Doctored Death

by P. D. Workman

  “That’s a lot of samples.”

  “It’s most of our latest cases. What’s left... these are mostly older samples that we needed to retest for something.”

  “Are all of those cases related?”

  “No. Just because they are recent.” She didn’t tell him that Cartwright and Sexton might be related. “Most of them... I think we still have the remains, so we’ll be able to get new samples.” Kenzie looked toward the cold room. “Do you know if they... took any bodies?”

  “If you could have a look; I don’t know your cataloging system and don’t want to screw anything up.”

  “Yeah. I’ll see.”

  “Kenzie! Kenzie, are you all right?” Dr. Wiltshire hurried into the room. It was a tight space for two people, a long, narrow room with a counter, designed for one person to work at a time. Dr. Wiltshire squeezed himself in anyway and took Kenzie by the shoulder. “Are you okay? What happened? There was a break in?”

  “Yes. I don’t know who it was,” Kenzie told him. “Or how they got in.”

  “We’ll leave that to the police to sort out. I just want to make sure you are okay.”

  “Just a bump.” Kenzie indicated her head. “Nothing serious. They took samples. We have to make sure they didn’t take the bodies too.”

  “Who would do that?”

  “I don’t know. I don’t understand it...” Kenzie’s thoughts were still so scattered from the attack that she couldn’t come up with an explanation. “I don’t understand why anyone would want to break into the morgue.”

  “I’ll check the inventory. Don’t you worry about it.” Dr. Wiltshire turned to Detective Cameron. “Has someone looked at her? Checked to see if she has a concussion? Sometimes these things are more serious than they look at first.”

  “There were a couple of paramedics here. They cleared her. Said she could go to the hospital if she wanted to, but everything looked fine.”

  Dr. Wiltshire squeezed Kenzie’s shoulder again, looking worriedly into her eyes.

  Kenzie was reminded of her father holding her hand to comfort her at the same time as he was putting a listening bug in her purse. Was Dr. Wiltshire just acting? Pretending to be concerned and searching her face to see if she had any suspicions?

  But that didn’t make sense. He had known that she was coming back. He was the one person who had known that she would return to spend a couple more hours clearing files. If he had arranged a break-in, he would have known to make it later at night.

  “They were in your office too,” Kenzie told Dr. Wiltshire. “You should look to see if anything is missing. I didn’t realize... I thought you had just left stuff out. I cleaned up and didn’t even know that someone else had been in the room. I should have realized.”

  His face paled. “In my office? What are they looking for?”

  “I think... anything to do with Willis Cartwright. The samples that were taken from here were all taken since his intake. Somebody outside the office wouldn’t know how the numbering system worked. It looks like they just went by the dates on the samples.”

  “But Cartwright...”

  He didn’t have to say it. Kenzie could see exactly where he was going. “We released Cartwright today,” she finished for him.

  “Yes.” He swore and hit the heel of his hand to his forehead. “I should have known! I should not have released him!”

  “He’ll just be at the funeral home. Even if they have started the embalming, we can still get some samples. And everything that has been done so far is on the computer, all documented.”

  Cameron looked back and forth between Kenzie and Dr. Wiltshire. “What’s going on? You think this Cartwright was the target of the break-in? What is he, mob?”

  “No.” Kenzie shook her head. “An old man who died at a nursing home.”

  Cameron’s nostrils flared. “Why would anyone be interested in him?”

  Kenzie looked at Dr. Wiltshire. He shook his head. “We’ll tell you when we’re in a more secure location.”

  Cameron looked around at the various law enforcement officers who were moving around the suite. “I don’t think you can get much more secure than this.”

  “It will have to wait,” Dr. Wiltshire said firmly. “Kenzie... can you call the funeral home? Confirm that we need a hold put on the body. I’ll check in with the lab and let them know there has been a breach. They’ll want to increase their security as well. If this is about the pathogen, they may be the next target.”

