Mercy

CHAPTER 45

At five thirty on the afternoon of Thanksgiving, Julie drove her Prius into a sparsely filled parking lot at Suburban West and picked a space away from the building and far from any floodlights. She was composed, but her insides were quaking. Never in her life had she brazenly broken a law, but now she felt out of options. This was no longer about figuring out what killed Sam. Julie truly believed others would die if she did nothing. The killer, it seemed, had found a new feeding ground at West.

Jordan shared Julie’s sentiments, but was quiet on the drive. He was too occupied reviewing the process and techniques of producing human tissue blocks for testing purposes. He could apply various media to embed the samples in molten, melted, or paraffin wax. Being an ICU doc gave Julie confidence that she could do the biopsy well enough, but she knew nothing about the machines required to produce routine tissue embedding. Thankfully, her partner-her secret admirer-was more than capable around a lab.

Julie put the car in park and cut the engine. She turned her head and saw the basement entrance to the pathology lab, just as Allyson Brock had described. As Allyson promised, no security cameras were mounted to the outside walls. It gave Julie confidence that everything Allyson said about the lab, the layout, and the location of the body would be accurate as well.

“Did you ever get in touch with Lucy?” Jordan asked.

He was referring, of course, to the note Lucy had written and stashed in Allyson’s mailbox.

“No. She doesn’t feel safe, it’s obvious from what she wrote to Allyson. But she’s done plenty for us. If we can get her the sample, she’ll find a way to test it where she’s not being watched.”

“Who is watching her?” Jordan asked.

“It’s got to be Coffey and Colchester.”

“Yeah, gotta be. But I still don’t fully get the motive.”

Now it was Julie’s turn to fall silent, head bowed in thought.

“It’s a cover-up, I’m guessing,” she said. “Let’s say a powerful drug comes on the market for treating something unrelated to the cardiovascular system, but it can also cause a fatal allergy. A symptom of the allergy is hives. It could be very expensive for the manufacturer, so Coffey gets hush money to keep a lid on the potential allergic reaction. A similar thing happened with GM not too long ago. They knew the ignition switches were faulty, but it was cheaper to stay quiet about it than deal with the problem, and it cost lives. And later a whole lot of GM’s cash.”

“So how does Colchester fit in?” Jordan asked.

“I still think Colchester was working overtime to get Brandon convicted,” Julie said. “Like I said, maybe he was doing it for his wife, I’m not really sure. But he was damn well determined to see what he thought was justice get done. I think he bribed Sherri and planted the drugs. During the trial, Coffey approached Colchester with his thoughts about exhuming Donald’s body. The people who paid Coffey enough hush money to buy him that plane couldn’t let that happen. Colchester wants his conviction and he’s willing to reward the judge to get it. Maybe he takes a little extra cash from Coffey’s employers for his campaign war chest as a bonus. Who knows?”

A twitch in Jordan’s eye became a little more pronounced. “Never did have much love for politicians,” he said.

JORDAN’S FIRST thought when he turned on the lights: there was no comparing Suburban West’s pathology lab to the one at White Memorial. This space was about half the size, the ceiling low enough for Jordan to be aware of its proximity to his head. No cobwebs or corrosion on any of the equipment, but it was antiquated and some of the microscopes might have been borrowed from a high school chemistry classroom. A powerful stench of formaldehyde was at least one thing the two facilities had in common.

Jordan stepped into the hallway. Julie was right, Thanksgiving was a perfect time to steal some tissue samples. The place was as quiet as the dead they had come to visit. Both he and Julie wore white lab coats that Jordan brought from home. It would provide an air of authenticity should someone happen upon them. Perhaps with a little luck, and a lot of conviction, they could be convincing enough to be left alone.

A blue sign hanging from the ceiling pointed the way to the hospital morgue. Jordan made his way down the quiet corridor with Julie close behind. He was first into the morgue’s anteroom. He paused by the cold stainless steel table where bodies could be properly weighed, measured, and photographed by a wide-angled camera mounted to the ceiling.

“You good?”

“Good,” Julie answered.

He picked up the nervousness in her voice and wondered if she would have gone through with this alone.

Jordan led the way into the autopsy suite, an open space with a rust-colored floor ideal for camouflaging bloodstains. The walls were lined with stainless steel racks filled with surgical supplies, and plenty of empty rolling carts for moving bodies around. In the middle of the room stood several freestanding sinks with attached exam tables and scales hanging above the basins for weighing organs.

They passed the specimen preparation and storage area before entering a chilly room behind a sealed door where the bodies were kept. Allyson had described the area well: a row of metal lockers, three bodies per stack, each cooled to 51.2 degrees Fahrenheit. With a tug on the handle, Jordan opened the top locker of the middle row, number eight. The body inside was sealed in black plastic. Jordan slid the tray out and undid the zipper. A toe tag confirmed it was Albert Cunningham. Refrigeration had kept Albert in decent shape, with little decomposition and only a slight rotten smell. Tufts of gray hair poked up from Albert’s oval-shaped head, and he had no expression on his waxy face. Jordan raised the height on the cadaver lift and slid Albert out of the storage unit. The lift lowered with a foot release.

