The Body Thief

by Chris Taylor

  He laughed without humor. “Too bad she didn’t think to tell me she’d stopped using contraception. I would have made sure we used condoms and I’d have known right away the baby couldn’t have been mine. I wouldn’t have gone through all those sleepless nights, wondering how the hell I was going to support a wife and child because don’t get me wrong, I would have married her.”

  He dragged in a ragged breath and tiredly ran a hand through his hair. “I guess I learned from that moment on not to trust sole responsibility for contraception to the woman. It’s nothing personal.”

  Sam shook her head in disbelief. “Nothing personal! How else am I supposed to take it? Here we are, with barely any clothes on, about to engage in wild, spontaneous sex and you’re insisting on a condom when I’ve already told you I’m on the pill. How is that not personal?”

  His gaze pleaded with hers. “You’re misunderstanding me, Samantha. My reluctance to trust a woman to take care of contraception relates to all women, not just you.”

  “And that’s supposed to make me feel better? What the hell planet are you on?” she shouted.

  Hurt and confusion filled his eyes. “I think it’s time I left,” he said, his voice thick with tension. “Let’s just say, I’m no longer in the mood.”

  She took a step toward him. “Rohan—”

  Without another word, he stalked away from her and disappeared into the kitchen. Clad once again in his T-shirt and jeans and carrying his shoes in his hand, he opened the front door. It closed with a click that sounded so final the hollowness of it reverberated all the way through Sam’s heart.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Dear Diary,

  It seemed like such a good idea, a win for everyone. Now, I’m not so sure. The pressure to supply more and more tissue is consuming me. I was under the impression Biologistics was in this business for much the same reasons I was: to increase the supply and availability of viable human tissue and give a greater number of people a better chance at life.

  But it seems I’ve been led astray, or perhaps I just didn’t want to see. For Biologistics, it’s all about quotas and money and I am powerless against their contagious greed.

  With no government restrictions, Charles Shillingworth and his company are free to take whatever they can get. The quotas get higher and higher. Where will it all end?

  And then I look at the money in my account and I just want more and more. The truth is, I’m as bad as Charles Shillingworth. The money and the promise of more has corrupted my soul.

  I’ve cleared Richard’s gambling debts and paid off the next year’s school fees in advance. The money is everything I thought it would be, but I’m frightened of its hold. Of their hold.

  I’ve stepped into a yawning abyss and I have no way to get out. God, help me! What have I done?

  * * *

  “What the hell do you mean, you need more money? I already told you I’m cutting back on my activities,” Alistair growled at Richard, already regretting his decision to meet with the deputy coroner after the man left a message on Alistair’s cell phone. It had been filled with desperation and none-too-subtle threats.

  They sat, hidden in a booth in the back of yet another secluded bar in the city. Alistair clenched his jaw in an effort to keep his anger in check. Over the past few months, he’d not only cleared Richard’s sixty-thousand-dollar gambling debt, but he’d given the deputy coroner a fifteen percent cut of the earnings he received from Biologistics.

  Even before Alistair decided to reduce his extracurricular undertakings, only a small percentage of the tissues he delivered overseas came from bodies that passed through the Glebe Morgue. He’d been willing to give his friend a respectable share of the booty in return for his cooperation and silence, but he was damned if he’d increase the percentage or be intimidated by the man’s threats.

  “I did some research on the Internet,” Richard said in a whining tone that grated on Alistair’s ears. “The supply of human tissue is big business overseas. There are companies in the US who pay a fortune for that kind of thing. I’ve done a few sums. All I’m saying is that fifteen percent isn’t enough.”

  “You stupid idiot! Do you have any idea the risk involved in doing what I’m doing? If I get caught, I’m facing serious jail time, not to mention the end of my career. You’re the one who begged me to keep going, cried on my shoulder about how you couldn’t afford for me to stop. Now you’re sitting back, keeping your hands clean and raking in the cash. You can’t have it both ways, Richard. Fifteen percent is fair payment for your services.”

