Surgeon – Chapter Eighteen

NOT EDITED

Chapter Eighteen

Friday: January 10, 2020

5:00 AM; CLINSTONE, THE GRANGER HOUSEHOLD, BATHROOM

Nora Granger, a beautiful married woman in her early forties, stood in her shower, washing her hair as she sang to Cyndi Lauper’s True Colors as it played on the radio. Nora, with a rough alto voice, was the kind of woman that could belt out nearly any song without sounding too bad, True Colors included.

Her hands stilled in her hair and her words died on her lips. She was almost certain she had heard something. A door, maybe. She pulled back the shower curtain, lifting her gaze to the clock on the wall. Five after five. Her husband, Edgar, would’ve left for work five minutes ago, as he always insisted on punctuality. The noise she had heard definitely hadn’t been caused by Edgar.

Nora turned off the water and grabbed a towel from its hook on the back of the bathroom door. Bending over, she wrapped it around her hair. Straightening herself back out, she grabbed her bigger, fluffier towel and quickly dried herself off. Wrapping the towel around her body and tucking it into itself at her chest, she stepped out of the bathtub.

She unlocked and opened the bathroom door, leaning out into the hallway. She looked to the right, and then to the left. Nothing. She rolled her eyes. She hated being alone in the house. It made her feel crazy, every quiet little noise amplified into something much bigger and scarier. Still, she stepped out into the hall and walked into the kitchen. She heard something, and before she could turn around, a hand covered her mouth and nose with a rag. She breathed in on panicked instinct, and the dizzy feeling that set in quickly made her regret it.

An arm banded around her waist, holding her still until the chloroform did its job. “Shh… You won’t feel a thing,” he murmured just as she slipped from consciousness.

6:15 AM; THE GRANGER HOUSEHOLD, BEDROOM

“Edgar Granger, forty-four years old, the man in the living room, wasn’t killed in the living room. I’ll have a look at his car before we leave, see if that’s where it happened. Either way, it was still dark outside when it happened, so it’s unlikely we’ll find any witnesses,” Bo said before his gaze shifted back to the bed. “Nora Granger, married to Edgar, forty-two years old, A-positive blood type. She’s Cleo Marshall’s match. She was taking a shower when the killer came in, judging from the wet walls in the bathtub, and he took her by surprise in the kitchen, since that’s where her towels have been discarded. He chloroformed her and brought her in here, laid her out on the bed. Mark on the inner arm. Blood was most likely drawn there, probably two pints. Small mark on the neck, most likely etorphine. And then the breasts were removed. I’ll know more in the morgue,” Bo said. Jacob nodded, yawning. “Am I boring you, Detective?”

Jacob shook his head, running the heel of his palm under his eye. “Nah. Just haven’t gotten much sleep. I was up ‘till four,” he said.

“Doing what?”

“Alice.”

A surprised laugh bubbled past Bo’s lips. “That’s… nice, Detective.”

“I thought so,” Jacob said with a shrug. Bo squatted down beside the bed, raising his camera for a picture. Just as he took it, Carter walked past him, bumping his shoulder and nearly knocking him off balance. Bo caught himself, gripping the sheets with one gloved hand, his camera held tightly in the other hand. “Hey, knock it the fuck off. You are only here because Bo insisted I bring you back onto the case. Touch him again and I’ll knock you on your fucking ass,” Jacob said.

Carter chuckled. “Yeah, Jake, sure. You and your ‘violence is never the answer’ ways will really teach me a lesson.”

“It’s fine, Detective Mason,” Bo said. “I’m leaving soon, anyway. I don’t need special treatment,” he added, tilting his camera for a better angle.

“What’re you talking about?” Carter asked. “You’re leaving soon?”

“I’m not exactly welcome here, Detective Lehmann,” Bo said as he pushed himself to his feet. “My serial killer best friend treats me better than you and Miss Tanner do, so once this case is solved, I’m going home and you can all pretend I didn’t exist.” He cleared his throat. “Now, let’s get Mrs. Granger here to the morgue so I can do my job.”

