Dead Ringer

by Allen Wyler

  “You tell me.”

  “The company conducts training seminars. You might hold a few at the big national meetings, but you also set up a series of workshops in major cities around the country. However you choose to do it, you’ll need a constant supply of actual knees. And they have to come from somewhere. That’s where DFH steps in. They’re a major supplier. Not only that, but their fancy building over by Lake Union … you ever been inside?”

  “Yes, but only the lobby and Ditto’s office.”

  “Well, it has some of the most elegant teaching facilities I’ve ever seen. HDTVs, webcasting pods, wood-paneled lecture halls … I’m telling you, this building”—he held out his arms—“sucks in comparison.”

  From the little she’d seen, it sucked regardless. The West Precinct was the Taj Mahal in comparison.

  “The demand for cadavers isn’t just for medical education, either. There’re other needs you might not think about. Forensic studies, as an example. There’s a guy in Tennessee who’s made a name for himself by studying the life cycle of maggots in decomposing bodies. He’s the world expert on the subject. He had fields of corpses and adds new corpses to them all the time. Can you imagine a field of rotting bodies? I’m sure you must have heard of him.”

  Wendy nodded, but in truth this was the first mention she’d heard of him and what she envisioned made her nauseous.

  “Then you have accident reenactments. Although there are companies that make gelatin body simulations for those, the biomechanics are never as accurate as a human corpse, so the demand remains high,” Boynton said with a shrug.

  He’s really getting into it. Probably one of the few times he’s lectured to someone actually interested.

  “These are all legitimate uses that make us as people better off.” He paused. “But back to your point. Have any idea how much Ditto is paid for a whole body? Especially one in prime condition?”

  She assumed from the way he asked that it would be high. “Tell me.”

  “Get this.” Boynton leaned closer as if disclosing confidential information. “How does three hundred thousand dollars grab you?” He sat back and crossed his arms with a smug expression.

  “That’s three hundred thousand?”

  He smiled. “Staggering, isn’t it?”

  She whistled. “Man!”

  His smile widened as he laid down his trump card. “But selling bodies is illegal.”

  “Then I don’t—”

  Boynton raised a hand, cutting her off. “Here’s how it works. Say your father has a massive heart attack and dies, and you don’t have the money for a casket, much less a funeral. You’re torn. You want to do something nice for dear old Dad, but you simply don’t have the money. And God knows, you have to do something with the body. Can’t very well just toss him in the Dumpster late at night. What do you do?”

  “You call DFH Inc.”

  He flashed a thumbs-up. “You bet you do. And what’s not to like? Ditto’s crew promptly arrives, whisks away the body. If you opt for his medical research program,” making quotes with his fingers, “there is no charge. It’s free. He cremates the body and gives you the ashes or disposes of them for you if you prefer. But wait,” he said with a dramatic flourish, mimicking a TV ad, “there’s more. If you want, they’ll even give your loved one a nice memorial service in their own chapel free of charge. It’s a huge win for everyone involved. Not only does Dad get a funeral, but he’s contributed to the advancement of science. Whether you’re down on your luck or rolling in the dough, you don’t have to end up paying several thousand bucks to have Dad cremated or buried with a ceremony. You got to love it. And people do.”

  “So how—?”

  Up went his hand again. “How can Ditto get three hundred grand for Dad and stay legal? Easy. He charges the customers—medical schools or medical device companies, for example—huge storage, transportation, and” again miming quotation marks, “handling fees. That part is legal.”

  “Meaning there’s an illegal part?”

  Boynton nodded slowly. “Didn’t hear it here, but yes, I’m convinced of it.”

  Wendy stole a glance at her recorder. The red record light was glowing, so she was catching every word. “Go on.”

  “What I’m telling you is only what I suspect. I don’t have proof. We clear on this?”

  “Yes.”

  “Okay, then. First, there’s a huge black market for body parts. There’s also a huge demand. So, say you’re Ditto and you pick up a fresh body, one that’s still warm and in perfect condition. If you know what you’re doing and work quickly, you can salvage everything—corneas, skin, heart valves, ligaments. I could give you a complete laundry list, but I think you get the idea. He doesn’t deal in kidneys or other living internal organs for transplant—because that gets a completely different level of state scrutiny—but still, there’s enough tissue to make a jaw-dropping amount of money from dealing in cadaver parts. And it seems like such easy money that every year you read about some dumb shit morgue worker arrested for helping himself to parts of the deceased.”

  She thought back to the few cases she reviewed.

  “Donating your body isn’t for everyone, and I’m here to tell you it doesn’t happen every day. For a variety of reasons. Most of all, not everyone knows it’s an option. And if you do know, you might not like the idea of being dissected in a classroom full of curious med students. Maybe you’re worried about being naked in front of an audience. For others, just the thought is intrinsically repugnant. Maybe some have a religious law or belief against it. The point is—and this is a biggie—the number of annual donations doesn’t come close to meeting the demand. Yet somehow every year Ditto’s business grows. How does he do it? I can’t understand where he gets all his material—it must be a huge supply. Something’s not right.”

