Marker

by Robin Cook

  “Good Lord,” Laurie murmured as she looked down at the first boy’s remains. Teenagers weren’t as difficult emotionally for Laurie as younger children, but they were still tough.

  Being run over by a train was at the upper end of traumatic experiences. The boy’s arm had been severed at the shoulder and it lay alongside the torso. The head and the face had been reduced to a pulp. There was no way things could have been cleaned up for the parents’ benefit.

  Laurie began the external examination by detailing the all-too-visual trauma. It was obvious that the body had tumbled along beneath the train until it had been brought to a stop.

  “There’s the second one,” Marvin said as he wheeled the empty gurney over to the side of the room.

  Laurie waved over her shoulder without turning around. She found something unexpected on the boy’s penis, which made her move down and look at the soles of his feet. Marvin joined her on the opposite side of the table.

  “I noticed that,” Marvin said, following Laurie’s line of sight. “What do you make of it?” In addition to the abrasions, there was a bit of charring.

  “Where are the shoes?” Laurie asked.

  “In a plastic bag in the walk-in.”

  “Bring them in,” Laurie said. She was preoccupied and immediately stepped over to the second child.

  By the time Marvin was back with the clothing from both cases, Laurie felt she had solved the mystery by the external exam alone. Marvin brought over the sneakers that the kids had been wearing. Like the bodies themselves, they were a sorry sight. Laurie picked them up and looked at the soles. “Seems pretty clear to me what happened.”

  “Oh?” Marvin questioned. “Fill me in.”

  At that moment, the door to the hall banged open, surprising both Laurie and Marvin. It was Sal D’Ambrosio, one of the other mortuary techs. He was more animated than his usual indifferent self. “We got a headless, handless male corpse that just arrived, along with some cops. What should I do?”

  “Did you x-ray it, weigh it, and photograph it like you’re supposed to do?” Laurie questioned. In sharp contrast with Marvin, who needed little direction, Sal’s apathy often grated on Laurie’s nerves. There was a protocol to be followed with every body arriving at the OCME.

  “All right already,” Sal said, sensing Laurie’s impatience. “I thought with the cops here, it might be a different story.” He ducked back out and the door closed.

  Laurie paused for a minute. Hearing that a headless, handless body had arrived created a sense of déjà vu that took her back seven years, when a similar corpse had been brought in after floating around in the East River. With some effort, identification had been made. The man’s name turned out to have been Franconi, and Mr. Franconi posthumously had taken her and Jack on a wild adventure to Equatorial Guinea in West Africa.

  “Hey!” Marvin interrupted Laurie’s brief reverie. “Come on! You got me curious here. What’s with these two kids?”

  Laurie again started to explain, but the door to the hall reopened. A gowned, hooded, and masked figure walked in, much to Laurie and Marvin’s surprise.

  “I’m sorry, but no one is allowed in here,” Laurie called out, holding up her hand like a traffic cop. For a moment, she thought the intruder might have been a particularly adventuresome journalist who’d somehow managed to infiltrate OCME security. “It’s dangerous, and full protective gear is mandatory.”

  “Oh, come on, Laur!” the man said while stopping in his tracks. “Jack told me on the weekends things weren’t so hard-nosed around here and that this is the way he dresses unless it’s an infectious case.”

  “Lou?” Laurie questioned.

  “Yeah, it’s me. You’re not going to make me get into one of those suits, are you? They drive me crazy.”

  “If Calvin comes in, you’ll be banned for life.”

  “Realistically, what are the chances of him coming in?”

  “Nil, I suppose.”

  “Well, there you go,” Lou said. He walked over to Laurie and glanced down at the two boys, then quickly looked back up at Laurie. “Yuck! What a sight! How you do this for a living?”

  “It does have its downside,” Laurie agreed. “What brings you in here so early on a Saturday?”

  “The headless horseman I came in with. It’s caused another stir over at the Manhattan General. I tell you, that place is going to be the bane of me.”

  “I think you’d better fill me in.”

