Borne Darkly

by Lee Perry

  “I told you…” Alex shook her head helplessly as a fresh flood of tears streamed down her face, “I don’t know, really, I was in my office, upstairs when I heard a loud bang…” She sniffed loudly, pressing a large wad of tissue against her nose and Jordan couldn’t help but notice the sizable diamond she wore on her left hand, “I heard it again… I didn’t know what the sounds were… I thought Cathy must have dropped something or a door got slammed… I went downstairs and found them…” She shook her head again, her chin trembled and her voice broke, “I found them… and I called 911.”

  Don asked if she had anything else to add, and when she shook her head no he officially ended the video and the screen on her tablet darkened. Jordan had downloaded the fresh flood of new information from emails and texts to a document file and she clicked it open and again reviewed the sequence of events again as they were known so far; at 3:58pm Alex Sparrow placed a panicked 911 call to the Marlboro dispatch center. Some technician at the bureau had already obtained the audio file for the call and forwarded it to Jordan and she played it on the tablet’s media player:

  “CATHY!”

  She winced at the volume and hurried to turn it down,

  “CATHY!” Alex had screamed, “OH MY GOD! THERE’S BLOOD EVERYWHERE! CHELSEA!”

  Jordan sighed heavily as she listened to the call; she credited the dispatcher for taking command of the hysterical Alex, assuring her help was on the way. After getting her to describe the injuries to her wife and daughter, the dispatcher made the correct assessment that the daughter was gone and spoke sternly to Alex, forcing her by the sheer will of her voice to grab a kitchen towel and hold it against the grievous wound in Cathy’s neck. Jordan’s eyes flicked at the figure in the bed; she could hear Cathy Sparrow’s desperate gasps for breath while the dispatcher firmly encouraged a hysterically weeping Alex until help arrived.

  The fire department was the first on scene, arriving within a few minutes and the call ended abruptly when Alex screamed at the firefighters to help her and she hung up. Jordan returned to her events log, chewing thoughtfully on her lower lip as she scanned the arrival times of the police and paramedics. It was after ten o’clock when the evidence collection team arrived and successfully scanned fingerprints from the front and back door handles, they were uploaded on scene and sent to the FBI’s Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System. Ed Coastanoa was identified in twenty-seven minutes, and a technician from the New York City bureau office immediately called Stewart at home.

  Jordan sighed heavily as she scanned the timetable of notifications; When Coastanoa was I.D’d, Stewart was identified as the A.D.in charge of investigating the Rossi Family… they called him… and then he called me. Jordan noted the time, at 10:46… She moaned silently, and I had just gotten to sleep… She opened the file she had begun on Cathy Sparrow. In the hours that followed, Jordan began the investigation from Cathy Sparrow’s hospital room, and as the night surrendered to the rising sun, Jordan continued to take small breaks to visit the cafeteria to eat, make phone calls and reload on caffeine as she uploaded and downloaded files to her tablet. She opened the document file she had started during the night on Cathy Sparrow; Born Catherine Hope Bernard, she was petite at 5’ 2” and had short dark blond hair. Could be dyed blond… Jordan mused, and more of a simple pixie-cut… November 9th was her birthday, one day before her dead daughter’s birthday. She exhaled quietly and kept reading information she already knew now by heart: birthplace National City, California. Her parents had divorced when she was seven years old. Her father, Albert Bernard, a chemist by trade, left his wife and only daughter for a new life and a job with a large pharmaceutical company on the east coast. He left behind the deed to the house; paid for in full… he left everything and everyone in it. For whatever reason, he just wanted out of the marriage, and fatherhood as well, since he and daughter had been estranged ever since. Louise Bernard, Cathy’s mother, sold the house and moved them into a smaller place, a very small place according to the information Jordan had obtained by calling Rowan Williams while she was in the cafeteria, the only friend from the contacts list on Cathy’s phone. According to her, Louise Bernard invested most of the profits from the sale of the house for Cathy’s college fund; She must have known her daughter was something special… Jordan stole another look at the heavily medicated woman in the bed. A homemaker during her marriage, Louise took part of the money and attended a vocational school; becoming a medical billing clerk, she earned a decent living for her daughter and herself until her premature death when Cathy was in her second year of college.

