Cause of Death: Unknown

The county medical examiner was frankly baffled. Three men in good health were dead for no apparent reason.

"It's as though someone just turned off a switch," Dr. Roy Harding told homicide detective Megan Tierney after completing his postmortem examinations of the three victims. "The autopsies showed no discernible cause of death in any of them. These men simply got into a hot tub and then dropped dead in unison. They didn't drown, and they weren't electrocuted."

"What about the water in the tub? Could it have contained some type of rare poison?"

"At this point anything is possible," Dr. Harding admitted, "but it's not very likely. Still, I'm running a complete toxicology analysis on the victims right now. I'll let you know as soon as I find out anything."

Megan left the morgue and headed directly home. There was something about this case that disturbed her. In her years on the police force, she had grown accustomed to bloody crime scenes and mutilated corpses. They had become part of the job, but in this case, she couldn't even be absolutely certain that a crime had been committed.

When the detective pulled into her driveway, she closed her eyes and went through the task of putting her work aside for the night. It was easier for her than for most cops since at home she had personal problems to deal with, ones far beyond the scope of her oath to serve and protect the public.

Franklin James Tierney, the love of Megan's life, had been a wonderful husband, a caring father and a hell of a police officer. Twice decorated, Frank rose from rookie to chief of detectives quicker than any other man or woman in the history of the city's police force. How tragic that a man who had faced mobsters, drug dealers and murderers on a daily basis should be the victim of a traffic accident—killed by an eighteen-year-old drunk driver.

Frank's untimely death not only left Megan without a husband, but it also gave her sole responsibility for the care of their young daughter, Laurel, a special needs child.

Worrying over her daughter's mental health often took Megan's mind off the pressures of her job. Dozens of medical doctors, psychiatrists and child psychologists bandied about words such as autistic and subnormal, but these were mere adjectives to Megan, labels with no real meaning. No one could explain to her satisfaction why Laurel never spoke a word or why she seemed to stare right through people rather than look at them. Well-meaning friends and relatives suggested Megan find a home for Laurel, a place where she would be looked after and cared for by trained medical professionals, but Megan wouldn't hear of it. She had lost her husband; she wasn't about to lose her daughter, too.

After taking her gun off and locking it in her drawer, Megan went into Laurel's room and planted a kiss on her daughter's cheek.

"Mrs. Rinehart made your favorite supper: spaghetti and meatballs. And, since you've been such a good girl, she baked you a batch of Toll House cookies for dessert."

Every night Megan kept up a single-sided conversation with her daughter. On rare occasions, the little girl would look her mother in the face as if she understood what Megan was saying, but most of the time she would only stare vacantly ahead, lost in her own world.

Laurel wasn't helpless, however. At an early age, she learned to feed, dress and bathe herself. She could even enjoy the simple pastimes of other children: building jigsaw puzzles, coloring with crayons, jumping rope and riding a bike. What Laurel loved most, though, were her books. They were only preschool age-level, but the child seemed fascinated with the brightly colored illustrations. Every night she'd curl up in Megan's lap, staring at the pictures while her mother read the exciting adventures of Spot, Clifford or the Berenstain Bears.

The following day Megan questioned the victims' families and friends concerning the events that led to the fatal dip in the hot tub. One victim, a thirty-seven-year-old husband and father, was employed as the manager of the meat department of a large grocery store. At approximately 3:00 p.m., he put down his meat cleaver, removed his apron, walked out of the building, got into his car and drove away. Another victim, a twenty-one-year-old college student who worked at the Living Museum, likewise left in the middle of the day, for no apparent reason. The third man, who owned a bakery in the neighboring town, was home taking a nap after working a four to twelve shift. According to his wife, he got out of bed and walked out of the house without saying a word.

"It doesn't make any sense," Megan said to fellow detective Ned Russo. "Why would three men, who apparently didn't know each other, drop what they were doing and head over to a house, whose owners none of the men knew, and jump in their hot tub fully clothed?"

"They may not have known each other," Ned suggested, "but maybe someone knew the three of them. Have you ever seen that old Sixties movie The Manchurian Candidate?"

"It's as good an explanation as any. You said all three men were described by witnesses as behaving as if they were in a trance."

"Even if that's the case, we're still left with the sixty-four-thousand-dollar question: how were they killed?"

A month later Megan was no closer to solving the murders—if in fact, they were murders. The medical examiner could find no trace of any known poison in the three victims, so the cause of death was officially listed as unknown. That probably would have been the end of the investigation had not another mysterious death occurred.

"So the cause of death is the same as that of the three men in the hot tub?" Megan asked Dr. Roy Harding.

"I didn't say that. I haven't been able to ascertain the cause of death in that case yet, but the facts surrounding the two cases are similar. This victim was a healthy male who, for no medical reason, simply stopped living. As well as I can determine nothing or no one killed him."

The latest victim was a forty-eight-year-old musician whose body was found at a nearby riding stable.

