Shadowfires

“Body snatching,” she said, pretending to be both baffled and sickened by what had happened. The first emotion had to be feigned; the second was more or less genuine.

“Who might have done it?” Verdad asked.

“I've no idea.”

“You know no one with a reason?”

“Someone with a motive for stealing Eric's body? No, of course not,” she said.

“He had enemies?”

“In addition to being a genius in his field, he was a successful businessman. Geniuses often unwittingly arouse jealousy on the part of colleagues. And, inevitably, some people envied his wealth. And some felt he'd… wronged them on his climb up the ladder.”

“Had he wronged people?”

“Yes. A few. He was a driven man. But I strongly doubt that any of his enemies are the type to take satisfaction from a revenge as pointless and macabre as this.”

“He was not just driven,” Verdad said.

“Oh?”

“He was ruthless.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I've read about him,” Verdad said. “Ruthless.”

“All right, yes, perhaps. And difficult. I won't deny it.”

“Ruthlessness makes passionate enemies.”

“You mean so passionate that body snatching would make sense?”

“Perhaps. I'll need the names of his enemies, people who might have reason to hold a grudge.”

“You can get that information from the people he worked with at Geneplan,” she said.

“His company? But you're his wife.”

“I knew very little about his business. He didn't want me to know. He had very strong opinions about… my proper place. Besides, for the past year I've been separated from him.”

Verdad looked surprised, but somehow Rachael sensed that he had already done some background work and knew what she was telling him.

“Divorcing?” he asked.

“Yes.”

“Bitter?”

“On his part, yes.”

“So this explains it.”

“Explains what?” she asked.

“Your utter lack of grief.”

She had begun to suspect that Verdad was twice as dangerous as the silent, motionless, watchful Hagerstrom. Now she was sure of it.

“Dr. Leben treated her abominably,” Benny said in her defense.

“I see,” Verdad said.

“She had no reason to grieve for him,” Benny said.

“I see.”

Benny said, “You're acting as if this is a murder case, for God's sake.”

“Am I?” Verdad said.

“You're treating her as if she's a suspect.”

“Do you think so?” Verdad asked quietly.

“Dr. Leben was killed in a freak accident,” Benny said, “and if anyone was at fault, it was Leben himself.”

“So we understand.”

“There were at least a dozen witnesses.”

“Are you Mrs. Leben's attorney?” Verdad inquired.

“No, I told you—”

“Yes, the old friend,” Verdad said, making his point subtly.

“If you were an attorney, Mr. Shadway,” Ronald Tescanet said, stepping forward so quickly that his jowls trembled, “you'd understand why the police have no choice but to pursue this unpleasant line of questioning. They must, of course, consider the possibility that Dr. Leben's body was stolen to prevent an autopsy. To hide something.”

“How melodramatic,” Benny said scornfully.

“But conceivable. Which would mean that his death was not as cut-and-dried as it appeared to be,” Tescanet said.

“Exactly,” Verdad said.

“Nonsense,” Benny said.

Rachael appreciated Benny's determination to protect her honor. He was unfailingly sweet and supportive. But she was willing to let Verdad and Hagerstrom regard her as a possible murderess or at least an accomplice to murder. She was incapable of killing anyone, and Eric's death was entirely accidental, and in time that would be clear to the most suspicious homicide detective. But while Hagerstrom and Verdad were busy satisfying themselves on those points, they would not be free to pursue other avenues of inquiry closer to the terrible truth. They were in the process of dragging their own red herring across the trail, and she would not take offense at their misdirected suspicion as long as it kept them baying after the wrong scent.

She said, “Lieutenant Verdad, surely the most logical explanation is that, in spite of Dr. Kordell's assertions, the body has simply been misplaced.” Both the stork-thin medical examiner and Ronald Tescanet protested. She quietly but firmly cut them off. “Or maybe it was kids playing an elaborate joke. College kids. An initiation rite of some sort. They've been known to do worse.”

“I think I already know the answer to this question,” Benny said. “But is it possible that Eric Leben was not dead after all? Could his condition have been misjudged? Is it possible that he walked out of here in a daze?”

“No, no, no!” Tescanet said, blanching and suddenly sweating in spite of the cold air.

“Impossible,” Kordell said simultaneously. “I saw him. Massive head injuries. No vital signs whatsoever.”

But this off-the-wall theory seemed to intrigue Verdad. He said, “Didn't Dr. Leben receive medical attention immediately after the accident?”

“Paramedics,” Kordell said.

“Highly trained, reliable men,” Tescanet said, mopping his doughy face with a handkerchief. He had to be doing rapid mental arithmetic right now, calculating the difference between the financial settlement that might be necessitated by a morgue screwup and the far more major judgment that might be won against the city for the incompetence of its paramedics. “They would never, regardless of circumstances, never mistakenly pronounce a man dead when he wasn't.”

“One — there was no heartbeat whatsoever,” Kordell said, counting the proofs of death on fingers so long and supple that they would have served him equally well if he had been a concert pianist instead of a pathologist. “The paramedics had a perfectly flat line on the small EKG unit in their van. Two — no respiration. Three — steadily falling body temperature.”

“Unquestionably dead,” Tescanet murmured.

Lieutenant Verdad now regarded the attorney and the chief medical examiner with the same flat expression and hawkish eyes that he had turned on Rachael. He probably didn't think Tescanet and Kordell — or the paramedics — were covering up malpractice or malfeasance. But his nature and experience ensured his willingness to suspect anyone of anything at any time, given even the poorest reason for suspicion.

Scowling at Tescanet's interruption, Everett Kordell continued, “Four — there was absolutely no perceptible electrical activity in the brain. We have an EEG machine here in the morgue. We frequently use it in accident cases as a final test. That's a safety procedure I've instituted since taking this position. Dr. Leben was attached to the EEG the moment he was brought in, and we could find no perceptible brain waves. I was present. I saw the graph. Brain death. If there is any single, universally accepted standard for declaring a man dead, it's when the attending