“Why are you suddenly including me?” I asked. “Want this job,” he said. “Need your help. Warden treated me like shit one too many times. Hold on. Here we go.”
The line clicked and beeped and we were joined by the pathologist.
“Go ahead, Doc,” Lawson said.
Because it was a multi-line conference call, the connection was airy and very difficult to hear.
“The victim was dead before he was hung,” the voice I didn’t recognize said.
Everything was being made to look like something other than what it was. Murders staged to look like suicides. Same thing done to Andy Bearden and Danny Jacobs.
“Y’all were right about the lividity,” he continued. “He died facedown and then stayed there for several hours before he was hung. The bruises on his neck indicates strangulation. We also found bruising at the base of the skull where the murderer exerted pressure. The vessels in the neck were occluded, the face and neck were congested and dark red. There were also some abrasions and contusions on the neck from the force required to kill him. It fractured the hyoid bone . . . thyroid cartilage. Everything I found is consistent with manual strangulation.”
“Which is what we thought,” Lawson said. “Any surprises?” I asked.
“Yeah, a big one. It’s not in his medical records, but this young man had one of his kidney’s removed.”
“Why is that a big surprise?” Lawson asked. “Because,” he said, “it was done very recently.”
The pathologist hung up. Lawson searched through Allen’s file. I waited.
“Allen hasn’t been to an outside hospital the entire time he’s been locked up,” Lawson said when he came back on the line. “That mean what I think it does?”
“Either he was taken out secretly, unofficially . . . or it was removed inside.”
“How the hell could an inmate have an organ removed inside the prison?”
I told him everything I knew about Alvarez and Baldwin, their shadowy pasts, their suspicious behavior, their involvement with Danny and Lance and Brent, and what I had learned about hypnosis.
“She can really make ’em stop bleeding and forget they were operated on?”
“It’s possible.”
“Why would they—”
“Why do people do most of the evil they do?” I said. “Money.”
Something inside me jangled ever so slightly. Why?
What was it? Money. Life insurance policies. Last will and testaments. Greed. Subterfuge. Black market organs.
Blackmail. That could be it. Money motive after all. Just not through life insurance. Private coercion and humiliation, not public. Private motives, not political ones.
“What about the scar?” he said.
“Baldwin probably gives them some explanation to believe while they’re under that she and the doc reinforce when they’re conscious again—tells them it’s a cut or something. I don’t know. I’m just guessing.”
“I’ve got to notify the IG, FDLE, the—”
“Yes you do,” I said.
“Then what?” he asked.
“Do I try to detain them? Hold them ’til—”
“Don’t tip them off. Just don’t let them be alone with anyone. Make sure they can’t cut on anyone else.”
Juan Alvarez had arrived at the clinic he owned in Panama City shortly after six in the evening. No one had gone in or come out since then.
The front of the clinic, the waiting room and reception area, were dark, but lights burned in the back where the exam rooms were located.
Merrill and I were parked across the street in the lot of a closed insurance office. Waiting. Ironically, it was my inability to wait that had us here. Soon, several agencies, including FDLE, Potter and Bay County Sheriff Offices, and the Tallahassee and Panama City Police Departments would be investigating Alvarez and Baldwin, but that kind of bureaucratic cooperation took time, moved very slowly, and waiting for it could get more people hurt or killed.
We were close. I could feel it. We had momentum.
Waiting would endanger more lives, and truthfully, selfishly, I wanted to see this to the end.
If the other agencies showed up, Merrill and I would back away quietly. If they didn’t, we’d try not to do anything to jeopardize the case they would eventually try to make.
“You really think they selling inmates’ spare parts on eBay?” Merrill asked.
“I doubt they’re using eBay.”
“Wonder how long they been at it?”
“Haven’t been at PCI long,” I said. “Couldn’t have done many. No telling what they did before they washed up there. People like them do damage everywhere they go.”
He nodded. “Think they targeted the Kings or—”
“Probably start with inmates who spend a lot of time in Medical or Psychology, then narrow those down by blood type and ease of induction.”
“Ease of what?”
“Their ability to be hypnotized.”
Lights shone on the street, and a black Mercedes pulled in and parked near the side entrance of the clinic.
A young Hispanic man jumped out and ran inside. “We crash the party now,” Merrill said, “or wait until—”
Before he could finish his sentence, the young man rushed out of the clinic carrying an orange ice chest with red medical stickers that clashed with the cooler.
He jumped into his car and sped off. We followed.
He led us out of the downtown district and across town on side streets, Merrill lying back, as often as possible keeping a few cars between us.
He was probably not expecting a tail, but even if he were, I doubt he could spot Merrill. In any event, he didn’t seem to notice much of anything. He was too busy trying to look cool as he nodded his head to the beat. My guess was the only time he looked in the rearview mirror was to see himself.
Eventually, he led us to the airport.
He pulled into long-term parking and we followed.
He got a time-and-date stamped ticket and so did we.
Merrill pulled in beside the Mercedes, putting my door next to the driver’s. I waited until he was out of his car before I shoved my door into him.
