Surgical Precision
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Injecting Faith
Dr. Beckett Campbell Medical Examiner
Book 2
Patrick Logan
Injecting Faith
Prologue
PART I – Death is a Disease
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
PART II – The Lord Healeth…
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
PART III – The Worst Vacation Ever
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Epilogue
END
Author’s Note
Injecting Faith
Prologue
“Come on in and take a seat, please,” the woman said, as she herself took up residence in a comfortable oversized chair. The boy followed suit but kept his head low the entire time, refusing to meet her eyes. He slumped down and crossed his arms over his chest defiantly. “Well, are you going to tell me what happened?”
The boy shook his head.
“Okay, okay, you don’t have to talk about it now, but eventually, you’re going to have to take responsibility for your actions. This is the third time you've acted up this week. And this time, you gave Charlie a black eye. This type of behavior is not acceptable here; you can't attack people unprovoked. You know this.”
The boy huffed, his tiny chest rising and falling dramatically beneath his thin arms.
The woman sighed, took her glasses off, and laid them on her lap. She couldn't believe that a boy this young, only five years of age, could have so much pent-up anger inside him. So much hostility. So much unrequited hatred.
“I know it's tough, I know this isn’t the life that you're used to, and it’s going to take some adjustment. But you can't hit the other kids… and if you don't tell me why you're so upset all the time, I can't help you. And that's what I want to do; I want to help you.”
The boy took another deep breath and then opened his mouth to speak. She thought she might finally be getting to him, but his jaw snapped shut and he just shook his head.
“You have to speak, to use your words. Violence won't—”
The boy suddenly lifted his eyes and glared at her.
“I want to kill him,” he whispered.
The words were said with such fury, that the woman had to clear her throat before speaking.
“Ex-excuse me?”
“I want to kill him,” the boy repeated. “I need to kill him.
The next question should have been ‘why’—all of the woman’s training told her so—but she couldn’t resist asking something else.
“Who? Kill who? Charlie? Do you want to kill Charlie?”
Another violent headshake.
“Then who are you talking about? This behavior—”
“Not Charlie—I want to kill the man who murdered my dad. I want to kill the man with the blond hair and tattoos.”
PART I – Death is a Disease
Chapter 1
“Have you seen A Clockwork Orange, Wayne?” Dr. Beckett Campbell asked as he walked around the chair and turned on the projector. It was only about the size of an external hard drive, and when it flickered to life, it put out just enough light to illuminate the concrete wall.
The muffled reply that followed was completely unintelligible.
Beckett went to his computer next and plugged it into the side of the projector. Then he loaded up a video file and pressed play.
“Well, this is kinda like that.” He rocked his head from side to side. “Okay, you got me; it’s not really like A Clockwork Orange. I mean, you only have a few things in common with that movie. Like those things spreading your eyelids apart… they’re called speculums. They had those in the movie—psst, it’s so you can’t blink. Only, in the movie, they used what’s called a Barraquer speculum. You’re right, you’re right… it doesn’t really matter what it’s called, suffice it to say that they’re actually quite comfortable. Ah, but I’m afraid you weren’t so lucky—I didn’t have any of those fancy doodads handy. So, I fashioned your speculums out of a couple of coat hangers I had lying around.”
Again, more protests from behind the strip of tape covering the man's mouth. Beckett paused as the video booted up and the opening scene played out. It was a beach setting, at first only showing rolling waves and soft sand that looked incredibly warm and inviting, given the cool New York City fall outside. But then a child came into view, a young boy sporting only blue swim trunks and running away from the camera. He was laughing, showing off new front teeth that had barely started to grow in.
“Soon, your eyes are going to get incredibly dry. Trust me, you're going to hate it. You are going to beg for eyedrops, you would do anything for a splash of water on them. I'm not going to give anything to you, of course, but trust me, it's going to feel like your eyes were once plump, juicy grapes and now they’re desiccated prunes. It has to be one of the most uncomfortable sensations imaginable… but I digress. Oh, this is another thing you have in common with A Clockwork Orange; you’re gonna watch a film. Meta, isn't it?”
The man hissed into his tape, but Beckett paid him no heed. On screen, the camera nestled into the sand and a man came into view, chasing his son.
“But the main difference?” Beckett continued. “In that movie, in the book as well, but most people don't read the books anymore—let's be honest, who has time to read books when you’ve got podcasts, Amazon Prime, and Netflix? Nobody, that's who. Anyways, in A Clockwork Orange, the main character—his name is Alex, FYI—is healed in the end.”
