ORIGINAL AUTHOR'S NOTE: I know nothing about drugs. As this story makes clear. I also had no idea that MKUltra would earn a mention in anything I ever write. I didn't know it was a real thing, either. O.o
"I must be getting senile," Dr. Steiner grumbled, striding around the autopsy room, putting things in order; Kristeva and Devetko stood near the entrance trying to keep out of the way. Kristeva noticed Devetko glance toward an autopsy in progress not too far away from where they stood; he didn't turn green, though looked a little unsettled. Dr. Steiner grasped a sheet and pulled it over the body as he approached with a folder in his hand, gesturing for them to follow him to a counter above which were several backlit panels. He set the folder down and started paging through it.
"If everything was in the computer system the way it's supposed to be by now, I would have found it a lot sooner. It's been a few years and the cause of death was already determined so it got shoved away a bit. I guess I shouldn't blame myself, though, since I had an assistant do most of the work on this one. Thus why I couldn't immediately answer your question over the phone."
"Juliana Lockett," Kristeva said, just to make sure, and Dr. Steiner nodded.
"Yes, I'm not so feeble that I don't remember the case, period. Gunshot wound to the chest. But you weren't interested in that, you wanted to know about a tox screen." He flipped through a few more pages. "Given the nature of death and the fact that Ms. Lockett doesn't even seem to be in the system, a tox screen was standard. Just that it was determined not to be a factor in the cause of death, so it was never focused on at trial. Here we go." He pulled out a page and squinted at it through his glasses. "Ah, the other reason I ordered a tox screen, that's right. Ms. Lockett had track marks on her arm."
Devetko frowned. "She was a junkie--?"
"From the looks of it, no."
"But you just said..."
"I said she had track marks. Normally that would point toward drug addiction, yes. And I suppose it can't be ruled out 100%. But according to the tox screen, Ms. Lockett had no heroin in her system, nor any of the other standard street drugs we normally screen for."
"A recovering addict?" Kristeva ventured.
Dr. Steiner pursed his lips. "Unlikely. Some of the injection sites were fresh. And her body didn't exhibit most of the long-term signs of drug addiction."
"You said 'standard' street drugs," Devetko said. "Was something else found in her system, instead?"
Dr. Steiner pointed at him without looking up from the papers. "Keep this one," he said to Kristeva; "he knows what questions to ask. Here it is." He pulled out another paper and stuck it up on the backlit panel. Kristeva and Devetko stared blankly at what looked to be some sort of scientific diagram.
"What are we looking at?" Kristeva asked.
Dr. Steiner glanced back at them both, then rolled his eyes and sighed. He turned back to the diagram.
"The core chemical structure of the substance we found in Ms. Lockett's body after death. Good thing we autopsied her when we did, too, because the remaining traces were faint, and I suspect it would've been completely metabolized if we'd gotten to her a little bit later." He gestured at the lines and letters. "Based on your reaction I suppose this is total gibberish to you, so I'll just summarize by saying that whatever this substance is, it shares a lot of qualities in common with the drug ketamine, AKA Special K, if that helps you any."
"I thought you said she didn't test positive for any of the standard street drugs," Kristeva said.
"And I did. And that's because this isn't ketamine, but something a lot like ketamine. It shares properties similar to several other drugs as well. Based on the chemical composition I'd categorize it as a dissociative drug, but as for exactly what it is..." He held his hands up in a shrug. "I couldn't tell you. It's like a lot of things, but it isn't. Some sort of chimera all in its own class. Something I've never seen before."
"A new street drug...?" Devetko asked, furrowing his brow.
"Well, yes and no. I say 'no' only because I couldn't tell you for sure if it's a 'street drug' at all or not. Since I haven't a clue where she got it from."
"So it could've been something experimental."
"Always a possibility. Like I said, Ms. Lockett's not in the system. I can only guess she was going under an assumed name for some reason, and that her driver's license is a fake, too. No criminal record, so her fingerprints and such aren't on file, either. She could have acquired the drug legally or illegally, but either way, it was done below the radar." Dr. Steiner paused and looked vaguely uneasy. "The other reason I wanted to talk with you two. I was inaccurate a moment ago, and this is one reason why I wish the results had been entered in the computer system back when we first autopsied Ms. Lockett. I actually have seen this chemical composition once before." He turned and headed for the back of the room, entering a small office and turning on the light. The detectives peered at each other as shuffling noises came from the room, then the medical examiner returned with another folder. His uneasy expression had only grown and he seemed reluctant to share the folder's contents with them, yet he set it down on the counter beside July's. He pulled out another paper and affixed it to the lighted panel alongside the first. Aside from some small print which presumably gave the date and subject number of the autopsy, it was an identical image of the unidentified chemical structure.
