Magellan 7

It's ironic to start at the end, but to tell you the truth, I really don't know where else to begin this odyssey from France back to my house in the United States. It was a little more than five years ago at the funeral for my best friend Joe Hatheridge, of the Boston Brahmin1 Hatheridges, when the world I had known was suddenly and irrevocably changed forever. What sickened me most, however, was the horrible death Joe had endured at his mansion in West Palm. Not since my days at the FBI had I seen such psychopathic evil exacted upon a man’s body. Although Joe's death was a blow to normalcy, complacency, and immortality, if only for another twenty-four hour grace period, it wasn't the only one that shook NASA’s foundations that day. Two astronauts had also been killed just as brutally, only Campbell and Snyder weren’t mission specialists or test pilots milling around Cape Canaveral. They were the Captain and Galactic Navigator for Magellan 7, the greatest ship in the history of space travel. Despite the three murders being tragedies on various levels, they couldn’t be connected by motive anymore than physical evidence. The only thing the three crime scenes had in common, besides their gruesome bestiality, was all were void of clues of who, what, how, and more importantly, why.

There was nothing to initiate one criminal investigation, let alone link the three to a madman on the loose in South Beach. With nothing to work with physically or circumstantially, it was impossible to draw conclusions much less a composite sketch of anyone of interest. Being invited by the FBI to assist in an advisory capacity due to my past record of successfully tracking serial killers, I was privy to all three crime scenes, particularly Joe's. But after three days, not even I could pick up a scent. That's to be expected after twenty years of having no direct correspondences "from Hell"2 or from Minerva Keres, the Femme Fatale from Hell's Kitchen. My gut instincts, although kept honed in the pursuit of liars, cheats, and charlatans3, were also drawing blanks.

Joe's six-foot drop left more than a gaping hole in St. John's Cemetery. We were not only best friends; we were colleagues, bloodhounds sniffing for that Right Stuff4. We were part of the quality control wing at NASA. Basically, whoever aspired to the stars had to first pass through our headhunters’ gauntlet.

It wasn't easy coming to grips with Joe's sudden demise, and I was one of his pallbearers. I knew as I glared into the mortal abyss the NASA Home Office of Security and Clearance would never be the same. Holes in hearts are not very different from vacancies in 10x10 foot cubicles. Nothing could bridge that rent or plug that dike, not even a doubting finger of Thomas6. There was no solace, no closure, regardless of how many times I turned that other proverbial cheek. All that last spade full of dirt did was close one more chapter in a never-ending story that made absolutely no sense. To a well-seasoned bloodhound who was versed in the nuances of mixed signals and the stench of dying dreams, that was tantamount to trying to smell a dirty rat with a stuffy nose.

Everything was turned upside down. What else was to be expected when Science was more concerned about “raising the dead” 7 than keeping the living alive? I suppose it was no more maddening than Miami Dolphins football surpassing Jesus on Sunday depth charts. I knew I couldn't retreat to the sidelines. Not now. Not again. I had too much love and respect for Joe to ever allow my feelings and thoughts to be compromised by survivor guilt, of “better him than me.”

On the morning following the ghastly murders, all three men shared the top billing of “it bleeds it leads.” As days passed, however, Joe was gradually exiled to the filler sections between the funnies and self-righteous editorials. Eventually, the headlines were monopolized by those flyboys, our emissaries to the stars. Don't get me wrong, NASA mourned Joe's passing, but ever so topically and briefly. It was in all likelihood a combination of envy and jealousy for his patrician8 lineage. Being the privileged son of Industrial Tycoon Joseph Pennington Hatheridge IV didn’t elicit much sympathy or ink. People didn't want to know about the life and death of an entitled elitist as much as they did their tragic heroes to the heavens.

Even as flags at half mast were unfolding, I was breaking down bits and pieces of raw material in my hind gut that not even my overactive imagination, with its reductions of the absurd, could explain, define, or level an incriminating finger at.

Was it possible? Was there a nexus beyond the transparency of NASA? How could I not inquire? When following your instincts, you invariably lead with your chin. That’s another one of those drawbacks that portend all second-guesses to the contrary. Therein lied the gist of my peril; what brought three brilliant lives to a sudden, tragic halt on the same night in question? If they were worthless pieces of shit, I'd say good riddance. But they were good, solid men untainted by scandal and vicious innuendo. You could look high and low; they were still as clean as a newborn’s conscience. They didn’t even have a negative comment on their personnel files that dog a man for the remainder of his days. Norman Rockwell never portrayed men more idyllic and reminiscent of the Halcyon Days when wagers were friendly and addictions limited to ice cream, soda pop, and Bazooka Joe bubblegum.