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by Matt Lalonde
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November 11, 2090 - Remembrance Day
Ottawa, Ontario, Empire of Canada
23:39
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Detective Hariette Appleton arrived on scene, at the intersection of Colonel By Drive and Seneca Street in Centertown. She pulled her cruiser up to the Police cordon and displayed her badge to the officer who was guarding it.
“Hey Detective,” the officer said as they deactivated the barrier and let her through.
She parked her car on the north curb of Colonel By and was met by another detective. The larger man trundled towards her as she climbed out of the vehicle. His jacket was soaked and his grey hair was matted against his head.
“Bonjour Hariette,” he said, almost joyfully, “Hell of a night, eh?”
Detective Appleton pulled the hood of her jacket up, keeping the cold November rain off of her head.
“Sure is Max,” she said, “Do we have another one?”
The large man nodded, his double chins jiggling, “Oui. It’s just like the others.”
“Shit.” Hariette said.
She followed the small walking path down to the waterfront of the Rideau Canal where there was a small tent set up. When they walked into the tent, they were met by the crime scene technicians. They all nodded at her and kept working, as she spoke to the senior technician.
“Hello Horatio,” she said.
The man stopped and looked at the Detectives. “You will have our findings in an hour,” he said with a French-Canadian accent.
Hariette looked at Max, and then back at Horatio. “Okay... but what can you tell me now?”
The technician sighed and hung his head. His ginger-red hair hung in front of his face. “Tabernac,” he said. “Okay, we have a dead, caucasian male. Thirty to forty years of age. He was found with his pants around his ankles. His femoral artery looks to have been severed.”
“And?” Hariette added.
“And what?” Horatio asked incredulously.
“Was he mutilated like the others?” Max answered.
“Yes. He has the same mark as the others,” Horatio answered.
Hariette cursed and turned away. After a moment, she turned back to the redhead. “Send me a picture of the mark as soon as you can,” she said, “and thank you, Horatio.”
“Ya, ya. Tu nes gentille que quand tu as besoin de quelque chose,” Horatio said, waving her off.
The two detectives left the tent and stepped into the rain. Max shivered as Hariette pulled a tin out of her pocket.
“I thought you quit,” Max said, almost whining.
She pulled an e-cigarette out of the tin, “Well, stress makes you do things.” She tapped the cigarette on the top of the tin, activating it and putting it to her lips.
“That makes Forty-three Max,.” she said, sucking on the cigarette.
Maxime Raymond nodded, “Yep. In a year.”
She exhaled, the smoke forming the cigarette company's logo in the air before disappearing, “And we are no closer to finding the Widow.” They were both quiet for a moment before she spoke again. “Head home. We’ll meet at the station when we get Horatio’s findings.” Max nodded, and both detectives headed to their cars.
On her way home, Hariette received a call from a private number. She pushed the button on the steering wheel and answered the call, “Detective Appleton.”
“Good...evening detective,” came a woman’s voice. “My name is Antonia Storck.”
“How can I help you Ms. Storck?” the detective asked.
“Actually, I think I can help you,” Antonia answered. “You have forty-three unsolved murders on your hands, correct?”
Hariette gave her phone a curious look. “Well, we have forty-two, yes.”
“Along with the one tonight,” Storck added, “Before you ask, I have friends in the department, that’s how I know about tonight’s find.”
“I see. And how can you help me?” the detective asked.
“I have a piece of experimental equipment that should be able to help you identify the killer. This Widow,” Storck said.
“A piece of equipment?” the detective asked, “What kind of equipment?”
“It’s a prototype,” Antonia said. “Look, I will be landing in Ottawa in two hours. I will meet you at your station at nine tomorrow morning. We can discuss things then. Sleep well Detective,” she said, before the line went dead.
Hariette stared at her phone for a moment before calling Maxime. She told him to meet her at the station at eight the next morning, and to bring coffee.
* * *
November 12, 2090 - Inclusion Day
Ottawa, Ontario, Empire of Canada
08:30
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Max walked into the office that he shared with Detective Appleton with a quartet of black coffees from Pequad’s. Hariette lifted her head from the desk and looked up.
“Oh, good,” she said, sitting up, “You brought the good stuff.” She smiled and picked one of the warm cups up.
