The Genesis Illusion

Chapter 7

Anita Roberts perched on the edge of the straight-backed wooden chair waiting for Detective Jaylon Lewis to arrive. Her dark hair, glasses, and unbuttoned white lab coat displayed a forensic connection. Anita led the NYPD CSI team for the first time, working on the Frank Wilson bombing case. Detective Lewis barged in, head down studying a report he held, closed the door behind him, and without looking up said, "Well, what have you got?"

Only then did he raise his head to recognize Anita. Oh no. He had worked with her on another case but she was not the lead.

She opened a file folder on her lap, removed a small stack of photos, and spread them out on Lewis's desk and said, "Hereare the crimescenephotographsyou canseethe explosivedevice clearly inthisone."

What was that? He was afraid of this. She was known to be a fast talker. "Wait a minute. You see the explosive device?" Her jumble of words required him to clarify most of what she said.

"Therewereafew pieces missingbutotherwise itwasintact."

Detective didn't understand much. It was just unintelligible noise. Her speech contained no, pauses and no punctuation. It reminded him of the sound of water coming from a faucet. A continuous hoosh until it ended when the valve was turned. Anita came from family with eleven brothers and sisters. She had to speak fast to get her message heard. She perfected her fast-talk to the point where others couldn't understand her, especially when she was nervous.

Lewis somewhat deciphered her unintentional the code. The explosive device remains are in the photo. "Oh, I see it in the photo."

"A M116 militarygrenade. Commonlycalled a Crash-and-Flash non-lethalgrenade mostly they'reusedforcrowd control and sometimes tocreateadiversion theymakeavery loud noise accompaniedbya bright flash and alotof smoke they'renotsupposedtobe lethal the military doesn'tusethemmuch anymore becauseseveralhave malfunctioned resultingin injuries andafew deaths."

Lewis motioned with his hands for Anita to stop. "I hope this won't offend you, but could you slow down your speech? You have important information I really need to understand."

Anita paused and then spoke deliberately without any hint she was offended, "I'm so sorry.  My fast speech is involuntary. Controlling it takes concentration, but it's manageable. I guess that's a consequence of being the youngest in a large family. Sorry for any confusion."

"I hesitated to bring it up. I didn't want to hurt your feelings." Jaylon let out a deep breath, relieved that she wasn't offended.

"I think you said the explosive device was a military, Crash-and Flash and it was lethal. What about the timer?"

"No Sir, it was NON-LETHAL.  Our test results aren't complete, but the timer appears to be a simple sixty-minute design so who ever planted the bomb was not around when it exploded."

"A sixty-minute timer. So the perp wasn't around when it detonated. What else?" Detective Lewis was getting better at picking out the important words hidden in the verbal soup.

"You can seethe bomb outside the rear door of the theater this is the door used by theater staff and performers when they want to smoke."

"He went out the back door to smoke?"

"Yes we found a partially smoked marijuana joint nearby we are testing it for DNA but the results aren't in yet."

"Marijuana. What killed him?"

"It's unofficial of course but it appears he was killed by fragment of the explosive device he must've been very close when it exploded."

"This poor guy must be the unluckiest man in the world. He went outside to smoke a joint and was standing right on top of a bomb when it exploded."

"Please remember these results are only preliminary." Detective Lewis had been through this many times so he knew the drill and could use what information he had without reaching a final conclusion. It's entirely possible that the bombing had nothing to do with Frank Wilson.

"Yes, I know. Where can you get this grenade?"

"The only place we can find them is from military sources this is not something available to the general public." Anita was beginning to relax and her speech became more intelligible.

"We need see where this leads, but right now it doesn't appear like someone was trying to kill this guy. He was just unlucky."

"Yes sir, I agree. Most likely the device was planted to cause a disruption to the conference proceedings."

"I'm not sure why someone would want to disrupt this nerdy conference. The International Conference on World Demographic Statistics. I don't even know what the hell that means." They both laughed. "How many people were there when the bomb detonated?"

"About five hundred, we'll get the exact count from the conference registration records."

"Our interviews identified a few people acquainted with the victim. One is a woman who was his former fiancé and a man who worked with him and co-authored the paper he was presenting. These were the two that knew him the best so far."

"Would either one of them want him dead?"

"Doubt it." Surprises do happen. "I don't think so, and even if they did they wouldn't have had access to this type of bomb. The conference interruption theory is the most likely. Stay on the trail of the grenade, it's our best lead."