Embryo 1: Embryo

by JA Schneider

  “Hominid fossils loaned to us,” the man said cheerfully. “Are you a teacher?” He wiped his hands and approached her. “I’m Henry Clark. I build hominid reconstructions for the prehistory displays. May I help you?” One of the young assistants glanced at her indifferently and returned to his work. The other gave her a dour look and carried out a box of scraps.

  Jill introduced herself, mentioning Margaret Haywood’s suggestion to visit the studio. She glanced back at a skull that looked like a chimpanzee’s, but was too large-brained. “This is fascinating,” she said.

  Henry Clark smiled. “We like to say we’re not making history. We’re resurrecting prehistory.” He gestured toward the fossil table, enjoying having a visitor. “Most of these were only discovered a few years ago.”

  Jill looked at a fragment of a female human pelvis. “How old is this?” she asked.

  “Oh, young,” he said. “Only about a million years. Are you interested in paleoanthropology?”

  “Indirectly. I’ve met Mary Jo Sayers and wanted to see where she works.”

  “Mary Jo! Fantastic mind. So dedicated. She’s been out for two days.” He walked to a glass cabinet and turned on its light. Inside was the head of an apelike human, its eyes expressive, its lips pulled back over yellowed simian teeth.

  “Australopithecus afarensis,” he said proudly. “Mary Jo and I worked on this – actually she did most of the work.” He paused. “We’re making a reconstruction of Lucy! Do you know about Lucy?”

  Jill thought. “I’ve read about her. The skeleton found decades ago in Africa.”

  “Right. Found in Ethiopia in 1974, caused great excitement. Her bone structure was closer to human than primate which made her the oldest human ancestor ever found. She lived three and a half million years ago.”

  “That much? Amazing.”

  “From that period dates the ascent of man.” Clark glanced around. “Want to see more? I love to show visitors, small school groups.” He went down a line of tall cabinets and began clicking on their lights. “Homo habilis here – notice the smaller jaw and bigger brain area; and Homo erectus here - brain even bigger, and this guy began to walk and use tools; and here are Java Man, Rhodesian Man, Peking Man…ah, Peking Man…”

  Annoyed, he fiddled with the cabinet’s light.

  “Sonny,” he called. “Sonny Sears! You still there?”

  The dour-faced assistant appeared carrying a box of scraps.

  “Peking’s light bulb is broken,” Clark said.

  Sonny set his box down. He crossed to Peking Man and reached in to give the bulb a twist. The light came on. “Jeez,” he growled.

  He went back to pick up his box and said, “Last trip and I’m outta here. It’s past six.”

  Clark thanked him, said good-bye, and turned back looking embarrassed. “A PhD and I can’t fix a light bulb.”

  Jill shrugged and smiled. In the hall outside she heard Sears going up the steps and then a door slammed. The second assistant propped his broom on the prehistoric femur and left too.

  Clark, shaking his head, removed the broom carefully and put it in a closet. “Would you believe those two are an improvement over the last ones we had? Mary Jo used to do a lot of that grunt work herself. Where is she, by the way?”

  “I don’t know,” Jill said truthfully. “In fact, if you hear from her, would you let me know or ask her to call me?” She gave him her cell phone number which he wrote down; also information on how to reach her at the hospital.

  He looked a bit surprised. “Oh! When you came you just said you were from the med center. I didn’t realize you were an M.D.” His glance swept the line of full-size mannequins. “So, what do you think of their anatomy?”

  Jill had already admired them and told him so. They were perfect: every bony ridge; every clay strand simulating muscle bundles; the skin; the styrofoam padding to represent fat and soft tissue.

  “So real they’re scary,” Jill said with a slight shiver.

  Clark seemed pleased. He hung up his white coat and looked at it. “I went to med school before switching to this,” he said. “Knowing the anatomy helps.”

  She walked out to the hall with him and watched him lock up. “Where will the mannequins go when they’re finished?” she asked.

  He motioned across to an arch leading deep into darkness. “There, when it’s restored, will be one continuous hominid gallery. Dioramas, special lighting, moss, everything. That staircase will have to be restored too. Then we’ll have one of the best hominid displays in the country.”

