The Detective [Part IX]

PART IX – 19 Hours

It wasn’t something he’d really thought about before he did it, because if he had he would have talked himself out of it. Destroying evidence was not really his style. The tooth made a nice cracking sound as the butt of his gun hit it. He’d taken out the bullets before he’d used his gun as hammer. He knew a guy who’d added an air vent to his scrotum trying to crack walnuts at a bar. Luckily the bullet had missed his testes, but they fell out into the crotch of his pants. Everyone called him “lint balls” after that.

As the tech looked on, The Detective brushed aside the pieces of tooth until he found what he was looking for. He wasn’t sure what it would look like, but he’d read enough Sci-Fi as a kid to imagine it having a blinking red light on it. It didn’t of course. What would be the point? It’d been in a tooth.

It looked like a piece of double thick black rice. “We could have just dug out the amalgam and pulled it out,” said the tech looking over his shoulder.

“Where’s the fun in that?” The Detective picked up the grain with a pair of tweezers and stuck it in a small glass vial.

“What are going to do with it?”

“Find out who put it there.”

“Aliens. Your perp is probably a rogue Man in Black.”

“You’re an idiot. Get the rest of them pulled apart and document everything the best you can. If any more come through here, repeat as necessary. And don’t start passing this around. I may have just stepped in some deep stink. You want to try and keep it from rubbing off on you.”

The Detective walked out wondering which branch of the military it belonged to. It was all starting to come together. His friend The Dentist said he knew something. He’d been in the Army. Maybe he’d been involved and could give him a list or something of the poor guinea pigs who were now getting their teeth ripped out. Then again it was getting awfully easy, really fast.

Outside he lit a cigarette and looked up into the sky. What the hell was a low-level radiation source doing in these teeth? It wasn’t even strong enough to be tracked by satellite. What good was it for? He took a drag and walked to his car. It was electronic entry. He pushed the button and the car unlocked. As the clack of the door lock disengaging entered his ear, it set off a firestorm of neuron activity. He didn’t know what it was for, but he was willing to bet the black rice was a key. Screw fingerprints and iris scans, a lock with a sensor designed to detect a specific type of low-level radiation didn’t sound implausible. It was the best idea he’d had all day.

[This is an experiment. I don’t know where it is going. I write it and post it with only a questionable reread. It’s about the process of hitting the keys in the most reflexive of styles. It probably will go nowhere, but we’ll find out. I have no plan. I have no outline. I have no reason. It’s still © 2007 Greg Bunch, even if it sucks.]