The Demeter Initiative

By Cory Piette

Christian Michaels is a talented yet jaded Baltimore city detective. His indifference towards his job, disdain for his colleagues, and general unreliability over the prior year have alienated him from fellow officers at the precinct and garnered the wrath of his abrasive and hard-headed captain. Unaware of the circumstances surrounding Christian’s odd behavior, the captain has generally dismissed Christian as a liability, assigning him to low-level cases and preventing the detective from contributing to meaningful investigations.

One morning, the captain orders Christian and Sergeant James Davis, the detective’s last remaining ally, to investigate what appears to be a benign and dead-end burglary on a research laboratory floor at The Johns Hopkins Hospital. However, Christian quickly discovers that the break-in is anything but an open-and-shut case. He finds himself involved in a murder, kidnapping, and potential global conspiracy of the highest order - one that threatens the lives of everyone around him.

Going against his captain’s orders to drop the investigation, and with only James and a Johns Hopkins research scientist as his support, Christian sets out to discover the truth. He finds that unveiling precisely what happened requires him to put aside his apathetic nature and cold personality and revisit a previously unsolved case from a year earlier.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Mar 3, 2023
• ISBN: 9781638294313

Cory Piette

Cory Piette graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BS in Biomedical Engineering and from Penn State University with an MBA in Finance. Cory began his career in the financial industry, primarily in fixed-income securities and derivative products. Eventually, he found a second calling as a writer in many disciplines, most notably content marketing and, more recently, fiction writing. Originally from the Baltimore area, Cory combined his experiences in biotechnology, finance, and the city of Baltimore to generate the idea for his first novel, The Demeter Initiative, the first book in the Demeter series.

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About the Author

Cory Piette graduated from Johns Hopkins University with a BS in Biomedical Engineering and from Penn State University with an MBA in Finance.

Cory began his career in the financial industry, primarily in fixed-income securities and derivative products. Eventually, he found a second calling as a writer in many disciplines, most notably content marketing and, more recently, fiction writing.

Originally from the Baltimore area, Cory combined his experiences in biotechnology, finance, and the city of Baltimore to generate the idea for his first novel, The Demeter Initiative, the first book in the Demeter series.

Dedication

For Hayden and Landon.

Copyright Information ©

Cory Piette 2023

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other non-commercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher.

Any person who commits any unauthorized act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

Ordering Information

Quantity sales: Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the publisher at the address below.

Publisher’s Cataloging-in-Publication data

Piette, Cory

The Demeter Initiative

ISBN 9781638294306 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781638294313 (ePub e-book)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2023900863

www.austinmacauley.com/us

First Published 2023

Austin Macauley Publishers LLC

40 Wall Street, 33rd Floor, Suite 3302

New York, NY 10005

USA

[e-mail]

[phone]

Acknowledgments

Acknowledgments are a bit peculiar for a republished book.

I had plenty of people to thank when I first wrote this novel (more than I could list, as cliché as that sounds). I didn’t know what I was doing – not that I really do now – and received help in various forms, from tips and advice from successfully published authors to moral support and unwavering encouragement from friends.

Take number two, however, has been primarily an autonomous endeavor. That’s not to say those influences are no longer a part of my maturation as a writer, nor am I implying those same people wouldn’t jump at the chance to help me.

However, this revised piece mainly was a solo journey by choice. It’s a child of the COVID-19 pandemic, something I did to pass the time in isolation and keep the neurons from sputtering.

My parents, of course, are still sources of ongoing strength and confidence, but most of my other help stemmed from the non-human. More specifically, my dog Phoenix, reliable Wi-Fi, fancy grammar tools, and coffee deserve an atypically large chunk of my gratitude.

Chapter 1

Redemption is often a long and arduous process, though never a perishable one.

Christian stared blankly at the disheveled face in his bathroom mirror. His half-open bloodshot blue eyes and unshaven scruffy face looked like the product of an all-out war waged against the Fells Point bar scene. His dirty blond hair was anything but in place and every strand seemed dead-set on escaping his head in a different direction. He continued gazing for a few moments longer, wearing nothing but a gloomy-gray bathroom towel about his waist, before splashing his face with water from the running faucet.

He was an absolute mess—there was no sugarcoating that fact—but his appearance was not the morning’s result of a marathon pub crawl. He instead had endured a rare night on the couch with his only at-home company: a few leftover slices of pizza and a six-pack of beer. He was getting tired of the late nights. The following hazy mornings waking up, God knows they had finally become tiresome and self-deprecating.

Whether he had burned the midnight oil painting the town red or been asleep by sunset, that’s how he looked those days.

