10

 

Ellie’s mind reeled with a myriad of questions. Was it cancer? Or some other dreadful disease? Maybe there was an abnormality with his DNA? Would that show in a tissue sample?

“Abnormal how?” She finally asked. She stepped into the service elevator with Deveraux and watched him push the button for the basement.

“Dr. Jenkins will be able to explain it better.”

“You must have some thoughts on it.”

Deveraux smiled. “Given the extent of his injuries when he was brought in, personally, I think it’s a miracle he’s alive.”

Of course, a former missionary would think of it as a miracle. But a doctor? “I thought he was dead.”

Deveraux looked at her and smiled again. “A miracle.”

Ellie huffed. “OK, forget the miracles. From a medical viewpoint, what’s your opinion?”

The door opened in front of the morgue and Deveraux held the elevator door for Ellie. The faint sound of fun in the sun and surfing wafted from the morgue. “My opinion is it’s a miracle. Ask another doctor and they may give you medical mumbo-jumbo. Is that what you’re looking for? Medical jargon?”

Whether it was lack of sleep or general frustration, Ellie was beginning to take offense at the good doctor’s attitude. “I’m used to dealing with facts. Cold, hard facts. The fact is the boy was dead or near dead, and now he’s alive, and yes, I’d like someone to tell me how that’s medically possible.”

“The cold, hard fact may be that there is no explanation.” Deveraux keyed in a code and the morgue door swung open. “Surfing USA” blasted from Leon’s CD player at concert-level decibels. Leon was near the office, dancing with a mop.

Ellie and Deveraux were able to scoot through the morgue to the adjoining medical examiner’s office and lab without Leon noticing. At least that was one thing Ellie was thankful for; she didn’t think her back could take another of Leon’s dips.

White light bounced off the stainless steel table and equipment, casting an ominous glow over the room. Ellie wondered if people with near-death experiences could be mistaken about the great white light they often claimed to have seen—maybe it wasn’t Heaven beckoning them as they thought. Perhaps it was just the glowing white lights of an examining room they had seen.

Dr. Doyle Jenkins was elbow-deep in someone’s abdominal cavity and acknowledged Ellie and Deveraux with a nod of his balding head.

Jenkins was about ten years shy of retirement and often as grumpy as Leon was happy. He wore a short, neatly trimmed beard without the complimentary mustache, making his face look as long as a football field.

“Marc, Ellie. Be with you in just a second.” He removed a body part and dropped it on a scale.

Ellie’s nose twitched with the array of smells permeating the room. Everything from chemicals to body fluids mingled in a sickly odor that could send the squeamish hurling their lunch in the nearest trash can. Although the urge was often there, Ellie refused to hurl. She had money riding on it; ten dollars in the office pool said she wouldn’t. There was fifty dollars in the pool that said she would.

Jenkins stepped away from the corpse on the table and removed blood-covered gloves. He motioned for them to follow him over to the desk area. “Your little Johnny Doe is quite the mystery.”

“Dr. Deveraux said there was an abnormality in the tissue sample.”

Jenkins turned a microscope toward Ellie. “Take a peek.”

She peered through the lens and stared at two very different sections. Even her untrained eye could tell there was a noticeable difference in the two samples but she had no clue what the differences meant.

“The one on the left is normal healthy tissue,” Jenkins said. “The one on the right is Johnny Doe’s.”

The healthy tissue was pink, reminding her of fresh salmon; Johnny Doe’s sample looked like the freezer-burnt pork chops she kept pushing to the back of her freezer.

Ellie raised her head and looked at Jenkins. “Hypothermia?”

“Possibly. There’s evidence the intracellular fluids were frozen at some point.”

“But wouldn’t there be evidence of frostbite?”

Jenkins bobbed his head back and forth. “More than likely. But, from all accounts, and from what I’ve been told, the child appears perfectly normal. No injuries, no indications of any trauma.”

“Could this be from an old injury? Maybe an accident that happened prior to this incident?”

Jenkins shook his head. “With this kind of cellular damage, there would definitely be noticeable damage on the outside. Amputations, dead muscles, bone damage. A body part just wouldn’t recover from what appears to be a case of frostbite this severe.”

“But the hypothermia could explain how he was mistakenly pronounced dead, right?” Ellie looked at Deveraux expecting him to start spouting off about miracles again.

“There’re documented cases of near-death severe hypothermic patients making a full recovery, but Johnny Doe wasn’t hypothermic when he was brought in,” Deveraux said. “And, it still doesn’t explain how the injuries disappeared.” He smiled.