  She followed him up the stairs and peered into the first floor gallery. The shadows were longer.

  “I had wanted to see that too,” she said wistfully.

  “You can still see enough,” Clark said. “Why not zoom around and see what you can? The caretaker hasn’t closed yet.”

  She hesitated.

  “Suit yourself,” Clark said. “If you stay, just know that our Ernest the caretaker is probably as old as the building and is a little deaf. Keep your ears peeled for him, and when you hear those keys jangling in the front doors it’s time to scram.”

  He smiled at her. “I’d hate to see you get locked in for the night.”

  There’s time, she decided.

  She entered the gallery. Stopped before a glass diorama the size of a small room. A lucite plaque read: Middle Pleistocene Period (1,000,000 – 500,000 years ago) Homo erectus: The First Man.

  Mannequins with bodies more human than ape stood erect and used their hands industriously, sharpening crude tools, skinning animals, making fire. They were in a cave. They had flat, sloping foreheads, no real chins, and overhanging brows. Their cranial capacity, Jill guessed, was about one thousand cubic centimeters. Pretty small. One of them stood close to the glass holding his club aloft; his eyes glared at Jill.

  She drew back. Then a soft thud startled her and she glanced over her shoulder. A door closing? Maybe. But it wasn’t the front doors. There was no sign of Ernest.

  She moved on.

  The next diorama read: Paleolithic campsite, 300,000 years old, found in 1996 in the south of France.

  Inside, more human-looking figures hunted and gathered food. Their tools were more sophisticated than those of their Homo erectus ancestors, and they had learned how to build dwellings. An oval hut made of sticks stretched about thirty by fifteen feet. A child, his face pinched in concentration, squatted at the entrance of the hut, drawing a design in the ground with a pointed stick.

  Jill stared at the child. It was a mannequin. How had its creator managed to get that look of intense concentration? Jill felt a connection; felt somehow that Mary Jo had made the mannequin, or had loved it. This was the kind of child she had dreamed of: a very smart little kid creating, discovering…

  A muffled noise caused her to look up.

  It hadn’t sounded like any caretaker. They were noisy; they stomped around and jangled their keys. Was it the wind? The earlier breeze must have gusted up.

  Hurry and scram, she thought.

  Skipping two dioramas lost in shadow, she rounded the corner of a small side gallery. Art of Oceania, read the plaque on the wall. Above the plaque was an array of gruesome objects: shrunken heads from Fiji, grotesque funeral masks from New Guinea, elaborately carved shields from the Solomon Islands, a dagger carved from a human rib, necklaces of human teeth…

  They made her more nervous. A floorboard creaked somewhere near and she spun around. “Who’s there?” she cried.

  Silence.

  That’s it, time to go. But she couldn’t move. A tall figure in the corner had seized her attention and demanded a closer look. It was the scariest funeral mask of all. Made of woven straw, it covered the entire body. The eyes and mouth were sewn-on letter Os; the arms were lightweight reed grasses – no doubt to fly about wildly during energetic ceremonies; and the chest…

  Jill peered closer to examine the intricate weave of the chest, and went rigid with terror.

  The chest w
as slowly rising and falling.

  She gasped. Lifted her gaze to the eyeholes, and saw live eyes looking back at her: mocking, full of cunning, hateful triumph eyes.

  With a whipping, thrashing sound, the two grass arms shot out to seize her as she screamed and ducked, lost her balance, and rolled over sideways. Blinding pain shot through her as her head hit a tall pedestal. She saw the monstrous figure coming at her, and the pain was forgotten. Struggling to her knees, she seized the pedestal and with a mighty heave pushed against it. Her attacker was clumsy in his heavy costume. The falling pedestal knocked him backward, and with a convulsive jerk she scrambled to her feet and broke into a run. She heard him running behind her but didn’t look back. Her heart was bursting out of her chest. A soft, squealing scream began to come from her throat.

  She raced around the corner and saw a back door thirty feet ahead. Behind her a rough and muffled voice shouted, “Bitch, I’ll get you!” He was getting closer. She snatched a brutish-looking javelin – decoration over a water bubbler – and hurled it awkwardly at him. Saw the pointed tip whack wood and the straw-covered figure fall back, surprised.

