Without Malice (The Without Series Book 1) (16 page)

Chapter 45

Cole ran a slight fever.

While Frankie rounded up some old clothes that had belonged to her father, Cruz tried to sponge the street dirt off the ex-con. Together the two of them cleaned and dressed him without disturbing or aggravating his wounds.

Feeling an irrational moment of jealousy, Cruz considered asking Frankie about the male clothing – who did they belong to? – a brother, father, ex-boyfriend?

When they returned to the kitchen, Cruz motioned toward the kitchen chair, and as if their conversation hadn’t been interrupted, asked, “So first you noticed the missing drug supplies at the prison. And then what?”

“At first it was so negligible I couldn’t be sure.” Frankie smiled wanly. “Everyone thinks items are strictly accounted for – medical supplies, instruments, drugs – but it’s hard to get precise counts. There’s an emergency, staff get careless, the cabinet is left open for easier access. Supplies are dropped on the floor, contaminated, then thrown away.”

She shrugged. “The clinic is a fast-track event one day, a leisure cruise the next. If we get several days’ worth of emergencies in a row, items just ... get lost.”

Some kind of buying and selling was going on in D Block, she explained, but it wasn’t just the drugs that were pilfered from her clinic. After a few months she saw a pattern of visitation to the clinic and disappearance from the secured medications cabinet. The doses were small, so infinitesimal she could’ve considered it a miscount or human error.

Gradually, she heard snippets of conversation among the inmates. The prisoners were astonishingly loose-mouthed around her, as though her white medical jacket separated her from the guards. Like they had immunity around her, or knew she wouldn’t snitch.

She’d finally put the bits and pieces together. Inmates could buy or sell just about anything – cell phones, cigarettes, drugs – and a few of the guards turned a blind eye for a kick back. Since she kept such meticulous records, she was finally able to pin the disappearance of drugs from the clinic on two particular inmates – both white and members of the
Lords
– and one of her staff nurses.

And this was just the pilfering she’d been able to document within the clinic. Apparently, quite a lot of trafficking went on in D Block, all under the direction of the
Lords of Death.

Cruz rested his chin on his fist. “So you started your – what do you call it? – your secret database. When was that?” Cruz asked.

“The beginning of my second week on the job, early in February.” Hands over head, she stretched sore muscles. “I started inputting data for every patient who visited the clinic.”

“What kind of data?”

“Anything. Vitals, symptoms, drugs,” Frankie enumerated. “My eventual intent was to do a non-critical health evaluation on each inmate in the prison.”

“That’s an ambitious goal,” he murmured. “Is it prison protocol?”

“Yes, ambitious, and no, not protocol at all. Usually the physician in charge responds to requests or complaints from individual inmates. Some go years without seeing a doctor or dentist.”

Cruz rose and got each of them a glass of water. “Did anyone notice what you were doing?”

“No one said anything at the time, but – but now I think there must’ve been all kinds of questions and rumors flying around.” She took a deep drink of water, wiped her upper lip with her fingers. “Why was I examining all inmates? Was I looking for something specific? Was I trying to upset the system, make trouble?” She frowned. “Nothing from admin, though, which surprised me.”

“Were you getting routine evaluations?”

“Just one, about three months into the job. That was it, nothing else.”

“Did you find anything concrete, something you could take to the CDCR board?” Cruz asked.

Frankie looked serious and disturbed, her porcelain face like a doll’s ready to crack, her wide gray eyes turbulent and angry, her mouth a thin, tight line. “Yes, I did. When I had a large enough sample, I noticed an unusually high number of abdominal surgical scars among the inmates. Statistically speaking.”

Cruz was confused.
What the hell did that mean?
He stomped down his impatience, letting her tell the story her own way.

Noting his perplexity, Frankie continued, “A statistically high number of inmates at Pelican Bay have had an organ removed – appendix, gall bladder, but probably a kidney.”

“That’s ... irregular?”

“Let me explain it this way: you have fifty friends, random people not related to each other. Out of the fifty, over twenty of them – that’s forty percent or more – have had a kidney, gallstone, or appendix removed.”

“That’s a lot, but why?” Cruz leaned closer. How?”

“I don’t know, but someone in the prison is performing unauthorized and probably unnecessary abdominal surgeries on prison inmates. While a few of the scars are old, too many of them are recently performed.”

Cruz shoved back in his chair, astonished. “You can tell by looking at the scars?”

Frankie nodded.

“Could it be a coincidence?”

“No, not possible, statistically speaking. While these men are incarcerated they’re having some kind of undocumented surgery.” Frankie troubled her bottom lip. “I can’t tell which organs are missing – there’s no record – but they’re not vital ones, or the patient would die. Probably a kidney.”

“Jesus Christ,”
Cruz exclaimed. “What’s going on at that prison?”

“I don’t know,” Frankie confessed, “but I was ready to go the prison warden when the incident with Cole interrupted my plan. Now I’m not sure who to trust, but it scares the hell out of me.”

“We’ve got to take this to Slater,” he muttered. “Right away. It might be tied to our murders here in the county.”

