ColdScheme

  “Actually, no,” I interrupted and heard him snort.

  “I should have known. Very well, what is it now? Chest explosions or implosions are things of the past. I’ve been watching Commissioner Walton sincerely reassure Baltimore citizens that their metropolis is once again a safe haven.”

  “Did you finish an autopsy on Patterson?” I asked quickly.

  “What the hell for?” he sounded outraged. “He became a corpse and a morgue resident when three bullets penetrated his shoulder, neck and brain—in that order.”

  “Maybe you should at least take x-rays, particularly of the chest area,” I said and waited.

  “Jesus Christ! You don’t think…” His voice trailed off.

  “He could be the mastermind behind the implants but what if he wasn’t? In that case, it’s not outrageous to consider that his overseer might have implanted him with an explosive device to ensure total obedience without Patterson being wise to it—same as with Brick.”

  “Not the same as Brick. He knew he had that shit in his chest and lived with it for four years.”

  “Joe, my point was that Patterson could have been another servant. Do the autopsy, or at the very least the x-rays.”

  I heard him mumbling something and then he said, “All right. I’ll scan him and, if the x-rays show something suspicious, I’ll go in—cautiously, naturally.”

  “Thanks, Joe. Give me a call when you finish.”

  He laughed. “I don’t suppose you’d settle for a postcard from retirement?” he asked and hung up.

  I looked at my cell phone. It was just after three o’clock. I hadn’t eaten today but I wasn’t hungry. I needed to go somewhere where I could shut off my phone, sit down, close my eyes and think. My office wasn’t the place. Ken or Brenda’s apartment wasn’t the place either. Restaurant or coffee shop patrons might find it disconcerting to see someone sitting at a table, eyes closed, immobile. Field might be stuck in the meeting for hours. Ken might come looking for me if he couldn’t reach me by phone but he was used to my eccentricities. It wouldn’t bother him to see me sitting down, ruminating with my eyes closed.

  It was Friday and Jazz had a PA day. Mrs. Tavalho had taken her to a charity Bingo. Jazz would stay overnight at her house since the housekeeper’s two granddaughters were spending the weekend too. Since she’d have company my daughter would insist that I pick her up Sunday, not tomorrow. For once my house was a quiet place.

  I went home.

  * * * * *

  I don’t know how long I sat, mentally reviewing the case since that beautiful May evening when we walked out of the 7-Eleven and found Brick’s body sprawled across the hood of Ken’s car. When I finally gave in to the urge to let my eyelids creep open, all the mistakes and contradictions had been red-flagged in my head. The eloquence required for me to deliver the summary before a jury was still missing but everything else had fallen into place. I knew and could successfully defend each and every one of my assumptions and observations.

  I heard the phone ringing as if it were miles away instead of just sitting on my kitchen counter. I could shut off my cell phone. But as a mother and a cop I couldn’t unplug my house phone. However, I could relocate it to the farthest phone outlet in my house—the kitchen.

  I rose, glanced out the living room window to see an empty driveway and went to answer the phone.

  “You’ve got to see this, Meg,” I heard Joe’s voice, strangled and pained.

  Strangely cold relief flooded my chest. “I was right. Patterson had a bomb planted in his chest,” I said, breathing out.

  He snorted. “You have no idea how bad. They brought in another corpse that lived as a walking ghost.”

  I leaned on the kitchen counter. My newfound confidence in my instinct, feelings and analytical talent cracked like a windshield hit with a huge stone traveling at hundred miles an hour.

  “Meg, are you there? Meg?” I heard Joe shout.

  “Yeah, I’m here. Another walking ghost? Where did it happen? When? Was media on the scene?” Images of mayhem that would now be our headquarters started to flash through my head. Even with all the phone lines going into electronic message screens, people still kept calling in, leaving messages—reporting discomfort and chest pains. Commissioner Walton just gave a news conference, declaring Baltimore free of this threat.