Beckett paused for effect and the scene on the projector changed. They were transported to a snowy setting. The little boy was skating, and he was actually pretty good for an eight-year-old. It was apparent, though, when he crashed into a snow bank, that he was still working on his stopping.
“At the end of this movie, however, you won’t be healed, Wayne. You'll be dead.”
The man's muffled cries intensified, and he tried to shift his head from side to side. He actuall
y managed to move a little, despite the strap that was laced across his forehead and tied to the back of the chair. Taking no chances, Beckett quickly moved behind the man's head and tightened it. Then he picked up a scalpel and walked in front of the man. Wayne’s eyes were already on the verge of bulging from his head, but when he saw the shiny blade that Beckett conveniently held in the path of the projector light, they seemed to widen even further. This caused the jagged edges of the makeshift speculums to slice into his bottom eyelids. Bloody tears spilled down the man’s pasty cheeks.
“Ah, isn’t that cute; but don't cry for me, Argentina. Spoiler Alert: you want to know how I know you'll be dead by the end of the movie?”
Wayne huffed against the tape, his cheeks puffing with every breath.
“Yeah, you guessed it; it’s because I'm going to kill you.”
Wayne's breathing became so rapid and his chest heaved so dramatically from beneath his soiled white T-shirt, that Beckett thought he might hyperventilate and go into cardiac arrest.
He better not. He better not fucking die on me.
“What happened to you, Wayne? You were—”
The sound of something dripping surprised Beckett and he immediately looked over at Wayne. Then he started to grin.
A puddle had formed beneath the man’s chair.
“Oh, come on. You pissed yourself? Give me a fucking break, Wayne. Ah, never mind—that's okay. It's okay because I put a plastic sheet beneath your chair. I mean, its main purpose is to collect blood, but piss will do, too. Anyways, as I was saying,” Beckett pointed at the wall with the scalpel before tapping the dull side against his palm. His fingers were tingling so much now that he could barely feel them. “You were such a cute kid, and yet you turned into such a fucking animal. A savage. What happened to you?”
The boy in the video was on a slide, clearly intending on landing on an inflatable swan in the pool below. He overshot his mark and landed in the water instead.
“Such a cute kid… what the fuck happened to you?”
Wayne was trying to speak again, more intent on getting the words out than ever.
Beckett rolled his eyes and grabbed the corner of the tape. He pulled it off with one yank.
“That's—that's—that's n-n-n-not—”
Wayne cried out, but Beckett hushed him.
“To-to-to-day, Junior.”
“That's not me, that’s not me.” Wayne’s words came out in a rush. His voice was high-pitched, and slobber dripped onto his chin.
Beckett made a face.
“Keep watching,” he instructed.
All of a sudden, the grainy footage became clearer as it transitioned from standard definition to high definition.
But Beckett wasn't interested in the quality of the film.
The video showed a first-person view of a forest now. There were dull gray and brown leaves scattered everywhere, and the sound of footsteps could be heard from Beckett’s computer.
“I don't know what—”
“Shh, this is the good part. Or the bad part, depending on how you look at it.”
Wayne fell silent.
In addition to the footsteps, there was also heavy breathing, and the camera bounced up and down with every step. Slowly, an item that was partially buried in the leaves came into focus. It was a maroon backpack with the name Will stitched on it.
“I can explain—”
Beckett held the scalpel out.
“Not another word, Wayne,” he said in a flat tone.
They watched the rest of the video in silence. After the backpack, the video camera zoomed in on a pair of white underwear.
A couple more steps and the naked body of Will Kingston came into the shot. His pale, almost white, buttocks, were sticking out of the leaves, but the top half of his body was buried beneath them. You could see some of his dirty blond hair sticking from between the dried vegetation, but not much else. The camera operator suddenly dropped to a knee. A hand brushed leaves away from the boy’s face, revealing a frozen expression of terror. For a moment, Will’s milky eyes seemed to bore into the camera, and with every second this image remained on screen, the tingling in Beckett's fingertips increased.
Slowly, the camera started to turn, stopping only when Wayne Cravat’s face filled the frame.
He was grinning, revealing a mouth full of crowded teeth.
“No,” Beckett said as he moved in front of Wayne again. “that little boy wasn't you; that was one of your victims. Let’s be honest, there’s no way that something as disgusting as yourself would have been that cute as a child.”
Beckett squatted in front of the chair now.
“It's not what it looks like… I didn’t—I didn’t—”
Beckett reached out and pressed a finger to the man's lips.
