The Case of the Displaced Detective

by Stephanie Osborn

  “His arms have several bruises,” Holmes noted, lifting the sheet and scanning the nude remains.

  “No more so than normal for a farmer, Mr. Holmes,” Merriwether shrugged. “I’ve taken note of them for my report, of course, but I don’t see anything unusual there.”

  “You’re right, Dr. Merriwether,” Skye observed, “he does have very nasty burns. May I ask if anyone knows what on earth he was doing in short sleeves in the middle of winter, outside?”

  “Well, he wasn’t found in short sleeves,” Merriwether admitted. “He was found in a woollen sweater and a barn jacket.”

  “There was a little warm snap in this region, a few days before he died,” Ryker explained. “Not much of one—around three or four degrees Celsius—but it’s why they don’t have any snow around here anymore. Warmish air drifting in across the Channel. I have it to understand from neighbours that McFarlane occasionally ignored the matter of a coat, if he expected to be outside only a short time.”

  “Another indication of a healthy circulatory system,” Holmes observed.

  “Exactly,” Merriwether agreed.

  “Still, these burns are odd,” Skye pointed out. “Especially to come in the middle of winter. You just don’t expect that, unless you’re in high mountains with a lot of snow, and even then it takes longer than ‘a short time.’”

  “Decidedly so,” Merriwether nodded agreement.

  “Do you make anything of it, Skye?” Holmes wondered without looking up, himself examining the facial orifices of the cadaver with his lens.

  “I don’t know yet, Sherlock,” she murmured, studying the burned skin of the body in some detail. “I think…” Skye broke off abruptly, lifting the left hand of the corpse with some difficulty, due to the rigor. She bent, putting her face close to the dead hand, and her brows drew together. Holmes’ head shot up, and he glanced across the examination table at his mate.

  “You have something?”

  “Maybe,” she muttered, staring intently. “Can I see that lens a second?” She put out a hand without ever breaking her concentration or her gaze.

  “Certainly.” Holmes placed the optical instrument directly into her hand, and watched as his wife scrutinized the dead man’s wrist and hand with it.

  “Hm,” she whispered to herself. “That’s interesting…” Skye pursed her lips and stared into space for several moments, then put down the dead hand and spun to face the medical examiner. “He was wearing something on this wrist.”

  “Yes, that’s right,” Merriwether confirmed. “A bracelet.”

  “Do you still have it?”

  “Yes, it’ll be in the container of the personal effects found on the body,” Merriwether vouched.

  Holmes glanced at his wife, then added smoothly for her, “May we see the effects?”

  “Just a moment and I’ll get them,” Merriwether agreed promptly. “The two of you, please, continue your examination. I’m most interested in hearing your findings.”

  Merriwether scurried off, and Ryker moved close as the two Holmeses resumed their scrutiny.

  “You’ve got something,” the operative noted softly.

  “Maybe,” Skye murmured under her breath. “I’ll know when I see that bracelet.”

  “Now I know how Watson felt when I withheld my ideas until confirmation,” Holmes chuckled. “Obviously Skye has benefit of knowledge which I have not, and I may safely conclude it is knowledge scientific in nature, and discovered more recently than my own time.”

  “Bingo on both counts,” Skye grinned. “But you may have read about it, just the same.”

  “In that case, enlighten me, my dear,” Holmes murmured.

  “Look at this,” Skye held up McFarlane’s wrist. “You can plainly see the outline of the bracelet, where he was burned around it. See the white swath across his wrist and the back of his hand?”

  “Indeed,” Holmes nodded, accepting the lens Skye offered and examining the outline of the burn shadow. “As one would expect of a sunburn.”

  “Yeah, but something about it looks funny, too,” Ryker noted, leaning over Skye’s shoulder. “It looks all wrong, somehow.”

  “Exactly,” Skye agreed. “For one thing, there’s no body hair there.”

  “You’re right!” Ryker exclaimed, surprised. “It’s all gone. Almost everywhere on the burned area, looks like.”

  Holmes straightened up, narrowed grey eyes staring at his spouse. Abruptly he turned toward the cadaver’s head. Grabbing a small tuft of hair in his fingers, he tugged gently. The lock of hair slid fairly readily out of the scalp.

