11
A body snatcher could earn between three and
six
months’ wages for a fresh corpse.
months’ wages for a fresh corpse.
Â
Less than
twenty-four hours after I’d seen Stella’s body being carted
away, thinking about fresh corpses wasn’t exactly what I needed
to take my mind off my problems. Sure, I’m in the business of
death. Sometimes more than I like. But give me some credit; that
doesn’t mean the whole notion doesn’t gross me
out.
Kind of like the
memory of Stella’s arm slipping out from under that
sheet.
I shivered. Skimming
over Ella’s paper for the presentation I was scheduled to give on
the final day of the conference was supposed to distract me. Too
bad it wasn’t working. Always a trooper, I tried again.
Â
Unlawful exhumations and the sale of the bodies that were dug up were done by men known as Resurrection men or Resurrectionists. Sometimes, they were called sack-’em-ups, because they used sacks to carry the corpses to the doctors and medical students who would then dissect them.
Â
“Yetch!†I
tossed the presentation down on the coffee table in my hotel room
and hugged my arms around myself. It was bad enough I was nervous
about speaking in front of who knew how many cemetery geeks. Worse
when the topic was so weird that even I (who had, after all, seen,
talked to, and investigated for the weirdest of the weirdest) got
the willies.
No. I take that
back. The worst part was that even the stack of papers Ella had
sent to Chicago with me wasn’t enough to take my mind off what
had happened to Stella.
And make me wonder
if it was my fault.
This time when I
grumbled, it had nothing to do with Resurrectionists, cemetery
conferences, or Ella’s misplaced faith that I could speak in
front of a crowd without making a fool of myself. Oh no. The
mixture of disgust and guilt was all about me. All about whether
I’d made a mistake going to the clinic. And about poor dead
Stella, of course.
Was that guy in the
crowd—the one who said Stella had been
pushed—right?
I hoped not, because
believe me, I wasn’t happy thinking what it might mean. Maybe
Stella knew more than she let on. Maybe someone at the clinic had
seen me and Stella together and was afraid she’d say too much.
Maybe that same someone killed her to shut her up. Or maybe Stella
was as clueless as she appeared to be. Maybe her untimely end was
meant as a message—one that told me MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS in
neon letters, six feet high.
Any way I looked at
it, it took what had simply been the business of the maybe-missing
patients and turned it way ugly.
Of course, I could
have chosen to find comfort in the morning Tribune. The article about Stella’s death had
been relegated to a small column in an inside section. It used the
word accident liberally. If that was
true, I actually might be able to sleep better at
night.
If it wasn’t . .
.
I grabbed my coat
and went to the door. Now that I had a dead woman on my hands (so
to speak) and the names of the missing patients, I also had a ton
of questions. I’d been waiting all morning for Madeline to show
so I could ask them, and I was getting sick and tired of it.
Heading out seemed the perfect solution, both to finding her and to
keeping myself so busy that maybe I could forget the picture that
kept popping into my head—the one of that arm in the ripped pink
parka when it slipped out from under the sheet and flapped back and
forth.
Like Stella was
waving to me.
Â
Â
Â
I am not completely
delusional. I didn’t really think Madeline would accommodate me
and show up at her gravesite to chat, but hey, whoever said that
hope springs eternal knows the perils of investigating for the
dead.
It was the only way
I could think to contact her, so I waited in the cold, grateful
that if nothing else, at least it wasn’t snowing. In fact, the
skies had been clear all that day, and the sun nearly blinded me as
it sank toward the horizon and ricocheted off the couple inches of
fresh snow that had fallen the night before. Unfortunately, the sun
was no more than a tease. It was no warmer than it had been since I
stepped foot in Chicago, and after thirty minutes of waiting and
shivering, I convinced myself that enough was enough. Madeline
wanted me to help Dan, but I couldn’t do it until I talked to
her. If she was MIA, for now, there was nothing I could do to
convince Dan that I was the real deal.
And if Madeline
never resurfaced?
