“It feels like you’ve got me,” I admitted.
“Damn right I’ve got you.”
“So what do you want, Ray?”
“I want two bodies by Tuesday,” he said. “On ice, in Newark.”
“Tuesday? That’s not much time,” I protested. “What if I can’t get them to you that fast?”
“Did I mention there’s video, too? You know what I think, Bill? I think you’re gonna be the next big hit on YouTube if I don’t get those bodies Tuesday. By the way, Bill, how’s your cardiovascular health? Any history of heart attacks in your family?”
Before I had a chance to respond — even before I remembered that the FBI’s previous informant against Sinclair had died of a massive coronary — Sinclair hung up.
Rankin flashed me a thumbs-up. I did not share his sense of success.
He made a call from his cell phone. “Did you get all that?” He nodded as he listened. “And the audio quality’s good?” He nodded again. “Great. You guys are the best.”
He hung up smiling, but then he remembered, and he frowned. “So the photos,” he said. “We really need those. Think hard. Where else might you have put them?”
“I’m telling you, they were locked in the drawer. I’d stake my life on it.”
“And who else has keys to the drawer?”
“No one. Well, almost no one. My secretary, Peggy. Some old guy, years ago, in the maintenance department.”
Then it hit me, the day’s third tsunami. “And Miranda.”
That night I had a dream, and in my dream I was walking a wide, sandy trail in a park — maybe in Florida — with lots of palmetto trees. Some slight movement at my feet caused me to look down. There, an inch-long worm of some sort thrashed wildly on the sand, in a series of violent movements — as if a tiny whip were somehow cracking itself. After a few seconds, the convulsions stopped and the worm slithered off into the grass. I was puzzled: What had triggered the spasms, and why had they suddenly stopped? Then, two feet farther up the trail, I saw a second worm thrashing. This one was covered, from end to end, with fire ants from a nearby anthill. It managed to fling off a few of the ants, but dozens more clung to it and still more flocked to it. As I watched in fascinated horror, the worm’s thrashing ebbed. It trembled a few times and then lay still, except for the quivering swarm of insects feeding on its dying body.
I awoke before dawn, trembling and drenched with sweat.
I’d been up for three hours, but the sun had been up for only one, when my home phone rang. It was Eddie Garcia, calling to say that he’d just heard from the Emory hand surgeon. “They’ve approved me,” he said. “I’m on their list — first on their list — when they find a matching donor for me.”
“That’s great news, Eddie.”
“That’s not all. She — Dr. Alvarez, the surgeon — just got a big research grant from the federal government. The grant will fund the cost of everything — the surgery, the postoperative care, the physical therapy. It even covers the immunotherapy meds I’ll have to take for the rest of my life.”
“That’s wonderful. Congratulations. Does she have any guess when she might be able to do the surgery?”
“No. Maybe tomorrow, maybe next year, maybe five years from now. There’s no way to know.”
I knew that some wait-listed transplant recipients spent months or years in limbo, inching up the list and praying for a match. Some died waiting and praying. But Eddie’s situation was different: He wouldn’t die from the wait, unlike someone whose heart was failing. What’s more, his time in limbo might be far briefer than a heart or a kidney patient’s, he pointed out. “The surgery’s still experimental,” he explained, “so the wait list is short. Very short, in fact — I’m the only one on it so far.” He laughed. “So as soon as Emory gets a donor whose hands are a good match, it can happen.”
“And what now? You just wait for the word? The proverbial Phone Call?”
“Not exactly,” he said. “Dr. Alvarez says the blood vessels in my right wrist have probably regrown and recovered by now. She wants me to come back to Atlanta so she can reverse the pedicle graft and tidy up the stump. That way I’ll be ready whenever she finds a donor.”
“How soon does she want you to come?”
“Today. Carmen will drive me down this afternoon, and Dr. Alvarez will detach the graft tomorrow morning.”
Eddie also had an update on Clarissa Lowe’s death. The CDC — the Centers for Disease Control — had done a genetic profile on the tissue sample Eddie had sent after the autopsy. The CDC lab had identified the bacterium in Lowe’s bone graft as Clostridium sordellii, a particularly toxic species. “They plan to look for other cases of bone grafts linked to toxic shock recently,” he added, “in case there’s a wider problem with improperly sterilized cadaver tissue.”
Eddie himself had pinned down the manufacturer of the bone graft Lowe had received. “The graft itself was made by OrthoMedica,” he said, “but OrthoMedica made it from bone they bought from a supplier — a tissue bank.” He named the four tissue banks OrthoMedica regularly bought cadaver tissue from. I’d never heard of the first three he mentioned — Gift of Life, BioLogic, and Donor Medical Services. But I’d damn sure heard of the fourth one: Tissue Sciences and Services, Incorporated. Given the bad blood between Ray Sinclair and Glen Faust, I was surprised to hear that Tissue Sciences did business with OrthoMedica. But just as blood was thicker than water, perhaps money was thicker than blood — even bad blood.
After Eddie hung up, I called the FBI to relay his findings to Rankin. If Tissue Sciences was the source of the bacteria-laden bone, it was possible that the company’s penchant for playing fast and loose included other crimes besides black-market body buying. I didn’t know what federal statutes — if any — governed how a tissue bank was required to process or sterilize cadaver tissue, but if anybody was in a position to find out quickly, it was surely Rankin. Rankin promised to look into it. “By the way,” he added, “we arrested Sinclair. Last night. I thought you’d want to know.” He was right. I began to see light at the end of the tunnel.
I’d just finished talking with Rankin when Peggy transferred another call to me. “Hello,” came a hesitant female voice. “I’m trying to reach Dr. Brockton.”
“This is Dr. Brockton. How can I help you?”
“My name is Laura Telford,” she said. “I’m calling because my father recently signed a form to donate his body to the Body Farm, and I need to talk to you about it.”
Occasionally — not often, but once every few years — I’d get a phone call or a visit from a donor’s family member who was upset by the idea of Mom or Dad or a brother or sister rotting on the ground. Our one-paragraph donation form was legally valid — in a court battle over a body, we’d probably win, if the form was properly signed and witnessed — but at what price, in terms of a family member’s peace of mind or goodwill? No, I’d long since decided I would never get into a tug-of-war about a donor’s body. “I won’t try to change your mind, Laura,” I said, “but I’ll be glad to answer any questions I can. I’d encourage you to talk with your father about it again. Let him know you feel uncomfortable about the idea. Maybe one of you will change the other one’s mind.”
“It’s not that I’m uncomfortable or that we disagree,” she answered. “He thinks it’s important, and so do I. I took your intro anthropology class back when I was a UT student. I even went out to the Body Farm on the spring-cleanup day. I got ten points of extra credit for picking up bones and slimy body bags. I believe in the work you do.”