  She wanted to know exactly where he was going with this. “Can you be more specific?”

  “All I know is how many bodies come to us annually. It’s not close enough to meet our needs. So I can’t for the life of me see how it can approach what Ditto’s numbers are. Granted, he aggressively advertises his discount funeral part of the business and that helps. But think about it. There shouldn’t be any material left over from that. At least not if he really is cremating the entire bodies. So where do all the body parts come from to supply the cadaver parts business?”

  “What exactly are you saying?”

  “Did I say anything?”

  “No, but you sure implied something.”

  “I told you I’m not going on the record with this.” He wagged an admonishing finger.

  “Look, if you have any proof of anything, say it. Now’s the time.”

  “No, I don’t. I already told you that.”

  “Then give me a hypothetical. What do you suspect is going on?”

  Boynton seemed to choose his next words carefully. “Ditto is running three businesses. The one everyone knows about is his budget funeral service. No problem there. The second is his medical research program in which bodies are used for various teaching programs. Supposedly, after the body or limbs are used, all the parts are returned and cremated together and the ashes disposed of according to the family’s wishes. The third business is supplying cadaver parts—bone fragments, ligament, whatever—for use in surgery. I simply don’t see how he gets enough material to keep that third part of the business so robust.”

  When he paused, Wendy said, “Go on, tell me what you think is happening.”

  “Obviously, he needs bodies to meet demand. How does he do it? First, there’s the possibility of getting unclaimed or unidentified bodies from the medical examiner. But they don’t give away freebies. Besides, by the time the ME finishes with a body, it’s usually too decomposed to be good for anything. There’s only one other way I know to acquire a freshly dead person.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Like I said when we started, Ditto’s a vindictive guy. I don’t want him coming after me.”<
br />
  “Okay, but it’s just us here. What are you saying?”

  “Think about it,” Boynton said. “You need a fresh body. Where you going to go?”

  She waited for him to make another comment, but he just shook his head.

  She asked, “Anything else to add?”

  “You free for dinner?”

  11

  USING A CAMPUS MAP from the main hospital information desk, Wendy threaded her way back to the parking lot thinking about Boynton’s unexpected dinner invitation. She’d been caught off guard and hoped she hadn’t been too rude when she turned him down. The parking lot was on the south side of Husky Stadium with full sunlight frying her motor pool Caprice. She opened the front door and stood there waiting for some heat to waft out before climbing in. No matter how hot Seattle became, it paled to the car-searing summers she’d endured growing up east of the mountains in Moses Lake, Washington.

  People always said, “Yeah, sure, but that’s dry heat.” As if that made a difference. Dry, wet, whatever, to her it was frigging miserable.

  Her dad had been an air traffic controller for the air force, stationed at Larson Air Force Base outside Moses Lake. The base became decommissioned just about the same time his tour of duty ended. With 4,700 acres and a 13,500 foot runway, it became the Grant County International Airport and an alternate landing site for the NASA space shuttle. Her parents stayed in town working as civilian airport employees for the FAA while raising Wendy and her older sister, Megan. And they loved it.

  Well, they could have it. The heat, the annual Eagles barbecue, the VFW hall, and the Grange. All of it.

  She hated the endless summer evenings sitting on the porch swing with nothing to do but listen to Mariners games on a staticky AM radio station and dream of escaping the flat, boring town. Megan never left. She boomeranged back from Washington State University freshman year, married the hayseed who’d knocked her up. Megan and her husband were raising three boys. Which, from Wendy’s point of view, held as much appeal as rinsing out your mouth with Clorox.

  For reasons Wendy could never grasp, she’d always wanted to be a cop. Right out of high school she enlisted in the army after receiving assurances from the recruiting officer that if she did well on the tests, she’d be assigned to their Criminal Investigation Division. After four years of active duty and some junior college courses, she figured she could pass the physical fitness and civil service exams for the Seattle Police Department. And she did.

  A week after graduation from the academy, she was called into the chief of police’s office.

  She stands at the desk, the fresh rookie assigned to patrol. The Chief says, “Close the door, please.”

  She does and returns to the desk. The Chief remains seated, a manila folder open on his desk. “I’ve been reading your record, Elliott … may I call you Wendy?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Good performance in the Academy. Good enough for Internal Affairs.”

  “Sir?”

  “I’m looking for a fresh face to be assigned to basically work undercover for Internal Affairs.”

  “Just what does that mean?” she asks in spite of having a pretty good idea.

  “Means you’d be assigned to a unit we have reason to investigate. Say, Vice. While there, you’ll do the work you’re assigned, but in addition, you’ll be conducting an investigation for us by looking into questions we have about other members of your team.”

  “In other words, you want me to spy on other cops?”

  “That’s one way to view it. The way we prefer to think of it is the cops we put on your radar may turn out to be the ones who shouldn’t be on the force. Even the police need policing, sorry to say. What do you think, Wendy?”

  She likes the fact that the Chief knows her name, but she also knows that IA investigators are often veterans only a couple years away from retirement. They can put in their final time and then leave the force without worrying about not being liked by the rank and file. Also, she wants to eventually make the Homicide squad.