  “It’s different,” Joe said crisply. “He’s dead. The paramedics brought in his body about two hours ago. I was just finishing with Patterson so, naturally, images of tissue and bone fragments showering my morgue were forefront in my mind. That’s why I took x-rays—and found it in his chest. I don’t know what we’re dealing with anymore, Meg.”

  “Did you report this to anyone yet?”

  “I was about to—”

  “Hold on. We need to figure out a strategy how we’re going to raise the existence of this threat again, after Walton just said on TV that it doesn’t exist, that it’s been taken care of by BPD. I’ll be there as soon as I can,” I said and hung up.

  I was half way out the door when I heard Field’s voice, lecturing me about teamwork and cooperation. A part of me felt defiant and wanted to continue running down my porch steps. If I had to leave a message, it should be for Ken. He was my partner, not the FBI Inspector. Agent Mattis withheld information from me and deemed me capable of dealing only with a summary. I moved for the door took a couple of steps and stopped.

  Another Baltimore citizen was implanted with a chest bomb. The threat we believed was eliminated was very much alive. Now, not just the BPD and FBI but other government security agencies would become involved. Indeed, such wide-scope involvement was necessary to protect people. It’s what figured in my oath as a police officer.

  I took out my cell phone, turned it on and left Field a detailed message. I told him the results of my analytical thinking session. I told him what I felt, what my instinct was telling me—and then gave him the facts.

  Then I rushed out.

  Chapter Seventeen

  I dashed into Nando’s Chicken, picked up a bucket of drumsticks and wings, watched the kid behind the counter stuff it into a large brown paper bag with a red-and-green logo of a rooster and drove to the morgue.

  “This is not going to cheer me up tonight, Meg,” Joe said, his eyes going to the large bag I carried. I took out the bucket anyway and put it on a gurney then pushed it off to a side.

  “Fine, we’ll just blow it up,” he snapped but immediately turned apologetic. “Sorry,” he mumbled, turning towards me with a half-grin and went to pick up the bucket. He waved me on and headed toward a gurney bulging with a body but draped with a white sheet. Holding the bucket with chicken against his chest with his still bandaged hand, he used the other to snatch the sheet off, like a magician.

  I was about to ask for a mask but I sniffed and the air smelled clean—cold. The body of a man who probably drank cheap wine or even rubbing alcohol much more often than he ate, looked pale as if he’d been stored in one of the vault containers a lot longer than just a couple of hours. Indeed, the cold emanated from the cadaver, which was strange because if true, it meant it had been frozen for some time.

  “You haven’t started the autopsy?” I asked, taking a step forward. Joe’s free hand shot out and blocked my way.

  “I’m about to start it—on remote,” he said, nodding at the far wall where I knew he had a small office.

  “Why remote? Not that you don’t have enough gadgets in here to do it but…”

  “Would you like me to set off the device in his chest while you’re standing next to him?” He smiled at me and waved me on.

  “You’re an excellent pathologist, Joe. I doubt you’ve ever cut anything you didn’t mean to cut on a cadaver,” I said but followed after him.

  “My nerves aren’t what they used to be,” he was saying as he put down the bucket and sat down to a keyboard. He tapped out a sequence and the monitor screen came alive with a schematic diagram of what I knew was mechanical arms. I’ve seen him
use them to lift bodies but never an instrument. I leaned closer and saw the appendages have been modified with four-pronged mobile clamps.

  “I’m thinking of starting up a business. Something ordinary, relaxing and calming…horticulture, growing plants, flowers, making wreaths,” he was saying all the while tapping the keys. I heard a faint whirr of rotating machinery. One arm bent and picked up a scalpel off a steel tray next to the gurney.

  “What did the x-rays show?” I asked.

  “That I should use my cybernetics,” he snapped.

  “How large is the device?”

  He turned, raising his bandaged hand at me. “Large enough that I don’t want to end up with two bandaged hands—or no hands at all.”

  “Can I see the x-rays?”

  “Since when did you become an expert at reading x-rays?” he snickered, turning back to his keyboard.

  “Are you watching, Meg?” I heard him chuckle.

