by Robin Cook
Tom had no idea how the lights had gone off in the morgue except that when he had finally found the door and pushed it open, he’d practically collided with a man dressed in a suit and tie. Since Tom had still had the gun in his hand, the man had backed away, giving Tom the opportunity to bolt down the corridor. The man had given chase, but Tom had lost him easily in the network of tunnels, corridors, and connecting rooms he knew so well. By the time Tom exited from an isolated basement door with outside steps leading to the parking area, the man was nowhere in sight.
Still panicked, Tom had run to his car, started it, and had headed toward the parking area exit. Fearing that whoever had chased him in the basement might have somehow gotten out faster than he, Tom had been watchful as he drove, and since the parking lot was not busy at that time, he’d seen the green Mercedes almost immediately.
Passing his intended exit, Tom had gone to another one that was seldom used. When the green Mercedes had followed suit, Tom was convinced he was being followed. Consequently, he concentrated on losing the car in the afternoon rush hour. Thanks to a traffic light and a few cars that had come between them, Tom had been able to speed away. He had driven aimlessly for half an hour just to make sure he was no longer being followed. Only then did he return home.
“You never should have gone into Miami General,” Tom said, lambasting himself for his mother’s benefit. “You should have stayed outside, waited, and followed her home.”
Tom still had no idea where Janet lived.
“Alice, talk to me!” he shouted. But Alice wasn’t saying a word.
All Tom could think to do was wait until Janet got off work on Saturday. Then he’d follow her. He’d be more careful. Then he’d shoot her.
“You’ll see, Mom,” Tom said to the freezer. “You’ll see.”
JANET HAD been right, although Sean wasn’t about to admit it. What had especially perked him up were the tiny cups of Cuban coffee. He’d even tried what the people at the neighboring table had done. He’d drunk them like shots of alcohol, letting the mouthful of strong, thick, sweet fluid fall into his stomach in a bolus. The taste had been intense and the mild euphoria almost immediate.
The other thing that had helped Sean out of his dejected mood was Janet’s positive attitude. Despite her difficult day and the episode at Miami General, she’d found the stamina to remain upbeat. She reminded Sean that they were doing rather well for only two days’ effort. They had the thirty-three charts of the previous medulloblastoma patients and she’d managed to get two vials of the secret medicine. “I think that’s pretty good progress,” Janet said. “At this rate we’re sure to get to the bottom of the Forbes success in treating these people Come on, cheer up! We can do it!”
Janet’s enthusiasm and the caffeine finally combined to win Sean over.
“Let’s find out where this Emerson Funeral Home is located,” he said.
“Why?” Janet asked, leery of such a suggestion.
“We can do a drive-by,” Sean said. “Maybe they’re working late. Maybe they give out samples.”
The funeral home was on North Miami Avenue near the city cemetery and Biscayne Park. It was a well-cared-for two-story Victorian clapboard structure with dormers. It was painted white with a gray slate roof and was surrounded on three sides by a wide porch. It gave the impression that it had been a private home.
The rest of the neighborhood was not inviting. The immediately adjacent buildings were constructed of concrete block. There was a liquor store on one side and a plumbing supply store on the other. Sean parked directly in front in a loading zone.
“I don’t think they’re open,” Janet said, gazing up at the building.
“Lots of lights,” Sean said. All the ground-floor lights were on except for the porch lights. The second floor was completely dark. “I think I’ll give it a try.”
Sean got out of the car, climbed the steps, and rang the bell. When no one answered, he looked into the windows. He even looked into some of the side windows before he came back to the car and got in. He started the engine.
“Where are we going now?” she asked.
“Back to the Home Depot,” Sean said. “I need some more tools.”
“I don’t like the sound of this,” Janet said.
“I can drop you off at the apartment,” Sean suggested.
Janet was silent. Sean drove first to the apartment out on Miami Beach. He pulled over to the curb and stopped. They hadn’t spoken en route.
