Play Dead

Chapter 5

Someone was crying.

Elise heard the woman as she and Gould approached Truman Harrison's hospital room. That individual sound of sobbing triggered a companion response, and at least two other people joined in.

Ten feet from the open door, Gould stopped. "Christ." He fell back against the wall as if trying to hide from a shooter.

What now?

"I don't know if I can go in there. I don't like hospitals. I don't like dealing with-" He pointed in the direction of the sobbing. "I don't like dealing with that kind of emotion."

Elise knew it wasn't fair, but she suddenly blamed Gould for everything that was wrong in her life at the moment-the main thing being her lack of time for Audrey. Her reaction may have been extreme, but she didn't have the energy or the inclination to hold David Gould's hand.

"Maybe when you were an FBI agent you could keep your distance," she said, unable to mask her annoyance, "but dealing with grieving families is part of a detective's job. It's never easy, but it's something we have to do."

"Did I ever tell you about the time I got my appendix out?" he asked with agitation, obviously stalling.

Why couldn't she have gotten a real partner? "This isn't about you," she told him.

"Wait."

Stalling.

"What I have to say makes sense."

She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. She'd give him one minute.

"When I was twenty years old, I had an emergency appendectomy," he said quickly. "They prepped me, doped me up, and wheeled me into the operating room, where they began administering anesthesia. But instead of knocking me out, the drug made me hyper-aware. My senses were intensified. The nerve endings under my skin were electrically charged." He lifted a hand, fingers spread, as if to demonstrate. "I could feel the hairs growing from my pores." He lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned closer. "I could hear conversations two rooms away."

"Are you telling me you were awake through the whole operation?" She needed to trade David Gould in for a new model.

"I could feel and hear everything."

"How horrible." She didn't believe him.

"You don't believe me, do you?"

"Well…"

"That's okay. Nobody did. Not the doctors or nurses. Or my parents. My girlfriend. Why should you? But that's not why I chose this moment to tell you a little story about myself. What I'm saying is that our buddy Harrison might be able to hear what's going on around him, even though he's in a coma."

In his roundabout way, Gould was finally making sense. Maybe she wouldn't trade him in just yet. "I'll be careful."

"Assume he can hear everything." "I'll keep that in mind." She looked closely at his ashen face, experiencing a pang of empathy. "You going to be okay?" A partner with a hospital phobia. What other surprises did he have up his sleeve?

He nodded, gave his shoulders a loose shake, and followed her into the room.

A woman in a white suit sat near a sunny window. Two other people, a younger man and woman, hovered nearby. The crying, at least for now, had stopped. A comatose Mr. Harrison was lying in bed, attached to an IV and a heart monitor that pulsed steadily. The woman in the white suit turned out to be Mr. Harrison's wife, the other two people his children.

Elise introduced herself and Gould. "We're going to be looking into the case, trying to find out how your husband ended up in the morgue… prematurely."

"He woke up in the middle of the night," Mrs. Harrison explained. "Said he felt sick. On the way to the bathroom he collapsed. I called 911 and an hour later he was pronounced dead."

She started to cry, fought it, pulled in a trembling breath, then continued. "I hate to think of him being put in that body bag. Hate to think of him in that morgue. On the autopsy table-when he was alive. It's a nightmare. That's what it is. A nightmare."

The beeping of the heart monitor suddenly increased. Heads swiveled and everybody turned to stare at the screen as the pulse rate dropped back to its previous level.

"Did he hear me?" Mrs. Harrison asked. "Do you think he heard me? Doctor said he can't hear anything."

Elise and Gould exchanged glances.

Strange.

Yep.

The family gathered around Mr. Harrison's bed, everyone talking at once, trying to elicit a response or an increase in pulse.

Nothing happened.

Elise asked Mrs. Harrison a few more questions, then produced her business card. "Call if you think of anything you may have forgotten to tell us."

Outside the hospital room, a young office assistant was lying in wait. "The administrator would like to talk to you," she said, stepping forward.

She led the detectives to an elevator, down a car-^ peted hall, to a. large meeting room. They were welcomed by the hospital administrator, the head of ER, the hospital's press liaison, and the doctor who had been unfortunate enough to pronounce poor Mr. Harrison dead. Completing the group was a grim-looking bald man with a briefcase, who turned out to be the hospital lawyer.

Elise and Gould sat side by side at the table.

The ER head, Dr. Eklund, pulled out several sheets of paper. "We have some of the lab work back on Mr. Harrison," he said, passing copies to Elise and David.

It was pretty obvious that management wanted to get its side of the story out as quickly as possible.

"Traces of TTX were detected in Truman Harrison's blood."

"TTX?" Elise asked.

"Tetrodotoxin. A toxin that's common to several varieties of marine life. I'm willing to bet we'll discover that Mr. Harrison recently ate at some exotic seafood restaurant."

"Isn't TTX found in the puffer fish?" Gould asked.

"Among other things."

The doctor cleared bis throat, his hands clasped on the table. "In Japan, people actually eat puffer fish in order to get high from the poison," he explained. "There have been a number of fatalities from it. Apparently it's also becoming fashionable here. Our comatose Mr. Harrison probably visited a sushi bar where they serve the delicacy."

