Case File 13 #2

by J. Scott Savage

  Dr. Hollingsworth ran her fingers distractedly through her hair, taking in the group. “When you said you had a homework assignment, I thought you were bringing Tiffany and Dana.”

  Angie shot Nick a warning look. “Nick is very interested in a medical career. But if it’s any trouble they can come back another time.”

  Nick got the message. Angie hadn’t told her mother the real reason they were at the hospital. He’d better keep his mouth shut about the fact that this wasn’t exactly a school project or risk getting booted out.

  “We’re also filming for a school project,” Nick said, holding up the video camera. “Kids need to know how important doctors are to our future.”

  Carter jumped into the role enthusiastically. “Doctors are the bomb. So do you really cut people open? Is it cool or totally gross?” He pointed to a row of square metal lockers set into the wall. “Is that where you put the bodies? What do you do with the guts?”

  Dr. Hollingsworth chuckled uncomfortably as though not quite sure how to respond. Carter tended to have that effect on adults.

  “I’m sure as a pathologist you do a lot more than autopsies,” Dana said.

  Angie’s mom relaxed visibly. “As a matter of fact I do. If you want to follow me, I’ll show you the laboratory where I examine biopsies and test tissue samples.”

  What do you do with the guts? Tiffany mouthed silently as the kids followed Dr. Hollingsworth. Carter held out his hands palms up.

  Angelo, who was fiddling with the dials on his box again, whispered to Nick, “Keep her occupied with the camera. I want to check something,” before disappearing back into the morgue.

  For the next thirty minutes, the doctor pointed out microscopes, test tubes, and a bunch of equipment Nick was sure his science teacher would go gaga over. Nick had hoped for something a little more shocking to put in their movie. He suspected she was purposefully avoiding certain parts of her job. Halfway through the tour Angelo slipped back in with the group.

  “Did you find anything?” Dana whispered.

  “Maybe,” Angelo whispered back, mysteriously. “I won’t know for sure until we get outside.”

  “That was really interesting, Mom,” Angie said, when they finished the tour. She waved her hand behind her back in a come-on gesture, and the other kids quickly joined in.

  “Yeah.”

  “It was great. Kids will be so inspired.”

  “Thanks for the tour. I bet we’ll get an A.”

  “I was especially fascinated by the cytometer,” Angelo said. Personally Nick thought that was a little over the top. But Dr. Hollingsworth seemed pleased, and knowing Angelo, it might be true.

  Angie ran a hand across her mother’s desk, and shifted around a stack of paper clips. “So, is it, um, true that a pair of bodies really disappeared last night?”

  The doctor’s eyes immediately went from kind to suspicious. Nick quickly turned off the camera. “Where did you hear that?” Dr. Hollingsworth demanded.

  Angie shrugged. “Oh, just around.”

  The skin across the doctor’s forehead tightened. “Well, I don’t know who’s saying what. There may have been a slipup in paperwork by an assistant who is no longer employed here. But I can tell you for a fact that no bodies disappear from this morgue.”

  “Is it possible someone snuck in?” Nick asked.

  Angie’s mother pointed to the entry door. “Did you see the card reader out there?”

  Nick nodded.

  “No one comes in or out without scanning their I.D. I’ve been chief pathologist here for nearly ten years. And not once during that time has a body gone missing under my watch.” It was clear the tour had taken a direction she wasn’t happy with.

  “Well, thanks for the information,” Nick said. “This will make an awesome report.”

  “If I ever die, I hope you’re the one who cuts me open,” Carter said.

  Dr. Hollingsworth noticed Angelo’s notebook. “I can assume you won’t be putting anything about missing bodies in your report?”

  “Absolutely not.” Angelo tucked his notebook quickly away in his pack. “I’m going to write about what an amazing service pathologists provide to the community and how honored I would be to follow in your footsteps.”

  The doctor bit her lower lip. “Yes, well, it’s time for all of you to be getting home. You’ve got reports to write.”

  “Sure.” Angie gave her mom a hug and a kiss on the cheek. “I’ll see you in the morning, Mom.”