The door struck him in the back and slammed him up against his car. But before I could get all the way out the door, he swung around and drew a gun from a shoulder holster and pointed it at me.
The sound of Merrill’s .357 as he thumbed back the hammer and placed it just behind the guy’s ear got his attention.
He lowered his gun and handed it to Merrill.
I climbed out of Merrill’s truck and closed the door. “What’s your name?”
“Justo.”
“Justo who?”
“Alvarez.”
“How’re you related to Juan?”
“He’s my uncle. Sort of.”
“What brings you to the airport tonight?”
“To visit relatives.”
“Where?” Merrill asked.
“Miami,” he said, cutting his eyes toward Merrill nervously, not daring to turn his head.
“Cool-looking suitcase you got there,” I said, nodding toward the orange ice chest he was holding.
“It is a present for my mother.”
“She need a transplant?”
His mouth actually fell open. “What is it?”
He didn’t say anything.
“Obvious he a brain donor,” Merrill said.
“You do not understand. It is a special pie I made for her.”
“You made your mother a pie?” Merrill said. “Well, not me, but my aunt.”
He was just saying the first thing that came to his mind, and as lame as it was, it was the story he was sticking to.
“She is very ill and I bring her what she loves when I visit her.”
“That why it has medical stickers on it?” I asked. He nodded. “Si. Yes.”
“Open it,” Merrill said. “I like homemade pie.”
“It will ruin it if I open the container.�
��
Without moving the gun, Merrill used his other hand to grab the container and hand it to me.
I broke the medical seal with a key and opened it. Inside was a human kidney on ice.
“I am trying to save a life,” he said. “Please. I implore you.”
“Well, hell,” Merrill said, “why didn’t you say so sooner. We didn’t realize you were imploring us.”
“Please.”
“Tell us what the fuck’s going on,” Merrill said. He shook his head.
“You rather tell the police?” I asked. “Tell us and you walk.”
“Don’t tell us,” Merrill added, “you may never walk again.”
He seemed to consider this a moment.
Eventually, Merrill hit him in the back of the neck with the butt of his gun.
“He harvests organs and sells them to wealthy people around the world. They go from here to Miami and then to Cuba or Mexico. Sometime other places.”
“Who’s giving up their organs?” I asked. Merrill added, “And are they doing it willingly?”
“Inmates mainly,” he said. “Sometimes women who come to his clinic for abortions. Can I go now?”
“He use Dr. Baldwin to hypnotize them?” I asked. “The prison shrink lady? Yeah.”
“For anesthesia? To make them forget?”
“Both, I believe . . . and . . . to stop the bleeding.
Please. We’re saving lives. No one is getting hurt.”
“How you figure that?” Merrill said.
“We are stopping anyway. Uncle wants out. One more. That’s it. Then no more.”
“One more?” I asked. “Si.”
“After this one?”
“Si.”
That’s it, I thought. “I’ve got to call the institution.” I pulled out my phone and punched in the number. “Why he quittin’?” Merrill asked.
Justo shrugged.
“Danny and Brent dying,” I said. “Too much heat.”
“Don’t think your ass ain’t testifying against these sick fucks,” Merrill said. “You said I could go.”
“No, he said you could walk. I said—”
Shots began to ring out, pocking metal, shattering glass all around us.
Merrill and I dove to the ground and rolled for cover. Justo fell to the ground after being shot twice in the chest. He was dead.
When the shots stopped we jumped up to see the Hispanic cowboy who had warned me off at the convenience store speeding out of the parking lot.
He yelled, “Hey amigo. I shot someone now, haven’t I? Mother fuck.”
Chapter Forty-four
I was racing back toward the institution in Merrill’s truck.
He was at the airport awaiting the arrival of the cops.
“Sure,” he’d said before I left, “leave the black man to deal with the police. What could go wrong?”
On my way, I called Dad and had him call the sheriff of Bay County and ask him to personally respond to the scene to preclude the possibility of anything going wrong.
I then called the institution and asked the control room sergeant to find the inspector for me and to let me know if Alvarez or Baldwin try to reenter the prison.
“John, they’re both already here,” she said.
“Find the inspector,” I said. “Have him call me as soon as possible.”
When I reached the institution, I ran to the control room.
In the parking lot not far from Alvarez’s and Baldwin’s cars, I saw Hahn’s. The way I had things figured, she wasn’t involved in any of this. Was I wrong? Had she been playin’ me all along?
“Inspector’s not answering his phone.”
“Keep trying. Tell him I’m in Medical. To get down there as soon as he can.”
The control room sergeant buzzed me in and I jogged down the dark compound and entered Medical.
The empty waiting room was dim, the hallways eerily quiet.
Mom is dead.
The unbidden thought rose out of the darkness and silence, and I was overcome by an oppressive sadness.
Pausing a moment, I leaned against the wall in the narrow hall, squinting against tears and trying to catch my breath.
The heaviness on my chest was severe, the hollowness inside cavernous, and I was separated from everything, even my own body, by a great dark distance.
