by Rachel Lee
This could get embarrassing, she thought. "Uh, no. I'm here because my dog dragged me here and won't let me leave. He's stubborn."
Declan squatted and looked at Kato. "What's his name?"
"Kato."
"Hi, Kato." Declan held his hand out, palm up. Kato lifted his head, sniffing the hand at a distance. His ears flattened back against his head.
"He's part wolf," Markie said. "He doesn't make friends easily."
"I can see that," Declan said. "Should I be worried?"
"No. Putting his ears back is a submissive posture. It means he's wary of your strength."
He looked up. "Well, he has no need to be."
He reached out and brushed his fingertips over Kato's head. The dog accepted the touch, but Markie could see the tension in his haunches.
"Better to let him come to you," she said quietly. "When he's ready."
Declan stood, and Kato rose to his feet, sniffed the air again, and made a low, mournful sound. Markie felt the hair on the back of her neck rise.
Declan seemed to sense something, too, and took a half step back. "Does he do that often?"
"Only when he's trying to tell me something."
Those brilliant blue eyes fixed on her. "What's he trying to tell you?"
"I haven't a clue. Did you hear the dogs barking earlier?"
"Sort of. I wasn't really paying attention."
"It was like every dog on the island was sounding off. After that, he got nervous, so I decided to bring him for a walk."
"And you wound up here?"
"He dragged me here. And once we got here, he wouldn't let me leave."
Declan gave her a long look, as if measuring her truthfulness. Apparently satisfied, he squatted again. Kato sat and met the man stare for stare.
"What do you know, boy?" the doctor asked quietly. "Do you know something?"
The question chilled Markie. "It wasn't a heart attack?"
Declan looked up at her. "I won't know for sure until the autopsy." The apparently straightforward statement seemed to Markie to be withholding something. As if there were more, but he wouldn't discuss it.
Once again, he straightened. "Can I give the two of you a ride home?"
"That's up to Kato."
Declan took a step in the direction of his car. "Come on, Kato, time to go home."
To Markie's surprise, the dog followed.
"Make a liar of me," Markie said under her breath.
Kato looked up at her and yawned.
* * *
Across town, a telephone rang. Tim Roth hit the pause button for the DVD player and picked up the cordless receiver at his elbow. "Yes?"
"Carter Shippey's dead," Steve Chase said.
"And?"
"There are cops all over the place."
"So?"
"If they find the hole…"
"If they find the hole, it'll mean nothing at all. It's under his house." Tim paused, his fingers drumming on the arm of his chair. "How did he die?"
"I'm told they think it's a heart attack."
"Those happen."
"What if it wasn't? What if she's back?"
Tim sighed heavily. "That's myth and local legend. Carter was aging, and not well. He'd been sedentary ever since he sold his fishing boat. Not a good recipe for longevity."
"What about his wife?"
"Nothing's changed. She thinks we're looking for a leak in the water main."
"All right. All right."
"Relax," said Tim. "We're not doing anything illegal."
"I know, but…"
Tim sighed again. "No buts. Send flowers to the widow Shippey, from the Senate. Express your deepest, most heartfelt condolences. Then get back to work."
He hung up, shaking his head, and returned to his movie. Some people would panic over anything. They had no taste for life.
Or death.
2
At six the next morning, Declan stood outside the hospital morgue and waited for his assistant to show up.
Over the door was a beautifully scripted sign in black on red that said Rue Morgue. Beneath it was another sign, this one carved in natural wood: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here.
He'd put the signs there eight months ago when he had first arrived on the island. He'd left his job as chief trauma surgeon at a large inner-city hospital to take a surgical post on an island paradise. By dint of his prior experience, he had also been appointed to the post of territorial Medical Examiner. He had one-and-a-half jobs, which, together, were a million times less stressful than his previous position. And nobody had ever complained about the mordant humor of the signs.
Nor should they, he thought. Hell, in addition to his surgical-cum-general practice, he was the only qualified pathologist on the island. The latter job was something he needed to grin and bear.
