Warren Murphy: Target of Opportunity

"How recent would you say were these scars?"

"Recent?" the M.E. repeated blankly.

"You heard me?"

"With scarring, it is difficult to say precisely."

"Thirty years old?" prompted Smith.

The M.E. shook his head. "No, not even ten, I should judge."

Smith compressed his mouth and said nothing. He next went to the man's hands, drawing the sheet down farther to expose them.

The body had already begun to stiffen, so Smith had to give the arm a hard jerk to lift the right hand.

"You should not do that!" the M.E. exploded.

Smith brought the limp, cold fingers to his own face and turned the wrist with difficulty. He examined the fingertips, which were black with ink from the posthumous fingerprinting.

"I found it difficult to believe this is really Lee Harvey Oswald," the M.E. muttered.

"I find it impossible to accept," said Harold Smith, using a fingernail to scratch residual ink from the dead man's thumb. The flesh beneath was cold and unresponsive. Smith kept scratching.

"What are you doing?" the M.E. asked, leaning in curiously.

To his horror, Harold Smith took up a loose flap of skin and began peeling the thumb as if it was a tiny white banana.

The M.E. gasped. Smith's grim gray face went grimmer.

Smith let the hand go. It dropped slightly, then froze in a macabre lifting gesture, as if the dead man were stirring back to life. Smith paid the arm no attention. He was looking at the perfect shell of the last joint of a thumb between his gloved fingers.

"Latex," said Smith. "Grooved with Lee Harvey Oswald's perfect fingerprints."

"Latex?"

"The same material as these gloves," said Smith, stripping off the disposable rubber gloves.

"I cannot believe these were overlooked during the autopsy."

"The latex fingertips were expertly fitted so no seam showed, just as the body scars were designed to create the illusion of an older Lee Harvey Oswald."

"Then how did you discover these things?"

"I looked for them," said Smith.

The M.E. winced. "If this man is not Oswald, who is he?"

"After you have his true fingerprints, fax them to me at the White House, but tell no one else. Do you understand?"

"Yes," said the puzzled medical examiner.

SMITH NEXT went to St. Elizabeth's Hospital, where his false identification got him access to the insane patient who bore a strong resemblance to Congressman Gila Gingold.

There were two Secret Service special agents on duty. Smith asked them, "Why hasn't this man been fingerprinted as ordered?"

"We can't get him out of the tub," one agent admitted.

"Every time we try, he tries to bite us," the other added.

"Show me," said Smith.

The patient-his name was now Gila Doe on the bedside clipboard-was in a private room, and it had a private bath.

The attending doctor showed up and began explaining. "He wet the bed repeatedly, so we had orderlies carry him into the bathroom to sponge him down. He took one look at the tub filled with water and threw himself in. We haven't been able to pry him out after that."

Smith found the patient still in his jungle fatigues soaking in the tub. He wasn't soaking on his back, but on his stomach.

When Smith peered over the edge of the oversize tub, he felt his skin crawl involuntarily. The patient's limbs were splayed out. His head was almost entirely submerged except for the white hair on top. His green eyes shifted to fix Smith with a cold lizardlike regard. Bubbles dribbled up from the thin, submerged lips.

Experimentally Smith reached toward a tiny bald spot in the white hair that resembled the burr hole found on the skull of the Socks replica.

Abruptly the patient reared up. He tried to snap the hand off. Smith withdrew his fingers just ahead of the jaws. The man eased back into the water and returned to dribbling slow bubbles, as if nothing had happened.

"See what we mean?" one agent said.

"Distract him, please," Smith told the agents as he removed his coat and rolled up one shirt sleeve.

The agents moved to the end of the tub, and the cold green eyes shifted to follow.

Ducking low, Smith slipped up on one side and snaked his bare arm into the tub. He reached under and carefully began tickling the man on his stomach.

The frozen face betrayed no notice at first. Then a slow, satisfied smile crept over the thin mouth. The eyes grew sleepy and pleased.

"Quickly," hissed Smith. "Turn him over on his back."

The agents hesitated.

"Now!" said Smith.

Eyes afraid, the agents moved in and, reaching around Smith's tickling hand, upended the man.

Smith continued tickling the stomach. The man lifted his arms like a contented kitten. They hung in the air, bent and boneless.

"Print him now," Smith ordered.

"With what?"

"Anything!"

The agents cracked open a pen and smeared raw ink on the fingers of one limp hand. The man in the tub appeared oblivious to the entire procedure.

They pressed each fingertip to a sheet of hospital stationery and when they had all five prints of one hand, Smith said, "Step back quickly."

They did. Smith ceased his methodical tickling and pulled away.

Slowly the man in the jungle fatigues rolled over onto his stomach again. His head slipped under the ink stained water, and he returned to blowing slow bubbles.

"Run those prints and contact me at the White House," Smith told the two agents, returning his sleeve to normal.

"How did you know he was ticklish?" the attending doctor asked Smith on the way out.

"All alligators are ticklish," said Smith.

Chapter 26

Orville Rollo Fletcher was getting tired of waiting in his corner room in the Washington Holiday Inn on Wisconsin. It was nerves. Sheer nerves. He was a bundle of nerves. A big bundle. A very big bundle. Three hundred and twenty pounds, to be exact.

It had been very exciting at first. Orville had never been to Washington before. Not Washington, D.C. He came from Washington State. Spokane, to be exact.

It had been a very uneventful life in Spokane for Orville Rollo Fletcher until the advent of Thrush Limburger.

At first there had been no problem. Thrush Limburger had been a radio voice. His voice bore no resemblance to the voice of Orville Rollo Fletcher, unless you considered the deep resonance that typically emanated from the guts of very large men.

Then Limburger had launched his TV show. After that, Orville's life became a living hell. It had begun at work. Orville owned a hardware store in downtown Spokane. Fletcher's. Nothing fancy, nothing big. He stocked the basics of home maintenance-nails, shovels, paint and tools. The home warehouse superstores with their deep-discount seed spreaders and submersible sump pumps had not yet come to Spokane, so the competition consisted of upstart hardware stores who could not compete with Fletcher's Hardware, a local institution established in 1937 by Orville's grandfather, August Orville Fletcher.

Customers began to come into his store, saying, "Roger, Thrush."

The first time it happened, Orville had simply ignored it. A case of mistaken identity. It happened, even to 320-pound men like Orville Rollo Fletcher.

But when longtime customers started doing it, Orville became annoyed. He was hypersensitive about his weight, his oversize ears and the size-18 double-E orthopedic shoes his forefathers' generous genes had burdened him with. He was also sensitive about his lifelong bachelorhood, and so when the women customers began to poke fun at him, he was beyond being offended. He was mortified.

"Why don't you watch Thrush Limburger?" one asked.

"I have never heard of the gentleman," Orville said, mustering up his best Raymond Burr tone of dismissal. Raymond Burr had been a favorite actor of his. The man carried his weight with great dignity.