“Of course,” Max said, “It’s not like I would get Tim’s or anything.”
Detective Appleton sat back and drank the black liquid. She pointed at the forty-three file folders. “I pulled them all out,” she sat there, “We have a special...consultant coming in today.”
Max sat down across from her. “A consultant?” he asked.
Hariette nodded, “Antonia Storck. Apparently she thinks she has something that can help us identify the Widow.”
“Really?” Max replied, sipping his own coffee, “That seems...odd.”
“Tell me about it,” Hariette sighed. ”She called me out of the blue last night. She told me she was going to meet me here this morning with the technology.”
“When will she be here?” Max asked, taking a bite of a honey cruller.
The other detective looked at her watch. “In about twenty minutes,” she answered.
Twenty minutes later, Antonia Storck walked into the office with all the flair of a celebrity. Her designer cloak flowed behind her like a cape. Her dark, angled sunglasses covered her eyes as she stopped at the detective’s desk. Her large assistant stopped just behind her.
“Good morning detectives,” she said, “Hopefully, today is a good day for all of us.”
Hariette stood and held out her hand, “Good morning Miss Storck. Welcome to the precinct. How do you think you can help us?” she asked.
“To the point. I like that.” Antonia smiled. She snapped her fingers and her assistant stepped forward with a briefcase. He set it on the desk and then stepped back behind Antonia again. The young woman opened the case and turned it around.
“This,” she said, “It is called iWitness.” She removed one of the two items from the case and handed it to the detective, “Place one on the head of a recently deceased person, and the other on your head. Through secret, patent pending technology, you will get to relive the last 30 minutes or so of the person's life.”
After about an hour of back and forth conversation, Max looked at Hariette, “What’s the worst that could happen?” he asked.
“It doesn’t work.” Detective Appleton said.
Antonia laughed, “It will work. I promise.”
Hariette picked up her phone and called her superior. After a heated yet rather short conversation about the ethics of tampering with a body, she had the permission to perform the strange procedure. The two detectives then led Miss Storck down to the morgue. There, they got access to the forty-third victim.
Antonia attached one headset to the corpse and handed the second one to Hariette. The detective looked at her partner, and sat on one of the examination tables before putting the headset on.
“If it turns your brains into an omelet, I get your desk,” Max laughed.
Hariette laughed and then looked at Storck, “Let’s do this,” she said.
Antonia nodded and turned on the corpse's headset. The body jolted and shook for a moment, before once again laying still. Both Max and Hariette jumped.
Storck laughed. “That is expected as the headset is re-engaging the brain. It’s normal.” She then walked over and turned on Hariette’s headset. The detective’s eyes rolled back into her head and she fell back onto the examination table with a thud.
Everything was black as Hariette synced with the victim. A moment later, her eyes opened, and she was looking at the trees surrounding the Rideau Canal. She could hear the water running just beyond them, and could smell the wet surroundings. She wanted to look around, but found that she could not move. Slowly, she turned her head, and saw a hooded woman standing beside her. The woman looked at her and smiled. She had a very pale, angular face. Her eyes were red, and dark ringed and her hair was either black or brown – couldn't tell in the night.
The woman looked at Hariette and asked how she felt, and if she wanted another hit. She produced a small pouch that had a soft red glow.
Hariette nodded and replied in a man’s voice, saying that a hit would be nice.
The woman opened the packet and poured some of the glowing, red powder onto her thumb. She held it up to Hariette's nose and waited for Hariette to snort it. Once she did, the detective's eyes closed, and then opened again, looking at the dark sky. She heard the woman ask if she was ready for some fun.
She said yes and looked down. The woman was undoing Hariettes belt and pulling the pants down. She smiled at Hariette as she crouched in front of her. A moment later, Hariette was screaming and clutching at her leg. She fell to the ground as blood poured from a slash on her inner thigh.
She was screaming at the woman, calling her all kinds of names and begging for her to help stop the bleeding. The woman stood over Hariette and smiled an inhumanly wide smile. Her teeth had become dagger sharp as she crouched down. Hariette lifted her head, which was swimming with blood loss, and watched as the woman opened her mouth wider than normal and bit down on the wound and a sucking noise followed.