His assistant, a nurse named Hal Devlin, showed up at last, carrying two takeout coffees.
"Latte for you," Hal said. "Cappuccino for me."
Even in the middle of nowhere, Santz Martina boasted not one but two Starbucks. "Thanks, Hal."
They stepped into the small anteroom together; then Declan unlocked his office. Hal followed him in.
The office was just big enough to hold a desk and bookshelves fully loaded with every imaginable up-to-date reference on pathology, autopsy and homicide investigation. Declan was the only one who ever opened most of them. The unsparing, graphic photographs were worse than Hollywood's most vivid imaginings.
"What's on the agenda today?" Hal wanted to know, flopping into the chair across from Declan's desk.
"Male in his early sixties, sudden death. No obvious signs of foul play."
"Heart attack," Hal said, with the surety of one who has seen it before.
Declan shook his head. "I don't think so."
Both of Hal's dark eyebrows rose, his eyes widening. He was a trim young man in his late twenties, his skin and broad cheekbones kissed golden by his native heritage. "You mean we have a mystery?"
"I'm not sure what we have. When I saw the body last night, it felt squishy everywhere."
Hal shrugged. "Congestive heart failure." In congestive heart failure, the body could retain thirty or forty pounds of excess water.
"Ankles weren't swollen."
Finally Hal frowned, getting the message. "What are you trying to tell me?"
"I don't exactly know, Hal. It could be edema, but if it is, it's the worst I've ever heard of. It was more than a spongy feeling."
"Lovely. Who was it?"
"Carter Shippey."
"Oh, Jesus."
Declan nodded. "I gave him a physical a month ago. He was fine."
He put his feet up on the desk and sipped his coffee, pretending that he hadn't been anxious since last night. Coming to the island had been his attempt to unwind, to leave behind the tension that had been nigh on to killing him. Unfortunately, the nightmares hadn't been left behind, and unpleasant events reminded him that his natural tendency was to stay wound up tighter than a drum.
It didn't help that Carter Shippey hadn't looked like any sudden-death heart attack victim he'd ever seen.
Hal was still shaking his head in disbelief.
"Of course," Declan continued, "a fatal arrhythmia could strike without warning. That's why it's called sudden death. But the way Cart looked, the way his body felt when I knelt to examine him last night…"
The dead were always flaccid until rigor began to set in, but Carter Shippey had been more than flaccid. He'd almost felt like…dough. As if there had been nothing rigid beneath his skin at all. That degree of edema was extraordinary, and congestive heart failure didn't usually come on so rapidly.
"He should have been having other symptoms," Declan said, more to himself than Hal. "Shortness of breath, coughing, swelling of his extremities."
"Yeah." Hal took a deep swig of coffee. "Well, let's go see if we can figure it out. No point waiting."
The hell of being the M.E. on an island this size was tha
t you were apt to know the person who had lived in the body you were cutting open. Declan still had a bit of difficulty with that. On rare occasions it even made him long for the anonymity of the big city E.R.
They suited up in scrubs, Tyvek surgical gowns, rubber gloves and, finally, plastic face shields. Declan pointed to the cooler door, and Hal opened it. Carter Shippey's body, covered by a paper sheet, slid out on its tray.
A chill crept along Declan's spine, and he found himself ardently praying that he was wrong, that he'd missed something at Carter's physical, that the doughy feeling had indeed been edema from congestive heart failure. The thought surprised him, for he would feel awful if he'd missed the diagnosis on an easily treatable condition and cost Carter Shippey his life. But the alternative frightened him more.
He pulled the sheet back and gasped.
Carter's body was still fully clothed, and that was all that made him identifiable as a human being. He looked like an inflatable mannequin that had sprung a leak. Last night he'd been flaccid. This morning he was flat, as if his body were nothing but a puddle within his skin.
"Jesus Christ," Hal said.
"Make that a prayer," Declan said. "For me, too." Even though he didn't believe. He hadn't believed in God for years now.
