by Bill Bernico
“So we are getting involved,” Matt said.
“No, we’re still not,” I said. “I’ll turn over what we know to Eric and let the department look into it.”
I left Matt’s computer and returned to my desk, picking up the phone and dialing a number I knew from memory.
“You calling Eric?” Matt said.
“Andy,” I said, ignoring Matt’s question. “I think we may have something for you on those three heart attack deaths. Would you mind if I came to see you?”
“Come on down,” Andy said. “I’m still going over victim number three. You know where to find me.”
I hung up and turned to Matt. “Suppose you and I go have a talk with Andy Reynolds.”
“What’s the medical examiner got to do with this?” Matt said.
“Andy may have signed off on heart attack as the cause of death with these last three victims,” I explained, “But I have a feel that once he knows what else to look for, he may have a change of heart, so to speak. Come on, let’s go.”
Andy Reynolds’ office as well as the county morgue was in part of the same building that housed the twelfth precinct. Just a short walk down the hall from the morgue was where Lieutenant Anderson had his office. It was a handy arrangement for both parties. We got there in twenty minutes. Andy was still looming over victim number three, Lester Bowman. He looked up when he saw me coming.
“Elliott,” Andy said. “What brings you two down here?” He looked past me at Matt. He narrowed his eyes. “Are you sure you want to expose Matt to all this?”
“He’ll have to learn sometime,” I said. “Now’s as good a time as any. Besides, I have something I’d like to run by you and get your take on it.”
“Sure,” Andy said. “Give me what you got.”
I paraphrased the article that I’d recently read on the possibility of being scared to death. “Do you think it’s possible that any or all of these last three victims could have been intentionally scared to death? I mean, is it even possible to be literally scared to death?”
“Absolutely,” Andy said. “No question about it.”
“Really?” Matt said. “How does that happen?”
“And if you wouldn’t mind, Andy,” I said. “Could you explain it in terms that laymen like us can understand?”
Andy paused momentarily to collect his thoughts. “The body has a natural protective mechanism called the fight-or-flight response. The involuntary nervous system responds by increasing the heart rate, increasing blood flow to the muscles, dilating the pupils, and slowing digestion, among other things. All of this increases the chances of succeeding in a fight or running away from danger. This process certainly would be of help to primitive humans, but the problem, of course, is that in the modern world there is a very limited advantage of the fight-or-flight response. There is a downside to revving up your nervous system like this.”
Andy had our undivided attention now, especially Matt’s. He looked at Andy and asked, “How can the fight-or-flight response lead to someone’s death?”
Andy continued with his explanation. “The involuntary nervous system uses adrenaline, which is a neurotransmitter or chemical messenger, to send signals to various parts of the body to activate the fight-or-flight response. Adrenaline is toxic in large amounts. It damages the internal organs such as the heart, lungs, liver and the kidneys. It is believed that almost all sudden deaths are caused by damage to the heart. There is almost no other organ that would fail so fast as to cause sudden death. Kidney failure, liver failure, those things don’t kill you suddenly. They’d take much longer.”
“And that’s what kills you?” Matt said.
Andy went on. “If a person’s system is overwhelmed with adrenaline, their heart can go into abnormal rhythms that are not compatible with life. If one of those is triggered, you will drop dead in a matter of seconds.”
“That’s it, Dad,” Matt said turning to me. “That’s what those three victims all had in common.”
Andy’s eyes narrowed. “You saying that maybe there was a link between all three victims?”
“Think about it,” I said. “Who benefits from the death of the three heart attack victims? Who has the most to gain from it?”
Andy waved me off. “That sounds like something you should be talking to Eric about. That’s his territory. I don’t get to see these people until after something happens to them.”
“I’ll go see Eric,” I said, “But I first wanted to know if you could conduct a few additional tests to see if it was even a possibility. I’m not sure what you’d check for, but there must be traces of something to point us in that direction.”
“If that’s the case,” Andy said, “There are a few other things I can look for, like excess adrenalin in the heart. I can call you in, let’s say, a couple of hours, after I run some more tests.”
“Perfect,” I said. “I’ll hold off talking to Eric until I hear what you have to say. Thanks, Andy.”
For the first time since we entered this room, Matt finally glanced over at the body of Lester Bowman lying on the slab, his chest splayed open from the Y incision. Matt quickly turned away and walked toward the outer door.
“Maybe he’s not quite ready for this level,” I told Andy and followed Matt out to the parking lot.
I laid a hand on Matt’s shoulder. “You all right?” I said. “Was that your first dead body?”
Matt tried to fluff it off. “Naw, I’ve seen plenty of…” His words trailed off as his fingers went to his mouth and he staved off an upheaval. “Yeah, that was my first.”
“Let’s get back to the office and just wait for Andy’s call,” I told Matt and walked him back to our car. When we got back out building, Matt made an excuse to use the men’s room on the first floor.
“We’ve got a perfectly good bathroom in our office,” I reminded him.
“You go ahead,” Matt said. “This can’t wait. I really have to go.”
