Mike Ashley - The Mammoth Book of Perfect Crimes and Impossible Mysteries

Murex leaned in. The man’s eyes were wide open, staring. They almost bugged out of his head. Their color was glassy green.

The ME shone a penlight. “Pinpoint hemorrhages, indicating burst capillaries. Normal under certain conditions.”

Murex said, “He looks scared.”

“The eyes look scared. His face is another matter. Thyroid problems can give the eyeballs that protruding effect.”

“So can manual strangulation,” Murex reminded.

“Strangulation ivariably triggers bowel elimination, and I smell nothing of the kind.” The ME was examining Doom’s throat. “No ligature marks. No bruises.” He felt of the windpipe. “Larynx is unremarkable.”

Taking one of the dead man’s hands, the ME started to separate them. “Two chipped fingernails. But no defensive – what’s this?”

Murex extracted a thin microcassette recorder from between the man’s fingers. Rewinding, Murex played it back. A murmuring voice emanated from the tiny speaker: “5688 7854 January 23. 5688 7854.” There was a long pause in which measured breathing could be heard.

“Respiration appears regular,” the ME remarked.

The voice repeated “5688 7854.” Then: “My perceptions of the target are of a winding stone stairwell leading into the bowels of the Earth. It feels cold. Air stagnant. A sickly greenish light is emanating from far below…”

Another pause came in which breathy exhalations were the only detectable sounds. After three minutes of disconnected murmurings, Murex paused the recorder. “Sounds like he just fell asleep.”

The ME looked at him. “I wonder what he meant by ‘target’?”

“Suddenly ‘natural causes’ doesn’t trip off the tongue so easily, does it?”

Murex went to the window. Outside, afternoon traffic flowed by the hotel. This was the heart of Boston’s financial district. The blue glass blade of the Hancock Tower stood just a few blocks north, and beyond that the city’s second-largest office tower, the Prudential Building. Murex thought of the twin World Trade Center towers, and shivered.

“I’d better check in with my commanding officer,” he told the ME. Using his cellphone, Murex spoke briefly, recounting his findings. He listened, then snapped the device shut.

“Captain Hurley would like a priority on this autopsy.”

“Okay. I’ll put a flag on it.”

Minutes later, as the body was being removed out a side door, Detective Murex was talking to the desk clerk.

“Do you remember a John Doom checking in?”

“Sure. Hear he died.”

“In his sleep. Anything unusual about him come to mind?”

“No.”

“Any distinguishing features?”

“No. He wasn’t very tall, about five-four, medium brown hair. Paid by credit card. He reminded me of my cousin.”

“Why is that?”

“My cousin’s in the Air Force. This guy gave me that feeling, too.”

Murex nodded. “Remember him well enough to identify him?”

“I won’t have to go down to the morgue, will I?”

“No. Follow me.”

EMTs were rolling the body into the back of an ambulance. Murex called out, “Hold up.”

Stripping the sheet off the corpse’s face, he asked, “This look like him?”

“Yeah. No, wait. That’s not him.”

Murex said, “No?”

“No. His hair was browner and the eyebrows much thicker.”

“Now take a deep breath,” Murex said. “People can appear different in death. Look again. Is this the man who checked in last evening under the name of John Doom?”

“I – Yeah, it is.”

“You are positive?”

“Absolutely. Can I go now? I feel kinda ill.”

“Stay handy.”

A forensics team from the CSI Unit had taken control of Room 314. They dusted for prints, collected hair samples off the bedspread and said hardly a word.

Murex was bagging John Doom’s personal effects when he noticed the black binder had a logo embossed into it: A human eye in a starburst over the letters TIRV. Uncolored, it was detectable only under direct light.

Grabbing the sleep mask, Murex gave it a second look. Over the right eye, in modest white letters, were the same initials. Outlined on the mask’s brow gleamed a tiny white eye in a starburst.

“What have we here?” he muttered.

Reaching into his coat for his cellphone, Murex discovered the tape recorder. It felt warm. He realized he’d left it on pause. Hitting play, Murex sat and listened. The DOA’s breathing continued for a time. He seemed asleep, but came out of it. He began speaking:

“I’m standing in a chamber hollowed out of solid stone. Instead of a floor, I see grates. Iron grates… it feels hot… the air reeks of sulfur… Below me it’s like a barbeque pit… black smoke… leaping flames… I perceive two burning eyes… like very hot coals. And a black face emerging… it’s-”

Suddenly, the voice rose into a panicky strangled sound. The voice began gasping, struggling for air. It soon choked off. The tape hummed white noise. The absence of breathing noises was unmistakable.

One of the CSI team said, “Sounds exactly like a heart attack.”

Murex called his CO. “Looks like natural causes with a funny twist. Scratch that courtesy call to the FBI.”

Back at District A-l headquarters, Murex Googled the initials TIRV. He got one hit: Technical Institute for Remote Viewing of Nashua, New Hampshire. Linking to the site, Murex was confronted by the eye-in-a-starburst motif, white against a black starfield.

EXPLORE THE UNIVERSE!

During the Cold War, the Pentagon and the Kremlin were locked in a desperate race. Not the space race, but a far more secret enterprise: the Psi Race! Dedicated to penetrating the deepest frontiers of human endeavour, the Department of Defence launched Project Stargate, where specially-selected candidates plucked from every service branch were trained to become true “spooks” – shadowy secret agents who could go anywhere, penetrate any nation’s security, all without leaving the confines of the ultra-secret Stargate training center at Fort Meade, Maryland!

Now, you too can become a Stargate-level psychic explorer. Captain Trey Grandmaison, one of the Stargate unit’s top Remote Viewers, is now teaching qualified civilian candidates in the advanced 21st-century martial art formerly available only to the military elite!

Hearing the knock, Captain Hurley barked, “Come in.”

Murex entered. “Turned up something unusual on that hotel fatality, sir.”

“What is it?”

Instead of answering, Murex set down the black binder, the eye shade and a color printout of the TIRV site home page.

“What the holy hell?” Hurley growled. “You have a nice flair for the dramatic, laying it out for me like this.”

“I figure you can do the math faster than I could explain it.”

“Much obliged,” Hurley said dryly. He read the TIRV mission statement aloud: “‘Remote Viewing is the acquisition and description, by mental means, of information blocked from ordinary perception by distance, shielding or time. TIRV is dedicated to placing this powerful mind technology in peaceful hands.’” He leaned back. “Is this for real?”

“Your guess is as good as mine. According to this website, Captain Grandmaison is ex-Army Intelligence. He trains people to do this stuff. John Doom was apparently trying to remotely view whatever these numbers represent when he expired.”

“Why don’t you take a run up to New Hampshire and see this guy, Grandmaison?”

“I’ll do that.”

As Murex started out, Hurley called after him, “I got a feeling about this one, Ray.”

Former Captain Trey Grandmaison lived in a converted farmhouse just over the Massachusetts border. It was a sprawling structure painted Colonial white, edged with stark black trim. A big barn lay behind it, as colorless and weathered as a Cape Cod fishing shack. The drive leading back to the barn had been plowed clean of snow.