"Just hang in there a little longer."
For the briefest moment an E.K.G pattern flashed in Eric's thoughts-wide electrical complexes, spaced at eight-second intervals, gliding across an endless monitor screen.
The man was clinically dead, he told himself.
There was nothing more that should have been done.
He chased the pattern from his mind and rang the buzzer. They waited, and then he rang again.
"No one's home," Laura said.
Eric rang a third time, more persistently. They heard the sound of someone moving inside.
"What do you want?"
The voice was thick and raspy. "Dr. Bushnell?"
"What do you want?"
"Dr. Bushnell, my name is Dr. Eric Najarian. I'm a resident at White Memorial. We need to speak with you."
"Go away," the voice said.
"Dr. Bushnen, please. It's very important."
"Nothing involving me is very important. Go away."
They sensed the man beginning to retreat from the door. Eric, pressed the bell again.
"It involves the Gates of Heaven Funeral Home," Laura called out.
A few seconds of silence, and then the door opened a crack. An old man peered out over the safety chain. He was in his seventies at least, and was dressed in a robe and slippers. His silver hair was a disheveled mop. And even from several feet away, Eric could smell alcohol.
"Please, sir," he said. "Please let us in. We won't take much of your time."
Thaddeus Bushnell checked them both up and down, and then pushed the door closed and- fumbled the chain free.
"Thank God," Laura muttered as the door swung open. They stepped inside and immediately exchanged bewildered looks.
The foyer of the place was dark. Back-lit by a dim lamp, Thaddeus Bushnell looked even older than they had first thought. He stood several feet away, leaning heavily on a metal walker, glaring at them.
"Now, what is it?" he growled.
Laura stepped forward to him, and instantly Eric saw the man soften.
"My name's Laura," she said gently. "Laura Enders. May we come in and sit down for a bit?"
The old man hesitated, and then turned and led them into a living room that was as depressing as a mausoleum. The furniture, which had probably been elegant at one time, was frayed and dusty. On the cluttered coffee table were several vials of pills and a half-filled bottle of vodka. There were empty bottles on the floor. If Thaddeus Bushnell was conscious of them, he gave no sign. He maneuvered his walker to a worn, floral-printed easy chair, and sank down into an indentation that seemed permanently molded to his thin frame.
Eric introduced himself again.
"Thank you for seeing us, Dr. Bushnell," Laura said, taking a seat near him.
Bushnell tapped a nonfiltered cigarette from a crumpled pack and lit it on the second try.
"Place needs a woman," he said. "It's gone all to hell since Evie died."
"Your wife?" Laura asked.
"Cleaning lady. My wife died nearly ten years ago. Evie went a month or two after that. I don't suppose you two want a drink?"
"No, but go right ahead," Eric said.
The old man nodded, and then nodded again.
Eric realized that he was drifting off. He leaned over, poured Bushnell a small drink, and held it beneath his face, shaking him gently with his other hand.
"The nights get real lonely," Bushnell said, taking the glass.
"This stuff helps pass the time."
"Are you a pathologist?" Eric asked.
"Hell, no. I'm a GP At least I was until I retired."
"But you're still a medical examiner?"
"As far as I know I am," he said. "For a time I kept trying to get my name taken off the goddam county's list, but they kept telling me to wait until they found someone else who was willing to take over.
I tell you, there are so many incoxhpetents in the government, it's a wonder goddam Khrushchev hasn't walked right in and taken this whole place over long ago." Laura gave Eric a sad look that said she hadn't missed the reference.
"So you still do work for the county?" she asked.
"White Memorial, that where you said you worked?"
"I do. Yes, sir," Eric said, glancing again at Laura.
"I work in the emergency room." Once more he could see Bushnell beginning to nod off. "Were you on the staff there?"
The man's bloodshot eyes opened again.
"Thirty years or more," he said. "If I could do it all over again, I'd be a goddam vet."
"But you still work as a medical examiner?"
"You can't believe it, can you," the old man said.
"Well, neither can I." He seemed suddenly to perk up.
"I keep hearing how this state's got one of the most advanced forensic departments in the country. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is a bunch of hogwash.
There's no goddam money. There's incompetence at every step of the line. There's fancy equipment that no one knows how to use.
There's tests that get sent off and never get done. And there's old farts like me still on the rolls because the state won't come up with the cash to pay anyone else."
"Do you actually do autopsies?" Eric asked.
"Hell no. If I suspect foul play in a death, I Turn the whole thing over to one of the state pathologists.
But they're so damned overworked, it's a wonder one of them hasn't cut his thumb off during a post. In fact, for all I know, one of them has."
He snorted a laugh at the notion, and then broke into a fit of coughing.
As soon as he had calmed down, he lit another cigarette.
"Do you get called in on a case often?" Eric asked.
"Every few days, maybe. Sometimes I don't bother answering my phone, though. It serves 'em right for not letting me retire."' "Dr.
Bushnell," Laura said, "we're trying to learn something about my brother. His name's Scott Enders, but you would have known him as Thomas Jordan. This past February, you went to see his body at the Gates of Heaven Funeral Home. From what we can tell, you used fingerprints to identify the body, and then signed the death certificate. Do you remember that?… Dr.Bushnell?"
The old man had nodded off again, his burning cigarette still dangling from his lips.
"I can't believe he hasn't fried himself yet," Eric exclaimed, pulling the cigarette free and dropping it into an already-overflowing ashtray.
"Can you imagine him fingerprinting a case and searching out a next of kin?" Laura asked.
"I can't imagine him leaving this house."
"Is it worth pushing things further?"
Eric studied the man and then shook his head.
"He may have signed a death certificate," he said, "but it's doubtful he did any more extensive research than peeking into a casket."
Laura took a tattered afghan from the couch and wrapped it around the old physician's lap. Then, quietly, the two of them stood and left the house.
"Does this make any sense to you?" she asked as she closed the door behind them.
"No," he said. "But I'll bet it makes sense to one Donald Devine.
Something really ugly is going on here.
Hand in hand, they walked to where they had parked.
"Want to come up to my place for a bit?" he asked. "Verdi'd love to serenade you."
"Another night, maybe. From what you've told me, Verdi sounds like my kind of parrot. Tonight I've got to be alone for a while to sort some things out. I would love you to walk me to the hotel though, if you want.
They worked their way up Charles Street, then crossed Beacon into the Public Gardens.
"You know, I haven't traveled a great deal," Laura said, "but Boston is the most beautiful city I've been in."
"I haven't traveled at all," Eric replied, "but Boston's the only place I really want to live."