“Fine, before they surprised me,” Jeffrey said. “I found what we’ve been looking for. I stumbled onto a secret stash of Marcaine, syringes, a lot of cash, and the toxin. They were tucked in a false back to a kitchen cabinet. There’s no doubt about our suspicions about Trent Harding now. It’s the evidence we’ve been hoping for.”
“Cash?” Kelly said.
“I know exactly what you’re thinking,” Jeffrey said. “As soon as I saw the money, I thought of your conspiracy theory. Harding had to be working for someone. God! I wish he weren’t dead. At this point he could probably solve everything. Give me back my old life.” Jeffrey shook his head. “We’ll just have to work with what we’ve got. It could be better, but it’s already been worse.”
“What’s our next move?”
“We’ll go to Randolph Bingham and tell him the whole story. He’s got to get the police up to Trent’s apartment. We’ll let them worry about the conspiracy aspect.”
Swinging over to the other side of the bed, where the IV was hung, Jeffrey put his feet on the floor and stood up. He was dizzy for a moment as he fumbled to hold his johnny to his body. It wasn’t tied in the back. Seeing him wobble, Kelly came around the bed and gave him a steadying hand.
Regaining his balance, Jeffrey looked at Kelly and said, “I’m beginning to think that I need you around all the time.”
“I think we need each other,” Kelly said.
Jeffrey could only smile and shake his head. It was his opinion that Kelly needed him about as much as she needed to be run over by a truck. Hadn’t he brought her nothing but trouble? He only hoped he’d be able to make it up to her.
“Where are my clothes?” Jeffrey asked.
Kelly stepped over to the closet. She opened the door. Jeffrey untaped the IV and removed it with a wince. Then he joined Kelly. She handed him his clothes.
“My duffel bag!” Jeffrey said with surprise. It was hanging on one of the hooks in the closet.
“I went home early this morning,” Kelly said. “I got clothes for myself, fed the cats, and got your duffel bag.”
“Going home was taking a chance,” Jeffrey said. “What about Devlin? Was there anyone there watching the house?”
“I thought about that,” Kelly said. “But when I got the paper early this morning, I felt it would be okay.” She walked over to get the Globe on the floor by the chair. Carrying it back, she pointed at a small cover story of the Metro section.
Taking the newspaper from her, Jeffrey read a description of the incident at the Hatch Shell. It reported that a nurse recently employed at St. Joseph’s Hospital had been gunned down by a reputed underworld crime figure, Tony Marcello. A former Boston police officer, Devlin O’Shea, had shot and killed the assailant but had been critically wounded in an ensuing gun battle. Devlin had been admitted to Boston Memorial Hospital and was reputed to be in stable condition. It went on to say that the Boston police were investigating the incident, which they believed to have been drug-related.
Putting the paper on the bed, Jeffrey took Kelly in his arms and hugged her. “I’m truly sorry for putting you through all this,” he said. “But I think we’re close to the end.”
Relaxing his grip, Jeffrey leaned back and said, “Let’s get to Randolph’s. Then we’ll see if we can’t get away. Drive to Canada, then fly to someplace quiet while a real investigation goes on.”
“I don’t know if I can leave,” Kelly said. “When I was home I realized Delilah’s close to term.”
Jeffrey stared at Kelly in disbelief. “You’d stay behind because of a cat?”
“Well, I can’t just leave her in my pantry,” Kelly said. “She’s due any day.”
Jeffrey recognized how attached she was to her cats. “Okay, okay,” he said, quickly giving in. “We’ll think of something. Right now we have to get to Randolph’s. What do we have to do to get me out of here? And maybe you’d better let me know my name.”
“You’re Richard Widdicomb,” Kelly told him. “Wait here. I’ll go out to the nurse’s desk and get things squared away.”
When Kelly left, Jeffrey finished dressing. Except for a dull headache, he felt fine. He wondered how much ketamine they’d injected him with. With as deep a sleep as he’d had, he wondered if there could have been something like Innovar mixed in.
