Dead Hot Mama (13 page)

“You’re sure I’m not intruding,” said Gina. “Of course not,” said Osborne. “I’ll just have Mallory set one more plate.” That’s when Lew’s eyes caught his: Oops.

Mallory
took the news of an additional guest okay—until she heard who it was. Then silence and that certain set to her jaw so like her mother that Osborne couldn’t help but think: What price will I pay for this?

But the table was set with the extra place, two potatoes added to the boiling water, and the living room festive from the lights studding the tree and the flames in the fireplace. As they waited for their first arrivals, Osborne poured himself a Diet Coke from the bar he had set up on the porch. Mallory emerged from the bedroom, elegant in a black suede skirt and a black sweater.

“Well, don’t you look nice,” said Osborne, struck by the beauty of this child of his: her black brown hair sleeked back and tied with a red ribbon, miniature Christmas ornaments dangling from her ears, her cheekbones and eyes highlighted and glowing. “I never could get your mother to wear black, and it suited her just like it does you.”

Mallory gave him a dim eye, then brushed him aside to pour herself a Coke. He got the message.

“It’s not my fault,” said Osborne, striving for a jovial tone. “You’re the one who invited the guy. How many times have I told you—you never know who’s likely to show up when you invite Ray. I’ve had him walk in with a couple jabones fresh out of the hoosegow. We’re lucky he’s bringing someone civilized.” Still that set to the jaw.

“Mallory,” he said, resting a hand on her shoulder, “Ray is the caretaker for Gina’s property, and he has guided her muskie fishing a number of times. They have a
business relationship
. It just so happened that Lew needed her help unexpectedly, all the motels were filled, and Ray offered to do Chief Ferris a favor. Gina’s a sport—she’s making the best of it.” That was stretching the truth, but it sounded good.

“Merry Christmas, Dad,” said Mallory with a brisk clink of her glass against his before she walked quickly back to check the kitchen. She didn’t believe a word of what he said.

As he watched her tie on an apron, he could hear car doors slamming and boots crunching in snow. Within seconds, Mason and Cody spilled through the kitchen door, followed by their parents. Just as that crew finished pulling off their boots, Ray and Gina arrived. The noise level escalated as Osborne carried coats, hats, mittens, and scarves to the bedroom, prepared a gin martini for Gina, Shirley Temples for his grandchildren, and opened Leinenkugel’s Original Lagers for Erin and Mark.

Lew arrived, “right on time,” as she pointed out, stomping her feet at the back door. He took her coat, and she followed him through the kitchen and into the bedroom. Making sure no one was standing close enough to hear, she cut her eyes towards the outer room as she said, “I caught that pout on Mallory’s face. Bit of a toxic combo, those two? Mallory and Gina?”

“All parties are behaving so far,” said Osborne, heaving a sigh. “But I have to say, this reminds me of that old rule: Never pet a friend’s dog when your dog is watching.”

“Why don’t you suggest to Ray that he give Mallory a hand in the kitchen,” said Lew. “He’s always bragging about his mashed potatoes.”

“You think that’ll level the playing field?”

Lew chuckled and brushed his cheek with a kiss. “I’m just trying to get us through the evening.”

A little over an hour later, the adults began to gather in the living room, each finding a comfortable spot not too far from the fire. Dinner was over, the coffee cups half full, and Osborne had turned down the lights so that the flames in the fireplace and the lights on the tree were the only illumination. Everyone seemed relaxed and content.

Mason and Cody, too excited to sit still, were banished to the porch to watch a Christmas video.

Lew was sitting on the floor near the fireplace, legs extended, her back against the stone mantel. She was dressed in dark brown corduroys and a black jacket embroidered with dark green and gold acorns. A lemon yellow turtleneck peeking through the collar of her jacket enhanced the glow of her winter tan. Or maybe it was the flames in the fireplace. Whatever it was, Osborne thought she had never looked so good. Mike agreed. The lab had snuggled in next to Lew, his head in her lap.

“So you won a Pulitzer Prize for that series? You didn’t tell me
that”
said Lew, looking over at Gina who sat side saddle on the arm of Osborne’s leather easy chair, the chair being occupied by Ray, immersed in a recent issue of
American Rifleman.