  “Don’t tell me I’m sitting back doing nothing! I’ve been copping some flak from the State Coroner. That sister of yours has been causing trouble. Apparently, she mentioned her concerns about a missing consent form to the coroner and yours truly was closely questioned.”

  Dread filled Alistair’s gut, but he refused to show any sign of weakness. “Just so you know, my sister didn’t stop with your boss. She and a friend of hers, who works in a funeral parlor, went to the police.”

  “The police! Fuck! Why the hell didn’t you tell me?” Richard wailed.

  Alistair shrugged. “Why would you be concerned? I’m the one knee deep in all of this.”

  “You’re right. The retrievals happened well before the bodies arrived at the morgue. I can claim I didn’t have a clue you were acting outside the terms of the consent.” He stared hard at Alistair, gaining confidence. “Or should I say, without any consent.”

  Alistair gritted his teeth and accepted the gibe. It was true, after all. In order to keep up with the endless demand from Biologistics, he’d started forging the signatures on the consent forms. Sometimes, he hadn’t bothered with a consent form at all. He tried to limit those to the bodies who were sent directly to the funeral homes, but every now and then, he slipped up—like with the one Sam had discovered.

  Anger, tinged with a little desperation, coursed through Alistair’s veins. All he was trying to do was save a bunch of people’s lives. Otherwise, the organs and tissues would go to waste. What harm was there in that? In rescuing them for someone else? He couldn’t understand why the law wasn’t with him on this and, despite their potential involvement, he wasn’t prepared to stop.

  For one, he needed the money. He’d splashed out on some big-ticket items over the past couple of weeks. The bright red Ferrari 488 GTB that now sat in his garage had cost more than half a million dollars. It was extravagant, but he hadn’t been able to control himself. Once he knew he had a bank account with a balance of seven figures, it had done his head in and he’d lost his common sense.

  He’d told his wife he was minding the car for a friend who’d gone overseas for several months. The man hadn’t wanted to leave it unattended in the garage beneath his building. Nancy didn’t argue with him over his explanation, although she’d walked away with an expression of doubt on her face.

  He didn’t know what he was going to do when the months passed and the Ferrari wasn’t returned. He’d deal with that headache when he had to. Right now, he had more pressing matters requiring his attention.

  “Give me an extra ten percent and I’ll head your sister off at the pass.”

  Richard’s statement jerked Alistair’s thoughts back to the present. He stared at the deputy coroner in disbelief. “Didn’t you hear what I said, Richard? Sam’s filed a report with the police. This has gone way beyond what you can control in your little domain. Deborah Healy and I have already met with two detectives. They asked a lot of questions and requested the records of any patient who’d died and donated organs since June. If they’re on the ball, they’ll discover the rates of organ and tissue donation have skyrocketed over that time.”

  Richard shrugged, looking unconcerned. “It’ll be easy enough to pass that off as a result of a successful advertising campaign. You have the backing of the State Government. The police won’t be able to argue with that.”

  “True, and if they leave it at that, we’ll be safe. What I’m worrie
d about is if the police get a hint that the organ retrievals weren’t done in accordance with the terms of the consent or done without any consent.”

  “There’s no reason to suspect they’ll even consider it,” Richard replied nonchalantly and Alistair wished he could feel so blasé.

  “You’re getting way too anxious about this, Alistair. Trust me, the people who work in the funeral parlors won’t know one way or the other what was taken and what wasn’t. Short of exhuming bodies, the police will never know, either. It’s only the morgue staff who have access to those kinds of records.”

  Alistair threw Richard a hard stare and responded. “Exactly. That’s the reason I wanted to stop harvesting additional tissues from the bodies destined for autopsy. If I recall correctly, you were the one who begged me not to exclude them from my work.”

  Richard scoffed. “It didn’t take much effort on my part to convince you.”