“What exactly are you planning to do?” she asked at last.
“Continue my quest for Helen Cabot,” Sean said. “I won’t be long.”
“Are you planning on breaking into that funeral home?” Janet asked.
“I’m going to ‘ease in,’” Sean said. “That sounds better. I just want a few samples. If worse comes to worst, how bad is it? She’s already dead.”
Janet hesitated. At that point she had the door open and one foot out. As crazy as Sean’s plan was, she felt responsible to a degree. As Sean had already pointed out several times, this whole venture had been her idea. Besides, she thought she’d go crazy sitting in the apartment waiting for him to return. Pulling her foot back into the car, Janet told Sean that she’d changed her mind and that she’d go along.
“I’m coming as a voice of rationality,” she said.
“Okay by me,” Sean said equably.
At Home Depot Sean bought a glass cutter, a suction device for lifting large pieces of glass, a sheet rock knife, a small hand-held jigsaw, and a cooler. After that he stopped at a 7-Eleven where he bought ice for the cooler and a few cold drinks. Then he drove back to the Emerson Funeral Home and parked again in the loading zone.
“I think I’ll wait here,” Janet said. “By the way, I think you’re crazy.”
“You’re entitled to your opinion,” Sean said. “I’d rather think of myself as determined.”
“A cooler and cold drinks,” Janet commented. “It’s as if you think you’re going on a picnic.”
“I just like to be prepared,” Sean said.
Sean hefted his pack of tools and the cooler and went up onto the funeral home porch.
Janet watched him check the windows. Several cars drove by in both directions. She was amazed at his sangfroid. It was as if he believed himself to be invisible. She watched as he went to a side window toward the back and put down his sack. Bending over, he took out some of the tools.
“Damn it all!” Janet said. With irritation she opened the door, climbed the funeral home’s front steps, and walked around to where Sean was busily working. He’d attached the suction device to the window.
“A change of heart?” Sean asked without looking at Janet. He ran the glass cutter deftly around the perimeter of the window.
“Your lunacy floors me,” Janet said. “I can’t believe you’re doing this.”
“Brings back fond memories,” Sean said. With a decisive tug, he pulled a large segment of the window glass out and laid it on the porch planking. After leaning inside, he told Janet that the alarm was a simple sash alarm which was what he’d guessed.
Sean reached in with his tools and the cooler and set them on the floor. After stepping through the window himself, he leaned back out.
“If you’re not coming in, it would be better if you waited in the car,” he said. “A beautiful woman hanging around on a funeral home porch at this hour might attract some attention. This might take me a few minutes if I find Helen’s body.”
“Give me a hand!” Janet said impulsively as she tried to follow Sean’s easy step through the window.
“Watch the edges!” Sean warned. “They’re like razors.”
Once Janet was inside, Sean hefted the tools and handed the cooler to Janet.
“Nice of them to leave the lights on for us,” he said.
The two big rooms in the front were viewing rooms. The room they’d entered was a casket display room with eight caskets exhibited. Their lids were propped open. Across a narrow
hall was an office. In the rear of the house, extending from one side to the other was the embalming room. The windows were covered with heavy drapes.
There were four stainless steel embalming tables. Two were occupied by shrouded corpses. The first was a heavyset woman who looked lifelike enough to be asleep except for the large Y-shaped, crudely sutured incision on the front of her torso. She’d been autopsied.
Moving to the second body, Sean lifted the sheet.
“Finally,” Sean said. “Here she is.”
Janet came over and mentally prepared herself before looking. The sight was less disturbing than she’d imagined. Like the other woman, Helen Cabot appeared in sleep-like repose. Her color was better than it had been in life. Over the last few days she’d become so pale.
“Too bad,” Sean commented. “She’s already been embalmed. I’ll have to forgo the blood sample.”
“She appears so natural,” Janet said.
“These embalmers must be good,” Sean said. Then he pointed to a large glass-fronted metal cabinet. “See if you can find me some needles and a scalpel.”
