Diagnosis Murder 5 - The Past Tense (3 page)

"I want an itemized receipt," he grumbled, shoving the bag into Steve's hands. "And I want everything back that isn't pertinent to your investigation and first dibs on any thing that goes unclaimed after the trial."

"What about the paper bag? Would you like that back, too?"

Steve opened the bag and peered inside. Amidst the sand and loose change, there was a Hot Wheels car, a charm bracelet, a watch, an earring, a fork, a Saint Christopher medal, a fingernail clipper, a cell phone, a keychain, a fishing lure, a pen, a class ring, and a stick of gum still in its foil wrapping.

"What do you do with this stuff?" Steve asked.

"What any sane person would do." The beachcomber scratched at his soiled armpit. "I put it all on eBay."

* * *

Finding a corpse on the beach didn't slow Mark Sloan down. He still made it to Community General Hospital on time for his first appointment. Not that he'd been in any hurry to get there. It was a meeting he'd been dreading.

His patient was Dr. Dan Marlowe, a cardiologist at Community General. They'd done their internal medicine residencies together and were even neighbors for a while, back when their children were in diapers and their wives were still alive.

Dan was a big, gregarious, round-cheeked man whose hearty laugh, ready smile, and perpetual good cheer made him the natural choice at Christmas to play Santa Claus in the children's ward. He'd gladly donned the Santa suit and passed out gifts to the sick kids for nearly forty years.

Lately, Dan spoke with a hoarse voice that he blamed on too much laughter and lingering laryngitis. But being a doctor himself, he naturally put off seeing one. Mark finally nagged him into it, arguing it was probably a simple sinus or throat infection that could be quickly cured with the right antibiotics.

But it wasn't. Instead, Mark discovered something unexpected and much worse. The laryngitis was an alarm bell, one that rang far too late in Dan's case. The scratchy voice was caused by a tumor on the upper left lobe of his lung that had invaded his recurrent laryngeal nerve. Dan showed no other obvious symptoms of his dire affliction.

Dan insisted that Mark conduct all the follow-up tests and exams at another hospital so word wouldn't spread around Community General about his condition.

So now, rather than meeting in Mark's office or an exam room, they got together over coffee in the Community General cafeteria. They were both wearing their lab coats, stethoscopes slung around their necks, several files open between them. To anyone who saw them, they appeared to be just two doctors conferring on a case. There was nothing unusual about that. But this time the patient happened to be one of the doctors at the table.

The news Mark had to deliver was far from encouraging. The cancer had metastasized widely throughout Dan's body. Aggressive chemotherapy and surgery were the only options, but the prognosis wasn't good. Both men knew that. Dan was in his late sixties, and his cancer was advanced. At best, the treatment might add a year or two to his life, but not much more. His illness was a death sentence.

"This is probably sacrilegious for a doctor to say, but I'm not going to do a damn thing about it," Dan said. "It's a quality-of-life issue. What's the point of living another year or so if the extra time is going to be spent in misery?"

Mark had guessed that would be Dan's decision, and he couldn't really blame him. It was a choice Mark might have made himself had he been in the same position. But still, it saddened him.

"I understand," Mark said. "But there are still things we can do to relieve some of your discomfort."

"Nothing invasive and no drugs that are going to turn me into some kind of zombie," Dan said. "I want to continue showing up at this hospital as a doctor instead of a patient for as long as I can."

"You're going to keep working?"

"Of course," Dan said.

"Wouldn't you rather spend the time you have left traveling? Visiting with your grandchildren? Reading all those books you've always meant to get to someday?"

"Hell no. That would almost be as bad as the chemo," Dan said with one of his robust grins. "I love my job, Mark. I want to do it as long as I'm physically able. But don't worry, old friend. I'll find time to indulge myself and do some of the things that I've put off for too long." It wasn't the first time Mark had told a patient that he was going to die, and the doctor knew it wouldn't be the last. He was continually amazed by the courage and serenity so many of his patients showed when faced with the certainty of their imminent death. Often it seemed to be their loved ones who felt the most fear, anxiety, and sadness over the news. This time Mark was one of them. He was losing an old, dear friend.