As handsome as he was, Marc Deveraux was becoming rather annoying. She turned back to Jenkins. “Was it cold enough Tuesday for someone to suffer hypothermia?”

Jenkins again shook his head. “Not around here. Last night, perhaps. But I believe he was found in the early evening?”

Ellie nodded. “Around five.”

“I’m not a meteorologist, but I don’t think it dropped below freezing until later in the evening.”

It didn’t really matter what the temperature was outside; the kid was found dumped in the alley. Maybe it was freezing where he was before he was dumped? Like in a refrigerated truck delivering seafood. Ellie was going to have to endure Shorty McCorkle’s fish market one more time.

“In the meantime…” Jenkins said. He walked over to the counter and opened a manila folder. Ellie and Deveraux followed. “From everything I can gather—the size and number of teeth, and an X-ray of his wrist—Johnny Doe looks to be around six years old.”

Ellie glanced at Deveraux. If Jenkins was right, then Deveraux was right, too. She was no expert in child development, but like Deveraux had said, most normal six-year-olds could tell you their name and age. If Johnny Doe did know, why wasn’t he telling them? Could a six-year-old be ingenuous enough to purposely conceal his identity? If so, why would he want to? What had happened in this poor kid’s life to make him want to forget who he was?

“Wish I could be more help,” Jenkins said. The sound of his voice jarred Ellie from her thoughts.

“Oh, no, you’ve been a lot of help. I appreciate it.”

Jenkins pulled on another pair of gloves and returned to the bloated corpse while Ellie and Deveraux scooted through the morgue, bypassing Leon. In the elevator, Ellie leaned against the back wall and sighed heavily. “Now what?” she asked as Deveraux punched the button for the fourth floor. The elevator lurched upward, leaving Ellie’s stomach in the basement.

“We get Doctor Mertzer to reevaluate him. Now that we have an approximate physical age, she can better evaluate his cognitive development.”

“Why would a six-year-old not know his name?”

Deveraux shrugged. “There could be a number of reasons. If, in fact, he is six, he falls between the preoperational and concrete operational cognitive development stages so we need to look at both stages.”

Ellie stared at him through the glaze clouding her vision. “And in laymen’s terms, that means…”

“Children between the ages of four and six fall into what’s known as the intuitive phase of preoperational cognitive development; between the ages of six and eleven, they fall into the operational stage, meaning they’re capable of understanding more concrete aspects.”

“That still doesn’t explain why he doesn’t know his name. Or how old he is.”

“No, but there’s a chromosome abnormality that might.”

The elevator stopped and opened. Deveraux escorted Ellie back to his office.

“What type of abnormality?” She sat in the chair facing his desk.

“The Fragile X syndrome. It affects boys more than girls. It’s the most common cause of autism.” He took a seat at his desk and rifled through a stack of phone messages.

“You think he’s autistic?”

Deveraux gnawed on the inside of his lip, his brows lowered, then finally shook his head. “My guess is no. But it could be such a mild case, it’s hard to distinguish by outward observation.”

Ellie’s cell phone rang. She pulled it from the pocket of her jacket and saw her own desk number. She flipped open her phone. “What, Jesse?”

“Thought you’d like to know the uniforms just picked up Reggie Booker. They’re bringing him in now.”

“OK. I’ll be there in a few minutes.” She closed the phone and slipped it back into her pocket. No sooner than she had, it rang again. She jerked it from her pocket and flipped it open. “What?”

“Bye.”

“Bye, Jesse.”

“And by the way, you’re welcome.”

Ellie stuffed the phone into her pocket and smiled at Deveraux. “The office. We’ve actually got a witness to interview.” She stood to leave and gave him a tiny wave.

He nodded. “Good.”

She stuck her head back through the open door. “About this Fragile X thing, you’re going to order the tests?”

Deveraux smiled. “I’ll call you when we get the results.”

 

****

 

Reggie Booker was just a tad smaller than a moose. Ellie would bet one bicep was bigger around than her entire body. She glared at him from the outside of the one-way window in the interview room. He didn’t look very pleased to be there. A cop in uniform stood in the far corner of the room, one hand casually perched on his holster as if he were just resting it there.

“Are we going to play good cop, bad cop?” Ellie asked Jesse. “If we do, I want to be the good cop.”

Jesse laughed. “We’ll see how it plays out.”

As much as it pained her to admit it, she’d have to give Jesse credit for saving her butt on this one. She shuddered at the thought of approaching Booker at the gym, surrounded by the entire herd of moose.

“You ready?” Jesse asked, his hand already on the door.

“Remember, I’m the good cop.” Ellie took a deep breath and nodded, then followed Jesse into the room.

