“Alley-oop,” Lula said, lifting Briggs up and sliding him in feetfirst.
“I don’t fit,” Briggs said.
“Sure you do,” Lula told him. “Just squish down a little.”
Lula put her hand on top of Briggs’s head, compacted him into the box, and closed the door.
“See,” Lula said. “I knew he’d fit.”
There was a lot of swearing and banging around inside the box and then silence.
Lula and I waited, staring at the box.
“You think I should open it and look inside?” Lula asked. “If he’s dead I’m not pulling him out. Bad enough I just ran the risk of getting Briggs cooties. I’m not getting dead cooties. They’re worse than hospital cooties.”
I opened the box and looked inside. Empty.
“I think I hear something,” Lula said. “Sounds like he’s working at the lock on the door.”
My cellphone rang. It was Briggs.
“Hang tight,” Briggs said. “I can’t reach the deadbolt. I’m going to get something to stand on.”
A minute later Briggs opened the door, and Lula and I scooted into the building. The garage was dimly lit. Two cars were parked in the garage. The black Escalade and a white panel van. We took the stairs to the first floor, and I cautiously poked my head out the door and squinted into a dark hall.
“Stay here,” I said to Lula and Briggs. “I’m going to investigate.”
I tiptoed down the hall, looking into empty, unfurnished rooms with en suite handicap bathrooms. I was thinking that the building had been designed for use as a nursing home, but probably never had any residents.
The hall was bisected by a nurses’ station from which a short corridor led to the small lobby and main entrance, and to the far side of the nurses’ station were more unused, unfurnished rooms.
I retraced my steps and took the stairs to the second floor. The hall was dark, but I could see light spilling from a room on the far side of the center foyer. I’d been nervous as I walked the first floor. The nerves kicked up to heart palpitations and nausea when I stepped into the second-floor hall. The rooms on either side of the hall were obviously offices. Two of the offices were furnished and looked like they were being used. I didn’t want to take the time to snoop in the offices. The rest of the offices were empty.
I crossed the center foyer, held my breath, and opened a door to a fully equipped lab. I assumed this belonged to Darhmal, the biochemist. There were two hospital type rooms across from the lab. Beds were made. No one in them. No sign that anyone occupied either of the rooms. No personal possessions. No toothbrush in the bathroom. No water glass.
I could hear a television droning in the room at the end of the hallway. I swallowed back panic at the knowledge that someone probably was in the room. Cubbin maybe. More likely whoever owned the two vehicles in the garage. There were two doors opening onto the television room. Not a normal hospital room, I thought. It was most likely a dayroom for staff or a rec room for patients who didn’t exist.
I had one more door to open. It had a numbered keypad on it. No window in the door. I gently pushed against it. Unlocked. I stepped in and flicked my penlight on. I wasn’t sure what I was seeing at first. It took me a moment to realize it was an operating room. My experience with operating rooms is little to none, but to my untrained eye this looked very complete and high tech. There were cabinets with drugs and syringes, refrigeration units, gas tanks, autoclaves, surgical equipment trays, high-powered lights, a hydraulic table, computers, and a bunch of mysterious machines.
I heard a phone ring in the television room. Heard a man’s voice answer the phone. My heart stopped dead in my chest for a beat, and I started to sweat. I had the penlight in one hand and my phone in the other. Lula and I had done the drill before. If I opened the line to her it meant I was screwed.
Hard to hear what the man was saying over the noise of the television, but it sounded like a social call. There were no shocked or angry exclamations. I stepped out of the operating room, tiptoed to the first door, and carefully peeked in. It was the Yeti with his back to me. No one else in the room.
I whirled around and speed walked the length of the hall. I was almost at the stairs when I heard the Yeti yell.
“Hey! What the hell?
I bolted the last couple steps, ducked into the stairwell, flew down the stairs, and ran past Lula and Briggs.
“Time to go,” I said to them.
I kept running, through the garage, out the door, across the driveway to the patch of trees. I could hear Lula and Briggs behind me. We were all breathing heavy when we piled into the Firebird. Lula put the car in gear and peeled out of the lot.
“What happened?” Lula wanted to know, racing to the FedEx lot. “Did you see Cubbin?”
“No,” I said. “I saw the Yeti. He was watching television, and he caught me creeping down the hall. I think I might have wet my pants.”
“You saw a Yeti?” Briggs said. “Isn’t that one of them Big-foot things?”
“Actually what I saw was a six-foot-six albino with one blue eye and one brown eye,” I told him.
“We’re onto something,” Lula said. “This is big. We’re like
“I don’t know,” I said. “I need to go home and have a glass of wine and stop hyperventilating.”
“Just remember who got you into the building,” Briggs said. “I want to be there when you get Cubbin. And I don’t want to be left out of the television show either. Little people are sexy now. Have you seen
I left Lula and Briggs and drove out of the industrial park. I didn’t have hands-free phoning in the Buick so I waited until I was home to call Morelli.
“I’m home,” I said.
“How did it go?”
“I didn’t get arrested or shot at.”
“That’s good.”
“I don’t know what to think of The Clinic. It looks like it’s set up for business. It’s got offices, and a lab, and an emergency room, and rooms for patients, but there are no patients.”
“And no Cubbin?”
“I didn’t see him. I saw the albino.”
“The guy who stunned you?”
“Yeah.”
There was a big awkward silence in which I imagined Morelli was trying to get a grip on himself.
“And?” Morelli asked.
“And he saw me but I ran away.”
“Did he follow you?”
“I don’t think so. I checked for a tail.”
I had Tiki sitting on my dining room table, and he was telling me to go back to the Mexicana Grill for a bucket of margaritas.
“Bad Tiki,” I said.
“Are you talking to the wood chunk?” Morelli asked.
“Only a little.”
I woke up pleased with myself that I’d ignored Tiki’s margarita suggestion. I was able to snap the top snap on my jeans, and I felt right with the world. No residual nausea from the night’s adventure. I’d almost gotten caught, but almost doesn’t count, right?
I worked my way through a bowl of cereal and a mug of coffee while I constructed a mental to-do list for the day. First up was Dottie Luchek. Then I might take a look at Franz Sunshine. And I wanted to go back to Cranberry Manor. I was forgetting something, but I couldn’t nail it down. It wasn’t Melvin Barrel. His case was closed. It wasn’t Nurse Norma. Susan Cubbin was staked out on that one, though I thought she made the wrong choice. I didn’t think her husband was doing the sex slave thing with Norma Kruger.
I rinsed my dishes, brushed my teeth, grabbed Tiki and my messenger bag, and opened my front door. There was a note tacked to it.
