Chapter CHAPTER III—NATURAL OR SERIAL KILLER

I picked up my office phone and dialed the number listed under Detective Jackson’s name. The line beeped.

.

I proceeded to dial the second number listed under Detective Marin’s name. The phone rang three times before he picked up.

“Alo’, Detective Marin, Miami PD,” answered a middle-aged man with a heavy Cuban accent.

“Hi, Detective Marin, this is Dr. Kaya Jerito. I am the—spokesperson for the Department of Neurology at Jackson Memorial.”

I hesitated in calling myself the representative of anything. The only person I typically spoke for was myself, and on occasion, my son. But JJ thrived in life as a highly intelligent and stubbornly independent prepubescent male. He did not need my input often.

“Sí, Dr. Jerito, my partner and I need to speak to you. Could we stop by your office and ask you a few questions?”

“Of course. What time can I expect you and Detective Jackson?”

“We’ll be there in twenty minutes. We’re walking out of the precinct right now.”

“Okay. See you then.”

The line dropped quickly. He sounded uncomfortable and stressed, and no one could blame him. He probably had not slept all night.

, I wondered, I reached for my go-to text for all things neurological, Merritt’s Neurology Tenth Edition, which resided on the top shelf of my largest bookcase.

The outdated hardback had a worn cover and tattered edges. I had purchased it during my first semester of medical school. Our history together could be described as both long and intimate.

We had spent many a late night together in the living room of my apartment and the group study rooms of the library when Charnesha and I had to get a babysitter for JJ. I could not bear to part with that book, even though I owned a current electronic version.

I had just begun to have nostalgic daydreams when my desk phone rang. I jumped and dropped the heavy textbook on the floor. I reached down, picked it up, and placed it on my desk before I cleared my throat and answered the phone.

“This is Dr. Jerito,” I said in a calm tone.

“Dr. Jerito, this is Nurse James,” her voice, usually full of spirit, sounded exhausted and flat.

“Nurse James, what are you still doing here?” I asked puzzled, as she should have left after I arrived.

“Nurse Dumas is running late. No one can get a hold of her.” She paused sounding worried, then remembered why she had called, and continued, “Doctor, there are two men here that would like to speak with you—detectives from the Miami Police Department.”

“Right. Send them over.” I began to straighten up my desk.

There was a rapid knock at my door.

“Come in, gentlemen.” As I spoke, two men stepped into my professional sanctuary.

I prompted both of them to have a seat in the two chairs directly in front of me. As they walked across the room, I took a moment to evaluate their appearance.

Detective Oscar Jackson entered the room first, tall and slim with particularly long fingers and large hands. His earthy skin tone resembled rich soil. His hair, the color of spent charcoal and styled in a low cut with gentle waves.

Some people would call this “checking him out”, but I was not in the mindset to appreciate any man’s physique at the moment.

Relationship trauma can prevent one from accepting the beauty of others both inside and outside. My observations were purely scientific. A lot can be learned about a person from how they choose to present themselves to the world.

“Good morning, Doctor Jerito. I’m Detective Jackson and this is my partner Detective Marin,” spoke the deep-complexioned detective, and apparent leader, as he extended his hand towards me over my desk. He directed his other towards his partner who stood silently beside him.

Detective Símon Marin stood slightly shorter but still taller than me, had hair the color of oak bark streaked with gray. He wore it a bit longer than his partner, the texture more apparent. The capricious wisps and ringlets sprouted here and there forming an ordered chaos of cascading curls.

“Yes, Detective Marin, we spoke on the phone,” I began. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both despite the circumstance.” I smiled and shook their hands in turn, then lowered myself into my office chair.

After a moment of inaction, I said, “Please—have a seat.” Nothing happened. They stood still as gargoyles.

“We won’t be here long, I assure you, but if you insist—” said Detective Marin, glancing briefly at his partner who gave him a curt nod.

