Chapter 15
Tom Ferris pinched the bridge of his nose, taking a deep breath and trying not to fall asleep. The stack of files from the Berrington deaths sat in a teetering pile in front of him, dull and dry as case files often are. Grace sat at her desk across from his, poring over the stack she’d grabbed and feverishly writing notes. She’d been at it for over an hour, and she’d gone through almost the entire stack while Ferris was still perusing the first file folder. He had the photos spread out, recreating the scene in as much detail as he could, but he was frustrated.
“Are you almost done with the photos?” Grace said. “That’s all I lack.”
“I see that. I’ve never seen anyone read that fast.”
“My brother and I used to challenge each other to see who could read faster.” She smiled, a single dimple showing up when she did. “I like to win.”
“You’re a nerd.”
“Thanks. Do you know what I thought was weird?”
“What?”
“On the tox screen, the ppm for carbon monoxide was only 800.”
“In English, please?” he said.
Unperturbed, she pushed off from her desk, rolling across the empty space between them, file in hand.
“It works like this. In order for someone to die from carbon monoxide poisoning, they typically have to have a certain concentration of it in their bloodstream. It binds to the hemoglobin and forms carboxyhemoglobin.”
“I’m going to need you to explain it to me like I’m five.”
“You know, that’s my favorite sub-Reddit,” she quipped, then moved on before he could comment. “Okay, so basically the amount of carbon monoxide in their blood was enough to cause convulsions.”
“Can’t convulsions lead to death?”
“Yes, but in this case, that’s only an eight percent saturation. A saturation of at least ten percent is usually found in those who die.”
“They were older.”
“Right. Which would have affected Mrs. Berrington first because she was smaller. And it would have happened to her within forty-five minutes of being exposed to the carbon monoxide.”
“I’m following so far,” he said. “If Sophie Berrington had started convulsing while her husband was still alive, he would have woken up and tried to help her. They still had a landline phone, and there was a phone next to the bed. He would have been able to at least dial 911 before he was overcome, and they would have been found quickly.”
“Yes!” Grace said, excited. “And their bedsheets would have been disturbed. But, if you look at the pictures,” she grabbed a picture off his desk, “you see that they are both very peacefully laid out in bed. There’s not a wrinkle anywhere that suggests convulsions or that they even moved once they were in bed.”
“Okay. So, what would it take for them to die so fast that they wouldn’t struggle?”
“Now that’s the question. At eight times that, they would have taken up to twenty minutes to die. So, there’s still potential for movement. But for the Berringtons to die in a few breaths, and under three minutes with little to no pain, they would’ve had to have a saturation sixteen times the amount that showed on the tox screen. So, 12,800 parts per million.”
“Which isn’t possible.”
“It is not possible. And there’s one more thing that is really bothering me.”
“What’s that?”
“The culprit is listed as a dirty chimney. But there isn’t a single picture of the chimney.”’
“The cause was determined long after.”
“But there isn’t a fireplace in any of the pictures of the bedroom and surrounding areas.”
“I remember it. It was in the main family room.”
“Which was clear on the other side of the house, right?”
“You’re onto something.”
“I don’t think Jake Berrington was being paranoid at all. The Berringtons were murdered.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But a toxin that we don’t routinely screen for would be my guess. There are so many new drugs on the market every year.”
“What are the chances we can test them if we exhume the bodies?”
Grace went through the papers, then shook her head.
“Zero.”
“Why?”
“They were cremated.”
“Who authorized that?” Ferris asked, cursing under his breath.
“It looks like they were autopsied, then sent to the funeral home for cremation. And then there’s this.”
She pulled a single sheet of paper out of the stack and handed it to Ferris.
“A notice of formal complaint by Jake Berrington for the mishandling of decedents.”
“And the explanation. Doctor B let her assistant handle this after she determined it an accidental death, and somehow, the assistant got the order mixed up. He sent it to the wrong funeral home with instructions for cremation. Doctor B didn’t catch it in time. Or, if she did, she didn’t realize it was a problem. She was pretty swamped for the holidays.”
“Of all the times for something to be mishandled.”
“Their case was deemed an accident. There wasn’t much to handle, and mistakes happen every day.”
“Mistakes do happen, but this is also my fault.”
“How?”
“Jake told me almost immediately that he had suspicions, and I wrote him off. I brought it up to Doctor B, but Patricia told me it was a quick and peaceful death, and there was no foul play. I should have pushed her to look into it further.”
“People don’t want to believe that their family members die accidentally. Especially around the holidays. It’s not really out of the ordinary for loved ones to insist there was foul play in these situations. With the information that y’all had, it’s no wonder you immediately went with accident. If we investigated every likely suicide, accidental death, and natural cause like a homicide, we would never get to the real murders.”
“But Jake wasn’t some hysterical family member. I felt for him, and his story was believable to an extent.”
“Truth is often stranger than fiction.”
“I know.” Tom looked at the picture of the Berringtons and let out a heavy sigh. “I should have investigated his claims, but they were a little too outlandish.”
“So, let’s investigate them now.”
“I’m not sure where to start.”
“Have you tried calling Berrington?”
“Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
Tom took out his cell, looking through the numbers until he found the one that had called his cell phone several times a week.
“I think it’s this one,” he said. “He called me daily for almost a week before he gave up on me.”
