A Striking Similarity

by Kevin Hopkins

  ‘Are you okay?’ Grant asked. The man tried to get back up but couldn’t. ‘How ‘bout you just have a seat on the grass there, okay?’

  The man sat as he was told, but he was still swaying a lot. ‘Hit her.’

  ‘Who hit her?’ Grant asked, getting out his notebook.

  ‘Big man!’ the man said, then leaned forward and threw up, covering Grant’s left shoe.

  ‘Jeez, what the?!’ Grant tried, unsuccessfully, to jump out of the way. The drunk swayed a couple more times and tipped over onto his side, passed out. ‘Great,’ Grant said to himself, reaching into the car for his radio. ‘Dispatch, this is Constable Grant. I need an ambulance. I have a passed out individual, very drunk.’ He opened the trunk of his car to see if he had a towel to clean off his shoe and pant leg.

  * * *

  By the time Grant got to the medical examiner’s office, Penner was already there.

  ‘You’re late,’ Penner said to him as he entered the autopsy room.

  ‘Sorry, something came up,’ Grant said, grabbing a mask off the shelf and moving to the side of the table next to Penner.

  ‘And you smell awful!’ Penner stepped back suddenly.

  ‘Yeah, I kind of had a bit of a run-in with a drunk after you left,’ Grant explained. ‘I tried to clean up the best I could.’

  ‘Do me a favour and don’t stand quite so close. Even with the mask, you reek,’ Penner said, pinching her mask a bit tighter on her nose.

  ‘I guess that’s the nice thing about doing this job for twenty years—I don’t notice anything.’ Faye walked into the room. Elaine Jackson’s body was already on the table, positioned so that she was laying on her stomach. The hair on the back of her head had been shaved off. ‘With our initial exam, we didn’t find any other foreign hairs, so the one you got at the scene seems like it’s the only one.’

  ‘Good to know, I’ll get it dropped off later at FIS,’ Penner said.

  ‘FIS?’ asked Grant.

  ‘Forensic Identification Section,’ Penner explained, watching Grant write in his notebook.

  ‘Hope it’s in the system, at least it would give us someone to look at,’ Grant said, watching Faye pull the electron microscope down, positioning it over the head wound.

  All three of them looked at the screen on the wall. ‘Looks really similar to the other woman’s wound. Andrew, can you bring up the pictures of Mrs. Wong’s wound and do a split screen, please?’

  Faye’s assistant went to the computer, clicked the mouse a couple of times, typed something on the keyboard, and a second image appeared on the screen. ‘New one’s on the bottom,’ Andrew said.

  ‘Great. So, Sue, I think this was taken after you guys left. I don’t think I had shaved her head when you were still here,’ Faye said, walking closer to the screen.

  ‘No, we must have left before then. We definitely couldn’t see it this clearly before,’ Penner said, moving closer as well. Grant did the same, making sure to keep his distance from Penner.

  ‘Other than the variation in skin tone, it could be the same picture,’ Grant said. The two wounds were almost identical.

  ‘There is a striking similarity,’ Faye said. ‘No pun intended. I need to take measurements and all but I would almost bet they were done with the same weapon.’

  ‘That’s really not what I wanted to hear, Faye!’ Penner said, returning to stand beside the body—it smelled marginally better than Grant. ‘Faye, what are these marks here?’

  Faye moved back to the table and looked at two little marks that Penner was pointing to—one on the victim’s neck, and one at the top of her left shoulder. They weren’t very big, just small red marks. ‘You know, they almost look like little puncture wounds.’ She grabbed the microscope and moved it over one of the two marks, bringing a new image up on the screen. ‘Interesting.’

  ‘What do you think they are?’ Grant asked, leaning in to have a look.

  ‘Well, I’d say they’re from the barbed probes of an electronic weapon,’ Faye said.

  ‘What, like a Taser?’ Penner asked.

  ‘Looks like it. I definitely don’t think her death was an accident,’ Faye said. ‘Anyone for another coffee?’

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  After the autopsy was finished, at least the part that Faye wanted them there for, Penner and Grant walked out of the room together.