"The victim was playing his sax in a jazz band at a local nightclub when he just walked off the stage and out the door, despite the curses from his fellow musicians and the jeers of the audience. The next person to see him was the stable boy who discovered the body."

"If these are murders, it's going to be damned near impossible to catch the killer."

"I know. We can't even determine what killed these men, much less who killed them."

Megan was even willing to consider The Manchurian Candidate theory that foreign spies brainwashed the four men. But why consider brainwashing only in terms of politicians or espionage? Hadn't religious fanatics like the Reverend Jim Jones and David Koresh exerted a great deal of control over the minds of their followers? An idea suddenly came to her.

"My wife went to a hypnotist to lose weight, but she proved to be a hopeless case. Why? Do you think your killer's a crazed hypnotist?"

"What if that's how he kills them? He puts them in a hypnotic trance and tells them, 'When I count to three, your heart will stop beating'?"

"The hypnotist told my wife that people never do something under hypnosis that they wouldn't do otherwise. So unless your four men were prone to suicide, I doubt they were hypnotized to death."

Whether it was the growing number of unexplained deaths or the fact that two of the next victims were wealthy, prominent members of society, a task force was formed to solve what the police believed was the work of a serial killer. Detectives Ned Russo and Megan Tierney were chosen to head the team of investigators.

In his first official briefing, Ned outlined the case of the first four victims, and Megan filled the task force in on the killer's latest deeds.

"Yesterday, Bartholomew Weston, president of the People's First Bank, was found dead in his office. Two policemen went to notify Mrs. Weston of her husband's death, and they found her dead in her home. When the officers searched the house and grounds, they found the maid's body outside. Again, in all three cases, the cause of death is unknown. The only discrepancy in any of these deaths is that of the maid; her nose was cut off. The medical examiner thinks it may have been surgically removed. No sign of either the nose or the instrument used to amputate it was found at the scene."

"The missing nose," Ned added, "is the first indication we have that these deaths are homicides. So we can rule out mysterious contaminants in the drinking water."

Many causes of death could be ruled out, Megan thought despondently, but none could be ruled in.

As the pressure to solve the case mounted, the members of the task force began coming up with ideas that made Ned's Manchurian candidate theory seem plausible in comparison. The latest speculation was that the maid was the killer's intended victim and that the other six people were murdered to throw the police off track.

"Then why would the perp cut off her nose and make her murder stand out from the others?" Ned asked logically.

"Because the killer hated her so much that he or she couldn't help themselves," Sergeant Hubert Woodfield offered.

"That's not only a lousy idea," Megan teased, "it's also poor grammar. Tell me, did you study English as a second language?"

A little humor was often necessary when people worked under such stressful conditions, but the laughter was short-lived. Another body was soon found.

Ned gave Megan the brief details as they headed for the most recent crime scene.

Examination of the victim's home and person produced the same results as in the other cases: nothing. There were no fingerprints or footprints, no strange hairs or fibers and virtually no sign of another person being at the scene at the time of the victim's death.

"No one saw Mary the day she died," Ned reported after interviewing her neighbors. "She lived alone, and from what I gather, she wasn't too well-liked in the neighborhood. She was one of those old biddies who screamed at people for walking across her lawn, called the dog warden whenever a stray animal wandered into her yard and phoned the cops on the neighbors' kids when they played their music too loudly."

All kidding aside, the sad truth was they had made absolutely no progress. Megan wondered how many more victims there would be before they had a break in the case.

Since the inception of the task force, Megan had been putting in a lot of long days. Yet she always managed to get home in time to spend at least an hour or so with Laurel.

After locking up her gun, Megan walked into the kitchen where her daughter was just finishing her dessert.

"Oh, I hoped we could have dinner together," she said to the silent child. "Once this case is finally solved, I'm going to take some vacation time, and you and I will go to the beach. Would you like that, Laurel?"

Her daughter didn't answer. Megan might just as well have asked her if she wanted to go down to the corner and count the cars that dove past.

"I see you've already picked out a book," the mother said when she saw her daughter thumbing through the pages of a well-worn volume and looking at the illustrations. "Mother Goose Rhymes, I'd almost forgotten about this one."

That wasn't true. Megan remembered the book all too well. Frank had bought it for Laurel the year before he was killed. He would read the nursery rhymes to her every night, usually acting out the characters as he did, going so far as to nimbly jump over a candlestick or take a carving knife from the kitchen and pretend to chop off the tails of three blind mice.

Megan hadn't really expected an answer, so she was quite surprised when Laurel nodded her head. Delighted at the rare response she'd received from her child, Megan scooped the little girl up on her lap, kissed her on the forehead, opened the book and began to read.

Rub-a-dub-dub, three men in a tub. And who do you think they be? The butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker, turn them out, knaves all three.

Again Laurel nodded. Maybe she was finally breaking through her cocoon, but Megan knew better than to let her hopes get too high.

Little Boy Blue come blow your horn. The sheep's in the meadow; the cow's in the corn. But where is the boy who looks after the sheep? He's under the haystack fast asleep.