See, that’s the
problem with the dead. No e-mail, no cell phones, and they only pop
in when they want to. Or when they want something. If for whatever
reason Madeline wasn’t going to show hide nor ghostly hair and
help me, then I’d simply have to find the answers to all my
questions on my own.
It was the least I
could do for Stella.
My determination
renewed (even if it was a little frosty around the edges), I turned
from Madeline’s grave. That’s the first time I realized I
wasn’t alone.
Maybe the cold was
freezing more than just my feet, my fingers, and the tip of my
nose. Maybe my self-preservation instincts were frostbitten,
too.
Maybe that’s why I
hadn’t realized that big, terrifying shadow was
back.
For the space of a
dozen heartbeats, too scared to move or to think, I stared at the
black mass drifting a couple feet above the ground between me and
the Palmer memorial. As I watched, it billowed like an angry
thundercloud, then collapsed in on itself, growing denser and
heavier and darker. It grew taller, too. Its middle slimmed out,
and a bit of shadow on each side of it split off. Like
arms.
It wasn’t a
person. Not exactly. It looked more like an animal, a monster, and
when it took a couple steps in my direction, I swear, the ground
shook.
Or maybe that was
just my knees.
Funny thing about
getting scared, though. Once I hit rock bottom, the only way to go
was up. When I bounced back from that initial thud of panic, it
should come as no surprise that I did it with a healthy dose of
how-dare-you. Before I even knew what I was doing, my anger was in
charge. It wasn’t until I made a move to kick through the snow
and move toward the thing that I realized something weird was going
on. I mean, something weirder than the weird something that was
already going on.
Because everywhere
within ten feet of the shadow, there was no snow. It had all
melted.
I refused to
consider the implications. Physical, cosmic, or
otherwise.
“OK, you want to
tell me what’s up?†I demanded of the thing. “Because I’m a
little tired of this stupid game. I’m supposed to be scared?†I
made sure I laughed when I said this, because if I allowed it, the
scared part of me would swallow up the angry part and then I’d be
back to quivering and sniveling. So not attractive, and
counterproductive to boot. “Please! I’m the one with the Gift,
remember? You non-dead types are old news. You’re not scaring me
at all. In fact, all you’re doing is pissing me off. So why
don’t you quit it with the drama and the big, spooky shadow act
and just tell me what you want. It will make your life simpler.
Oh!†I slapped one gloved hand to the side of my face. “You
don’t have a life, do you? But I do, buddy, and I’m sick of
having it interrupted.â€
The shadow’s eyes
were as red as blood. They glowed and flared, and when the thing
made a move, I thought for sure it was going to come at me. I
tensed, all set to run, but before I could, it spoke.
“Don’t want
you.†Its voice was like sandpaper on stone. “Go away, don’t
want you.â€
I thought about Dan
and how he’d assumed I was desperate and dateless. “Yeah,
there’s a lot of that going around. But if you don’t want me,
why do you keep bugging me?â€
“Don’t want
you.â€
I sighed my
frustration. “I know that. But you keep showing up. Every time
I’m here.†I chanced a step closer.
“No!†It held up
one hand. Or paw. Or whatever it was. When it did, something hit me
like a punch. I staggered back and fought to catch my breath. “No
closer.â€
“Not to worry.â€
I held up a hand to signal that I was more than ready for a
time-out, and bent at the waist, struggling to fight off the
heaviness in my chest. “Apparently . . .†I hauled in a lungful
of frigid air and stood straight again. “Apparently, that’s not
something I want to do.â€
I was talking to
myself. The shadow was gone. The only indication that it had ever
been there was the melted snow.
With no other
choice, I figured it was time to get the hell out of there. I spun
around, but the grass was wet, and my boots were muddy. When I felt
myself slip, I put on the brakes, but by that time, there was no
way I could keep on my feet.
There was a
gravestone not two feet to my left. One look, and I knew it was
déjà -vu all over again. Believe me, I wasn’t taking
chances.
