Hollow Bones Page 10

  She thought hard. There was a fuzzy memory of men talking about her, something about protecting her. Nothing specific. Her strongest memory was of Prescott’s face, covered with blood, and the sneer on the face of the man with the scar. The man with the gun. She remembered running into the jungle, thirsty, tired, aching, hungry, cold … then jumping … had she really done that? Jumped off a cliff into a lake at night?

  “The police—the professor, they need to save him.”

  “Calm down, calm down. Such a brave girl, isn’t she, Helda?” The nurse nodded and beamed at Maria. She was younger than the doctor, in her forties, but the way she looked at him reminded Maria of when her high school friends “fell in crush.” Maria had often wished she’d felt like that about a guy—she did, kind of, about Prescott. But she barely knew him, so maybe it didn’t count.

  Now he was dead. She’d never get the chance to know him. She blinked back tears and failed. The room blurred and she grabbed on to the bed rail, trying to steady herself as the events of the past few days swamped her. It was over. She was out of danger. She was safe.

  “My dear, my dear,” the doctor tried to calm her. His left hand jerked with a spasm that he hid by shoving it into his coat pocket. “You saved them. You were so very brave. Swimming through the darkness to shore before collapsing. Thankfully my men found you. You wouldn’t let me treat you until you told us all about the men and the professor. I sent my guards to rescue him, and the police have been here—you were asleep, so I told them to come back when you were feeling stronger.”

  Maria looked up at him. Tears made his chiseled features blur into a rainbow halo with each blink. “They caught them? The man who killed Prescott, did they get him, too? He had a scar down the side of his face.”

  “Everything is taken care of, don’t worry. The professor came himself to thank you this morning—you were talking to him about some lost treasure, do you remember?” She shook her head, hating the confused blanks in her memory. “No worry. He’ll be back again. Since he arrived last month, we’ve begun a friendly competition. He enjoys chess and none of his students are any good at it, so he comes here to play with another old man.” He squinted at her. “You’re the girl who discovered the temple for him?”

  She nodded. The feeling of giddy anticipation that she’d felt arriving at the port had been swallowed by the events since. “Yes, that’s me.”

  “Amazing.” He made a clucking noise that was part way between disapproval and admiration. “Well, I guess only time will tell.”

  Tell what? If her discovery was worth Prescott’s life? Maria slumped back onto her pillow, drained by the brief conversation.

  “Helda, let us get our patient something to eat. Perhaps broth and eggs? Gentle food, we don’t want to upset her stomach.”

  “That would be nice,” Maria said. “So everyone is okay. I’m so glad.” Then she thought of her parents. They would know she was gone by now. She’d planned to call them once she arrived at the dig, but—“Could I use a phone? I need to call my family, let them know I’m okay.”

  Her father was going to kill her. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to think of what she’d tell him.

  Dr. Carrera saved her. “Your mobile phone was destroyed—the water. I’m afraid the latest storms left our phones out of commission for the time being. I’m surprised the thunder and wind didn’t wake you even with the sedation. But I did speak to your father yesterday before the storm hit. He said he’s coming. He should be here by tomorrow, the next day at the latest.” He frowned at her like a stern grandfather. “He didn’t sound very happy with you, young lady.”

  At least she was spared her father’s disapproval for a few more days. By then she’d be feeling better, strong enough to show him the temple and convince him to let her stay and work with the professor. If the professor still wanted her, that was. “Did Professor Zigler say, I mean, will he still be working on the dig? Can I join him?”

  “Of course he’ll be working. This is his life’s dream. As for you joining him, not until you get some more rest and we have this infection under control.” She opened her mouth to protest but he wagged a finger at her. “Doctor’s orders. Now, rest. Let Helda take care of you. Everything will be just fine, I promise.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Jake couldn’t take his eyes off the grotesque marriage of human flesh with PVC pipe. Strung together with screws. Then covered by a sock. Macabre. “Was his leg taken off by the gunfire?”