  “And you were supposed to make sure you conducted the autopsies. Your staff, and most certainly not my sister, should never have come anywhere near those bodies. We had an agreement and you fucked up.”

  “It wasn’t my fault I came down with a stomach virus! I wasn’t the one who called your sister in! Staffing was responsible for that! I couldn’t get myself off the floor of the bathroom. I was in no position to carry out a post mortem.”

  “You should have told me that when I called you to authorize the pre-autopsy donation.”

  “You called me the night before. How the hell was I to know I’d be face down in a toilet bowl by the time the body arrived at the morgue. That bug lasted more than twenty-four hours! I’ve never felt so sick in my life!”

  Alistair gritted his teeth against the hopelessness of it. There was no arguing with Richard and it hardly mattered, anyway—even if the man wasn’t telling the truth. Sam had done the autopsy in Richard’s absence and had been concerned enough to report her findings to the police. Alistair had no doubt that the detectives he’d met in the general manager’s office were smart enough to work it out. Most of the organ retrievals had been carried out by Alistair and those that had been transported to the morgue for autopsy had been authorized by Richard.

  Alistair could only hope that the detectives didn’t pursue it any further. If they examined the autopsy records and compared them to the consents…

  “Speak with my sister,” he said, urgency gripping him inside. “You need to make sure she’s well off the scent. If the police come asking questions, wanting to compare the bodies in the state they arrived at the morgue to the signed consent forms, they’ll notice the anomalies and then both of us are in a world of hurt.”

  Richard gave him a narrow-eyed stare. “You, at least. Let’s not forget who started this.”

  Alistair leaned across the small table and pushed his face up close to his friend’s. Fear filled the other man’s eyes, replacing the earlier defiance.

  Good. Alistair needed him scared. “Make no mistake, mate. We’re in this together. If I go down, you’ll go down with me. I promise.”

  They eyed each other for a full minute before Richard lowered his gaze. He put more space between him and Alistair, and sat back.

  “All right. I’ll talk to Samantha, try and distract her from her idea that something’s wrong. I’m not sure how I’ll manage it. She’s as sharp as a tack. But I’ll think of something.”

  Alistair smiled, relieved. “Good. I also want you to get hold of the morgue records from the donor bodies autopsied over the winter months. It seems that’s the focus of the police investigation.”

  Richard frowned. “What am I supposed to do? They’re all stored in a secure computer database.”

  “I don’t know. I’m sure you’ll think of something. A convenient computer virus that just happens to wipe out a heap of files. Make sure it’s not only the donor body files, though. That would be plain stupid. Do it right and hopefully, neither of us has anything to worry about.”

  Richard nodded and then picked up his glass of beer and held it up to propose a toast. “Here’s to increasing the rate of organ and tissue donation at the illustrious Sydney Harbour Hospital and here’s to its even more distinguished boss of the organ donation and transplantation team.”

  Alistair could tell the man was mostly being facetious, but he clinked his glass to Richard’s all the same. As was often said, it was better to keep your friends close and your enemies even closer. He intended to keep Richard very firmly in his sights.

  * * *

  Rohan turned the page and read the words scrawled across the next document. Why were doctors allowed to get away with such indecipherable handwriting? It made his job that much harder when he had to guess nearly every other word. Not having a medical background or being familiar with medical terminology didn’t help.

  He’d received the records he’d requested from the general manager and had been plowing his way through them for more than three hours. The copies he’d made of all the hospital notes that related to every patient who’d died and donated their organs since June were piled on every available surface. The squad room was quiet, empty of almost everyone except Bryce and him. Rohan let out a heavy sigh and glanced over at his partner who was similarly engaged.

  “Find anything yet?” Bryce asked, turning his head in Rohan’s direction.

  “No, but I’ve learned more about the myriad of illnesses and disease that attack the elderly and ultimately cause their death than I’ll ever need to know. It makes you look forward to getting old; that’s for sure.”

  Bryce grinned and leaned back in his chair, stretching his arms above his head. “You’ve got that right. I wouldn’t want to be old and frail, for quids.”