"From an autopsy Chief Bowen asked me to perform personally," he said.
Kristeva and Devetko looked from one diagram to the other. "The year of this autopsy...?" Kristeva asked.
"198*."*
"Another murder victim?" asked Devetko.
Dr. Steiner shook his head. "Suicide." He hesitated, then dug in both folders and placed two more pages on the panel. A copy of July Lockett's photo from her driver's license, and a police ID photo. Sgt. Kincaid.
Kristeva and Devetko stared at these for a moment, then both looked at Dr. Steiner, confusion plain on their faces.
"Mark Kincaid had drugs in his system when he killed himself...?"
"Very faint traces. Just like with Ms. Lockett."
"Can't ketamine contribute to suicidal tendencies--?" Devetko asked. "Why was this never focused on?"
Dr. Steiner offered a helpless shrug. "In sufficient dosages--yes. But this was an almost infinitesimal amount. It was almost completely out of his system by the time he killed himself, so it's highly unlikely it directly contributed to this. This was the first and so far only other time I came across this chemical composition. A lot was going on at the time, and none of us were sure what to think. Add to that the fact that I didn't find any obvious injection sites on the body--no track marks or anything of the sort--and so we had no idea how such a substance even got in his system in the first place."
"'We'--?"
"Chief Bowen wanted me to oversee the autopsy personally. It was almost certainly known to be a suicide from the start--Mark was found alone in his upstairs bedroom with the door locked from the inside--but I guess something about it made him want to make doubly sure. In this case a tox screen wasn't standard because the cause of death seemed so obvious and we had no reason to suspect foul play...so that made the results even stranger. Oh--and Kinnie. He was asked about the matter, as well."
"Asked what about the matter?"
"We needed to know if Mark had any habits we weren't aware of. Chief Bowen was pretty sure he didn't, but didn't keep track of his personal life, and so couldn't say with certainty. Kinnie was more adamant. He insisted Mark never did drugs of any sort, especially not illicit ones. Barely ever got drunk, even. When we tried to point out the drugs in his system, he just got even more insistent about it. I don't believe he was in any sort of denial, because he's not the type--just that he was positive that if such a substance was in Mark's system, Mark wasn't the one who put it there."
Silence. Kristeva looked at the diagrams, but they made no sense to him personally, just lines and letters in a jumble.
"This...ketamine knockoff," he said after a moment. "Based on what you've figured out of its chemical composition, could you guess what sort of effects it'd have on a person?"
Dr. Steiner looked somewhat relieved, and nodded. "That, I can answer for you." He reached up to remove the photos from the panel as Devetko pulled out his notebook. "Granted, part of this is still guesswork, since I've never seen this drug in action. But comparing it to drugs with a similar composition...I imagine that in smaller doses, it'd have a mild sedating effect, a lowering of inhibitions, possibly a sense of well being. Higher doses might act like a hypnotic* or sleeping pill and, if one is able to keep awake long enough, such effects as a loss of sense of time and reality, depersonalization episodes, heightened suggestibility."
"Even higher doses--?"
"Well, based on the effects of ketamine itself, I'd like to hope nobody would try reaching into the higher doses. But if the subject managed to remain conscious, they would probably have amnesia for the episode, and might experience other memory issues for the time period directly before and after taking the drug. Memory formation itself would likely be altered, if not nullified. The subject might have little to no control over their own actions. At the highest doses I imagine they could experience hallucinations, paranoia, a total loss of sense of reality, psychosis, and possibly coma."
Devetko looked up from his notebook. "What could possibly be the intended use of such a drug...?" he asked. "Aside from recreational purposes?"
Dr. Steiner looked up at the diagrams and bit the inside of his mouth. "It's difficult to say...it really doesn't look like the kind of drug that would have any legitimate usage except as a street drug. Though you have to consider that many street drugs started out with more beneficial purposes in mind." He drummed his fingers on the countertop. "Well...considering the class of drugs this seems to fit in..." He made a slight face. "I hardly have the time or inclination to go making myself sound like some sort of conspiracy nut."
Kristeva held up his hands and shrugged. "Anything you come up with is probably the least weirdest thing we'll have heard all week."
"If I had to seriously compare this to anything, it'd be the sorts of drugs the government tested out on people back in the Fifties and such, when they were trying to determine if there were anything that would heighten suggestibility and aid in..." He let out a gusty sigh. "What they liked to call back then, 'brainwashing.' Or more accurately, mind control. I feel like a total loon just saying this, though it's not completely without precedent. You've heard of MKUltra, yes?"