  “No.” The tech laughed. “That’s how all the chicken nuggets look.” With a flourish he pulled back the other pant leg—the slacks were slit down the back to make the corpse easier to dress, Jake realized—and revealed the PVC pipe traveling from the foot up to the pelvis.

  “Chicken nuggets?”

  “Sorry, that’s what we call them once they’re through being processed.”

  “You did this?” Jake asked. He forced himself to look at the horrific amalgam of hardware and flesh, reminding himself this was once a boy. The reasons behind Shapiro’s obsession with this case were becoming clear. This was wrong. So very wrong.

  The tech casually realigned one of the PVC pipes so Victor’s foot sat straighter. “Us? Hell no. Usually it’s in the hospital. Once or twice crews come here if the body got to us first. They asked if we wanted to learn how, said it’s a thousand dollars a body, but Mr. Darrow, he said no. He might be a crook, takes no mind to fleecing grieving loved ones, but even he ain’t no body snatcher.”

  “So this is BioRegen?” Jake asked Shapiro.

  “Not quite. They get the tissue eventually but the folks who procure it are all independent contractors. Kinda like how you go give blood at a neighborhood donation center but then they send it to the blood bank and then it’s the blood bank that sends it to the hospital.”

  “This is more than a little blood.” Jake nodded at the boy’s missing legs.

  “They use the skin for burn grafts,” Shapiro explained. “The fat for plastic surgery. The muscle, I’m not sure about. And the bones and joints they use for implants, tendon repairs, even carve special screws and replacement parts from them.”

  Jake raised an eyebrow at the IRS agent. Shapiro had gone above and beyond in doing his research. Felt like he was more than a little obsessed by BioRegen—something the IRS would frown upon.

  “Oh, yeah, they love them bones. But this ain’t nothing,” the tech said, warming to the subject now that he realized he wasn’t the one in trouble. He gently removed Vincent’s football and lowered his hands—exposing more gleaming white PVC pipe above the wrists. Then he drew the boy’s shirt up.

  The abdomen was stripped of flesh, leaving only red muscle behind. The ribs had been laid bare and the bottom half of the rib cage was missing, the chest cavity a gaping hole.

  “They leave the gizzards after they take the skin.” The tech pointed to the abdomen. Jake’s stomach heaved. He’d never done well with the sight of blood—a fact that had led to endless teasing from his brothers growing up on the farm back home in Kansas. “But they take some ribs and they use the heart for valves and stuff. Since this kid was a closed casket to start, they went ahead and took the ears, jawbone, and eyes.”

  Jake stepped away from the body, choking down bile. He’d seen enough. “All this is legal?”

  “Sure,” the tech said. “We get copies of the paperwork—the families sign a release donating tissue to medical science. They don’t get no money, but they get the satisfaction of helping others, and they still get a body to bury. Of course, they don’t know what the vultures do to it before they give it to us. We earn every penny on prepping these guys, let me tell you.”

  The tech began covering Vincent back up. Jake was glad to see that he showed some deference, gently tugging the clothing back into place and arranging the football between the boy’s hands. At least someone around here had a little respect for the dead.

  “They’ve been doing this for how long?” he asked Shapiro. />
  “I’ve only been getting complaints about the body mutilation for the past few months. I think before then, they must have had another source for their tissue but something happened to it, it dried up on them.”

  “Another source? You mean they were passing nonhuman tissue off as human?”

  Shapiro shook his head. “No, at least not that I’ve heard of.” He motioned to Jake and they left the crematory prep area and headed back down the hall. “But you have to understand, none of this tissue trade is regulated. No one can trace where Vincent’s bones or heart valves or skin went to. Dozens of patients could end up with his tissue and we’d never know.”

  “And how much does BioRegen make off a body?”

  “If all the tissue is usable, about two hundred thousand dollars. And demand for tissue is increasing exponentially. This is what you call a boom business—by this time next year, they might be able to double that if they can keep up with the supply.”

