briefing.
He read the email messages with quick darting eyes, deleting most as he went, until he came to the last two. One was from the Asheville Medical Examiner, and the other was from Johnson, with attachments. The man had managed to extract the Jordan woman’s photographs from the busted camera.
‘Good man,’ Logan said over his cold coffee.
There were fifty-five shots – Logan pasted them up on his screen in rows and moved quickly through the timeline of Brad and Amanda’s last hours together. There was the smiling couple loading the car, stopping for a sandwich and soda on the way to the mountain, with several shots of the side of Brad’s huge jug-eared head as he was driving. Logan flipped through them quickly – there was no sign of any tension, both the young man and woman looked happy and relaxed with each other.
He slowed his review – they had arrived. A shot of Brad pointing up at the Black Dome peak. If nothing else, it gave Logan a place to start, and he should at least be able to identify the path they took.
He stopped at a surprising view out over the other mountains. It was a good shot, and they were high up. White specks told him that the snow had been falling quite heavily. He played around with the image for a while – enlarging, removing shading and brightness, focusing in on certain quadrants. It didn’t do any good; he couldn’t determine where they were. He’d spent plenty of time up on the mountain and he didn’t know anywhere at that height that was so opened up from the trees. Basically, there just shouldn’t have been a view like the one in the photograph.
‘Must’ve found a new spot,’ he said to the screen.
He tagged the image, moved it to the side of his screen, and stopped again at the next shot – a block of carved stone. The next image was the same, just at a slightly different angle. He shook his head; the symbols meant nothing to him. He tagged the shots and continued.
The next shot made the chief frown and lean forward – there was something on a pathway at the edge of the cliff. He didn’t recognise the path or what he was seeing. Was it a figure? Didn’t look right. He couldn’t work out the scale as there were no trees, and it was hard to make out the content as the snow looked heavier in this shot. It also didn’t help that Brad’s parka was obscuring half the shot; looked like Amanda had been standing behind him.
Logan finished his coffee while staring at the image, and grimaced at the cold metallic taste. He shrugged and dropped the cup into his wastebasket, moved the photo to the side and went on. The first shot reappeared – so, that was it.
He took down some notes: Climb towards Dome? New lookout and new path opened up on mountainside – high (6000+ feet) – possible slip? Stone artifact – valuable? Fight because it was valuable? Figure on pathway – man, bear, tree, unknown?
He looked at his notes – not much to go on. Better than nothing , he thought, and reached back to the keyboard to open the message from the ME. His brow furrowed as he read the clinical diagnostic results of the blood analysis from Amanda Jordan’s glove.
First-Level Serological Analysis:
Blood antigen type: O
Blood biology: Non-human
Metazoa: Mammalian
First-level match: No match / type unknown
That’s a big fucking help , he thought as he continued scrolling down the page.
Second-Level Genetic Analysis:
98% base-for-base genetic match to human
Excessive alpha-haemoglobin genes to human. Lower ALU repeats to human. Chromosomal tips contain DNA not present in human chromosomes, and then 10% more DNA than human.
Second-level match – international zoological database: No match / type unknown
There was another line in a different font, telling Logan that the Medical Examiner had added the note:
Sample is either a fake, or primitive form of blood type more closely resembling that of the great apes. Check the zoos and circuses.
It finished with a smiley
He read the email messages with quick darting eyes, deleting most as he went, until he came to the last two. One was from the Asheville Medical Examiner, and the other was from Johnson, with attachments. The man had managed to extract the Jordan woman’s photographs from the busted camera.
‘Good man,’ Logan said over his cold coffee.
There were fifty-five shots – Logan pasted them up on his screen in rows and moved quickly through the timeline of Brad and Amanda’s last hours together. There was the smiling couple loading the car, stopping for a sandwich and soda on the way to the mountain, with several shots of the side of Brad’s huge jug-eared head as he was driving. Logan flipped through them quickly – there was no sign of any tension, both the young man and woman looked happy and relaxed with each other.
He slowed his review – they had arrived. A shot of Brad pointing up at the Black Dome peak. If nothing else, it gave Logan a place to start, and he should at least be able to identify the path they took.
He stopped at a surprising view out over the other mountains. It was a good shot, and they were high up. White specks told him that the snow had been falling quite heavily. He played around with the image for a while – enlarging, removing shading and brightness, focusing in on certain quadrants. It didn’t do any good; he couldn’t determine where they were. He’d spent plenty of time up on the mountain and he didn’t know anywhere at that height that was so opened up from the trees. Basically, there just shouldn’t have been a view like the one in the photograph.
‘Must’ve found a new spot,’ he said to the screen.
He tagged the image, moved it to the side of his screen, and stopped again at the next shot – a block of carved stone. The next image was the same, just at a slightly different angle. He shook his head; the symbols meant nothing to him. He tagged the shots and continued.
The next shot made the chief frown and lean forward – there was something on a pathway at the edge of the cliff. He didn’t recognise the path or what he was seeing. Was it a figure? Didn’t look right. He couldn’t work out the scale as there were no trees, and it was hard to make out the content as the snow looked heavier in this shot. It also didn’t help that Brad’s parka was obscuring half the shot; looked like Amanda had been standing behind him.
Logan finished his coffee while staring at the image, and grimaced at the cold metallic taste. He shrugged and dropped the cup into his wastebasket, moved the photo to the side and went on. The first shot reappeared – so, that was it.
He took down some notes: Climb towards Dome? New lookout and new path opened up on mountainside – high (6000+ feet) – possible slip? Stone artifact – valuable? Fight because it was valuable? Figure on pathway – man, bear, tree, unknown?
He looked at his notes – not much to go on. Better than nothing , he thought, and reached back to the keyboard to open the message from the ME. His brow furrowed as he read the clinical diagnostic results of the blood analysis from Amanda Jordan’s glove.
First-Level Serological Analysis:
Blood antigen type: O
Blood biology: Non-human
Metazoa: Mammalian
First-level match: No match / type unknown
That’s a big fucking help , he thought as he continued scrolling down the page.
Second-Level Genetic Analysis:
98% base-for-base genetic match to human
Excessive alpha-haemoglobin genes to human. Lower ALU repeats to human. Chromosomal tips contain DNA not present in human chromosomes, and then 10% more DNA than human.
Second-level match – international zoological database: No match / type unknown
There was another line in a different font, telling Logan that the Medical Examiner had added the note:
Sample is either a fake, or primitive form of blood type more closely resembling that of the great apes. Check the zoos and circuses.
It finished with a smiley
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