  As the kids filed out into the hallway, Nick inspected the door more closely. The lock looked solid and he couldn’t think of any way someone could trick the card reader. “Maybe it really was just a paperwork mistake,” he said when they were back outside. “It might not have anything to do with the cemetery at all.”

  “My mom wouldn’t lie,” Angie said, daring anyone to disagree with her.

  “I’m sure she believes it was a clerical error,” Angelo said. “But someone took one or more bodies through this door recently. And from what I can tell the corpses were at least a couple of days old.”

  Nick stared at his friend. He knew Angelo was smart, but this was too much.

  “There’s no possible way you could know that,” Dana said.

  “I couldn’t. But this can.” Angelo held up the metal box. Looking at it more closely, Nick could see a dial going from one to one hundred. Two knobs beside it were labeled BASE and SENSITIVITY. At the top of the box was a red light, and underneath it was a kind of funnel-looking thing with a tiny fan inside.

  “Let me guess,” Carter said. “It’s a Super Deluxe Automatic Body Finder. As seen on TV.”

  “You are so lame,” Tiffany said.

  “Actually he’s not as far off as you might think.” Angelo adjusted the sensitivity dial until the red light began to flash slowly. From somewhere inside the box came a soft, beep, beep, beep. “This is sort of an electrical bloodhound. It uses A.S.T. to track different smells.”

  “A.S.T.,” Dana said, her eyes lighting up. “I thought it looked familiar.”

  Angie didn’t seem impressed. “Does someone here want to tell me what ast is?”

  “Not ast, A.S.T.” Dana put a hand gently onto the device as though it were the Holy Grail. “Aroma sensing technology. It’s a high-tech, extremely sensitive tool for comparing one smell to another. Perfume companies use it to develop their scents. And car companies use it to make sure their cars have the right ‘new car’ smell. But these things cost like a hundred thousand dollars.”

  “Retail,” Angelo agreed. “Maybe even a little more. I built it for about sixty bucks using stuff from Radio Shack, parts from a broken laptop, and some old biology equipment my mom’s college was getting rid of.”

  Nick shook his head. “Buddy, I’m not gonna lie. You are a freaking genius. But what does any of this have to do with finding a body?”

  “Let me guess,” Dana said. “You calibrated your device to sniff out the aroma signature of a decaying corpse. Pure genius!”

  Angelo blushed.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Nick said, his head spinning. “You’re saying this box of yours can tell us where the stolen bodies are?”

  “It’s not that easy.” Angelo adjusted the sensitivity and the beeping got a little louder. “I can’t tell you what body I’m following. Or who took it. But I can tell you, based on the aroma signature, approximately how long the body was dead. I adjusted my settings based on a corpse from one of the lockers inside the mortuary. If we’re lucky, we might be able to follow where the body was taken from here. Like a dog tracking a scent.”

  Angelo began swinging the box left and right. Depending on where he moved the box, the dial went up or down and the red light flashed quicker or slower. “It looks like they took the bodies down the ramp,” he said. “And across the parking lot.”

  Slowly, the six of them crossed the asphalt away from the light of the building.

  “You think maybe we should come back in the morning?” Car
ter asked. “You know, when we can see better, in case some crazed maniac decides he’d rather have live bodies than dead ones?”

  But Angelo wasn’t listening. “I think I’ve got something.” He jogged to the edge of the parking lot, his sensor beeping more and more quickly. “Right here,” he said, stopping at the edge of a field of high, dead grass.

  Nick leaned forward and pushed back the grass. There, just where Angelo had led them, was a pile of bones with bits of flesh still clinging to them.

  Tiffany screamed and backed away from the grisly scene.

  “Now can we call the police?” Carter begged, looking like he was going to throw up.

  Angie stared at the pile of bones, ash-faced, and Nick’s stomach rolled over with a sick thudding that felt like he’d gone on the carnival Tilt-A-Whirl ride one too many times. “Carter’s right,” he said softly. “This is something we need to turn over to adults. Preferably adults with badges and guns.”

  Angelo cradled his sensor, his dark eyes huge. Surprisingly, Dana seemed hardly affected at all. She knelt at the edge of the grass, examined the bones, and actually picked one of them up.

