Rachel Lee - Something Deadly

“Heart attack,” Hal said, with the surety of one who has seen it before.

Declan shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

Both of Hal’s dark eyebrows rose, his eyes widening. He was a trim young man in his late twenties, his skin and broad cheekbones kissed golden by his native heritage. “You mean we have a mystery?”

“I’m not sure what we have. When I saw the body last night, it felt squishy everywhere.”

Hal shrugged. “Congestive heart failure.” In congestive heart failure, the body could retain thirty or forty pounds of excess water.

“Ankles weren’t swollen.”

Finally Hal frowned, getting the message. “What are you trying to tell me?”

“I don’t exactly know, Hal. It could be edema, but if it is, it’s the worst I’ve ever heard of. It was more than a spongy feeling.”

“Lovely. Who was it?”

“Carter Shippey.”

“Oh, Jesus.”

Declan nodded. “I gave him a physical a month ago. He was fine.”

He put his feet up on the desk and sipped his coffee, pretending that he hadn’t been anxious since last night. Coming to the island had been his attempt to unwind, to leave behind the tension that had been nigh on to killing him. Unfortunately, the nightmares hadn’t been left behind, and unpleasant events reminded him that his natural tendency was to stay wound up tighter than a drum.

It didn’t help that Carter Shippey hadn’t looked like any sudden-death heart attack victim he’d ever seen.

Hal was still shaking his head in disbelief.

“Of course,” Declan continued, “a fatal arrhythmia could strike without warning. That’s why it’s called sudden death. But the way Cart looked, the way his body felt when I knelt to examine him last night…”

The dead were always flaccid until rigor began to set in, but Carter Shippey had been more than flaccid. He’d almost felt like…dough. As if there had been nothing rigid beneath his skin at all. That degree of edema was extraordinary, and congestive heart failure didn’t usually come on so rapidly.

“He should have been having other symptoms,” Declan said, more to himself than Hal. “Shortness of breath, coughing, swelling of his extremities.”

“Yeah.” Hal took a deep swig of coffee. “Well, let’s go see if we can figure it out. No point waiting.”

The hell of being the M.E. on an island this size was that you were apt to know the person who had lived in the body you were cutting open. Declan still had a bit of difficulty with that. On rare occasions it even made him long for the anonymity of the big city E.R.

They suited up in scrubs, Tyvek surgical gowns, rubber gloves and, finally, plastic face shields. Declan pointed to the cooler door, and Hal opened it. Carter Shippey’s body, covered by a paper sheet, slid out on its tray.

A chill crept along Declan’s spine, and he found himself ardently praying that he was wrong, that he’d missed something at Carter’s physical, that the doughy feeling had indeed been edema from congestive heart failure. The thought surprised him, for he would feel awful if he’d missed the diagnosis on an easily treatable condition and cost Carter Shippey his life. But the alternative frightened him more.

He pulled the sheet back and gasped.

Carter’s body was still fully clothed, and that was all that made him identifiable as a human being. He looked like an inflatable mannequin that had sprung a leak. Last night he’d been flaccid. This morning he was flat, as if his body were nothing but a puddle within his skin.

“Jesus Christ,” Hal said.

“Make that a prayer,” Declan said. “For me, too.” Even though he didn’t believe. He hadn’t believed in God for years now.

Their eyes met across the body.

“Don’t touch him,” Declan said. “Get out of here now, and strip your suit this side of the door.”

Hal didn’t hesitate to obey. Declan felt an equally powerful urge to get out, but he stood a moment longer, looking down at his friend’s remains, astonished that someone he knew could become unrecognizable so fast. With a rubber covered finger, he pressed Carter Shippey’s side and felt his finger sink in as if into jelly, meeting no resistance at all.

Then he took his own advice. He left the body on the table. The less it was handled the better. Outer-wear and gloves went into the biohazard chute, and he hurried into the office where Hal was awaiting him, trying to steady his cup of coffee in an unsteady hand.

Speaking the words out loud wasn’t easy. Even to Declan they sounded a little nuts. But his instincts, honed by years of experience and training, and an innate honesty that sometimes got him into trouble, wouldn’t allow him to dissemble about something like this.

“It’s got to be infection. I’m reluctant to say a hemorrhagic fever…there was no hemorrhaging from the body orifices, nor apparent ulceration of the skin. But…” Declan looked past him, reconsidering all the unhappy thoughts that had been troubling him since last night. “Ebola and Marburg don’t kill that fast, anyway. And I don’t know of anything that dissolves bone.”

“Bone?” Hal looked sickened and reluctant to believe it, though he had just seen it. “Can I resign now?”

Declan met his gaze directly. “Sure. You didn’t sign on for Biohazard Level Four.”

Hal took a slow, deep breath. His gaze lifted slowly. “Neither did you.”

Declan nodded. “We follow the strictest sterile procedures. I’m calling the local Haz-Mat guys to deliver us a couple of their decon suits and masks.”

Hal sat and settled back in his chair. “Good. Time to finish my coffee.” The milky liquid sloshed as his hand shook.

Declan made the call, then stared through the glass window between him and the body on the tray and hoped to hell that whatever killed Carter Shippey wasn’t airborne. Because if it was, a whole lot of people were in trouble.

Chet Metz, of the island’s fire department, showed up twenty minutes later with two gray-blue decontamination suits. Santz Martina’s Haz-Mat team had never been called out before, as far as Declan knew. The island had the usual small-town collection of hazardous materials: dry cleaning fluids, petroleum products, fertilizers, insecticides. The fire department maintained a team for the sake of preparedness.

“So what’s going on?” Chet wanted to know as he helped Hal and Declan into the suits. He was a beefy man in his early thirties, with steady gray eyes and a thick head of hair.

“I just don’t want to take any chances,” Declan said.

“Chances, huh?” Chet looked him straight in the eye. “Must be a big chance.”

“Don’t say anything.”

“You know I won’t, Dec. Okay, let’s tape you in.”

Chet wound yellow duct tape around their ankles and wrists, making airtight seals for their rubber boots and gloves.

As they hefted their masks, Chet said, “You know, there’s no way to decontaminate you here after you’re done. Not if it’s a biological hazard.”

“There’s a shower in there,” Declan said. “And plenty of bleach. We’ll wash down.”

“If you think that’s enough. I’ll wait.”

Declan nodded at him. “Thanks, Chet.”

Biohazards were part of hospital life and of autopsies in particular. Ordinary care was usually enough: rubber gloves, a face shield to protect the eyes, nose and mouth from any kind of spray from the victim, Tyvek gowns over scrubs. But Declan wasn’t going to be happy with ordinary precautions this morning. He was very, very nervous about what was inside the body.

Once the masks were in place, he and Hal were breathing the purest air in the world. The micron filters would capture even the smallest virus.

“That’s as good as we can do,” Chet said. “I hope to God it’s not airborne.”