Break No Bones (30 page)

Ryan shook his head.

"Burke and Hare were responsible for sixteen murders spanning a period of less than a year."

"When and where?"

"Edinburgh, 1827 to 1828. At that time, under British law, only the bodies of executed criminals could be used for dissection. Demand exceeded supply for the fresh corpses needed to teach anatomy and surgery, and grave robbing became common."

"Gotta admire those Scots. Entrepreneurial. Even the criminal set."

"Bad news, Ryan. Burke and Hare were Irishmen who moved to Scotland to work on the Union Canal. Both ended up living in a boardinghouse owned by Maggie Laird.

Helen MacDougal also roomed there, and the four became drinking buddies.

"In 1827 one of Laird's boarders fel il and died owing back rent. On the day of the funeral Burke and Hare robbed the coffin and sold the man's body to Robert Knox, an anatomy professor at the Edinburgh Medical School."

"How much?"

"Ten pounds seven shilings. Big bucks back then. Seeing an income stream of easy money, the dynamic duo made a career change into the cadaver supply business. When another boarder fel il, Burke and Hare suffocated him by pinching off his nose and mouth. That became their MO, and the origin of the modern term "burking."

"Next came a relative of Helen's, a street busker, a string of prostitutes. Eventualy, Burke and Hare grew lazy, or complacent, and started taking victims close to home.

The neighbors began to notice that locals were disappearing, and Dr. Knox's students began to recognize faces on their tables. The downfal came with the murder of a hooker named Mary Docherty.

"When arrested, al four turned on each other. Burke and Helen MacDougal were charged and tried, Hare and Maggie Laird turned king's evidence. Helen won a verdict of not proven, Burke was found guilty and sentenced to death. Before his hanging, Burke admitted to a total of sixteen murders."

"Why risk murder? Why not read the obits and buy a good shovel?"

"These guys were slugs. Digging a grave was too labor intensive."

"Cruikshank was colecting articles on Burke and Hare?"

"Lots of them." I held up the papers.

Ryan considered this for several seconds.

"You think someone at the GMC clinic is knocking patients off for their corpses?"

"Cruikshank must have been considering the possibility."

"OK. Suppose that's it. Why? Where's the profit?"

"I'm not sure. Wait. Maybe they were harvesting skeletal parts to sel for medical purposes. Remember that scandal involving a funeral home and a number of tissue procurement companies?"

Ryan shook his head.

"The funeral home was removing bone from corpses without permission, and replacing it with polypropylene pipe. Alistair Cooke was reported to be one of the victims."

"You're not serious."

"It was al over the news. The stolen bone was sold to companies that supply hospitals with tissue. Cadaveric bone is routinely used for grafting."

"But bone doesn't make sense. Helms was buried. Montague was tossed into the ocean. Their skeletons were intact."

"Maybe their bones turned out to be unsuitable for some reason."

"Such as?"

"I don't know. OK. Maybe it wasn't a problem with the bones. Maybe the perp got spooked, the drop-off was spotted, the cleaning apparatus broke down. A thousand things could have gone wrong."

"What about the cut marks?"

What about the cut marks? Lower back. Pelvic and abdominal area.

Think outside the box, Brennan. Outside the bones.

My mind tossed up a gruesome possibility.

"But you're right about one thing," Ryan was saying. "Helms lived in a scrap-yard trailer. Montague was homeless. Aikman was mentaly il. Teal was unstable and lived on the streets. Who else is missing? Hookers. Druggies. Those on the fringe, those no one notices. The same people who fel victim to Burke and Hare."

It couldn't be. The idea was too terrible to contemplate.

"But there's no proof anyone's dead except Helms and Montague." Ryan's voice was barely registering. "So what have we learned? Cruikshank was digging into Burke and Hare. Cruikshank was staking out the GMC clinic. Helene Flynn worked there. Montague and Teal were patients there. But we don't even know that Teal is dead."

"Cruikshank sure is," I said. "Because he uncovered something that got him kiled. Ryan—"

"Shh."

"No. Listen."

Clicking off the light, Ryan puled me to him. When I tried to protest, he hugged me tighter. I fel silent and we lay together in the dark. Sometime later, Birdie hopped onto the bed. I felt him circle, then curl at my side.