I pivoted, skidded,
and slid. Helpless, I felt my legs go out from under me at the same
time I watched an especially muddy patch of grass get closer and
closer to my nose. I would have landed with a splat if not for the
fact that someone grabbed me from behind and yanked me to my
feet.
My hat was down over
my eyes, and I grabbed it and pulled it off at the same time I
struggled to regain my composure. I turned toward my rescuer.
“Thank—you?â€
OK, so it wasn’t
exactly polite, and I’m not exactly Miss Manners. I had a perfect
excuse, since I found myself looking at the homeless guy with the
spiky hair.
He sloughed off my
surprise as inconsequential. “You OK?â€
“Are you
kidding?†Since my coat was all twisted and tangled, I
straightened it and stepped back and away from him. One of my
gloves had fallen off and I bent to pick it up. Homeless Guy was
faster. He grabbed the glove before I could and held it out to
me.
I snatched it from
him and tugged it on. “You want to explain what’s going
on?â€
“That’s funny,
that’s exactly what I was going to ask you.†He acted like it
was the most logical response in the world. “I heard you talking,
though . . .†He glanced around at the expanse of very empty
cemetery that surrounded us. “Who were you talking
to?â€
“Nobody.†The
perfect truth, since (at least in my book) a shadow does not
qualify as a who.
“Then who were you
here waiting for?â€
The same logic
applied. I wasn’t about to start into an explanation. “What are
you doing here?†I asked him instead.
“A better question
might be what’s a cemetery tour guide from Cleveland doing
here?â€
I backed up another
step. “You know who I am. How?â€
“Word gets
around.â€
“Word from
who?â€
“Whom. The proper
way to say it is word from
whom.â€
“I’m so not in
the mood for this.†To prove it, I turned to walk away. Homeless
Guy fell in step beside me.
I made sure the
sidelong glance I gave him was short on friendliness and heavy on
suspicion. “I know you’re not—†I was going to say
dead, but seeing as how I was alone in
a strange town and in a deserted cemetery with a guy I didn’t
know who was already acting plenty fishy, I didn’t want to freak
him out. Still, I was encouraged thinking that at least this time,
I didn’t have to contend with the whole undead scenario. I knew
this because the man had grabbed me to keep me from falling down,
and when he did, I didn’t feel a bone-freezing chill (at least
not one that was any colder than the air around us). Just to
satisfy myself that I truly was dealing with flesh and bone, I
pretended to brush his sleeve accidentally. He was real, all right,
and satisfied, I drew back again.
When I did, the edge
of my glove caught on one of the buttons on the sleeve of his
jacket, pulling it up and revealing one grungy cuff of an equally
grimy flannel shirt.
It was just enough
to spark a memory of the day I’d first encountered him outside
the restaurant. The scene played itself in my head—and in slow
motion, to boot. I watched myself hand the man a dollar. I saw him
stick out his hand to accept it. When he did, the sleeve of his
jacket slid up, just like it did now.
And I realized what
it was that had spooked him that night and made him hurry
away.
“You weren’t
wearing a flannel shirt that first night I saw you outside
Piece.â€
Big points for Mr.
Homeless, he didn’t contradict me. He did look surprised,
though—plenty surprised—and while he was still processing what
I said, I closed in (figuratively speaking, of course, since he
wasn’t all that clean looking and I wasn’t all that eager to
make new friends).
