The Unlucky

by Jonas Saul

  Parkman smiled. “I’m pretty sure she’ll have you. But don’t tell me all that stuff. Tell it to her.”

  “I will, I will. As soon as we save her, I will.”

  Chapter 22

  The taxi dropped them off on the street in front of the hospital. Groups of people mingled outside in various states of dress. Fire trucks, police cars, and several other emergency vehicles, their lights piercing the night, were parked in a jumble surrounding the hospital. If there was a spot a vehicle could be parked, an emergency vehicle filled that spot.

  “What the hell happened here tonight?” Parkman asked, taking it all in.

  Aaron responded by shaking his head.

  “Okay,” Parkman said as he placed a hand on Aaron’s shoulder. “We have to get inside somehow and make it to the morgue. If they’re in some kind of lockdown, this could be difficult. I’m relying on you.”

  “I’m there. Whatever you need.”

  “Follow my lead then.”

  Parkman started off with Aaron following. He led Aaron through a throng of people talking about another patient. A different group of people were debating why the hospital was evacuated.

  He stopped by that group.

  “Excuse me,” Parkman said. “Can anyone tell me who’s in charge here?” He flipped open his private detective badge and shut it just as quick. “Just point them out to me.”

  One of their group, a man in track pants and an ’80s Metallica shirt, pointed at the front doors as a group of about eight men emerged from inside the well-lit building.

  “Those guys look like your best bet, buddy,” he said in a helpful Canadian way, like he was ecstatic the investigator asked him instead of anyone else. “Otherwise, try any police officer in blue. That might help, eh.”

  “Okay, eh,” Parkman said, trying to sound Canadian. “Thank you. You’ve been very kind.”

  He started for the men who had stopped on the front steps. The group consisted of two firemen, two police officers and four men in suits. They stood just outside the front doors, engaged in a discussion about something. As Parkman drew closer, it sounded like the men were debating whether or not to allow everyone back inside.

  Parkman nudged Aaron to stay on his heels as he attempted to get close enough to eavesdrop.

  “She’s still in the somewhere,” one of the cops said.

  “We understand,” an older man in a suit said. “But I can’t have all my patients outside like this. If the bomb threat is over, I’m sending everyone back inside.”

  “Sir, I’m asking for a little more time,” a middle-aged man in a suit with his back to Parkman said. “My men will find her. She killed a patient and shot a detective in the parking lot. She was last seen entering the hospital and no one has seen her leave. How can I make myself more clear? This takes priority over patients getting back in bed.”

  “You have a job to do, Detective Mason,” the older man replied. Aaron nudged Parkman. They looked at each other, eyebrows raised. “And I have a job to do, too. Find your criminals on your own time. I will handle my patients as I see fit. You won’t be the one answering questions before the board next week if something happens to any of these people. I will be.”

  “Fine. It’s your hospital.”

  The men dispersed. Detective Niles Mason walked right by Parkman and Aaron without a second look. He had pulled out his phone and was already speaking into it.

  “I’ve secured both murder scenes.” He paused. Just before he got out of earshot, he said, “Yes, I’m waiting for the team to take over the scenes as we speak.”

  Then he disappeared around a corner.

  “What the hell was that?” Aaron asked.

  “Bomb threat? A patient and a detective were killed? What’s surprising me the most is that we got close enough to hear all that just when we needed to.”

  Aaron frowned in his semi-drunken state. “That’s lucky, eh?” he said.

  People were heading toward the doors in groups. Men in white coats directed them to different doors. It would probably take them an hour to get everyone back to their proper floors and settled into their routines. The perfect time to extricate Sarah was during this shuffle of bodies throughout the hospital.

  Quickly, with Parkman in the lead, they mixed in with a group entering through the front and headed toward a square map of the building on the wall. The morgue was located two floors below them. After memorizing the route, Parkman headed down the corridor until he saw an exit sign that led to a stairwell. Aaron stayed so close he bumped into him twice.

  The stairwell door opened with ease and once they were safely inside the stairs, he stopped and addressed Aaron.

  “Okay, if we encounter resistance of any kind—”

  “I’ll bust ’em up.”

  “No, Aaron. I have a plan. Busting people up is our last option.”

  Aaron nodded and looked at the floor. Parkman could tell the alcohol was affecting him, but he could also see that he wanted to help and would do anything to extricate Sarah safely.

  “We have been asked to identify a body.”

  “We have?” Aaron looked up.

  “Yes, Aaron, we have, hypothetically.”

  “Oh, right. Of course.”

  “We need to identify a body and we have to do this in the morgue.”

  “Got it.”

  “When I get whoever is down there to open the cold storage—” He stopped talking as three doctors and one nurse were coming up the stairs from the floor below.

  He stepped to the side and let them pass, offering a half smile. The men didn’t look their way, but the nurse nodded at them.

