Читать книгу The Michelangelo Murders - Aubrey Smith - Страница 2

Houston’s Main Street was deserted at 4:00 a.m. Captain Shelby sped through the canopy of oaks, past thick hedges of oleanders and the fountain in Hermann Park. Passing the hospital, he turned into the emergency parking area.

The police parking spaces were full, so he parked in a spot reserved for the hospital director. He won’t be in tonight, that’s for sure, Shelby thought as he got out of a dark blue Crown Vic with blackwall tires and no hubcaps. He wore yesterday’s brown pants, no tie, a wrinkled, long-sleeved white shirt unbuttoned at the top and an Astros cap pulled over his uncombed hair. He looked a mess, not the usual well dressed, well-mannered personification of a professional detective, not tonight…not after the call.

Suffering from a combination of his one cold per year and a flu bug, Shelby thought himself too sick to die. Even though it was October, the air was hot and sticky. The night pushed on him like a steamy blanket, and he ached all over.

Quickly, he walked toward the well-lit emergency entrance. He was always amazed at the hustle of activity around Ben Taub. There were blue-and-white EMS care units everywhere. Their uniformed personnel rushed in and out the glass doors. A state of panic seemed to grip the hospital.

He flashed his badge for a security guard as he entered the rear entrance. A strange sensation of destiny gripped him when he saw the look on Esquivel’s face. Shelby pulled his handkerchief and blew his nose, motioning to Esquivel.

“Lieutenant?”

“Captain, I’ve got a guy who went berserk at a club on Westheimer. He got naked, then killed three people with his bare hands.”

“What’s the problem you can’t handle?”

“When the uniforms arrived, the nut attacked them, shooting one of the blues twice in the chest.”

“You’d better call Internal Affairs. Let them handle that part of the incident.”

“I’ve already called them. Here’s the problem; this nut, his name is Richard Van Cleave…well, he’s shot three times in the heart, but he won’t die. This sucker is still going even with the three holes smoking in his chest. The ER doctor tells me he’s never seen anything like this. To tell you the truth, I think this guy’s seen a lot. Know what I mean? ”

Shelby nodded.

“It just doesn’t make any sense, Captain, and just a few minutes ago the chief resident, Dr. Salinas, shows up. He takes me upstairs and tells me they have four other patients just like this Van Cleave. This is deep, Captain. Kind of reminds me of tree moss.”

“Say what?”

“He explained that they’re somehow taking their nutrients from the air. You know, like ball moss. They’re brain dead, off all life support, but they just keep on ticking. They won’t die. Salinas says they’re somehow living on their own.”

Shelby felt the hair on his neck prickle.

“Captain, they’ve got five people over here that won’t die, and listen to this, you ain’t going to believe it anyway. They think these zombies have some new kind of disease they’ve never seen before. They’re calling it HBV, Human Brain Virus. It’s kind of like HIV only worse. Worse than AIDS. What are you going to do?”

“Esquivel, I’m not a doctor. What do you think I can do about some new virus? That’s a little out of our field, isn’t it? We’re homicide investigators, remember?”

“Captain, before Van Cleave went comatose, he told the uniforms that someone put this virus in his head.”

“Ah, come on, Esquivel.”

“Salinas said that one of the other zombies told him the same thing. And, Captain, get this.” Esquivel was almost shouting. “Three of these stiffs work at the Space Center.”

“Okay, Lieutenant, give me the rundown by the numbers.”

“As of now, we’ve got five comatose bodies living on air on the third floor. I’ve only got IDs on three of them. The other two are being listed as John Does. They were all naked when they were brought in. It seems that all five of them went totally nuts just before they were killed or died…or whatever they do. They’re dead, but not dead. They’re alive, but not alive. Holy cow, boss. This is far out. Isn’t it?”

“Tell me all you know. Let’s get some coffee and sit down someplace where we can go over what you know about each person. Are they all males?”

“You look like warmed-over death, Captain. Yeah, they’re all men.” They walked to the public coffee area and when they sat, Esquivel opened a red pocket notebook. “The first guy they brought in is a John Doe. That was last Tuesday.”