Opening the duffel bag, Jeffrey found his toilet articles, some clean underclothes, the money, a number of pages of handwritten notes he’d made at the library, the information pages he’d copied from the defendant/plaintiff file at the courthouse, his wallet, and a small black book.
He put the wallet in his pocket and picked up the black book. He opened it and, for a few moments, couldn’t figure out why it was in his duffel bag. It was clearly an address book, but it didn’t belong to him.
Kelly came back with a resident physician in tow. “This is Dr. Sean Apple,” she said. “He has to check you before you can sign out.”
Jeffrey allowed the young doctor to listen to his chest, take his blood pressure, and do a cursory neurological exam which included Jeffrey walking a straight line across the room, putting one foot directly in front of the other.
While the doctor was examining him, Jeffrey asked Kelly about the black book.
“It was in your pocket,” Kelly said.
Jeffrey stayed quiet until after Dr. Apple had declared Jeffrey fit to leave and walked out of the room.
“This book isn’t mine,” Jeffrey said, holding the address book aloft. Then he remembered. It was Trent Harding’s address book. With all that had happened, it had slipped his mind. He told Kelly, and together they glanced through a few pages.
“This might be important,” Jeffrey said. “We can give it to Randolph.” Jeffrey slipped it into his pocket. “Are we ready?”
“You’ll have to sign out at the nurse’s desk,” Kelly said. “Remember, you’re Richard Widdicomb.”
Leaving the hospital was as uneventful as Jeffrey could have hoped. He carried his duffel bag over his shoulder. Kelly also carried a small bag with her things in it. They got in her car. Jeffrey began to give her directions once she’d pulled out of the lot. He’d gotten her halfway to Randolph’s office when he suddenly turned to her. The look on his face immediately frightened her.
“What’s the matter?” she asked.
“You said those men went back into Trent’s apartment after they dumped me in their car?” Jeffrey asked.
“I don’t know if they went into his apartment, but they went back into his building.”
“Oh, God!” Jeffrey said. He turned to face forward. “The reason they got in so easily when I was there was because they had keys. Obviously they were going in there for something specific.”
Jeffrey turned back to Kelly. “We have to go to Garden Street first,” he said.
“We’re not going back to Trent’s apartment?” Kelly couldn’t believe it.
“We have to. We have to be sure the toxin and the Marcaine are still there. If they’re not, we’re back to square one.”
“Jeffrey, no!” Kelly cried. She couldn’t believe he wanted to go back a third time. Every time they’d gone, they’d encountered a new danger. But Kelly had come to know Jeffrey only too well. She knew there’d be no talking him out of yet another illicit visit. Without another word of protest, she simply headed for Garden Street.
“It’s the only way,” Jeffrey said, as much to convince himself as to convince Kelly.
Kelly parked a few doors down from the yellow brick building. The two of them just sat there for a few moments, collecting their thoughts.
“Is the window still open?” Jeffrey asked. He scanned the area to see if there were any people watching the building or who looked in any way out of place. Now he was worried about the police.
“The window’s still open,” Kelly said.
Jeffrey started to say he’d be back in two minutes, but Kelly cut him off. “I’m not waiting down here,” she said in a tone that said there’d be no discussion.
Without a word, Jeffrey nodded.
They went through the front door, then through the inner door. The building was eerily quiet until they reached the third floor. Through a closed door they could just barely hear the crashing mayhem of Saturday morning cartoons.
Arriving on the fifth floor, Jeffrey motioned Kelly to be as quiet as possible. Harding’s door was ajar. Jeffrey moved over beside the door and listened. All he could hear were sounds of the city coming through the open window.
Jeffrey pushed the door farther open. The scene that greeted his eyes was not encouraging. The apartment was worse than ever, much worse. It had been torn apart. Everything had been rudely dumped into the center of the room. All the drawers from the desk had been removed.
“Damn!” Jeffrey whispered. Stepping inside, he rushed to the kitchen. Kelly stayed at the doorway, surveying the debris.
Jeffrey was back in a second. Kelly didn’t have to ask; his face reflected what he’d found. “It’s all gone,” he said, close to tears. “Even the false back to the cabinet is gone.”
