Robin Cook - Blindsight

“Run out and get one of those pine coffins,” Angelo said. “Make it quick!”

A few minutes later Tony returned with a coffin, nails, and a hammer. He put the coffin down next to Laurie. With Angelo at her head and Tony at her feet, they lifted her into the box, then pulled off the plastic bag. Tony put on the lid and was about to nail it shut when Angelo suggested putting more of the gas inside.

Tony held the cylinder under the lid and tried to fill the coffin. Quickly he smelled the gas. Pulling his hand out, he closed the lid.

“That’s about all I can get in,” Tony said.

“Let’s hope it holds her,” Angelo said. “Get one of those wagons over here.” He pointed to a gurney pushed against the far wall.

Tony wheeled the gurney over, while Angelo nailed down the coffin’s lid. Then they both lifted the coffin onto it. Tony threw the plastic bag and gas cylinder into the doctor’s bag and set the bag on top of the coffin. Together he and Angelo wheeled the gurney out the door. They headed for the loading dock. Moving at a run, they passed the mortuary office, then turned and passed the security office.

While Tony waited on the lip of the loading dock and made sure the gurney didn’t roll away, Angelo went to check inside the mortuary vans. In the first one he found the keys in the ignition. Running back to Tony, he told him they’d use the truck. As quickly as possible, and using the keys to unlock the rear doors, they loaded the coffin containing Laurie into the back of the van. Angelo dropped the keys into Tony’s hand.

“You drive her,” Angelo said. “Go directly to the pier. I’ll see you there.”

Tony climbed into the front of the van and started the engine.

“Move it out,” Angelo yelled. Frantically waving, he guided Tony as Tony backed up into Thirtieth Street. Again Angelo could hear voices within the morgue.

“Get moving,” Angelo said as he slapped the side of the mortuary van. He watched until Tony had turned onto First Avenue, then he sprinted over to his own car, started it, and followed.

As soon as Angelo caught up to the van, he gave Cerino a call from his cellular phone. “We got the merchandise,” he said.

“Beautiful,” Cerino said. “Bring her to the pier. I’ll call Doc Travino. We’ll meet you there.”

“This wasn’t a clean operation,” Angelo said. “But we seem to be clear. No one is following us.”

“As long as you got her, it’s OK,” Cerino said. “And your timing is perfect. The Montego Bay departs tomorrow morning. Our little lady doc is due for a cruise.”

8:55 p.m., Monday

Manhattan

Lou pulled into the morgue loading dock and parked his car to the side. There was only one van in the drive instead of the usual two, so he could have pulled right up to the entrance, but figuring the other van would be back soon, he didn’t want to be in the way.

He put his police identification card on the dash and got out. Lou could have kicked himself for pushing Laurie as he had on the phone. When was he going to learn to back off? Criticizing Jordan was sure only to make her more defensive about the man. He must have really set her off this time. He could understand why she hadn’t picked up the phone when he’d called back, but even if she was mad he would have thought she’d have called him back. When she hadn’t gotten back to him after half an hour, Lou decided to head over to the medical examiner’s office to talk to her in person. He hoped she hadn’t left.

Lou passed the security office and glanced in through the window. He was a little surprised to see that no one was there, but he assumed that the security guard was making his rounds. Farther down the hall, Lou checked the mortuary office, but it was empty as well.

Lou scratched his head. The place seemed deserted. It was dead quiet, he thought with a laugh. He checked his watch. It wasn’t that late, and wasn’t this place supposed to be open around the clock? After all, people died twenty-four hours a day. With a shrug of his shoulders, Lou walked to the elevators and rode up to Laurie’s floor.

As soon as he stepped off the elevator he could tell that she wasn’t there. Her door was closed and the room was dark. But he wasn’t about to give up. Not yet. He remembered her having said something about some laboratory results. Lou decided to see if he could find the right lab and maybe then Laurie. He took the elevator down one floor, unsure of where to find the appropriate lab. At the end of the fourth-floor hall he saw a light. Lou walked the length of the hall and peered in the open door.

“Excuse me,” he said to the youthful man in a white lab coat stooped over one of the room’s major pieces of heavy equipment.

Peter looked up.

“I’m looking for Laurie Montgomery,” Lou said.

“You and everyone else,” Peter said. “I don’t know where she is now, but half an hour ago she went down to the morgue to look at a body in the walk-in cooler.”

“Someone else been looking for her?” Lou asked.

“Yeah,” Peter said. “Two men I’d never seen before.”

“Thanks,” Lou said. He turned back toward the elevator and hustled down the hall. He didn’t like the sound of two strangers looking for Laurie, not after what she’d said about two alleged plainclothes policemen coming to her apartment.

Lou went straight to the morgue level. Exiting the elevator, he was surprised he still hadn’t seen a soul besides the guy in the lab. With growing concern, he hurried down the long hall to the walk-in cooler. Finding its door partially ajar only added to his unease.

With mounting dread he pulled the door the rest of the way open. What he saw was far worse than he could have imagined. Inside the cooler, bodies were strewn helter-skelter. Two gurneys were tipped on their sides. Several of the sheets covering the bodies had been pulled aside. Even after a few days’ experience in the autopsy room, he still didn’t have the stomach for this. And whatever had happened to Laurie, this body-strewn battleground was hardly an auspicious sign.

Lou spotted a purse among the wreckage. Pushing gurneys aside, he picked it up to check for ID. He snapped open the wallet. The first thing he saw was Laurie’s photo on her driver’s license.

As he rushed from the cooler, Lou’s concern turned to fear, especially if his current theory about all the gangland-style murders was correct. Frantically he looked for someone, anyone. There was always someone available at the morgue. Seeing the light in the main autopsy room, he ran down to it and pushed open the doors, but no one was there either.

Turning around, Lou dashed back to the security office to use the phone. Entering the room, he immediately saw the guard’s body on the floor. He knelt down and rolled the man over. The man’s unseeing eyes stared up at him. There was a bullet hole in his forehead. Lou checked for a pulse, but there wasn’t any. The man was dead.

Standing up, Lou snatched up the phone and dialed 911. As soon as an operator answered he identified himself as Lieutenant Lou Soldano and requested a homicide unit for the city morgue. He added that the victim was in the security office but that he would not be able to wait for the unit to arrive.

Slamming the phone down, Lou raced to the morgue loading dock and jumped into his car. Starting the engine, he backed up with a screech of his tires, leaving two lines of rubber on the morgue’s driveway. He had no other choice than to head directly for Paul Cerino’s. It was cards-on-the-table time. He slapped his emergency light on the car’s roof and arrived at Cerino’s Queens address after twenty-three minutes of hair-raising driving.

Racing up the front steps of the Cerino home, he reached into his shoulder holster and unsnapped the leather band securing his.38 Smith and Wesson Detective Special. He rang the bell impatiently. Judging by all the lights blazing, someone had to be home.