Damaged (28 page)

Thursday, May 17, 4:00 p.m.

“A
woman named Kate Lange just came to my lab. Asking about what happens to the donor bodies. Do you know her?”

Anna closed her eyes. Kate Lange. Why was she digging around in this? “Yes. What did you tell her?”

“That the bodies were cremated.”

She tensed. “You didn’t tell her that we handled them, did you?”

“I had to, Anna. She asked me point-blank.” Ron Gill’s voice was tight with defensiveness.

“Damn.” She rubbed her temple. Everything was crashing in. First Craig, now Kate Lange. Like dominoes. She wouldn’t let it fall on her; she wouldn’t be trapped. She’d worked too hard to build O’Brien’s dusty funeral home business into something modern and compassionate.

Soliciting body parts for medical research seemed like an obvious offshoot of her core services. Not only that, there was a poetic beauty to harvesting tissue for the living from the dead. Then the act of dying would not be a waste. The dead could rest in peace, having completed the eternal circle of life.

But it had all gone horribly wrong. She’d never guessed that Dr. Ronald Gill, wunderkind of biomedical science, could give the promise of miracles with one hand—and unleash a killer with the other. He’d sent over Craig Peters, his assistant, to handle the disarticulations. Craig did a masterful job. And he turned a blind eye when the rest of the body was sold off to tissue processors and distributors. John Lyons decided to make Craig president of their newly formed company, thinking that it would ensure his silence about BioMediSol’s illegal tissue brokering.

Then Craig started showing up after-hours. Anna would discover signs that the upstairs embalming room had been used at night. She’d find extra body parts in the freezer. But not all the time. What was going on up there?

She’d wanted to end it, right then. But John Lyons had warned her not to. They’d all be exposed, he said. She and John would end up bankrupt and in prison for their illegal selling of body parts. And Ron didn’t want to go to the authorities. The university ethics committee would stop his research on the grounds that not all his limbs had been legally procured; his scientific career would be over.

Anna had been stupid, naive.

She’d listened to them.

“We’ve got to do something,” Ron said, his voice urgent. “Kate Lange is onto us.” His voice lowered. “And Craig is having more of these ataxic episodes.”

Despite herself, goose bumps crept along her arms. Dr. Gill scared her. But Craig Peters terrified her. She couldn’t let either of them do that to her. She needed to stay in control to get them out of this mess. “What do you think is causing it?”

“I don’t know. At first, I thought it was a neurological disorder…but now I’m wondering if it’s a disease.”

She straightened. “Disease? What kind of disease?”

He spoke so softly she barely heard the next words. “CJD. Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. He has these spells where he goes rigid, becomes clumsy, can’t speak. CJD has those symptomatic behaviors.”

“Is it fatal?” She held her breath. Could the solution be as simple as that?

“Yes.”

A smile broke out on her face.

There was a pause. A pause so fraught with anxiety that it wiped the smile away.

“We could all have it, Anna.” The words came out in a choked whisper.

Her hand tightened on the phone. “What? How could that be?”

“I was trying to figure out how Craig got it. I think he became infected while disarticulating an infected body.” He paused. “If I’m not mistaken, we’ve all handled the bodies.”

Her mind raced. The phone became slippery in her fingers and she had to switch hands.

“Did you cut yourself with anything that had been used on the tissue?”

“No.”

“Then you are probably safe.” Her body went limp with relief. Ron cleared his throat. “I, on the other hand, may not be.”

“Can you do a test or something?”

“No. And the disease can be dormant for years…” His voice trailed off as the implications of his words sank in.

She breathed out slowly. “I’m sorry, Ron.” It was a lie. She wanted this nightmare to be over. She’d tried to help medical science—and make a small profit—and instead
got seduced by an unscrupulous researcher and terrorized by his psychopathic ex-surgical resident assistant.

She needed to cut her losses.

And somehow get the upper hand of this serial killer they’d unleashed.

“Do you think he’s still capable of doing the procedures?”

“Yes. The disease hasn’t progressed far enough along. What I’m worried about is that he may become careless and the police will find him.”

