Mrs. Murphy was not a suspect. She was not under arrest. Conklin had assured her that if she asked him to leave the room, he would do it. No problem.
But that wasn’t what he wanted. He wanted to understand the circumstances that had victimized this woman and had killed the man who had been found with her.
He had to figure out what kind of case it was so he could nab the culprit.
“Don’t worry. I’m not afraid of you, Richard,” Joan told him, looking past him and out the window. “It’s everything you’ve told me that’s upsetting me. I don’t remember having a dead body beside me. I don’t remember much of anything, but I do think I would remember that. Honestly, I don’t think it even happened.”
She shook her head desperately and the tears flew off her cheeks. She dropped her chin to her chest and her shoulders heaved with sobs.
Conklin reached for a box of tissues and offered them to his disconsolate subject, who was melting down in front of him.
He inched his chair closer to the bed and said, “Joan, please try to understand. It did happen. We have the body. Do you want to see him?”
She plucked a tissue from the box, patted her eyes, and blew her nose.
“Must I?”
Conklin said, “I think it would be best. It might jog your memory. Look, I’ll stay with you and you can lean on me.”
“And then you’ll drive me straight home?”
“I sure will. I’ll even put the sirens on.”
FORTY-EIGHT HOURS EARLIER
CHAPTER 1
CINDY THOMAS, SENIOR crime reporter at the San Francisco Chronicle, breezed through the front door of Susie’s Café. She threaded her way through the raucous crowd in the front room, past the steel drum band and the crowded bar, and headed down the corridor to the back room. It was packed to the walls with the Saturday-night dinner set.
She saw an empty booth and a recently vacated table, and asked a busboy for help as she shoved the table up against the booth.
“How many people are coming?” he asked her.
“Six,” she told him. “I hope the kitchen doesn’t run out of the mango chicken. That’s our favorite.”
Four of the six were herself and her closest friends in the Women’s Murder Club. The other members were Lindsay Boxer, Homicide, SFPD; Claire Washburn, chief medical examiner; and Yuki Castellano, assistant DA. Tonight, the two additional seats would be for Lindsay’s husband, Joe Molinari, and Cindy’s own beloved fiancé, Rich Conklin. Rich was also Lindsay’s partner on the job.
It had been a joke when Cindy dubbed the four of them the Women’s Murder Club years ago, but the name had stuck because they liked it. The girls regularly gathered at Susie’s, their clubhouse, in order to vent, brainstorm, and fill up on spicy Caribbean food and draft beer. It was nice to go with the “don’t worry, be happy” flow every once in a while.
Laughs were definitely on the menu tonight.
Lindsay had been pulling double shifts at her high-stress job, and recently had been put on a harrowing assignment with the antiterrorism task force. Her husband, Joe Molinari, was still recovering from injuries he’d received in a terrorist bombing related to that very case.
That was probably why Lindsay’s sister offered to take their little girl, Julie, home with her and her own little girls for the week. Everything was all set. Lindsay and Joe were leaving in the morning for a well-earned vacation in Mendocino, a small-town escape 150 miles north of San Francisco.
Cindy was excited for them. She ordered beer and chips for the table and had settled into the banquette when Lindsay and Joe arrived. They all hugged, and then the tall blond cop and her hunky husband slid into the booth.
Lindsay said, “I think I’m going to fall asleep in the car and then stay in bed for the entire week. It’s inevitable.”
Joe put an arm around Lindsay, pulled her close, and said, “If that’s the case, there will be no complaints from me.”
“All righhhht,” said Cindy. Beer was poured into frosted mugs, and Cindy made the first toast. “To rain,” she said. “Gentle, pattering rain and no Wi-Fi reception.”
“Let’s drink to that,” said Lindsay.
Glass clinked, Lindsay gulped some beer, and after setting down her mug, she asked Cindy, “You sure you’re up to taking care of Martha? She’s used to being the boss, you know.”