  Jordan had an FBI information systems technician obtain fast subpoenas to access Alex and Cathy Sparrow’s college records and she clicked open the newly downloaded file. Considered a math whiz by some of her teachers in high school and a genius by others, when Cathy graduated valedictorian a year early she went to UCLA where, according to her instructors, she found the increasingly theoretical challenges of math boring and eventually drifted permanently into the computer sciences division, where she clearly flourished. She earned two degrees, a masters of science in computer science and a PhD specializing in Computer Systems Architecture and Information and Data Management… Jordan’s eyebrows arched high under her dark bangs, So, yes, she’d be considered a genius… She clicked open Alex’s college records and scanned the information; Alexandra Sparrow graduated from a three-year program at Stanford that gave her both MS and MBA degrees in computer science. Her grades were average for the computer science degree, and only slightly better for the degree in business. Okay… Jordan shrugged internally and closed the file.

  She had recorded the phone interview with Cathy’s friend Rowan Williams while downloading files onto her tablet in the cafeteria. She opened a new document to transcribe the call and opening the audio file, jammed an earbud back into her ear,

  “I met Alex… and Cathy when her last name was still Bernard, at Symteck…”

  “Symteck?” she had asked.

  “Yes… at the time it was a small anti-virus software company…”

  Jordan typed soundlessly on her tablet as she listened to the conversation. She recorded Rowan’s account of how Cathy, extremely shy, kept to herself for nearly four years before Alex Sparrow seemed to take notice of her and slowly drew her out of her shell.

  “She was practically invisible… but Alex…” Jordan made a notation of the woman’s derisive snort, “Everybody knew Alex. She was out there, not just about her sexuality but about her sales prowess too. Very aggressive… She really did help that company grow. But… despite Cathy’s ability to hide, we all came to realize she was the brains behind Symteck and all the brilliant software designs we were working on were all created by her in the first place…” Jordan’s brows furrowed at the seemingly dramatic pause, “and I swear that’s when Alex suddenly became her friend, drawing her out... charming her until Cathy actually did come out of her shell and she not only became friends with Alex but me as well.”

  “Are you gay?” she had asked bluntly.

  “No,” Rowan replied, not offended, “I’m straight, married, I have two kids. Cathy and I became close friends but Alex, of course, became much more to her. It was only after we became friends that Cathy told me about her mom dying during her second year at UCLA… By her own admission she didn’t deal with the loss very well and kept to herself for years until Alex drew her out.”

  “And was Cathy always gay?”

  “She said she knew from the time she was little… she said she wondered if that’s why her dad left the family, like maybe he suspected or something and couldn’t cope. But her mom always loved her and couldn’t have cared less.” There was a long pause and Jordan’s hands paused over the tablet, “In hindsight… I always wondered if that’s why she retreated for so long after her mom died. I kinda’ got from her that she was never able to ask her mom if she knew the reason her dad left, I think she was afraid to find out it was her being lesbian that made him le
ave and broke up their family and her parents’ marriage…”

  “Do you think she still blames herself, her sexuality for that?”

  “Probably…” Rowan sighed again, sounding sad, “I can’t believe this has happened to her… As time passed and she eventually hooked up with Alex, they… or Alex, in my opinion anyway, started to make noises about starting her own company. So much gossip was going around that the CEO called them both into a meeting with an HR rep and reminded her that if she and well, Cathy really, if Cathy left the company she had better make sure she left behind all of her work for Symteck so Symteck wouldn’t have reason to sue them.”

  “But they did leave?”

  “Yes,” Rowan sounded sad, “They left and moved to the east coast, starting their own company, Sparrow Data Protection Services.”

