Douglas Preston - Reliquary

“Patient?”

“Yes, the one with the spondylolisthesis.” Margo could hear the shuffling of paper on the other end of the line. “This is one bizarre set of X rays you sent me. At first I thought there was some kind of joke. I almost missed it.”

Margo fumbled for a pad of paper and a pencil. “You’d better start from the beginning.”

“Fine,” came the voice. “I’m an orthopedic surgeon down in Baltimore. There are only three of us here who do corrective surgery to reduce a spondylolisthesis. Dr. Brambell knew that, of course.”

“Spondylolisthesis?”

There was a silence. “You’re not a physician?” Cavalieri asked, his tone suddenly disapproving.

Margo took a deep breath. “Dr. Cavalieri, I might as well tell you. Dr. Brambell was… well, he died last night. I’m an evolutionary biologist helping him analyze the remains of several homicide victims. Since Dr. Brambell is no longer here, I’ll need you to tell me everything.”

“Died? Why, I just spoke to him yesterday!”

“It was very sudden,” said Margo. She did not want to go into any more detail.

“But that’s terrible. Dr. Brambell was well known across the country, not to mention the United Kingdom…”

The voice petered out. Margo, holding the silent phone to her ear, thought again about the last time she’d seen the Medical Examiner: at the front of Linnaeus Hall, smiling deviously, eyes flashing behind the horn-rims.

She was roused by a sigh on the other end of the line. “A spondylolisthesis is a fracture and slippage of one of the lumbar vertebrae. We correct it by fixing a metal plate to the spine with pedicle lag screws. As you tighten the screws to the plate, it draws the fractured vertebrae back into place.”

“I’m not sure I see the connection,” Margo said.

“Do you remember those four white triangles on the X rays Dr. Brambell sent me? Those are the lags for the plate screws. This fellow had an operation for spondylolisthesis. Very few surgeons do the procedure, which makes it easy to trace.”

“I see,” said Margo.

“I know that this X ray is from a patient of mine, for one very good reason,” Cavalieri continued. “It’s clear that these particular lag bolts were manufactured by Steel-Med Products of Minneapolis, which went out of business in 1989. I performed about three dozen operations using Steel-Med lag screws. I used a special technique of my own, a particular placement of the screws behind the transverse process of the second lumbar. A rather brilliant technique, actually. You can read about it in the Fall 1987 issue of the Journal of American Orthopedics, if you’re interested. It held the bone better, you see, and required less bone fusion. No one else performed it but myself and two residents I instructed. Of course, it was considered obsolete after the Steinmann procedure was developed. So in the end I was the only doctor who used it.” Margo could hear the pride in the doctor’s voice.

“But here’s the mystery: no surgeon that I ever knew would remove the corrective plate for this kind of spondylolisthesis. It simply isn’t done. Yet these X rays clearly show that my patient had the metal plate and screws removed, God knows why, leaving only the lags behind. You can’t remove the lags, of course; they’re set into the bone. But why this fellow had the plate removed…” his voice trailed off.

Margo scribbled notes furiously. “Go on.”

“As I said, when I saw the X rays, I knew immediately that this was one of my patients. However, I was astonished at the condition of the skeleton. That riot of bone growth. I knew I’d never operated on anyone with a condition like that.”

“So the bone growth occurred afterwards?”

“Absolutely. In any case, I went back to my records and, based on the X-ray evidence, I was able to identify the patient. I operated on him the morning of October 2, 1988.”

“And who was the patient?” Margo asked, pencil at the ready. Out of the corner of her eye she saw that Frock had reentered the lab and was rolling toward her, listening intently.

“It’s right here somewhere.” She could hear another rustling of papers. “I’ll fax all these records to you, of course, but I’m sure you’ll still want… here we are. The patient was named Gregory S. Kawakita.”

Margo felt her blood freeze. “Greg Kawakita?” she croaked.

“Yes, Gregory S. Kawakita, Ph.D. No question about it. Funny, it says here that he was an evolutionary biologist, too. Maybe you knew him?”

Margo hung up the telephone, unable to speak. First Dr. Brambell, and now—She glanced at Frock, alarmed to see that his face had gone ashen. “He was slumped to one side of the wheelchair, a hand pressed hard to his chest, his breathing labored.

“Gregory Kawakita ?” Frock breathed. “This is Gregory? Oh, my good lord.”

His breathing eased, and he shut his eyes and slowly hung his head. Margo turned quickly and ran to the window, choking back sobs.

Of its own accord, her mind flashed back to that horrible week eighteen months before, when the murders started at the Museum. Then, the opening of the Superstition exhibition, the mass slaughter, and the final killing of the Mbwun. Greg Kawakita had been an assistant curator at the Museum, a colleague of hers, a student of Frock’s. More than anyone else, Greg had helped identify and stop the monster. It had been his genetic extrapolation program that provided the key, that told them what Mbwun was, and how it could be killed. But the horror that followed had affected everyone, especially Greg. He’d left the Museum soon after, abandoning a brilliant career. No one had heard from him since.

No one except her. He’d tried to reach her, leaving a message on her answering machine several months before. At the time, he said he’d needed something, needed her help. She hadn’t even bothered to respond.

And now she could guess why he must have left the Museum: he’d been suffering from some dreadful disease that was deforming his bones, turning him slowly into that twisted skeleton on the gurney. No doubt he was ashamed, probably afraid. Perhaps he had tried to seek treatment. Maybe toward the end he had become homeless. And then, the ultimate insult to a life once so full of promise: murder, decapitation, the frenzied gnawing of bones in the dark.

She stared out the window, shuddering in the warm sun. Whatever end he had suffered, it must have been horrible. Perhaps she could have helped him, had she known. But she’d been too wrapped up in trying to forget it all herself: losing herself in her workouts and her work. And she’d done nothing.

“Dr. Frock?” she called out.

She heard the rumbling of the wheelchair behind her.

“Dr. Frock—” she whispered, unable to continue.

She felt a gentle hand touch her elbow. It was trembling with emotion.

“Let me think for a moment,” Frock said. “Just for a moment, please. How could this be? To think this pathetic collection of bones—that we’ve studied, picked at, disassembled—could be Gregory…” His voice broke. A beam of light shone through the window and highlighted the hand as it slipped from her elbow.

Margo stood motionless, closing her eyes now against the light, feeling the oxygen stream in and out of her lungs. Eventually, she felt able to turn away from the window. But not toward the examining table—she wasn’t sure she would ever be able to face the contents of that table again. Instead, she turned toward Frock. He was there behind her, motionless, his eyes dry and far away.

“We’d better call D’Agosta,” she said.

For a long time, Frock did not speak. Then, silently, nodded his assent.

PART TWO