  “Intriguing,” he muttered, brows furrowing.

  “Yeah, Sherlock.” Skye nodded her approval, smiling slightly. “You’ve got it figured. Now…pay attention to the intensity of the burn.”

  Holmes used the lens to thoroughly inspect the wrist area of the cadaver, then moved to the shirtsleeve area, and finally returned to the wrist.

  “Aha. The intensity is irregular—it varies substantially around the perimeter of this bracelet, and only this bracelet. And that is NOT to be expected of a sunburn. Look, Ryker—here is a blister, nearly ulcerated, it is so severe. But over here, the burn is so faint the outline of the bracelet becomes blurred and uncertain. Yet right next to it is another ulcerated blister.” He gestured to various small features on the dead man’s wrist while Ryker peered through the lens at the indicated areas.

  “Exactly,” Skye said with satisfaction. “And that’s why I’m interested in seeing that bracelet. If my suspicion is correct, it’s either magnetic, or has a magnetic clasp.”

  “Well, now how did you know that?” Merriwether said in puzzlement, coming up behind them with a box. “Here’s McFarlane’s effects, and…” he opened the box and reached inside, “here’s his bracelet. It’s one of those supposed arthritis things, with lots of copper and magnets and stuff.” He offered the object to the female scientist.

  Skye took it from him and turned back to the body. Unclasping the bracelet—which did indeed have a magnetic closure, as well as several magnetic beads spaced evenly along its length—she wrapped it carefully around the wrist of the dead man, then began adjusting it to match the burn shadow.

  “There,” she noted with satisfaction after several minutes of delicately positioning the piece of jewelry. “Look.”

  Holmes bent close with the lens.

  “Interesting. Very well done, my dear Skye.”

  “Well, look at that,” Ryker said in some surprise. “The burns are stronger in between the beads. Do you suppose the shiny surfaces somehow focused the light?”

  “It was focused, but not by the facets on the beads,” Skye said grimly. “And it wasn’t light that created these burns.”

  “What do you mean?” Merriwether wondered.

  “The magnets in the bracelet focused charged particles onto McFarlane’s skin,” Skye explained. “These are radiation burns.”

  Chapter 5—Curiouser and Curiouser

  SKYE DISCUSSED THE MATTER WITH THE three men for some time thereafter, declaring the burns were likely beta burns, as the evidence was strong that the radiation involved was more penetrating than alpha particles. And yet, as Skye noted, McFarlane’s clothing protected most of his body, so it could not have been gamma radiation.

  “Still and all,” she pointed out, “he got a hefty dose, whatever the type. Dr. Merriwether, if I were you, I’d check the lab for residual radiation. If he had particulates on him, the body—and we—could potentially be contaminated.”

  “Oh dear,” Merriwether sighed, concerned. “And here I thought I’d not have to worry with that anymore, what with the bases shut down and all. We’d mothballed all that equipment…”

  Ryker held up a finger, fishing out his cell phone. Hitting a speed dial on the instrument, he put it to his ear. “Huggins? Grab a Geiger and get over here five minutes ago. Have the decon team standing by, just in case. Yeah, coroner’s lab, the lab staff, the Holmeses, and me.” He hung up.
“We’ll know in about ten minutes.”

  Huggins was as good as Ryker’s word. He showed up on his own within ten minutes in protective garb, a small daypack across his shoulder. “Decon team’s snatching up their gear,” he informed Ryker. “They’ll be ready to go as soon as you call—IF you call.”

  Huggins swung the pack off his shoulder and extracted a Geiger-Müller counter. Switching it on, he first used the built-in source to calibrate, then swept the tube through the air to get a background reading.

  “Hm, that’s a good sign; it’s pretty much in normal limits. Now let’s check you lot out.” Huggins aimed the tube at Ryker first, scanning him closely from crown to toe, including the soles of his shoes; then at Skye and Sherlock, and finally at the coroner. “You lot are clear,” he declared. “Tell me what I should centre on. I’m betting this bloke here?” he waved a hand at the cadaver on the exam table.