Her head fell back as her vision began to blur. The last thing Hariette saw before blacking out again was the woman standing, wiping blood from her chin and then jumping into the air. A moment later, blackness overtook her and everything went silent.
Her eyes shot open to see Maxime and Antonia standing over her. Max was shaking her shoulders, “Hariette?” he said. “Are you okay?”
The detective nodded, “I’m...I’m good,” she said, sitting up.
Antonia helped her up, “You might want to take a moment. Sometimes the use of the machine causes-”
She was cut off by Detective Appleton throwing up into the small sink beside the table.
“That,” Antonia finished. She carefully removed the headset from the detective, before walking over to the victim.
“I don’t know if I believe what I just saw,” Hariette said, looking at the corpse.
Miss Storck walked back over, handing her a small memory stick, “Believe it detective,” she said. “It worked. This has everything on it that you just watched.”
Max took the memory stick and looked at it before looking back at Antonia. “If we could get another body, one of the previous ones, could we do the same thing?” Antonia shook her head. “No, unfortunately, the longest time that iWitness can be used is twelve hours. After that, there isn’t enough,” she paused, searching for the right word, “activity left in the brain.”
Hariette nodded and then looked at Max. She told him to take it to the tech lab and get the image of the woman from it. She told him to run it for any matches and get back to her. Maxime left the morgue as quickly as he could, as Hariette looked back at Antonia.
“If this works,” the detective said, “we need that tech. Hell, every police service in the world will need that tech.”
Storck laughed, “WHEN this tech works, detective, your organization can buy the tech from Storck Technologies. And so can every other agency.” The woman began to pack the headsets away, wiping them down before putting them back in the case.
“What...side effects are there?” Hariette asked.
Antonia stopped, and put her dark sunglasses back on before turning back to the detective. “I don’t know,” she said matter-of-factly. “You are the first person to actually try iWitness.” She quickly grabbed the case and then left the morgue.
Hariette tried to follow, but her head was disoriented and her balance was off. She leaned against the table holding the corpse, and looked at it. Her eyes welled up as she looked down at the face of the dead man. Her face.
“No,” she whispered, “No, no, no, no, no. I can’t be dead. Not ye-” She stopped as she realized what she was saying. After a moment of composing herself, the detective left the morgue for her office. She had seen and heard everything that happened to that man. She was glad she hadn’t felt anything, assuming that feeling it would have been horrible.
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Hariette was woken up by her desk phone ringing in her ear. She quickly grabbed it and answered groggily. It was the medical examiner and he had told her that the victim, Colton Jones, had died from massive blood loss.
“No shit I died from massive blood loss!” she snapped without thinking.
“Excuse me detective?” the M.E. said incredulously.
“Sorry Mike,” she replied, “It’s been a strange day. I figured he had died from blood loss. His leg was sliced wide open.”
“No detective,” the examiner laughed, “There was no blood left in his system at all.”
She was stunned. The others had been killed the same way, but nothing had said that they had been completely drained. She thanked the examiner and then hung up the phone as Max trundled into the office.
“I have her,” he said, holding up a picture.
Hariette looked at the picture and felt nothing but anger. That was the woman that had killed her. She shook her head. No, that was the woman that killed Colton Jones and forty-two other men.
Max sat at his desk, “Genevieve Devoux. Born in Baie-Saint-Anne in New Brunswick. January first...” Max paused his reading and looked at the other detective.
Hariette raised an eyebrow, “What?” she asked.
He looked at the screen and started clicking on things. “There must be some mistake,” he said.
“What is it?” Hariette asked, standing and walking around the desk. She looked at his screen herself. “Born January first, nineteen hundred?” She paused as the information took hold in her mind. That would mean the Widow was almost one hundred years old. That could not be right. Looking at the picture, she would say the woman wasn’t a day over thirty.
At the bar on the night of her murder, Hariette had assumed that the woman wasn’t older than twenty-five. That’s why she had approached her and asked to buy her a drink. She had standards, and wouldn’t have gone after a grandmother.
Again, she shook her head, pressing her fingers to her temple and closing her eyes. She had no idea what she was thinking. Memories of the victim kept flashing in her head.
“You okay?” Max asked.
She breathed deeply and nodded. “Regardless of typo’s, do we have an address for Miss Devoux?”
Max nodded and showed her.
