Josh Bazell - Beat the Reaper - A Novel

So the Hand had been scrupulously protected, and supposedly kept under direct observation at all times from the moment it was found. Which seems silly. I mean, whose job is that? Do you have to sit in a refrigerator to do it? But it got the point across.

The Feds didn’t even have to DNA-test it—which they couldn’t have, because they had no reliable sample from Tits to compare it to. The O.J. trial had made DNA testing seem like a conspiracy by a bunch of assholes with jobs to fool jurors they thought were stupid. The defense was welcome to DNA-test the Hand—and come across as smart-ass elitist dickheads, for a result the jury would just ignore anyway—but the prosecution wasn’t about to.

It all confused the shit out of me.

I mean, there it was. The Hand. I couldn’t remember whether Tits had had long nails or not. But it was somebody’s hand. If the Karcher Boys hadn’t cut it off, then somebody else had, which meant I had to think about whether someone was setting me up.

But who, and why?

The prosecution referred to the Hand constantly, no matter what boring shit they were shoveling in the foreground. Like the surveillance tapes, which had so much static that the prosecution had to project subtitles up at the front, causing half the courtroom—and two thirds of the jury—to fall asleep. Until the prosecution said “Bear in mind they’re talking about the kind of vicious criminal who would do this to a woman’s hand,” and put the image of the Hand back on the screen, and everybody woke back up.

Things got more interesting when the prosecution started showing photos of the Farm, including the storm cellar, and then again when they finally called Mike the Grocery Boy to the stand about driving us into the compound in his truck. Mike was impressively sullen, and he got a laugh by saying, “From what I saw, it could have been Bigfoot back there.” The prosecution also began to lead up to calling the imprisoned mob turncoat, which might have been interesting.

But, as you know, the trial ended before that was necessary.

One night Sam Freed came to my cell . At midnight . He wouldn’t talk to me until a guard had taken us to the office where Freed and I had first met, and left us alone there.

“Look, kid,” he said then. “Something’s about to happen. I’m not going to tell you what it is, because I want you to focus on what I’m saying. And when you find out, you’re not going to be able to focus on anything.”

“Oh, don’t give me that shit—” I said.

“I’m giving it and you’re taking it. So listen. I made you an offer that would have been the best thing that ever happened to you. You could have been a goddamned doctor, like your grandfather. You could have been anything or anyone you wanted to be. Want to join the country club? I could have made you a WASP. You hear me?”

“I never wanted to be a WASP.”

“You hear me?”

“Yes.”

“I will do everything I can to get that offer back for you after everyone calms down,” he said. “But for a while things will be squirrelly, and out of control. Just remember people will come to their senses eventually. You testifying against David Locano will always be worth something to the DOJ. Are you hearing me?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“You will tomorrow morning, believe me. So spend tonight thinking about what I’m telling you—about taking a deal if I can get you one. With your permission, I’ll call your girlfriend and give her my number. Can I do that?”

“Well...yes, but...”

“You’ll understand it all tomorrow morning,” he said. “And when that happens—for Christ’s sake, use your head.”

At eight the next morning, the judge dismissed all State and Federal charges against me on grounds that the Hand should have been discovered under Brady v. Maryland after all. Six hours later they let me out of a holding cell. Donovan came and got me and took me out to lunch and told me what the hell had happened.

My defense team had had the Hand DNA-tested. They figured the public wasn’t as stupid about that kind of thing as they had been during O.J., and what could it hurt. When the results had come back they’d had the Hand examined by a radiologist. Then a PhD in anatomy, and then a zoologist.

The Hand was not a hand. It was a paw. From a bear. A male bear. And just like that, it was over.

That afternoon, the prosecution tried to seal the record. There wasn’t any point. The headlines started immediately:

“ESCAPE CLAWS.” “BEARLY LEGAL.” “WITLESS FOR THE PAWSECUTION.”

Those fuckers never had a chance.

Which wasn’t fair. Everyone went on and on about what a colossal fuckup it was, and how stupid someone would have to be to mistake a bear paw for a human hand. But I was in that courtroom, and so were a lot of other people. And not one of us doubted it for a second. In photos, at least, it was impossible to tell.

Even after I got to med school I was amazed by the similarities—particularly if you take off the claws, which people do when they skin bears. Bears are the only nonprimates that can walk on their hind feet. They look so much like people when you skin them that the Inuit, Tlingit, and Ojibwa all thought bears could become people by taking their skins off. And the Inuit, Tlingit, and Ojibwa dissected a lot more bears than some drunk at the FBI ever did. Let alone the New York Post .

Anyway.

That, kids, is how the Bearclaw got his name.

I’m standing by the curtained-off bed next to Squillante’s in the recovery room, rolling the two empty potassium vials around in one hand. I should be rounding on my patients, then getting the fuck out of the hospital. Or else forgetting about my patients, and going straight to the getting-the-fuck-out part.

What I should not be doing is standing here trying to figure out who killed Squillante. I mean, who cares, and what difference does it make? Is there some hitman still in the hospital who’s about to get a call saying “Wait up. While you’re there, would you mind whacking the Bearclaw, too?” Unlikely. I probably have about ninety minutes.

But no one’s ever whacked a patient of mine before, and I can’t get past it. It pisses me off in a whole new way.

I give myself one hundred seconds to think.

The obvious suspect is someone from Squillante’s family. Someone who was hoping Squillante would die in surgery so there could be a big malpractice suit, but was willing to take matters into his or her own hands when Squillante pulled through. So an insurance beneficiary. [53] You see this all the time—not people actually killing their relatives, but people sorely disappointed when their relatives survive. It usually takes the form of someone asking you to take their mother off life support even though her surgery went great and Mom’s up and walking around and about to check out.

But it’s also someone who knew to use two whole vials of potassium. Any less than that might have allowed Squillante to live, or even helped him. Any more would have been pointless, and would have caused streaks in his aorta that would scream out on autopsy.

But if the person wanted to hide the fact that it was murder, why inject Squillante so quickly that his EKG spiked? The insurance company would love that. The money’s never coming out of probate.

Maybe the person did care, but didn’t have the time or training to do it right.

Again, though, who gives a shit? Enough time wasted. I’ll go see those of my patients who might die if I don’t, and leave the rest to Akfal.