Their eyes met across the body.
"Don't touch him," Declan said. "Get out of here now, and strip your suit this side of the door."
Hal didn't hesitate to obey. Declan felt an equally powerful urge to get out, but he stood a moment longer, looking down at his friend's remains, astonished that someone he knew could become unrecognizable so fast. With a rubber covered finger, he pressed Carter Shippey's side and felt his finger sink in as if into jelly, meeting no resistance at all.
Then he took his own advice. He left the body on the table. The less it was handled the better. Outer-wear and gloves went into the biohazard chute, and he hurried into the office where Hal was awaiting him, trying to steady his cup of coffee in an unsteady hand.
Speaking the words out loud wasn't easy. Even to Declan they sounded a little nuts. But his instincts, honed by years of experience and training, and an innate honesty that sometimes got him into trouble, wouldn't allow him to dissemble about something like this.
"It's got to be infection. I'm reluctant to say a hemorrhagic fever…there was no hemorrhaging from the body orifices, nor apparent ulceration of the skin. But…" Declan looked past him, reconsidering all the unhappy thoughts that had been troubling him since last night. "Ebola and Marburg don't kill that fast, anyway. And I don't know of anything that dissolves bone."
"Bone?" Hal looked sickened and reluctant to believe it, though he had just seen it. "Can I resign now?"
Declan met his gaze directly. "Sure. You didn't sign on for Biohazard Level Four."
Hal took a slow, deep breath. His gaze lifted slowly. "Neither did you."
Declan nodded. "We follow the strictest sterile procedures. I'm calling the local Haz-Mat guys to deliver us a couple of their decon suits and masks."
Hal sat and settled back in his chair. "Good. Time to finish my coffee." The milky liquid sloshed as his hand shook.
Declan made the call, then stared through the glass window between him and the body on the tray and hoped to hell that whatever killed Carter Shippey wasn't airborne. Because if it was, a whole lot of people were in trouble.
* * *
Chet Metz, of the island's fire department, showed up twenty minutes later with two gray-blue decontamination suits. Santz Martina's Haz-Mat team had never been called out before, as far as Declan knew. The island had the usual small-town collection of hazardous materials: dry cleaning fluids, petroleum products, fertilizers, insecticides. The fire department maintained a team for the sake of preparedness.
"So what's going on?" Chet wanted to know as he helped Hal and Declan into the suits. He was a beefy man in his early thirties, with steady gray eyes and a thick head of hair.
"I just don't want to take any chances," Declan said.
"Chances, huh?" Chet looked him straight in the eye. "Must be a big chance."
"Don't say anything."
"You know I won't, Dec. Okay, let's tape you in."
Chet wound yellow duct tape around their ankles and wrists, making airtight seals for their rubber boots and gloves.
As they hefted their masks, Chet said, "You know, there's no way to decontaminate you here after you're done. Not if it's a biological hazard."
"There's a shower in there," Declan said. "And plenty of bleach. We'll wash down."
"If you think that's enough. I'll wait."
Declan nodded at him. "Thanks, Chet."
Biohazards were part of hospital life and of autopsies in particular. Ordinary care was usually enough: rubber gloves, a face shield to protect the eyes, nose and mouth from any kind of spray from the victim, Tyvek gowns over scrubs. But Declan wasn't going to be happy with ordinary precautions this morning. He was very, very nervous about what was inside the body.
Once the masks were in place, he and Hal were breathing the purest air in the world. The micron filters would capture even the smallest virus.
"That's as good as we can do," Chet said. "I hope to God it's not airborne."
"If it is," Dec said, "we're all already dead."
"Oh, cripes, thanks," Hal muttered.
If Carter Shippey had died from an airborne infection, the chances were high that dozens of other people had already been infected. Carter, after all, was active in the Rotary and his church, and volunteered in the high school shop classes.
