The M1 Theory by Brian Hesse (best novels to read for beginners .TXT) 📕

thought of her aloof partner, spending all his time examining the wound patterns and blood spatter of the unfortunate late Mr. Edwards and Ms. Lakes. What a bunch of block heads, she thought, with arrogant disdain.

 Sandra found two small areas of linoleum within the sea of black red blood, like two tiny dry islands in a surreal foul-smelling sea of gore. She planted each of her feet in the dry islands, causing her legs to spread in an unnatural position. Her legs began to shake steadily as she bent as low as she could without losing her balance and diving head first into the bloody evidence.

 That’s all I need, she thought, trying not to laugh and losing her shaky foothold, to fall into the evidence, and get caught in the act. She did laugh as she thought of her sitting in the Chiefs office covered head to foot with blood as he screamed at her, “Your Fired!”

 “Ok bitch, time to get serious for once,” she stated out loud, to the eerie silence of the room. She stared for several seconds at the position of Kathy’s supine body. She could see Kathy’s left hand bent slightly upward toward the top of her head. It was possible she simply landed like this, thought Sandra, but something is just not right. To Sandra, it looked as though Kathy was holding her head. This theory was only strengthened by the look on Kathy’s face. Sandra observed that her expression was one of discomfort, almost pain, like the pain felt, as Sandra could attest to, from a severe migraine.

 Sandra stretched the six extra inches to reach the top of Kathy’s head. She knew that she only had maybe one chance to reach for the right spot, before losing her foothold and slipping, as she thought, right into the chief’s office. Sandra looked at the position of Kathy’s hand and drew a mental line with her imagination until she thought that she found the right spot. She stretched some more and planed her left index finger on the top front portion of Kathy’s blood-soaked hair. Sandra gently ran her finger back and forth over, what felt to her, like a perfectly, unnaturally shaped scab just under the hairline. Slowly she straightened herself, feeling her back crack under the strain of realigning joints and muscle. Unsure if her discovery was worth even a grain of salt, she walked back to the front door, turning one last time to apologize to the victims for her lack of attention.

 Walking out of Charlie’s Diner, she closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, feeling the fresh crisp November air rush into her lungs. For once in her life she was not terrified at the thought of never doing this job again. Meeting Eric gave her, as she admitted, uncharacteristic thoughts of family. Taking on the role of a Mother was still a vague abstract notion, like viewing distant trees through a thick morning fog, but the image, as she considered, was becoming so much sharper. She opened her eyes and scanned the growing crowd of police, detectives, and the usual rubber neckers with nothing better to do on Thanksgiving. She felt her domestic fantasies slowly fade as she could not see Eric’s face.

  “Well there goes another I scared away with my bullshit.” She whispered to herself.

   She was snapped back to the harsh reality of her life as she heard the familiar guttural shout of her boss, the chief.

   “What the hell are you doing here. Ill have your tiny little ass for this one.”

  Sandra no longer seemed to care about threats of losing her job. She was prepared to hand over her findings to the coroner, give the chief her budding theory that Kathy was not in control of her own actions, and just bravely walk off alone into that stormy night. Just as she was prepared to throw in the proverbial towel, her partner, Detective Klinger, pulled the Chief to the side. After a few minutes of heated discussion, the chief walked to the entrance of the Diner and approached Sandra.

 “Your partner told me the story. He said you were eating here with some guy when this whole thing went down.” He looked at her suspiciously for, what seemed to her an eternity, pointed his finger just a few inches from her face and stated, “I want a full witness report from you,” and walked away.

  “Ralph, first of all thank you again. You are becoming my knight in shining armor.”

  Ralph turned a few shades of red before replying. “But now you need to make a written statement on what you saw. This makes us both guilty of perjury. So, all I did was prolong the inevitable. Your time, and mine, at the department is short.”

  “No Ralph, I will figure something out. I will get you out of this, but my time is definitely short,” she stated with a voice filled more with relief than sadness.

  “Oh yea, your little boyfriend is behind the building, acting all incognito.”

   Sandra felt her heart beat wildly like, as she embarrassingly considered, a virgin on prom night.

  Sandra rounded the corner of Charlies Dinner and without uttering a word, wrapped her arms tightly around Eric’s shivering body and kissed him hard on his wind burned lips.

Never Saw Anything Like This

  “Ok Doc, what do you got?” asked Sandra, feeling the goosebumps sprout from the surface of her skin, despite the room temperature of Dr. Zeigler’s autopsy room.

  Dr. Zeigler looked up from his work and smiled at seeing Sandra. He never told her, but ten years ago he lost his only daughter to a drug overdose, Sandra, in a way, has become his surrogate daughter, and warmed his heart every time she visited.

  “Well my dear, I was poking through this young lady’s brain, as you requested.”

  Sandra looked down at the lifeless body of Kathy Brier. Although not their first encounter, Kathy looked markedly different lying on Dr. Zeigler’s autopsy table with the top of her head removed.