8:43 AM; CLINSTONE POLICE DEPARTMENT, MORGUE

“How you doing?” Jacob asked as he stepped into the morgue.

“I just finished some notes for you, actually,” Bo said.

Jacob exhaled softly. “No, Bo, I meant how are you doing?”

“Oh.” Bo cleared his throat. “I’m… fine, Detective. Is this where I ask how you’re doing? Or is it only okay for you to assume that I need to be checked up on?”

Jacob held up his hands. “Sorry. Forgot you were supposed to be emotionless. I’ll just pretend that I don’t give a shit, okay?”

“That’s fine with me.” Bo held a notebook out to Jacob, his gaze drifting back to his laptop. “That’s all I have.”

Jacob crossed the room and grabbed the notebook from Bo. He leaned back against one of the counters in the morgue, rolling his eyes. And to think he used to believe Alice was complicated. He read through the sticky note on Edgar Granger first, even though he knew it wouldn’t make much sense to him.

Edgar Granger – F Jan 10, 2020

– 4th found victim

– TOD: 4:50 AM F Jan 10, 2020

– H: 6 f 10 in

– NHC: black

– EC: brown

– DOB: W Aug 13, 1975

– LKM: AL 1 hr BTOD

– no SA, FP, PA

– DW: etorphine

– TL: PS 5 in TPB (PK)

“What’s ‘DW’ stand for?” Jacob asked.

“Drugged with,” Bo said, never lifting his gaze from his laptop.

Jacob cleared his throat as he scanned through the actual written information on the page. “So, he was killed in his car?”

“Killer in the backseat, one hand pressed firmly against the forehead to make the flesh of the throat taut, and then one clean swipe of a pocket knife. Mister Granger didn’t really stand much of a chance once he walked out of that house.”

Jacob nodded. “And he was drugged, too?”

“More etorphine, yes. One shot to the neck and you’re rendered immobilized and unconscious. That’s when the throat laceration occurred. Again, The Surgeon doesn’t want his victims to feel pain.”

“The what?” Jacob asked.

“Oh. Yes, sorry. The Surgeon. That’s what I’ve labeled this case as,” Bo said.

“Because of the whole… make his victims look like someone else thing?”

“That’s the basics of it.”

Jacob nodded as he flipped the page, his gaze falling on the sticky note for Nora Granger.

Nora Granger – F Jan 10, 2020

– 5th found victim

– TOD: 5:45 AM F Jan 10, 2020

– H: 5 f 6 in

– NHC: brown

– EC: blue

– DOB: T Nov 29, 1977

– LKM: AL 6-8 hrs BTOD

– no SA, FP, PA

– CHCl3

– DW: etorphine

– BR + 2 pnts blood: A-pos

“ ‘BR’?” Jacob asked.

“Breasts removed,” Bo said.

“Do you ever have to look at a calendar when you’re writing these?”

For the first time, Bo’s gaze lifted to the detective’s face. “Why would I need a calendar?”

“Umm, because when you write their birthdate, you add the day of the week they were born on,” Jacob said.

“Ah. Yeah, of course I use a calendar,” Bo said as his eyes fell back to his laptop screen.

“July eighteen, 1985,” Jacob said.

“Your birthday,” Bo said dismissively.

“What day of the week is it?”

“I’d have to check.”

“Of course. So, Nora heard the killer come in?” Jacob asked as he scanned the page.

“Presumably. She still had shampoo in her hair, so she wasn’t done with her shower. She got out to see what the noise was.”

“October 26, 2019.”

“Saturday,” Bo murmured. His brow furrowed as he looked back at Jacob. “Stop that.”

“Sorry,” Jacob said. “That’s… impressive. How far back can you do that?”

“What? The days of the week thing?” Bo asked. Jacob nodded. “All the way back to ‘65, if it matters,” he said quietly, looking back down at his laptop.

“Damn.”

“It’s just memorization of a pattern, Detective Mason,” Bo said.

“Memorization of, what, fifty-four years?”

“No, memorization of approximately twenty-eight years. The calendar repeats itself roughly every twenty-eight years.”