"Don't look so sad, Mark," Dan said. "I'd rather go like this than have a stroke, get hit by a car, or walk into an open manhole."

"I think I'd prefer the manhole."

"Nonsense," Dan said. "It's a luxury to know when you're going to die. It gives you a chance to put your life in order, to say all your good-byes."

"That's the thing," Mark said. "I'm lousy at good-byes." Dan waved Mark's comment away. "Ah, we all have to go sometime. Few of us are privileged to do it on our own terms. I'm a lucky man."

They sat for a moment in silence, comfortable in each other's company. They had a history together that encompassed most of Mark's personal and professional life.

Mark knew his sadness wasn't for only Dan, but for all the friends and family he'd lost over the years. He'd reached an age at which more and more of his contemporaries were dying. It was as if his past was fading right before his eyes. Soon Mark would be the only one left who could say that what he'd experienced in his youth actually happened.

At that moment Mark realized that what troubled him wasn't just the loss of loved ones or the loneliness of be coming the only witness left to much of his own life.

It was fear.

Of what? Of surviving? Or of knowing that his own death might not be that far off?

But looking at Dan now, so clearly at peace, Mark wondered if there wasn't some benefit to knowing the end of your own story. Perhaps true peace came from seeing the whole picture, from being able to look upon the entirety of your life. Perhaps his fear came from the uncertainty about his own fate, of never being able to achieve that clarity.

"There aren't many of us left," Dan said. "This hospital has changed a lot since we first came in these doors."

"It's changed completely, thanks to me," Mark said. "I'm the reason a mad bomber blew the place up a few years ago."

"I don't mean the brick and mortar," Dan said. "I'm talking about the people, the technology, the practice of medicine. Look at us, Mark. We're still here. Imagine if our younger selves could see us now."

Looking past Dan, across the large cafeteria, Mark could almost see them.

CHAPTER THREE

Mark spent the rest of the morning attending a mind-numbing administrative meeting with the various hospital department heads, which actually wasn't such a bad thing. After finding a corpse on the beach and having an emotional discussion about a friend's imminent death, he needed a little numbing, to give his heart and mind a rest from the depressing events of the day. His eyes were open and he looked attentive, but sitting through the meeting was almost like sleeping, something he hadn't been getting enough of lately anyway.

Although the meeting felt endless, it did finally break up around noon. Mark headed down to the ER to see if his friend and protégé Dr. Jesse Travis wanted some company for lunch.

The ER was filled with patients, which was typical in the wake of a storm, when the number of accident-related injuries increased substantially. But the rain wasn't responsible for the crowded conditions. There were at least three dozen patients, some of them firemen and police officers, and they were all covered with hives.

Dr. Travis was scurrying around to treat the patients who were already there and deal with the steady stream of new arrivals. But if Jesse was overwhelmed, he didn't show it. If anything, he seemed to be enjoying himself, thriving on the urgency and activity. Jesse's boyish enthusiasm reminded Mark more than a little of himself in his twenties, or more accurately, of what he'd been told he was like by those few people who knew him back then.

Mark approached Jesse. "What happened?"

"See those two kids over there?" Jesse cocked his head towards two boys who looked to be about twelve years old, lying on adjacent gurneys, their legs elevated, IVs in their arms. They had red, swollen sores all over their faces, necks, and arms. "They saw a beehive in the eaves of their apartment building and thought it would be a lot of fun to throw rocks at it."

"Oh no," Mark said.

"Sixty thousand Africanized honeybees came swarming out," Jesse said. "Those two were stung a few hundred times before they dove into the swimming pool. The swarm killed two dogs, attacked everybody in the building and on the street. They even stung the firefighters and paramedics who showed up. The firefighters doused the bees with fire-retardant foam and cordoned off the street until the exterminators got out there."

"Anyone seriously hurt?" Mark knew a healthy adult could endure a thousand stings, but just one sting could cause a hypersensitive person to have a potentially fatal anaphylactic reaction.