“Which will lead them to us.” Her heart thudded in her ears.

“Exactly.”

The business line began to blink. She couldn’t afford to ignore it. Not when she needed one more pair of limbs to fill that rush order. “Look, I’ve got a call coming in. I’ll call John and see what can be done about Kate Lange.”

She hung up and punched the button for the other line. “Keane’s Funeral Home.” The morgue attendant who answered was a friend of hers. A new body to pick up. A homeless guy. Whenever it was convenient.

Someone was looking out for her today. Her last pair of limbs had just walked into her arms. Now if she could just figure out how to deal with Ron Gill and Craig Peters.

She glanced at her watch: 4:28 p.m. Just enough time to get the body, put together her shipment and have it delivered. She grabbed her purse and headed out to the loading bay.

The traffic crawled along Brunswick Street. Kate tapped the wheel. Should she?

Yes. She should. If she was correct in her assumptions, Anna Keane was running an under-the-table body brokering business that could infect hundreds, even thousands, of people.

The next question was tougher.

Did she have the guts to do it?

Did she have the guts to walk away from her career? Because that’s what she would be doing if she was caught. She’d be kissing goodbye her fast-track to the bench, probably her law license if she was convicted of break and enter, not to mention her steady paycheck. Which meant she’d lose her house. Which meant she wouldn’t be able to keep Alaska. Especially if she was sent to jail.

She pictured his bright blue eyes. His nose pressed into her hand first thing in the morning, the gentle lick on her cheek to rouse her. The impossibly soft, thick fur that soothed her as she stroked him.

She gritted her teeth. He was the only thing that she loved. The only thing.

And if she lost her home, if she was sent to jail, what would happen to him? Who would look after him?

Tears stung her eyes. She blinked furiously.

Hundreds of people could have their lives ruined because of Anna Keane. Mothers, fathers, children. Could she live with herself if she ignored her suspicions?

Yet could she hold her head up again if she was sent to jail for breaking into Keane’s Funeral Home? Everything she’d done to succeed in life was to prove she wasn’t like her father.

And now she was contemplating following in his footsteps…

She gripped the steering wheel.

She’d just have to make sure she didn’t get caught.

Easier said than done. She didn’t have a clue how to go about breaking in. Hell, she wasn’t even sure what she was looking for.

By the time she turned onto the residential street behind
Keane’s Funeral Home, she’d come up with a plan: she was going to get the feel of the place and see if there was a way into it. Then, later tonight, she would return and somehow break in. She’d look for records that would show Anna Keane was illegally supplying bodies to BioMediSol. Seemed a little optimistic, but that was the best she could come up with.
That’s why you’re a lawyer and not a criminal. You lack imagination.
That thought cheered her in a perverse way.

She pulled up beside a curb. A deep parking lot fanned out from the back entrance of the funeral home, but there were no other cars to camouflage her, so she parked under a tree. Dumpsters neatly lined one end of the lot.

The far side of the building had a low addition built onto it, with a tall chimney attached. It was the crematorium from the looks of things. Where, presumably, Dr. Gill’s picked-clean bodies were turned to ash. On the other end of the building a hearse sat expectantly in front of a loading bay. The car’s black doors spread open like beetle wings.

Anna Keane walked through the loading bay, pushing a gurney. Kate hurriedly slid down in her seat. She peered over the dash. The funeral director collapsed the gurney, expertly loading it into the hearse. She closed the hearse’s doors, then locked the back entrance to the funeral home.

Kate’s heart pounded. It looked as if Anna Keane was going on a call. The funeral director climbed into the driver’s seat of the hearse. The engine roared to life. The hearse slowly rolled forward, then stopped abruptly. Anna Keane cut the engine and jumped out of the car. She had her cell phone pressed to her ear, and was trying to talk into it while unlocking the funeral home’s loading-bay doors. She used her shoulder to push the door open and disappeared inside.

Kate stared, her mind whirling.

The door had been opened for her—literally.

She couldn’t turn her back to it.

Thursday, May 17, 5:00 p.m.