They sat in unison, Detective Marin on my right and Detective Jackson on my left.

“Would you gentlemen like a cup of coffee or some refreshments?”

I only had a single-cup beverage maker and some gluten-free snack bars but my mother taught me to offer what I had to my guests. She took Southern hospitality to heart. “Make folks feel at home when they’re in your company,” she would say. “It’ll increase the chances of them returning when you actually need them,” she would add with a wink.

The detectives passed on my offer.

“How long have the two of you been partners?” I asked, for though they looked unrelated, their mannerisms suggested otherwise.

“Eleven years,” answered Detective Marin with pride. His accent made his voice seductively suave. This was more apparent in person than on the phone.

“Impressive. So, tell me Gentlemen, how exactly may I help you?”

“As you probably have heard by now, there was a bit of a situation that began last night,” began Detective Jackson. “Many of the victims were found dead on the scene, but your hospital got most of the survivors in our jurisdiction. Your colleagues said that if anyone could tell us what was going on, it would be you.”

“Well—” I started. I felt unprepared for this meeting and uncomfortable answering any questions at the time. I had only just found out about the phenomena an hour or two ago. “I have been informed—briefly, mind you. I started conducting research this morning with the data I’ve been given, but I haven’t had enough time to come to any definitive conclusions.

“I would love to help, however, I need more details to be quite sure that I’m on the right path. Do you have any specifics on the state of the patients they were brought to us? Any eye-witnesses maybe?”

They exchanged a look and nodded. “There was one—that we know of,” Detective Jackson continued, the brown skin of his forehead furrowed with concern. “That last victim that was brought to you was a prostitute, the classy type, advertises as an escort. She works in and around South Beach. You could say she’s not new to the game. We’ve been picking her up for about three years now.”

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but you just let her go back on the streets after you’ve picked her up repeatedly? Isn’t there anything you can do for her?”

“It’s a free country,” answered Detective Marin hotly. “She can go wherever the hell she pleases after she’s served her time. That includes back to the streets.”

I raised my eyebrows and tilted my head back at the sudden outburst from the seemingly reserved detective.

I thought, withholding my sassy reply. This was not the place or the time. Of course, I found the detective’s outburst to be unprofessional, inappropriate, and emotionally charged, but it offered me a clue to something beneath the surface.

Detective Jackson held out his hand, palm down, towards his partner.

“Sorry about that,” apologized Detective Jackson. He shot a quick glance at Detective Marin, narrowing his eyes, “That’s a touchy topic for him. He hates to see women selling themselves to strangers like that, in particular. He’s been trying to persuade her to stop for some time now.”

“And it was a complete waste of time,” added Detective Marin, his eyes studying what I assumed to be the wood patterns on the leg of my computer desk.

“I would have to disagree,” I said, appreciating his frustration but resenting his pessimism.

“Would you now?” he said in an overly-sarcastic tone his eyes still diverted. “Look where she ended up!”

His eyes found mine. A layer of liquid heartbreak formed in his eyes as he fought to keep the tears at bay. He blinked a few times and the somber evidence dissipated. His worn face blank as stone and unreadable for the remainder of the conversation.

“As I was saying,” continued Detective Jackson, “There was one witness.” He brought us all back to order with grace. I imagined he was a great confidant and sought to console his friend in private. “A ‘coworker’ of the last victim came to us with this story.”

As he spoke, he pulled a small, silver digital voice recorder out of his inside pocket. He sat the device on the edge of my desk and pressed play.

My ears registered sobs and sniffs from the device’s small speaker followed by the voice of a young female. She exclaimed, “Please tell me where she is!” She sobbed more, then added, “Is she like going to be okay?”

She sounded like a valley girl in her late teens or early twenties, but her accent hinted to the Old South rather than California or South Florida.

“She’s at the hospital and they’re doing the best they can to save her, but you’ve got to help us out, too.” It was Detective Jackson’s soothing voice. “Tell us exactly what happened.”