“All right, Doc,” Jordan said. “You get the tissue sample, then I’ll take over.”

“Right.”

Biopsy time.

Jordan wheeled Albert into the autopsy suite, over to one of the freestanding sinks. Albert was thin and light, and Jordan had no trouble transferring him to a rolling stainless steel cart, but did not bother moving him to an exam table. He’d be going back to his storage unit soon enough.

Julie scoured the supplies for the needed equipment. She gathered her materials expeditiously and carefully laid the instruments on the steel exam table next to the sink. Jordan inventoried the items: forceps, scalpel, tissue hook, needle holder (a long scissors-like implement good for suturing, with a locking mechanism at the base to hold a needle and thread), specimen bottle, gauze, and a suture. No risk of infection and no pain meant no need for lidocaine or any sterilization. However, they both wore surgical gloves, and had them on from the start so they would leave no fingerprints behind.

Holding the scalpel like a pencil, Julie made an incision in the abdomen using a number ten blade, with Jordan pulling on the skin to provide counter traction. Julie’s incision went completely through the dermis and sank deep enough to see subcutaneous fat. Her technique and steady hand impressed Jordan. In two cuts she had exposed subcutaneous tissue and had done so using care worthy of the living. The cut went deep enough for Jordan to see Albert’s liver. He knew this was a good choice for the sample. If a toxin were involved, it would still be present in the liver. The tissue could also be tested for the presence of an allergen.

Julie took a large sample of liver tissue using the forceps and scissors and then carefully placed the sample inside the specimen jar. Then she sutured the wound closed.

“It should be enough,” she said. “But I think I’ll take some more tissue from the airway just to be sure.”

“I know Albert won’t mind, but let me check the hallway, make sure we’re still in the clear,” Jordan said.

At that moment, the door to the autopsy area swung open with force and a burly security guard, gun already drawn, burst into the room. He aimed his weapon at Jordan and in a commanding voice yelled, “Get down on the floor!”

Jordan held his ground even though the guard pointed his weapon at Jordan’s head. Julie came out from behind the autopsy table, her hands up to show she was not a threat, and approached with caution. The guard swiveled and trained his weapon away from Jordan and onto Julie.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m a doctor here,” Julie said, holding up Allyson’s badge as proof. The picture on the badge of course would not match the woman holding it, but Jordan thought the quick flash was convincing enough. Julie spoke with the authority of a physician and the security guard should have backed down. The gun, to his surprise, did not lower even an inch. Why? It was inconceivable the guard knew all the doctors working here. He should have been embarrassed, should have acted contrite, and then he should have gone away.

“I’m here with my assistant finishing up some important work,” Julie said. Her voice carried a little uneasiness.

The guard’s arm stayed rigid like steel, and the gun did not waver in his steady hand. He seemed to ponder his next move. Jordan’s heart began to hammer away. Prison was not someplace he wished to return anytime soon. The guard cleared his throat.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” he said.

“Excuse me?” Julie looked confused.

“I’ll clarify,” the guard said, with a twisted smile. “I don’t think you work here, Dr. Devereux.”

Julie stammered, “How… how do you know my name?”

The guard closed in on Julie with startling quickness. He aimed the gun at her but did not pull the trigger. Something about him seemed hesitant.

“This isn’t easy,” he said.

What isn’t easy? Jordan stood frozen.

“I know so much about you,” the guard said.

The statement was directed at Julie, and Jordan did not know what he meant.

“And about your son, Trevor, and your ex, Paul, and your poor dead fiancé. I know you sing in the shower and I like you best in your black bra and matching underwear. It’s a good look for you.”

“You,” Julie said, her voice quavering as realization came to her. “It was you at the river, wasn’t it?”

Jordan remembered that story.

The guard returned a nonchalant shrug. “Yeah, and it was me in Sherri’s home before you got there,” he said. “And it’s me here now. Actually, I would have been here sooner, but my new boss is quite the chatterbox. Damn. I thought it might be easier a second time, but I think I was wrong.”

“What do you want?”

The guard took in a breath and aimed his gun a bit higher.

“Look, I’m really sorry,” he said.

Julie was shaking. Jordan snapped out of his daze enough to notice two guns stashed in the back pocket of the guard’s uniform. Two guns. Quickly, Jordan understood. This man was here to kill them. He would shoot them both and then plant guns to justify the killing as self-defense. They were intruders, after all. Somehow the guard had known they would be down in the autopsy room at this hour. Had Allyson betrayed them? Was it a setup from the get-go?

With a slight turn of his head, Jordan saw a metal bowl on the exam table within his reach. Jordan lunged for it, and with one hand, slid the bowl off the table as he fell to the floor. Then, with a flick of the wrist, he flung the bowl Frisbee-like at the guard’s head.

The guard must have caught a blur of motion in his peripheral vision. He ducked an instant before the steel would have connected with his temple. The bowl sailed past him and clattered noisily onto the floor. The guard spun from the waist and aimed his gun at Jordan. He got off a shot that splintered the concrete near Jordan’s leg.

Jordan rolled twice, and two more shots fired.