  “I got called at the crack of dawn this morning. Seems that the guy who takes care of the bodies over at the General came in to work as usual and then found a body that wasn’t supposed to be there.” Lou laughed. “I mean, there’s some humor here, finding an extra body in a morgue. I’ve heard about bodies being misplaced or missing, but finding an extra one is a bit out of the ordinary.”

  “Why were you called? Why wasn’t it just taken care of by the local precinct?”

  “My captain got word of it subsequent to his sister-in-law’s murder over there yesterday morning. He practically has an open line to the hospital. So he calls me right off the bat and tells me to get my ass over there. The problem is that there haven’t been any breaks in his in-laws’ case, so he’s got the thumbscrews to me. Also, there are some similarities. This new corpse has what look like two bullet holes, just like his sister-in-law.”

  “No ID?”

  “Nope, not a clue. And there’s no one missing at the hospital, like patients or staff.”

  “And what about the head and the hands?”

  “Gone. They’re nowhere to be found.”

  “So your captain thinks this new corpse relates somehow to his wife’s sister’s case.”

  “He didn’t say so in so many words, but that was obviously what was on his mind. It is weird. The corpse was as clean as a whistle when the guy found it in the back of their old anatomy cooler. No blood, no gore, no nothing, as if the guy just got out of the shower. The whole thing is kind of eerie if you ask me, and I’ve seen a lot of weird stuff in my career.”

  “How were the head and the hands cut off?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Was it clean, or were they hacked off?”

  “Clean. Very clean.”

  “Like maybe the way a doctor might do it?”

  “I suppose. I hadn’t thought about it like that, but yes.”

  “Sounds like an intriguing case.”

  “Will you do it right away? The captain said he wants to hear from me ASAP.”

  “I’ll be happy to do the case, but not until I finish with these two boys.”

  Lou glanced around Laurie and took another look at the remains. “What’s the story here?”

  “Two kids run over by an A train.”

  Lou grimaced. “Is this what attracted the media types up in the lobby?”

  “I’m afraid so. Just the idea of being hit by a train is gruesome enough, but to make it even more appealing to the tabloids is the question whether it’s a double suicide or a double homicide.”

  “Yeah,” Marvin said, speaking up for the first time. “I was just about to hear the answer the moment you came in.”

  “Really?” Lou questioned. He overcame his hesitancy and stepped nearer. “These guys look like they went through a meat grinder. What was it, suicide or homicide?”

  “Neither,” Laurie said. “It was accidental.”

  With obvious surprise, both Lou and Marvin looked up at Laurie.

  “How can you be so sure?” Lou questioned.

  “I’m confident that when I do the posts, I’ll find evidence the children were dead when the train struck them. Look at the slight charring on the feet.” Laurie picked up a foot from each child in turn and pointed to the darkened, scorched areas.

  “What am I looking at?” Lou questioned.

  “Burns,” Laurie said. Then she pointed to the children’s penises. “Just like those on the tip of their glandes.”

  “What the hell are glandes?” Lou asked.<
br />
  “It’s plural for glans, or head of the penis.”

  “Ouch,” Lou said, making a grimace of pain.

  “I think these two boys made the fatal mistake of peeing in tandem on the third rail while standing either on the steel edge of the platform or on the rails themselves. There was such a good ground, the electricity arced up their urine streams and simultaneously electrocuted them.”

  “My good God!” Lou said, straightening up. “Remind me never to do that.”

  Lou stayed for the posts on the two boys, which went quickly. As Laurie had anticipated, there was visible evidence that the massive trauma the boys received occurred after their hearts had ceased to beat. While Laurie worked, she told Lou about the first case they had done, Patricia Pruit, and that as a consequence, her series of mysterious, inexplicable, unexpected deaths at the Manhattan General had risen to eight.

  “Good grief,” Lou responded. “Jack told me yesterday you had seven, and that he was coming around to your idea about a serial killer, but that the front office wasn’t buying as of yet. What’s Calvin’s reaction now? Is the OCME willing to take a public stand?”