  “You have a good head on your shoulders, Huggins,” Holmes’ eyes glinted, pleased. “You observe, you do not merely see; moreover, you deduce from what you observe. That ‘bloke’ is exactly what you should centre upon.” Huggins flushed, pleased at the compliment from the great detective.

  “Dr. Merriwether, the dead man’s clothes should be checked, too,” Skye murmured to the coroner.

  “That’s in the locker in the next room,” he answered, turning toward the door.

  “Leave it where it is,” Huggins said, busy sweeping the dead body. “If it’s contaminated, best not to handle it any more than you can help.”

  “Right,” Merriwether agreed, subsiding.

  They watched as Huggins checked the corpse closely. Finally he raised his head, glanced at Ryker, and shook his head.

  “Stiff’s clear. Let’s check the clothes, and then I can nose around the lab a bit. But I’d say, if the body’s clean and the clothes are, too, the lab’s got nothing to worry about.”

  “Agreed,” Skye noted.

  * * *

  As it turned out, there was no sign of radioactive material anywhere on McFarlane’s effects.

  “And that means he was exposed to a strong source, but didn’t necessarily tromp through that source,” Skye reasoned.

  “True,” Merriwether nodded. “I can’t say as I’ve ever encountered such before, but I did have some training in the matter, especially back in the day, when Bentwaters and Woodbridge were active. On account of the strategic bombers and the nukes, you know.” He paused, and an uncomfortable expression crossed his face. “Now I don’t know what to think.”

  “What do you mean, doctor?” Holmes asked.

  “Well, the RAF bases are closed and essentially abandoned, for all intents and purposes. And this man died as a result of being frightened into some sort of fit at the same time other people were reporting an unidentified air or spacecraft in the vicinity.” The coroner looked at Holmes, and his face was deadly serious. “It’s like your namesake was fond of saying, Mr. Holmes. ‘When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truth.’” He shook his head again. “The radiation had to come from somewhere. Alien propulsion system, maybe? And how the hell do I put all this into a report?”

  “You stick to the facts, doctor, and do not theorise,” Holmes said calmly. “You have not yet ascertained the actual cause of death, in any case. And please allow me to point out: There are other powers in the world, powers that utilise nuclear energy. It is not necessary to invoke powers from beyond—yet.”

  * * *

  Ryker stayed to ascertain that the medical examiner’s laboratory had not been contaminated, but the Holmeses drove to their little cottage. There, they silently prepared and ate dinner together in the kitchen, deep in thought over the discovery, though not so much so that they failed to notice the new fax machine in the study. Finally Holmes broke the quiet.

  “That was an impressive piece of detective work today, my dear. From the time you began to formulate your theory until you validated your conclusions. Beautifully done. I really must congratulate you—I do not think I myself could have done better.”

  “Well, it’s my background as a physicist,” Skye pointed out, blushing with pride at his praise. “It automatically makes me think of things like that, especially when you tie together an unidentified flying object with a dead man having some sort of burns. Radiation instantly pops to the top of my mind.”

  “I can see where it might. Still, the methodical fashion in which you set out to confirm your theory was deliciously systematic. And so have you seen beta burns before? I had not, save some rather poor black and white plates in that first textbook you allowed me to peruse—from those, I should not have told the difference in a beta burn from an ordinary sunburn, I fear, saving the irregularities in intensity around the bracelet. I would lay odds you went in specifically looking for such.”

  “And you’d be right,” she confirmed. “Yeah, I’ve seen beta burns before. They have certain characteristics, like ulcerations for bad burns, but you have to really know what to look for. If he hadn’t been wearing something magnetic, or maybe an electronic wristwatch, or something of that nature, it might have been hard to determine it from any other type of burn. I was banking he’d have something on him that would affect a charged particle, and cause the sort of effect we saw. And the hair loss was really telling.”

  “It was. As soon as I realised where your thoughts were headed, I knew it was significant.”

