David Dean - Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 125, No. 3 & 4. Whole No. 763 & 764, March/April 2005

When he was gone, she shut the door and turned to face me, an intrigued smile on her face. “All right, young lady. For whom do you really work, pray tell? Are you still meeting a friend, or have you found her?”

Dr. Cannon arranged her clothes carefully as she sat down, and she gestured me to a chair. I couldn’t help noticing that gray was her color, and that she’d decorated the postmodern office in gray, with shades of black, white, and splashes of red on the window valance and pillows for more impact. The walls had all kinds of framed papers attesting to her success in life — licenses, certificates, and winning lottery tickets for all I could tell from where I sat.

Her voice was clipped but not angry when she asked, “Ms. Madison, what exactly are you up to here?”

When I’m on a case, I have a strict policy of keeping as much of the truth out of it as possible, no matter how much I instinctively trust someone, but I had nowhere to go this time. The lady was certainly nobody’s fool, and I didn’t want her for an enemy. “The family of one of the body donors hired me,” I said. “My real name’s Lane Terry. Here.” Figuring that she was going to check me out anyway, and that there was no point in getting thrown into a security mess while she decided what to do with me, I inserted my thumb and index finger down into the side of my right boot, extracted a laminated card, and handed it to her. She carefully recorded the pertinent information from my State of California investigator’s license before she handed it back.

I went on, “Apparently, there had been something strange about the way the body was handled—”

Her eyes shifted to a point down and to her left, signally visual memory. Maybe she’d seen something too, and she’d been wondering about the guy all along.

I hesitated, expecting her to say something, but when she didn’t, I told her this little lie to lead her off Sean’s scent: that Mr. Ludlow had picked up the remains at the rest home where my client’s loved one had passed away. He’d come in an unmarked van, and then told the family there were charges for transportation and for the return of the ashes, payable to some private company.

Dr. Cannon took all this data in, the only change in her expression a slight hardening around the mouth. In her efficient way, she held up a hand to signal that she’d heard enough. “This is what I was afraid of when we hired him. Our program director had just retired. Nick just seemed so convenient, young but well trained, and he convinced the interview committee that he had ‘extensive marketing experience’—” here she finger-hooked quotation marks in the air — “from his family’s funeral home. He said he could put these entrepreneurial skills to work in our service.” She sniffed. “We’ll have to see whether he used those skills in our service or, if not, in whose.” She sighed. “All right, Ms. Terry, I’m putting you to work. You go right on as Ms. Madison. But I don’t want anyone but the two of us to know. Fair? Nothing in writing, and I’ll pay you in cash. I assume the family won’t object?”

Since there wasn’t one, only this adorable younger brother I was trying not to obsess about, I assured her that the family would not object. I certainly understood why Dr. Cannon would like to avoid asking for a disbursement of university funds to conduct an outlandish investigation on an employee without any formal complaint being brought. It would only make her look ridiculous if she turned out to be wrong. I could see it from her point of view. Outlandish or not, she still wanted someone to get the goods on Ludlow, and I couldn’t have been more pleased. This way, I would be on a “real” case, uncomplicated by friendship. With Dr. Cannon’s protection, I’d have all the access and authority I needed to find out what happened to Daniel.

“That’s fine,” I said, “so long as you appreciate that my clients are also entitled to expect my discretion.”

She nodded and stood, glancing at her elegant wrist watch. I could see upside down that the band was definitely platinum, in keeping with her color scheme, and that the time was eight-twenty.

“Let’s get to work,” she said. “Tell me, are you actually any good with a computer?”

I admit that I smirked while nodding.

“Good. Then your ostensible assignment is to work on cleaning up Mr. Ludlow’s predecessor’s records, getting them in shape before we close the books. Then he won’t get the idea you’re checking up on him. His isn’t the only area I manage, so if he asks what else you’re doing, tell him I’m forming a task force on medical-malpractice insurance coverage. That’s completely out of his area, and it’s not likely to interest him. Your hours are eight to five, an hour for lunch. Every day, take a coffee break at ten sharp and come report to me.”

I shook her well-manicured hand with my vampire-manicured one and went to report to Nick Ludlow.

The next couple of days were tense but exciting. I kept Sean updated at two mostly unnecessary meetings he requested. At the first, he insisted on giving me a check right away, and it was all I could do, standing over him as he wrote it out, to keep from reaching out and touching the blond bangs, almost transparent, that spilled into the sunlight as he bent over the desk. Then there was his voice, the way his saying an ordinary word or phrase, say, “Be careful, Lane,” made me want to tear off clothing — his, mine, somebody’s. I was barely managing to ignore what I hoped was rampaging mutual attraction, and I had to go to the med school just to be able to concentrate.

Unfortunately, the hospital had its share of other distractions, though far from pleasant ones. There, when I looked up promising files like “Current Month Disposal Records” and “Heritage Crem. Svcs.,” I had to quickly change to another screen whenever I saw Nick Ludlow coming. Felt him coming, that is. Creepy little undertaker that he was, he sneaked around as if he had felt soles glued onto his shoes. He also expected slave service from me, things like, “Go down to the cafeteria and get me a double latte with plenty of chocolate sprinkles, Madison. I’ll, um, pay you when you get back.” Which he did the first time, but on the morning of the second day, he pretended to be out of change. No worries; that afternoon I found his cash stash, reimbursed myself, and instituted a money-up-front policy. There was no way that fool was going to get over on me.

The third day, I found some information about Daniel’s donation, but only some: inbox, no outbox. No internal tracking to say whether the remains had been used for dissection once they arrived, either. I developed a theory: Maybe Ludlow was just giving any old ashes to whoever asked for — read, paid for — ashes, remembering to remove the “anatomical waste” tag that identified a mix of bodies except in that one case. Or maybe he didn’t bother, and nobody made anything out of it. You know: Here’s a tag, but it’s dated six months after Grandma passed on, and so what if they call it something strange; they’re doctors, right?

That theory led to another possibility. Maybe Daniel was still on the premises. I didn’t like it, but I had to get into the refrigerated area where the actual cadavers were kept.

The next day, I told Dr. Cannon that I needed to check that the remains had been correctly labeled and routed from Point A to Point B, and out the door at Point C. An orderly person like her would certainly approve of this systematic approach, since even a cursory examination showed that Ludlow’s files were useless. Maybe the cadaver drawers were labeled alphabetically like files. I’d have to see, but I kind of doubted it, since you’d have to be reshuffling them all the time — never mind.