“What size?”
“I’m not choosy,” Sean said. “The longer the needle the better.”
Sean plugged in the jigsaw. When he tried it, it made a fearful noise.
Janet found a collection of syringes, needles, even suture material, and latex rubber gloves. But no scalpels. She brought what she’d found over to the table.
“Let’s get the cerebrospinal fluid first,” Sean said. He pulled on a pair of the gloves.
He had Janet help roll Helen onto her side so that he could insert a needle in the lumbar area between two vertebrae.
“This will only hurt for a second,” Sean said as he patted Helen’s upturned hip.
“Please,” Janet said. “Don’t joke around. You’ll only upset me more than I already am.”
To Sean’s surprise he got cerebrospinal fluid on the first try. He’d only performed the maneuver on living patients a couple of times. He filled the syringe, capped it, and put it on the ice in the cooler. Janet let Helen roll back supine.
“Now for the hard part,” he said, coming back to the embalming table. “I’m assuming you’ve seen an autopsy.”
Janet nodded. She’d seen one but it had not been a pleasant experience. She braced herself as Sean prepared.
“No scalpels?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“Good thing I got this Sheetrock knife,” Sean said. He picked up the knife and extended the blade. Then he ran it around the back of Helen’s head from one ear to the other. Grasping the top edge of the incision, Sean yanked. With the kind of ripping sound of a weed being uprooted, Helen’s scalp pulled away from her skull. Sean pulled it all the way down over Helen’s face.
He palpated the craniotomy hole on the left side of Helen’s skull that had been done at the Boston Memorial, then looked for the one on the right, the one done at Forbes two days previously.
“That’s weird,” he said. “Where the hell is the second craniotomy hole?”
“Let’s not waste time,” Janet said. Although she’d been nervous when they had entered, her anxiety was steadily increasing with each passing minute.
Sean continued to look for the second craniotomy hole, but finally gave up.
Picking up the jigsaw, he looked at Janet. “Stand back. Maybe you don’t want to watch. This isn’t going to be pretty.”
“Just do it,” Janet said.
Sean pushed the jigsaw blade into the craniotomy hole he’d found and turned the saw on. It bit into the bone and almost yanked itself out of his hands. The job would not be as easy as Sean had envisioned.
“You have to steady the head,” Sean told Janet.
Grasping either side of Helen’s face, Janet vainly tried to keep the head from jerking from side to side as Sean struggled to hold the bucking jigsaw. With great difficulty he managed to saw off a skull cap of bone. He had intended to keep the blade depth equal to the thickness of the skull, but it had been impossible. The saw blade had dug into the brain in several places, shredding the surface.
“This is disgusting,” Janet said. She straightened up and brushed herself off.
“It’s not a bone saw,” Sean admitted. “We had to improvise.”
The next part was almost as difficult. The Sheetrock knife was much larger than a scalpel, and Sean had difficulty inserting it below the brain to cut through the spinal cord and cranial nerves. He did the best he could. Then, inserting his hands on either side within the skull, he grasped the mutilated brain and yanked it out.
After taking the cold drinks out of the cooler, Sean dropped the brain onto the ice. Then he popped the top on one of the drinks and offered it to Janet. Sweat was beading his forehead.
Janet declined. She watched as he took a long drink, shaking her head in amazement. “Sometimes I don’t believe you,” she said.
Suddenly they both heard a siren. Janet panicked and started back for the display room, but Sean restrained her.
“We have to get out of here,” Janet whispered urgently.
“No,” Sean said. “They wouldn’t come with a siren. It has to be something else.”
The sound of the siren built. Janet felt her heart racing faster and faster. Just when the siren sounded as if it were coming into the house, its pitch abruptly changed.
“Doppler effect,” Sean said. “A perfect demonstration.”
“Please!” Janet pleaded. “Let’s go. We got what you wanted.”
