you about a murder?”
“True, but they looked a little more intense than just being intimidated. I thought the girl was going to puke all over her shoes.”
“She was the one with the dog, right?”
“Yep.”
“Any chance it could be related?”
“I don’t know. We picked the dog’s carcass up with the intent of disposing of it. Let’s see if it’s still in cold storage, and if so, we’ll have forensics look it over.”
Sally pulled out her cell phone and made the call. “Billy says they still have it. He’s pulling it out of storage now and will go over it with a fine tooth comb.”
“Maybe we’ll get lucky.”
“We need something. Right now, we have absolutely zip.”
He nodded absently and sighed. They definitely needed something to break.
A day later, Jaxon and Sally were down in the forensics’ lab with Billy Halson, huddled over the decapitated corpse of the dog. Billy pointed to a section of the neck as he spoke.
“Lacerations here and here are consistent with a serrated knife used to make the initial incision on the neck. This incision continues deep into the tissue until reaching bone, then a larger non-serrated edge, probably consistent with a small axe or hatchet, was used to hack through the bone and tendons separating the head from the torso. The mostly clean initial cuts indicate the animal was most likely dead or incapacitated at the time of the beheading.”
“So, a steak knife and a hatchet?” Jaxon said.
“Pretty much,” Billy said. “Now the interesting thing about this whole situation deals with how the dog was subdued.”
“What do you mean?” Sally asked.
“He was put to sleep. Like anesthesia. A chemical very similar to Chloroform, but one that isn’t used much medically anymore.”
Jaxon looked at Sally and she smiled. “Don’t tell me,” Jaxon said. “Diethyl Ether.”
Billy looked disappointed. “How did you know?”
“The two boys in the pool. Same thing,” Jaxon said.
“Damn,” Billy said, “then you’ll definitely find this useful.”
He walked over to a counter opposite the dog and pulled a small vial from a tray holding multiple vials and test tubes. He held it up for them to see.
“What is it?” Sally asked.
“It’s a fingernail,” Jaxon said looking closer.
“Pulled it from a small laceration on the dog’s abdomen,” Billy said. “If you get a suspect, we can rule out the owner and family with simple saliva tests for DNA and hopefully get a match on the perp. I know it doesn’t help you find the guy, but…”
“Have you looked at where our boy is getting his hands on Diethyl Ether?” Jaxon asked.
“It’s still pretty common. Though it’s not used medically any longer, the agent is used quite a bit, commercially, in certain chemical formulations and fuels.”
“Fuels?”
“Yes. Alcohol based fuels used in radio control aircraft and high performance racing type engines. They call it ‘Glow fuel.’”
Jaxon smiled. “Who’s working on the Bannon kid?”
“Chris,” Billy said, “but he’s off today.”
“You make sure you guys talk to each other on this. It looks almost certain our guy did the dog too.”
“You got it.”