  When she hesitates, he adds, “Says here,” with a nod at the folder, “you want to work up to Homicide. That true?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Well, then … give us four to six years of good undercover work and I’ll see to it you end up where you want. We have a deal?”

  “You have an assignment in mind, obviously. What is it?”

  He sits back, closing the file. “You’re young, statuesque, and blonde. You have a face that can be hard. And I don’t mean that as an insult. At the moment, we need someone to be assigned to the Vice squad. But you didn’t answer my initial question. You want in?”

  She doesn’t like the idea of ratting out fellow officers, but the Chief has a point. Someone has to police the police. “Yeah, I’m good for it.”

  The Chief smiles, holds out his hand. “Welcome aboard, Officer Elliott.”

  They shake hands.

  The Chief says, “Officer Travis Hunt is your husband, right?”

  She and Travis were married halfway through their time in the Academy. “Yes.”

  “Good. That’s perfect cover if he’s your primary contact. As of now, you’re off patrol and reporting to him. Officially, however, you’re now assigned to the Vice unit. After we’re done here, you can walk over to meet your superior officer. You okay with that?”

  “No problem.”

  That was the same time her marriage started sliding sideways.

  She and Travis had assumed that because they were both cops they’d understand their hectic schedules and the emotions the job sucked from them. But it didn’t work like that. Under the daily stress, they quickly lost patience for each other’s quirks and began arguing. In the end they blamed their failed marriage on job-related stress instead of other possibilities, like their inability to compromise in order to get along. Wendy called him an anal neat freak. He viewed her as a slob and would go ballistic if toothpaste wasn’t squeezed from the end of the tube or if a fresh roll of toilet paper wasn’t in the john before the old one ran out.

  Little things accumulated, becoming fodder for more resentment and bigger arguments. Rather than scream at her during blowups, Travis simply shut down and wouldn’t talk. This cold shoulder would go for days until they eventually drifted back together, neither one assuming responsibility for the disagreement. It seemed to be during those times of zero communication she needed him the most, so his neglect of her hurt worse. It didn’t come as a surprise when, after one of those blowups, Travis suggested they separate. She agreed. And that was that. But they still liked working together and were good at it.

  The three-year anniversary of their divorce passed just last month, she realized.

  The car felt comfortable enough to get into, so she climbed in, fired the ignition, and backed out of the parking space. Another car was already waiting to take the spot.

  Wendy turned up the volume of the FM station in an effort to drown out the constant din of radio traffic from the police radio. She it tuned the local country-western station. Just another vestige of life in Moses Lake. As a teenager she hated country music, seeing it as so not cool. But during the divorce, when some lyrics assured her things could be worse, she grudgingly had to admit to a certain closet enjoyment in the pissing and moaning about other people’s tough times. A kind of roots thing, she guessed. Yet she made a point of not letting her friends know she listened to shit kicker music. It didn’t fit the image she wanted to portray in her life on this side of the mountains.

  Waiting for the traffic light to let her escape the sweltering parking lot, she thought about Bobby Ditto again. Seemed like the more she learned about him, the more she was convinced he was involved with Lupita’s disappearance. She had no tangible evidence yet, only her gut feeling of being on the right track. Boynton just verified it.

  Now she had to prove it.

  12

  HONG KONG

  LUCAS WAS UP BEFORE the wakeup call. He showered, checked ou
t, and headed to the airport early, hoping he might be able to catch an earlier flight. There wasn’t one.

  He used the lounge computer to check his email, but there were no new messages. Then he went to the Seattle Times web page and typed Andy’s name in the search line. He hesitated, unsure if he wanted to see the answer, but pressed enter. A few seconds later “No Match” popped up, leaving him with a sense of relief.

  After checking his luggage through customs, Gerhard headed to the departure gate but saw McRae in the departure area. He stopped. Last thing he wanted to do was get into another pissing match with the bastard. If McRae saw him, that would surely happen. And if that happened, Leo might slip and say something he’d regret. The one thing he’d learned in this life—thanks to his time in the army—was to walk away from confrontation because if he didn’t, it usually ended badly.

  He also intuitively knew McRae was smarter than he was. Maybe not in street smarts, but in other ways. And he didn’t want McRae asking him tricky questions.

  Gerhard stepped into a bookstore and browsed the magazines, picking out a Popular Mechanics for the flight home. He was certain McRae would be flying first or business class, meaning he’d go through the front gate. He’d wait until McRae boarded before taking the rear gate to the coach section.

  Once the heads were back safely where they could be disposed of, there was nothing that son of a bitch McRae could do about it.

  13

  SEATTLE-TACOMA INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT

  AFTER CHECKING THE SUITCASES to make sure the suitcase containing the heads hadn’t been tampered with and the seals remained intact, Leo Gerhard hefted both locked aluminum cases onto a luggage cart. Fucking customs. Those agents weren’t supposed to open them, but ever since ICE became part of Homeland Security, you really couldn’t trust those yo-yos anymore. They did all sorts of crazy shit in the name of national defense.