Tired as I was, sleep wouldn't come. My mind kept offering up the same dreadful suspicion. Kept repeating the same horrified response:
It can't be.

I refused to think about my appaling hypothesis. To calm myself I chanted silently. Tonight, rest. Tomorrow, pursue.

It didn't work. My thoughts raced from topic to topic. I kept seeing the rigging and tubes pumping to keep Pete alive. I relived mopping Anne's kitchen floor, pictured my tears faling and mingling with his blood. I went cold at the prospect of teling Katy that her father was dead. Where was Katy?

I remembered my recent cal to Emma, dreaded the awful conversation I would have upon her sister's return from Italy.

I considered Gulet. Was his attitude toward me resistance, or merely indifference?

I thought of Dupree and his threats. Were they threats? What could he realy do? Al developers bitched to their friends in government about archaeologists interfering with progress.

Faces strobed in unending spirals through my brain. Pete. Emma. Gulet. Dupree. Lester Marshal. Corey Daniels. Adele Berry. Lonnie Aikman. The gargoyle features of Unique Montague. The fleshless skul of Wilie Helms. Pete again.

The digits on the bedside clock glowed orange. Outside the ocean roled, a soft, murmuring whisper. Minutes passed. An hour. Beside me, Ryan's body hadn't relaxed. His breathing hadn't steadied into the rhythm of sleep.

Share my suspicion with Ryan?

No. Wait. Dig. Be sure.

"You awake?" I whispered softly.

"Hm."

"Thinking about Lily?"

"Among other things." Ryan's voice was dusky.

"What?"

"Cruikshank's code."

"You crack it?"

"Except for the Helms file, I think it's mostly initials, dates, and times."

"C means case closed."

"Breakthrough noted."

I jabbed Ryan with an elbow.

"CD is Corey Daniels. AB, Adele Berry. LM, Lester Marshal. Not sure about some of the others. The dates are obvious. I think the numbers after each set of initials indicate the times that person entered or left the clinic."

"It's that simple?"

"There's more to it, but I think basicaly Cruikshank was keeping track of when people came and went."

"Staff only?"

"I think some were patients. Helms is another story. Those notes must have to do with research rather than surveilance since Helms disappeared before Cruikshank was hired to find Helene."

"If Cruikshank's system is so easy, why didn't Pete get it?"

Earlier, Ryan wouldn't have missed an opportunity for a dig. Not tonight. "When Pete was working it he didn't have the names of the clinic staff. Or Wilie Helms. What time is it?"

I looked at the clock. "Three ten."

"Doesn't matter. I don't think the notes wil yield much." Ryan puled me to him. "You sleepy?"

"I'm not in the mood, Ryan."

"I was thinking of Cruikshank's laptop."

"Gulet wants it back tomorrow."

"Want to take one last run at the password?"

"Yes." And there was something else I wanted to check into. Could it be?

"Did you find Cruikshank's police ID number?" Ryan asked.

"There's a badge, but the Charlotte PD doesn't number them."

"Did Cruikshank keep any other police equipment? A holster? Handcuffs? A handcuff key?"

"Yeah. Why?"

"Contrary to our glamorous public image, we in law enforcement aren't al that complex. Old cop trick: use your ID number as your password. Older cop trick: scratch your ID number onto your belongings."

Boyd and I set a land speed record bolting down the stairs. Ryan folowed at a more dignified pace. By the time he'd joined us I'd hit pay dirt.

"Cruikshank scratched digits beside the keyhole." Thrusting the handcuffs at Ryan, I dashed to the desk, opened and booted the Del. "Read them off."

Ryan did. I hit the keys. Black dots appeared in the little white window, then the screen changed to the Windows desktop.

"We're in!"

"Mailbox first?" Ryan asked.

I spent ten minutes poking around.

"The PC's set up for wireless, but there's no e-mail. I doubt Magnolia Manor's plugged in, so Cruikshank probably used coffee shops or libraries to access the Net. He's got hundreds of downloads. You might as wel go back to bed."

"You sure?"

"This is going to take a while."

Ryan kissed my head. I heard footfals on the carpet, then his tread on the stairs. Boyd stayed at my feet.