Chapter 46

He’d been expecting the order for more merchandise, but still the shock of it rumbled through his body like thunder. God, he needed a good stiff drink. He reached for dependable old Jimmy Bean, and poured himself a shot, neat.

Did the men he supplied have any idea how hard his part of this ungodly bargain was? Slicing through human flesh and removing delicate organs without damaging them? The skill and delicacy of the blade? The surgeon-like precision of each stroke?

Keeping them viable, packed in ice, the timing of communication and delivery? Hoping the merchandise could be used, that the blood types matched? A dozen important details.

So far, they’d taken all organs since the first, so he speculated they had a wide customer base. Wealthy-beyond-belief people who could bypass hundreds of names on a legitimate donator list and soar straight to the top. Or a lot of filthy-rich one-percenters who could hire rogue “doctors” willing to perform an operation on the down-low for an insane fee.

It was as risky for them to distribute as it was for him to procure, but they must have a large force of thugs to execute their work, while he was the solitary person slicing and dicing the general public. At least he thought he was the only one.

He grunted mockingly, on his way to being stinking drunk.

He’d gotten smarter about the procedures. More selective at choosing the “client,” and more wily about the surgeries themselves. He was no board-certified surgeon, of course, but he knew how to remove major organs. The trick was not damaging them.

There was no real concern about the patient dying under the knife, however. He snorted, sluicing whiskey up his nose. He fell into a fit of coughing as he grinned at the irony.

Nonetheless, the greater the risk, the higher the profit. And he was very pleased with the profit. How many, though, before he turned a profit for himself?

“I’ve got to see Slater,” Cruz repeated. Now.”

“I can’t leave Cole.” Frankie said.

“Do you have a gun?” he asked, thinking wildly of the invasion, and Cole Hansen upstairs and no help at all. His filthy clothes in the dumpster, no longer staining Frankie’s pristine bed linens.

Cruz liked that she hadn’t seemed to care about that, and smiled unconsciously in spite of his fear for her. He found he liked a lot of things about Dr. Frankie Jones.

A lot of distracting things.

He
didn’t
like the fact that they hadn’t called emergency services, but if they took him to a hospital, they’d be required to report a bullet wound to the police.

“We don’t want that kind of scrutiny until we know who we can trust,” Frankie had explained.

Cruz agreed. “Local police could be in on this. We don’t know how wide Anson Stark’s ring of corruption reaches.”

She hadn’t gotten a good look at the intruder who shot Cole, but Cruz guessed by the fact the man ran off that he was a gang banger, some punk-ass member of the
Lords of Death
sent to frighten or kill Frankie. Or Cole, who certainly had a target on his back by now.

“A gun,” Cruz repeated. “You need protection.”

“I have several guns.”

That surprised him. Most doctors he knew were anti-gun people. “Know how to use them?”

She laughed, as if he’d said something amusing. “Oh, yeah.”

“Yeah?”

She nodded. “My father taught me. I could shoot cans off a fence when I was barely able to steady a pistol. Dad took me hunting every year – deer, elk, bear in season, here and in Utah and Idaho.” She sounded proud, and a little nostalgic.

“Where is Dad now?”

Her face shut down fast, a smooth-as-glass calmness that made her look like she was made of crystal. Cruz figured that explained the male clothing in the extra bedroom. He breathed a sigh of relief, glad it was a father not an ex that was the mystery.

“Doesn’t matter anymore,"

More secrets, but concern for the immediate dilemma made Cruz decide to let the subject drop. “Show me the guns.”

Upstairs in a smaller bedroom, clearly used as an office now, was a locked gun cabinet. Not only did Frankie have a .22 rifle, but a 12-gauge shotgun, and two hand guns – a .40-caliber Beretta and a larger, heavier Glock. Cruz was impressed. Anyone with this kind of small arsenal definitely knew how to handle a loaded weapon.

“Cartridges?”

She opened a locked drawer on the side of a wide mahogany desk where rows of magazines, cartridges, and bullets filled the inside.

He smiled. “Guess I don’t have to worry about leaving you alone.”

He gently put one hand on her shoulder. “It’d still be a mistake to underestimate these guys. They caught you off guard once. They can do it again.”

“I thought I was safe here,” she admitted, “that no one knew about this house. That won’t happen again.” Her stormy gray eyes darkened like a thunder cloud rolling across a heavy sky. “I’ll have more than a baseball bat next time.”

“Let’s hope there won’t be a next time.”

From his car Cruz listened to Slater’s message again and called him. The Sheriff picked up right away.

“Good God, Slater, what’s going on?”

“You won’t believe it,” the Sheriff answered. “Meet me at the morgue in thirty minutes.”

“Wait!” Cruz shouted. “A lot has happened since I talked to you – a hell of a lot of messed-up shit.”

“Same here. Make it quick. Best not to talk over the phone.”

“Aw, hell!” Cruz hung up, thinking what Slater had to say couldn’t possibly be worse that what he had to tell the Sheriff.

