Dead Men Tell Tall Tales

I'd like to apologise to Patricia Cornwell, but I won't...

Grace drove through the cool, crisp, Virginian morning in her SUV. It was always cool and crisp. There didn't seem to be a summer at all and, apart from a couple of snowy days, crisp was pretty much it. She presumed that it was all in the cause of persuading some hapless Hollywood producer to film her escapades.

Grace parked outside the Forensic Science Laboratory. Unlike every other public sector building, this one had copious parking and there was always a space just out front. She checked her demure, professional and brilliant look in the mirror. All present and correct. She walked across the car park, nodding to acquaintances along the way. There was no need to name these people as they'd play no part in the plot. Everyone smiled at her and acknowledged her, for she was brilliant and popular, though possessed by enough self-doubt to make her interesting. Apparently.

In the lab was Dr Macabre, a shadowy and taciturn assistant, who would later turn out to be slightly less loyal than she'd presumed. He handed her the lab coat and they began dissecting the first body of the day. These seemed to arrive with monotonous regularity and, unlike the workload of every other person in the universe, there were no peak periods. Just enough bodies for a story each time, in fact. Odd, that.

As she began her autopsy, Detective Scoffalotti strode in. He ignored the hygiene regulations, contaminating evidence and therefore losing every case on appeal. But, bizarrely, never got disciplined for it. Even more bizarrely, the brilliant and demure Grace never seemed to notice.

"So, what have we got, doc?"

"Why are you so impatient, Scoffalotti? Can't you see I've just started?"

"Yes, doc, but I'm a one-dimensional cop character who naturally expects results. I'll be applying unreasonable pressure, but you'll never have a word with my boss about it or take me to a tribunal for bullying management, so I figured I'd carry on. Besides, you can cope, being brilliant and demure and all."

How true that was, thought Grace, as she worked. But he forgot professional.

[At this point, let's just assume that Grace brilliantly, professionally, and demurely dissected the body. Do we really need eight pages of pseudo-science just to prove that, or to prove that the author once worked in forensic science? No, me neither]

She finished the dissection and scrubbed down. Scoffalotti scoffed doughnuts, from a box marked "Police Characters Only". How she hated the stuffy bureaucracy of this place. She'd have loved a doughnut. Perhaps she'd have to shake them up by having an implausible adventure.

"Well, Scoffalotti, your vic was killed with a nine-inch curved blade, probably of a sort that can be quickly narrowed down to only three outlets in the whole USA. He was stabbed by a six-foot-nine male Caucasian who is left-handed. The perpetrator walks with a stutter and talks with a limp. He'll work in some esoteric field that will require the author to do some impressive research, until the reader discovers Google will tell them that in 28 seconds."

"Thanks doc. That saves me doing any basic detective work like talking to witnesses. They're so hard to write. It sounds like a serial killer. I may have to talk to Doctor Knife, the extremely tall left-handed knife collector who I happen to know. He might be able to give me some kind of tentative hold on the case. And I never realised the dead guy was called Vic. Interesting."

"Well, Scoffalotti, even though this is a knife-wielding maniac loose in Virginia, I hope you'll crazily take time off for some personal issue, in an attempt to make yourself seem well-rounded and coherent."

"Absolutely. How about you, doc? Got a date tonight?"

"No. The last guy I dated turned out to be an ambitious if gorgeous co-worker. Before that was a serial killer. Before that was an ambitious if gorgeous co-worker, and before him was a serial killer. I don't seem to have much luck with men."

"All the same, I worry that you might be connected to this case in a spurious way. I'm going to give you some police protection, although I won't be extending that to anyone else in the case, or any relation of the victim. I'll put a squad car out front."

"Scoffalotti! I really have to protest before I reluctantly give in and agree to that."

"Okay, I'll take as read that you don't want your brilliant career to interfere with your private life, and we'll both agree that you're a very down-to-earth person. But I'll still have to be all stern and insist. Don't worry. He'll be parked where the killer can get past him by just going to your back garden. If anything happens, he'll either have been peeing in the bushes after too many coffees, or he'll have fallen asleep."

Scoffalotti turned and beckoned to a uniform officer who previously hadn't been mentioned.

"Hey, Officer Narcolepsy, go and watch the doc's house, would ya?"

Later that evening, Grace was alone in her impeccably-decorated house. She'd placed some furniture where she would stumble over it in the event of an attack. Officer Narcolepsy was outside, strangely parked so that she couldn't see him from any room in the house. He was gulping down coffee like it was going out of fashion, and she could hear lullaby music from his car stereo. What could possibly go wrong now?

The next thing she knew, there was the crash of breaking glass, and a menacing silhouette appeared at her window. Oh my God, she thought. What do I do now? What is my reaction to any kind of trauma?

Aaahhh, yes.

The carbonara sauce was bubbling nicely when the attacker came, but the pasta wasn't quite done.

The attacker stumbled over the furniture, as she knew he would. It gave her time to remember that she had a gun in the kitchen drawer. No, never mind how it got there. It just is, okay?

Fortunately, it was loaded, there was one in the chamber, the safety catch was off, and, while she'd never fired a gun, she managed to be extraordinarily accurate under pressure. She only fired one shot, but it brilliantly managed to hit the attacker and kill him instantly. How fortunate.

Officer Narcolepsy raced in, dressed only in his pyjamas and carrying a Garfield nightlight. He could see she had handled the situation brilliantly, though she would now crumble slightly in an all-too-human response to the trauma. He stepped up and took the balaclava off the intruder.

"Geez, it was Dr Knife all along."

Grace could barely contain her surprise. Officer Narcolepsy could barely contain his disgust at the pathetically Scooby-Doo ending.

Scoffalotti arrived, even though no-one had summoned him. Even if he'd been sitting at home listening into the police radio, he still couldn't have got there in anything like that time. Which no-one – including him – appeared to notice.

"Hey Grace, I see you caught our serial killer. All by yourself. Again. Naturally, this will be wrapped up very quickly. His relatives won't sue you for unlawful killing. We won't be offering you any counselling, unlike any other public body in the USA. None of your neighbours will have heard a thing. No-one will scream vigilante, or check if you have a permit. Or conduct any kind of post-scene examination or debrief."

Scoffalotti could see that she was crying.

"What's wrong, Grace? It's over."

"I know. It's just that I never got to investigate the case. I know I'm just a scientist. I know I have no skills or experience in detective work, or any powers of entry, and that all the evidence I find is inadmissible, and I'd be torn to pieces by any half-decent defence attorney, and that the case would be thrown out on appeal anyway. But I always get to work the case."

Scoffalotti hugged her, but in a strictly non-sexual way, so you can relax about that. No fat-cop-brilliant-scientist sex scene coming up.

"I know Grace, but sometimes you just have to settle for being brilliant and demure. Besides, I have a feeling a new case will be presenting itself, just as soon as this one gets turned into a straight-to-DVD movie."

"Thanks Scoffalotti, I needed to hear that."

"Now, as I'm a cop, I need to eat that brilliantly delicious Italian meal you were making."

Despite the trauma, the blood-spattered house, and their pumping adrenaline, how they both laughed.