“You read it already?” Gina was surprised.

“Marlene handed me the printouts as I was leaving the office,” said Lew. “I had a little time to browse through before driving over tonight. Need to go back and read it more closely, but I can tell you right now it sure puts a whole new spin on this new coroner I have to work with.” She paused as Osborne held out the dessert tray to select a Christmas cookie. “Thank you, Doc.”

“We won several prizes,” said Gina, “including the Pulitzer, all of which were awarded to the paper, not me personally. Just so you know,” she laughed. “Thirty reporters and editors worked nine long months to put those stories together. My special projects team handled several.”

“I couldn’t help but notice it was a Milwaukee firm that seemed to be one of the major culprits,” said Lew. “Are they still in business?”

“Oh yes—but they got their hands slapped,” said Gina. “The irony is that almost all the managers working there have since moved on to more lucrative positions elsewhere. I’m not sure we didn’t help them get those jobs. But I expect the paper will revisit the issue—check out the next boondoggle, and the same names will show up. Too much money in the tissue trade. And it is
not
going away.” Gina brushed some crumbs from her lap.

“That Milwaukee company is the reason we did the series in the first place. Two college kids in Chicago, both good athletes and in excellent physical condition, died from infections that set in after simple knee surgeries. And the infected tissue came from that firm, which is a tissue processor.”

“We lost a boy in La Crosse, similar situation,” said Mark, who had walked into the room and leaned against the wall, listening. “Infection set in after he had ACL surgery. A good friend of a buddy of mine from law school has the case and they expect to settle for a substantial sum. I don’t know who the company is that’s at risk on that one.”

“Oh, so you know something about this,” said Gina.

“Not much,” said Mark. “I understand that there’s a federal law governing organ transplants but not other tissues. Correct?”

As he spoke, Mallory turned off the lights in the kitchen, where she and Erin had just finished loading the dishwasher. Entering the living room together, they found spots on the floor a comfortable distance from the fireplace. Osborne was relieved to see that Mallory was looking happier.

“Yes and no,” said Gina in response to Mark’s question. “The National Organ Transplant Act governs the donations and transplanting of major organs, such as the heart, kidneys, lungs, and liver. But while it bans making money off those organs, that is not the case when it comes to less glamorous stuff like bones and ligaments and skin.

“The problem is …” Gina took a final sip from her cup, then placed it on the saucer and set it off to the side. “The language of the law is very fuzzy. Not just fuzzy but unfortunate. It has a loophole that allows for the charging, and I quote, of
reasonable fees
—for the collection and processing of human tissue such as bone and ligaments.

“So now you have one company
collecting
tissue for a fee; another
processing
the tissue for fee. And what do you need to build your business? Tissue.
Lots
of tissue if you want to make
lots
of money.” Gina folded her arms and grinned over at Mark. “You want a business model with room for abuse? You got it.”

Osborne stepped carefully around the room, coffeepot readied to refill cups, but all eyes were on Gina.

“If I read your first article correctly,” said Lew, “anyone can collect tissue. There’s no license required, no special training—”

“The only license required is license to
steal
,” said Gina. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to interrupt, but I’m pretty passionate on this subject, Chief. Even after editing reams of copy, I can tell you I am still appalled at what we found.”

Raising an index finger to emphasize her point, she said, “We tracked over five hundred funeral homes, morgues, nursing homes,
and
hospices—in addition to hundreds of medical examiners and coroners throughout Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Illinois. You would not believe what is going on—”

“Give us an idea of the kind of money you’re talking about,” said Erin. “Couple thousand dollars, a hundred thousand? I’m trying to figure out why people would do this. I mean, you’re talking about removing tissue from dead bodies, right?”

Gina winced. “Exactly. You sure you want to hear all this … on Christmas Eve?” Rapt silence greeted her question.

“O-o-kay, you asked for it. To answer your question, Erin, keep in mind I’m working from memory here, if you need accuracy, you’ll have read the articles—or I can get you an update.” Gina crossed her arms again.