  The director had the copies of the tissue donation forms ready for them. He seemed relieved when Jake and Shapiro left, kept shaking his head about BioRegen and their damn body snatchers ruining his business.

  Back in the car, Shapiro started the engine and turned to Jake. “You up for one more house call?”

  Jake was surprised. IRS agents, especially the ones assigned to consumer complaints and the Taxpayer Advocate Service, never left their cubicle unless it was to get a Band-Aid for a paper cut. It was one of the reasons why he’d leapt at the chance to join Criminal Investigations and then the FBI. But Shapiro had obviously invested the time to keep this case alive long after his supervisors told him to move on. “You’re taking this seriously?”

  Shapiro nodded. “You meet some of these families—like the Thomsons. Good people, thought they were doing the right thing, helping others even in their time of pain. You can’t help but take it seriously.”

  “So where we off to?”

  “The first people who filed a complaint about BioRegen. They filed with us, the FTC, Better Business Bureau, AMA, tried to bring a civil suit, pretty much called everyone in the blue pages of the phone book. I’m the only one who listened.”

  “They were upset about how a family member’s body was treated?”

  Shapiro didn’t answer right away. “They’re upset that their daughter is dying.”

  *

  Jake took a moment to study Shapiro after his dramatic announcement, not sure about Shapiro getting so emotionally wrapped up in things. Then he remembered the reason why he’d resented Lynn when she forced him out of Criminal Investigations.

  He didn’t work his cases just to save Uncle Sam a few pennies. He hated the idea of people, companies, thinking they were beyond the law. That they could do anything they wanted, stealing from the government and their own stockholders, and walk away scot-free.

  It was that passion that had gotten him through a year and a half living undercover with the Reapers, his life at risk every moment of every day. Maybe he and Shapiro weren’t so different after all.

  “What happened?” he asked as Shapiro steered them out of Alexandria and south to Rose Hill.

  “You ever hear of a disease called kuru? Cannibals used to get it.”

  “I remember reading about it when I was a kid. You get it from eating brains and then you go crazy and die. It’s related to mad cow disease.” He remembered being fascinated by the exotic disease when he’d read about it in National Geographic. And a few years back, when there’d been a mad cow scare across the border from his folks’ farm, every dairy farmer in the state had researched the strange family of diseases, desperate to find ways to protect their herds.

  “The real name is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease. There’s no good test for it until after it’s too late, no cure, and you might not even see any symptoms for weeks, months, years, or decades. Because of that, there are regulations limiting blood and tissue donation from certain countries.”

  “So this girl, she got tissue from one of those?”

  Shapiro turned into a driveway of a modest ranch house. “That’s the problem. No one knows how she got it. Or where the tissue came from.”

  Didn’t sound like there was much of a case at all, much less one involving the IRS.

  Shapiro continued, “Once you have it, it can kill you fast or agonizingly slow as it turns your brain into Swiss cheese and you go psycho. Julia’s taking the slow path. Her symptoms began last year. But the way she’s going downhill lately, the end can’t be far.” He sighed. “It’ll be a blessing, really. You’ll see.”

  They got out of the car and approached the house. Instead of ringing the doorbell, Shapiro knocked gently, as if afraid of waking a sleeping baby. A few minutes later a petite blonde in her mid thirties opened the door. “Tyrese, thanks for calling. It’s been too long.”

  Shapiro gave the woman a friendly hug, then introduced Jake. “Valerie, this is FBI Special Agent Jake Carver. He’s helping me with the investigation.”

  “Really? So nice to meet you, Agent Carver.”

  “Jake, please.”

  Valerie ushered them inside to the living room. Jake was surprised to see that although there was plenty of space, the only thing inside was a sofa. No other furniture or decorations. The light came from an overhead fixture, there were no end tables, no coffee table, no lamps or knickknacks. No sharp edges or corners. And nothing breakable.

  It reminded Jake of when his big brother had his first kid and got OCD about baby-proofing.

  “Can I get you coffee or water?” Valerie offered. Both Shapiro and Jake declined.