  I raised my head, looking through the glassed-in portion of the office. The cybernetic arm held the scalpel poised above the cadaver’s chest, off-center, aiming at his heart. Suddenly, even as I became distracted by a particularly energetic keyboard play the arm with the scalpel plunged down, sinking the instrument into the body as if it was a dagger.

  There was a crisp pop, as when a glass breaks. I flinched and jumped back when a clump of bloody tissue landed with a splat on the glass.

  “Ah, shit…!” I heard Joe say behind me.

  I walked out of the office. Slushy chunks of dark-brown flesh with patches of pale skin littered the morgue. The body had to be frozen which meant it couldn’t have come into the morgue just a few hours ago. Even if the victim died outside, it was June and nights were already quite warm.

  I heard Joe’s steps behind me so I said in a musing voice. “Weren’t you using your cybernetics so this wouldn’t happen?”

  He walked past me, once again holding the bucket of chicken against his chest with one hand, while swinging the other in a way that I almost expected him to whistle. He stopped beside the gurney and let the bucket drop down. It sat there, surrounded by shredded tissue, bits of grayish bone and nearly black blood.

  It was a statement—a picture of his mind.

  Joe reached inside the container and picked up a drumstick. A few scraps of tissue fell down from the ceiling, raising puffs of fine gray-brown mist. He flicked off bits of frozen blood and tissue from the piece of chicken then held it up. He examined it and then brought it down and sunk his teeth into, tearing it apart.

  I watched him eat with defiance and quiet fury. When he tossed the bone with stringers of meat behind him, I slid my hand into my shoulder purse and took out the brown paper ball. I held it up until he noticed then I walked over and put it down to sit in the mess, next to the bucket.

  “If you smooth it out, Joe, you’ll see the same red-and-green rooster logo on it as on the bucket,” I said, motioning at the container with my eyes. “There were many more such crumpled foods bags in Patterson’s desk drawers. Our cleanup crews tossed them in the garbage. They didn’t find anything useful on them—no greasy fingerprints. I kept this one—a souvenir. What do you think, Joe?”

  He leaned over and picked up a wing this time, sucking on it, speaking in between, “Well, the Devil collects souls. You collect garbage. I’m sure both are worthwhile hobbies. What do you want me to say, Meg?”

  “Dr. Patterson had one special frequent visitor who treated him just as often to dinner. It’s a long way from Brooklyn to Nando’s Chicken and the place isn’t franchised yet. There’s only one outlet. Patterson and his staff ordered in from local fast-food restaurants. Only the chicken came from afar. Getting ready to take on new partners, Joe?” I asked when I finally arrived at the opening argument of the product of my long review as I sat in the middle of my living room, cross-legged and eyes closed.

  He tossed the sucked-out wing over his shoulder. “Morris wasn’t a partner,” he said. A smile twisted his mouth into a chilling crescent. I heard a whisper of moving parts. He must have activated something by remote though I never lost sight of his hands. I couldn’t afford to look for the source of noise.

  “No. He was a sacrifice,” I said evenly.

  “Actually, more like a necessary gamble,” he said, his smile narrowing. “He was about to file a complaint against Patterson, using Patricia as his prime example but she wasn’t the only one. I expected it to work,” he said, shaking his head.

  “It would have—if you’d had all the information. But much like Quigley, Hopkins’ directors didn’t confide in you. You didn’t know the hospital had hired a private security outfit to monitor Morris because they suspected him of stealing drugs from the dispensary. The monitoring tapes vindicated Morris of the crime in which you wanted to implicate him.”

  “I’ve heard rumors but you’re right. I didn’t know they were monitoring his every move,” he admitted.

  “The rumors gave you the idea to make him a scapegoat, especially after you learned he was about to file a medical misconduct complaint against your partner in Mongrove. But the tapes showed that Morris just stole drugs and gave them to those who couldn’t afford them. You were right when you said that no one at Hopkins would dare to experiment with explosive implants—the way you did here and at Mongrove.”

  “Dead don’t complain, Meg. I told you why I chose to become a pathologist,” he snickered.