“You were wearing
a dress shirt that night. A dress shirt with French cuffs. And you
forgot you had it on until your jacket sleeve sneaked up. You
didn’t want me to see it. That’s why you grabbed my money and
hurried away. What, you thought taking off your cuff links would
make you look more homeless?â€
“You’ve got a
good eye.â€
That went without
saying, but it wasn’t going to distract me. “You’re a
cop.â€
“You
think?â€
“I think homeless
people don’t wear business shirts, heavy on the
starch.â€
“How do you know
it was heavy on the starch?â€
“Give me some
credit,†I said, the better to let him know that I wasn’t just
some moron with no fashion sense who, number one, hadn’t been
engaged to a guy who was just as fashion conscious as I was and
number two, didn’t date (if what Quinn and I did could be called
dating) a guy who knew what was what when it came to the right way
to dress. (And to undress, for that matter, but that wasn’t
something I wanted to consider at the moment.) “Why are you
following me?â€
“Why are you so
interested in the Gerard Clinic?â€
“Why are you?â€
Even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. “You’ve got
your eye on Doctor Gerard. And Dan. You weren’t just hanging
around outside the restaurant that night, you were waiting for
them. You were following them. That’s why I’ve seen you outside
the clinic, too. You’re doing surveillance, though I’ve got to
tell you, I don’t think it qualifies as undercover. Not if
you’re careless enough to forget to change your office shirt to
one that’s a little more in keeping with the whole
I’m-a-poor-homeless-person thing. And since you’re
not—homeless, that is . . . how about giving me back that buck I
gave you?â€
“You referred to
Mr. Callahan by his first name. You must be
friends.â€
“And you must be
delusional if you think I’m going to give him up to some cop
playing dress-up.†This was one of those classic comebacks that
was too good to waste. For emphasis and to show him I meant
business, I quickened my pace.
He was apparently
not as into great scene-ending lines. He hurried to catch up. “Do
you know something you could give him up for?â€
“Do you think if I
did, I’d spill my guts to some guy I don’t
know?â€
“What if I told
you you’d be better off if you did?â€
“Is that a
threat?â€
I hadn’t realized
I’d stopped and turned to him, my chin raised, until I already
had. He was only a hair taller than me, and my guess was that he
wasn’t used to people confronting him so openly. His chin came
up, too.
“I don’t need to
threaten,†he said. “But if you’re smart, you’ll listen to
a warning.â€
“Oh no!†Whether
he knew it or not, he had spoken the magic word. Warnings were
something I was sick to death of getting from Dan. I wasn’t going
to fall into that trap again. “Don’t even start. No talk of
things that go bump in the night, OK? Not unless the thing that’s
bumping is that creepy shadow that’s been following me around,
and you can explain what it is and what it wants and—†Since we
were standing so close, I knew exactly when I spooked him. That
would have been when what I was saying sank in and he backstepped
away. And his expression went from stony, to curious, to just a
little apprehensive.
I regrouped. “OK,
so you’re not going to warn me about ghosts and such. Good.
That’s not something I want to talk about. But that means you
were going to warn me about real things, right? Things
like—â€
“How about things
like breaking the law?†He regrouped, too, and now that I’d
stopped talking crazy, he went back to stony in an
instant.
“I wouldn’t
dream of breaking the law.â€
“Then how about
what you know about your friend Mr. Callahan breaking the
law?â€
I threw my hands in
the air. As far as I was concerned, there was no better way to
demonstrate my feelings and distance myself from the half-truth I
was about to fling as casually as if it was the bouquet I never got
to throw at the wedding that never happened. “Can’t say he
has,†I pointed out, because, let’s face it, to date, I
hadn’t found a thing to prove or disprove Madeline’s theory,
either about Doctor Gerard or Dan. “And just for the record, I
can’t believe he ever would. Dan Callahan is a nice, regular,
ethical guy, and even if I thought he was doing something wrong, I
wouldn’t tell you. Because you know what? Even if you’re one of
the good guys, I don’t trust you. There’s the whole
scamming-a-buck-from-me thing, to begin with. And the fact that
anybody who would try to get away with a disguise as hokey as yours
can’t be very good at what he does. So unless you’ve got an
actual reason to talk to me—which you don’t—and unless
you’ve got some legitimate reason to follow me—which you
don’t—and unless you show up with a subpoena or a writ or
whatever the hell you police types call it when you force people to
talk even when they don’t want to talk and they don’t have
anything to say anyway—which you never will since you don’t
have any of those other things to begin with and that means you
could never get a subpoena or a writ or a
whatever—â€
“Are you
done?â€
I was, but only
because I’d run out of air.
He didn’t bother
to say good-bye.