“What are we going to do?” Kelly asked, putting a consoling hand on his arm.
Jeffrey ran his fingers through his hair. He choked back tears. “I don’t know,” he said. “With Harding dead and his apartment cleaned . . .” He couldn’t continue.
“We can’t give up now,” Kelly said. “What about Henry Noble, Chris’s patient? You said that the toxin might be in his gallbladder.”
“But that was two years ago.”
“Wait a minute,” Kelly said. “Last time we talked about this, you were convincing me. You sounded hopeful. What happened to your statement that we have to work with what we have?”
“You’re right,” Jeffrey agreed, attempting to get control of himself. “There’s a chance. We’ll go to the Medical Examiner’s office. I think it’s time we told Warren Seibert the whole story.”
Kelly drove them to the city morgue.
“Think Dr. Seibert will be here on a Saturday morning?” Kelly asked as they alighted from the car.
“He said when they were busy they worked pretty much every day,” Jeffrey answered, holding the morgue’s front door for her.
Kelly eyed the Egyptian motifs in the entrance hall. “Reminds me of Tales from the Crypt,” she said.
The main office door was closed and locked. The place looked deserted. Jeffrey led Kelly around to the stairway to the second floor.
“There’s a strange smell in here,” Kelly complained.
“This is nothing,” Jeffrey said. “Wait until we get upstairs.”
By the time they reached the second floor, they still hadn’t seen a soul. The door to the autopsy room was open, but it was devoid of people, alive or deceased. The smell wasn’t nearly as bad as it had been on Jeffrey’s initial visit. Turning down the hall, they passed the dusty library. Peering into Dr. Seibert’s office, they discovered him hunched over his desk, a large coffee mug at his side, a stack of autopsy reports in front of him.
Jeffrey knocked on the open door. Seibert jumped, but when he saw who it was, a smile spread across his face. “Dr. Webber—you scared me.”
Jeffrey apologized. “We should have called,” he said.
“No matter,” Seibert said. “But I haven’t heard from California yet. I doubt if it will be until Monday.”
“That wasn’t exactly why we’ve come,” Jeffrey said. He took a moment to introduce Kelly. Seibert stood to shake her hand.
“Why don’t we go into the library?” Seibert said. “This office isn’t big enough for three chairs.”
Once they were settled, Seibert encouraged them, saying, “Now what can I do for you folks?”
Jeffrey took a deep breath. “First,” he said, “my name is Jeffrey Rhodes.”
Jeffrey then told Seibert the whole incredible story. Kelly helped at certain points. It took Jeffrey almost a half hour to finish. “So now you see our predicament. We’ve got no proof, and I’m a fugitive. We haven’t much time. Our last hope seems to be Henry Noble. We have to find the toxin before we can document its existence in any of these cases.”
“Holy Moses!” Seibert exclaimed. It was the first words he’d said since Jeffrey had begun. “I thought this case was interesting from the start. Now it’s the most interesting I’ve ever heard. Well, we’ll pull up old Henry and see what we can do.”
“What kind of time frame are you talking about?” Jeffrey asked.
“We’ll have to get an exhumation permit as well as a reinterment permit from the Department of Health,” Seibert said. “As a medical examiner, I’ll have no problem obtaining either. As a courtesy, we should notify the next of kin. I imagine we can do that in a week or two.”
“That’s too long,” Jeffrey said. “We’ve got to do it right away.”
“I suppose we could get a court order,” Seibert said, “but even that would take three or four days.”
“Even that’s too long,” Jeffrey sighed.
“But that’s the shortest I can imagine,” Seibert said.
“Let’s find out where he was buried,” Jeffrey said, moving on to other issues. “You said you have that information here.”
“We have his autopsy report and we should have a copy of his death certificate,” Seibert said. “The information should be there.” He pushed back his chair. “Let me get it.”
Seibert left the room. Kelly looked at Jeffrey. “I can tell you have something on your mind,” she said.
“It’s pretty simple,” Jeffrey said. “I think we should just go and dig the guy up. Under the circumstances, I don’t have much patience for all this bureaucratic rigmarole.”