  ‘So, my patrol buddies didn’t turn up anything on their walkabout. No one seemed to see anything,’ Grant said.

  ‘Not surprising,’ said Penner. ‘Even if someone did see something, they aren’t likely to talk in the streets in the middle of the night. Hopefully someone will get in touch. So, care to tell me why you stink so bad?’

  ‘Well, when I was on my way here, a drunk guy knocked on my window. At first he wasn’t making much sense, but then he said he knew that some big guy hurt a pretty lady in a red dress,’ Grant said.

  ‘Really,’ Penner said, pushing the button at the elevator. ‘Do you think he was talking about Mrs. Wong?’

  ‘That was my original thought, but I don’t know. That’s all he said before he passed out. Well, before he threw up all over me and then passed out.’

  ‘Nice. I don’t miss working beat at all,’ Penner said as the elevator arrived. ‘So, where is he now?’

  ‘At the hospital. I called an ambulance for him—he passed out pretty hard,’ Grant said as the elevator doors closed. ‘So, should we go see him?’

  ‘If he was that drunk when you were talking with him, he won’t be any use to us right now,’ Penner said. ‘Give the hospital a call and ask them to get in touch with us when he’s sobered up. Then, we’ll go see him. In the meantime, see if there was a shin-dig on tonight where dress uniforms were in order. And let’s find out if there’s any kind of connection between our latest victim and Dave from Mrs. Wong’s office. It’s a long shot, but who knows. Stranger things have happened.’

  ‘Sounds good, ma-am,’ Grant said as the elevator doors opened.

  ‘I almost forgot. Can you run this down to the FIS lab?’ Penner asked, pulling the evidence bag with the hair in it out of her pocket. ‘Ask them if they can put a rush on the DNA test. Don’t know how long it will take, but the quicker the better. We’ll notify the next of kin in the morning. Let’s touch base around ten o’clock or so?’ Penner said, checking her watch and realizing how few hours were left in the night. Without waiting for Grant to respond, she walked off to get her car.

  * * *

  Penner checked her watch again when she got to her office. It was late, or early, and even with all the coffee she’d had during the day, she was exhausted. ‘Thirty minutes and then I’ll head home,’ she thought to herself. If she didn’t set herself time limits, it was way too easy for her to never leave the office. She had learned that lesson the hard way years ago when she had collapsed at the scene of a crime and needed to be hospitalized for three days. Her partner at the time had reminded her that she was no use to the victims if she was incapacitated. Or worse.

  She logged onto her computer, figuring she would find the name of the registrar at city hall, save some time and just leave him or her a voice mail. She saw she had an email—it was from Arden Wall, the reporter. ‘Crap,’ she thought.

  ‘Good evening Detective Penner. I was wondering if you would like to make a comment about the serial killer you are currently investigating. If you could give me a call with some information, it would be greatly appreciated. We will be running the story on the evening news, so I have to submit my report by three in the afternoon. I would like to interview you for the story. This is going to be the lead for the night—serial killers are big news. Give me a call. Arden.’

  ‘Little prick!’ Penner said out loud. ‘So he did hear. Crap.’ She picked up the phone. She had to stop this story from running, but she knew Arden. He wasn’t a big fan of co-operating when he could break a story. He had been known to release information that the police wanted to keep quiet, because it was the type of thing o
nly the perp would know, but he didn’t care. The big story was more important than catching the criminal. She dialed Arden’s number. The phone went to voice mail. ‘Arden. It’s Detective Penner. I just got your message. I’m not sure what you mean by serial killer. There is no evidence that our two crimes are related. I don’t think you want to be reporting fake news, so you should be careful how you word your story. If you want, get in touch with our public relations officer. He would be more than happy to do an interview with you.’ She hung up. ‘Guess I have to warn the Captain what’s going on. And let PR know they’re probably going to get a call from the news guys.’