  She also saw the absurdity of Nike sneakers on his feet.

  She pushed open the back door and ran, her breath coming in heaving gasps as she tore over the back lawn and then a stretch of asphalt and then into the ambulance bay.

  For the first time she was aware of something hot and sticky trickling down her cheek. She raised a hand to the side of her brow and felt the sharp sting of a laceration.

  Through a blur she saw a blue uniform rushing toward her. “You okay, Miss? Hey, what the…”

  She was breathing too hard to answer. She turned to look back. No one was following her.

  The Gothic tower of Madison Museum loomed in a sky gone darker, and the only thing fearsome was the heat lightening crackling over its spikes.

  22

  Like a child, she squeezed her eyes tight while he stitched her up. “You still there?” he asked.

  She opened her eyes. The light from the examining lamp made her squint. Dimly she could see David’s gloved hands set the curved suture needle on a sterile towel, then pick up a cotton swab dipped in merthiolate.

  “One more dab,” he said, “and then we talk.”

  She was lying on her back and gripping the edge of the exam table. The top of the sterile table was littered with an empty Procaine syringe, used mosquito clamps, and a pile of bloody cotton swabs. She took a shuddering breath.

  Her own blood.

  David applied a gauze dressing to the laceration. Then he stood back, folded his arms, and regarded her for a brooding moment.

  The bloodstains on her blouse and the shock still in her pallid face made her look like a typical mugging victim. He felt helpless and ready to kill whoever did this.

  “This can’t be happening,” he said quietly.

  She felt defensive and avoided his gaze. With a knowing gesture she yanked down the gooseneck lamp, diminishing the glare.

  He pulled up a circular stool and sat on it, staring in disbelief at the dressing on her brow.

  “Again,” he said. “From the beginning.”

  “I told you. I went to the museum to ask about Mary Jo Sayers. While I was there a giant grass creature jumped out and attacked me. He was wearing Nike running shoes.”

  Chin in hand, David’s eyes fixed on hers. She looked back steadily. They held each other’s gaze for several solemn seconds, and then he looked away.

  Jill realized that she had just passed item number four on the Physician’s Psychiatric Evaluation Test.

  She continued. “I found out that Sayers wasn’t married. No relationships, only wanted to study, and had no next of kin. Nobody.”

  His expression was grim and set, but she was surprised to see no skepticism.

  He exhaled. He had a two days’ growth of stubble. “The hospital’s been investigating Sayers’ abrupt transfer to Psych yesterday. A hundred calls have been made. People have been questioned.”

  “And?”

  “Nothing. Worse than nothing. Psych nurse’s note said it was George Mackey who called hollering. George was delivering twins at the time. Downey in Psych said he never signed anything for Sayers. Never heard of her till the orderlies just showed up with her.”

  “And it wasn’t any husband who hustled her out.”

  David dropped his head down; shook it. “You’re right,” he said in a low, stifled voice.

  Jill frowned. “So who did place that call?”

  “It’s been traced to one of those throw away cell phones. The guy could have been in the hospital, across town, or just someone who knows hospital procedure.”

  There was a knock on the doorframe. The cubicle curtain parted and a white-jacketed resident looked in. It was Warren Duffy, the surgical resident who’d been on hand when Jill was brought into Emergency.

  “How’s it going?” Duffy asked. He looked worried.

  David turned on his seat. “We’re lucky,” he said. “Could have been a lot worse.”

  Duffy commented unhappily about doctors getting mugged in the neighborhood. “Let me know if you need anything, okay?” He smiled uneasily at Jill.

  David thanked him. Duffy went out, there was a commotion in the hall, and then Mackey, Greenberg and Donovan rushed in like a chorus: “Oh my God, look at you!” and “Did you get a description of the guy?” Woody gibbered and gaped at the blood-soaked swabs.

  When Mackey saw that Jill was in one piece he said, “David, how come the ER’s crawling with cops?”

  Jill blinked at him.