  “Calvin doesn’t know about the one this morning,” Laurie said. “I don’t know what his reaction will be, but I’m not optimistic. I’m afraid it’s going to take some momentous event to get him to see the light, since no help has come from toxicology. When it concerns the Manhattan General, he has blinders on. He still thinks of it as the old, venerated academic center where he trained. The last thing he’d want to do is tarnish its reputation.”

  “If healthy people keep dying over there, its reputation is going to suffer, one way or the other. But let me know if he comes around to your way of thinking. Like I told Jack, with everything else that’s happening at the moment, my hands are tied, at least officially. I’m up to my eyeballs with this Chapman case. If I don’t come up with a suspect, I might be out selling pencils.”

  “Actually, I’m working with Dr. Roger Rousseau to generate some legitimate suspects, and he left me a voice message last night, saying he’d made some progress.”

  “I hate to hear you are ‘working’ with that guy, for obvious reasons. But if you and he can come up with some names, I can do something, even if it’s not official.”

  “I think we already have one,” Laurie said. She finished sewing up the last of the two boys and handed the instruments to Marvin. “Let’s go ahead and put up the headless John Doe before the tourist.” The tourist was the fourth case they planned on posting. He was a college student who had presumably died from acute alcohol toxicity. The level in his blood had already been shown to be off the charts. He’d been found in Central Park by an early-morning jogger.

  While Marvin went out to get Sal to help him with the corpses of the two boys, Laurie continued to talk to Lou about her series. She explained her idea about the potential killer apparently moving from St. Francis to the Manhattan General, and that Roger was going to look into transferees, among other people, and might even have talked to some of them, including the anesthesiologist Najah.

  “Wait a second!” He held up his hand. “Hold it right there. Are you telling me this boyfriend of yours is planning on approaching Najah and some of these other so-called suspects himself?”

  “I believe so, yes,” Laurie responded. She was caught off guard. She hadn’t expected such a negative reaction from Lou.

  “This is nuts,” Lou said. “You know how I feel about amateur detective shenanigans. It’s one thing to come up with some names as part of an armchair game, but it’s something else entirely when it comes to actually approaching anybody.”

  “Why? You’d have to narrow it down to find out which ones could truly be suspects. Otherwise, it’s pure conjecture.”

  “Jesus H. Christ! Laurie, I hate to hear you talking like this. Let’s suppose for a second there really is a serial killer behind your so-called series. If there is and if he’s not absolutely bonkers, then he could be extremely dangerous. The slightest provocation could push him over the edge.”

  Marvin and Sal came back into the autopsy room. While they moved the teenagers’ corpses onto the waiting gurneys, Laurie and Lou stood silently. They were both self-conscious about Lou’s sudden vehemence. When the door closed behind the techs pushing their gurneys, Lou cleared his throat.

  “Sorry,” he said. “I didn’t mean to come on that strong. It’s just that amateur sleuthing scares the bejesus out of me. The last thing I want you doing is risking your life like you did playing detective back during that Paul Cerino cocaine affair. Dealing with psychopaths is not for novices.”

  “I think I get your point,” Laurie said.

  “On a lighter note,” Lou said, eager to change the subject, “I’ve been dying to ask about your dinner date with Jack last night. How’d it go? Are you guys going to bury the hatchet or what?”

  Laurie didn’t answer right away, and when she did, all she said was that the jury was still out. Lou was hardly satisfied, but his intuition told him to let it go.

  Marvin and Sal returned with a single gurney, Marvin pulling, Sal pushing. After Marvin placed an X-ray he had under his arm on a neighboring surface, the two techs expertly transferred the headless and handless male corpse.

  “I see what you mean,” Laurie said after taking one look at the body. “It is remarkably clean.” In sharp contrast to the teenagers’ mangled bodies, there was no blood, even at the severed neck and wrists, which were cut off so sharply as to look like illustrations in an anatomy book. Sal took the gurney back out into the hall while Marvin put up the X-ray.