  58

  Kenzie walked slowly out to her desk to sit on her own chair and be surrounded by her familiar things while she made the call. She didn’t want to search for the phone number on her phone while leaning against the counter in a place where she had just been attacked, trying to keep her balance on shaking legs while her head whirled with disconnected thoughts and vertigo.

  She sat for a few minutes, just trying to regain her equilibrium. Then she pulled up her electronic contact list and checked to see which funeral home had picked up Mr. Cartwright’s remains.

  After talking to the funeral home, she tried to call Dr. Wiltshire, but his phone rang through to voicemail. He was probably on the phone with the lab. Or talking to one of the cops there. He would either call her or come find her when he was ready. She opened her email to work through a few other chores while waiting for him to free himself. She should call Zachary and let him know that she would be later than expected. Except she didn’t know yet how long she would be and she didn’t want him freaking out over her having been assaulted in the midst of the robbery. She wasn’t badly hurt. When she could see him face to face, she would tell him about it, when the evidence that she was okay would be right in front of his eyes.

  She logged in to her email, but the system kept asking for her password and then not accepting it. She had a strong suspicion there was a problem with the server, which she couldn’t fix. The tech guys would have to fix it in the morning. Kenzie probably wasn’t the only one locked out.

  She tried to get into the file system and ran into the same problem. Definitely the server, then. There would be a lot of people screaming by the time the techies got it sorted out. Kenzie didn’t know if the problem was localized to their own space on the server or whether it would affect all the law enforcement in the building. She hoped the techies got a good sleep, because they would need to use all their brain cells in the morning.

  So she played solitaire on her phone until Dr. Wiltshire made his way out to her desk.

  “Oh, there you are. How are you managing?”

  “Fine. I should head home soon. I don’t want Zachary worrying, especially if word of this leaks out before I can get there.”

  “Yes. You should be able to be on your way in a few minutes. I’m hoping that you talked to the funeral home and they agreed to hold the body until we can get more samples?”

  “I got the funeral home—”

  “Good. That’s a relief!”

  “There is a problem, though.”

  “They wouldn’t argue with the Medical Examiner’s request to hold the body, would they?”

  “It’s too late. He’s already been cremated.”

  Dr. Wiltshire’s face looked long and drawn, worse than Kenzie had ever seen him on his worst days. He shook his head, looking at her with eyes as hollow as Zachary’s.

  “What is it?” Kenzie asked. “The lab still has samples there. And we have all of the imaging and test results in our file system.”

  “I talked to the lab.” Dr. Wiltshire shook his head. “Kenzie... they were broken into as well. A security guard is in serious condition. All of their physical samples are gone.”

  It was no coincidence, then. It wasn’t a coincidence that the body had been cremated and all the samples burgled the same day. That left them only the electronic files and the print copies that were in Dr. Wiltshire’s office. Kenzie looked at her computer. She wanted to reassure Dr. Wiltshire that not all was lost. They still had access to everything they needed
in the file system. Only she couldn’t log in. There was a computer glitch that wouldn’t be solved until the morning, at least.

  “We still have our files.”

  “When you cleaned up my office, did you see any of the Cartwright reports?”

  “No. They would be in your...” Kenzie trailed off as Dr. Wiltshire shook his head.

  “Everything couldn’t be gone,” Kenzie insisted. “There’s no way anyone could wipe everything out. What about back-ups? Offsite storage?”

  “The lab is going to check theirs. I’m going to give tech support a call tonight to have them look at the system.” Dr. Wiltshire nodded to Kenzie’s computer. He had apparently tried to log in as well and come to the same conclusion as Kenzie. “If they can’t get it up and running... I’ll ask them to restore what they can from backup. Assuming that hasn’t been destroyed too.”

  They just looked at each other, unwilling to believe that any third party could have had the audacity to do what had apparently been done. A brute force attack on the Medical Examiner’s Office, both physically and electronically. Wiping out everything they had on the Cartwright case.