  Moments later, they were gone.

  “As I was saying,” Parkman whispered close to Aaron’s ear. “When they open the units and Sarah pops out, I might need you hold the guy down or do something fancy to put him to sleep.”

  “Put him to sleep.” Aaron nodded in an exaggerated way, like he was looking at the ceiling, the floor, then back to the ceiling again. “Easy. I can do that. Next.”

  Parkman stepped back and assessed Aaron. “Just follow my lead.”

  “Aye aye, Captain. Anything for my Sarah.”

  Parkman half expected a salute.

  They descended the stairs and opened the door to the floor where the morgue was. Stealing along the corridor, Parkman softened his footfalls and stayed close to the wall.

  A door opened at the other end of the hallway, five men spilling out, talking about how they couldn’t believe they missed her.

  “I’ll go up and review the cameras,” the uniformed security guard said as they neared Parkman and Aaron.

  Parkman assessed them quickly. Two security guards, one official in a suit and two doctors or morticians.

  “Right,” one of the doctors said. “We’ll be down here if she turns up again.”

  The doctors entered a room on their left and disappeared.

  “Come on,” Parkman whispered. “Don’t forget to follow my lead.”

  The trio of hospital authorities noticed them a second later.

  “Can we help you?” one of the guards said, his voice loud, commanding. “You can’t be down here. This is a restricted area.”

  Parkman pulled his private detective ID, flipped it open, then slammed it shut.

  “Name’s Parkman. Here for two reasons. One, through my contact, Detective Niles Mason with the Toronto Police, I’m down here looking for a woman named Sarah Roberts.” Niles was on sight actively searching for Sarah, so dropping his name made sense.

  “So are we,” the guard said, the trio still walking toward them. “Niles is upstairs looking.”

  “We just thought we’d join the search down here.”

  The men slowed as they had reached each other.

  “Why does the guy behind you smell like booze?” The guard gestured at Aaron. “Who is he?”

  “That’s the second reason I’m here. Working a case Sarah’s involved with. He’s family of a deceased. He arrived
just as the hospital was being evacuated for the bomb threat to do a positive ID on a body down here in the morgue. He’s having a rough time of it, so I thought it best for him to do it now while he’s still swimming a little.”

  A palpable hush fell over them as they stood in the presence of a mourner. The guard edged forward and touched Aaron’s shoulder.

  “Sorry for your loss,” he said. “We’ll get her, sir, we’ll get her.”

  Aaron nodded. Then he wiped his eyes as if he was about to cry.

  Where the hell did that come from? Parkman thought. Nice performance.

  “Carry on, boys,” the guard said as he moved passed them. The other men followed the guard until they disappeared behind the door Parkman and Aaron had just come through.

  “Well done, Aaron,” he whispered. “But we’re not out of the woods yet.” They started toward the morgue coming up on the right. “There’s two doctors in there, and that guard said he was heading up to review the cameras.” He stopped by the open door still out of sight of the inside of the room where the doctors had gone. “If they see where Sarah went or didn’t go, they’ll be back within five, maybe ten minutes. We need to find her and get out of here as soon as we can.” Aaron nodded. “You ready?” Parkman asked. Aaron nodded again. “Good. Here goes.”

  Parkman turned the corner and entered the room where the cold storage wall, with its small square doors, gave him the chills. Sarah was in one of them and hadn’t offered the location number. Not only that, she hadn’t texted in quite a while. Had the cold gotten to her? Was she unconscious? Or did the phone’s battery die?

  “What are you doing here?” the heavyset doctor on the right asked. “This is a secure facility.”

  He stood by an open cold storage door, the body of an emaciated female corpse about to be zipped up on the slab in front of him.

  “I’m Detective Parkman. This is Aaron Roberts. We’re here to do a positive ID on a body.”

  The morticians looked at each other, then back at Parkman.

  “Where’s the paperwork?” The man bent to zip the bag up, slid the body back inside and shut the door. “There must’ve been a mistake.”

  Parkman stepped closer. He detected Aaron fanning out toward the other doctor.

  “What kind of mistake?” Parkman asked.

  “There’s no one here by the name of Roberts.”

  “Ahh, but that’s where I think you’re wrong,” Parkman said, waving a finger back and forth as if speaking to a delinquent school boy. “There is a Roberts body here, but we’re hoping she’s still alive.”

  When the doctors exchanged an odd glance between them, Aaron stepped in behind the one closest to him. He wrapped his arms around the doctor’s neck and lifted the doctor up and backwards. The doctor’s arms flailed wildly and he gasped as his air was cut off.

  “Hey!” the other man shouted and took two large steps toward Aaron.