Declan and Hal walked into the autopsy room and faced one another across the body. Metz was watching from the other side of the glass, and when Declan glanced up briefly, their eyes met.
Hal picked up the camera he brought to every autopsy and began shooting from every angle, even climbing on a ladder to shoot from above. No step of this process would be overlooked.
The first task, after initial photos, was to remove the victim's clothes intact. The job proved nearly impossible with a body that sagged formlessly. They managed it, though, and after examining each piece of Carter's clothing, they put all the pieces into red biohazard bags.
"Nothing," Declan remarked. Nothing other than the usual loss of bodily control at death. No blood. Not a smidgen anywhere. Nor did an examination of the body itself, now little more than a fluid-filled sack, reveal any sign of wound or blood.
"Well," Declan said, "it's not Ebola or Marburg. Or any other known hemorrhagic fever."
"Thank God for small mercies," Hal muttered.
"I'm not sure that's a mercy," Declan said. "Those take time to kill you, and with proper treatment a lot of people can survive. This was fast. His wife said he was okay when she left for her bridge club and dead when she came home."
"And it's still working," Hal said. "He didn't look like this last night, did he?"
"Hell no." Declan picked up a scalpel. He wouldn't need a bone saw. Nor did he want to make a large incision into this body until he knew what might come out.
His hand paused over what had once been a man's abdomen. He looked toward the glass.
"Chet? This island has to be quarantined immediately."
Chet didn't answer for several seconds. His gaze was fixed on the body on the tray as if he couldn't believe his eyes.
"Uh…can I do that? I don't have authority."
"I do," Declan said. "It's under my emergency powers. Call the Emergency Management Office and tell them. I want this island shut down. No one in, no one out, until we find out what the hell did this."
Chet nodded.
"Then get back here," Declan said. "Because after I open up this body and take some samples, and Hal and I hose each other off, I'm sure as hell going to need help getting out of this monkey suit."
"Right."
Looking green, Chet turned and disappeared.
Hal didn't look too much better. "Do we have to open him?" he asked. "It's obvious something's eating his insid
es. I mean…what if it explodes all over us?"
"We're covered," Dec said, refusing to admit that he had any qualms. "Look, Hal, we've got to do it. We've got to find out what did this before somebody else dies."
Hal nodded. He drew an audible breath. "Okay. I'm documenting."
Declan made the first cut with his scalpel.
* * *
Carter Shippey hadn't rotted. He had liquefied inside his own skin. There were no identifiable organs left to remove, and what remained of the bone had become rubbery, almost like cooked cartilage. Declan saved as many samples as he thought would be useful, telling Hal to freeze them all.
Carter Shippey's brain and spinal cord were the only parts still intact, though they showed violent hemorrhaging. More samples were frozen.
Declan sewed up his incisions as quickly as possible and put the body back in the cooler. He didn't allow himself to think much about what he'd just seen, beyond the clinical notes he'd dictated to Hal. Interpretation would come later. Right now, he was simply collecting evidence.
Inside, deep inside, some quiver of unease refused to be silent, though. It wouldn't let him completely ignore what faced him. What might face the entire island.
Dec and Hal scrubbed the entire autopsy room, then poured bleach over each other and took turns under the overhead high pressure shower. When they were done with the shower, they hosed each other and the entire room. The water and the contaminants flowed down a drain into a deep septic tank where hazardous waste was chemically treated and could decompose safely.
Out in the antechamber, Chet helped strip them out of the suits. For the first time, Declan realized that sweat had plastered his clothes and hair to him.
"What did they say?" he asked Chet, when at last he could sag into his chair. His legs felt weak, as if he'd just run ten miles. His hands were shaking, an old and familiar reaction.
"Well," Chet said, "they weren't happy about it. But I told them if they'd seen what I saw, they wouldn't hesitate. So the order's going out. The flak should begin any minute."
"Yeah." Flak. For some reason he thought of Jaws and the mayor who didn't want to close the beach. "I need to call the Centers for Disease Control. This is way beyond my expertise."