Something told me it
didn’t matter, since it wasn’t the last I was going to see of
him.
I watched him walk
away, and before he was out of sight, I followed. He was headed for
the front gate, and I was anxious to get out of the
place.
“Told you I was
right.â€
I didn’t jump and
squeal when Madeline popped up beside me.
Not too much,
anyway.
My sneer told her
what I thought of her tactics. “You mean, I was right. He’s following Doctor Gerard. And
Dan. He thinks I can tell him something about what they’re up to.
He’s a cop.â€
“He’s an FBI
agent. And I was right.†Madeline
didn’t have to worry about the slick patch of ice in the middle
of the road. I walked around it. She floated right above. “You
see what this means, don’t you?â€
“It
means—â€
“It means the net
is closing on Danny.â€
“That’s what I
was going to say.â€
“Sure you were.â€
I’d never heard anybody agree about anything in a more
condescending way. “It’s time to stop messing around, Pepper,
and do something. Fast. You have to help Danny, or something
really, really bad is going to happen to him.â€
Â
Â
I could have said I
didn’t care. I could have mentioned that whatever Dan had gotten
himself into, he could get himself out of.
I could have brought
up the not-so-small point that I still wasn’t convinced I
wasn’t on a wild goose chase.
Except for the fact
that the feds were onto Dan, and something told me they didn’t
like to waste their time.
And then, of course,
there was that little voice inside of me. The one that told me that
if my appearance at the clinic had anything to do with Stella going
under that train . . .
Well, if it did,
that meant I owed her.
That’s why just an
hour or so later—after I found a cab and headed to the other side
of town—I found myself at the Gerard Clinic again. This time, I
wasn’t going to mess around. I was going to march in, demand to
talk to Dan about each and every one of the people on that list
Sister Maggie had given me, and get to the bottom of things once
and for all.
And I would have
done it, too, if I didn’t see something odd just inside the alley
that Ernie called home sweet home.
Something square and
flat caught the light of a nearby streetlamp and sparkled at me
from the murky shadows. Something that looked like it was covered
with glass.
I took the chance,
stepped into the alley, and bent for a closer look.
“Alberta?†I
picked up the framed photo of Ernie’s wife and automatically
glanced around. Every other time I’d seen the picture, Ernie had
been hanging on to it for dear life. I knew that once he realized
the photo was missing, he’d panic, so I carefully picked my way
through the garbage in the alley and headed for his
box.
I knocked on the
lid. “Ernie!â€
“He ain’t
there.â€
The answer came from
a doorway along with a man in a tattered jacket who was in the
process of zipping his pants. “Ernie’s gone.â€
“Gone?
Where?â€
“Lucky bastard. I
hear he got himself accepted into that special study of Doctor
Gerard’s.â€
My heart thudded.
“Are you . . .†I swallowed hard. Not easy considering that my
mouth suddenly felt as dry as a sun-parched desert. “Are you
sure?â€
The man was pencil
thin and hardly taller than the Dumpster he opened and began
picking through. “Not sure, no,†he said. When he fished out
all that was left of a brown and battered apple and took a bite, I
turned away. “But he said he had an appointment. Last night. He
said he was going to talk to Doctor Gerard because he finally knew
how to get into the study for sure. And since then, well,
nobody’s seen him. Hey!†When the man plucked at my sleeve, I
turned back to him. “Since he ain’t using it, think I can move
into Ernie’s box?â€
“No.†I shook
him off, tucked the photo of Alberta into Ernie’s box, and
started for the clinic, my mind made up once and for all. “Ernie
will be back,†I told the man, and myself. “No matter what it
takes, Ernie will be back. Because I’m going to go in there right
now and find out what the hell is really going on.â€
I did, too. I went
into the clinic, demanded an appointment, filled out the
appropriate forms, and waited with the great unwashed.
And when the
gray-haired receptionist finally called my name and told me Doctor
Gerard would see me? Well, I have to admit, I was actually
jazzed.
But then, I had no
idea what I was getting myself into.