  * * *

  After dropping the hair off with forensics, Grant was too keyed up to go right to bed, so he went to the lab and logged onto the computer. At this time of the night, he had the whole place to himself. ‘Right,’ he thought. ‘First, let’s see if we can find any connection between Dave and our new victim.’ He did a Google search with their two names. As with most Internet searches, there were thousands of results returned. ‘Great,’ he thought as he started clicking on the pages to scan through them. After looking at the first twenty or so, there was nothing of interest. Seemed like the pages had ‘Dave’ and ‘Elaine’ somewhere in the text, or one of the two last names, but they weren’t the right people. Dead end. He decided to search Elaine’s name with Karen Wong. He figured there was a chance the two victims were related to each other in some way. Again, way too many pages were returned. He looked at the first couple of search results, but same thing, right names, wrong people. He decided to narrow the search a bit and put ‘Ottawa’ into the search string. ‘Well, this is interesting,’ he thought, looking at the first page that was returned. He read through the page, and was surprised at what he was reading. He printed two copies of the page. ‘Detective Penner is going to want to see this.’ He logged off and grabbed the print-outs.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  After a restless attempt at sleeping for a few hours, Penner decided she might as well go back to the office. She took a quick shower, pulled her hair up into a loose bun and looked in the mirror. Aside from the dark circles under her eyes, she didn’t think she looked too bad. She finished dressing and grabbed a muffin and banana on her way out the door. Typically, she’d make a travel coffee for the drive, but there was something she needed to do this morning, and there was no time to waste. Well, almost no time. The walk to the Captain’s office just happened to pass the precinct’s kitchenette. ‘First things, first,’ she thought as she poured herself a coffee before going to see the Captain. She knocked on his door.

  ‘Come in,’ the Captain called out. ‘Morning, Detective,’ he said, as Penner entered the office.

  ‘Morning, sir,’ Penner said, closing the door behind her. ‘Sir, we may have a slight problem.’

  ‘Oh?’ The Captain put down his pen and took off his reading glasses. ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Well, last night I was at the scene of the latest murder,’ Penner started.

  ‘I heard we had another one,’ the Captain said. ‘Find anything?’

  ‘We did find a hair on the body that may be something. We’re not really sure. Constable Grant brought it to get it tested last night, so we’ll see,’ Penner said. She let out a sigh. ‘But, unfortunately, Arden Wall, the reporter, seems to have overheard me say the words serial killer.’ Penner looked down, ashamed and worried about how the Captain was going to react.

  ‘Really. So, is there a serial killer?’ the Captain asked.

  ‘We don’t really know yet, sir, but it’s kind of looking that way,’ Penner said, looking up again. ‘Both bodies have a similar looking wound, both seem to have been dumped in a similar manner. But it’s too early to say for sure. Unfortunately, Arden doesn’t seem to think so. He sent me an email last night that the lead story on the evening news is going to be that Ottawa has a serial killer on the loose.’

  ‘That little weasel,’ the Captain said. ‘Right, leave it to me. I’ll get in touch with his station, try to convince them not to run the story. I don’t mind if he says there was a second murder, but that’s it.’

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Penner said, relieved.

  ‘No problem, Detective,’ the Captain said. ‘Just try and be aware of who might be listening from now on, okay?’

  ‘Yes, sir. Will do, sir,’ Penner said, heading towards the door. ‘Oh, and Captain?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘I just wanted to let you know that I’ve been working with one of the patrol officers, Constable Grant. He’s been doing a really good job, hard worker. Just wanted to let you know, and perhaps you could mention it to his Sergeant. I know I’ve been keeping him busy.’

  ‘Grant, eh. No problem,’ the Captain said. ‘Keep me up to date on the cases, and, if they are related, let’s hope we don’t get anymore. Get these solved, Detective.’ He put his glasses back on, a sign the meeting was over.

  ‘We are doing our best, sir,’ Penner said, closing the door behind her on her way out. ‘That went better than I thought it would,’ she thought, walking back to her office. She felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and pulled it out.

  ‘Hello?’ Penner didn’t recognize the phone number, so she answered hesitantly.

  ‘Detective Penner? This is Mark from the Registrar’s Office just returning your call.’

  Before she had left the office the night before, Penner had left a voice mail at City Hall. ‘Oh, hi. Thanks for getting back to me. I have a bit of a strange question for you, and hopefully you can help me out. I’m just looking to find out if any police officers were registered to have a wedding yesterday.’

