Hubble took the ice chest from Derrick and placed it on a shelf. The two men carried the body bag to the ambulance and drove to the end of the pavement where they placed it on what looked like a golf cart converted into a tiny pick-up with treads. Derrick closed his eyes as they drove into the mine; he hated what came next.
Hubble was already out of the little cart. “C’mon, I can’t do this by myself.”
Derrick reached under his seat, put on the leather gloves he found there and walked around to where Hubble was waiting.
“Jeez’ man, why do we have to take the body out of the bag every time?”
“For the same reason they don’t leave bodies in the bag at the morgue—off gassing. The goddamn bag would explode,”
Hubble threw a paper mask designed to cover the nose and mouth at Derrick. “No more questions! Now put on your goddamn mask and let’s get going.”
The two struggled to slip the semi-rigid corpse of a young female out of the body bag. Hubble held the ankles; Derrick placed a hand under each shoulder. He tried not to look at the body. Most of the women looked like they were asleep, the same way they looked under anesthetic. He liked to look at their breasts; something he’d never admit to anyone.
He could always determine which organ was missing by the location of the scar. The real shock had come when one of the bodies was a young woman he’d had sex with up at the mansion shortly after he was hired. They never told him where the bodies came from, only that they were donors.
The two waddled under the awkward weight of the dead woman, around the cart and through the low entrance to a small room. Hubble slid his foot around the floor at the entrance until he found the button that turned on the spotlights that lit up the tiny room.
Derrick never got used to the gruesome sight of all the bodies. Mostly women, stacked like so much cordwood.
The near constant 68 degrees of the mine combined with the 38 degrees of the open cooler slowed the decay process, so it was easy to spot the bodies that had been down the longest. Something caught Derrick’s attention. Some of the women had their hair tied back and several of the bodies were on the floor. Hubble saw Derrick staring.
He bent to grab the ankles of one of the corpses on the floor. “They must have fallen, give me a hand,” Hubble said.
As they lifted the body, Derrick noticed tiny puckered craters in the fine dust that covered the stone floor, water drops. He looked at the ceiling, but there was no sign of moisture. “What the fuck…?” he said under his breath.
He looked across at Hubble whose eyes were glued to the body. Derrick felt sick.
Chapter Fifteen
Hubble listened to the director’s report on his cell phone as he drove back down the coast, heading for the cutoff that would take him to I-5 South, and back to Medford. He’d left Derrick behind to assist with a couple of surgeries. Just as well, Rosie needed him to pick up a body.
“Simms was here and said that I had two hours to finish the shoot with her, stormed out, then called and said he had to head back up north. Said to call you,” Von Seagram was saying to Hubble.
“Get to the point,” Hubble said.
“Yeah, well, like I was saying, this doll, what’s her name, Crystal, is a loose cannon. Seems she confided in a set director that this was her last day, that she was going to go to the mansion, get her friend and go back home.”
“What’d you do, hit on her?” Hubble couldn’t resist pressing the temperamental director’s buttons. “Seagram if you’re moving drugs through these girls or fucking them on the side — goddamn, you know we have to keep them clean.”
The director’s indignant voice shrilled in Hubble’s ear, made all the more high pitched by the cell phone.
“Hey, fuck you! I’m trying to tell you that this bitch is quitting.”
“Where is she now?”
“Heading down the hill. File says she’s staying at the Motel Two, Room 209.”
Hubble slammed the clamshell cell phone shut, abruptly hanging up on the director. Laughing, he tossed it on the passenger seat. God I love this job, he thought.
Von Seagram starred at his phone for a minute then slammed the handset into the cradle.
“Fuck’n’ hung up on me. Director of the goddamn film and he hangs up on me. Hubble, you’re a prick.”
Hubble arrived at Rosie Rehnquist’s trailer and lightly knocked on her door. “It’s Hubble.”
She opened the door just a crack. Hubble stepped in and quickly shut the door when he saw what appeared to be a body covered with a blanket on the floor. He bent over and lifted the cover. Michael’s robe was open and a partly bandaged hole was oozing fluid. “I thought you said he overdosed in his trailer.”
“I’m saving you a trip up the coast. You look like shit, when was the last time you slept?”
He kept looking down at the corpse. “Couple a days. How did you make the extraction?”
Rosie ran a thumb inside her blouse, adjusting her bra. “The set doctor was a surgeon before becoming an alcoholic.”
Hubble let the blanket drop, and moved to the rear of the trailer. “What are you going to tell Simms? And what am I supposed to do with the body?”
“Leave Simms to me.”
Hubble shook his head, still looking at the covered corpse.
“Hey, no more questions. Take him up to the old quarry in the foothills. You can sleep here tonight and grab the blonde the first thing in the morning.”
Rosie slammed out of the little trailer and walked across the lot to the office.
“What do you mean you have a liver? You were supposed to deliver the Italian for extraction, remember?” Simms said
Rosie held the phone away from her ear, and could still hear Simms.
“Hey, you aren’t the only surgeon. I just saved you a trip and Clouse-hours in surgery.”
“Tell me you didn’t use that drunken quack you keep up there. This isn’t Fanny Farmer buying a liver for her sick father. We’re dealing with some very well connected, very nasty folks.”
Rosie felt the blood drain from her face as she hung up the phone.
Chapter Sixteen
Crystal leaned on a false wall just off the set, waiting for her cue. The man across the room, crouching and just out of camera angle, pointed at her. Stepping into the room, she began to take off her clothes, weaving her hips from left to right as she pulled her panties down. One of the male stars walked in already nude and began to fondle her breasts as he led her to bed. Without hesitation, he rolled on top of her.
“Cut!” yelled the director. Then out came a guy holding a clapboard with the scene and the take number.
“Scene 12, take two.” He brought the clapper down, which made a strange knocking sound, and Crystal started undressing all over again.
“Cut!” The guy stepped out with the clapboard again. And again it made a weird knocking sound.
Cut, knock and she was undressing again, and again, and again, until she was ready to scream. Then she did.
Crystal opened her eyes to a lop-sided view of the clock on her bedside stand. It read 7:00 a.m. in glowing green numbers.
“Shit.”
She was never an early riser and although the dream had been upsetting, the fact was Jan hadn’t called. The phone still lay next to her pillow. Trance-like, she made her way to the bathroom where she started the little coffee machine on the counter by the sink. As it began to percolate, she thought she heard a knocking. She splashed water on her face, then headed back to the night stand to get the envelope containing Jan’s bio that she would take to the police.
Her thoughts were interrupted by more knocking at the door. She was reminded of the knocking from her nightmare and wondered who was at her door, and how long they’d been there. For a heartbeat, she thought it might be Jan, but Jan would have said something by now.