“I don’t know!” The young woman sounded frantic and terrified.

“Let’s start with your name.”

The young woman sniffed, then answered, “Catherine Ann Kelly. My mom calls me Cathy-Ann, but everyone else calls me Cat, you know. Because the other nickname is lame.”

“Well, Cat,” Detective Marin’s voice asked in a now not-so-surprising sarcastic tone, “What is the last thing you remember?”

She took a deep, shaky breath and began her tale.

“We were walking together down Collins Avenue when this, like, white Mercedes pulled up beside us. We leaned down to get a better look at the driver and saw, like, the most gorgeous man ever! Um, there was a woman in the back seat, too. And she could have been, like, the World’s Next Top Model or something, you know?”

“They were both dressed in white and even hotter and richer looking than our usual clientele,” she continued. “We only work the, like, ritzy parts of town, you know? We get all sorts of lawyers, doctors, models, athletes and celebrities who, like, just want to have a good time with a couple of pretty girls they don’t know.

“But, um, these two were off the charts!

“Anyway, Chanel asked them if they were looking to have some fun, or whatever, and um, the guy nodded. So, we both went to get into his car, Chanel in the back and me in the front, but um, he stopped me.” She paused. “I told him I could come too, but he, like, gave me a look and I knew he only wanted Chanel or something, so I—um—backed off, right? I didn’t to but I to, you know? I had to let her go.” Cat began to sob again.

“You said you ‘knew’ he only wanted Chanel. How?” asked Detective Marin.

“I don’t know. It was the way he looked at me I guess?” she replied uncertainly.

“What kind of look was it? Disgust? Disapproval?”

“No. It wasn’t like that. His face was, um, blank really. I just knew, you know?”

There was a long pause. “Okay,” said Detective Jackson, breaking the silence. “What happened next?”

“They drove up the street some and parked under a dead street light or whatever,” she continued in a reflective tone. “I guess they were, like, in some kind of hurry or something. We have places where we usually take our clients, you know? Off the main roads. So—I was, like, surprised that they stopped so soon.

“I tried, but I couldn’t really tell what was going on in the car. Whatever it was didn’t last that long.” There was a pause, and then Cat continued, her voice shakier. “Uh, so—five minutes later, Chanel got out of the car and they, um, drove off. I walked down the street, like, as fast as I could to get to her or whatever. I 5wanted to know what happened.

“Chanel said that the woman kissed her then let her out. Bummer, right?” Cat coughed and cleared her throat. Her voice trembled as she continued, “We started walking back the way we came, and um, that’s when everything got like really weird. She was pretty much fine up until then.”

“What happened to her?” asked Detective Jackson’s voice.

“Try and remember as much as you can,” added Detective Marin, his voice stern but uneven.

Cat spoke with more emotion as she recounted her friend’s difficulties, “Like, at first she was complaining that her head hurt or something. She stopped walking. I didn’t realize it at first, so I had, um, passed her a little.” She sniffled. “When I turned around, she had her hands like on the sides of her head and she was crying. I asked her what was up with her and she, like, said it was her head or whatever.” She stopped and took a ragged breath. “Chanel is tough, you know? She doesn’t cry about anything, so I was starting to get pretty worried.

“So—then I, like, walked over to put my hand on her shoulder and she shrugged it off. She started, um, yelling about her head and asking me why were we outside, and it was really weird!” Cat stopped talking, but I could hear her sobbing over the voice recorder.

Detective Jackson prodded her along with, “What happened next?”

Cat sniffed again, gaining her composure. “I told her we were working or whatever, but she didn’t understand me, you know? It was, like, so strange!” I could hear Cat’s tone rising. “I was, um, really starting to get nervous then. What if those people had, like, drugged her or something? Her words started to come out all funny and stuff, you know?”

Detective Marin asked her, “What do you mean by ‘funny’?”

