She didn't look like a murder suspect. That's what the lady on the news said when she had been asked about the murders. Well of course not, Detective Harrison thought with some disdain. Most murderers rarely look or act like the stereotypes you see on TV. Most of them are more like desperate versions of normal people-many were normal people until they'd snapped.
Harrison nodded at his partner as they met outside the interview room. Their suspect was sitting in the chair; patiently waiting.
"She's been behaving," Sergeant Walters said.
Walters was his junior partner, transferred over from narcotics. He was a good cop and older than his years. Harrison had been the primary on the case, but Walters had proven better at interviewing suspects, making them feel at ease; the perfect good cop.
"Good." Harrison sipped at his coffee and put the cup down on his desk. "Has she given us anything useful yet? Like, say, a motive?"
"That's the weird thing. She's been nothing but cooperative. She even told me where the bodies were and how she disposed of them. The lieutenant's sending the crime scene technicians to the site as we speak."
Harrison raised his eyebrows. "A cooperative murderer," he said. "Well, I guess there's a first time for everything."
He'd known cold-blooded killers who wanted to brag about what they'd done. But this woman wasn't like that. Walters told him she'd been very matter-of-fact about the whole thing. In her own clinical way, she'd made it sound no worse than a biology dissection.
Well, that made sense. She'd been a biology teacher at a local high school. But before that, she'd worked in the ME's office. She'd left under circumstances that still weren't quite clear, although her file said she'd been good and thorough in her work.
Her name was Juliet Wilson, age 43, with dark brown hair that fell down around her shoulders and never seemed to be out of place. She looked up at Harrison as he entered the room and smiled politely. "I've been expecting you," she said as he sat down across the table from her. "Your partner spoke very highly of you."
"Thanks." Harrison liked to keep his questioning short and to the point. Never let the suspect distract you; it was one of the first things his old partner and mentor, God rest his soul, had told him many years ago. Harrison opened the folder he'd brought with him.
"You've given us a great deal of information about this case," he said. "I suppose I ought to thank you for that. Now, before we go any further, have you asked for a lawyer?"
Juliet shook her head. "I don't want one. I know the law says I should have one present, but I just want to get through this as quickly and painlessly as possible. I have a lawyer, though. I told him not to do anything until the district attorney was ready to go to trial."
"Then you understand that whatever you tell me now can be used against you? Well, all right then; let's get started. First of all...why the kids? Why not just the adults?"
For the first time Juliet frowned slightly. "The kids were...part of the infection. The tumor started with the adults but spread to them. I had to cut it out. It was the only way." Then her pleasant disposition returned. "I worked in the medical examiner's office. I know what the effects of a tumor on the body look like."
"Yes, I know. You worked there for quite a while. But then you quit and went into teaching. Why?"
"I wanted to share what I'd learned with the next generation. There's a lot of interest in forensic medicine these days, thanks to all those crime shows. I wanted to help prepare them for what it was really going to be like."
"And what's it like?"
Juliet's expression darkened, but only slightly. "The body can take a great deal of punishment. Our bodies really are very resilient. But when something invades the body-like a cancer-it uses the body's own cells against it. A person becomes helpless to fight back. That's what a tumor is-an infection that kills the body from the inside out."
"And what was the infection you found? The one that made you want to...cut it out of those people?"
"I'm a teacher," Juliet said. "My job is to impart knowledge to younger minds. But the older ones need knowledge, too. When they choose not to get it, then it becomes an infection that can spread to others. We are becoming an ignorant society." Juliet's face brightened. "But I'm a doctor, too. I can help cure the infection, to stop it before it spreads. So that's what I did." She closed her eyes and smiled. "I cured them."
Harrison kept his voice level. "You cut into both their brains and their hearts. Was that where the infection was?"
"The heart is where it started. It spreads to the brain. The contagion can wipe their minds of all responsibility. They can't think for themselves anymore." Juliet looked earnestly at him. "It was the only way."
Harrison rubbed his eyes. "All right, we've got your previous statements. I assume you'll cooperate if we need anything further."
Juliet smiled. "Of course I will. I've always been a good citizen."
Harrison and Walters went over the crime scene photos and spoke to the department psychologist. "So she's absolutely convinced that this so-called infection is real?" Harrison asked.
The psychologist nodded. "It's an extreme form of disassociate disorder. In her mind, the reality of the problem overrode whatever qualms she might have otherwise had. She was acting as a doctor treating a disease."
"But real doctors don't go around cutting people open to cure society's problems," Walters protested.
"In her mind, the infection-what she calls the ¿tumors'-and society were one and the same. Its preventive medicine carried to an extreme. Her experience as a medical examiner numbed her as a doctor. She was most likely unstable when she got that job, but like a lot of people who don't think they're crazy she hid it well enough to pass the qualifications. She saw people who were victims of violence so often that to her, society became a disease."
"So she decided to cure it all on her own." Harrison took the folder with the psychologist's report in it. "Okay, Doctor. Thanks, I guess we're lucky that we caught her before she was able to ¿Cure' anyone else."
On the way back to the precinct, Harrison noticed that Walters was unusually quiet. He was always the more thoughtful of the two, but something was on his mind. Harrison asked him what was up.
"Something the doctor said keeps sticking in my mind." Walters looked out the passenger side window of their car at the downtown skyline. "You know, we try to cure society, too. I mean, we take out the bad cells-murderers, rapists, whatever-and we try to isolate or remove them from the body of society."
"But we don't go around killing people at random because we think there's something wrong with them," Harrison said. "There's a big difference between us and her."
"I know. But what if society is like a body and it activates its defenses when it becomes too infected with crime? What if there are antibodies out there that take things into their own hands when we can't? What if..."
Walters' speech was interrupted by the beep of Harrison's cell phone. He picked it up. "Yeah, we're on our way back now. What? When? Damn!" Harrison snapped the phone shut.
"What is it?" Walters asked.
Harrison's face clouded over. "We've got a problem-a big one."
Juliet smiled as she swung the thin blade at another face. It was wearing a uniform, but that didn't matter. Behind her were bodies, some of whom had been plainclothes detectives, others suspects in their cells. She was vaguely aware that people were shooting at her, but the bullets seemed to have no impact. They were merely disease vectors and she absorbed them just like any antibody would.
The uniformed person went down, clutching his chest and trying in vain to stop the bleeding from his right temple. Juliet was precise as always; she knew there was nothing he could do. Part of her felt some remorse-after all, they'd once been antibodies, too. But the immune system was breaking down and needed to rebuild itself. That was the job of Juliet and the others like her who were being awakened and called into duty even now.
In the meantime, there was work to be done. Another terrified face appeared in front of her, and Juliet swung again.