  The two bullets stood out as pure white blotches in the gray-to-black field. One was a flattened irregular shape and the other normal. Laurie pointed to the misshapen slug in the middle of the torso. “My guess is that this one hit the spine.” She then pointed to the defect in one of the vertebrae. “I’d say it ended up in the liver. The other one is in the mediastinum, in the center of the chest, and I wouldn’t be surprised if we find it penetrated the aortic arch. That was the fatal shot.”

  “Looks like a nine-millimeter,” Lou said.

  “We’ll see,” Laurie said.

  She went back to the body to start the external exam. While standing on the corpse’s right with Marvin on the opposite side, Laurie asked the tech to roll the body toward him. She wanted to view the entrance wounds as well as photograph them. But when Marvin did as she asked, she caught sight of a small, intricate tattoo of an octopus in the small of the corpse’s back.

  Laurie staggered and sucked in a lungful of air. She reached out and grasped the table’s edge to keep herself erect. Her eyes were fixated on the tattoo.

  “Dr. Montgomery, are you okay?” Marvin asked.

  Laurie didn’t move. Although she had initially staggered, now she seemed frozen.

  “Laurie, what’s up?” Lou asked. He bent forward to try to see through her plastic face mask.

  Laurie shook her head to break her momentary trance. She took a step back from the table. “I need a break,” she said in a high, breathless voice. “This autopsy is going to have to wait.” She turned on her heel, and headed for the door.

  Both Marvin and Lou looked after her. Lou called her name, but she didn’t answer. When the doors closed behind her, Lou looked at Marvin. “What’s going on?”

  “Beats me,” Marvin said. He eased the corpse back to a supine position. He gave a short, mirthless laugh. “This has never happened before. Maybe she’s sick.”

  “I think I’d better check,” Lou said, and he started for the door.

  Expecting Laurie to be in the corridor, Lou was surprised when he didn’t see anyone. From where he was standing he could see all the way down to the security office. There didn’t seem to be anyone in there, either. Confused as to what was going on, he walked down the length of the bank of small, refrigerated compartments where the bodies were stored prior to autopsy. When he reached the end, where there was a large walk-in cooler to his left, he
was able to see to his right down into the supply room where the moon suits were stored. Although she was partly out of view, he was able to catch a glimpse of Laurie climbing out of her gear. When he got down there, Laurie was plugging her battery pack into the charger.

  “What’s going on?” Lou asked. “Are you okay? Aren’t you going to do the case?”

  Laurie turned and faced her friend. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

  “Hey,” Lou said. “What is with you?” He pulled off his mask, peeled off the gown covering his street clothes, and enveloped her in a sustained hug. She didn’t resist.

  After several minutes, Lou leaned back to see Laurie’s face, still keeping his arms around her. She worked her arm up between them and wiped her eyes with her hand, then dried it on the front of her scrub shirt.

  “Are you ready to talk?” Lou asked softly.

  Laurie nodded but made no attempt to free herself from Lou’s embrace. She took a deep breath, started to talk, stuttered, and then stopped to wipe her eyes again.

  “Take your time,” Lou urged.

  “I’m afraid I know the identity of the headless body,” Laurie said finally in a halting voice. “It’s Roger Rousseau, my friend from the Manhattan General.”

  “Good God!” Lou said, half in sympathy and half in irritation. “Now you see why I said amateur sleuthing is dangerous.”

  “I don’t need a lecture,” Laurie said. She pushed herself out of Lou’s arms.

  “I’m sorry, I know you don’t, but this is a disaster.”

  “Tell me about it,” Laurie challenged. “This person was someone important in my life, and I’m the one who put him up to what he did. Oh, God, what a mess!” Laurie cradled her head in both hands.

  “Excuse me, Dr. Montgomery, but that’s not what happened. You made a suggestion for him to come up with some names. Unless I’m off base, you didn’t put him up to going around talking to people. That was his idea.”

  “At the moment, that seems like an academic distinction,” Laurie said while letting her hands fall to her sides.

  “Are you going to do the case?” Lou asked.

  “No, I’m not going to do the case,” Laurie snapped.