  Dr. Zeigler turned to the table to his side and carefully grabbed hold of a small glass tube with his trusted pair of tweezers. He held the eighth of an inch glass cylinder close to Sandra’s eyes and stated, “I have no idea what the hell this is.”

  Sandra reached into her purse and grabbed her own trusted instrument, a simple dollar store magnifying glass. The same dollar store tool that helped her solve over thirty murders, two serial killing episodes, and provided her a bridge to a world she was much more comfortable viewing, the world of the almost invisible.

  “It looks like a very tiny old school television picture tube.”

 “That’s what I thought,” he stated with a smile. He was glad to hear someone from the younger generation make references to the past. Sandra made him feel young. He continued, “But this is no ordinary tube. Look closely inside.”

  Sandra squinted her left eye behind the already magnification of the glass. She gasped as she traced the intricate pattern of intertwining miniature wires all leading to, what she thought, is a miniature computer chip.

  “Who could make such an intricate design, and what the heck does it do?” she said softly, forgetting where she was at the moment.

  “I can tell you this. I am no engineer, but only a brilliant one could produce this…whatever it is.”

  “Where did you find it,” she asked placing the magnifier into her left coat pocket.

  “Right below the small hole in her head. The prefrontal region of the brain.”

  “Any history of surgeries?”

Dr. Zeigler laughed, “Just a broken tibia when she was ten years old, but last time I checked, surgeons don’t operate on the brain for such an injury,”

 Sandra punched him lightly in the arm, laughed and stated, “Ok smart ass, I got it.” “So, what we have is a foreign object implanted in her brain by a skilled engineer.”

  “No, probably not,” he stated. “A brilliant engineer made this thing, but I doubt would also possess the skill and precision needed to implant such a device. God doesn’t normally give one person that much talent. No, I think someone else planted this, and gave her a cocktail full of drugs.”

  “You ran a toxicology?”

  “Yes, but the boys at the lab are breaking down the components. I can say for now that she was given a precise amount of a delicate mixture of hypnotics, sedatives, and psychotropic medications.

  Sandra closed her eyes and let the room just melt away into the background of her dark thoughts. She considered everything she heard by Dr. Zeigler, and every detail of the diner. Through all the swirling facts and images of the dead, one face continued to surface through the bloody mire of her consciousness, Thomas Lorey.

   “Thank you once again Doc. I know right where to go.”

  As Sandra was walking out the double steel doors of the morgue, feeling a rush of comforting warm air brush across her face, she heard Dr. Zeigler remark, “take care of yourself Sandra, your all I got left.”

Burning Bridges

  Thomas slipped into his body suit made of the three-ply plastic, bought fresh off the shelves of an out of state mom and pop hardware store. He dawned his clear plastic shower cap over his recently shaved head, with a feeling of dread creeping into his empty stomach. He could not eat for two days since the incident at the restaurant, knowing what he must do. He thought to himself, causalities of science are one thing, but murder is something different. As with most, his civilized heart conflicted with the cold reptilian like nature of his psyche. Because despite man made laws and abstract concepts of morality, the evolutionary drive towards violence and destruction is still very much a part of the human experience. Thomas knew that he was no killer. The trail of bodies that he knew were leading to his front door, were nothing more than martyrs slain for the greater good of scientific achievement, and all the wonderful things that come from such endeavors. He fantasized his entire life, since he could remember, of killing his Father. On those cold dark nights of hearing the painful cries of his Mother at the hands of a sadist, he dreamed of running a sharpened knife across his Fathers throat. It was these fantasies, he considered, that kept him from his own death, by his own fragile hands. Now, he was faced with a decision. He could see, in his tired mind, Ronald Dorfman sitting under the hot spotlight in the dank basement of a police station, describing in detail, with an air of superiority, his construction of the transmitter/receiver apparatus. He could envision Ronald explaining every tedious step in the wiring and connections of the receiver, as dim-witted detectives sleepily wrote down every incriminating word. The solution was clear, horrifying, yet clear. Ronald Dorfman must die before he has a chance to talk.

 “Hi Ronald, stated Thomas, as he emerged from the shadows of Ronald’s garage workspace.

  “Where the hell did you come from, and what is that your wearing Thomas?”

  “I just wanted to let you know that your equipment works beautifully, before I kill you,” replied Thomas, as he brought his right hand from behind his back, revealing a thirteen-inch curved bladed hunting knife. Ronald rose quickly from his workbench chair and sprinted for the automatic garage door opener just a few feet from his position, but he was too late, and too scared, to reach the button in time. Thomas closed the distance and with all his strength plunged the knife directly into Ronald’s back between his shoulder blades. Thomas felt his stomach churn as he felt the stainless-steel tip of the knife penetrate Ronald’s soft flesh. He vomited a thick streak of sour bile into his closed mouth as he felt the tip of the knife strike hard against solid bone. Thomas