He pulled the shower curtain aside and started the water, turning the shower handle towards Hot until it stopped with a dull thud. The shower head sputtered and spat grime before giving way to water. The spray pounded against the shower’s back tiles, each droplet falling to the bathtub floor before forming a milky puddle around the semi-clogged drain.

This stupid thing, he muttered to himself while reaching his hand into the shower to check the water’s temperature.

Whether it was his bathroom and kitchen faucets, his dilapidated washing machine, or his shower, the water always took forever to heat. While he waited for steam to appear from behind the shower curtain, he rummaged through the pile of used toiletries on the bathroom sink in search of his lighter. He grabbed it, walked back into the bedroom, and with a half-hearted sigh, slouched onto the bed.

He picked through the ashtray on his nightstand, looking for any unfinished cigarettes. He found half of a wrinkled and bent Newport 100 amidst the pile and wiped away the ashes. Noticing no steam creeping its way from the bathroom door, he lit the cigarette and nearly finished it after three deep puffs.

He grabbed the remote from the pillow on his bed and turned on the television, flipping through channels aimlessly until he came across the morning news. The familiar news anchor, always wearing too much makeup and resembling one of his sister’s childhood Ken dolls, was reporting on another protest in Asia. The events had taken a worldwide stage over the prior week.

He listened as the news anchor updated viewers on the situation.

More protests broke out in China, India, and Malaysia today as disgruntled workers continue to urge their local government officials to step in and force foreign companies to raise the minimum wages paid to domestic employees. This is in light of a recent proposal by these corporations to suspend the agreed-upon annual increases in hourly pay. This is the seventh series of protests throughout Asia in as many days.

Someone is always complaining about something, he said out loud, as though someone else was in the room.

His balled-up jeans, lazily thrown to the ground the night before, began buzzing. He reached down and pulled out the cause—a dated cellphone with a factory-set home screen and default ring.

He threw the jeans across the room as he answered the call.

Yeah?

Christian, where the heck are you? Your shift started an hour ago.

The voice on the other end of the line was Sergeant James Davis. He was one of few people in the precinct—maybe the only person—who could moderately stand the abrasive detective. Christian and James had graduated from the Police Academy together and were assigned to the same precinct in downtown Baltimore. Most friends and colleagues referred to him by last name. He preferred James but had tolerated the surname designation for so long that voicing an objection at that point would have proven awkward.

Christian and James shared a complicated quasi-friendship. They hadn’t been close pals in years but still worked together on occasion, which often resulted in James overseeing damage control. Christian had no ability, or at least no desire, to complete a case without skewing from procedure and giving his superiors a collective ulcer.

James always felt compelled to look out for Christian and often found himself mediating post-investigation meetings with their captain. It made him feel like either a parent separating siblings on a playground or a mediator overseeing a divorce conference. Tomayto, tomahto.

Christian was a far cry from the man James had first met years ago, but his glass-half-full view of people and fond memories of Christian’s younger years always echoed the same sentiment, Christian was a just good guy struggling through some rough times.

What those rough times were, James had no idea.

I had some stuff to do this morning, Davis, Christian said, still digging through the floor’s scattered laundry in search of a reasonably clean pair of pants. I’ll be there in thirty minutes.

Truth be told, he had nothing to do that morning. The stuff to which he referred was nothing more than circling his apartment torpidly, debating whether or not he would show up to work. He was unlikely to be out the door in thirty minutes. James was more familiar with Christian’s routine than he cared to be and figured both statements to be total crap.

Well, hurry up. The captain is really angry this time. He’s ready to clear out your desk and throw everything out a window.

Christian rolled his eyes.

He says that every week. Relax.

He ended the call, dropped the phone onto his bed, and walked back into the bathroom. The water was finally hot. He stepped into the shower and stood underneath the drizzling water, his head down and eyes closed as though he were praying. Not that he was.

With his hands, he searched around blindly for the shampoo. He felt it and picked it up, squeezing a pond’s worth atop his head. He was unmotivated and didn’t bother lathering his hair; he just let the water do it for him. The suds slithered down his face and back while he reached for a bar of soap laying on the tub floor. He washed his body and leaned his head against the tiles, his eyes still closed and his body remaining motionless.

Suddenly, an unsettling series of images flashed through his head. They were a rapid succession of broken pictures, bright lights, a gun pressed to a faceless head, and a brief, stridulous scream. The hazy sequence cycled through his mind like an old film reel projected onto a movie screen. The daydream woke him from his daze and he jerked awkwardly into an upright stance, his sagging eyes then patulous.

Whoa.

