Do No Harm (24 page)

Every body had so much to give. At times, Horace viewed his job simply as playing Santa Claus to the various medical departments.

He laced his hands and raised them above his head, cracking his knuckles. Things would slow down soon enough--this was the last week of summer session gross anatomy for the med students--and then he'd have the entire area to himself for a few blissful weeks until regular classes started up again in September. His gown sported a mishmash of fluids and bits of viscera, and an unidentified string of pink matter clung to the bottom of his eye guard. The saw swayed at his side, a warrior's tool.

It was time for body number two.

Body number two proved to be a woman, midforties, with a shock of bright orange hair. It was much easier to move her to the embalming table, and her vivid hair quickly succumbed to the clippers. Horace made a three-inch incision just below her clavicle and raised her carotid artery and jugular vein so they protruded from the cut like fat soda straws. A pump system was strategically positioned on a table nearby, one wide cylinder containing the alcohol-based, five-percent-formaldehyde solution. A tube attached to the pump terminated in an enormous needle, which he sank into the carotid. He knotted a string around the end of the artery so the needle wouldn't fly out when he turned on the pump.

Pressurized at about fifteen pounds, the pump activated with a low hum, and began pushing the urine-colored embalming fluid into the carotid. The fluid would work all the way through the circulatory system, deep through the tissues, pushing the old blood and body fluids out the jugular ahead of it. The entire process would take about twenty-five minutes.

Horace wiped his brow with the arm of the autopsy gown, accidentally leaving a moist crimson smear across his forehead. The saws sat still and bloody on the counter against the wall, beasts slumbering after a feast.

It was time for a snack.

THE phone rang, and David was instantly awake in his dark bedroom. "Yes?"

Peter's voice. "You'd better come in. It's Clyde."

"Did they kill him?"

A pause. Sirens in the background.

"No. He escaped."

At 4:27 A.M., the ambulance bay festered with cop cars. Four security officers jogged past, radios bouncing on their hips. David braced himself as he walked past the parking kiosk and descended into the ambulance bay. Sandy had reached him in the car on his way over and poked around the issue in her incisive, aggressive way. He'd been vague; he could tell the call had left her displeased and unsatisfied, and her tone had seemed to hold some unspoken warning. David had called Peter back so Peter could fill him in on the escape. The realization had not yet fully hit; David moved with a dazed calm.

An officer straight-armed David as he stepped through the sliding glass doors. David unclipped his medical badge and displayed it, as he had already done at the police perimeter by the parking kiosks. "I'm Dr. Spier. I run this division."

"All right, sir," the officer said. "Be advised this entire area is a crime scene."

David heard Jenkins yelling the minute he stepped through the swinging doors into Hallway One. Jenkins had cornered Ralph and was jabbing his finger in his chest. "You're the chief security officer. What the fuck do you mean you can't find him? He ran into your hospital!"

Ralph calmly pushed Jenkins's hand, finger still extended, to one side. "Listen, cowboy, this building has twenty-nine miles of corridor, three-point-one million square feet, and fifty-seven exits. It's second only to the Pentagon."

"We gotta shut this place down, move room to room with dogs and SWAT."

"That would take weeks. Plus he probably already slipped out an exit."

"This isn't exactly Where's Waldo. We're looking for a shirtless man covered in blood running around with a stolen Beretta. Figure it out."

David slid past them and found Yale, who was crouched in Exam Fourteen, his back to the door. A few men in rumpled shirts and ties poked through the cabinets and the gurney mattress. David circled Yale and squatted beside him. Yale was examining an empty blood bag, turning it slowly on the end of his pen.

"It was supposed to be picked up by the blood bank. They came down, but I was in with him. . . . " David squeezed his eyes shut tightly, regretfully. "That's what he smeared all over himself. To make it look like he'd attempted suicide."

Yale nodded. He was chewing gum, something strong-scented and fruity. He pointed with his pen to the severed leather band. "Restraints," he said. "Once you get through one, the other three are a snap."

David stood and regarded the empty gurney. Several strands of Clyde's hair remained behind on the pillow. A crime scene technician was lifting them with tweezers and depositing them in a clear plastic bag. "You can catch him again, right? It'll be easier this time?"

"He never even coughed up a last name."

David gestured to the technician taking hair samples from the pillow. "What about the forensics?"

"We can run a DNA on the hair fibers, but unless he's been arrested and had blood drawn in the last five years, it won't do us much good."

David's voice sounded increasingly desperate. "But you have fingerprints. . . . "

Yale shook his head slowly. "He was wearing gloves the whole time. We don't book them and lift prints until we get 'em transported to Harbor." Yale studied David through a cool, even countenance.

David felt his face go slack.

Yale turned his gum over in his mouth and snapped it once, loudly. "If he was well enough to escape, he was well enough to be moved to Harbor. Now either you're a liar or a shitty doctor. Which is it?"

The blood bag leaked onto the floor.

David felt as if Yale were looking straight through his head, studying the back wall of his skull.

"If you were gonna keep him here, you should have tied down your fort," Yale said. "Made sure the room was secure."

"But I'm a doctor. That's not my job."

Yale looked at him again, the same impenetrable shine in his eyes. "Exactly."

David took a moment to let the roiling in his gut settle. "Listen. Why don't we figure out who's to blame later and focus on finding him."

Yale looked rightly irritated.

"I know my way around this hospital better than you. Better than Security, even."

"Sure," Yale said derisively. "It's your family business."

David stopped short, trying to keep up with a sudden cascade of thoughts. "How do you know that?"

