'Let me get this straight,' Gould said. 'Are you saying there isn't an established criterion for determining death?'
'The Uniform Determination of Death Act, UDDA, has outlined two specific criteria for determining death, dealing with circulatory and respiratory functions and brain death, but there are no cost-effective tests to measure those things,' Casper told them. 'The standard procedure is to observe the patient for two minutes for signs of breathing or heartbeat. Even with expensive testing using ECGs and contrast dye X rays, there have been cases of cold-water drownings that have proved even the most sophisticated equipment fallible.'
Dr. Casper shook his head, amazed by what he was relating, even though he'd obviously studied the subject. 'Here's an interesting tidbit for you: There's actually a group pushing for a standard for determining death that would allow for the burial of brain-dead bodies with spontaneous respiration and heartbeat.'
'That's disturbing as hell,' Gould muttered while Elise stared at the doctor in horror.
'What was that line from The Wizard of OzT Gould asked, looking up at the ceiling. 'Something about not being merely dead?'
Casper thought a moment. ' 'She's not only merely dead-she's really most sincerely dead.' '
Both men laughed, instant comrades.
Elise frowned. She didn't know who irritated her more, Casper, for so easily breaking through Gould's shell, or Gould, for instigating the inappropriate behavior. Or was she just jealous because they were having fun and she wasn't?
That possibility also irritated her.
As Gould caught her glare of disapproval, his laugh quickly fizzled to an aw-shucks crooked smile.
Why, the man was quite charming when he pulled himself out of his malaise.
'Actually,' Casper said, managing to get control of himself, 'the simplest and best way to know if someone is dead is to wait for him to rot.'
Gould glanced at Elise, one eyebrow raised. 'The medical field has come so far,' he said dryly. 'What will it be next? Holding three-day wakes so we can be sure our loved ones are actually dead?'
'Might not be a bad idea,' Dr. Casper said, only half joking.
Elise thanked him for his time; then she and Gould headed for the hospital where Truman Harrison had been taken. As far as she knew, she'd never talked to a dead man before.
Chapter 5
Someone was crying.
Elise heard the woman as she and Gould approached Truman Harrison's hospital room. That individual sound of sobbing triggered a companion response, and at least two other people joined in.
Ten feet from the open door, Gould stopped. 'Christ.' He fell back against the wall as if trying to hide from a shooter.
What now?
'I don't know if I can go in there. I don't like hospitals. I don't like dealing with-' He pointed in the direction of the sobbing. 'I don't like dealing with that kind of emotion.'
Elise knew it wasn't fair, but she suddenly blamed Gould for everything that was wrong in her life at the moment-the main thing being her lack of time for Audrey. Her reaction may have been extreme, but she didn't have the energy or the inclination to hold David Gould's hand.
'Maybe when you were an FBI agent you could keep your distance,' she said, unable to mask her annoyance, 'but dealing with grieving families is part of a detective's job. It's never easy, but it's something we have to do.'
'Did I ever tell you about the time I got my appendix out?' he asked with agitation, obviously stalling.
Why couldn't she have gotten a real partner? 'This isn't about you,' she told him.
'Wait.'
Stalling.
'What I have to say makes sense.'
She crossed her arms and leaned against the wall. She'd give him one minute.
'When I was twenty years old, I had an emergency appendectomy,' he said quickly. 'They prepped me, doped me up, and wheeled me into the operating room, where they began administering anesthesia. But instead of knocking me out, the drug made me hyper-aware. My senses were intensified. The nerve endings under my skin were electrically charged.' He lifted a hand, fingers spread, as if to demonstrate. 'I could feel the hairs growing from my pores.' He lowered his voice to a whisper and leaned closer. 'I could hear conversations two rooms away.'
'Are you telling me you were awake through the whole operation?' She needed to trade David Gould in for a new model.
'I could feel and hear everything.'
'How horrible.' She didn't believe him.
'You don't believe me, do you?'
'Well…'
'That's okay. Nobody did. Not the doctors or nurses. Or my parents. My girlfriend. Why should you? But that's not why I chose this moment to tell you a little story about myself. What I'm saying is that our buddy Harrison might be able to hear what's going on around him, even though he's in a coma.'
In his roundabout way, Gould was finally making sense. Maybe she wouldn't trade him in just yet. 'I'll be careful.'
'Assume he can hear everything.' 'I'll keep that in mind.' She looked closely at his ashen face, experiencing a pang of empathy. 'You going to be okay?' A partner with a hospital phobia. What other surprises did he have up his sleeve?
He nodded, gave his shoulders a loose shake, and followed her into the room.
A woman in a white suit sat near a sunny window. Two other people, a younger man and woman, hovered nearby. The crying, at least for now, had stopped. A comatose Mr. Harrison was lying in bed, attached to an IV and a heart monitor that pulsed steadily. The woman in the white suit turned out to be Mr. Harrison's wife, the other two people his children.
Elise introduced herself and Gould. 'We're going to be looking into the case, trying to find out how your husband ended up in the morgue… prematurely.'
'He woke up in the middle of the night,' Mrs. Harrison explained. 'Said he felt sick. On the way to the bathroom he collapsed. I called 911 and an hour later he was pronounced dead.'
She started to cry, fought it, pulled in a trembling breath, then continued. 'I hate to think of him being put in that body bag. Hate to think of him in that morgue. On the autopsy table-when he was alive. It's a nightmare. That's what it is. A nightmare.'
The beeping of the heart monitor suddenly increased. Heads swiveled and everybody turned to stare at the screen as the pulse rate dropped back to its previous level.
'Did he hear me?' Mrs. Harrison asked. 'Do you think he heard me? Doctor said he can't hear anything.'
Elise and Gould exchanged glances.
Strange.
Yep.
The family gathered around Mr. Harrison's bed, everyone talking at once, trying to elicit a response or an increase in pulse.
Nothing happened.
Elise asked Mrs. Harrison a few more questions, then produced her business card. 'Call if you think of anything you may have forgotten to tell us.'
Outside the hospital room, a young office assistant was lying in wait. 'The administrator would like to talk to you,' she said, stepping forward.
She led the detectives to an elevator, down a car-^ peted hall, to a. large meeting room. They were
