Do No Harm

Chapter 37

David entered through the anatomy lab, the wide rectangle of a room dotted with cadavers lying on elevated metal tables. The hatchlike doors of the dissecting tables had been left open. The bodies were exposed, their chests cracked, faces peeled, limbs sinewy and yellow. The stench of formalin hung in the air, a smell that reminded him of his own med school cadaver that he and his anatomy partner had jokingly named Hercules because of its scrawny musculature.

He paused above a body and peeled back the thin layer of bleached cheesecloth. The student had done a poor job on the cheek, making a mess of the masseteric fascia. The yellowed flesh of the jaw hung down like shredded chicken. David covered the face again and proceeded through the lab into the prep room.

The light switch clicked up loudly. Stainless steel counters and cabinets compounded the clinical light of the room. David reached for the large door to the crypt, and it pulled open with a soft sucking noise.

The formalin made his eyes water. The rows of bodies, dangling from hooks like sides of beef, the crossed scissor clamps pinching the ears-how could he have forgotten?

Holding his breath, he walked into the immense refrigerated room, unsure what he was looking for. His foot struck a bucket, and he looked down to see a detached brain swaying in the cloudy water, hanging from a taped string. He walked forward, his eyes picking through the bodies. His shoulder struck a corpse and set it pivoting slowly until it looked down at him, blue-faced and undignified.

He took his time, walking slowly up and down the rows, searching the floor between the red and blue plastic drainage tubs for any sign that Clyde had been there. In the back, a chunky cadaver was suspended from her oversized head. She'd retained fluids in her belly and extremities before dying. David stepped closer, examining the mid-sternal incision on her chest. A recent cardiac surgery. Probably died of heart failure. He glanced down, looking for the telltale linear incision along her inner leg from which they would have harvested her saphenous vein for the bypass.

Four emergency room restraints floated in the liquid that had pooled inside the tub beneath her. Hard restraints. David felt his heart quicken.

He crouched down and studied them.

He'd learned enough from old Columbo episodes to know not to handle anything and compromise evidence. He removed a pair of latex gloves from the pocket of his white coat and pulled them on.

Stainless steel abounded inside the crypt and the prep room. Many good surfaces, David imagined, off which to lift fingerprints. But it would be difficult; Clyde's escape was nearly twenty-four hours ago, and a decent amount of traffic moved through the area each day. Further disappointment set in when David remembered that Clyde had escaped still wearing his surgical gloves.

David finished perusing the crypt, found nothing else of note, and went out and sat at the small wooden desk in the corner of the prep room. He had little more to go on himself, so it didn't make sense to contact Ed. He'd just have to inform Yale and take the resultant reprimand for involving himself in the case further.

Reaching for the phone, he scooted forward in the chair, one of the legs knocking over a small metal waste bin. He leaned over and righted the bin, then retrieved a few pieces of crumpled paper and a banana peel from the floor. A small foil square had slid a short distance under the desk, and David bent down farther and reached for it, unsuccessfully.

It appeared to be the casing for a pill-Imodium, perhaps-torn from a larger sheet. The lettering caught his eye just before he touched it: Noblemen's Zinc Lozenges-orange.

David froze, his arm awkwardly extended beneath the desk. That was the smell he had picked up on Clyde's breath-the distinctive odor of orange-flavored medicinal tablets. He withdrew his hand quickly. Maybe the lozenge had been Clyde's, and he had eaten it here while he'd been hiding.

David dug quickly through the drawers until he found a packet of Sudafed. He removed a foil sheet and tried unsuccessfully to peel off the backing while leaving his gloves on. He removed a glove, then used his thumbnail to lift the corner of the foil, the print of his bare forefinger pressing firmly against the small square.

Even if Clyde had been wearing gloves, he'd have had to take them off to get at the lozenge. Which meant that the discarded square under the desk-the plastic top with the foil half attached-would likely bear his fingerprint.

David felt the same rush of pleasure that a good diagnosis gave him. Pulling Ed's card from his pocket, he dialed the number and was greeted with three short beeps. A pager. The telephone number of the prep room phone was scotch-taped to the receiver, and David punched it in and hit the pound key. He'd barely hung up when the phone rang.

"Hello?" David heard nothing but silence. "It's David," he said. "David Spier."

"Look," said a gruff voice. "Just because I give you a phone number doesn't mean you have to call it at three in the fucking-"

"I have a fingerprint," David said. "I think."

There was a long pause. And then, "You'd better fill me in."

After David did, there was another long pause, and David thought he might've lost the connection. "Hello?"

"Still here. Listen carefully. Do not touch the wrapping. Find a pen or a ruler or something, and push it into a bag. Don't touch anything else in the room, and leave immediately. I'll meet you on the corner of Le Conte and Westwood in fifteen minutes. Stand near the curb."

"But what about the police? Don't they need to get here for a more thorough look?"

"I'll place an anonymous call. Right now. So clear out."

"Will you turn over the fingerprint to them if we get a-?" David realized Ed had already hung up. Down on his hands and knees, he carefully followed the procedures Ed had laid out, using a tweezers and a Ziploc specimen bag he found in a drawer.

Fifteen minutes later, he stood out on the corner of Le Conte and Westwood, hands pushed into the pockets of his white doctor's coat, feeling as if he'd just stumbled into a Cold War thriller.

He clutched the plastic bag with the lozenge packaging in his pocket, watching the occasional car speed by. All of a sudden, the street was empty. A sheet of newspaper fluttered in the wind.

A red Pathfinder with tinted windows pulled into view, slowing as it neared David. David pulled the bag from his pocket and stepped off the curb. The opaque driver-side window glided slowly down, and Ed's hand reached out and plucked the bag from David.

"Look," David said. "I was wondering if-?"

The window slid back up and the Pathfinder pulled away, leaving David standing foolishly at the curb.