ch. 4

She stood on the peak of an immense, snow covered mountain, a sharp, cutting wind wept over the crags of rocks, whipping though her hair. Spanning across the horizon before her, the range of mountains continued forever, lined in perfectly straight rows, extending to the brightness of the setting sun. Finally, after what seemed unending turmoil, she had found peace.
High above her head a supernal bird was soaring, even more unfettered in its winged flight. Its distant cry was faint but piercing. Seemingly suspending on invisible strings, it began to drift towards her. The shriek of its call grew louder and she suddenly missed the quiet and as the bird drew closer, its voice grew louder. It had lost its serene, echoing melody and took on a more disturbing ring, sounding almost mechanical. Finally it swept by her head and a note fluttered from its beak. As the slip of paper settled into the palm of her outstretched hand, the bird let out an ear rending clang!
Jerked awake, Elaine rolled over in a confused daze. The bird… the note… the phone was ringing.
Stupid dreams.
“Detective Knowles speaking.”
“Wakey, wakey Knowles. Breakfast is ready,” cooed a purring man voice over the phone. Elaine eyed the crimson numbers blaring 3:14 AM on her bed stand.
“Real cute Stan, I hope you die.”
“Easy now pancake, I just might burn your toast on purpose and that just tastes awful, not to mention the smell.”
“You’re hilarious Stan, a real comedian. What gives?”
“Remember that single car accident on the 10 with ah…interesting circumstances?”
Elaine’s brain flew to full consciousness, “Yeah? Did we find any more information on him?”
“Nope, not that I know of anyway, but I guess you could ask him if you want.”
“No more jokes Officer Leary.”
“No joke Detective Knowles. He’s awake.” Impossible.
“Bull. He was a vegetable six hours ago, insides so busted up he had more wires coming out of him than the dash of your crappy little hot rod.”
“That’s the last straw; your toast is…toast.”
“Lieutenant!” there was a pause on the line.
“Well, the doctors current explanation is thus: he fixed himself.”
“What!?”
“Meet you there in twenty?”
Elaine slammed the phone down. He fixed himself? She was baffled beyond words and the case, curious already, became that much more interesting.
That the man had come out of the wreck in one piece at all was an amazing fact of itself. His vehicle, a suped up classic, had been traveling at a speed over two hundred miles per hour when he lost control. The force of impact had broken nearly all his ribs, puncturing his lungs and nearly severing an artery. Several discs in his spine have literally been pulverized. The trauma to his neck from the whiplash alone was enough to completely cripple the man. His high backed racing seat had saved his neck from being completely severed, but it had done nothing for his brain. The surgeons had stopped the bleeding with a new method of cauterizing, designed to stimulate the brain into an accelerated repair process. The surgery wasn’t mainstream yet, and still in the experimental stages, this particular one approved by the state. Some strings had been pulled in high up places to get the go ahead, but when it was given, the doctors were ecstatic. The main reason that this blatant manipulation of bureaucracy did not grate on Elaine’s nerves was the total lack of identification on the victim. Not only had the man been devoid of any proof of identity, but his car had been stripped of all the serial numbers. Every single piece of the car, down to the frame, was an assemblage of stolen parts.
When they ran his prints, Elaine actually laughed out loud. They found him in the system, but the specifics of his record was sealed because his offense was committed when hi was a minor. Because he had managed to stay clean until an adult, the Police Department needed Federal approval to open and view his file. Given the circumstances, she had no doubt it would be granted. When she reviewed the information they did have, she could not help but chuckle again. She had never seen someone so bland on paper.
Name: John (Johnny) Doe
Age: 24
Height: 6’0 ft
Weight: 195 pounds
Hair: Brown
Eyes: Hazel
Parents: Deceased
Siblings: Uknwn.
Distinguishing marks: Uknwn.
The head surgeon at the hospital had leaped at the opportunity to try the new cauterizing technique. After a long procedure, a CAT scan revealed that the desired stimulation had bee affected, but the man’s brain remained in a dormant state. The operation had been a success but to no avail, John Doe remained comatose, had remained comatose, but now he was awake and apparently talking. Elaine rolled over and stumbled around for he clothes. He fixed himself?
* * *
The glare of the fluorescent lights was especially harsh after the muted tones of the muggy Texas night. Detective Elaine Knowles’ slender five foot, four inch frame did nothing to reveal the sharp mind, tenacious will and intense focus contained therein. Despite the fact that she had been rudely awakened, she still managed to glide down the hallway with a natural grace, her pretty face better suited to in front of a camera cover than behind a badge and gun. Her hair was kept at shoulder length, but seemed to glow, as her face did, with health and exuberance. That’s why Detective Stan Leary was pretending not to stare, the latest victim in the department’s cycle of falling for Elaine. She of course wasn’t fazed or even aware of the effect she had on the station and nearly everyone she met. For beautiful people, attention is taken for granted. Stan was also a beautiful person, but he noticed when attention was diverted from him. When he transferred from San Diego, he noticed immediately that Elaine was the department “heart throb.” He of course was unaffected and vowed to stay that way. His vow stayed valiantly unbroken until he was assigned to her task force. Gossip ran rampant, predicting a sly, but well known affair to begin. Long hours of work and soap operas all combined into the wildest of possible scenarios. Stan’s natural flamboyant and assuming personality only encouraged the speculation, but as usual, Detective Knowles was too focused and busy to care. Stan was still pretending not to stare, a clip board the object of his most meticulous scrutiny.
“Did you find Waldo?” Elaine queried as she approached Stan.
“Huh?”
“That’s the only thing that I can think of that could so fully captivate your attention.”
