Mary: Job Assignments

October 26th, 2008: In speaking further with Doctor Yoshida, he says that his father was killed in Atlanta, Georgia, and that all his notes are in storage there. We need to go down and take a look at what's there, then send everything to Japan. My first inclination is to go myself, but after thinking about it I believe I should stay here in Milwaukee. I should be here to act as liaison with Detective Ward, and there are some other avenues that I'm beginning to investigate that I can only work on here.

Josh, that means we'd need for you to head down, as Doctor Yoshida has made it quite clear he has no desire to come to America.


(Note as to dates: As we can't get the time-stamping on the journal to work correctly, I'm going to begin all future posts with that day's date. Mrs. Howland's first post overall is correct, the journal began on October 20th, 2008. Today is Sunday, October 26th.)

Mary: Wardang Island

Josh, based on where you left off, I assumed you would want me to call Wardang Island and look into it further. After settling back in at the house this evening (Josh is right, by the way. The time-stamps at the bottom of the posts are way off. It is still the same day as when I posted last) and finding Mrs. Howland's doctor tending to her, I brewed a cup of coffee and began making telephone calls from the office-area I've been using.

Port Victoria is seventeen hours ahead of us, so it was actually a perfect time for me to call, as it would be one in the afternoon there. I knew that getting through to someone with the information we needed was going to be difficult, especially cold-calling like this, but I was prepared to spend the night on the phone.

(Wardang Island-aerial view. Just two miles across and four or so miles top to bottom.)

It was a good thing that I steeled myself for a long ordeal in advance, because even acquiring a telephone number on Wardang Island itself was a chore. Finally, after three hours of sifting through Internet records and numerous, confusing, accent and dialect-riddled anecdotes (of which I'll spare you), I finally got through to Professor Sandra Liddel, the last person in charge of the Rabbit Calcivirus Project. Though now retired, Sandra was extremely generous and forthcoming, albeit less than thrilled at how the Wardang Island experiment concluded.

"We used every precaution you can think of, believe me. The official reports that came out after the fact were all over the map with explanations. One said that we underestimated the wind-borne radius of the disease, which was utter bunk. Another had the virus transmitted via insect, which I suppose was the most probable hypothesis, though we protected against that, too. A third report even had a rabbit escaping and swimming all the way to the mainland. Swimming!" she snorted. She continued more solemnly, "We took the quarantine seriously. Anyone who says we were overconfident simply didn't see the care we took over our work. Fact is, no one knows how the virus got out to this day."

Getting to my main question, I asked, "Is there any way to tell where a rabbit that's been infected is from? Are there different strains and such?"

"For the most part, the virus is fairly consistent. There is a new strain of RHDV called RHDVa. There was an outbreak of that in Italy, two in France, one in Hungary in 2003-"

"No, it's definitely not RHDVa," I said, ruffling through the autopsy copies. "Any way to tell beyond that?"

I could hear Sandra give a deep sigh, then say, "I'm out of the game, Mary. I would have neither the lab access nor the expertise to investigate sub-strains in that fashion. You could always try to go through the Australian government proper, but you'd better be prepared for a long, long, bureaucratic wait." After telling her that we have a definite time-crunch, she sighed again and said, "With Wardang Island... I was only the director after the virus had escaped. I ran clean-up, that's all. The director-the architect of the entire project was Doctor Shigekazu Yoshida. He might be able to take a sample, name you a sub-strain and point you in the direction of a region." She gave me his telephone number in Japan and said, "Last I heard, he was heading up a private research firm out of Kyoto. He would still have access to the equipment he would need to run tests."

After thanking Professor Liddel profusely, she said with more than a touch of bitterness, "Good luck, dearie. Frankly, if I were you I would go through the government and just be patient. I doubt much of anything will convince Yoshida to help you, though a good deal of money might."

I hung up and shuffled tiredly up the staircase to bed. I was relieved to see that the light was off in Mrs. Howland's room as I was sure she badly needed the rest. As Japan is twenty-one hours ahead, I would wait until tomorrow afternoon to call Doctor Yoshida.

Josh: You Might Want To Sit Down For This: Josh Says Something That Might Actually Be Helpful

In going back over my posts, I seem to be either cowering in fear or preparing to cower in fear. Oh, or saying things like, "We shouldn't hire Mary" (I've tried to delete that entry, like, fifty times. Thanks for the post-lock, Mom!). Today, however, I might actually say my first useful thing. Emphasis on "might".

So toxicology comes back negative, at least so far. How would the killer get her to smile as he's doing all this horrific sh*t to her? My theory: hypnosis. It's been used effectively in surgery in place of anesthetic on many occasions, and while what happened here is mindblowingly hideous, it does kind've qualify loosely as surgery. Not that we should necessarily put out an APB for anyone with one of those spinny, spirally things or gold pocketwatches, but it's something else to look for.

Mary, I wanted to ask you, does the coroner know yet in what order events happened during the murder? Was she cut first? Was the rabbit cut first (meaning, was the rabbit's blood on the floor first)? Was the rabbit's foot-ugh, I feel my gag reflex kicking in while I type this-inserted into her brain before or after her head was pulled through her abdomen?

I've had enough of all this violent talk. Now if you'll excuse me, I'll be jacking cars and beating down pimps in Grand Theft Auto IV on the X-Box for the next few hours until dawn.

Actually, that reminds me, Mom-I thought I wouldn't have to mention what time it was in my posts, but the time-stamps on the bottom of these things are all screwed up. So just so you know, it's 3:00AM the day after Mrs. Walentowicz's murder.