Notorious Nineteen Read online

  The door started to roll down, and Morelli and I slipped under it and into the garage before it closed completely. A moment later we saw the light go on over the elevator, indicating it was in motion.

  “Someone else is coming down,” Morelli said.

  We scrambled into a dark corner behind some packing crates and watched the elevator doors open and the Yeti come out carrying two insulated chests. He loaded the chests into the van, got behind the wheel, pressed the remote for the door, and drove out of the garage.

  Morelli grabbed my hand, yanked me across the garage at a full run, and we slid under the door just as it closed. He was instantly on his feet and sprinting across the lot, through the small patch of woods. He had the Buick cranked over by the time my hand touched the door handle.

  “Briggs can wait,” he said, peeling out of the lot. “I want to see where the van is going.”

  We caught sight of the van just as it left the park and headed south on Route 1. It got off at Spruce and fifteen minutes later it turned in to a private fixed base operations facility at Mercer Airport. The van pulled up to the FBO gate, was admitted onto the tarmac, and drove up to a midsize business jet. The two insulated chests were handed over to the captain, and the Yeti drove the van off the field and back to the access road.

  Morelli called the plane’s tail number in to one of his contacts and asked for owner information. He listened to the answer, thanked the person at the other end, and put the Buick in gear.

  “The plane is owned by Franz Sunshine Enterprises,” Morelli said. “And it’s filed a flight plan for a Nevada destination.”

  “I guess it’s not a big surprise that Sunshine owns the plane, since the chests came from his clinic.”

  “I wouldn’t mind knowing what was in those chests,” Morelli said.

  “Drugs? Body parts? Lunch?”

  Morelli made another phone call and suggested that the chests be checked out on arrival in Nevada.

  “I suppose we should try to rescue Briggs,” I said when Morelli finished his call.

  “He’s not my favorite person,” Morelli said.

  “He’s not anyone’s favorite person.”

  We turned onto Route 1 and my phone rang.

  It was Briggs. “Where the hell are you? I finally was able to get out by the skin of my teeth and you’re not here!”

  “We’re ten minutes away,” I said. “We followed the white van to the airport, but we’re on our way back.”

  “This clinic is creep central. I don’t know what the heck they do here but it involves dead people, and it smells bad.”

  “How many dead people did you see?”

  “Just the one. Isn’t that enough?”

  “Is that what smells bad?”

  “If the stiff smelled bad I wouldn’t know over the stench coming from the lounge. There’s some guy cooking something in the microwave that’s stinking up the whole floor. I heard someone call him Abu.”

  “Abu Darhmal,” I said.

  Morelli looked over at me when I hung up. “He saw dead people?”

  “One. And he managed to get out. He’s waiting for us in the lot.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  “I WAS GETTING lonely here,” Briggs said when we parked and got out of the car.

  “We followed the Yeti to the airport and watched him hand over two insulated chests and leave. I imagine he came back here.”

  Briggs shook his head. “He didn’t come back here. Nobody’s here. The doctor and the Abu guy just left. The only one who didn’t leave is the dead guy. Except I guess he could be in someone’s trunk since he isn’t in the hall anymore.”

  Morelli looked at The Clinic. “It’s empty?”

  “Yeah,” Briggs said. “The party’s over.”

  Morelli got a flashlight from the Buick. “Let’s take a tour.”

  There were no cars in the garage, just as Briggs had said. We entered the stairwell and climbed to the first floor in darkness. Morelli opened the door and we moved into the first-floor hall. Also dark. We walked the length of it, returned to the stairwell, and went up another flight. The second-floor hall had path lighting. Not so much that you could read by it, but enough that Morelli didn’t need his flashlight.

  We did a quick check of the empty offices, crossed the lobby past the elevator bank and reception desk, and aimed light into the first patient room. It was just as I remembered it. Bed made. No sign of occupancy. En suite bathroom unused.

  Morelli flashed light into the second patient room, and I saw that the bed was stripped bare. Somebody had been in the bed and now they were gone, I thought. The guy with the feet.