“Yech.” Beckett pulled his now slobber-covered finger back and wiped it on Wayne’s jeans. Then he leaned forward and drove the scalpel directly into the man’s fat neck, just below where his jaw made a forty-five-degree turn before heading north.
Chapter 2
“Shit,” Beckett grumbled as he reached for his phone. His hand was covered in blood, and he did his best to wipe most of it off on Wayne’s already soiled T-shirt. It had been ringing off the hook for the past ten minutes, which meant that it could only be one person.
“Hi there,” he said.
“What are you up to tonight?” a female voice asked.
Beckett looked down at Wayne's corpse and the blood that continued to leak out of him. His heart had stopped more than five minutes ago, but the man was so fat that his blood just kept oozing out of the wound on his neck. There was so much blood, in fact, that Beckett was starting to become concerned that the plastic cloth he’d put down wouldn't contain it all, especially considering it was half full of piss.
“Oh, you know, reading textbooks and speaking to colleagues on Reddit about the newest scientific advancements,” he said with a nerdy accent.
“Yeah, right. Seriously, what are you up to tonight?”
Beckett stared at Wayne's eyes that were still pried open by the pieces of coat hanger.
“I'll probably just listen to an episode of Casefile and have a scotch. Nothing special. You?”
“You're turning into an old man, you know that?”
Beckett placed the scalpel that he was still holding in the dish with the other tools and let it soak in the alcohol.
“Guilty as charged. I'm thirty-five years old, but I’ve got the body of an octogenarian. A ripped, ‘roided to the gills, eighty-year-old. What's up, Suzan? You don't call me for small talk. Is this a booty call? Because I feel used. I'm not just a piece of meat, you know.”
“Speaking of meat, I'm tired and hungry from studying. We could do dinner. You know, like normal people.”
Beckett raised an eyebrow.
Normal… I was normal once, wasn’t I?
“Yeah, I don't—”
Beckett heard a chime from high above him.
That's weird, I could've sworn I turned off the TV.
“Too late. I'm bringing over Chinese.”
Now it was Beckett’s eyes that went wide.
“Suzan, I'm—”
Another chime.
“Where the fuck are you, anyway? The food’s getting cold.”
Beckett swallowed hard.
“I'm at the—” office, he meant to say, but Suzan cut him off.
“Your lights are on and I know you’re home. Just come to the damn door. Don’t make me put the food down and get my keys out of my pocket.”
“You're… you're here? At my house?”
“What’s wrong with you? Why do you sound so surprised? You have another woman in there or something?”
No, Beckett thought with a frown. Not a woman, but a corpse… the corpse of a man I just killed.
Chapter 3
Sgt. Henry Yasiv pulled a cigarette out of the pack and brought it to his lips. When he’d picked up smoking again about a year ago, after a five-ye
ar layoff, he’d promised himself that when all the problems with the mayor of New York and the whole heroin drug ring mess were resolved, he'd quit.
Of course, even after everyone involved in the ANGUIS Holdings Corporation was either in prison or dead or had fled the country, Yasiv had told himself that he'd quit after his next case.
His next case just happened to be an Army Captain who had been shot dead at his own charity auction moments before the NYPD, including himself, were to issue a warrant for his arrest.
The man had been shot by an unknown assailant on his daughter’s back lawn. They had no leads, despite the fact that there were over fifty guests at the auction. But, what with the chaos that ensued with the NYPD’s arrival, no one saw anything.
It was a cold case now and was destined to become frozen. Not that he cared. Captain Loomis was involved in distributing carfentanyl-laced heroin throughout the city. It was Yasiv’s opinion that the man got what he’d deserved.
So, he’d promised himself that he would quit smoking when he resolved his next case.
Yasiv inhaled deeply, relishing the sensation of warm smoke as it entered his lungs. Then he tucked his hands deep into his pockets and buried his neck into the collar of his peacoat.
Global warming might be in full effect, but it appeared to have skipped New York City this year. Only fall, it already felt like February.
It didn’t help that he was getting older; that he felt older.
Sgt. Henry Yasiv was a week from his thirtieth birthday, but he felt twice that number. It showed, too. There were new lines framing his eyes and deep grooves around his nose. He’d even become accustomed to finding a gray hair or two, whenever he got around to brushing it.
But this didn’t bother him.
There was a time when Yasiv cared what he looked like, but that was before; before Craig Sloan started staging his murders to look like a suicide. There’d been a time when he’d had a keen interest in insects, but that was before Marcus Slasinsky had put caterpillars in the mouths of his victims. Reading had once been a hobby of his, but that was before Ryanne Elliot had written about her murder victims and published the stories online.