Wasn’t really until this moment that I realized the extent to which I was still in shock.
How is this possible? We weren’t close. I was prepared. I dealt with death all the time.
I started laughing. It was all I could do in the face of such thoughts. I should know better, but I had been reduced by the great reducer, regressed by death.
“I want you to continue to focus and concentrate on that spot,” Bailey Baldwin was saying to Lance Phillips, “and listen fully as I speak to you. As you focus on that spot, I’d like you to begin by just resting back in the way that’s most comfortable for you.”
Lance had been sitting up in an infirmary bed. Now, he was lying back on the stack of pillows.
“Good,” Baldwin continued. “As you recline, you begin to notice the feelings and sensations in your body. Just notice some of them. For instance, as you continue staring at the spot, you may become aware of your feet, or you may become aware of the bed you’re lying on, how soft it is, how comfortable. And as you do, you can pay attention to your breathing, and the sensations you experience with every breath you take.”
I was standing near the open door of the infirmary, the dark hallway hiding my presence. From where I stood, I could see not only Baldwin hypnotizing Lance, but Alvarez preparing for surgery in the first exam room.
“As you continue concentrating on that spot, I’m going to begin to count. Each time I say an odd number, I’d like you to close your eyes. Each time I say an even number, I’d like you to open them and see that spot again. So, when I say one, you will close your eyes, and when I say two, you will open your eyes. Do you understand?”
Lance nodded very slowly.
“Close your eyes on each odd number and open them on each even number,” she said. “And as you open and close your eyes, they will begin to become more and more tired and relaxed, until before long, they’ll feel so tired that they’ll simply remain closed. And then you will sink into a very peaceful hypnotic sleep.
“One. Two. Three. Allow your body to become more and more comfortable and at ease. Four. Become aware of that spot again. Five. Six. Seven. Your comfort is increasing. You are relaxing. Eight. Nine. Just let go. Ten. Eleven.
Twelve. Now, your eyelids stick. You can’t open them . . . It’s okay. Be at peace. Perfect peace. Total rest. After this procedure, you’ll never have felt so rested and so well in all your life.”
The door to the exam room opened, and I ducked into the nurses’ station.
Alvarez walked into the infirmary wearing green surgical scrubs, his thick black-and-gray hair covered by a sterile green head covering.
I pulled out my phone and began to record.
After a few moments, they rolled him out of the infirmary, down across the hall, and into the exam room.
I followed.
I recorded as they continued to make all the preparations, then snuck back into the nurses’ station to call security. I didn’t think handling Alvarez or Baldwin would be a problem, but it’d be nice to have more witnesses to what was going on.
I punched in the number for the control room. The officer on duty answered on the second ring. “Did y’all find the inspector?” I whispered.
“Hold on. Let me check with the sergeant,” she said. “It’s the chaplain. You find the inspector yet? Hold on, she’s on the phone now. You still looking for Miss Ling?
She’s on her way out. I can—”
“Yeah. Let me speak to her.”
“John?” Hahn said. “Where are you?”
“Brent Allen’s grandfather was the motive,” I said. “Find the OIC. I need backup in—”
Some
thing bit me on the neck. I slapped at it, hitting a hard plastic object and a . . . what? Hand?
I spun around to see Alvarez standing there with a syringe.
I swung at him, but my knees buckled and I fell to the floor.
“What’d you give . . .” was all I could get out.
From the fallen receiver next to me on the floor I could hear Hahn, but I couldn’t respond, couldn’t . . .
Everything grew dim, distancing itself from me, as if I were sinking into a . . .
“They’re criminals,” Baldwin was saying. “You really think it’s wrong to save an innocent person’s life by taking an organ a criminal can live without?”
I tried to say something but was unable.
“He cannot respond,” Alvarez said. “All he can do is breathe and blink.”
“Well, we’re saving lives and I want him to know.
Innocent lives. People who deserve to live, who are doing good in the world, not killing and stealing and cheating and hurting their wives and abandoning their children like these poor excuses for human beings we’re removing non-essential organs from.”
The two thieves hovered over me, their faces floating in and out of view.
I was lying on one of the infirmary beds, unable to do anything but breathe and blink, wondering if the death that seemed to always surround me was about to lay claim to me.
“This gives us the second kidney we were looking for,” Alvarez said.
“His?” she asked, nodding toward me, eyes wide. “I don’t have time to put him under and—”
“There is no need. We are leaving.”
“Well, be quick.”
He drifted away from view and I wondered if he was already slicing me open.
“He’s looking at us,” Baldwin said. “Can’t you put him to sleep?”
I didn’t hear him answer, but within another few moments, unconsciousness rolled in on me. I fought to stay awake, to keep my eyes open, but . . .
Chapter Forty-five
When I woke up, I was lying on a bed in the infirmary, Merrill looking down at me.
I tried to sit up, but only got part of the way. In the process, I noticed a needle in my arm.
“IV,” he said. “They pumpin’ out the shit Alvarez put in you.”
“Where is . . .”
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