These dreams, occurring when he was both awake and asleep, had become a frequent nuisance over the prior six-odd months. Each time, the images increased in depth and provided marginal clarity, but he had no idea from where they originated. He had seen many awful things during his career, particularly since joining the rank of Detective, that pinpointing a single culprit bordered on the impossible. Either way, it seemed as though his work was starting to eat at him from the inside out.

He turned off the water, grabbed his towel, and picked up a prescription bottle from the medicine cabinet behind the mirror. Twisting off the cap, he poured a few pills into his mouth without bothering for a glass of water, chewing up and swallowing the pills like Tic-Tacs.

He walked into the bedroom, found whatever random assortment of clothes he deemed clean enough and began dressing. A pair of khaki-colored slacks, a white shirt, and a dark brown sports jacket. Good enough. After grabbing a light blue and yellow tie from the closet, he picked up his wallet, badge, and keys and opened the door to the hallway.

As he locked the door, he found himself staring at the faded apartment numbers on the wall. They were not metal; instead, they were some cheap adhesive product. The 807 was looking more and more like 301 each day. The building’s owner spent very little money on amenities, and Christian wasn’t sure what his rent money went towards. In the year he had lived there, he noticed only minimal renovations and improvements made to the building—not that he particularly cared.

He walked to the hallway’s end and fiddled with his tie while waiting for the elevator, using the reflection from the doors as a mirror. After a few tries, he got the length right. With a dull buzzing sound, the elevator doors opened. Christian walked in to find a joyful-as-always Mrs. Dobbs smiling back at him.

Good morning, Detective. Off to work, are you? she asked.

Mrs. Dobbs was the building’s cliché sweet, old woman. She was rather gregarious, never going a day without greeting every tenant she came across in the hallway, elevator, or lobby. She tended to rant on about whatever new hobby she had picked up that week or to gush over her dog, Chloe. Christian could not stand Chloe. He did not know its breed—he never took the time to ask—but it was small and constantly yelped in a high-pitched squeak. Mrs. Dobbs often carried the dog around in a purse as though she were a Hollywood heiress. That incensed Christian.

Christian had never seen Mrs. Dobbs frown. Not once. Other building tenants found her jovial nature precious, but her constant upbeat attitude had always unnerved Christian. He distrusted anyone who appeared happy all the time, and he figured her to be either disingenuous or mentally unstable. He preferred to avoid her when possible.

Yes, ma’am, he replied, praying for the conversation to end there. He was kidding himself.

Mrs. Dobbs maintained her ear-to-ear smile and continued to chirp pleasantries.

It makes me feel so much better knowing we have a police officer living in the building protecting us. It’s so wonderful what you do for the community. Bless you.

Christian was tempted to tell her the truth, that he lost very little sleep worrying about his fellow residents’ safety. He wished he could say he did the job to help people, but the reality was that detective work came naturally to him, and it was a decent salary. If he had instead developed a knack for criminal law, he would have met with no moral objections getting clients out of jail for the right price. He thought better of verbalizing those thoughts because the shock could very well have killed her.

Thanks. I’m glad you feel safe, he replied.

The elevator doors opened to the lobby and Christian rushed out before Mrs. Dobbs could corner him. He bypassed everyone he came across in the lobby, not bothering to nod his head in the slightest to acknowledge anyone. The routine was commonplace, and the other tenants and employees paid it no attention. His cell phone rang again as he walked down the steps to the garage. After another roll of his eyes, he pulled the phone from his pocket. Checking his caller ID that time, he noticed it was James again. He answered curtly.

What now? he asked.

I’m outside your building, James replied. The captain got tired of waiting for you. We need to head over to Hopkins to respond to a break-in.

For Pete’s sake. I’ll meet you there. I’m already in the garage.

The captain ordered me to pick you up. I’m at the corner of Boston and Kerrwood.

What, are you my mother? I can drive myself.

Stop ticking off the captain and maybe you can next time but for now, just get your butt outside.

Christian spun around with a childish huff and headed back down the corridor to the lobby. Ignoring everyone as he passed by again, he pushed through the revolving door and onto the street. He hadn’t been outside in nearly two days and his eyes struggled to adjust to the sun’s oppressive glare. He searched his jacket for his sunglasses before realizing he had left them upstairs. Great, he thought. With his eyes still squinted, he strolled casually down Boston Street to where James was waiting for him.

Chapter 2

James was a genuinely good police officer, though he fell short of Christian’s talents for detective work. His resulting ascent through the police ranks was moderate at best, but he worked hard and was well-liked around the precinct. He had been married for nine years and had two children, a boy and a girl. The diligent cop and ultimate family man. Christian hated that. James was an unassuming figure, maybe five feet nine, brown hair and eyes, and one of those faces that prompted strangers to ask if they’d met before. He kept in excellent physical condition—possibly to compensate for his otherwise mundane presence in a room.