  “Except, if we don’t grow old and frail, it means we’ve died before our time. That’s not such a comforting scenario, either.”

  Bryce shook his head. “There’s no way we can win! Man, sometimes life sucks!” He opened his mouth on a huge yawn and then settled back into his seat.

  “One thing I have noticed is that a lot of these patients or their relatives were seen by Doctor Alistair Wolfe. We’ll have to get Hannah Langdon’s records and see what matches up. It will be interesting to see if the patients she identified as having unusually excessive evidence of organ and tissue donation were among his patients.”

  “He is the head of the Unit and nobody can question his devotion to the cause. It’s not surprising to find his name on so many of the files.”

  “Still, it’s worth making note of,” Rohan replied. “I’ve also been going through the consent forms obtained prior to the retrievals. All the ones I’ve seen so far have been limited to one or two of the major organs and I’m almost through the pile. I haven’t seen any that gave consent for skin and eye tissue, and yet, according to Hannah and the girl at Forsyth’s funeral home, there were at least two bodies that came from the Sydney Harbour Hospital with those removed.”

  “Yeah,” Bryce nodded, his expression thoughtful. “I haven’t come across a consent for that kind of thing, either.” He returned his attention to the remaining files in front of him.

  Rohan did the same. A moment later, he frowned. The file of Ronald Miller was missing the consent altogether. He must have overlooked it.

  Starting at the front, Rohan slowly went through the file again and came up empty. It wasn’t there. Could it have been misplaced? Incorrectly filed? It wasn’t beyond the realm of possibility. He could only imagine the amount of paperwork generated every day in a busy hospital.

  “This is a little strange,” Bryce murmured, eerily echoing Rohan’s thoughts.

  “What is?”

  “I’ve been through this file three times. I can’t find the consent form.”

  Rohan’s heart thumped hard against the walls of his chest. Coincidence? Surely two of the hospital files couldn’t have fallen victim to sloppy administrative staff?

  “What’s the name of the patient?”

  “Cassandra Jackson.”

  Rohan suddenly
recalled the night at the station when Samantha had told him one of the donor bodies she’d autopsied had arrived at the morgue without a consent form in the hospital notes. He hadn’t asked her for a name or if the deceased had been a patient at the Sydney Harbour Hospital, but that information could be obtained easily enough. Under other circumstances…

  At the thought of again having to come face to face with her, his gut twisted with nerves. He hadn’t spoken to her since the night at her apartment. Every time he thought of that moment when everything went so off course, he cringed.

  Okay, he knew this much: She’d overreacted to a throwaway statement. He hadn’t meant to insult her. Not for an instant did he believe she was deceiving him about being on the pill and, at the time, he’d been unable to see how she’d made such a leap. He was just being cautious. Like he’d told her, it wasn’t personal.

  Later, after he’d had a chance to cool down, he’d replayed their conversation in his head and could see how she’d misunderstood, but their argument had made one thing even clearer: She didn’t know him at all.

  It hurt that she thought he believed she was capable of such dishonesty when that couldn’t be further from the truth. She was the most honest, honorable, selfless woman he knew. How else would she be able to devote her time examining corpses in order to find answers for relatives of the deceased? Most people, for all their good intentions, would turn and run a mile. But not Samantha.

  In the short time he’d known her he’d discovered she was unique and special and sweet and wonderful. And he couldn’t get past the feeling that he’d stuffed things up big time. She was always in his thoughts and he had no desire to erase her from his mind or his heart, but damage had been done. There didn’t seem to be a way out.

  All he could do was apologize and hope that she’d give him another chance. Now that he’d begun to get to know her properly and had kissed her, there was no way he could walk away. She touched him deep inside like no other woman had and he was determined to make her see they were good together, in every possible way. Years ago they’d had a strong friendship based on mutual interests and respect. It was time to convince her he was worthy of that connection again, and so much more.