“Give me the details.”

“He was hit by a garbage truck on the Gulf Freeway near Allen Parkway. The driver said the first thing he saw was a naked man jump the guard fence and streak across the lanes right into the front of his truck. It must’ve been like a bug splattering when the poor guy hit the grill of that fifty-ton truck.

“No ID, and, so far, the Department of Public Safety and the FBI haven’t had time to respond on the fingerprints. DPS is usually pretty quick. We may have to wait a month on the Feds. The only weird thing about any of this is that the corpse won’t die. The chief resident says that every bone in the guy’s body is broken. His head is just a pile of mush.” Esquivel glanced down at the notebook. “The second man who came in told the ER people someone put a Michelangelo virus in his head. I had to ask what that was, and the doctor told me it’s something like a computer virus. I didn’t even know computers got sick. Can you believe?

“They figure the guy works with a computer or something at NASA. His name is Peter Soto, married, two children. Been at NASA for three years. His wife brought him in.

“She said he was talking to someone on the phone, screamed ‘Michelangelo’ and went crazy nuts. He ran out into their front yard, ripping at his clothes, then collapsed. She and the kids loaded him in their car and rushed him over here.”

“When did you say the first one came in?”

“Last Tuesday.” Esquivel flipped through his notebook. “The second one, Soto, was brought in the next day, sometime Wednesday morning. A University of Houston student shot the third man when he tried to climb in her bedroom window. That was Wednesday night about ten-thirty. Now, get this, she lives in a high-rise. The guy had apparently climbed up four floors on the outside brick wall. Her report says he broke the window with his face and was screaming ‘Michelangelo’.”

“Then what happened?”

“She said she didn’t care who he was, pulled out a thirty-eight and blasted away. By some miracle known only to God, she hit him four times in the head and neck, and once in the shoulder before he fell. Shot five times, fell four stories and he’s still alive. Can you believe that?”

Shelby sat back and finished the cold coffee. He then blew his nose for the thousandth time. “I’m almost afraid to ask about the fourth body. I take it…”

Before Shelby could finish, Esquivel stopped him by raising his hand and pointing to a man who was approaching their table. “Here’s the chief resident, Dr. Salinas.”

Shelby turned to see a tall, slim man about thirty, with dark hair and flashing brown eyes. When the doctor got closer, Shelby thought the man’s lean, muscular body and smooth skin could be deceptive as to his true age. He decided Salinas was closer to thirty-five or thirty-six.

“Doctor, this is my boss, Captain Shelby.”

Salinas reached out to shake Shelby’s outstretched hand. “Looks like we’ve got an unusual situation on our hands,” he said. “I’m afraid we won’t be able to keep this under wraps much longer. The Chronicle already has a reporter snooping around.”

Shelby thought about the implications and frowned. “Doctor, what’s going on here? Is this a medical problem? Is this Human Brain Virus a disease or is it a police matter? Have we got a murder or what?”

Salinas didn’t answer. He seemed to be deep in thought, not really sure how to answer, so Shelby asked again. “What do we have here Doctor? Is this a police matter? Has a crime been committed?”

Everything Shelby knew about science, medicine and police work told him there was a logical explanation for everything. He recalled that in the police academy, they taught two main principles. Number one, follow procedure. Number two, there is a reason for everything and it’s usually simple. Somehow, as he sat waiting for Salinas to answer him, things didn’t seem simple.

Salinas looked tired as he pushed himself up and said, “Captain, please, just follow me to ICU, okay?”

Shelby paused, then followed. The light was dim, and an eerie sensation of death hung in the air of the ICU ward. He felt chilled by the surrealistic gloom of the room’s low level illumination and its hushed stillness, broken only by the rhythmical beeps of cardiac monitors and the steady push-pull mechanical hiss of the respirators. Salinas moved with familiarity to an alcove where one of the HBV victims lay in a waist-high bed, surrounded by intravenous bottles and state-of-the-art medical equipment. The cubicle had the appearance of a jumbo jet cockpit. Shelby immediately noticed that none of the electrical leads or chemical tubes were connected to a body in the bed that looked more like a mummy than a person.