S
he jumped out of her car and ran as fast as her narrow skirt and high heels would allow across the parking lot to the shelter of the Dumpster. She crouched behind it. Water ran over her shoes from a puddle. She didn’t want to think about what was in that wastewater.

She scanned the loading bay to the funeral home. It was still empty. Anna Keane had been inside for about two minutes. Keeping close to the brick wall, she crept toward the door. Her ears strained for the tap-tap of Anna Keane’s footsteps. All she could hear was her blood pounding.

The loading bay was inches away. She took a deep breath and slid through it.

“I’ve got it.” Anna Keane’s voice came from around the corner. “Yes, the invoices were all sent today. Don’t worry, I’m on top of it.”

Kate glanced frantically around for a place to hide. There was a door off the wide corridor. She darted toward it, her hand fumbling for the knob.
Please God, don’t let it be locked.

It turned soundlessly in her hands. She lunged into the
room and closed the door. Blackness dropped over her.
Like being inside a coffin
. She pushed the thought away and pressed her ear against the door.

“I’ll talk to you later.” Anna Keane sounded a bit out of breath. Her footsteps increased in tempo as she walked past Kate’s door. “I’ve got a rush order. I’ve got to go.”

Kate heard her go through the loading bay. The door snapped shut. She breathed a sigh of relief. It didn’t sound as if Anna Keane had set an alarm, so no motion detectors to contend with.

Her hand fumbled against the wall for a light switch. She turned it on. Cool fluorescent lights flickered overhead. She put a hand to her mouth.

The room was full of coffins. Long, short, black, brown, white, ornate, plain.

She took a deep breath. Well, what did she expect? She’d come snooping around a funeral room.
Just be grateful they weren’t occupied
. This was obviously a storage room.

She shut off the light and opened the door. A quick glance down the hallway confirmed that it was empty. She walked to the end of the corridor and paused.

Silence.

At least on this floor. She couldn’t tell if there was anyone else in the building. It was after five o’clock. She hadn’t seen any other cars in the back parking lot. She guessed that Anna Keane had been the attendant on duty.

But who knew how long it would take for Anna Keane to retrieve her latest corpse and bring it back.

She hurried down the hallway. For the second time that day, a smell triggered a memory. This was worse than the last.

It was the way her sister had smelled after she’d been laid out in her coffin.

Formalin. With a faint after-note of decay.

She stopped, her throat tightening. The odor came from a room with an open door. She walked in slowly. It was dark. No windows.

The dark closed in on her again, crowding her with more memories. Of her shame and despair when she was a teenager. Of her aimlessness until she realized her life would never change unless she got her act together. Of her law school graduation, of her admission to the bar. Of her job offer at LMB. Of Alaska greeting her with his goofy grin when she walked in the door.

The dark pounded on her head.

Get away. Get away.

She shouldn’t have come here. She should escape while she could. Before she got caught. Because she knew she would.

She’d worked so hard to get to this point in her life, to leave behind her shame. She couldn’t just throw it away. She’d find some other way to nail BioMediSol.

She turned.

Stopped.

Squeezed her eyes tight.

“Fuck it.”

She flipped the light switch on. Her gaze fell on the metal gurney in the middle of the room.

She stared at its smooth, silver surface. At the drains running down the side. An embalming tank with a thick pink tube wrapped around it sat nearby. No sign that this was where her sister had been pieced together for her funeral fifteen years ago.

She imagined all the dead people who had been bathed, stitched, embalmed, made up and dressed so that their loved ones would be able to grieve without being reminded again of the pain they had suffered.

Was this the same place that people’s loved ones were now being taken apart?

If that had happened to her sister…

Her heart began hammering in her ribs.

She had thought she was trying to protect all the living victims who might get infected from tainted tissue. But now she realized she was here to protect the dead victims, too.

It was one thing to choose to donate your body to be used for the greater good of all; it was another to have it stolen after you could no longer defend yourself. She would protect all the sisters, mothers, fathers and brothers that had been entrusted to Anna Keane and were being taken apart, piece by piece, and sold to the highest bidder.

