by Parnell Hall
Cora smiled ruefully, shook her head. “This isn’t the morgue. I left my keys in the morgue. Dr. Nathan said I could run down and get them. But this isn’t it. Do you know where the morgue is?”
The janitor pointed. “End of the corridor.”
“Oh,” Cora said. “I got confused.”
“I see,” the janitor said. Clearly he didn’t. The doors didn’t look at all alike.
Cora hurried to the door, tried the knob. She turned back to the janitor. “It’s locked.”
“Then the doctor’s not there.”
“I know he’s not there. I just left him upstairs in the cafeteria. He told me to go get them. He must have forgotten he locked it.”
“He always locks it.”
Cora grimaced. “Just because he’s a doctor doesn’t mean he’s bright.” She pretended to notice for the first time the keys dangling from the janitor’s belt. “You’ve got keys for everything, don’t you? You can let me in.”
“I’m not supposed to let people in.”
“You’re not supposed to let people in without permission. The doctor told me to go in.”
The janitor scratched his head. “I don’t know.”
“You wanna ask him? He’s sitting in the cafeteria with a knockout of a young blonde. Which is probably why he forgot the door was locked, and was so eager to get me away from the table. You wanna ask him, fine, but I don’t think he’s gonna be glad to see you.”
The janitor wavered. Cora thought she had him. Then he shook his head. “No, you better get the keys from him.”
Cora made a face. “Then I’ll have to bother him twice. To give them back. How about he okays it, and you let me in? Come on. Only take you a minute.”
The janitor was severely overmatched. Cora was already dragging the poor man to the elevator. Before he knew what was happening she had thrust him in and pushed the button.
As the door opened on the first floor she realized she had no idea where the cafeteria was. “Which way is the lunchroom? I always get turned around in elevators.”
“This way.”
She batted her eyes at the janitor. Realized he wasn’t as old as she’d first thought. “Thank you. I’m so bad with directions. And I hate to waste your time. Right down here?”
“To the left.”
Cora spotted the door to the cafeteria. “Ah. Here we are. I hope he’s not too mad at me.”
Cora pushed open the door, looked around. She was in luck. Becky and the doctor were seated out of earshot at the far end of the room. Becky was talking animatedly. Dr. Nathan was hanging on her every word.
“He’s not going to be happy,” Cora said. “I’ll try not to let on you’re the one who’s asking.” She raised her voice. “Oh, Dr. Nathan!”
Barney Nathan looked up. He clearly was not pleased.
Cora smiled and waved.
The doctor made a dismissive gesture, and turned back to Becky Baldwin.
“Oh, dear,” Cora said. “He wants me to handle it myself. I’m afraid you’ll have to talk to him.”
The janitor frowned. Barney Nathan had resumed his conversation. The thought of disturbing the doctor did not thrill him. “Okay. I’ll let you in. But just to get your keys. I got work to do.”
“Of course, of course.”
Cora was pleased with herself. Barney Nathan thought she was just being nosy. He hadn’t even noticed the janitor standing there, so he wouldn’t ask him what she wanted. And the janitor would never bring it up to the doctor that he’d let someone in the lab. So far, so good.
Now she just had to get rid of him.
They went back downstairs. The janitor unlocked the door.
Cora pushed by him, strode up to the slab. “Now, let’s see. I left them right here by the body, and—” She feigned surprise. “No. Wait a minute. Chief Harper was asking the doctor about the time element. He’d already covered him up with the sheet. You don’t suppose it’s under the sheet, do you?”
Cora pulled the cover off the dead man’s face.
The janitor looked sick.
“No, not here.”
She pulled the sheet farther down, revealed the eviscerated torso.
The janitor convulsed and turned away.
“Not here, either. Now what did I do with them?”
Cora’s eyes widened. “Wait a minute. That’s not the same body. Barney must have started another autopsy. So where the hell’s the corpse?”
Cora glanced around the room. Her eyes lit on the gleaming handles where metal trays with bodies pulled out from the wall. “There’s the stiffs. I don’t know which one’s him. We’ll have to check them all. Wanna help me? It’ll go twice as fast. Come on. They don’t smell as bad as you’d think.”
The janitor was green around the gills. “You can handle it,” he said, and beat a hasty retreat.
Cora went back to the victim on the slab. The clothes of course had been removed for the autopsy. She pulled the sheet all the way down, just in case they were folded up at the bottom of the slab. Was not surprised they weren’t.
So where were they?
A metal hamper held only used lab coats. A metal drawer held only clean lab coats. A metal locker held a medical bag, presumably Dr. Nathan’s. If so, the good doctor had neglected to lock it, no doubt figuring the lock on the morgue door would be enough.
A plastic container underneath the sink supplied the answer. It occurred to Cora the storing of evidence where it might get wet would be a handy thing to have on cross-examination.
Cora pulled out the bin, set it on an empty examining table. Took off the plastic top. Damn. They’d have to concede the storage bin under the sink had a top. Maybe it was leaky.