“She started to sound like a two-year-old or something. I thought she was, like, going cra cra. I looked in her eyes or whatever to see if she was overdosing or something. Her eyes are blue so I could see that, um, one pupil was, like, bigger than the other. It was totally weird!” Cat’s voice wavered, she sounded on the edge of breaking down. “Then she fell to the ground, and started to shake—like, really bad! I thought she was having a seizure or something. She shook so hard that, like, foam came out of her mouth.”

Cat started to cry again and her last words became harder to understand. “That’s wh-wh-when I ca-called the am-ambulance. I ju-ju-just wa-want her to, li-like, be o-okay.”

The young woman broke down and began to cry intensely.

Detective Jackson reached over and pressed the stop button on the voice recorder. He said, “That’s the only lead we have.”

“Intriguing—” I responded, my voice trailed off with my thoughts.

I thought of my dream from the previous night and a cold chill washed over me. The nightmare seemed more real than ever. The woman in white who killed with a kiss of death.

“Yes, it is,” said Detective Jackson, bringing me to my senses.

I cleared my throat. “What that young woman described are quite clearly symptoms most often occurring as a result of a severe traumatic brain injury.

“That story correlates with everything I have been seeing today. Did she, by any chance, tell her friend that the man or woman did anything to her physically, beyond kissing her?”

“No. What you heard is all the information that we have,” answered Detective Jackson.

“According to Cat, Chanel was perfectly happy with her job until it nearly killed her,” added Detective Marin with more than a hint of sourness.

“That leaves us with two options,” I said, taking a leaf out of Detective Jackson’s book and ignoring Detective Marin’s inappropriate remarks. “We can hope Chanel pulls through and ask her what happened ourselves or we can wait for the autopsy report.”

As I said this my office phone rang.

“Excuse me, Gentlemen,” I picked it up. “This is Doctor Jerito.” It was Charnesha. She said the last victim had just passed away and she was going home. “I’m sorry to hear that, Charnesha, but you know you can’t blame yourself.”

“I know, Sis,” she admitted wearily. “It’s just so heartbreaking.”

“I understand, but we’ll find the answers. I’m getting more information from the two Miami PD detectives now.”

“Great. I won’t hold you then.”

“Okay. Get some rest.”

“Sure.”

“Text me when you wake up.”

“Okay. Love you, Sis. Bye.”

“You too. Bye.”

I put down the receiver and lightly patted it once, as if to offer it comfort for hearing those words.

“Well, Detectives,” I said following a deep sigh, “that was my colleague in the operating room. Unfortunately, we’re going to have to go with the latter plan of action.” I paused, looking into Detective Marin’s deep brown eyes. “The young lady is dead. I’m sorry.”

The detectives exchanged another look, this one consolatory.

“I guess we’re done here,” said Detective Marin looking defeated.

“We’ll give you a call if and when we get any more leads,” said Detective Jackson and they both stood up. “Could you do the same for us?”

I stood, too. “I’ll keep researching and update you when I know more.”

We shook hands again and they exited the room. They pulled the door closed behind them as the left. It whined mournfully in their wake.

I did not notice the clock all day long. I remember Pascale Dumas, the day nurse, bringing me some lunch, but it did not dawn on me that it was after twelve. Before I knew it, I was hungry again. That is when I finally looked at the clock.

“Eight o’clock! Oh my Gosh, I have to go!” I said aloud.

It had been quiet for so long that the sound of my own voice quickened the pace of my heart.

I reached in my purse and took out my cell phone surprised by the fact that it had not rung or beeped all day. I had eight missed calls. It had been on silent, but that did not matter now.

At least I had been productive.

I packed up my things and headed for the door when I realized that it would be pitch black outside. That fact usually did not bother me, but it was Miami at night—and people were showing up dead all over the city.

When I reached the ground floor, the doors opened, and my tired eyes welcomed the night. Even with fear looming in every corner, the evening looked beautiful.

I was not yet afraid.