Lindsay was referring to her family’s best dog friend, an aging border collie who had pulled a tendon and was under doctor’s orders for bed rest.
“I think I can handle it. After all, I, too, am used to being the boss,” Cindy said with a wink.
“You? Bossy? You must be joking,” said Lindsay.
Cindy was known to be more pit bull than pussycat. She and Lindsay were still snickering about it when Claire Washburn arrived.
Claire emphatically endorsed Lindsay’s upcoming week of R & R. She slid into the booth next to her, saying, “I know I’m going to miss you to death, but I’m not going to call you. And I mean, no way, no how, not for any reason. Seriously. This week, nothing but radio silence, okay?”
Before Lindsay could answer, Rich Conklin arrived tableside, stepping on Claire’s laugh line. He said hey to his friends and bent down to give Cindy a kiss as Yuki danced into the room, singing along with the Caribbean tune. Rich gave her the seat next to Cindy and pulled up a chair for himself.
Yuki ordered her first margarita of the evening, and the dinner orders went in after that. Even though the upbeat music was plinking loudly and laughter and applause made conversation challenging, Cindy felt a tremendous pleasure in this gathering of close friends. The gang was all here and the evening felt like a group hug. It was the kind of night out that she wanted to soak up and remember forever.
She wouldn’t change a thing.
CHAPTER 2
ON MONDAY MORNING, Claire arrived at the medical examiner’s office—her office—at ten before eight.
As she walked through the reception room, she was still transitioning from her home to her work mindset. Her thoughts hopscotched from the pressure of back-to-school week with her youngest kiddo, her grumpy husband, who was looking toward early retirement, and the transmission fluid she needed for her car. Not to mention the strong coffee and donut she needed to help her shift her own gears.
She had just hung her coat behind her door when Dr. Harrison, the on-call ME handling the night shift, knocked on the door frame to her office.
“Morning, Bernard. What’s the latest?” she asked her number two.
“First, we had a bad accident on the freeway at around midnight last night,” he told her. “A car jumped the median and T-boned a family that was coming home from grandma’s house. There were three fatalities. One of the children is in the emergency room.”
“Oh, damn.”
“Fifteen minutes after we’d admitted the car crash victims, two more fatalities came in. It’s all in here,” he said, waggling a folder containing a sheaf of notes. “I was able to get through two of the freeway postmortems and left the rest for you.”
“So you’ve left three patients for me, you’re saying?”
“You don’t get paid the big bucks for the easy jobs.”
She smiled at their inside joke. There were no big bucks to be found in civil service, but Claire loved what she did. She wouldn’t have it any other way.
Dr. H. kept filling her in. “Bunny’s here, and so is Mallory. Greg is running late, and I have a headache the size of a beach ball.”
“Go home,” she told him. “Take an aspirin and get some sleep.”
“Don’t have to tell me twice, Doc,” he said. “Watch out for my vapor trail.”
He handed his notes to Claire. She took them with her to the kitchenette, where she poured coffee, snagged the one chocolate donut in the box, and ate her second breakfast at the small square table. Her two assistants, Bunny Ellis and Mallory Keane, came in and took turns filling her in on the horrible car crash.
Bunny’s eyes were welling
up as she said, “One’s just a little kid, Doctor. He’s only eight.”
Claire said, “I know, I know, Bunny. We never get used to the kids.”
Then Claire gowned up and went into the cool room with Bunny at her elbow. Mallory trailed close behind them. Claire opened the refrigerator drawer that contained the remains of the young boy. He should have been getting on a school bus next week.
“I’m so sorry, Sean Morrison,” Claire said to the dead child. “I know a lot of people are going to miss you terribly.”
She turned to Bunny and asked, “Are his parents here?”
“Dr. H. did the posts on his mom and dad. His sister is at Metro in serious condition.”
“And the driver?” Claire asked.
“Drunk, and texting while driving. He just walked away. From what I heard, there was hardly a scratch on him.”