  ‘Unfortunately, Detective, we can’t give out private information like that. You should know that.’

  ‘I know, but I don’t need anyone’s name right now, I just want to know if there’s a way for you to know if an officer got married.’ Penner continued walking down the hall towards her office.

  ‘Detective, I can’t give out that type of information. Besides, I wouldn’t have it anyways. When we issue a license, it’s good for a 30-day period. We don’t know the actual wedding date until they file for the marriage certificate, and that could be up to ninety days later. I’m afraid there isn’t too much I can do for you.’

  ‘Alright. Well, thanks for getting back to me anyways,’ Penner said, a bit dejected.

  ‘You’re welcome. Sorry I couldn’t be more help.’

  Penner hung up and sat down at her desk. She hoped that Constable Grant was having better luck.

  * * *

  ‘Civic Hospital.’

  ‘Oh, hi, this is Constable Grant from the Ottawa City Police, I was wondering if I could get some information on a patient that was brought in last night.’

  ‘Name?’

  ‘I’m not sure. It was a homeless guy, brought in by ambulance around two in the morning. Really drunk, passed out before being picked up.’

  ‘Give me a minute, I’ll see what I can find out.’ There was a click and some hold-music started, a version of a seventies rock song. Grant started whistling along, absentmindedly. After a minute, there was another click and the music stopped.

  ‘Hello, Constable? I’m afraid the patient was pronounced dead shortly after arriving. Looks like acute alcohol poisoning.’

  ‘Really?’ Grant was surprised and disappointed. ‘Well, thanks for your time.’

  ‘You’re welcome.’

  ‘Well, I wasn’t expecting that,’ Grant said to himself. He looked at his watch. Time to go meet up with Penner.

  * * *

  ‘Morning, Detective,’ Grant said, knocking on Penner’s open office door. ‘Brought you a coffee.’

  ‘Ah, you’re learning,’ Penner said, taking the coffee gratefully. ‘So, you’re looking nice and awake. Get a good night’s sleep?’

  ‘Not too bad, but it could have been longer,’ said Grant. ‘I’m not really used to working these long, odd hours. Don’t get me wrong—I appreciate the opportunity. It’s
just a bit exhausting.’

  ‘Trust me, I understand all too well.’ Penner took a sip of the coffee. ‘So, find out anything new on our case?’

  ‘Well, I called the hospital just now,’ Grant said, sitting down in one of the spare chairs.

  ‘Can we go down and interview your puker?’

  ‘Unfortunately not. He died shortly after being brought in,’ Grant said, having a sip of his own coffee.

  ‘Crap. Well, at least he gave you a bit of info, I guess,’ Penner said. ‘Now, whether he actually saw something or not is another story.’

  ‘I kind of think he did,’ said Grant.

  ‘Why’s that?’

  ‘Well, he did say he saw a lady in a red dress get hit. The guy didn’t look like the type that was going to be reading the morning paper or watching the news.’ Grant took another sip of his coffee.

  ‘Could he have heard someone else talking about it?’ Penner wondered. ‘Either way, not much we can do about him now. Maybe he actually did it.’

  ‘Possible, but…’ Grant started but stopped.

  ‘But what?’ Penner asked.

  ‘Well, I was doing up a profile, and, well, this guy didn’t really fit what I came up with,’ Grant said a bit sheepishly.

  ‘A profile, eh?’ said Penner, smiling. ‘So, Mr. Profiler, who are we looking for and why doesn’t our homeless guy fit the mold?’

  ‘Well, first off, I think the homeless guy was too old. He seemed to be around sixty, maybe mid-sixties. I think our perp is late forties, early fifties at the most,’ Grant said. ‘And I think he has a good job.’

  ‘What makes you think that?’ Penner asked, intrigued. She leaned back in her chair and watched the young officer thoughtfully.

  ‘According to Detective Millar’s books, bodies dumped in public areas are usually done by males, late forties. Typically Caucasian,’ Grant continued. ‘It takes a certain amount of confidence to display a body in public like that. Most younger people would just leave the body where the crime was committed. Could be that once they commit the crime, fear sets in. Men in their forties that have good jobs are usually good problem solvers and deal with stress better.’