  “No, the dead don’t complain—especially those without any relatives or friends, like the homeless man whose body you just exploded. Did you plant the device in his chest even as you called me to tell me that you had another body with a chest-bomb?”

  He laughed. “Come on, Meg. Don’t you think I saw you wondering about the body the moment you saw it? You know it’s been stored in the freezer for some time. I have foresight. I plan ahead.”

  That’s exactly what I’d thought the moment I saw the pale cadaver.

  “Did you blow him up just to dazzle me with your genius?” I asked.

  “It was a very necessary demonstration, Meg.”

  I felt that’s what it was the moment I saw the cybernetic arm plunge the scalpel into the cadaver’s chest.

  “So when Morris didn’t work out you set up your partner, Patterson,” I said, to buy time. I didn’t want him to tell me yet why the demonstration was necessary.

  “The FBI will tell you that they’ve got on record a few cases where a doctor functioned for years without academic credentials or medical accreditation but I couldn’t take a chance that Patterson would be found out.”

  “You got worried when the FBI started to check his credentials. You’ve already moved your operation to Washington and didn’t want to start a new venture with a partner who might become a liability,” I said.

  He smiled, picked up a drumstick and scribed something with it in the air.

  “One hundred and twenty-seven,” he said.

  I shook my head to show I didn’t know what he was talking about.

  “Only one hundred and twenty-seven test subjects, Meg,” he kept nodding and smiling at me. “That’s all it took for me to develop the implant such that it functioned perfectly—and only on my command.”

  “You killed one hundred and twenty-seven people to… In Mongrove? You’re insane.” My breath stuck in my throat.

  “Test subjects have notoriously short lives. They gave their lives for science and an excellent cause. Of course not all came from Mongrove. Majority were like this,” he wiggled the drumstick at the gurney. “No one to ask about them. When did you first start to suspect me?” he asked.

  “When I got here.”

  “I don’t believe it. You know, Meg, I’ve never lied to you. Surely you can afford me the same courtesy?”

  He was right. He always said exactly what was on his mind, secure in knowing that we would never take him seriously—or consider him capable of such heinous crimes. He told me that whomever the mastermind was behind the deadly implants, he was playing God. I bel
ieved him. He said we should go after the bomb-maker and not worry about his motives. We believed him. He predicted there would be more deaths from exploded chests. We all shivered from fear but believed him. He said the arrogant criminal was going to take the next higher step and chest-implosions would turn explosive in the real sense of the word. We all stared at him with horror—and believed. He dismissed my worries about him, flippantly giving me examples why they were groundless.

  That was his only mistake. Sitting for hours on my living room floor, I analyzed this case and everyone working on it—or connected to it. When I ran out my front door my head was filled with beliefs—and only one speck of black doubt. I came to see him because I believed the dark overlord who had been exploding Baltimore citizens’ chests was still alive—and because I wanted to show Joe the two scraps of brown utility paper scribbled with formulae.

  When I arrived the cold emanating from the emaciated body on the gurney changed my mind. I pulled out of my purse the evidence that vindicated my doubt, not the hard evidence, the facts.

  I shook my head, noncommittal. The whisper noise was coming closer. I couldn’t afford to take my eyes off him and at the same time I had to be able to examine my surroundings, plan my escape route.

  “It’s no use to stall, Meg. I know you. You didn’t call anyone. Well, maybe your partner but with Brenda having such a narrow escape…no one’s coming, Meg. Come on, I’m curious. What was it that gave me away?”

  I needed time, which meant I needed Joe talking.

  “It was something you said during the lunch we had with Brenda, at Hopkins,” I said.

  He frowned and tossed the drumstick over his shoulder. “I can’t imagine what I would have said that wasn’t true. You have a good ear for truth, Meg and I told you I’ve never lied to you. I enjoyed that lunch very much. You were so concerned about me. I was touched, Meg, really. What was it?”

  The whisper noise was so insistent now it was unnerving. I didn’t want to be caught off guard. At the same time I needed him to keep talking—to gain time.