The Serpent in the Garden

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Jeffrey Walker (1:55)

Jack, my name is Deputy Chief Mullen, and I am writing to you regarding CN 74872, to which you were assigned on the fourth of this month. It is my understanding that you've recently been inquiring with your superior, SAC Meadows, about this assignment and what is expected of you in your investigation. These inquiries made their way up the chain of command and were brought to my attention. I do not wish to make you think that you have done something wrong or that you or anyone else will face any sort of discipline regarding the matters you have raised and I hope that I can satisfactorily answer all your questions. Moving forward, I will be your sole bureau contact regarding this assignment. It is very important that any further questions you have about the location are shared with me and not with anyone else, regardless of their rank. It is equally important that you follow my orders and mine alone. Any conflicting orders given to you by anyone else, whether they claim to be a superior or hold any other position at the Bureau, shall be disregarded and reported directly to me. Do not take anyone that emails you without sufficient proof of their identity at their word, even if the message appears to originate from the Bureau address. I have copied SAC. Meadows on this email so that he may affirm the new terms of this special assignment. But once you get a confirmation from him, please only contact me to submit reports and ask questions. When you have a minute, I kindly ask that you respond to this email to state that you understand. Thank you, Deputy Chief Mullen.

November 15th, 2024, 926 AM, Subject, Filling You In. Agent Novak, thank you for your prompt reply to my previous email. I understand this arrangement is an unusual one, and I appreciate your flexibility. I also understand that this case is rather unusual. And I must say, you have made a commendable effort to make sense of it. I note that upon being assigned the case, you quickly reached out to your supervisor, finding it odd that you, a federal agent, would be sent to investigate such an incident. A single body with no clear signs of foul play found inside an uninhabited residence, surely the local law enforcement agency, or at the very most the state police, could adequately handle such a matter.

It seems, though, that once you began digging into the case, you very quickly realized that what you had been tasked with was no normal 1054

Alexander Bogan, age 56, you came to learn, had traveled more than sixty miles to arrive at that location. He had no known relation to the area, nor had he explained to anyone the reason for his sudden journey. As you noted in your report, his car was found parked outside 22 Teasdale Road roughly thirty-six hours after he was reported missing, at which point entry was gained and the body was found inside. Despite the brief amount of time that had passed, you found several irregularities in the condition of the deceased's body. He was emaciated, his digestive tract cleared of all remnants of food and water. His hair and fingernails were much longer than would have been expected, clashing with the description of his physical appearance when he was last seen just a day and a half before. Likewise, the state of decomposition was advanced, consistent with a body roughly one month after death. Here, it seems, you naturally began to suspect that the victim had not been properly identified. There was, after all, no reasonable explanation for the physical state of the corpse. Clearly, the deceased was not Mr. Bogan. But still, you found that even after multiple tissue samples were taken from the body, they all contained Bogan's DNA. The trouble was, it wasn't only Bogan's DNA that was present. Mutations of some kind appeared to show genetic material from multiple other individuals inserted into the sequence. You reasoned that the samples had been contaminated, though I suspect you had some reservations about this.