Early in his career, Christian had shared that high work ethic. He was dedicated, responsible, and one of the youngest detectives in the Baltimore Police Department’s history at the time of his promotion. Somewhere along the way, he just stopped caring. The abrupt change in attitude, which appeared to most observers as an overnight transition, still baffled colleagues at the precinct.

Christian approached the car’s passenger-side door and pulled the handle but it was still locked. He gave James a what-the-heck look from the other side of the window and after the door lock finally clicked, he climbed inside.

You look like crap, James said. Where were you last night?

Home.

Well, I’d hate to see what you’d look like otherwise.

Probably better.

James pulled into the driving lane and proceeded north on Kerrwood Avenue. Both men sat in silence for a few minutes before Christian inquired what was so important that he was being chauffeured to the crime scene.

Where are we going, anyway?

I told you, Hopkins, James said.

Yeah, you said that much but is that Homewood or the Hospital?

Homewood is the name of Johns Hopkins University’s undergraduate campus located farther north of downtown and closer to the city lines. While Christian hadn’t been there in quite some time, he did make periodic visits during his rookie campaign, responding to low-level incidents just off the campus grounds.

It was never anything exciting, maybe a noise complaint during a rowdy party or a fraternity prank gone slightly awry. But as a first-year cop, the uneventful assignments rolled downhill. Bibulous college kids unable to hold their liquor made for entertaining late-night conversations, but he otherwise preferred more compelling cases—particularly when being dragged to them against his will.

The hospital, James replied.

What’s the story?

A doctor called in this morning saying his research lab was trashed last night. He was in hysterics and making no sense. We gave up on trying to understand his story over the phone, so the captain ordered an investigation. He probably lost a Bunsen burner or something and can’t do today’s science project. Likely a waste of gas and time.

Christian shook his head. And of course, the captain picked me, right? He just loves wasting my time whenever the opportunity presents itself.

Christian didn’t necessarily see eye-to-eye with the captain—or anyone else, for that matter. Everyone in the precinct ill-viewed his preceding year of indifference towards his job and general unreliability. The promising start to his career and subsequent wasted natural ability just added fuel to the captain’s fire. He was tough on Christian and often told him, If only I could put your knack for detective work in Davis’ mind. Christian never liked hearing that. It sometimes made him despise James for being such a boy scout.

And I can’t believe I’m saying this, but you were requested, James said.

I was requested? By someone at the hospital?

I guess.

I don’t know anyone at the hospital. The captain probably just said that to mess with me.

Well, stop being such a pain all the time and maybe he’ll put you back on something useful, James replied. He’s still upset about the stunt you pulled last year. You’re lucky the Furgeson Act was passed before you flaked out, or he would have fired you in a heartbeat.

James was referring to Peter Furgeson, a former Maryland State Trooper. Three years earlier, Trooper Furgeson had responded to a child kidnapping and stolen red Toyota Camry traveling on I-95 South towards Washington, D.C. He tracked the car quickly and pursued the suspect at nearly ninety miles per hour.

He radioed ahead to Washington, D.C. Police and apprised them of the upcoming high-speed chase and within minutes, they organized a roadblock about ten miles ahead of the cars’ location. Trooper Furgeson trailed the Camry closely, swerving back and forth across lanes in a snakelike pattern, preventing the kidnapper from exiting onto a crowded local street.

They reached the wall of police cruisers and with nowhere to run, the kidnapper exited the car while holding a handgun to a five-year-old boy’s head. Trooper Furgeson slammed on his brakes and remained in his car. He grabbed the radio and turned on the car’s exterior speakers.

I’m coming out of my vehicle with my hands raised. I’m keeping my gun in the car. Please do not harm the boy, Furgeson said.

He opened the car door and exited slowly, first putting his shoes on the pavement with his hands extended from behind the door. He stood up, walked around the door, and crept towards the kidnapper, who did not want him to take another step forward.

Hold it right there, the man yelled, then squeezing the boy tighter and forcing the gun into his temple. Don’t come any closer.

The trooper put his hands out in front of himself. OK. I’m stopping. Just stay calm.

Right then, he stumbled, appearing as though he was charging towards the kidnapper for a brief moment. The man panicked and squeezed the trigger accidentally. It was more the body’s knee-jerk reaction to Trooper Furgeson’s sudden movement than it was a conscious decision. A bang flew through the street, and a series of shrieks rang out from the surrounding officers. The boy was dead before he fell to the ground.