Everything faded from my consciousness but the softly lit monitor of a dead man's PC. Beyond its glow, Anne's picture window was a shiny black rectangle of glass. As I read file after file, a hard knot formed in my gut.

When I finaly sat back, the window had gone gray, and the vast Atlantic was emerging from an early morning mist.

The hunt for explanations was over.

My guess had been correct. I knew. And the reality was as ruthless as any I'd imagined. But that would have to wait.

I had my own reality to contend with. I caled the ICU. No change. No obvious improvement, but Pete was stable.

Try Katy again? No point. She'd get my message if she had her cel on. If she didn't, another cal would just result in another message. If I didn't hear from her within a few hours, I'd cal the university and ask for help in locating her.

I stretched out on the couch.

31

"YOU AWAKE?" I WHISPERED.

"I am now."

"People are being murdered for their organs."

"Uh-huh." Ryan stretched out a hand. I took it.

"Cruikshank figured it out."

Ryan propped himself up onto one elbow. His hair was tousled, and the baby blues were heavy with sleep.

"The idea crossed my mind, but it seemed so far out there I didn't even mention it."

"It's true."

"A drugged traveler wakes in an ice-filed bathtub? A colege student comes to sporting stitches after a wild party?" Ryan's tone was beyond skeptical. "Organ theft stories have been making the rounds for years."

"What Cruikshank stumbled onto is far worse than any urban myth. People are being choked to death, Ryan. Their organs are being carved from their bodies."

"No way in hel."

I ticked off points on my fingers. "Inexplicably dead MPs. Skeletons with cut marks." Ryan started to speak. I blew past him to ring man. "Cut marks consistent with scalpel nicks. A sketchy doctor in the United States, with a med school classmate who's dropped off the map. A mysterious health spa in Mexico."

Ryan scootched up and put a pilow behind his head. "Show me."

Crawling under the covers, I sat Indian style, opened Cruikshank's laptop and rested it on my crossed ankles.

"Cruikshank spent a lot of time researching transplantation, black marketeering in organs, Charleston MPs, and a place caled Abrigo Aislado de los Santos near Puerto Valarta."

"The Mexican resort in the brochure?"

"Yeah," I snorted. "Last resort."

I nibbled a cuticle, debated how to take Ryan through this since I'd just begun to comprehend most of it myself.

"Since the early fifties, transplantation has become relatively common. A kidney or a portion of liver can be given by a living donor, even a single lung, though that's rare.

Heart, cornea, double-lung, or pancreas transplants have to come from cadaverous donors.

"The problem is there aren't enough organs to go around. If you can use a live donor, you're better off. You might be compatible with a family member, a friend, or a charitable donor, though those are few and far between. If you need a cadaverous donor, you could sit for months, or even years."

"And die waiting."

"In the United States, those needing cadaverous donors become part of OPTN, the Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network, operated by an independent nonprofit organization caled UNOS, the United Network for Organ Sharing. UNOS maintains a database of eligible transplant recipients, as wel as information on al organ transplant centers throughout the country. UNOS also establishes policy with regard to priority and who gets which organs."

"How does a patient get into the network?"

"You have to find a transplant team qualified with UNOS. That team decides if you're a good candidate, physicaly and mentaly."

"Meaning?"

"It's complicated, but drug and alcohol abusers and smokers are usualy disqualified, for example. UNOS also ranks potential recipients based on health, urgency of need, compatibility, length of time on the list, that sort of thing. They want available organs used where they are likely to do the most good."

Ryan cut to the core. "So those rejected and those tired of waiting go outside the system."

"So-caled brokers arrange sales of human organs to patients who can pay. Usualy the selers are wiling participants. Kidneys are the most commonly traded, and, in most cases, it's poor people in developing countries seling their organs to the wealthy. The cost can run over one hundred thousand dolars, with the donor receiving only a fraction of that."

"This is widespread?"

"Cruikshank had tons of research on his computer. Some of his sources describe the kidney trade as a global phenomenon. Nancy Scheper-Hughes, a Berkeley anthropologist, has established an NGO caled Organ Watch, which claims to have documented organ harvesting in Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, Israel, Turkey, South Africa, India, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Cruikshank also found information on Iran and China."