Bunny wheeled a stretcher over to young Sean’s drawer. As she helped Claire lift the child’s body, they heard a sound that was part moan, part shriek.
“Bunny? What the hell was that?”
“It wasn’t me. Could it have been the wheels squeaking, maybe?”
Claire turned around and asked, “Mallory? Was that you?”
“What? No. I didn’t hear nothing, and I didn’t say nothing either.”
The three women stood very still. When they were sure they heard only the sounds of their own breathing, they resumed moving the little boy’s body to the gurney.
But then there was another moan, and this time it was followed by a fit of coughing. Together, Claire and Bunny converged on the second level of shelves, four feet off the floor. Mallory pointed to the drawer at the far end. Claire pulled on the handle—and jumped back.
The body bag inside the drawer was moving.
Claire screamed, surprising herself, and after that, she stepped up and pulled down the body bag zipper. A bloody arm protruded from the bag. A body stirred within and then spoke.
“What kind of nightmare is this?”
CHAPTER 3
THAT MORNING, CINDY opened the front door to Lindsay and Joe’s airy three-bedroom apartment on Lake Street.
Martha was lying in the living room next to Joe’s big chair, where she had a clear view of the doorway. As soon as she saw Cindy, she got to her feet and, with her tail wagging, trotted over to her. It took a couple of tries for Martha to get up onto her hind legs, so Cindy bent down to hug her and hold her up.
“Hey, Sweet Martha. Howsa good girl? Wanna go for a walk?”
Cindy grabbed a paper bag from the counter, found the collar and leash on a hook by the door, and took Martha for a slow but productive stroll on 12th Street. She knew there wasn’t very much traffic there, so it’d be a safe route for the two of them.
While they were walking, Cindy talked to Martha, reciting two headlines for a story she had to turn in in the next hour. She asked her which one she liked better, but Martha was noncommittal. After Martha did her business and Cindy bagged it, the duo returned to Lindsay’s apartment.
Cindy was pouring dog chow into Martha’s bowl, concentrating so she didn’t get kibble all over the floor, when the phone rang. She knew it was going to be Lindsay, checking on her. Ha! She reached for the phone.
“Linds?”
“No, it’s Claire. Oh, damn it to hell! Sorry, Cindy. I just speed-dialed Lindsay. I forgot. Force of habit.”
Cindy kept the phone to her ear as she filled Martha’s water bowl in the sink. When Claire explained why she had called, Cindy almost dropped the phone. She shut off the water to make sure that she’d heard her friend correctly.
“Say that again?”
Then Cindy said, “What? Ha. Good one, Claire.”
Claire’s voice came over the earpiece—loud. “I’m not making this up. Look, I’ve got to go.”
Cindy said, “I’m on my way. Jesus, Claire. I’m coming.”
“No, Cindy.”
“Yes, Claire. I’m ten minutes away.”
CHAPTER 4
THE WOMAN WHO had been logged into the morgue as deceased helped Claire and her assistants get her own body out of the bag. She moved into a sitting position inside the drawer. This, whatever it was, was very, very disturbing. In all her years as a medical examiner, Claire had never seen anything like it. The body in front of her had literally come back from the dead.
Was this a prank? A mistake? A true zombie?
She said, “Bunny, get my kit. Mallory, call an ambulance.”
The woman sitting in the drawer was naked, and blood was smeared all over her body. She was holding her left arm at her elbow and was wincing in pain.
Claire said, “My name is Dr. Washburn. May I help you? What hurts? Okay, now. Here we go.”
Claire peeled the woman’s hand away from her shoulder and saw a gunshot wound that went from the front straight through to the back. It was called a through-and-through. Because the woman was able to move her arm, it looked as though no bones had been broken. Thank goodness.
She asked, “Can you tell me your name?”
“I should wake up now,” said the woman in the drawer. “This has to be a dream. This is a nightmare for the ages.”
“You’re in the medical examiner’s office. You’re going to be fine,” Claire said. “We’re going to get you off of that skinny little bed, right now.”