“We have to clean up,” Sean said, putting his drink down. “This is supposed to be a clandestine operation. See if you can find a broom or a mop. I’ll put Helen back together so no one will know the difference.”
Despite her agitation, Janet did as Sean asked. She worked feverishly. When she was done, Sean was still suturing the scalp back in place using subcutaneous stitches. When he was finished, he pulled her hair over the incision. Janet was impressed. Helen Cabot’s body appeared undisturbed.
They carried the tools and the cooler back to the casket display room.
“I’ll go out first and you hand me the stuff,” Sean said. He ducked and stepped through the window.
Janet handed out the things.
“You need help?” Sean asked. His arms were full.
“I don’t think so,” Janet said. Coming in had not been that difficult.
Sean started toward the car with his bundles.
Janet mistakenly grasped the edge of the glass before stepping through. In her haste she’d forgotten Sean’s earlier warning. Feeling the razor-sharp edge cut into four of her fingers, she recoiled in pain. Glancing at her hand she saw an oozing line of blood. She clutched her hand and silently cursed.
Since she was on the inside now, she decided it would be far easier and less dangerous to get out by opening the window. There was no need to risk getting cut by the glass again. Without thinking, she undid the lock and pushed up the sash. Immediately the alarm sounded.
Struggling out the window, Janet ran after Sean. She got to the car just after he’d stashed the cooler on the floor of the back seat. In unison, they jumped into the front and Sean started the car.
“What happened?” he demanded as he pulled the car into the street.
“I forgot about the alarm,” Janet admitted. “I opened the window. I’m sorry. I told you I wasn’t good at this.”
“Well, no problem,” Sean said as he turned right at the first intersection and headed east. “We’ll be long gone before anybody responds.”
What Sean didn’t see was the man who’d come out of the liquor store. He’d responded to the alarm immediately, and he’d seen Janet and Sean getting into the 4×4. He also got a good look at the license plate. Returning inside his store he wrote down the numbers before he forgot them. Then he called the Miami police.
Sean drove back to Forbes so that Janet could get her car. By the time they pulled into the parking area, Janet had calmed down to some degree. Sean
stopped next to her rental car. She opened the door and started to get out.
“Are you coming right back to the apartment?” she asked.
“I’m going to head up to my lab,” Sean said. “You want to come?”
“I have to work tomorrow,” Janet reminded him. “And it’s been a tough day. I’m exhausted. But I’m afraid to let you out of my sight.”
“I’m not going to be long,” Sean said. “Come on! There are only a couple of things I want to do. Besides, tomorrow is Saturday and we’ll go on that little vacation I promised you. We’ll leave after you get off work.”
“Sounds like you’ve already decided where we’ll go,” Janet said.
“I have,” Sean said. “We’ll drive across the Everglades to Naples. I hear it is quite a place.”
“All right, it’s a deal,” Janet said, closing her door. “But tonight you have to get me home before midnight at the latest.”
“No problem,” Sean said as he drove around to the research building side of the parking lot.
“AT LEAST the Sushita jet hasn’t left Washington,” Sterling said. He was sitting in Dr. Mason’s office. Wayne Edwards was there too, as were Dr. Mason and Margaret Richmond. “I don’t believe Tanaka will make a move until the jet is here and available,” he added.
“But you said Sean had been followed,” Dr. Mason said. “Who was following him?”
“I was hoping you could enlighten us,” Sterling said. “Do you have any idea why someone would be following Mr. Murphy? Wayne noticed him when we crossed the Miami River.”
Dr. Mason glanced at Ms. Richmond, who shrugged. Dr. Mason looked back at Sterling. “Could this mystery individual be in the employ of Tanaka?”
“I doubt it,” Sterling said. “It’s not Tanaka’s style. If Tanaka makes a move, Sean will just disappear. There won’t be any warning. It will be smooth and professional. The individual who was following Sean was disheveled. He was wearing a soiled open-necked brown shirt and trousers. And he certainly wasn’t acting like the sort of professional Tanaka would enlist.”