  “The ambulance bay too,” said Woody. “They’re all over the place.”

  Tricia, who’d been helping Jill to a sitting position, said, “For a mugging? What’s going on?”

  “A lot’s going on,” Levine said quietly. He stood and looked gravely at Jill. “It’s been bad here. When you were first brought in, were you surprised at how fast I got here?”

  “I…yes, come to think of it.”

  “I got here fast because I was already here. Since 6:30 in the lounge with cops asking questions.” His glance swept all of them. “It seems that one of our clinic patients has been murdered. The police are starting their investigation with our department.”

  He looked back at Jill. “You all right for this?”

  “Oh yes,” she said vehemently. “They’re in the ER lounge?”

  “Yep. Two homicide detectives.”

  “I’ll change fast.” Unsteadily she climbed off the exam table. “Get into clean scrubs.”

  “Don’t shower,” he said nervously. “Don’t get the bandage wet.”

  “She knows,” Tricia told him. “You’re in worse shape than she is.”

  A dark-haired, heavyset man in a dark suit was spreading photos across a table. He looked up when the four physicians walked in.

  “’Lo again, doctor,” he said, looking at David. “We’re in luck. Police lab just delivered these.”

  David introduced the other three to homicide detective Lieutenant Gregory Pappas, who in turn introduced his serious-faced partner, Keith somebody, who looked up from his note pad and nodded.

  “Well, doctors,” said Pappas, turning the photos to face them. “Recognize her?”

  They looked; the photos were grisly black-and-whites of a dead girl. Her pug nose was encrusted with blood, her face was bashed and her dead eyes were propped open – how did they do that for morgue shots?

  Tricia whimpered and dropped into a near armchair. The others stared at the photos in stunned silence.

  “Hard to say,” muttered Woody Greenberg. “She might have been here. So many who come to the clinic are about that age, and, well, look like that. We call it the runaway look.”

  “Funny,” said Pappas. “So do we.”

  Mackey picked up a photo. There was tension in his face.

  “I saw her,” he said. “Today around two. She was five months pregnant and wanted an abortion.”


  Keith scribbled in his notebook and Pappas shook his head. Levine, Mackey, and Greenberg sat down with him. Tricia watched and listened with her hand to her mouth.

  “This case is pretty bizarre,” Pappas said, picking up one of the photos and looking at it. He began to talk in a flat, police monologue.

  “Victim’s name is Bonnie Gaines. Caucasian, aged sixteen, traced by a fingerprint check to have a record for prostitution. Found at 3:20 today behind a Third Avenue restaurant. Death by strangulation. Her wallet had a recent prison release form. On the form requesting name of physician, she listed this clinic.”

  David glanced to the door. Where was Jill? He turned back to Pappas whose monologue continued.

  “…haven’t gotten to the sick part,” he said, gathering up the photos and handing them to his partner who shoved them into a manila folder. “The medical examiner found a tiny hole, puncture mark like from a needle, between the folds of the victim’s navel. Her womb had been completely drained of amniotic fluid. Given Dr. Mackey’s time he saw her and when she was found, she could have been followed from here.”

  “My God,” Levine said quietly.

  The others looked too sickened to say anything.

  David stood leaning on the lounge doorjamb, facing out. The others had gone: the police back to their cars, the OB threesome, white-faced, back to their floor. Behind him he heard Jill’s voice. She had called to him.

  He turned. “What?”

  She looked a little better. Face still pale but in fresh scrubs with her hair falling over her bandaged brow. She had arrived minutes after the others left. He had waited for her.

  She came and stood by his shoulder. Despondently they watched the bedlam outside. It was 8:30. The evening tide of accident victims had begun to pour in, most ambulatory but bloody. Crying relatives added to the noise level, and one woman, screaming hysterically, was being consoled by a nurse and two orderlies.

  Jill said sarcastically, “Gee, what kind of mugger would want amniotic fluid?”

  “And carry a nineteen gauge syringe, from the sound of it. I’m glad you weren’t here to see the pictures.”

  “It’s been a fun day, huh?” She was silent for a moment. “So…catch me up. Anything else happen while I was out?”