It was disappointingly airtight. Cora wrenched it off, pored through the clothes. The jacket was on the bottom. She wondered if it would be important to get them back in the proper order. The doctor would be unlikely to notice, still, he might have a standard routine. The jacket on the bottom figured. It would come off first.
Cora was not daydreaming while she was thinking all this. She had already jerked the jacket out and was digging through the pockets. She was pretty sure the puzzle was in the left inside breast pocket, but there was nothing there. Or in the right inside breast pocket. Not that there should have been—the police had searched the coat.
She turned it inside out, looked at the lining. It was an off-green color, not to Cora’s taste, but aside from that it looked fine.
She squeezed it.
It crinkled.
Cora pulled at the fabric. There was a slit in the lining just above the pocket. It only showed if you stretched the lining down. She thrust her hand in, grabbed the piece of paper, pulled it out.
It was the sudoku.
Chapter
14
There was no one in the corridor upstairs. Cora didn’t crash the OR again, just hunted up the nurses’ station and asked for Sherry’s room number. Apparently it wasn’t visiting hours, and the nurse on duty was reluctant to give it. Luckily, she knew Cora as the Puzzle Lady, and granted her celebrity status.
Cora wasn’t sure if having Sherry’s room number implied that Sherry was in it, but it didn’t seem prudent to press the point. She left the nurses’ station, set off to find out on her own.
Cora knocked gently, stuck her head in the door.
Sherry was lying in bed asleep. Aaron was sitting next to her holding her hand.
Cora’s heart fluttered.
There was no baby in sight.
“Aaron,” Cora whispered. “What happened?”
Aaron put his finger to his lips. “She did great. She’s fine. The baby’s fine.”
“Where’s the baby?”
“ICU. Being checked out. They say it’s routine after a traumatic birth.”
“Traumatic?”
“Well, it wasn’t any picnic. They tried like hell to avoid a Caesarian.”
“The baby’s okay?”
“The baby’s fine.”
/> “Can I see her?”
“They won’t let you.”
“Then I gotta go. Becky’s got this case.”
“Go on. I’ll tell her you were here.”
“You need anything?”
“I’m fine.”
“They’re not going to bring the baby in?”
“Not for a while.”
“In that case, you can have your cell phone.” Cora fished it out of her drawstring purse, tossed it to the young reporter. “Soon as we can see the baby, call Becky and I’ll come back.”
“What’s the case?”
“Nothing you can write. But I gotta go see her.”
Cora went out and hunted up the intensive care unit. Security was not as good as at the OR. Cora was halfway across the room before anyone confronted her.
A soft woman in scrubs almost apologetically informed her she couldn’t be there.
“I’m looking for the Grants’ baby,” Cora said. “I don’t know whether it’s under Sherry Grant, Sherry Carter, or Sherry Carter Grant, but, whatever it is, she had a baby, and they tell me it’s here.”
“You can’t be here.”
“Why not?”
“You’re not sterile.”
“I’m not going to touch anything. I just wanna see the kid. The kid’s all right, isn’t it? I mean, you’re not stopping me from seeing the kid because something’s wrong? That’s not why it’s having intensive care? There’s nothing wrong?”
“I’d have to look at the chart.”
“Look at the chart. Look at the chart.”
The doctor went over to an incubator, took the clipboard off the hook.
Cora peered over her shoulder.
The baby looked small, wrinkly.
“Why is it in an incubator?” Cora demanded.
“Because the microwave was busy.”
Cora’s mouth fell open.
The doctor smiled. “The baby’s fine. It’s just being monitored.”
“Why?”
“It’s premature, for one thing. We have to be sure the lungs are fully developed.”
“Are they?”
“There’s no indication that they’re not. But we take nothing for granted here.”
Cora was barely listening. She was looking at the baby.
“Oh, you poor little thing.” She shook her head, smiled. Her eyes were misty. “You don’t even know there’s such a thing as men.”
Chapter
15
Becky Baldwin was indignant. “You left me there,” she accused.
“I didn’t leave you there.”
“Oh? What do you call it, then?”
“I said keep him busy. I didn’t say forever.”
“But you never came back.”
“Why would I come back?”
“To tell me you were finished. To let me off the hook. I’d probably still be there if his wife hadn’t called.”
“Oh?”
“You should have seen him blush. His face was as red as his bow tie.”
“You’re a heartless home wrecker. Console yourself with the thought any time you start doubting your allure.”
“Even then I didn’t know if it was safe to let him go.”
“You couldn’t use your own judgment?”
“How would you like it if Barney Nathan walked in on you rifling the morgue?”
“You think I was going to hang out with the corpses? I got in and got out.”
“And how was I to know that? If you didn’t find it, I was afraid you’d keep looking.”
“I found it.”
“Where was it?”
“What do you mean?”
Becky blinked. “That’s a direct question. I don’t think I could be more explicit.”
“Yeah, but do you want to know the answer?” Cora reached in her purse. “It just so happens that I have a Xerox copy of a sudoku. I can tell you where that came from. It came from a copy machine on the second floor. I doubt if knowing that is going to get you into any trouble.”