  “What are you doing?” Nick yelled. “This is a crime scene.”

  Dana turned the bone over, smearing her fingers a dark red and Nick knew he was going to hurl. Dana returned the bone to the pile, and picked up a ball of wadded paper smeared with the same dark red. Nick had seen enough TV crime shows to know they were going to be in huge trouble for interfering with clues.

  Dana unfolded the paper, looked at what was on it, and nodded. “The police might be interested all right. But only if they’re really hungry.”

  “What are you talking about?” Nick asked.

  “My nose might not be quite as sensitive as Angelo’s box, but . . .” She sniffed a red stain on the paper, and Carter slapped a hand to his mouth, gagging. “If I’m not mistaken it’s sweet and tangy.”

  Nick was sure she’d gone totally off her rocker until she showed them the paper and he read the words printed on it. “Big Al’s Southern Bar-B-Q.”

  For a moment no one said a word. Then Tiffany began to giggle. Carter made a sound that was half laughter, half moan.

  Ribs. Barbecued ribs. Nick couldn’t believe it. But now that he wasn’t scared out of his mind, he saw what Dana had seen all along. The bones were far too small to be human. What he’d taken for torn flesh was bits of pork and what his mind convinced him was blood was only sauce.

  “Barbecue.” Angie guffawed. “Your high-tech gizmo led us to somebody’s leftover lunch. Maybe if you readjust the settings it can find Carter another pizza.”

  Angelo stared at his device, dumbfounded.

  Nick knew he shouldn’t, but he couldn’t help laughing. First a little chuckle. Then louder. Finally, he was laughing so hard, tears rolled from his eyes. All around him everyone except Angelo was doing the exact same thing—fear turning to relief. Carter fell on the ground, pounding the asphalt with his hands and howling, “Call the cops. Somebody stole a perfectly good meal!”

  “I don’t understand how this could have happened,” Angelo said.

  That just made the other kids laugh all the harder.

  “Stop it,” Dana cried, waving the food wrapper like a white flag. “I’m gonna puke.”

  “Right in the middle of Angelo’s crime scene,” Angie gasped.

  Angelo tapped the dial on his box and twisted the knobs. “It doesn’t make sense. I’m sure I calibrated it for the scent of human decay.”

  Nick wiped his eyes. He looked toward Dana, who was laughing so hard she’d started to hiccup, still waving the white wrapper. Something about the wrapper caught his attention. “Can I see that for a minute?”

  “Sure.” Dana giggled. “Just tell me—hic—you’re not going to—hic—lick off the sauce.”

  Nick grinned. He turned the wrapper over and his laughter slowly faded to confusion. There was something written on the back. It wasn’t exactly words. More like shapes. Triangles, circles, and X’s, with strange squiggles connecting them.

  Angelo looked over his shoulder. “Hieroglyphics?”

  Angie joined them, her laughter drying up too. “It looks like some kind of code.”

  The rest of the group circled around Nick to examine the strange shapes. Dana took one look and shook her head. “It’s not a code. And it’s not hieroglyphics.”

  “How can you be sure?” Tiffany asked. She tilted her head as though the writing might make more sense sideways.

  Dana took the paper and flattened it out. “My dad was a coach for ten years. This looks just like what he used to write on his whiteboard. It’s not a code. It’s football plays. Look.” She traced the lines with her finger. “This is the offensive line. The arrows show where they’re supposed to block. This line shows the quarterback is going to roll out to his left and toss the ball to the halfback. Each of these patterns is a different play.”

  “So what?” Carter said. “Some sports nut had dinner here and littered. What does it matter?”

  “It probably doesn’t,” Nick said. But something one of the ghosts had told him was nagging at the back of his mind. “What if Angelo’s sensor didn’t malfunction?”

  “Of course it malfunctioned,” Tiffany said. “It led us to a pile of pork ribs.”

  “Which would make sense,” Angelo said, “if whoever stole the bodies also ate the ribs.”

  “It’s too much of a coincidence.” Dana crumpled up the wrapper. “You’re saying some guy stole a couple of bodies, then waited around in the hospital parking lot eating a snack?”