"The building's named after you. Even if I weren't a detective--"

"That's what Clyde said. He said, 'Spier, like the building.' I thought he was thinking of a spire. But he saw the SPIER AUDITORIUM sign by the cafeteria--it looks like that whole portion of the building bears my family name. Clyde's been around the hospital. A lot."

"Not a news flash. He did escape into the hospital."

David's face felt hot. He blurted, with sudden conviction, "He works here."

"You can't say that with any--"

"Come here."

Yale reluctantly followed David into the hall. David swung a nearby gurney over between himself and Yale, and set the brake.

"Try to move this," he said. "Go ahead."

Yale tried to push it out of the way, but it didn't budge.

"Peter said he shoved the gurney at the officer, but if the gurney was left in the hall with a patient on it, it would've been locked," David said. "The foot levers on the new gurneys have to be kicked to the right to release the brakes--that's not common knowledge. You couldn't figure it out just now--imagine if you were running and someone was pointing a gun at you. Clyde already knew how the gurney operated. From working here."

"A helpful hypothesis. But it's time for you to leave."

"That's why he ran into the hospital interior--he knows these corridors and knows where to hide. Or what if it's not even a detour? Maybe he injured himself to get in here."

"We're on it. And this is our job. Now it's time for you to stay out of our way."

"I think we can--"

"If you continue to compromise this perimeter, I'll bust you for noncompliance." Yale pointed down the hall. His face showed he wasn't listening anymore.

David turned and headed for the lobby. A SWAT crew jogged by with two German shepherds straining at the leashes. Through the small windows atop the swinging doors, he could see Dalton interviewing Peter. From Peter's gestures, it appeared he was conveying details of the escape. Across the lobby, Jenkins alternated between shouting at Ralph and bellowing into his portable, contacting officers around the perimeter of the hospital. "Be advised suspect is considered to be in the possession of a police officer's nine-millimeter," David heard him say. "Let's take him down."

David glanced in Fifteen as he passed; Don was playing the hero, tending to the injured officers. Clyde's blow had inflicted some damage, the hasp on the restraint splitting the skin above one officer's ear. As he finished stitching, Don told a joke David couldn't overhear--probably something involving golf or heaven--and the officer's laughter carried to David as he pushed through the doors to the lobby.

Jenkins had disappeared, leaving Ralph to direct police traffic through the lobby. David moved up beside Ralph. "Is someone watching Nancy?" David asked.

"Yeah, Doc. We got her covered."

"What would Clyde want to do if he was loose in the hospital?"

Two more dogs walked by, sniffing, their nails scuttling over tile, pulling SWAT guys behind them.

"Get his ass out of here, I'd think," Ralph replied.

"Which way did he head?"

"Found smudges of fresh O-negative blood in the Three Corridor. Doors back there are Omnilocked, but we only change the combos once a year, so the codes are around. Plus, people sometimes leave the doors propped open."

David thought of the convoluted hospital interior, the endless white corridors, and realized how hopeless it would be to try to find Clyde's hiding place.

Ralph shook his head. "I'd say our bird's flown the coop."

Dalton finished with Peter and strode over. His tie was yanked to one side, and he'd missed a button on his shirt, the small gap revealing a threadbare undershirt. "Congratulations, Doc. You've turned the ER into a crime scene. Now I have jurisdiction. Get out."

David looked over his shoulder and saw Peter talking to a forensic artist. She shaded some element of the sketch with the side of her pencil, thanked Peter, and headed into Hallway One, probably to see the wounded cop.

"Go home," Dalton said. "You've done enough." His face, for once, was firm and intense. "I'm not asking this time."

David nodded once, slowly, and headed for the door, passing Peter. Peter embraced him across the shoulders with one arm.

"How are you doing?" David asked.

"Fine, fine." Peter ran his fingers through his hair, attempting to smooth it down. It did little good. His voice was a touch shaky. "You never think about it, but a hospital is full of weapons. Prongs and hooks and blades. It's grotesque, really. Tools of healing turned outward." He coughed into a fist. "The way he looked at me . . . "

"You didn't hurt your leg tripping him?"

Peter waved off the notion. "It's steel-enforced, remember?"

"All right," David said. "I have to leave. They're making me leave."

Dalton had finished scribbling something in his worn notepad. He flipped it closed with a flourish, rammed it into his back pocket, and looked up, sighting David. "I'm not fucking around, Doc. I'm gonna check on our artist, and if you're still here when I get back, I'll have you forcibly removed from the building. Don't think I won't." He banged through the swinging doors into the ER proper with the heels of his hands.

Peter trembled slightly, perhaps because the lobby was cool.

"Are you sure you're all right?" David asked.

"Yes," Peter said. "Always."

David was headed for the door when he felt a hand on his shoulder. He turned, expecting Peter but finding Jenkins.

Stress had gone to work on Jenkins's face over the last few days. The skin had reddened, as if pulled taut across the bones, and his cheekbones projected in almost skeletal fashion. His voice came low and vicious. "You treated him. You held him so he could escape. From here on out, every girl that winds up maimed and blind is your fault." He took a step back, as if not wanting to remain near David for fear of losing control.

David looked at him, unsure how to react, afraid to respond. An adrenaline rush left him light-headed, his ears humming.

When Jenkins spoke again, his voice was deathly calm. His finger stabbed the air, pointing at David's face. "It's on your head now," he said.

DAVID returned to his car in the PCHS lot and slid behind the wheel. It was 5:12 A.M. There was little point in his going home; he'd be unable to sleep anyway. He rolled down the window to let in the chilly air.

The flurry of activity around the hospital didn't seem to be slowing. Two UCPD cops strode past David's car.