“Good. Get a team together. I want to bring her in.”
An hour later, the officers and detectives arrived at 3080 Richmond Road in the Bayshore area of Ottawa. An ancient house stood there. It had once been deemed a Heritage site, but that had lapsed long ago. Now it was just an old brick house in disrepair. The windows were covered by white, peeling shutters and the roof was in desperate need of new shingles.
The officers carefully approached the house with their weapons drawn. As Hariette’s foot touched the deck, the front door opened.
A woman stood in the dark doorway. The Widow. The killer of forty-three men. Hariette seethed with anger as she looked at her killer. Colton’s killer. She raised her weapon and aimed at the woman.
“Ottawa Police! Raise your hands and turn around!” she ordered.
The Widow smiled, and then did as she was told. Her eyes flashed red as she turned. Hariette and Max watched as two other officers advanced and cuffed the woman. When they went to bring her out, she resisted.
“My hood,” she said loudly, “I have a skin condition. Please, pull my hood up.”
The officers looked at Hariette who shook her head and waved for them to bring her out. As soon as the woman was brought out into the sunlight, she started to scream. She started to flail around breaking free from the grip of the officers and fell to the ground. Smoke began to rise from her exposed head as she wailed.
Max ran forward and put his jacket over the woman as the whole area began to smell of burning flesh. Hariette watched in awe as the woman’s screams became sobs. Max quickly picked the woman up and took her to the transport van that was on site.
Hariette and the other officers went into the house. The inside was in an equal state of disrepair as the outside. Paint peeled from the walls. Everything was covered in a layer of dust. In the center of the living room was a wooden coffin. It was lined with blankets and pillows and had a hinged top. There was a collection of clothes and glass jars beside the coffin. Of the four jars, three were empty and the fourth had a glowing red powder in it. Similar to the stuff Hariette...no, Colton, had snorted off of the Widow’s thumb on the night of his death.
* * *
Back at the precinct, Genevieve Devoux confessed to all of the murders. She confirmed her date of birth, which her ID verified. When Hariette asked how she could be almost one hundred years old, and not look a day over thirty, the woman laughed.
“Clean living,” she said, “and staying out of the sun.” She curled her lip at the detective as she touched the burn scar that was on her face, “And dark magic,” she added.
Hariette asked her about the red powder that was at the house.
“It’s a special mix of cocaine and other...unnatural ingredients,” Genevieve answered, “It makes people more...pliable.” She laughed and sniffed the air. “I can smell him on you detective,” she said. “Were you related to Colton?” She sat forward, almost as if she were taking over the interrogation.
Hariette stood, looming over the Widow. “No,” she spat. “It is me you murderous...” she stopped herself before she could finish the sentence. Again, it felt like Colton was talking through her.
Genevieve laughed. “What have you done detective?” she asked, licking her lips.
“I have arrested you and am going to put you away for a very long time,” Hariette answered.
Genevieve sat back and laughed again. “You won’t be able to hold me,” she said. “When I am bored, I will simply leave.”
“I hope you try,” the detective said.
“Better people than you have tried to hold me captive in my lifetime. You’re nothing but the next fool in line,” the woman hissed.
Hariette stormed out of the interrogation room, and left the rest of the questioning to Max. She sat in her office with a large bottle of whisky, drinking it straight from the bottle.
She kept hearing Colton in her head. Trying to say things. Trying to use her to do something. She took another swig from the bottle and looked at her reflection in her deactivated computer monitor.
“You are not here,” she said, “You are dead. This is all just side effects from that damned machine.”
She drank herself to sleep at her desk that night.
* * *
March 4, 2091
Ottawa, Ontario, Empire of Canada
16:30
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Maxime and Hariette walked out of the courthouse. They both had smiles on their faces as the doors closed behind them. The “Widow,” Genevieve Devoux, had been sentenced to forty-three life sentences, one for each victim. She did not ask for any reduction in her sentence. She did not ask for any special treatment. The only thing she asked was that she spend her whole sentence in solitary. The judge was more than happy to grant that request. She was sentenced to the Millhaven Institution in Millhaven, Ontario.
When the doctors examined Genevieve, they could not say why she had such a horrible reaction to the sunlight on her skin, but they agreed that it had to be some kind of allergic reaction. She was allowed to wear a dark hood at all times that she was out of her cell.
