《What Happened to the Mouse?》Side-Case: A Problem of Motive
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Three corpses hung from the balcony, ankles tied to the horizontal base of the tall ornamental railing. Rick approached them from below with trepidation, keeping his camera in front of his face like a shield. The ropes were just long enough to leave their heads dangling at his eye level.
Father, mother, and son stared him down. Their eyes were terrified and bulging, and their jaws were clenched tight. Gravity had pooled the blood in their heads, turning their skin bruise-purple.
"Christ. Who would do this?" muttered Rick, blanching a little as he photographed the scene. A few quick inquiries with friends and relatives had revealed little of note. Nobody had a reason to kill any of these people -- definitely not like this. The mother was a school nurse, the father worked at some sort of biotech firm, and the son was just a teenager.
"I'm wondering why the neighbors didn't hear anything." Detective Charity Singh seemed more pensive than shocked. She'd been warned of what to expect, so maybe she'd steeled herself. Or maybe staring down at the floor was a good way to avoid looking into those eyes. "No sign of a break-in, either."
"You're saying maybe they knew the guy?"
"Maybe." Detective Singh didn't find that particularly plausible either, though. Even if the killer had been the dearest, most trusted friend, the victims wouldn't have just let themselves all be tied to a railing. Their arms were completely free. No wounds, either. A paralytic drug, perhaps?
Hold on. Each rope was just long enough to let the victims dangle, but not much longer.
"Rick, I'm going to head upstairs and look at this from above."
As she walked through the living room to the stairs, she spotted a leather briefcase sitting on the floor. It lay on its side, spilled open, and there were traces of fine, rust-brown powder on tile floor. The father had taken home a sample vial from the lab, and it had shattered, raising a cloud of dust which must have taken some time to settle.
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Well, forensics would work out what to make of it. Best not to disturb or inhale it, whatever it was.
Reaching the balcony confirmed Singh's suspicions. The measurements just didn't work. If the killer had tied their feet to that bar, he couldn't possibly have gotten their bodies over the railing. But there they were, all the same. What, did he just use longer ropes, and then pull them back and trim the excess? But that would be pointless.
One more possibility to check. Gingerly, Singh climbed up and over the rail. The ledge was roomy enough to sit on, so she did. Then she put an ankle against the bar and leaned over.
"Rick, I think they tied themselves."
"Why the hell would they do that?"
"I don't know. But that's what makes physical sense."
The van arrived, and the bodies were cut down, bagged, and sent away. It was time to put forensics on this.
***
Later, the lab called back. Given their backlog, it seemed impossible that they could have analyzed the blood samples so quickly.
"No toxicology yet. But listen," said Sam. "This jumped out at me as soon as I took a look at the white blood cells. All three of them have massive eosinophilia. Off the charts."
"What's that mean?"
"Eosinophils fight parasites, fungi, you know, the big stuff. So either the whole family had hookworm, or... um, I have no idea."
"Oh."
Detective Singh thought of that purple skin, those dangling heads pooled full of nutrient-rich blood. Hadn't she seen something like this in a nature documentary once? She began to search the Internet.
Next, she phoned that biotech lab, the one the father worked for. At first, they were unwilling to divulge much, but when it became clear that she'd happened onto the truth, they were seized with an eminently justifiable panic. Finally, she tipped off the Bureau of High-Risk Research. Soon, she'd be recruited as a field agent, but for now, there was something far more pressing to deal with.
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What happens when you successfully force a fungal parasite to host-jump? A mushroom that in nature, drugs ants, tinkers with their brains, makes them crawl up a plant and bite down on a leaf, and then...
Meanwhile at the morgue, three pairs of eyes began to hatch.
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