  Angie snapped her fingers. “Or he sat around in the parking lot eating while he waited for his chance to steal the bodies. Eating and drawing football plays.”

  Nick remembered what it was that had been bothering him. “Stenson called one of the men who stole the bodies from the cemetery the pale one.”

  Angie’s mouth dropped open, then snapped shut. “The coach,” she said. “From the football game. I remember looking at Sumina Prep’s coach at the end of the game and thinking how old he looked. Old and weird, with a white beard and—”

  “Pale skin,” Nick finished.

  “I don’t know.” Tiffany shook her head. “Based on Angelo’s device and some football plays on a wrapper, you think a football coach is stealing bodies? Seems like a stretch to me.”

  “Maybe not as big of a stretch as you think,” Nick said. “Think about it. The team comes into town right after a pair of bodies is stolen from the cemetery. After the game we find a severed arm on the field. Late that night, somebody buys ribs from an all-night barbecue place, sketches out some football plays, and steals a pair of bodies from the hospital.”

  “As much as I hate to say it, I have to agree with Tiffany,” Carter said. “Why would some private-school coach steal bodies?”

  “The Skull and Bones Society,” Angelo said.

  “Huh?” Nick looked around, wondering what he’d missed. Everyone else looked confused too, except for Dana, who was nodding her head.

  “The Skull and Bones Society,” Angelo repeated. “It’s an ultra-secret group at Princeton University. All kinds of high-powered people belong to it. Even some U.S. presidents. Part of the initiation is that you have to steal something to become a member. Rumor has it that some of the members stole actual body parts—skulls and stuff of some pretty famous people.”

  Nick wasn’t sure he was following. “So you think Sumina’s football coach was a student at Princeton?”

  “Maybe not,” Dana said. “But maybe Sumina has their own secret society. And maybe stealing bodies is part of their initiation. Maybe the football team is part of the society.” She opened the wrapper. “Some of these look pretty familiar. I can’t swear it, but they look like plays Sumina was running against Pleasant Hill last night.”

  Carter pulled another Tootsie Pop out of his pocket. “Or maybe they use the bodies for some kind of ritual to give them power over their enemies. That could expl
ain how they won the game.”

  “It’s an interesting theory,” Nick said. “But how can we prove it? It’s not like we have any real evidence.”

  Angie grinned, her eyes gleaming in the moonlight. “Then we’ll have to find some. The place to get it is Sumina Prep. And tomorrow night is the perfect time to go.”

  Diablo Valley, where Sumina Preparatory Academy was located, was just over twenty miles from Pleasant Hill. Not a terribly long bike ride. But all the kids agreed they’d rather go by train. The nearest BART, or Bay Area Rapid Transit, station was only a few blocks from their school, and the train would drop them off just over a mile from their destination.

  Since they would be going at night, it meant not having to ride more than twenty miles each way in the dark. “Besides,” Angelo pointed out, “if one of our bikes breaks down that far from home, we might end up having to call for a ride.” Not a good idea, since their parents had no idea what they were up to.

  The train rumbled along its elevated tracks, shaking and groaning. The kids had an entire car to themselves except for a man in a scruffy gray overcoat who’d entered, dropped into the far back seat, and started snoring immediately. Carter listened to his MP3 player, drumming on his knees to the music and sucking on the straw of a Gargantuan Gulp. Tiffany was busy checking her latest friend updates on her phone. Angelo and Dana were debating the merits of different vampire movies.

  Nick was staring out the window, wondering if sneaking into the school was really such a good idea, when Angie dropped into the seat across from him. “Thinking about chickening out?” she asked.

  “Not likely,” he shot back. “But if we get arrested for breaking in, I’ll make sure and remind the police it was your idea.”

  “Who said anything about breaking in? I just want to check things out. Maybe peek in a few windows.”

  Nick didn’t believe that for a minute. They weren’t going all this way to walk around and look through the blinds.

  Angie twisted a strand of her red hair and Nick wondered what she was going to harass him about now. Instead, she asked, “Did you really turn into a zombie? Or was that just a trick to make us take you into the hospital?”