“Reggie, how are you man?” Jesse tossed a folder on the long table then turned a chair around backwards and sat down.

Booker simply glared at him then Ellie. She wanted to scream “I’m the good cop!” but stood frozen near the door.

“I don’t think you’ve ever met Detective Saunders. She’s good people so treat her nice.”

She started to offer him her hand but was scared he’d body-slam her, so she just slightly smiled.

Booker looked at Ellie, his gaze travelling slowly from the top of her head to her feet. Her skin crawled at the invasion.

“Why don’t you have a seat, Mr. Booker. We have a few questions we’d like to ask you.” She was standing a few feet away from him, silently calculating his height. The top of her would probably come up to about his mid-chest. She couldn’t imagine this bulk of a man climbing in and out of a Honda Accord.

“Sit down, Reggie,” Jesse said.

He finally pulled his gaze from Ellie and glared at Jesse. “What do you want, Alvarez?” His voice was bottom-of-the-barrel deep, reminding her of someone using a voice distorter.

“First, I want you to sit down, then I want you to tell me what you were doing in the alley behind Marisol’s on Tuesday.”

Booker rolled his eyes then finally took a seat across from Jesse. “And what are you going to do for me?”

“Possibly keep you from pulling more time for that piece you were carrying.”

Booker studied his manicured cuticles, his face as empty as an uninspired artist’s canvas. He raised his eyes and stared at Jesse then shrugged his massive shoulders. “Charge won’t stick. Improper search.”

Jesse smiled. “You’re a convicted felon. Packing a piece…hmm. Well, if you’re willing to take your chances. Looks like we’re done here.” Jesse stood, scooped up the folder and headed toward the door.

Ellie’s gaze darted back and forth between Jesse and Booker. She hoped Jesse was just playing hardball. She wasn’t about to give up that easily and the thought of doing this interview alone came close to terrifying her.

“Go ahead and book him,” Jesse instructed the uniformed officer.

Ellie was on the verge of panic. Besides the fish delivery guy, Booker was the only lead she had. Granted, it wasn’t a strong one, but it was something. “OK, look, Reggie, we don’t care about the gun—”

“Excuse me?” Jesse said.

“All I care about is whether or not you saw anything in that alley.”

Reggie cut his eyes at Jesse then stared hard at Ellie.

Jesse took Ellie by the arm and tugged her toward the door. “Can I speak with you outside, please?”

Ellie pulled away and moved in front of Booker, safely separated by the table. “All I want to know, Reggie, is if you saw anything. A little boy was nearly beaten to death and left to die in that alley. We know you were in the area Tuesday.”

Booker leaned back in the chair and folded his massive arms across his chest. “I don’t mess with kids. You know that, Alvarez.” He glanced at Jesse then returned his steely gaze to Ellie.

“Yeah, I know. You’re a real honorable guy,” Jesse said, moving beside Ellie. “She didn’t ask you if you put him there. She asked you if you saw anything.” He sat back down and pulled a chair out for Ellie.

She sat down beside him, feeling a little safer. She didn’t know why. Jesse stood only an inch or two taller than she, and on a bloated day, she probably outweighed him by a couple of pounds.

Ellie pulled Johnny Doe’s picture from the folder and slid it across the table to Booker. “This is the child that was found in the alley. Have you ever seen him before?”

To her surprise, Booker actually looked at the picture. “Somebody messed that kid up.”

“Yeah, they did. What do you know about it?” Jesse asked.

Booker slid the picture back to Ellie and shook his head. He picked at his fingernails. “I haven’t ever seen him before.”

Ellie pushed the picture back at him. “We know you were in the area around three. The kid was found around five.”

“I didn’t see anything. Why don’t you find someone who was there around five that you can harass?”

“Harass? Is that what you think we’re doing?” Jesse made a tsk-tsk sound then cut his eyes up at Booker. “Reggie, honestly, do you think we’re harassing you?”

Booker stared at him then went back to picking at his fingernails.

“All we’re asking is if you saw anything out of the ordinary,” Ellie said.

Booker huffed then spread his monstrous hands open wide. “What do you want me to say? Yeah, I saw someone hanging around with a kid under their coat? I’m telling you I didn’t see anything.”

“Why’d you park behind Marisol’s?”

“It’s the only parking lot in the area.”

Jesse busted out laughing, and Booker’s eyes narrowed. Ellie’s throat tightened.

“It’s not like you have to fight for a parking space in that area of town,” Jesse said, the laugh fading into a chuckle. “Most people just park on the street.”

“What were you doing in the area, anyway?” Ellie asked.