"Have you questioned his wife?" Gould asked.

"She doesn't know where he ate the day he was poisoned."

Elise recognized a choreographed delivery when she saw one. As if on cue, the lawyer presented them with some official-looking documents. "This," he explained, "is a copy of the Presidential Commission's definition of death. And this is the Uniform Determination of Death Act. If you read both, you'll see that we followed their suggested criteria and that there was no negligence on the part of Mercy Hospital or anyone on our staff."

Covering their asses. That's what they were doing. Elise scooped up the loose sheets of paper and tapped them together. "We aren't here to pass judgment on anyone," she told them, trying to remain calm-at least outwardly. "Our job is to collect information."

"You can understand the hospital's concern," said the administrator, a well-dressed woman of fifty. 'The press could turn this into a circus. The hospital's reputation is at stake."

"We don't work for the hospital," Elise said, getting abruptly to her feet. She'd heard enough. "We work for the public, and they have a right to know what happened. If Mr. Harrison ingested a toxin at an eating establishment anywhere in the bistate region, we have to determine the location of that establishment and quickly relay information to the media. Harrison may not be the only poisoning case. You need to make your staff aware of the symptoms. You need to contact specialists and find out how it can be treated. This isn't the time to focus on protecting your reputation. It's time to protect the public."

That said, Elise turned to leave. Gould followed a little more slowly, giving the group a small salute before walking out the door.

The elevator was occupied, so Elise took the stairs.

"Way to go," Gould shouted, hurrying down the steps after her. He caught up as she exited for the parking area. "You really chewed out their corporate asses."

She swung around to face him, at last able to release the anger she'd been holding in check. Too bad Gould was the recipient. Later she would regret her outburst, but right now it felt damn good. "And you didn't think they needed chewing out?"

Gould put both hands in the air. "I was just admiring your ability to get so worked up, that's all."

"Is that because getting worked up is something you can only admire from a distance?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

She stopped and cast a glance around. "Where's my car?"

"I drove." Gould pointed to his black Honda. "You left yours at the morgue."

He unlocked his car with the automatic opener and they both slid inside.

"It just doesn't seem like you care about anything other than to be occasionally amused by it," Elise said. There. It was finally out. She'd told him what she'd been thinking for the past three months. "You aren't engaged."

He reversed the little car, then quickly exited the lot. "I can do my job without being engaged."

"A good cop has to care about people."

"You get hurt that way. You burn out that way."

"Is that why you wanted to avoid Mr. Harrison's room?" she asked. "Because you go out of your way to keep an emotional distance?"

"I told you. I don't like hospitals."

"Well, that's too damn bad! Neither do I! Do you think you can run from everything unpleasant?"

"I try."

Why couldn't they just have a normal conversation? Why did he have to make everything so hard?

"So." He stopped at a red light. "You're telling me I should do something about my attitude."

"Some adjustment wouldn't hurt and might even make your life easier." And hers.

"Hmm."

Remarkably, he seemed to give her words consideration.

"You might have a point."

This had been so easy. "Please give it some thought." Why hadn't she brought up his attitude before? Communication. That was what it was all about.

"Just say no," he said.

"Say no?" For a total of thirty seconds, their conversation had made sense. "Say no to what?"

"Some things I need to deal with, that's all."

"Such as…?" She wanted to keep the moment of frankness and camaraderie going.

"Nothing I want to talk about." Slam.

Oh, forget it. If she was from Venus, Gould was from a planet in a galaxy that hadn't yet been discovered. "I need food," she announced with a conscious effort to change the subject.

She was only thirty-one, but lately she'd noticed her brain didn't function as well on an empty stomach. "Swing by a drive-through on the way back to Police Headquarters," she told him.

The light turned green and he shot through the intersection. "Sounds good to me."

They ordered hamburgers, fries, and soft drinks.

Elise normally preferred healthy meals, but the frustration of the moment made her abandon her good intentions.

Once they had their food, Gould headed for the Savannah Police Department and parked in the lot across the street. On the way to Elise's office, they passed a group of coworkers, two of them homicide detectives Gould had been fighting with since his first day on the job. Elise had worked with both. Mid-thirties. Married, with kids.

"Cagney." Gould gave them a nod. "Lacey."

Their real names: Detectives Mason and Avery.

"Heard you got assigned the zombie case," Mason said, addressing Elise. He glanced at his partner, and pretty soon they were both hunched over, laughing into their fists like a couple of schoolboys.

"Appropriate, wouldn't you say?" Avery asked once he'd come up for air.

Gould shot Elise a curious look.

Apparently he was the one person in Savannah who didn't know everything about her-which was at least one bonus brought about by Gould's lack of social skills. Normally new recruits had Elise's history spelled out to them within days.

Avery's question was proof that no matter how hard you tried, you couldn't outrun your past. But Elise was always hoping people would at least lose interest.

That hadn't happened.