  “What did the lab say about their backups?” Kenzie asked tentatively.

  “Savage is quite sure that they have everything saved to several physical and cloud drives. He says that everything is backed up multiple times in multiple places. They’ve been working hard to map out the virus’s genome, figuring out where each piece of RNA originated. He said this may slow them down for a day, but they’ll have everything up and running soon. Even without the physical evidence, they still have the raw genome data.”

  Kenzie walked slowly out to the parking garage. She was feeling more unsteady than she would like to admit, though the lump on her head wasn’t throbbing anymore. She still didn’t know what to think of everything that had happened. It seemed absurd, like something that would happen in a Jason Bourne movie on TV, not in real life. Fantastical and far-fetched.

  “Dr. Kirsch.”

  “Hi.” Kenzie gave the guard a nod and kept walking.

  “Dr. Kirsch, wait.”

  Kenzie waited. She supposed that they had higher security protocols in place than usual after what had happened. They would want to make sure that everything was buttoned down and no one else could walk out with evidence. She turned to Frank, the guard, expecting him to demand to see her security card or to wand her with the metal detector. He got closer to her, what felt like uncomfortably close, but maybe that we just because of what Kenzie had been through that evening. She didn’t want anyone getting too close to her.

  “I have a message for you.”

  Kenzie blinked. “A message?” She frowned, thinking about her father and now the men who had attacked her and stolen evidence from the office. Now someone wanted to warn her off? Someone else?

  “Your... friend. He said that you should call him.”

  “What friend?”

  “That private investigator.” The guard pulled a business card out of his shirt pocket. One of Zachary’s. “Him.”

  Kenzie pulled her phone out to look at it. Zachary hadn’t sent her any messages or tried to reach her, even though it was getting late enough that she had been expecting to hear from him. Was her phone dead? In airplane mode? Had they messed with her stupid phone too?

  “He said he didn’t want to worry you,” Frank explained. “He said that if you knew...” He went slowly, trying to get it right. “If you knew he knew what had happened to you, then you would be worried about him, so no one was to tell you until you were out.”

  Kenzie gave a weak laugh. Just like she had avoided calling Zachary because she didn’t want him to be worrying about her. He had known what was going on but had let her think that he didn’t.

  “How did he know?”

  “He’s a private investigator.” Frank shrugged. “Don’t ask me where he gets his information.”

  “So I’m supposed to call him?”

  “Yeah. Before you get into your car.”

  Kenzie case a nervous glance toward her baby. “Why?” she asked tentatively, “What’s happened to my car?”

  “Nothing, nothing,” he held up his hands for her to stop. “Your car is here, safe and sound. But he didn’t want you driving.”

  “Of course.” Kenzie tapped Zachary’s picture on her phone and waited for him to pick up. Usually, she had to wait for a few rings, and sometimes he didn’t even hear her call and she had to try him several times before he was able to pull himself from what he was doing to realize she was trying to get him.

  But this time, it was only one ring. “Kenzie?”

  “Hey. I’m done. And Frank says I’m supposed to call you.”

  “Uh, yeah.” Zachary gave an uncomfortable, coughing laugh. “I hope you don’t mind. I didn’t think you should drive.”

  “I’m fine. And it’s not far.”

  “I’m parked on the street. Just come out, I’ll drive you home. I’ll drop you in the morning, and Frank will make sure your baby is fine tonight.”

  “You don’t need to do that.”

  “I’m already here.”

  Kenzie stood there, stymied. It wasn’t really that she even wanted to drive, just that she had planned to, and she was finding it remarkably difficult to change directions. She was usually a flexible person who could weigh all the solutions and pick the one that worked best at the moment, even if it weren’t her original plan. But apparently, when she was traumatized and had been hit over the head, it wasn’t so easy. Maybe that gave her some insight into Zachary or others she knew who could be very rigid about their plans or routines and had difficulty changing direction when another avenue opened up.