Blank stares. "That was really a thing?" Devetko asked.
Dr. Steiner pulled the diagrams down and returned them to their folders. "Yes, it was really a thing. I shan't get into it, you're free to go looking around if you wish. In any case, that sort of nonsense was supposed to have died out in the Sixties or so. Long before any of this business. So please don't think I'm associating the two. Just that if I had to guess at the intended non-recreational usage of such a drug, it would've been perfect for a program like that."
The detectives were silent for a moment as the medical examiner put his papers back in order. Kristeva couldn't think of anything else to ask, so it was a good thing Devetko did instead.
"You mentioned that July had track marks but no other signs of long-term drug abuse. And the drug was almost out of her system. Were any tests done to determine how long a period of time she'd been taking it--? Since it sounds like it was more than one dose?"
Dr. Steiner waved a finger in the air. "Like I said--keep this one. We did a hair follicle test on Ms. Lockett once we'd already determined she had drugs in her system. The test looks back about ninety days. From the looks of it, she'd been on whatever this is for quite a while, likely longer than the period we tested for. I stand by my theory that she wasn't an addict, though, at least, not the typical one. Who knows?--maybe she was part of some program testing a new medication, though I've never heard of something quite this shady before."
"And Sgt. Kincaid?"
Dr. Steiner turned around and made a face. "Unfortunately...I didn't do that sort of test on him. And before you ask, no, I don't have any samples to test, even if they'd still be intact. Believe me, I've felt like kicking myself since reading Ms. Lockett's results, even though them being entered in the system wouldn't have changed anything. At the time of Mark's autopsy, we just didn't know what we were dealing with."
"You couldn't take a guess at how long the drugs were in his system, I suppose," Kristeva said.
Dr. Steiner shrugged. "Not possible. All one would have to go on is observations of his behavior. And I didn't know Mark very well. I knew him well enough to tell you that I fully understand Kinnie's suspicions, though. About him never taking any sort of drugs. He was about as straight an arrow as they come." He pursed his lips. "Chief Bowen talked to me once in a while around the time of that raid and afterward. The people closest to Mark were him, Kinnie, and that psychiatrist they had Kinnie seeing at the request of CPS. If anyone knew Mark better than Chief Bowen or Kinnie, it'd be him. But I never did get his name, and unless you go doing something you really shouldn't be doing, there's no way you'll get any info out of him, either." Another shrug. "Maybe Kinnie could help you. I'm afraid that's all I have."
Kristeva and Devetko walked back up the hall and out of the county building in silence, pausing in the vestibule for Devetko to open his umbrella--a new one, Kristeva noticed, dark blue this time--before heading outside. "I guess now we know the meaning of 'shoot up,'" Kristeva said, holding up a hand to shield his eyes from the rain.
"What would Mitch be doing with a drug like that?" Devetko asked. "He doesn't strike me as any sort of chem major. And where would he even get his hands on such a thing...?"
"Jenner is my guess," Kristeva said. "Though that just leads to the questions, what would Jenner be doing with such a drug, and where would he have gotten his hands on it...?"
"And why waste it on somebody like July? I'm not speaking ill of the dead, but she was literally a nobody. Fake ID, fake name, no personal records, no criminal records, no anything. Her involvement in this makes no sense. Especially as a guinea pig for a drug like that. Making that stuff can't come cheap."
Kristeva slowed to a halt and paused with his hand on the car door. Devetko reached for the handle on his side, noticed that Kristeva wasn't opening the door, and paused as well to look at him across the car's roof.
"What is it?"
Kristeva hesitated, then bit the inside of his mouth a little. "I'm not sure...just something I read. And something that's been niggling at me. It's probably nothing."
Devetko raised his free hand as if to shrug. "That should stop you--?"
"There was something in Singer's case file of the group he was investigating. Kind of made me think of something I read about Mark Kincaid's suicide in the newspaper, and now what you just said about July makes me think of it, too." He made a face. "I kind of miss the days when my work was just about dead animals."
"Was it ever really just about dead animals...?"
"I guess not." He opened his door. "I can look into it on my own if you feel like doing something more useful. Like I said, it's probably nothing. I just feel like I'm heading down a really weird rabbit hole."
"And like I said, I don't exactly have anything better to do." Now Devetko made a face as he collapsed his umbrella and opened his own door.
Kristeva frowned. "What was that look about?"
"The look of somebody who's quickly gaining a reputation as the guy who works with that guy who investigates dead animals." He disappeared from view inside the car. "Get in unless you want to get soaked."
Kristeva scowled to himself but did as he was told.
No comments:
Post a Comment