Deceived (36 page)
“You can hear me, can’t you?” Dr. Mesa said.
The eyelids blinked, this time with definite alertness.
Now it was just doctor and patient, man to man. The antiquated equipment and sour hospital smell could not stand between this transaction.
“Yes, yes, you’re back. Come all the way.”
“Muh . . .”
He was trying to speak! There was no uniformity about comas. Someone could be out for a day and never come all the way back. Others could be gone for a decade and one day wake up and recite the
Gettysburg Address
.
It was part of the marvel of biology and, perhaps, some Power beyond medical science’s limited ability to comprehend.
But there was no doubt here. This man was trying to communicate.
“I’m Dr. Mesa. Can you hear me?”
“Myn . . .”
Mine?
“Yes?” Dr. Mesa said.
“. . . name . . .”
“Yes?”
“Ar. Thur.”
So that was it.
Arthur
. The real name. The information Dr. Mesa now had to keep away from any other staff. The patient had an identity now. But who was he in the larger scheme of things? He’d come over as a John Doe, and there were no prints or DNA in the databases that matched.
One of the lawyers working for the county supervisors had filled Mesa in on what was at stake. This was a case of thanatomimesis, which had happened before in the chaos that was the county morgue. A body thought to be dead is discovered, just before an autopsy — or, horror of horrors, during it — to be alive.
Barely, but alive.
But there was more. They’d nabbed a medical assistant in some sort of bizarre scheme. A body switch. The lawyer didn’t give Dr. Mesa all the details — and he really didn’t want to know, to tell the truth — but whoever was behind the mess had put a false Doe tag on this Arthur.
Why? Did somebody discover he was alive and want to cover it up somehow? Then there was the other part of this strange tale. The lawyer wouldn’t say much, except that there was a pushed-through autopsy and a cremation that shouldn’t have happened. Some other poor John Doe had gone to the crematorium. Mesa had heard of the mortuary in question and knew it was not one of the more reputable in town.
If any of this broke, it would be major lawsuit time.
60 Minutes
time.
Geraldo
on steroids.
Those were the lawyer’s exact words.
Geraldo on steroids.
Mesa told himself to be very, very careful.
“Arthur?” Dr. Mesa said.
Eyelids blinked.
“I’m Dr. Mesa.”
“Arthur.”
“Yes?”
“Towne.”
“Town? You’re in Los Angeles.”
“No.”
“No?
”
“Arthur. Towne.”
“Arthur Towne? That’s your name?”
The patient’s eyes grew wider, life seeming to pour back into him by the second. “My wife,” he said. “Where’s my wife?”
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