  Rowan had little else to add, sounding distraught over the shooting of her friend, although Jordan had only told her Cathy had been shot, deliberately keeping the shooting death of her four-year-old daughter private. She saved the document, adding it to the file, Good thing she lives on the west coast and only nine-thirty her time, she mused, or I’d still be waiting to call her. She opened a browser and clicked on the bookmark she made of Cathy and Alex’s website, www.sparrowdataps.com.

  Jordan sighed and stretched in the chair, she had clicked through all the links and still didn’t feel like she had the feel for the Sparrow’s business that she wanted, but that will come soon enough… Together, Alex and Cathy Sparrow were a multi-system security service provider for local and global network monitoring for online businesses. According to their home page, they helped their clients manage their business risk from viruses and worms by providing different levels of protection. But Doctor Sparrow is brilliant, you’d think they’d have quickly expanded and be a big company by now…

  Jordan started at the small sound that came from the hospital bed and she stood, stepping quietly to Cathy’s bedside. Gazing down at the sallow features, Jordan took in the heavily bandaged neck and respirator. She started slightly when she saw Cathy’s brown eyes peer uncomprehendingly at her and she clasped the small elegant hand, “Hello Cathy…” she said in a quiet voice, “My name is Jordan, and you are in the New York Presbyterian Hospital, you were brought here in a life-flight helicopter… I believe Alex will be here in a bit…” Cathy blinked and Jordan thought for a moment she was trying to sit up, “Okay…” Still holding the hand, she placed her other lightly on the petite shoulder, “just stay where you are now, I’ll call the nurse.” She picked up the call button, showing it to her as she plunged the button with her thumb, “I’m sure she…” Her voice faded as she locked eyes with her primary witness; the only sound in the room was the quiet thump and whirring noise that came from the respirator and for a moment, Jordan felt as though time stood still and she froze. The look of pain and loss in Cathy Sparrow’s eyes was overwhelming; If she doesn’t know her daughter is dead it’s not your place to tell her. Jordan licked her lips uncertainly and heard the sliding glass door open quietly,

  “Agent Hawkins?” the nurse, Danielle, entered quietly, “Agent Maynard is waiting for you in the Family Room.”

  Jordan caught the significant look the woman gave her, “Thank you…” She turned back to Cathy, “I’ll see you again in a while.” She gave the small hand she held a reassuring squeeze and stopped; distracted when she felt the simple gold wedding band Cathy wore on her ring finger. She glanced down at the ring and when she looked back, she was surprised by the sudden intensity in the pained eyes.

  Picking up her tablet and jacket, Jordan left the unit quietly, nodding to the staff as she left the ICU. She checked her watch as she strode down the carpeted hallway, After four… She shook out her long dark hair as she walked, only a thirty-four hour day so far… When she neared the Family Room her partner, Special Agent Don Maynard, stepped into view and she noted his tense facial expression and body posture, “Agent Maynard?”

  “Agent Hawkins…”

  As she turned the corner and entered the room, he stepped back, gesturing to Cathy’s doctor and the tall, willowy blond, “this is Alexandra Sparrow…”

  “Agent Hawkins…” she barely acknowledged her, “I was just talking to Cathy’s doctor...”

  Jordan nodded, “Yes, Doctor Yin…”

  Alex turned from her dismissively, “Doctor,” she motioned for the doctor to continue, “if you please.”

  “Yes,” Dr. Shun Yin was a petite woman and she shook Jordan’s hand, “yes, Agent Hawkins, we have met.”

  Alex flashed Jordan an impatient look, “Doctor…”

  “As I was explaining to Miz Sparrow, it appears that Cathy may have had her back to the person shooting her, and she was shot as she turned toward the person, as the bullet clipped the front and side of the thyroid cartilage, here…” She pointed first at her own throat, placing the tip of her forefinger against the front of her throat at an angle. “Now, while the bullet opened her esophagus, she was extremely lucky that when she collapsed on the floor, she landed on her side and her esophagus, exposed to the open air by the bullet that tore through her throat, allowed air to pass into her lungs and the angle kept them from filling with blood.” The doctor shook her head, “Really, considering her injury, she was quite lucky in this regard.”