Chapter 47

Cruz, Slater, and Dr. Wilson gathered around the autopsied body of Dickey Hinchey, where it had been pulled from its drawer in the morgue. The former parolee looked more peaceful than he ever had in life. Cleaned up and the incision sewn closed, he seemed almost normal.

Cruz didn’t have time to fill Slater in before Patch began the particular details of the two post-mortems he’d done. Next, he pulled out the drawer containing the Hightower girl’s body for comparison.

After a few moments of staring at the two dead bodies, Cruz stepped closer and said, “I don’t get it. Are you saying the girl’s organs were removed, but Dickey’s weren’t?”

Dr. Wilson shrugged elegantly.

Slater wore a puzzled look. “Why the M.O. change?”

“Should we talk to Flood?” Cruz asked.

“Hell, no. Let the little weasel squirm.” Slater flashed a small grin, then quickly sobered as he turned to the medical examiner. “Have you sent the autopsy reports to Detective Flood yet?”

When Wilson shook his head, Slater asked, “Can you do me a favor and hold up for a few hours until we can figure this out?”

Wilson answered calmly, “As you wish.” He paused, touching the girl’s long hair. “It’s a bit of a puzzle, these two murders. The blows indicate different kinds of weapons caused the blunt force trauma – one was hard and wide like a baseball bat, the other narrow and heavier. A different size of blade also was used on the two victims.” He paused, looking perplexed. “And, of course, the victims themselves vary greatly as to age, gender, and general health.”

“And there’s the missing – or not missing – organs,” Slater added.

Both men followed the coroner into his office where he handed them a copy of the pathology report. “Mr. Hinchey’s liver was riddled from years of alcohol abuse,” Wilson mused. “He wouldn’t have lived much longer on the street. His heart and lungs were compromised.”

“And the girl?” Slater asked.

“I can’t be sure, but her age alone suggests healthy organs were removed. Everything remaining was in excellent condition.”

“And Hinchey’s organs wouldn’t be worth pennies,” Cruz said.

“You think the organs were harvested to sell?” Wilson asked.

“It crossed my mind,” Cruz said, thinking of the inmates’ missing body parts. “But if someone is harvesting organs, why go after homeless people? Most of them have abused their bodies from years of living on the street. Many have Hep C or HIV.”

“Sac County’s dead body was a homeless woman, too, but no mention of missing organs,” Slater reminded him.

Cruz didn’t want to challenge another county’s medical examiner, but he had to ask. “How thorough do you think Sac County was on their autopsy?”

Slater’s craggy face had a fierce look. “I don’t know, but I mean to find out if they rubber-stamped that autopsy.”

“That county is much more overworked than Bigler County is,” Wilson offered. “A too-casual autopsy wouldn’t surprise me.”

“If the homeless woman in Sacramento had her organs removed, too, it’s – ”

“Right,” Slater interrupted, “going to be a shitload of a mess.”

After they’d left the morgue, Cruz turned to Slater. “There’s more,” he said, not quite knowing how to explain Frankie Jones’ role in all this. “A doctor at Pelican Bay contacted me, looking for a paroled inmate. She was nosing around in inmate medical records through a routine health exam and was attacked at the prison.”

They’d reached their cars in the hospital parking lot by the time Cruz had told Slater about the assault on Frankie at the prison parking lot, about Cole and the sudden attack on both of them at the Rosedale house.

“Jesus,
Mother of God!” Slater said. “How? Why?”

As he talked, Cruz had considered another puzzle piece. “There’s more,” he began just as Slater’s phone rang.

“Urgent, I have to take this,” Slater said as he slipped into his truck. “Tell me the rest at this – this prison doctor’s house. Right now we need to keep your two people out of harm’s way. Text me the address and I’ll send a deputy there.”

Yeah, Cruz thought as Slater sped away. But will that be enough?

Cruz swung by the
Jesus Saves
shelter before returning to check up on Frankie and Cole. The building was locked up tight, no lights, no one inside.

A dozen or so homeless men and woman stood smoking and leaning against one of the buildings. A pile of backpacks and two bicycles lay on the sidewalk.

Cruz spied Sergei Petrovich from the corner of his eye and approached him. “Where’s Angie?”

Sergei’s small eyes darted one way, then the other. “She’s missing.”

Cruz hovered over Sergei like a mountain. “What the hell do you mean she’s missing?”

The Russian man shrunk back. “I dunno, man. She’s gone.” He pointed toward the closed door of
Jesus Saves.
“She don’t show up today.”

“That’s not like Angie,” Cruz remarked, looking around the white picket fence of
Jesus Saves’
yard.

Cruz narrowed his eyes and fixed them firmly on the Russian. “Where?”

Sergei shrugged in a very east European manner, but his eyes slid away from Cruz. “Nobody know.”

“When did you see her last? Maybe she took a vacation day,” Cruz suggested.

“No, man, this place her life. She no show, she in trouble.” Again, his eyes didn’t quite meet Cruz’s. He started to say something, but was interrupted by the arrival of a woman Cruz had never seen before.