  “Where are you?”

  “In front of the building. I would have parked at the back entrance, but I didn’t want you walking into the alley where it is dark. Nice and bright out front.”

  “Yeah. That’s probably a good idea.”

  Kenzie waved to Frank and changed directions, exiting out the front of the building instead. There were more guards there, and since she usually entered and left via the parking garage, they didn’t know her as well as Frank. Her ID was checked several times. The guard who appeared to be most senior knew who she was.

  “You were injured, Dr. Kirsch?”

  “Just a bump on the head,” Kenzie explained, slightly embarrassed. “He knocked me down.”

  “You’re not driving home, are you? Do you need a cab? You should have taken the ambulance to the hospital...”

  “It isn’t that bad—just a bump. And my boyfriend is picking me up. He didn’t want me driving either, apparently.”

  “Where is he?”

  Kenzie indicated the front doors.

  “I’ll walk you out,” he told her.

  “You don’t need to do that. I’m quite able to walk out on my own.”

  “I’ll walk you to your ride,” he insisted.

  “Fine.” Kenzie let him walk her out of the building. She pointed to Zachary’s white compact and the guard walked her slowly down the stairs, watching for any sign that she was unsteady and might need him to swoop in and catch her.

  Kenzie made it to the car without mishap. Zachary didn’t get out of the car to consult with the guard, as Kenzie had been afraid he would. He just leaned over and kissed her on the cheek after she got in. “How are you? Is everything okay?”

  Kenzie pulled her car door shut and waved at the guard.

  “Yes. Everyone is overreacting. I just got knocked down. Bumped my head, and not even hard. The paramedics were not concerned. No concussion.”

  “Good.” Zachary waited while Kenzie fumbled with her seatbelt. Eventually she managed to get the metal tongue into the buckle and snap it into place. Then he pulled out and drove toward her house without any further argument about her physical condition.

  59

  When they got home, Kenzie noted that Zachary disarmed the burglar alarm after unlocking the door.

  “I did
n’t think I’d be long, but I figured... we don’t need any unexpected guests around here.”

  “No,” Kenzie agreed. “I don’t have a clue how they got into the office. We have security. They shouldn’t have been able to.”

  “I think it must have been through the ambulance bay.”

  That made sense. There were guards at all the public entrances, but for the loading dock, you had to be let in from inside or have the special clicker to get in, so there were no guards checking IDs. But that meant that they’d somehow gotten ahold of someone’s clicker or they had fooled the system into thinking they had one. Forcing the door would have set off alarms.

  “You’re probably right,” she agreed.

  Zachary steered Kenzie to the table to sit down. He hadn’t prepared anything for dinner and Kenzie didn’t have the energy to make anything. They would have to order in.

  But as she watched Zachary, he placed two bowls on the table, followed by the ice cream. A couple of half-pint containers with their current favorite flavors. He put glasses in front of each place setting and pulled an unopened bottle of wine out of the fridge.

  “Ice cream and wine? Is this dinner?” Kenzie demanded. “A bit... bohemian, don’t you think?”

  He poured her a glass of wine and got a cola out of the fridge for himself. He poured it into his glass. “I don’t know what that means.”

  “Oh... well, sort of free-spirited and nonconformist.”

  “Ah.” He waited for his drink to stop fizzing and then topped it off. “Then yes. Tonight, we are being bohemian.”

  Kenzie picked up her glass and had a sip before even dishing up her ice cream. She closed her eyes and tried to relax, letting the stress of the day go.

  “Thank you for this. And for picking me up.” She opened her eyes and looked at him. “How are you not having a meltdown about this?”

  “You need me.” He shrugged, studying her closely. “I’m worried, but the most important thing is for me to be there for you. That makes me... stronger. When the problem is just in my head, it’s easier to get overwhelmed by my own thoughts and feelings. When it’s an actual crisis, someone needs my help... It’s different.”