  “This is different from when I was here,” I said. “This bed was made up when I was here.”

  We looked through the room and the bathroom, but found no left-behind personal effects. There was a lingering smell of antiseptic. The room had recently been cleaned.

  “Where did you see the feet?” I asked Briggs.

  “In the hall here, outside this room.”

  Morelli looked over at me. Probably checking to make sure I wasn’t going to faint.

  We left the room and went across the hall to the lab. A half-filled coffee cup had been left on a counter, so the lab was clearly being used, but there were no obvious science experiments going on. No slides under the microscope. No petri dishes growing the unthinkable. No beakers of urine.

  Morelli went through drawers. He found nicotine gum, Rolaids, sticky pads, and pens, but no notes. No computer.

  “It used to be you could always look for a phone book,” Morelli said. “Now they’re obsolete. Everyone carries their phone book in their phone. Same with computers. They’re portable and almost never left behind.”

  We moved from the lab to the lounge. It was furnished in standard hospital lounge furniture. Inexpensive. Easy to clean. Beige and orange. Two round tables with four chairs each. Small kitchen area with a fridge, microwave, and sink. Large flat-screen television. Couch and two club chairs in front of the television. There were dishes in the sink. They’d been rinsed and left to dry.

  The surgery was the only room left to investigate. We all took a deep breath before pushing the door open. Not sure what we expected to find, but we were all reluctant to enter.

  The room had no windows, so Morelli flipped the light switch and we were blinded by brightness. I’d seen it before and there were no surprises. No body on the table. No blood spatters. No gallon jugs for cellulite collection.

  Morelli looked around. “This is a really well equipped room. You don’t spend this kind of money if you aren’t going to use the equipment. So what do they do here? My first thought would be very private cosmetic surgery, but the patient rooms weren’t luxurious. What else could they use this for?”

  I had an idea but I didn’t want to say it out loud. It was too gruesome. I looked at Morelli, and I knew he had the same idea. Body parts.

  I heard the scuff of footsteps in the hall behind us and turned to see the Yeti and Franz Sunshine.

  “Organ harvest,” Sunshine said. “Very lucrative. The donor never complains because he’s dead. And the recipient is happy to pay an astronomical amount of money to live. It’s a win-win deal. We only harvest from losers who have a reason to disappear, and we were doing well until Ms. Plum came along. Now as it turns out we have three new donors.”

  “I’m a dwarf,” Briggs said. “Nobody’s gonna want my organs. You might as well let me go. I won’t tell anyone. I swear.”

  The Yeti was holding an assault rifle. “Don’t anyone get frisky,” he said. “I have real good aim with this. I go for knees since they don’t bring much money on the black market.”

  “Why were you in Cubbin’s house?” I asked him.

  “Looking for his money. He said he had money hid there but I couldn’t find it.”

  “He was trying to buy his way out of donating his heart?”

  “Something like that,” the Yeti said.

  “Let’s move this along
,” Sunshine said. “We’re all going down to the garage now. Hands on your heads. Single file. If anything bothersome happens John will shoot you.”

  So the Yeti’s name was John.

  We followed instructions and walked down the hall to the lobby. We shuffled into the elevator and lined up against the wall. The Yeti was steely-eyed with the assault rifle trained on us. Morelli was wearing his cop face. No emotion. Watching the Yeti. Waiting for his moment.

  I was still wearing Ranger’s GPS watch. I had my hands on my head, one hand over my wrist, and I pushed the audio button. No one seemed to notice. I couldn’t see the watch face, but I hoped I was sending.

  The elevator doors opened onto the garage and we exited, hands still on our heads. The white van and a black Mercedes were parked side by side, noses to the wall.

  “You’re going to turn and walk to the far side of the garage,” Sunshine said. “Walk very carefully. John is known to have a short fuse when he feels threatened.”

  I knew this to be true. He’d zapped me with the stun gun, and I hadn’t seen it coming.

  We got to the end of the garage, and I realized there was a door that I hadn’t noticed before. It had another of the number-sequenced locks on it, and it looked like a door to a vault.