  Shapiro settled himself on one corner of the sofa, obviously at home. Valerie took the other end, curling her legs up under her. She wore knit pants and a long-sleeved sweater, no jewelry other than a wedding ring.

  “So,” Valerie said, eyeing Jake, who stood just inside the door. “The FBI. Does that mean something’s actually going to happen?” She sounded like someone who’d been disappointed more than once. Skeptical and weary.

  “I can’t promise that,” Shapiro said, matching her tone. “But you know I won’t give up on you or Julia.”

  She gave him a tired smile. “You’re about the only one. The doctors are talking hospice. But no one can take her, not the way she acts out on her bad days. They’re used to people fading quietly. You know Julia, she’s a fighter.”

  Shapiro blinked and swallowed hard. “Where’s Tom?”

  Valerie gave a one-shouldered shrug. “Gone. Bad enough he was driving, all the guilt with that. He couldn’t bear to watch…” She trailed off, looking away into the shadows crowding a far corner of the room.

  Jake turned to follow her gaze and saw the only photo in the room, placed high up on the wall. It showed a smiling, happy family: Valerie, a man her age, and a little girl about six years old with pigtails and a missing front tooth. Christ, when Shapiro said daughter, he’d been picturing a teenager or college kid. Not a little girl.

  He tore his gaze from the photo. How could she look at it, day after day? Be constantly reminded of everything she’d lost? “Can I ask—?”

  Valerie turned to Jake. “Oh, of course, I’m sorry, I thought Tyrese would have filled you in.”

  “Thought it was better he hear it from you,” Shapiro said.

  She nodded. “A year and a half ago Tom and Julia were driving home when they were in an accident. No one’s fault really, it was raining hard and foggy. Tom was knocked out, had a concussion and broken wrist. But Julia’s side of the car took the brunt of the damage.”

  Her gaze went back to the picture. “That was taken a few weeks before. It’s the picture we gave the surgeons so they’d know how to put her face back together.”

  The mom’s voice was clear, as if she were talking about someone else’s baby girl. It was Shapiro who made a small sound in the back of his throat like he was choking down something nasty.

  “It took two months and six surgeries, then another month in rehab, but finally we had our little a
ngel back.” Valerie shifted, turning her back on the family portrait. “For a few months, at least. It started slowly. Muscle spasms here, a twitch there, problems with her coordination, falling a lot. At first the doctors thought it was nerve or brain damage from the accident. But when they did the MRIs, they found—”

  She squeezed her lips together, closed her eyes, her composure vanished.

  “They found holes in her brain,” Shapiro took over the narrative. “Spongiform encephalopathy, the doctors call it.”

  “Not from the car accident?” Jake asked.

  “No. A variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob. It has one hundred percent fatality. Usually within a few months of the symptoms appearing.”

  “What caused it?”

  Valerie stood, not looking at either of them, and left the room, her hand covering her mouth. Jake watched her go, wondered what he could do—nothing except listen and see if there was something to Shapiro’s suspicion that BioRegen was behind her daughter’s illness.

  Frustrating. He didn’t have experience with dealing with victims of a crime—if this was indeed a crime. His entire career had been as an investigator, winnowing out bits of data that grew into airtight cases. And his life undercover hadn’t prepared him for facing the family of a dying girl. He saw the look of compassion on Shapiro’s face and wondered if the IRS agent had chosen the right career.

  “It’s transmitted by a small particle, a piece of protein called a prion that gets twisted into your DNA and cells,” Shapiro explained, revealing his obsessive research tendencies again. “Usually it’s transmitted by direct contact with brain tissue, sometimes blood or things like cornea transplants.”

  “And Julia?”

  Shapiro shrugged. “She had a lot of blood transfusions but the blood supply was screened. No corneal transplants but tons of other tissues used by the surgeons. After reading her records, my bet is on a graft used by the neurosurgeon when he stopped some bleeding in her brain. But none of the tissue is traceable.”