  Alex looked horrified, “How is that lucky?”

  “Laryngeal anatomy and function is understandably complicated,” Dr. Yin pulled a folded anatomical diagram of a human neck and held it up to view, “but basically the thyroid cartilage acts as a protective cover for the thyroid gland and one’s breathing apparatus.” She pointed at the drawing, indicating the center of the throat, “The bullet glanced off that cartilage, fracturing it. I did remove some small fragments of cartilage… and I suspect those fragments and the violence of the bullet’s passage caused some bruising and edema to the vocal folds.”

  Jordan folded her arms across her chest and concentrated on the terminology, praying the doctor would use as many simple and easily understood words as possible.

  “The vibration of the vocal cords is a fundamental component of voice production. The optimal production of sound from the larynx requires apposition of the edges of the vocal folds… the glottal valve,” she patiently explained, “the folds are driven into oscillation by the sustained subglottal aerodynamic pressure from the tracheobronchial tree…”

  Alex held up her hand, interrupting, “Will she be able to talk to me?”

  The tiny older woman in the white coat shook her head sadly, “Not right away, I have placed a stent,” she held her thumb and forefinger against the front of the bone-like structure on the diagram, “over the fracture on the cartilage to provide stability while the area heals. I can remove that in two weeks, perhaps earlier, we can work at getting her swallow function back starting today, and she will eventually regain her voice, but that’s only,” the doctor jabbed her finger for emphasis, “if she doesn’t try to talk at all while the area heals, and the healing process will take a while.”

  “How long?”

  “It’s a guess,” she shrugged her narrow shoulders, “a few months perhaps, at this point, I just don’t know.”

  “I understand.” Alex nodded, “Thank you, doctor, may I see her now?”

  Jordan noted again the significant look Don gave her and she laid a soft hand briefly on Alex’s arm, “I’ll talk to you when you come back.”

  Alex’s brows arched high, “I expect I’ll be a while.”

  “It’s alright,” Jordan nodded, “take as long as you need.”

  Alex entered the unit quietly and stood uncertainly by the bed. Doctor Yin stood on the other side and greeted her patient, “Hello, Cathy, I am Doctor Shun Yin, I performed your surgery last night. You cannot speak right now and it’s very important that you do not do so until your throat has completely healed.” She looked at Alex, “I understand your spouse needs to talk to you, I’ll be right outside if you need me.”

  Alex nodded and too
k Cathy’s hand, acutely aware that her own hands were cold, clammy and shaking. She sniffed, waiting until Dr. Yin left the room before clearing her throat, “Cathy…” she began, but tears were already streaming down Cathy’s face and she shook her head from side to side, “Chelsea…” she whispered, “she’s gone, baby…”

  Cathy’s face crumpled and her body stiffened in the hospital bed, squeezing Alex’s hand in a painfully tight grip. Alex wrenched her hand away, “I’m sorry, baby…” she rasped, “I’m sorry…”

  Jordan and Don watched Dr. Yin and Alex Sparrow in silence until both disappeared in the intensive care unit; Without her heels, I’d guess Miz Sparrow to be two inches taller than me, say five foot ten inches tall… Jordan’s head cocked to one side, appraisingly, and I see she had time to fix her hair and change into a nice darkly conservative Chanel suit… She sighed inwardly, all of which, could mean absolutely nothing…

  “Jesus,” Don muttered, “that one is a real piece of work…”

  “Really,” she sighed, collapsing in a chair that faced the hallway, “do tell.”

  Don sat across from her, knowing she was watching the ICU door for Alex Sparrow’s return. “Okay, so I get it, this woman’s been through a lot; some person, for all she knows, and for some unknown reason as far as she knows, breaks into her house and shoots her wife and kid. The kid is dead, the wife barely survives, and from what the police sergeant told me when I got there, they have a baby, a nineteen month old who basically screamed his head off until one of the cops on scene finally went upstairs to get him, and even then the kid was still upset… so he tried to hand him off to his other mommy who just shook her head no and walked away…” he gave her a look.