“I was being a good citizen and paying my car insurance.” He smiled. A front tooth shined with gold.

“Why not just pull up in front of the building? Makes me think there was a reason you wanted to walk through that alley.” Jesse said.

Booker sighed and leaned back in the chair. He grinned. “Alvarez, you are one funny dude. I didn’t park in front of the building because I didn’t want to run into Kepler.”

Alfred B. Kepler, Attorney at Law. Ellie almost laughed, but the fear of Booker flying over the table and strangling her made her think twice.

“Why were you avoiding Kepler? You owe him money?” Jesse asked.

Booker stuffed his fat tongue in his cheek and gazed around the room. If avoiding Kepler was Booker’s reason for parking in the alley, Ellie figured it was as good as any. “How long were you in the area? Total time,” Ellie asked.

He shrugged then shook his head side to side. “Fifteen, twenty minutes.”

“And you didn’t see anything suspicious around the alley?”

“Nothing. Only thing I saw was that skinny kid that works at the fish market. He was pulling up when I was leaving.”

That matched what Dwayne Andrews had told her. “And you actually walked through the alley on your way to the insurance agency?”

He stared at her a moment as if she were the stupidest broad ever to be birthed. “Naw, I walked all the way ‘round the buildings,” he snipped, his head moving in a sing-song motion.

“The lady asked if you walked through the alley. You can tell her in a nice way that ‘yes’ you walked through the alley, or you can tell her ‘no, ma’am, I did not walk through that alley.’”

He cut laser eyes at Jesse, his lips curled in a bull-dog snarl. “You’re a piece of work, Alvarez.”

Ellie knew for a fact Jesse had been called much worse. “Did you walk through the alley, Reggie?”

“Of course, I walked through the alley. And I’m telling you, I didn’t see any kid.”

Jesse smiled like an excited kid. “Why didn’t you just say that to begin with? That’s all we wanted to know.”

Booker rolled his eyes then smirked. He glared at Jesse. “True what they’re saying on the street about you?”

“I don’t know. What are they saying on the street?”

Booker’s laugh started deep and low then rose in volume and tone like a submarine slowly coming to the surface. “They say you got busted down ‘cause you was sampling the evidence. You ain’t nothing but a two-bit street junkie, Alvarez.”

Although Booker had piqued her curiosity, Ellie was staying clear of this conversation.

Jesse grinned that sly grin of his and slowly shook his head.

Booker snorted. “Can I go now?”

Jesse motioned toward the door. “Go on and get out of here before I remember that gun violation. Officer Thomas will see you out.”

Booker stood, pulling himself inch by inch out of the chair, slowly rising to his full monstrous height. He purposely brushed the back of Ellie’s chair as he passed, his fingers lightly touching her hair, sending a cold shiver tingling up her spine. She waited until she was certain Booker was long gone before letting out a long sigh and dropping her head to the table.

“Now aren’t you glad you didn’t try to interview him at the gym?”

She lifted her head and glared at Jesse. “I think he’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen.”

“He’s just as mean as he is big, too, darling.” He kissed the top of her head, and to her surprise, she didn’t want to knock him silly.

She rose and stretched, arching her back like a cat. “Regardless of how big or mean he is, he didn’t give us anything we can use.”

“Yeah, he did. He gave us a good timeline. If he was in the alley at three, and the kid was found around five, we’ve got a two-hour time frame.”

“But how do we know for sure the kid wasn’t in the alley at three? Booker’s not exactly a reputable witness.”

Jesse shook his head. “He ain’t an upstanding citizen, but he was telling the truth. He doesn’t do kids.”

“But what if it was what I said earlier? A drug deal gone bad, and he snatches the kid for payback.”

“I think you’re barking up the wrong tree, sweetheart. Even if he had snatched a kid, he’s not going to beat him to death. There is some honor among thugs.”

Ellie was so tired, she couldn’t think straight. Fragile X syndrome, Reggie Booker, and trash-filled alleys were beginning to run together. Her mind just couldn’t think any longer about the sicko that would beat a child and leave him for dead. She wanted to think simple thoughts with simple answers like what she was going to have for dinner or why Jesse always turned his chair around backwards like he was the sheriff in some old western movie. She propped her chin in her hand and stared at him. “Why do you turn your chair around backwards?”

“You’re tired, aren’t you?” The corner of his mouth turned upward in a slight smile.

She slowly nodded. “You didn’t answer my question.”

“Self-defense. You can get out of it a whole lot easier, and faster.”

She considered it for a moment then sighed. “That almost makes sense. I just thought it was because you’re so cocky.”

“Well, that too.”