  But Parkman was already moving. He timed it and realized he couldn’t get to the doctor fast enough, so he stuck his foot out. The doctor’s shin connected with Parkman’s ankle. He hated to do it, but they needed to extricate Sarah as soon as they could and at any cost.

  The doctor tumbled forward and hit the side of his head on the stainless steel edge of an autopsy table. He crumpled to the floor unconscious. At that moment, Aaron let go of the other man, letting him fall gently beside his coworker.

  “There,” Aaron said. “Two doctors asleeping.” He met Parkman’s eyes. “Nice foot work, Parkman. I really like the mad dash and the foot stuck out like so.” He balanced on one foot trying to mimic Parkman but looking like a man pretending to walk on a tightrope.

  “Fuck off, Aaron. Stop screwing around and help me find Sarah. Besides, that was a very lucky hit. I did not think he’d be knocked unconscious.”

  Parkman wasn’t sure he liked the drunk version of Aaron too much. At least not when they needed to be serious.

  But he did put the doctor to sleep better than I did.

  The man who had hit the table was bleeding slightly. Parkman didn’t take the time to scan for cameras in this room as it was too late for that now.

  Aaron opened and closed the square doors at his end of the wall while Parkman worked the other end. Almost halfway, he had a fleeting fear that Sarah was in another room. Or worse, another hospital.

  Then Aaron opened a door and stepped back.

  “Got her,” he said.

  He eased the slab out and sure enough, there was Sarah Roberts.

  She was certainly frozen, her pale hands on her chest like she’d been dressed and prepared for her coffin. A cell phone was clasped in her grip. She looked so cold it almost appeared as if it had snowed little white crystals onto her clothes.

  Her eyes opened, then eased shut.

  “Get. Me. Out. Of. Here.” She said, barely moving her lips. “Now!” That word came from a deeper part of her throat.

  “Aaron, grab the doctor’s jackets. We’ll need them.”

  As Aaron disrobed the doctors, Parkman ran to the other corner of the room and unlocked the wheels on a gurney. He swung it around and pushed it until it was beside Sarah.

  Aaron slipped into a white lab coat and extended the other one to Parkman. He put it on and nodded for Aaron to grab her feet.

  While they prepared, Sarah had started to visibly shiver. Parkman thought he heard her teeth chattering.

  A door smacked open and slammed shut from down the corridor somewhere.

  “We’re running out of time,” Parkman whispered. “Hurry.”

  On the count of two, Parkman at Sarah’s shoulders, Aaron holding her ankles, they lifted her and gently settled her onto the stretcher.

  Footsteps approached. There was no time to hide the doctors.

  Parkman swung a white sheet over Sarah’s body, covering her face. He leaned down to her ear and whispered, “Don’t move the blanket. Don’t even breathe.”

  He thought he heard her mumble a reply, but was already standing to address the people entering the room.

  “What’s going on here?” A tall security guard asked. He was an older man with a spare tire around his waist and a large beard that covered his neck. “Hey, what happened to those men?”

  Parkman moved away from the stretcher to address the guard. He stopped two feet in front of the man.

  “Where have you been?” he asked. “There was a fake bomb threat. Two men have been killed on hospital property. Your guys chased the murderer down here and lost her.” He turned and pointed at the two doctors dressed in plain clothes on the floor. “Look what she did to those men.”

  The guard glanced at the morticians, then at Aaron and back to Parkman.

  “I just talked to your superior,” Parkman said. “He’s up reviewing the cameras.” He nodded Aaron’s way. “This man is my assistant, Doctor Roberts. We’re about to leave with this body to prepare it for the Armstrong Funeral Home.” Parkman turned away and went back to the stretcher Sarah rested on. “Now, are we going to have any more delays?”

  The guard hesitated, unsure what to do. His radio beeped and a metallic voice boomed out.

  “This is Tankerman,” the guard spoke into the radio. “Say again. Over.”

  Parkman pushed the stretcher. Aaron came around the side to be closer to Tankerman if he became a problem.

  The radio crackled unintelligible English.

  They were passing the guard. At the door, Parkman spun the stretcher to the right toward the elevators he’d spied earlier.

  “Yes sir,” the guard said from back in the room. “The signal is better. Go ahead. Over.”

  Aaron ran ahead and pushed the elevator button. The low drone of the lift resonated through the corridor as it descended toward them.

  “I see it, sir. But cold storage door number seven is wide open. There’s no one inside, sir. The slab is protruding and empty. Maybe I will ask the two doctors I just met down here.”

  Parkman heard another blast from the radio as the elevator
took its sweet time coming down. Aaron waited halfway back down the corridor in case the guard stepped out to pursue them.

  “Say again, sir.” The guard’s loud voice could probably be heard a floor or two above.

  The radio crackled at the same moment the elevator doors opened. Parkman silently hoped the lift would be empty and he got his wish.