“That’s pretty fucking impressive, Bo,” Jacob said. Bo lifted his shoulders. “Who treated you like shit and told you that you had to be ashamed of yourself?”

“A lot of people,” Bo said off-handedly. “Your coworkers, for starters.”

“Well, they’re assholes, Bo. We went over that.”

Again, Bo shrugged. He closed the lid of his laptop and stood up. “Maybe, but that doesn’t mean they were wrong. It just means they approached the topic with a bit too much aggression,” he said. Jacob watched as the younger blonde walked past him and left the morgue. Jacob’s brow furrowed. It was unusual, to say the least, for Bo to leave in the middle of a conversation. What the hell was that about?

9:02 AM; CLINSTONE POLICE DEPARTMENT, PARKING LOT

Bo leaned back against the driver’s side door of his car, closing his eyes as he took another drag of his cigarette. He wasn’t a smoker, not really. It only happened once in a great while, but he always kept a pack in his glove box, just in case. He liked the thought that, if he smoked enough of them, it could help kill off some of his brain cells as he aged, dumb him down at least a little bit.

He crossed his arms over his chest against the cold, his cigarette balanced between the first two fingers of his right hand. God, he wanted to go home. Not to his house in Minnesota. No, he wanted to go home, back to California. Maybe he’d visit his adoptive parents while he was there. They were divorced now, but they both still lived in Los Angeles. Maybe he could take some time away from being miserable and pretend he was normal if he was in the house with one of them.

Maybe they could go out for lunch.

“What’re you doing?” Carter asked just as Bo took another long drag.

“You have eyes, Detective. You tell me what I’m doing,” Bo said, blowing smoke out of one corner of his mouth.

“You know smoking’s bad for you, right?”

“No,” Bo said, feigning surprise. He cleared his throat, shaking his head. “Yes, Detective, I’m well aware. That’s why I like it.”

Carter crossed his arms over his chest. He hadn’t taken Bo for a smoker. His voice certainly didn’t reveal it. “Are you trying to get cancer?”

“They actually can’t declare that smoking gives you cancer,” Bo said, kicking one foot back against the car door. “Common misconception. They can say the toxins in a cigarette are known to cause cancer, but smoking can’t be labeled as the real cause.”

“Why the hell not?”

Bo scoffed, pressing the tip of his cigarette into the palm of his hand. Carter winced. “They can’t create a study for it. It’d involve purposely giving people cancer, and that’d pretty much be illegal,” he said, dropping the cigarette to the ground. He ground the toe of his shoe into it, even though it was already out. “Smoking can lead to a stroke, damage to the mouth, throat, lungs… you name it. But they can’t actually declare it as a cancer inducer.”

Carter cleared his throat. “I… never took you for a smoker.”

“It doesn’t really happen a lot. Only when I’m in the mood to damage a couple brain cells,” Bo said. He chuckled softly. “I’ve felt that urge a lot since I arrived in this hellhole you call a station.”

Carter’s gaze fell to the ground. “I’m sorry. Umm… for my part in that, I mean.”

“You sure have a funny way of showing it,” Bo said. “Actions speak louder than words, Detective, and your actions tell me that you have a personal vendetta against me.”

“I’m an ass, I know.”

“I didn’t call you an ass,” Bo said. “You’re rude, crass, and cruel, but you’re not an ass,” he explained.

“Is that better or worse?”

“Dallas Silver was an ass, and he was my best friend. You decide.”

Carter cleared his throat again. “And what was Kathy?” “Mrs. Baker, to you,” Bo said. “Kathy… was a bitch, and a damn proud one at that. A bitch who married my best friend and ran away with him.” He pushed himself away from his car. “If you don’t mind, I have a job to do so that I can get the hell out of this state. Nice chat, though. The false apologies are greatly appreciated, Detective Lehmann. Keep them coming, and one of these days, you might just actually mean it.”

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Yet another one of my animals unexpectedly passed away on the third of this month, this time one of my cats. I don’t expect to be writing for a little while… again, but I still had this chapter sitting around from my writing streak in the middle of last. Thank you again for your patience as I continue navigating through what has genuinely been the worst six months of my entire life.

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