“Did you solve it?”
“Yeah.”
“And?”
“Believe it or not, it happens to be a collection of eighty-one numbers ranging from one to nine.”
“Which one is in the center square?”
“Here, take a look.”
Cora handed her the sudoku.
* * *
“Eight?” Becky said. “What does that mean?”
“I have no idea.”
“Maybe there’s a clue in the puzzle.”
“The clue in the puzzle says look in the center square.”
“Maybe there’s something else.”
“Well, we can look for it later,” Cora said. “At the moment, we don’t have time.”
“Why not?”
“It so happens I need your help.”
“Doing what?”
Cora smiled and shrugged. “Compounding a felony and conspiring to conceal a crime.”
Chapter
16
Becky drove slowly past the abandoned filling station. The crime scene ribbon was still up, but there was no one guarding it.
“Well, that’s a fine state of affairs,” Cora said. “Anyone could come along and rob that garbage bin.”
“Or plant evidence,” Becky said dryly.
“Good thinking. Is there anything you’d care to plant?”
“We’re in enough trouble as it is.”
“Exactly,” Cora said. “We’re in so deep another charge or two isn’t going to matter.”
“It matters to me. It matters to the bar association.”
“A bunch of stuffy old lawyers? Who cares what they think?”
“You’re not amusing me, Cora.”
“Well, it’s hard to be amusing when you don’t know which end is up. If you’d care to let me in on the case.”
“There is no case. There’s a blackmail demand. We tried to deal with it. It didn’t work.”
“There’s a hell of an understatement. You wanna turn around before we wind up in Danbury?”
They had driven quite a ways. Becky pulled into a driveway, turned the car, drove back again.
“No one’s there,” Cora said.
“That’s what they want us to think,” Becky told her.
“Who?”
“The police.”
“Are you kidding me? Chief Harper, Dan Finley, and Sam Brogan? You think I couldn’t spot one of them?”
“Well, when you put it that way.”
“There’s obviously no one there,” Cora said. “I’m going in.”
“How do you want to do this?”
“Quickly and without a hitch.”
“No. I mean should I drive in?”
“Not unless you have a death wish. Drive on by, park in the street close to the Dumpster.”
“Why?”
“Why do you think?”
Becky drove by the service station, pulled up to the curb. Cora slipped out of the passenger seat, hopped up onto the sidewalk.
Grass had grown up around the abandoned lot. Cora avoided it, stayed on the pavement, went up the driveway. She slipped under the crime scene ribbon, went straight to the Dumpster, raised the lid. She leaned over, reached to the bottom, made frantic searching motions. She straightened up, flopped the lid down, and plunged her hand into her drawstring purse. She turned, crouching low in the shadows, and hotfooted it back to the car.
Cora slipped into the passenger seat and said, “Let’s get out of here!”
“What the hell did you just do?”
“Searched the Dumpster.”
“What for?”
“A clue.”
“The police already searched the Dumpster.”
“Yeah. And if they’re watching now, I wanna get arrested for searching the crime scene, not leading them to the money.”
“You think they’d arrest us?”
“They will if you drive off. If they don’t, they’re not here, and we can ge
t the money. Come on. Let’s go.”
Becky pulled out and drove down the road. No one arrested them. No one seemed to be paying the least bit of attention.
“All right,” Cora said. “Let’s go get the money.”
Becky turned the car, drove back. “Where do you want me to park this time?”
“Pull up next to the gas pump.”
“Why?”
“I’m going to crouch down behind the car so no one can see what I’m doing.”
“I thought no one was looking.”
“No one is looking. You wanna dance naked on the hood of the car? You can. No one’s watching. But it’s probably not a good idea.”
“Fine. Just get the money, will you? You’re making me nervous.”
“You’re nervous? How do you think I feel?”
“Come on. You play fast and loose with the law all the time.”
“Sure. For other people. I’m always innocent. This time I happen to be guilty.”
“Bite your tongue.”
Becky pulled up next to the pumps.
Cora grimaced. “You couldn’t have come in from the other side?”
“I thought this was the side.”
“It’s the right side of the pump. Wrong side of the car. When I step out the door it won’t be shielding me. I gotta go all the way around.”
“Oh. Huge imposition.”
“It is if I get caught.”
“So don’t get caught.”
“Why’d you pull in this way?”
“The gas tank’s on this side.”
“Are you kidding me? This is an abandoned station. It’s not like we’re buying gas.” Still muttering, Cora got out of the car and stomped around to the pump.
She put her hands on the panel and pulled.
It gave, but not that much. Cora’d had no problem bending it before, motivated by fear. Where was that motivation now? Perhaps a police car driving by?
Even the thought of the authorities wasn’t enough. The metal wasn’t bending.
Was this the right pump?
That paranoid thought tipped the scale. The metal gave. Her hand reached in. Touched …
Nothing!
There was nothing there. The package had slipped down. And now the metal was pinning her arm.
“Becky!” Cora hissed.
Becky rolled the window down. “You got it?”
“No, I don’t have it. I need help.”