"See there's the boy sound asleep, and there are the sheep," Megan said, pointing to the full-page illustration.

Sing a song of sixpence, a pocket full of rye, four and twenty blackbirds baked in a pie. When the pie was opened, the birds began to sing; was not that a dainty dish to set before the king? The king was in his counting house, counting out his money. The queen was in the parlor, eating bread and honey. The maid was in the garden, hanging out the clothes, when along came a blackbird and picked off her nose.

A chill went up Megan's spine. A maid without a nose? Three men in a tub? Could this be only a bizarre coincidence? Little Boy Blue under the hay—that could be the musician found at the horse stables. As she turned the page, she had a queer feeling that the next nursery rhyme would involve the latest murder. Quickly she read,

Mary, Mary, quite contrary, how does your garden grow? With silver bells and cockle shells and pretty maids all in a row.

"What are you doing here so early?" Ned asked when he arrived at the station to see Megan buried in file folders, notepads and jelly donuts at six o'clock in the morning.

"I wanted to check on a few facts before I tell you what all these murders have in common."

"I already know. All these people are dead, and we don't have a clue as to how they got that way, or have you figured that out?"

"The three men in the tub. One was a baker, one a butcher and the third worked at the Living Museum. Guess what he did there."

"He demonstrated candle-making. Our next victim was a jazz musician who played saxophone, a horn, and he was found in the hay at the stables."

"Let me see," Ned said, reading the next rhyme. "Our banker is the king in his counting house, his wife the queen and the maid is missing her nose."

"And lastly, Mary, Mary was our cantankerous old maid found dead in her garden. I think you've really hit on something here, Meg. Got any ideas who we should be looking for?"

"No, not a one. But at least I've narrowed down our suspect pool to people who are familiar with these nursery rhymes."

"Why don't we just put out an A.P.B. on Mother Goose? She wouldn't be the first murderer who wrote about her crimes."

"Have a donut, Ned," suggested Megan, who didn't want to start a running gag about Mother Goose's involvement in the murders.

"I'll be like Little Jack Horner. I'll go to my corner and eat my jelly donut. Maybe I'll even stick in my thumb and pull out a plum."

Before Megan could suggest an alternative place for Ned to stick his thumb, the telephone on her desk rang.

Fear struck Megan like a bolt of lightning. She had given the babysitter her number in case of an emergency, but this was the first time the woman had ever called Megan at the station.

"It's Laurel. I can't control her. She's taking some type of fit or throwing a tantrum. I'm afraid she might hurt herself."

Her police siren blaring to clear the way, Megan raced through the traffic with the skill of a NASCAR driver. Mrs. Rinehart, on the verge of hysteria, met her at the door.

"It's awful, Mrs. Tierney! The poor little thing acts as though she were possessed like that girl in The Exorcist."

Megan stood in the doorway of Laurel's bedroom, aghast at what she saw. Toys were being tossed about the room. Books levitated in the air while pages were being mysteriously torn out by unseen hands. Closet doors and dresser drawers opened and closed by themselves.

In the midst of all this chaos stood Laurel, tall and straight, eyes staring in concentration. Mrs. Rinehart was wrong. She didn't look like Linda Blair in The Exorcist; she looked more like Carrie on the night of the prom, creating havoc with only the force of her mind.

The statement surprised Megan more than the airborne toys had. These were the first words her daughter had ever spoken.

"Oh, do you mean the Mother Goose book? I borrowed it, sweetheart. It's at work on my desk. I'll bring it home and give it back to you."

"How long have you had this power?" Megan asked, but now that Laurel was no longer upset, she had lapsed back into her nonresponsive state. "I know you can hear me, and now I know you can speak, so answer me."

Megan began picking up the toys, books and loose pages that had been torn from their spines. Surely there must be doctors or scientists knowledgeable about people like Laurel, those with unusual gifts or talents, those that had—what was it called?—telekinesis. She would have to find some way to help her daughter control this power before she hurt herself or someone else.

Whether by a detective's hunch or a mother's intuition, she knew her daughter was responsible for the unexplained deaths that she and the task force had been so diligently trying to solve. Laurel must have unknowingly reached out to people with her mind and in some bizarre way made them act out the nursery rhymes just as Frank had once done to entertain her. And when Laurel's mind moved on to something else? Apparently, the people just stopped breathing, and their hearts stopped beating.

Megan looked at her daughter and made a solemn vow to herself that she would move heaven and earth to see that Laurel received the help she so desperately needed. The distraught mother would contact every parapsychologist, every psychic, every mind reader, every New Age guru and even every sideshow fortuneteller, if necessary, until she found someone who could teach Laurel how to control the frightening power she had been born with.

Megan also vowed she would continue to work on the Mother Goose killer task force, for in what better way could she ensure that this series of mysterious deaths remained forever unsolved and no suspicion ever fell on her daughter?

Salem insists he was the inspiration for Mother Goose's three little kittens. He even has the mittens to prove it.