Читать книгу The Pinocchio Syndrome - David Zeman - Страница 21

Manchester, New Hampshire

November 28

The health authorities in Adelaide refused to talk to Karen, despite her recommendation from Dr Roper in the outback. They seemed cold and evasive, and distinctly unhappy to have heard from her.

This made her next mission all the more important. She retraced the route of her daylong flight to Australia, with one key difference. Instead of returning to Washington she flew to Boston and took a commuter flight to New Hampshire.

The connection she was pursuing was tenuous. Tenuous enough, she hoped, that the American authorities would not have followed it up yet. It came from an online service she subscribed to that collected police reports on homicides, suicides, and unexplained deaths from all over the United States. The deaths were cross-indexed under various headings, including parts of the body. Karen’s routine search of ‘hands and feet’ had rung a bell in New Hampshire.

She was right. When she arrived at the small city hall office of the chief medical examiner, she found him willing to talk about the body that had been discovered a few days earlier, and even willing to show it to her.

His name was Dr Waterman, and he was surprisingly young and handsome. She saw photographs of an attractive wife and two young daughters on the bookshelf behind his desk. He offered her coffee, but she refused.

‘I’ve been on airplanes most of the last few days,’ she said. ‘I’ve had enough coffee to last me a year.’

‘I was thinking that you looked tired,’ the doctor smiled. ‘I kind of assumed you journalists don’t get a lot of sleep.’

‘That depends on the journalist,’ Karen said. ‘As for myself, I don’t sleep much. You’re right on that score.’

‘I sleep almost eight hours a night,’ he said. ‘No medical examiner is in a great hurry to get to his office in the morning, as you might imagine.’

‘Tell me about the body we talked about on the phone,’ Karen said.

‘It’s strictly a John Doe,’ he said. ‘No trace of identification. The few distinguishing marks, moles and such, were no help. We took impressions of the teeth and sent them off to the computers, but there wasn’t a match.’

‘Who found the body?’

‘A local homeless man named Erroll. A mental patient who was thrown out on the street when they cut back at the state hospital. He found the body in a Dumpster. At first the police weren’t inclined to believe him. He’s severely delusional, very florid. He thinks Martians are sending messages through his skin, stuff like that. But the body was right where he said it was. When the cops saw the deformations, they called me right away.’

He stood up. ‘Want to see it?’

‘Absolutely.’ Karen got up to follow him.

‘You’re not squeamish about bodies, are you?’ he asked.

‘No problem.’

He took her to one of the autopsy rooms. He left her to wait alone while he went to find the body. He returned with an assistant who was pushing a gurney.

The assistant unzipped the body bag. Thankfully, the smell that emerged from the corpse when he pulled down the zipper was essentially formaldehyde, reminding her of her lab days at college.

The face of the body was like that of any cadaver, gray and expressionless, the features slack.

‘Caucasian male, about forty,’ Dr Waterman said.

As he pulled the bag aside, Karen saw the distorted hands.

‘Hardened, fused,’ she said.

‘Correct. More like modified cartilage than skin.’ The doctor picked up one of the hands. ‘I’ve never seen anything remotely like it.’

I have. Karen was thinking that the corpse’s hands were almost identical in appearance to the hands of the victims in Australia. She did not volunteer what she knew.

‘Have you done tissue studies?’ she asked.

‘Informally, on my own, yes. I probably shouldn’t have – the big shots in Atlanta will want complete control – but I couldn’t resist. It’s not normal tissue. I’m not enough of a cell biologist to understand it, but I do know that in all my years of tissue biopsies I’ve never seen changes like this.’

He showed her the feet. Just as in Australia, the digits were distorted and partially fused, and the heel and sole had pulled together in a hooflike shape. Death had done nothing to alter the distinctive, troubling look of the foot.

‘I’ve checked my medical books,’ he said. ‘No luck. I can’t find a disease, no matter how rare, that has this feature.’

Karen felt a suspicious throb of lightheadedness as she studied the corpse. It occurred to her rather remotely that she hadn’t had much to eat in the last three days.

Before she could complete the thought her eyes began to roll up in her head. Her lips and hands tingled. She tried to steady herself against the gurney, but failed.

The doctor caught her before she could fall to the floor.

She came to in his office, lying on a deep leather couch. He was standing over her with a glass of water in his hand. She felt horrible. Her head ached intensely, her stomach was queasy, and she felt too dizzy to sit up.

‘I’m embarrassed,’ she said.

‘Don’t be,’ he smiled. ‘It happens all the time here.’

‘It really wasn’t the body, so much,’ she said weakly. ‘I’ve been on airplanes for the last three or four days. I’m jet-lagged.’

He smiled indulgently. ‘Yes, that would do it too.’

He revived her with water followed by strong coffee. He insisted that she remain lying on the couch. He was surprised to see her pursue her story even in her weakened state.

‘You reported this to the state health authorities?’ she asked.

He nodded. ‘I copied my e-mail to the CDC in Atlanta. Nobody got back to me. Either they’re swamped, or it’s a bureaucratic thing. A snafu.’

‘I’d like to ask you to do me a favor,’ Karen said. ‘Can you keep a lid on this for another twenty-four hours while I check out a couple of things?’

‘Well, I don’t know,’ the doctor said. ‘We’re supposed to report anything out of the ordinary.’

‘You’ve already reported it,’ Karen said. ‘All I’m asking is that you sit tight for one day. There are people at the federal level who need to know about this.’

‘Which people?’

Karen was thinking of Joseph Kraig. But she didn’t want to mention any names. She knew this story was in danger of being classified within hours. She needed to get to the core of it before that happened.

‘I’d better not mention any names,’ she said. ‘But I promise to get back to you by tomorrow at this time.’

He shrugged. ‘All right. I can wait.’

‘And put this body somewhere safe,’ Karen said. ‘Don’t let it disappear.’

‘Aren’t you being a little paranoid?’ he asked.

Karen smiled. ‘Humor me. There may be aspects of this thing that could be embarrassing to some people. You never know.’

‘All right,’ he said. ‘I’ll put it somewhere safe.’

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ Karen said. ‘I promise. Right now I have to fly back to Washington.’

‘Are you sure you’re well enough?’ the doctor asked. ‘You look like you could use a night’s sleep.’

‘I’ll sleep on the plane.’

‘Let me get you something to eat before you go. Honestly, you look pretty weak. There’s a restaurant right in the next block.’

Karen realized he found her attractive. He was a young man, after all. No doubt her fainting spell had endeared her to him. In his specialty he would not often have the opportunity to take care of living people, much less young and attractive women.

If she agreed to go with him it would delay her departure for Washington by an hour. On the other hand, it might bind the handsome young doctor to her sufficiently to make him keep his word about the body.

‘All right,’ she said. ‘That’s nice of you.’

She felt a bit woozy as she got to her feet.

‘Careful,’ he said, taking her arm. ‘Let me help you.’