She circled the room, her heels sounding like hammers on the ceramic floor, walking by—but not touching—–the equipment. A shelf of green disinfectant soap and pink and orange bottles lined one wall. But there were no filing cabinets in here. Where would the records be kept? She hadn’t noticed any filing cabinets in Anna Keane’s office, either.

Then her eye caught something. It was a red button set in a panel on the far wall next to a light switch. She hurried over to it. As she neared it, she saw that an elevator door was recessed into the wall, barely noticeable from across the room. Maybe the elevator led to Anna’s—or, better yet, BioMediSol’s—offices.

She pressed the button. The elevator door slid open silently and she walked in. She couldn’t shake the feeling she was being lured into a trap. She pushed the lone button in the elevator, battling the fear that mushroomed as the elevator climbed upward.

The elevator stopped at the attic. The doors opened. She stepped gingerly out of the lift into darkness. The
elevator slid back down to the bottom floor. She stood for a moment in the dark, the odor of decay crawling into her pores.

She patted the wall. Relief cascaded through her as her fingers hit a light switch.

Light flickered over the room. The opaque glass of the attic’s lone window reflected her tense face back at her. The light would be visible from outside. She needed to hurry.

Her gaze skimmed the room. It was small, probably a secondary office in another life. Now it had been converted into an embalming room. It had the same setup as the embalming room below, but it didn’t have the long counter: just a gurney, a sink mounted over a cupboard, a small filing cabinet and three meat freezers all squeezed together.

She hurried over to the filing cabinet and yanked the top drawer open.

Bingo. These were BioMediSol’s records. This room must be where BioMediSol did its tissue harvesting.

She pulled out the first three records. They appeared to be for leg parts.

She would try to match the ID numbers on the records to the body parts in the freezers. The body parts might still have the names of the decedents on them. She could trace them back to Anna Keane’s clients. Then she could contact family members and find out if consent was ever given. And if it wasn’t, Anna Keane and BioMediSol would be toast.

She eyed the freezers.

Took a deep breath.

Here goes
. Goose bumps chased her nerves as she pulled open the door of the first freezer. Long knobby strips of yellow flesh in clear plastic bags lay jumbled carelessly on top of one another. She stared at them, confused. Then she realized what they were: spinal cords.
They were each labeled with a tag, on which was scrawled a name and an identification number.

She closed the lid and pulled open the next freezer. A scream welled in her throat. She bit it back just in time. Eyes glared balefully up at her. Two dozen pairs of frozen eyeballs, at least.

She slammed the door closed. Sweat trickled down her sides. It had a rank smell, one she’d never smelled on herself before, like that of a trapped animal. She prayed that she would find legs under door number three. She could deal with legs.

She flipped open the lid.

A foot stuck up from the pile of legs. It looked as if it had tried to kick the door open.

She jumped back.

She could have sworn it moved. She swiped the sweat from her face. She needed to get out of here.

But first she needed to match the ID numbers she had on the BioMediSol records with those dismembered legs. She checked the kicking foot. It did not match any of the three ID numbers. She reached in and quickly pulled up the bagged limb under it. The ID number didn’t match. Nor did the next one.

Damn. Maybe BioMediSol had already sold the batch for these records.

She reached down into the freezer to return the limb. A tattoo on the inside of the ankle caught her eye. It was a small hummingbird fluttering next to a honeysuckle. The colors were dulled, the brown skin no longer providing a rich contrast to the reds and oranges.

She stared at it.

A hummingbird.

“A little bird. With little wings that fly really fast.”

That was how Shonda had described Vangie Wright’s tattoo.

She checked the name. The leg was identified as belonging to Mary Littler. The foot was so small it looked childlike. But no child would sport a tattoo. She stared at the delicate design. Her breath caught in her throat. The vine trailing away from the honeysuckle was subtly curled to form the initials
V.W.

She closed the freezer and ran over to the filing cabinet. She needed to find the record for Vangie Wright/Mary Littler.

The deep rumble of the hearse vibrated from outside. The engine died.

A door banged shut downstairs.