He dialed, then pulled out his pen when someone finally answered.
“Hey, yo! New phone, who dis?”
“This is Detective Tom Ferris with the Dallas PD-”
“Look man, I didn’t steal this phone. It was on the DART, and it had a note on it about free to a good home and all that, you dig? They even wiped all their info off it.”
“Are you saying that it was factory reset?”
“Yah. Like that. Just a new phone with nothing, sitting there all alone. I didn’t see no sense in wasting a perfectly good phone. It was like fate.”
“When did you pick up the phone?”
“Last night.”
“Did you turn your own service on?”
“No,” the man said flatly. “It was already working.”
“Did you happen to see who left the phone behind?”
“Nah, man. It was just there.”
“Thanks for your help,” Tom said, hanging up the phone.
“Nothing?”
“Well, Jake Berrington is definitely feeling paranoid. He wiped his phone and ditched it on the DART. Some guy picked it up last night. I’d be willing to bet it was left long before nightfall.”
“That’s no help. I guess you’re not going to tell the guy that he stole a phone that might bring him more attention than he bargained for?”
“Nope. I believe in natural consequences.”
Grace laughed.
“Well, I guess that was another dead end,” she said.
“It’s not really a dead end. I think we can glean from Berrington’s behavior that there must be some sort of connection if Berrington was paranoid right away.”
“Maybe he was afraid we were going to track him with his phone.”
“We don’t need to track him. Putting his picture on the news is so much more efficient. As heavily populated as this area is, knowing what square mile he’s in is as helpful as knowing he’s in Dallas. Not at all helpful.”
“So, what are you thinking?”
“I think we’re right about Jake being the intended target. And he knows his life is in danger. He ditched the phone because he is worried about being tracked, but not by us. He’s not worried about us at all. Have we found his car yet?”
“No.”
“I’m sure he ditched it.”
“Does he have any friends who he would go to when he’s in trouble?”
“None that wouldn’t turn him in.”
“So, we’re back to square one?”
“We are, which means we really only have one option. We’re going to investigate this murder as if we don’t have a suspect, and we’re going to build a profile from there.”
“Sounds good. Is Doctor B putting a rush on the examination?”
“No, but Sheriff Collier did. That’s why everyone was so antsy waiting for us to finish this morning. But Doctor B isn’t on call this weekend, so Derek Addison will be doing the preliminary exam.”
“Is he any good?”
“No idea, but we’re about to find out.”
He gathered up the files, throwing his jacket over his arm so he could carry the cardboard file box with two hands.
“Why are we taking that?” Grace asked, following him out the door and to the unmarked car they shared.
“I want to look it over when I get home, and I don’t want to come back here.”
“Gotcha,” she said.
She got into the driver’s seat and waited for Tom to put the files in the trunk and get in the car. They rode in silence to the Dallas County Medical Examiner’s office on Stemmons Freeway.
“I hate service roads,” Grace finally said. “I can see the office right there, but I have to go down the road another half a mile to make a U-turn under I-35. It’s really inconvenient.”
She was still muttering about it under her breath when she pulled into the parking lot and killed the engine. She followed Tom inside, winding through the halls to one of the autopsy rooms and waiting for Addison to buzz them in.
“I just finished cataloging his wounds and cleaning him up,” Addison said without greeting.
Tom smirked, but Addison didn’t notice. The young man was exceptionally bright, but he completely lacked social skills. There were rumors that Addison had become a Medical Examiner because his bedside manner had made it impossible for him to relate to living patients. Much to Grace’s surprise, Addison had no problem admitting that everyone was probably right.
“What did you notice about the wounds?” Grace asked, taking the lead.
“He has a lot of stab wounds, which you knew, but that’s not the interesting thing. The wounds are all very precise. Whoever killed them knew exactly where they were aiming.”
“Then why so many wounds?” Grace asked.
“The victim was wearing a heavy canvas jacket. It slowed the blade down a little bit, and the first stab was deflected enough that the victim was able to run when it should have taken him down. That, coupled with his all black attire, the darkness, and the lack of street lighting on that road made it a little more work to kill this man.”
“So, you don’t think it was rage or passion?”
Addison snorted.
“Not even close. All the wounds are in clusters. If there was any emotion involved, it was frustration. These stab wounds are precise; he should have been dead by the third stab wound, but it didn’t happen the way it should have. Whoever did this knew exactly what they were doing. There’s no anger, no hesitation and no remorse. Just cold calculation and variables that the killer couldn’t have anticipated and had no control over.”
“What about the height of the killer?” Tom asked.
“Under six feet. I haven’t had a chance to probe the wounds and load them into the computer simulation yet, but I would bet a month’s salary that he’s five feet eight to ten.”
“Thank you,” Tom said.
They left Addison to finish, getting into the car and sitting in the parking lot for a moment.
“What do you think the chances are that Addison is the killer?” Grace said as she turned on the engine.
“That would be too easy, but he described himself to a t; cold, calculating, and short.”
“He’s starting to grow on me,” Grace said.
“Me too,” Tom laughed. “It’s lunch time, and we have twenty minutes to kill before we have to head over to Love Field to pick up Agent Reeves.”
“Where do you want to go?”
“There’s a Whataburger down the street.”
Grace laughed.
“Why did I even have to ask?”