Claire was still shocked that the woman in the drawer was alive, but she was starting to get some perspective. This wasn’t the first time in history that a convincingly dead person had revived himself or herself inside a morgue—or a coffin. There were cases in the nineteenth century where people overdosed on barbiturates and were presumed dead, even though they had, instead, fallen into a deathlike state. Some of the time, they “came back to life” before burial.
Claire wondered if there was a modern drug affecting the woman in front of her, but then she remembered that there was a condition called catalepsy.
Could the bloody woman have that disorder?
Claire knew that people who suffer from catalepsy go into a dead-not-dead state, with slow breathing and a weak pulse. Their muscles go rigid, and sometimes they lose sensation in their body. Claire recalled from something she had read long ago that catalepsy could be triggered by disease, certain drugs, or traumatic shock. And if the “undead” was cooled down—for instance, by being stored inside a morgue’s cold room—the brain would remain functional until death took over or the person awoke.
In today’s high-tech medical environment, it would be hard to mistake catalepsy for death. But this woman appeared to be an exception to the rule.
The patient was clearly not dead.
CHAPTER 5
THE WOMAN IN the drawer stretched out her good arm, and Claire and Bunny helped her to a standing position.
Claire’s spot assessment was that this poor thing was middle-aged and bone-thin. She’d been shot and was lucky to be breathing.
Claire also saw that another bullet had grazed her hip. Like the shot to her shoulder, it wasn’t life-threatening.
Would this lady’s good luck continue? Or would bad luck send her back in the drawer?
Bunny and Mallory helped the woman onto a stretcher and pulled a sheet up to her shoulders while Claire checked her vitals. The woman was breathing without assistance. Her pulse was slow, but her heart was beating regularly. Her wounds weren’t bleeding and she had spoken, which is always a good sign.
Claire put her stethoscope away, and the woman’s eyelids suddenly flew open. The woman drew back, afraid. It was as though she’d forgotten she’d been awake just moments ago.
“Who are you?” she gasped. “Where am I?”
Claire introduced herself again and ordered someone to get water. Then she asked, “What’s your name?”
“My name?”
After a few long seconds, the woman said, “I’m Joan Murphy. Did you say this is a morgue? What am I doing here?”
“I was hoping you could tell me, Miss Murphy.”
�
�Call me Joan. My shoulder. It hurts.”
“Actually, medically, that’s a good sign. You took a bullet, Joan, so it’s natural for your body to be reacting to the pain. Do you know who shot you?”
“What day is it?” Joan asked.
“Monday. It’s about eight thirty in the morning.”
“So yesterday was Sunday?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I woke up in my own house. I had breakfast and watched the news shows with my husband—my husband. Someone has to call Robert.”
“Of course. We will. Right away.”
Joan Murphy recited numbers and Mallory wrote them down.
Then Claire said to her patient, “Joan, an ambulance is on the way. You need emergency medical attention and I’m not equipped to do that for you here.”
“If I could just get dressed,” said Joan.
Just then, the swinging doors to the autopsy suite blew wide open.
And here was Cindy, as promised. She was breathing hard as she hurried over to Claire and the woman lying on the stretcher.
“I’m Cindy Thomas,” she said to the patient. “I hope you’re feeling better. What an ordeal, right?”
Then Cindy turned to Claire and said, “What did I miss?”
“I don’t remember anything,” said Joan Murphy. “But obviously, I was murdered. Well, it was attempted murder, I suppose. That’s all I know.”
CHAPTER 6
THE IRREPRESSIBLE CINDY Thomas had just breathlessly materialized in Claire Washburn’s autopsy suite, and Claire wasn’t pleased. Not in the slightest.
Claire said, “Seriously, Cindy? Didn’t I say no?”
She was planning to spin her friend around and march her straight out when the doors to the ambulance bay banged open.
Bunny shouted to the EMTs, “Hurry. She’s in there.”
The EMTs burst into the cold room with a stretcher in tow.
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