God, no, Trooper Furgeson screamed as he rushed towards the kidnapper, who had been shot twice in the chest by surrounding officers the moment the child collapsed.

The man stumbled around for a few moments before sinking slowly to the ground. Furgeson picked up the boy’s head and wiped dripping blood from his pale face. He sobbed uncontrollably, and other officers rushing onto the scene dragged him away from the body. One officer tried to console him.

It’s not your fault, buddy, the officer explained. "You did not do this."

Those were empty words for Furgeson. He collapsed onto the highway, nearly catatonic, gasping for shallow breaths. He had been in similar situations before but never had an innocent victim been killed—let alone a small boy. Images of his own daughter and how he would have felt had it been her lying lifelessly on the highway crept into his mind. He looked up at the officer.

What if that was my daughter? he asked. What if it was yours?

The officer had no comforting reply. He patted Trooper Furgeson on the shoulder as other officers tended to the two bodies on the street.

Trooper Furgeson became increasingly erratic at work in the coming weeks and unfocused while on patrol. He complained of nightmares and flashbacks about the boy, and he couldn’t shake the images of his tiny, limp body sprawled out on the highway.

After countless days of mental and emotional distress, he filed for an indefinite leave, but his request was denied due to budget constraints. The department didn’t have the funds necessary to retain an officer on leave while paying for a temporary replacement. His choices were to continue working or quit the force.

After days of pleading and displaying increasingly odd behaviors, the department granted him a week’s unpaid time off. He sat at home in seclusion for those seven days, confining himself to his bedroom and hardly speaking to his wife or eight-year-old daughter.

Each day he got worse, and eventually, he wouldn’t talk or respond to anyone at all. On the seventh night—the night before he was to return to work—his wife walked into the bedroom after returning from shopping to find him dead, slumped in a chair from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head.

When the news of Furgeson’s suicide broke, every precinct in Maryland rose in unison, protesting the state’s handling of the late Trooper’s mental and emotional state. Officers threatened to go on strike unless the state passed legislation to provide better support and ongoing care for distressed officers who had been traumatized in the line of duty.

Shortly after that, the Governor of Maryland passed the Furgeson Act, which, in addition to creating specialized counseling services and internal support groups, permitted annual, thirty-day paid leaves for all officers.

Two years later, Christian had been working on a high-profile murder investigation. The CEO of HLP Investments, a large financial advisory firm in the Baltimore area, had been found dead in his office late one night with virtually no traces of a break-in and no determined cause of death. Christian studied evidence day and night for weeks and claimed to have uncovered potentially case-solving information. He alerted the captain to the discovery and the two agreed to meet at the precinct the following morning to review the evidence.

However, he never made that meeting; he never made it to the precinct at all. Captain Richardson walked into his office that morning and Christian was nowhere to be found. He wasn’t answering his cell phone and hadn’t logged into the precinct’s network since the prior day. Instead, Christian sent the captain an email explaining that he was taking his allotted thirty-day leave. He cited personal reasons and never elaborated further or met with the captain in person to discuss his decision. He simply vanished.

The case went cold in his stead and was never solved. When he returned to work later that summer, he refused to provide any details about his disappearance or revisit the case. As much as the captain wanted to fire Christian, he was hamstrung by the Furgeson Act. Another year had passed, and Christian remained mum about his sudden disappearance.

Poor guy, Christian replied, referring to the late trooper. I couldn’t imagine watching a little boy die like that.

James, knowing very well that Christian couldn’t care less about Furgeson personally, ignored his attempt to change the subject.

Maybe if you told the captain where you vanished to or at least passed on your notes to the detectives who had to cover for you, he’d get off your case. Maybe all the other guys would stop hating you as much, too.

I don’t ask you what you do on your off time.

That’s exactly the point.

After a few minutes of ensuing silence, James veered onto East Monument Street and approached the hospital. As they drove, they maneuvered around a swarm of kids playing in the street unsupervised, totally unfazed by the police cruiser coming towards them. They often saw police officers in that area for a variety of reasons. Homeless men, women, and children wrapped in dirty blankets lined the sidewalks, many sleeping against buildings the cruiser passed. The hospital wasn’t located in one of Baltimore’s more prestigious areas.

I always forget how rundown this area is, Christian commented. It’s a shame.

They parked along the street in front of the hospital’s west entrance and got out of the car. Christian immediately pulled for his lighter and a cigarette before heading inside.

No time for that, James said. Can’t you wait twenty minutes?

The lab isn’t going anywhere.

Ignoring the scowl on James’ face, Christian lit the cigarette and took a deep puff. He wasn’t in a hurry to have his time wasted by a doctor crying over what was probably a prank by a