“You’re mean when you lose beauty sleep.”
Elaine’s eyes narrowed, “Do you like your head where it is?” she snapped.
“I wouldn’t mind seeing it on a few Calvin Klein bill boards,” Stan quipped.
“Listen, you little smart a...”
“I’m rubber; you’re glue, bounces off of…”
“Oh shut up, Officer. Where the…”
“Third floor.”
They headed for the elevator. An innocent bystander would most likely misinterpret their encounter as immature and very unprofessional, but they had developed the routine the first day they were assigned together. An opening salvo of sarcasm and petty insults helped relieve the tension that had been immediately apparent, and they each could settle into a normal working relationship.
Elaine’s mind was still racing, searching desperately for an explanation. She racked her brain for some kind of medical precedent. She’d heard storied of miraculous recoveries in the face of impossible odds, but they were simply that, stories.
Stan still wasn’t staring.
The halls were empty and still, interrupted only by the hum of the machinery and squeak of their shoes on the linoleum. A young, but very stern looking doctor stood at the nurse’s station. His arms were crossed in such a way that he need only glance down at his watch to check the time, which he did as the two officers approached.
Already strained, the situation would have become comical if both Stan and the doctor’s simultaneous thoughts had been voiced.
That’s the prick I talked to on the phone.
Elaine spoke first, sensing the potentially explosive and entirely self defeating comments on each man’s tongue, “Where is the patient?”
The doctor jerked a thumb over his shoulder toward the waiting room behind him, keeping what he considered a cold eye on Stan, “Watching television.”
“You let him out of his room?”
“What did you expect me to do? Physically restrain him?”
Stan was quick to intervene, though with a different effect entirely from Elaine’s, “Hell yes Doc! You should’ve taped him to his bedpan.”
The doctor’s eyes narrowed. “Forget it!” Elaine said, walking around the doctor. Stan followed closely behind, using the opportunity of passing the doctor to roughly brush the doctor’s shoulder with his own. The doctor took a deep, calming breath before turning to follow, determined to be the better man. The three walked in to find Johnny sitting on the sofa in his hospital gown watching a report on the business done on Wall Street the day before. Johnny heard them coming but was too engrossed to recognize their presence.
His shoulders didn’t seem that broad when he was in the hospital bed, thought Elaine.
Stan thought, How did he get a tan like that this time of year?
The doctor was pretending not to stare at Elaine.
“Checking your holdings?” asked Stan.
“Never could understand this stuff,” Johnny replied absently, not bothering to answer the cop’s snide remark. “I used to think Dow Jones was the vice president or somethin’.” Johnny turned and grinned, “And don’t tell me Nasdaq don’t sound like a terrorist.”
Elaine was stunned. This is the healthiest looking person I’ve ever seen, she thought. His longish hair had a slight wave and a shine that would make a woman envious. His jaw line was not the type to get him a modeling job, but his chin was. He had fine cheekbones and smooth looking skin, but by far his most defining characteristic was his eyes. They seemed to shift from striking blue to a mischievous green. At first glance they appeared soft like a child’s, but as he continued to speak they looked colder and more calculating. With each sweep of his gaze, he seemed to grow more relaxed and confident as he gathered information, which was exactly opposite of what Elaine wanted him to feel. Johnny continued on in his easy listening southern drawl.
“But then, some things never do make sense.” He cocked his head to the side in a curiously bird like motion and studied Elaine, his eyes an almost glowing green. “Things like why a pretty little thing like you could be a cop.” Stan bristled. Johnny noticed.
Elaine simply took it in stride, “I have to agree that something’s do not make sense. Let’s make a deal. I’ll explain why a ‘pretty little thing’ like me is a police officer if you explain why you were flying down the highway at two hundred miles an hour in a car with no serial numbers and without scrap of I.D on you.”
The smile remained on Johnny’s face but left his eyes, settling instead into a cutting blue, “What’s the fastest you’ve ever gone in a car miss?” Elaine’s eyes narrowed and took on a threatening hue of their own as she replied, “One hundred and thirty eight miles an hour.”
Johnny chuckled, “Then it don’t matter how I explain it, it’ll never make sense to you. People tell me the thrill of being in a jet at takeoff, but they’re not drivin’ the plane. They tell me about a train in Japan that’s the fastest in the world, but they haven’t driven the train. I read about the first man to break the sound barrier and Chuck was a hellcat, but bad as he was, he didn’t build the plane he was sitting in. You probably thought a hundred and thirty was fast…well sister, compared to runnin’ at two hundred and thirty in a car you built with your own hands, there aint a thing faster in the world at that moment.” Johnny could tell that Stan got it, but Elaine just rolled her eyes.
“That does not explain the lack of identification kiddo.”
“Goin’ that fast, I’m lucky to still have my clothes. Where are those by the way?”
“No more jokes. We’re prepared to press charges and …”
“What charges?” Johnny queried with a twinkle in his eye, again a troubling green. Elaine’s eyes were not twinkling, but shooting daggers, “Speeding, exhibition of speed, reckless endangerment, driving without a license, insurance or registration. Basically, Mr. Doe, anything we want.”
Johnny extended his arms in front of him, wrists up, “All very expensive tickets, I’m sure. If you can come up with anything worth locking me up for right here and now, show any kind of evidence or citation, I’ll go straight to lockdown from here, pleasant as a lamb.”
The doctor looked incredulously on as the two officers stood with their hands on their hips, Elaine’s jaw tensed, Stan’s chin jutted out but neither had a response.
He shook his head and headed out of the room, “I’ll go get your clothes Mr. Doe.”