I didn’t press the issue and got on the elevator and hit the button for the third floor. I suspected Matt just want to be far enough away from my prying ears when he upchucked his lunch. By the time he came back into the office I was on the phone with Gloria. I couldn’t wait to share our findings with my wife and former partner. I was sure she’d have some input.
“Is that right?” Gloria said. “You’re thinking all three of the victims might have been scared to death?”
“We’ll know more once Andy calls me with his findings,” I said.
“Elliott,” Gloria said. “I know you’re not much of a reader at all, but I am.”
“Wait just a minute there, madam,” I said defensively. “I may not physically read books, but I do listen to the audio versions—a lot.”
“I know that,” Gloria said. “But your tastes tend to lean toward contemporary writers. I’m talking about works by the old masters, like Dickens, Poe, Twain and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.”
“Sherlock Holmes?” I said.
“Precisely,” Gloria said. “Have you even listened to any of his books on tape yet?”
“Well, I, uh, no. Why do you ask?”
“Because Sir Arthur wrote a story called “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” Gloria explained. “Have you ever heard of it?”
“I’ve heard of it,” I said. “I’ve never actually listened to it. Why?”
“In this mystery,” Gloria explained, “Sherlock Holmes investigates the case of a man who had a heart attack seemingly caused by fear of a ghostly dog haunting the area. The man, Charles Baskerville, was particularly susceptible to the stress of the deadly dog because of his heart condition.”
“I take it Chuck died,” I said.
“Chuck?”
“Charles Baskerville,” I explained. “You know, Chuck. So this isn’t a new phenomenon.”
“It’s apparently been around forever,” Gloria said.
“Well, Matt and I are going to run all this by Eric once we hear what Andy has to say.”
“Good luck with that,” Gloria said. “I really have to run now. I have two loaves of homemade bread in the oven. I’ll see you both tonight.”
I hung up and turned to see Matt walking in. “You all right?” I said.
“Sure,” he said. “Why shouldn’t I be?”
“No reason,” I said and quickly changed the subject. “As you probably guessed, that was your mother on the phone.”
“I gathered as much,” Matt said. “What was all that talk about Sherlock Holmes?”
“You could hear that from out in the hall?”
Matt nodded. “You’re a loud talker, Dad.”
“Anyway,” I said. Your mother was just telling me about some old Sherlock Holmes story that had a similar theme to what Eric’s looking into. I guess some guy way back when got scared to death by a vicious dog.”
“Bummer,” Matt said. “I was surfing the web a little more and found out something interesting on the subject.”
“Care to share your findings?” I said.
“Do you remember the earthquake we had here over in the Northridge area?”
“Sure,” I said. “That was a big one. It really rattled the timbers at home. You should have seen the look on your Grandpa Clay’s face that day.”
“Well, I looked it up,” Matt explained. “They had twenty-four sudden deaths that day.”
“Sudden deaths?” I asked. “You mean like where someone got squashed beneath their house?”
Matt shook his head. “No I mean a natural death that occurs unexpectedly in someone who wasn’t typically susceptible. On any other given day, there are maybe five sudden deaths in the Los Angeles area. That day there were almost five times as many. Those twenty-four people were literally scared to death.”
“Interesting,” I said. “Go on with your research.”
“While the average age of the people that died that day was fairly high—sixty-eight years—only forty-two percent of those people had previously exhibited symptoms of heart disease. It went on to say that the jolt of adrenaline acts on the heart almost like a large amount of cocaine would—it completely shuts the heart down.”
“You know,” I said, “Now that you mention it, I do remember reading that the former Enron CEO, Kenneth Lay could have died as a result of his fear of going to prison.”
“Can’t feel sorry for that knucklehead,” Matt said. “He had that one coming…and then some.”
The time Matt and I spent talking about this new found interest in sudden death had flown by and before we realized it, we had spent more than two hours on the subject. Our conversation was cut short by the ringing of the phone on my desk.
“Cooper Investigations, Elliott speaking.”
“Elliott, it’s Andy.”
“Yes, Andy, what’d you find out?”
“You certainly called that one,” Andy admitted. “I ran toxicology tests on all three victims’ blood and came up with almost identical findings in each case. They all had high levels of adrenaline in their hearts. They also displayed almost all of the other symptoms of being scared to death. Listen, Elliott, I’m going to have to share these findings with Lieutenant Anderson. I could hold off for a few minutes, in the event you’d like to be there when I do.”
“We’re on our way,” I said and hung up.
“Let’s go, Matt,” I said. “Back to the twelfth once more.”
“To see Andy again?”
“No,” I explained. “He’s bringing his findings to Eric and asked if we wanted to get in on it.”
Matt let out a deep breath, relieved not be going back into the morgue. We drove back to the parking lot behind the twelfth precinct and made our way down the hall to Eric’s office. Andy was just coming down the hall toward us as we entered the building. The three of us entered Eric’s office shortly after Andy knocked.
Eric looked up, surprised to see all three of us standing there. “Come in, come in,” he said, gesturing to the three chairs against the wall. “Pull up some chairs and let’s see what you have to say.”