“We won that one eh?” Max said, smiling.
Hariette nodded, “We sure did.” She thought for a moment and then looked at her partner, “I’m going to pay a visit to the Jones’.”
“Why? They know what happened,” Max asked.
“It’s just something I need to do,” Hariette answered. Her partner nodded and they went their separate ways.
Hariette arrived at the Jones residence in the West End of Ottawa and stepped out of the car. She smiled as she looked at the house. Her home. It would be good to be back inside. To smell her mom’s cooking. See her dad. She leaned against the car and shook her head.
“Not my house,” she said to herself, “Not. My. House.”
The front door creaked open and Mrs. Jones looked out. “Detective Appleton,” she said, stepping out onto the step. “We heard about the sentence. Come in please.”
Hariette smiled and walked up the small steps and into the house. Inside, she met with Colton’s mother, father and girlfriend. She sat with the family in the living room, smiling for many reasons.
“Did you want a coffee?” Mr. Jones asked.
“Sure. That would be great,” she answered with a smile.
“How do you take it?” he asked, stepping into the kitchen.
“One milk, one cream, one brown sugar,” she answered. She didn’t know why she answered that way. She took her coffee black.
“The same as Colton,” the man’s girlfriend said, choking up.
“Yeah, it’s weird but tasty,” Hariette tried to cover. She looked around the room, seeing all the pictures of the family. Her gaze landed on a family photo of Colton and his parents.
“That was a good day,” Mrs. Jones said smiling.
Hariette nodded, “It was warm. And the ducks. Man they were so loud that day.”
Mr. Jones looked at her oddly as he handed her the coffee cup. “You have been to London?” he asked.
Hariette looked up at him. “What? Uh. Yes,” she stammered. “It was a long time ago.”
The man smiled and sat down across from her. “I’m from London. We were there seeing my relatives,” he said, “Colton loved it.”
Hariette nodded. “The music scene is so iconic,” she said, “It's just...the best.”
Colton’s girlfriend caught her breath, “He would say the exact same thing,” she said as a tear began to run down her face.
Hariette put her coffee on the coffee table and leaned over to the young girl. “Jade, honey, its okay,” she pulled the girl into a hug that felt too intimate for the young woman.
“Uh...Detective?” the girl said shakily.
“Shhh, its okay doll, I’m here.” She gently kissed the girl on the cheek.
The girl tried to push the detective away, but wasn’t strong enough.
“DETECTIVE!” Mr. Jones said, stepping over and grabbing the officer. He pulled her off of the young girl and tossed her onto the couch.
Hariette looked around, wide-eyed. She tried to apologize and explain, but only Colton’s words came out of her mouth, pleading for her father to stop this. Pleading with her mother to see that it was Colton. Everyone was either in tears or yelling.
In Hariette’s mind, Colton and her argued for control. In the Jones’ house, a gun had been drawn. Mr. Jones backed away, raising his hands, and pleading with the police officer to put her gun down.
His pleas were met with a loud bang.
Colton evaporated from Hariette’s mind and she was left on the sofa. Her service weapon smoked as a woman screamed. Mr. Jones staggered away from her, covered in blood. He looked down at his shirt and then back at Hariette. Her hand, and the gun fell to the sofa cushion as blackness took over.
––––––––
Antonia Storck removed the headset and shook her head, “Not enough fail safes.” She said. She walked over and removed the other headset from the corpse.
“Okay,” she started, addressing the room of scientists. “We need to build more psychic barriers into the transfer circuits.” She handed the headsets to a technician, who nodded, “We can’t have that much residual bleeding through.”
She walked out of the small chamber, and the room went dark around Detective Hariette Appleton’s corpse, but she could still see. She watched as Antonia walked through the sterile lab and into a large,ornately decorated hallway. The woman stopped in front of a large mirror, and looked at it. She fixed her lipstick.
“Enjoying the ride, detective?” Storck asked her reflection.
Hariette wanted to look around, but couldn’t. She watched as Antonia fixed her hair, and then continued down the hallway.
“Get used to it,” Storck said. “You’re going to be stuck here for a while.”
Hariette tried to scream, but Antonia’s will was more powerful than hers. All she could do was witness everything through the other woman’s eyes.