Everyone in the police force knew Elise had been abandoned in a cemetery as an infant. They knew that soon after her rescue a rumor began to circulate, claiming she was the cursed, illegitimate daughter of Jackson Sweet, a powerful white root doctor who'd died about the time Elise was born.

Nobody wanted a cursed infant, but eventually she was adopted into a rigid Christian family, where she was treated with a rather odd and aloof kindness. She spent her early childhood as an outsider, someone without a true identity, but the mystery and supposition surrounding her heritage gave her foundation and definition.

During those isolated years of early childhood, she read everything she could on root doctoring. By the time Elise was Audrey's age, she was learning simple spells and herbal remedies while studying under a hag who was looking for someone she could "pass the mantle" to.

But those days were long over.

She'd spent her entire professional career trying to put her past behind her in order to build credibility among her peers. But in Savannah, a place that seemed impervious to the outside world, you were your past.

Shrugging off Gould's silent question and ignoring Avery's taunt, Elise headed upstairs.

The office she and Gould shared was located On the third floor of Savannah Police Department Headquarters, with a window overlooking Colonial Park Cemetery. The city was proud of the historic police building, but even the addition constructed years ago wasn't enough to keep the PD from bursting at the seams.

Elise was afraid that once they were alone Gould would grill her about Mason's and Avery's comments. Anybody else would have been full of questions.

Instead, he planted himself in front of his computer, sandwich wrapper rustling, while Elise got on the phone and tried to contact Truman Harrison's cowork-ers in the Savannah Street Maintenance Department.

Behind her, she heard the rapid clicking of keys. "Not a homicide case," Gould muttered. "Don't know why Hoffman gave it to us."

Elise ended her conversation with the maintenance department secretary. "As soon as we find the restaurant where Truman Harrison ate, we can turn this over to the Department of Public Health. If his wife decides to sue the hospital, it will be a lawyer's game. Six years later, when it finally goes to court," she said, without trying to hide the annoyance she felt when it came to the legal system, "we'll be expected to recall every minute detail as if it happened yesterday."

"What I don't get is why it didn't kill Harrison."

"Maybe he ingested it before. Maybe he's built up a tolerance to it. Some poisons are like that."

"Here it is," Gould announced, fingers pausing on the keyboard, eyes focused on the screen, the hint of excitement in his voice getting Elise's attention.

" 'TTX is one of nature's strangest molecules and one of the deadliest poisons on earth,' " he read. " 'Gram for gram, it is ten thousand times more lethal than cyanide. A few short minutes after exposure, it paralyzes its victims, leaving the brain fully aware of what is happening.' "

He fell silent while continuing to read to himself. A few minutes later he let out a loud, derisive snort. "Guess Lacey wasn't so far off after all. It says here that tetrodotoxin is one of the ingredients used to make zombies."

Elise thought about that for a moment. "Makes sense."

He swiveled around to face her, hands braced behind his head. "I suppose you're going to tell me you believe in zombies."

"Zombies exist."

He dropped his hands, physically portraying his frustration. "Are you insane? Is everybody in this town insane?"

"You've seen too many B movies. Have you heard of The Serpent and the Rainbow by Wade Davis?"

"I think I caught a few minutes of it on Showtime before switching channels."

"That could have skewed your perspective. In the book, Davis postulates that zombies are very real, but never actually die. He suggests they are dosed with a powder that can be absorbed through the skin, leaving the victim in a state that mimics death. After the burial, the voodoo priest returns in the middle of the night and digs up the corpse, which isn't really a corpse but a somewhat lobotomized, oxygen-deprived individual, whom he then sells as slave labor in some town far from the victim's home."

"Who says it's hard to get good help nowadays?" Gould turned back to bis computer and finished off his sandwich while continuing to search. "Here's an interesting tidbit," he said. "Some people think the mysterious deaths surrounding the curse of King Tut were due to a poison similar to TTX. They suggest the poison was sprinkled in places where grave robbers could come in contact with it. If they had a cut finger or hand, it would enter the bloodstream."

"Transdermal delivery," Elise said. "Just like Wade Davis' zombies."

"Apparently."

She swung toward him. "Did you know that mandrake was used in the time of Christ as an anesthetic, but also to simulate death?"

He nodded. "I've heard that."

"Some historians even say it was hidden in the vinegar given to Jesus."

"Hence, the resurrection?"

"It's a theory. Not a popular one, but a theory."

"But then, who cares about being popular?"

An interesting comment, considering the source. "It's human nature to want to be liked," Elise told him. "To seek the approval of our peers."

"That kind of mind-set is a weakness, especially for a detective, who should be focusing on the truth."

There was no middle ground with him. If he was looking for an argument, she refused to participate.

He unscrewed the cap from a bottle of water and took a swallow. "This little history lesson has been very enlightening, but I don't think it has anything to do with us or Truman Harrison."

"Let's hope not."

He sized her up. "That didn't sound convincing or heartfelt."

He was right, Elise realized with a gnawing deep in her stomach, afraid that the case wouldn't be resolved as easily as she'd hoped. Just hours in, it already seemed to be plunging her into the murky waters she'd spent the last thirteen years trying to leave behind.