Andy handed over three file folders, pointing out the similarities to Eric. He explained what he and I had talked about and how it prompted him to go back and look at the records a second time. When he finished looking at the last folder, he closed it and turned to Andy. “Good work, Dr. Reynolds.”
“Don’t thank me,” Andy said. “Elliott brought it to my attention.”
Eric looked my way but I held up one hand. “And I have to defer to my son on this one. He brought it to my attention. He found a few articles on the web about being scared to death and that made me wonder. The two of us took our suspicions to Andy and what you’re holding there is the result.”
Eric turned to Matt. “Thank you, Matt,” he said.
Matt shrugged. “Just part of my job,” he said modestly. “But I do have a couple of questions for you, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Eric said. “You seem to be on a roll. Run with it. What do you have?”
“Well,” Matt began, “If it turns out the three deaths are related will you be able to pursue a murder case against the person or persons responsible?”
“Good question,” Eric said. “And all this talk about people being scared to death just brought another old case to mind. A few years ago, now that I think of it, we had a man who was charged with the first-degree murder of a seventy-nine year-old woman who the prosecutor said was scared to death by the suspect. The guy’s name was Larry something or other. I don’t recall his last name. Anyway, a couple of my men were in pursuit of this Larry guy shortly after he robbed a bank and fled. He broke into and hid out in the home of this old lady I mentioned earlier. His defense lawyer said that Larry didn’t touch the old woman but that she died after suffering a heart attack. The prosecution’s expert witness told the court that the heart attack was triggered by the terror this lowlife had inflicted on her when he broke into her house.”
“Can he be held responsible for the woman’s death?” Matt genuinely wanted to know.
“Prosecutors said that he could,” Eric explained. “And under the state’s so-called felony murder rule, which allows someone to be charged with murder if he causes another person’s death while committing or fleeing from a felony crime such as robbery, he can be charged with murder even if it’s unintentional.”
“And?” I said.
“And Larry doing life without parole in San Quentin,” Eric said. ‘So, getting back to our other three cases, and based on what Andy just laid out in front of me, I’d say we have to start taking a serious look into Willy Logan and that animal he keeps with him, Sammy Solo.”
Matt smiled and I caught it out of the corner of my eye. “When Eric says ‘we’ he means him and his men, not us.”
The smile dropped of Matt’s face.
“Might I suggest something?” I said.
“Go ahead,” Eric said.
“Why not start with the first victim?” I said. “Max Brewster. It shouldn’t take much digging to find out what he was most afraid of. Once you find out his fears, some of the other clues may make a little more sense in the correct context.”
“Works for me,” Eric said. “You still want to stay out of this one?”
“Yes I do,” I said and quickly amended that to, “Yes, we do. I’m still not comfortable with looking into anything that involves Logan and/or Solo. Regular legwork, sure, but this case, no thanks. You guys will have to run with this one.”
“But you wouldn’t mind if I picked your brain from time to time on this one, would you, Elliott?” Eric said. “I mean after our background checks on the victims I might just want to run some of what we find past both of you and see if it sparks any thoughts.”
“I’d do that much,” I agreed. “Sure, call any time.”
Matt and I got up to leave. Andy followed us out of Eric office. The three of us walked back down the hall, Andy headed right at the corner and returned to the morgue while Matt and I turned left toward the parking lot. I
got behind the wheel and Matt slid in next to me. Before I started the car Matt said, “I never did ask you, and you never did say, but isn’t there something that you’re deadly afraid of?”
I had to think for a moment but came up empty. “Can’t think of anything right off the top of my head,” I said. “What about you? What gives you goose bumps or raises your heart rate?” I could detect the slightest hint of a smile and added,” Besides that.”
“Besides what?” Matt said and then realized that I could read his mind at that instant. “Oh, yeah. No, that wouldn’t scare me to death. Let me see, I’m not crazy about standing in front of a charging elephant.”
“Seriously, Matt,” I said.
“Seriously,” Matt responded. “I saw something on the animal channel a while back about some guy studying elephants in Africa. One of them tore through the underbrush and charged the guy. I guess he couldn’t get out of the way fast enough, or just froze in his tracks.”
“Is he all right?”
“Flat as a pancake,” Matt said and then thought some more. “But I guess I don’t have to worry too much about that happening here in Hollywood. In reality, I’d have to say I’d probably freak out if I was caught in the middle of a stampeding crowd of people and couldn’t move. I’d be deathly afraid of being trampled or crushed against a fence or some other structure.”
“Like at the Who concert years ago,” I said.
“What?”
“Who.”
“Who are you talking about?”
“That’s right.”
Matt’s face looked puzzled and he didn’t have a comeback. I decided to let him off the hook. “Back in the late seventies a rock band called The Who was doing a concert somewhere in one of the central states, I think it was Indiana or Ohio. Doesn’t matter. Anyway, the concert was sold out, with almost twenty thousand tickets being sold. However, fewer than four thousand of those tickets were for reserved seats. The other fifteen thousand plus tickets were designated as general admission, or festival seating.”
“You’re pulling my leg, aren’t you?” Matt said. “There really was a band called The Who?”