“Is it possible this facility was testing something similar?”
“I have no idea. But whatever this is, it’s much more potent. Watch this.” Dr. Gunther gently put an index finger on the bruise that covered his abdomen. She applied very little pressure and moved her finger an inch to the right. The skin fell away and peeled back with the motion of her finger.
She looked up at O’Dell over the top of her protective glasses. “How in the world am I supposed to conduct an autopsy?”
“Could it have been some kind of allergic reaction or accidental exposure?”
“Possibly. It would have been extreme. There’s more,” she said, and scooted over to hover above his face. With the same index finger and her thumb she pushed his lips up over his teeth, exposing his gums. The teeth were stained a rust color more prominent at the top, where the gums had peeled and bled.
The doctor waited for O’Dell’s surprise, then dropped the lips back, again accidentally tearing one with the slightest movement.
“It’s almost like the mud held him together.”
“He was hooked up to some kind of electrodes.” Dr. Gunther pointed to the clean circles on both temples. “And injected many times.” She moved his left arm for O’Dell to see all the puncture marks.
“It was a research facility,” O’Dell said, but her words sounded hollow even to her, with no passion to defend them. “We already suspected that he didn’t die in the landslide.”
“No, he certainly didn’t,” she said definitively.
“Did this . . . whatever he was exposed to—was it the cause of his death?”
“No, I don’t believe so.”
“How can you be so certain?”
“Help me sit him up.”
O’Dell stared at the woman, but she was already tugging at the man’s right shoulder.
“Help me,” the woman instructed. “Be careful not to touch his skin. I don’t want to tear it.”
O’Dell moved around to the other side of the table and gripped his left shoulder. They raised him to a sitting position.
“Take a look at his back,” Dr. Gunther insisted.
Still holding on to the body, O’Dell shifted so she could see whatever it was the woman wanted her to see. She found more bruising, but that wasn’t what Dr. Gunther was showing her. In the middle of his shoulder blade was a small black hole.
They eased him back onto the table.
“So he was shot, too.”
“Yes.”
“The first man they found—the scientist. Wasn’t he shot in the head?”
The doctor glanced around the room. “That’s what I was told, but he’s not here. I checked all the refrigerators. There is no other body.”
“I thought Ross told us he was brought here.”
“Perhaps they have his body at the funeral home. That’s where they’re keeping the victims from the landslide.”
“Or they moved him already.”
“Well, there’s just this gentleman here now. And the woman’s hand.”
“You can tell the hand belonged to a woman?”
“I need to look more closely but it’s small and has characteristics of a female. Also there’s a gold ring with diamonds on the thumb.”
“Men sometimes wear rings on their thumbs.”
“Yes, but not many men wear red fingernail polish.”
44.
Creed called Hannah to let her know everyone was safe.
“I didn’t mean for Grace to go to work.”
“I know,” Creed said. He would have tried to keep it from her but Hannah always had a way of finding things out. “She’s okay.”
“She better be okay. I sent her with Jason so she wouldn’t be moping around here missing you. Not to work.”
As he watched the Jack Russell terrier, he realized how much he liked having her here with him. She was curled up in a dog bed beside his cot. She had tried to keep one eye open, checking on him, but finally gave in to exhaustion. Now he could see her breathing heavy, fast asleep.
Bolo was sprawled on the floor at the foot of Creed’s cot. One of the volunteers had set up two cots in the far corner of the gymnasium, making more room for Creed to be comfortable with the dogs and away from others so Bolo could relax. Still, the big dog lifted his head every time someone moved in one of the cots close by. He looked to see where the noise had come from, glanced over at Creed, then plopped his head down.
Jason and Dr. Avelyn had found a place about five cots over. They had eaten at the first dinner, then fed both dogs while Creed cleaned up. If he stood up he could see them.
At 7:15 he waved at Jason to come over. They had agreed Jason would stay with the sleeping dogs while Creed met Maggie for dinner. But now as Creed made his way through the cafeteria, he couldn’t find her. She seemed to have disappeared. Or maybe she changed her mind.