Salinas stood close to the patient, a pensive look on his face. Shelby said nothing and waited. The seconds ticked by, and Shelby found himself breathing in rhythm with the respirators in the background. He glanced around the room and saw that some of the patients were awake, but most appeared to be asleep. An unsettling feeling had lingered in his mind ever since Esquivel had phoned him. Now that feeling of uncertainty spread to every atom of his being.

A nurse appeared from nowhere. “There’s been no change, Doctor.” Her nametag read Tessy Wilson, ICU. She was tall with keen eyes that sparkled, even in the subdued light. She was very attractive with her dark hair pulled back into a tight knot.

Salinas nodded and turned to Shelby. “Normally one of the critical aspects of patient care in ICU is maintaining fluid balance. But in these brain virus cases, the patients are maintaining perfect values on their own. It’s the darnedest thing I’ve ever seen. There’s just no reasonable explanation.”

Salinas moved to the other side of the bed, never taking his eyes off his charge. He continued to talk in a monotone that seemed to quiver with uncertainty, maybe even fear. “When a patient is comatose, they usually have a flat line EKG. Frankly, they almost never wake up. The brain is dead, and with our present knowledge, we have no way to repair it or bring it back. The patient simply becomes a vegetable of sorts. The heart continues to beat but everything else must be done for him. Fluids in, fluids out, breathing, electrolytes, temperature, everything.”

Shelby nodded and asked, “That’s what’s happening here?”

“No, with these HBV victims, nothing seems to follow expected norms. Let me try to explain what’s happening here. Normally, when people are brought to the emergency room with trauma, they are unconscious or in shock. They feel no pain for the first thirty minutes or so. Most of the time people don’t realize the extent of their injuries because of this mild shock. However, after thirty or forty minutes, they usually begin to experience the realities of their injury. Without proper management, they may go into deep shock with vaso-vagal reactions.

“We see a lot of head injuries in ER. It’s a very common cause of death and disability. Almost half of these victims are unconscious when they are admitted to the hospital.” Salinas paused, trying to pick his words. “A lot of these people just don’t make it. They simply die from their injuries. Come here, I want to show you something.”

Shelby moved closer. Salinas pulled down the patient’s lower eyelid and shined a small penlight into the eye. Shelby caught a quick breath and stared into a black pool that covered the entire iris. “Notice the eye is fixed and dilated,” Salinas said. Shelby stared into the depth of an eye that had been robbed of life and the ability to communicate, to love or to hate.

“That’s a sure sign he’s brain dead,” Salinas continued, “but when we run an EKG, there’s more activity on the strips than you would ordinarily see on a normal healthy person. However, they don’t follow any pattern we would expect. I mean no one has ever seen waves like these.”

Salinas shook his head in bewilderment. “There’s no way this person should be alive now. He came in with severe head trauma and a collapsed lung. In fact, this one had several broken ribs and a sucking chest wound. When the EMS arrived he had no pulse, but the ECG showed normal activity. When the ER attendant pierced the heart with a cardiac needle, he found the heart had burst from the trauma. When he did a paracentesis, he found a cavity full of blood. Almost every bone in this man’s body has been broken or shattered. He was hit by a garbage truck on the interstate. He should be dead, not lying here in a bed, somehow living on his own with no life support. This is unnatural to the extreme.” When Salinas released the eyelid, it didn’t move back into place. He gently closed it and turned off the penlight, looking perplexed.

“Doctor, are you saying these five men are all in some sort of coma?” Shelby asked. “I’m sorry, but I’m having a hard time understanding all of this.”

“No, Captain. These men are not in a coma. Their condition is in most ways, just the opposite from a coma. In a coma, there’s a flat EKG indicating little or no brain activity. These men have very active EKGs and somehow…somehow they are keeping themselves alive. We don’t see any tissue repair, but somehow they’ve taken a lickin’ and kept on tickin’.” Salinas seemed embarrassed by his choice of words and tried to justify them. “The nurses are calling them the Timex Men.”