“We did a sidebar breaking out the figures. An Achilles tendon costs a thousand, skin goes for fifteen hundred to two thousand
per square foot
, and a single heart valve can sell for as much as ten thousand dollars. When I say
cost
I mean that is what hospitals pay—that doesn’t get
close
to what the patients or their health insurers pay.

“Now, on the front end, say for a heart valve, the person who harvests the tissue—the collector—makes a thousand dollars or about a tenth of what it will sell for after processing and shipping. Think about it. A thousand dollars for a heart valve? A hundred bucks for a tendon? That’s a lot of money for a small funeral home or some country coroner.”

“Did I hear you say bone is something they take, too?” asked Ray,
American Rifleman
lying ignored in his lap.

“O-o-h yes! Bone is a
bonanza
,” said Gina with a wink. “Fortunes are being made because medical science has determined it is better to use bone than metal for hip replacements, plastic surgery, fractures of all kinds. Because it’s biologically more compatible than metal, orthopedic surgeons prefer using screws, dowels, pins, even paste made from human bone. As far as the money to be made? One teaspoon of bone putty costs a thousand dollars.
One teaspoon.”

“Okay, okay,” said Mark, “so let’s say I’m killed in a motorcycle accident and one of my legs is severed. What’s that worth?”

“Five thousand bucks minimum,” said Gina. “A processor can turn a single femur, depending on condition, into ten machine-tooled allografts for spinal fusion, fifteen to twenty vials of powdered bone, and several bags of bone chips.”

“What do you mean by ‘condition’?” asked Lew.

“Oddly enough, when it comes to bone—the older the better. Take Dr. Osborne here. He may be worth more dead than alive.”

“That’s a happy thought,” said Doc.

“I don’t think so,” said Lew. She winked at Osborne, who beamed, embarrassed, but pleased. He saw Erin and Mallory exchange grins and felt even better.

“But it is a reason I’m gonna argue with that guy from the Wausau crime lab on why he thinks those snowmobilers were cut the way they were,” said Gina. “He sees one thing; I see something very different—”

“Like what?” asked Osborne, relieved to hear he wasn’t the only one questioning Brace’s theory.

“I think it’s just been a matter of time until we started to see crimes like this. In my opinion, those bodies were mutilated for the same reason banks are robbed, corporations inflate their earnings, and people cheat on their tax returns: greed.”

The room was very quiet. The only sound was the flames crackling in the fireplace. “I can’t imagine anyone up here doing something like that,” said Ray. “Truly, I don’t know anyone capable of such an act.” He arched his eyebrows to lighten the mood. “Poaching fish is one thing—but poaching people?” No one laughed.

Lew caught Osborne’s eye and held it. He gave a slight nod. He, too, agreed with Gina.

“Look, everyone,” said Gina, raising her hands as if to quiet a crowd, “you may think I’m exaggerating the scope of this but hospitals are desperate. We have institutions in Chicago where the annual budgets for allograft issue, which is what we call tissue harvested after death, have grown, just within the last five years, to well over a million dollars.

“Think about it. Patients today get to choose if they want a surgeon to use tissue from their own bodies or from a cadaver. The greater percentage are likely to go for less surgical trauma to themselves and opt for allograft tissue instead. What would you do?”

Everyone nodded. Osborne wondered what
he
would do? He thought of the teeth sitting on the shelf in his kitchen. Could the same ever be true in the world of dentistry? He could not imagine such a thing—but it did make him wonder anew why someone had gone to all the effort to assemble those upper and lower plates.

“Gina,” said Lew, “this harvesting, collecting, whatever you call it, is exactly what our Bud Michalski is suggesting we do here,” said Lew. “Until the meeting yesterday, I had never heard that word
allograft
before. Now you’re telling us this is big business?”

“Indeed it is,” said Gina. “A billion dollar industry. That Milwaukee firm we talked about earlier has annual revenues of a hundred million dollars, and it is publicly traded. The problem is, these companies have way too much money to throw at lobbyists, so even though there is a drastic need for regulation, it’ll be difficult to come by. You wait and see.

“The bottom line is that the tissue has to come from somewhere. I predict that until that law is changed more people will die from infected tissue because of sloppy harvesting—and more than a few families will find their loved ones’ bodies stripped without permission.”