  Sunshine punched in six numbers, the door released, he pulled it open, and cold air rushed out at us. I sensed Morelli shift foot to foot. He wasn’t liking what he saw.

  “What is this?” I asked, hoping Ranger was listening.

  “It’s a freezer,” Sunshine said. “Convenient for storing bodies until we can arrange disposal. Because we’re short-staffed right now and can’t sedate the three of you, we’ll slow your respiration for a few hours. When Dr. Fish returns you’ll be barely alive, but hopefully some of your organs will be usable.”

  He flipped a switch and a light went on in the freezer. It was commercial grade. Possibly originally designed as a morgue or maybe a walk-in for Shop n Bag. Sunshine took the rifle from the Yeti and motioned for him to go into the freezer.

  “Haul them out,” Sunshine said.

  The Yeti went in and came out with a black plastic body bag. Whatever was in it was frozen solid and about 5'10". The Yeti lifted the bag and carried it to the van. He got a second frozen bag, struggled a little under the weight, and shoved it into the back of the van as well.

  “Pitch and Cubbin?” Morelli asked.

  Sunshine didn’t answer. He handed the rifle over to the Yeti. “In you go,” Sunshine said to Morelli.

  Morelli lunged for the rifle, and the Yeti shot him in the leg.

  I screamed, the Yeti hit me in the stomach with the rifle butt, and I crumpled to the ground unable to breathe.

  “I don’t want to go in there,” Briggs said. “I’m too young. I’m not ready. I’m diseased. I’ve got everything. Herpes and warts. My liver’s crap.”

  The Yeti herded Morelli and Briggs in and slammed the door shut. I was still lying on the cement floor.

  “Get up,” Sunshine said. “You’re going with us in case we need a hostage.”

  “Why would you need a hostage?” I asked.

  “Your boyfriend is a cop. I don’t know if he was stupidly acting alone or if this was a planned operation.”

  The Yeti dragged me up to my feet and prodded me with the rifle. “Move.”

  We reached the van and Sunshine bound my hands at the wrist with electrician’s tape. I couldn’t stop from rolling my eyes. Jeez Louise, I thought, how many times in one day can this happen?

  We all got into the van, Sunshine driving and the Yeti holding the gun on me. We motored out of the garage and down the driveway. I didn’t see any Rangeman cars.

  “Where are we going?” I asked.

  “The cemetery, of course,” the Yeti said. “It’s not like we’re animals. We give everyone a decent burial.”

  Sunshine went north on Route 1 for about a mile and then turned in to what I saw from a sign was the Sunshine Memorial Park. The cemetery gate opened, Sunshine drove through, and the gate closed behind us.

  “One of my many holdings,” Sunshine said. “This used to be farmland but I got it for taxes. Turns out there’s more money in death than in cows.”

  I’d had a chance to look at my watch before my wrists were taped and I knew the audio was active. The plus sign was visible in the watch face. My hope was that Ranger had rescued Morelli and Briggs by now and gotten help for Morelli before he lost too much blood. I was trying to stay calm. This was helped by the fact that I was exhausted.

  The cemetery was dark, lit only by a sliver of moon. We drove through acres of headstones. All uniform. The Levittown of cemeteries. Sunshine took a road that went off into a raw field. No headstones here. I was in the back of the van with the body bags but I could see through the windshield. Sunshine pulled to the side and stopped.

  The Yeti hauled me out of the van and went back for the body bags. He dragged them to a big hole in the ground and pitched them in.

  “God bless,” the Yeti said.

  “Now you,” Sunshine said. “Get into the pit.”

  “I thought I was a hostage.”

  “Only for this far. The facility can’t handle more than two patients at a time. The process becomes too complicated. We have to hold the donor and keep him healthy until all the recipients are in place. It’s most lucrative when you can harvest multiple organs, but that requires precision timing.”

  The Yeti shoved me to the edge of the grave. “Get in,” he said. “Jump.”

  “Are you going to bury me alive?”

  “No. I’m going to shoot you,” the Yeti said, “but it’s neater if you’re already in the hole.”