"We've have eight patients with massive angioedema but no evidence of cardiovascular problems," Jesse said. "I've got them on diphenyihydramine IV, epinephrine, and oral antihistamines. For everyone else, I've given them Benadryl, ice packs, and a recipe for a skin paste of meat tenderizer with a touch of garlic and seasoned salt."

"What's the garlic and salt for?"

"The steaks," Jesse said. "As long as you're going to be making the paste, you might as well marinate some meat for dinner."

"I'm surprised you didn't just prescribe lunch at Barbeque Bob's," Mark said.

"That would be a conflict of interest, since Steve and I own the place."

"Looks like you've had an exciting morning," Mark said.

"Not as exciting as yours," Jesse replied. "It's not every day you go for a walk on the beach and trip over a dead mermaid."

"How did you hear about that?"

Jesse gave him a look. "It would be more amazing if I
hadn't
heard about it, don't you think? When a woman in a mermaid suit washes up on a beach with her throat slit, it's a big attention-getter. It's probably all over the Internet by now."

Mark felt a chill. How could he have missed it? He'd been so preoccupied with Dan Marlowe's health problems, he'd put the murder out of his mind for a few hours. But even at the scene, he'd been so caught up in the situation that he'd missed the gruesome point: The murderer wanted the killing to be noticed.

It was a message.

But to whom? And what did it mean?

"Are you okay?" Jesse asked.

Before Mark could reply, his beeper went off. He glanced at the readout to see who was summoning him. It was the pathology lab, also known as the adjunct county morgue. The answers to some of his questions were waiting for him on a stainless-steel autopsy table.

Dr. Amanda Bentley had seen lots of dead bodies, hundreds over the course of her career. She'd cut each of the bodies open and examined them in cold, clinical detail. But none of those autopsies prepared her for the mermaid. And none of them frightened her quite as much.

The first of the Sloans to arrive was Steve. He seemed surprised to find Amanda alone, the corpse of the dead red-haired woman laid out on the examination table in front of her, a sheet covering her eviscerated body.

"Where's my dad?" Steve asked.

"On his way," she said. "I called you first and gave you a half hour head start."

"What did I do to earn such special treatment?" Steve asked.

"You're the homicide detective. It's your case," she replied. "You should hear what I have to say before any one else does."

"In other words, if Dad got here before me, he would have charmed you into telling him everything, and you didn't want to have to tell the same story twice."

"You should be a detective," Amanda said.

Steve studied her, suspicious. "There's something else you aren't telling me."

"There's a lot I'm not telling you," she said. "But I will, as soon as Mark gets here."

Mark Sloan bounded in at that exact moment, out of breath from running up the stairs.

"Steve," Mark said, "you got here awfully quick."

"You'll just have to run faster next time," Steve said.

Mark took a seat on a stool opposite Amanda and motioned towards the body laid out between them. "So, does she have a name?"

"Not yet." Steve stepped up to the end of the exam table and looked down at the dead woman's pale, expressionless face. "She doesn't match any missing-persons reports, and we came up with nothing when we ran her prints."

"What about the mermaid suit?" Amanda asked.

"It's a Halloween costume made in China and distributed worldwide for the last five years," Steve said. "They are sold by those itinerant, no-name Halloween stores that occupy vacant storefronts for a month or two before October 31 and then disappear the next day."

"So the costume is a dead end," Mark said. "The killer could have bought it anytime over the last five years just about anywhere in the world."

"We've got a good idea where she was dumped, though," Steve said. "Point Dume state beach. The evidence collection team is sifting through the sand right now. We've found a bunch of stuff, from charm bracelets to nipple rings, but nothing we've been able to trace back to anybody yet."

Mark glanced at Amanda. "Looks like the victim is still our best lead to whoever killed her."

Amanda took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Mark and Steve exchanged a look.

"What?" Amanda asked.

"You look upset," Mark said. "What's wrong?"

"She's what's wrong," Amanda said, tilting her head towards the dead woman. "She scares me."

"You've seen a lot worse," Steve said. "We all have."