  “Yeah, that clinched it, in my mind. But…” Skye paused as they sat down to eat, and Holmes saw her eyes defocus. He silenced, letting the scientist gather her thoughts. Holmes had been often accused of arrogance and egotism, but he was not, nor ever had been, averse to consulting experts in fields in which he knew he had the lesser knowledge; and he was well aware his own wife was considered brilliant in her field.

  “Yes, Skye?” he urged gently after several moments had passed. “You have arrived at an additional conclusion, based on your knowledge?”

  “I think so,” she answered slowly, letting her fork play in her food as she stared into space. “I think…Sherlock, unless he encountered that UFO before the night he died, he couldn’t have gotten the burns from the UFO, I don’t believe. I don’t see how, anyway. We’ll need to verify this with Dr. Merriwether, but I don’t think the burns, the blisters, and the hair loss would have developed the way they did, if McFarlane had died almost immediately as he was receiving the radiation dose. It takes longer than a few seconds for a radiation burn to show up.”

  “How long?”

  “Oh,” Skye pursed her lips, “a good twenty-four hours or so. Unless the dose is hyperacute. Which doesn’t appear to have been the case.”

  “And after a day or two, skin is dead and should not respond at all, let alone the subcutaneous capillaries, plasma, and blood cells, which stagnated, settled, and died shortly after heart death,” Holmes pondered thoughtfully.

  “Right. And heart death is, essentially, what killed him. So the circulatory system and the brain are the first things to go.”

  “Which means the reddened skin, with its blisters and lesions, would not have developed.”

  “Bingo. But in fact they were plain and distinct.”

  “Hm,” Holmes’ eyebrows rose. “Now that is intriguing information.”

  “Ain’t it, though?” Skye said curiously.

  * * *

  The next day, Holmes went in search of McFarlane’s neighbor, Jonathan Carver. He found the Carver residence more or less where Dr. Victor had directed, and as the detective clambered out of his rental car, surveying his surroundings in detail, he found himself surrounded by yapping, curious English Springer Spaniel puppies. Delighted, Holmes immediately crouched down, holding out his gloved hand to allow the small animals to scent him properly before scruffing several furry heads. One puppy promptly launched itself into his arms, and Holmes laughed.

  “There’s the boy!” he said affectionately, permitting a single lick of his face before pulling back
and gathering the puppy into his arms. “Aren’t you the friendly little fellow!”

  “They are that, sir, and that one in particular, though Oy don’t know as Oy’ve ever seen him take to a stranger so fast,” a man said as he strode around the corner of the house. “C’n I help you?”

  The man stood somewhat below average height, though sturdily built. He had a broad, weather-beaten face, with evidence of a cheerful countenance in the many smile lines on his face. His brown eyes were clear and honest, and his bare head was surmounted with a shock of dark brown hair, liberally flecked with grey. Holmes estimated the man was between ten and fifteen years his senior, probably closer to the latter. Holmes stood, the puppy still in his arms.

  “Are you Mr. Jonathan Carver?” he asked politely.

  “That Oy am, sir.”

  “Then you can most certainly help me,” Holmes replied, offering Carver a smile as the puppy tried to lick his face once more. “You can start by telling me the name of this young lad.” He waved the puppy at Carver with a laugh.

  “That? Oh, him’s Brendan,” Carver chuckled. “Named after the Irish Saint Brendan—the Navigator, ya know—always explorin’. My grandmother’s fam’ly was Irish, y’ see, an’ it seemed a fitting name. Into everything, Brendan is. The missus is about outdone with ‘im, half the time. But he’s a friendly one, too, so it’s hard to stay mad at ‘im long. ‘E’s gonna have a fine nose on him, when he grows up. He’s papered, good sire an’ bitch, an’ him the pick o’ the litter. You lookin’ for a good dog, sir? You won’t find a better. And he appears t’ have chosen ye.”

  “Well, I had not been,” Holmes admitted reluctantly, petting the pup fondly. “Nor should I even consider the matter, as my home is in America now. No, I came here in hopes of speaking with you about a delicate matter. My name is Holmes…”

  “Ah, Oy been expectin’ ye,” Carver nodded knowingly. “You’re the bloke what’s investigatin’ James’ death. Figured you to be comin’ around here sooner or later.”