  He shoved me again, I lost my balance and fell into the grave, on top of the body bags. I saw the Yeti raise the rifle to shoot me, I opened my mouth to scream, but before I could make a sound I heard Crack, crack! The Yeti and Sunshine went down. I was on my back on the frozen corpses, numb not just from the cold seeping up into me but from the horror of the day.

  I struggled to my feet and stood on one of the body bags to look over the edge of the hole. The Yeti and Sunshine were sprawled on the ground, not moving. I tried to climb out, but the dirt gave way under me. A car drove up in the dark, no headlights but I could make out the outline. The car parked and Ranger and two of his men got out.

  Ranger walked to the edge of the grave and jumped in. He lifted me up into the arms of one of his men, and I was back on solid ground. The man gave Ranger a hand up, and Ranger was next to me, cutting the tape off my wrists.

  “This is getting to be a bad habit,” Ranger said. “This is the second time I’ve had to cut you out of tape today.”

  “Morelli?” I asked him.

  “He’s fine. Getting locked in a freezer is a good way to stop bleeding from gunshot. Tank and Eugene got him out and took him to St. Francis.”

  “I love this watch,” I told him.

  “Remember to shut it off when you go into the bathroom. I don’t want my men in the control room getting distracted.”

  A second car drove up, and Hal got out.

  “I’m going to have Hal take you home,” Ranger said. “I have some cleanup to do here.”

  “Are you just going to shovel dirt on them?”

  “I’d like to. That would be much easier. Unfortunately the police will have to get involved.”

  Morelli, I found out, was still in surgery when we got to Trenton, so Hal dropped me off at St. Francis. I thanked him and told him it wasn’t necessary for him to wait. He said the Buick was parked in the garage, and Morelli had the key.

  I waved Hal away and walked into the ER reception area. Briggs was there huddled in a blanket, looking tired. He jumped to his feet the instant he saw me and rushed over, suddenly all smiles.

  “We heard you were okay! What happened?” he asked.

  “I got pushed into an open grave. It was awful.” I felt myself choke up and I swiped at tears. “Sorry,” I said. “It’s been a long day.�
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  “Tell me about it. I was bawling like a baby in the meat locker. The tears were all frozen on my face when the Rangeman guy broke in.”

  “How’d they get the door open?”

  “The little guy, Eugene, had an electronic gizmo that figured out the combination. The whole operation was freakin’ impressive. Rangeman had an EMT truck and medics waiting for us when we got out.”

  “Thanks for staying with Morelli.”

  “No problem. I guess you’ll take over now.”

  I nodded. “I’ll wait here.”

  “That would be great. I think I pissed my pants when I got shoved into the freezer. I wouldn’t mind going home and throwing these clothes away. I don’t want anything that reminds me of tonight.”

  It was a couple more hours before I got to take Morelli home. We went to his house because Rex and Bob were there and so I didn’t have to worry about finding leftover pieces of Orin. Morelli was zonked out on painkillers, and I was so fatigued I was vibrating.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  LULA AND CONNIE were already at the office when I rolled in Monday morning. Connie had a birthday cake on her desk.

  “Whose birthday?” I asked.

  “No one’s,” Connie said. “We’re celebrating that you’re not dead.”

  “It was touch and go,” I said. “Saturday isn’t going down as one of my better days.”

  “Yeah, but you got a lot accomplished,” Lula said. “You got a whole shitload of bad guys killed.”

  I scooped some icing off with my finger and ate it. “True. And I found Cubbin and Pitch.”

  Connie and Lula exchanged glances.

  “What?” I asked.

  “Turned out when they unzipped those bags one of them was Pitch but the other one was some homeless guy.”

  “That’s impossible. What happened to Cubbin?”

  Lula and Connie did shoulder shrugs. They didn’t know what happened to Cubbin.

  I called Morelli. “I just got in to work and I’m hearing it wasn’t Cubbin in the body bag.”

  “I was briefed on it two minutes ago,” Morelli said. “It was Pitch and a John Doe.”

  “So where’s Cubbin?”