The woman who had been logged into the morgue as deceased helped Claire and her assistants get her own body out of the bag. She moved into a sitting position inside the drawer. This, whatever it was, was very, very disturbing. In all her years as a medical examiner, Claire had never seen anything like it. The body in front of her had literally come back from the dead.
Was this a prank? A mistake? A true zombie?
She said, “Bunny, get my kit. Mallory, call an ambulance.”
The woman sitting in the drawer was naked, and blood was smeared all over her body. She was holding her left arm at her elbow and was wincing in pain.
Claire said, “My name is Dr. Washburn. May I help you? What hurts? Okay, now. Here we go.”
Claire peeled the woman’s hand away from her shoulder and saw a gunshot wound that went from the front straight through to the back. It was called a through-and-through. Because the woman was able to move her arm, it looked as though no bones had been broken. Thank goodness.
She asked, “Can you tell me your name?”
“I should wake up now,” said the woman in the drawer. “This has to be a dream. This is a nightmare for the ages.”
“You’re in the medical examiner’s office. You’re going to be fine,” Claire said. “We’re going to get you off of that skinny little bed, right now.”
Claire was still shocked that the woman in the drawer was alive, but she was starting to get some perspective. This wasn’t the first time in history that a convincingly dead person had revived himself or herself inside a morgue—or a coffin. There were cases in the nineteenth century where people overdosed on barbiturates and were presumed dead, even though they had, instead, fallen into a deathlike state. Some of the time, they “came back to life” before burial.
Claire wondered if there was a modern drug affecting the woman in front of her, but then she remembered that there was a condition called catalepsy.
Could the bloody woman have that disorder?
Claire knew that people who suffer from catalepsy go into a dead-not-dead state, with slow breathing and a weak pulse. Their muscles go rigid, and sometimes they lose sensation in their body. Claire recalled from something she had read long ago that catalepsy could be triggered by disease, certain drugs, or traumatic shock. And if the “undead” was cooled down—for instance, by being stored inside a morgue’s cold room—the brain would remain functional until death took over or the person awoke.
In today’s high-tech medical environment, it would be hard to mistake catalepsy for death. But this woman appeared to be an exception to the rule.
The patient was clearly not dead.
Chapter 5
The woman in the drawer stretched out her good arm, and Claire and Bunny helped her to a standing position.
Claire’s spot assessment was that this poor thing was middle-aged and bone-thin. She’d been shot and was lucky to be breathing.
Claire also saw that another bullet had grazed her hip. Like the shot to her shoulder, it wasn’t life-threatening.
Would this lady’s good luck continue? Or would bad luck send her back in the drawer?
Bunny and Mallory helped the woman onto a stretcher and pulled a sheet up to her shoulders while Claire checked her vitals. The woman was breathing without assistance. Her pulse was slow, but her heart was beating regularly. Her wounds weren’t bleeding and she had spoken, which is always a good sign.
Claire put her stethoscope away, and the woman’s eyelids suddenly flew open. The woman drew back, afraid. It was as though she’d forgotten she’d been awake just moments ago.
“Who are you?” she gasped. “Where am I?”
Claire introduced herself again and ordered someone to get water. Then she asked, “What’s your name?”
“My name?”
After a few long seconds, the woman said, “I’m Joan Murphy. Did you say this is a morgue? What am I doing here?”
“I was hoping you could tell me, Miss Murphy.”
“Call me Joan. My shoulder. It hurts.”
“Actually, medically, that’s a good sign. You took a bullet, Joan, so it’s natural for your body to be reacting to the pain. Do you know who shot you?”
“What day is it?” Joan asked.
“Monday. It’s about eight thirty in the morning.”
“So yesterday was Sunday?”
“That’s right.”
“Well, I woke up in my own house. I had breakfast and watched the news shows with my husband—my husband. Someone has to call Robert.”
“Of course. We will. Right away.”
Joan Murphy recited numbers and Mallory wrote them down.
Then Claire said to her patient, “Joan, an ambulance is on the way. You need emergency medical attention and I’m not equipped to do that for you here.”
“If I could just get dressed,” said Joan.
Just then, the swinging doors to the autopsy suite blew wide open.
And here was Cindy, as promised. She was breathing hard as she hurried over to Claire and the woman lying on the stretcher.
“I’m Cindy Thomas,” she said to the patient. “I hope you’re feeling better. What an ordeal, right?”
Then Cindy turned to Claire and said, “What did I miss?”
“I don’t remember anything,” said Joan Murphy. “But obviously, I was murdered. Well, it was attempted murder, I suppose. That’s all I know.”
Chapter 6
The irrepressible Cindy Thomas had just breathlessly materialized in Claire Washburn’s autopsy suite, and Claire wasn’t pleased. Not in the slightest.
Claire said, “Seriously, Cindy? Didn’t I say no?”
She was planning to spin her friend around and march her straight out when the doors to the ambulance bay banged open.
Bunny shouted to the EMTs, “Hurry. She’s in there.”
The EMTs burst into the cold room with a stretcher in tow.
“What have we got, Doctor?” asked an EMT. The name W. Watson was appliqued on his shirt.
Claire said to Watson, “This is Mrs. Murphy.”
“Hello,” Joan said. “The rumors of my demise have been wildly exaggerated.”
Watson cracked a smile.
“She was brought in just after midnight,” Claire continued. “She has a gunshot wound to the shoulder and a bullet graze on her hip. She revived on her own fifteen minutes ago and needs emergency care ASAP.”
Watson said, “You’re not kidding.”
Mallory went to Mrs. Murphy and patted her hand.
“I left a message for your husband,” she said. “I told him you were on the way to Saint Francis Memorial Hospital.”
“How ya doing, Mrs. Murphy?” EMT Watson asked. “We’re going to give you a nice smooth ride. And we’ll get there faster than a speeding bullet.” Then the EMTs helped the gunshot victim onto their gurney and wheeled her out to the ambulance.
The doors closed behind them and the wail of sirens sounded down the road as Bunny entered the autopsy suite holding a brown paper bag that was sealed with red tape. “Dr. Washburn, I opened this to see what it was. I think the handbag inside belongs to Mrs. Murphy.”