Seibert came back with a copy of Henry Noble’s death certificate. He put it on the table in front of Jeffrey and stood over his right shoulder.
“Here’s the place of disposition,” he said, pointing to the center of the form. “At least he wasn’t cremated.”
“I’d never thought of that,” Jeffrey admitted.
“Edgartown, Massachusetts,” Seibert read. “I haven’t been here long enough to know the state. Where’s Edgartown?”
“On Martha’s Vineyard,” Jeffrey said. “Out on the tip of the island.”
“Here’s the funeral home,” Seibert said. “Boscowaney Funeral Home, Vineyard Haven. The licensee’s name is Chester Boscowaney. That’s important to know because he’ll have to be involved.”
“How come?” Jeffrey asked. He wanted to keep everything as simple as possible. If he had to, Jeffrey thought he’d go out there in the middle of the night with a shovel and crowbar.
“He has to be the one to ascertain it is the right coffin and the right body,” Seibert said. “As you can imagine, like everything else, there’ve been screw-ups, especially with closed-coffin funerals.”
“The things you don’t know about,” Kelly said.
“What do these exhumation permits look like?” Jeffrey asked.
“They’re not complicated,” Seibert said. “I happen to have one on my desk right now for a case where the family was concerned their kid’s organs were taken. Want to see it?”
Jeffrey nodded. While Seibert was getting it, Jeffrey leaned over to Kelly and whispered: “I wouldn’t mind a little sea air, would you?”
Seibert came back in and put the paper in front of Jeffrey. It was typed up, like a legal document. “Doesn’t seem to be anything special,” Jeffrey said.
“What are you talking about?” Seibert asked.
“What if I came in here with one of these forms and asked you to exhume a body for me and check it out for something I was interested in?” Jeffrey asked. “What would you say?”
“We all do some private work on occasion,” Seibert said. “I suppose I’d say it would cost you some money.”
“How much?” Jeffrey asked.
Seibert shrugged. “There’s no set fee. If it were simple, maybe a couple of thousand.”
Jeffrey grabbed his duffel bag and pulled out one of the packet
s of money. He counted out twenty hundred-dollar bills. He put them on the table in front of Seibert. Then he said, “If I can borrow a typewriter, I’ll have one of these exhumation permits in about an hour.”
“You can’t do that,” Seibert said. “It’s illegal.”
“Yeah, but I take the risk, not you. I bet you never verify that these permits are bona fide. As far as you’re concerned, it will be. I’ll be the one breaking the law, not you.”
Seibert gnawed his lip for a moment. “This is a unique situation,” he said. Then he picked up the cash. “I’ll do it, but not for money,” he said. “I’ll do it because I believe the story you’ve told me. If what you say is true, then it’s certainly in the public interest to get to the bottom of it.” He tossed the money into Jeffrey’s lap. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll open the office downstairs and you can make us an exhumation permit. While you’re at it, you might as well make a reinterment permit as well. I’d better call Mr. Boscowaney and have him start lining up the people and make sure the sexton of the cemetery isn’t out bluefishing.”
“How long will all this take?” Kelly asked.
“It’s going to take some time,” Seibert said. He looked at his watch. “We’ll be lucky to get out there by the middle of the afternoon. If we can get a backhoe operator, we could be done sometime tonight. But it might be late.”
“Then we should plan to stay overnight,” Kelly said. “There’s an inn out in Edgartown, the Charlotte Inn. Why don’t I make some reservations?”
Jeffrey said he thought that was a good idea.
Seibert showed Kelly into a colleague’s office so she could use the telephone. Then he took Jeffrey down to the office, where he left him at a typewriter.
Kelly called the Charlotte Inn and was able to get reservations for two rooms. She thought that was an auspicious beginning to their quest. She hated to admit it, but the only thing that troubled her about the proposed venture was Delilah. What if she delivered? Last time Delilah had had kittens, she’d gone into calcium shock. She’d had to be rushed to the vet.
Picking up the phone again, she called Kay Buchanan, who lived in the house next door. Kay had three cats. The two had exchanged cat-sitting favors on many occasions.