Case File 13 #2 (4 page)

“Lots,” Dana said. “Medical students and surgeons. They needed bodies to dissect and they couldn't get enough legally. The body snatchers sold the teeth, too, to be made into dentures.”

“They stuck dead people's teeth into their mouths?” Carter's face went white. For once he appeared to have heard something that grossed out even him.

Down on the field, halftime was over and the Sumina Prep players were demolishing the Rams. Nick had no idea how a tiny private school had fielded enough good players to beat a top contender for state champion. And they weren't just beating them, they were knocking them around like rag dolls. Still, Nick was far more interested in what Dana was saying.

“How do you know all this?” he asked.

“Dana's totally into creepy old stuff,” Tiffany said. “She's like a fangirl for body snatchers.”

“Grave robbers,” Dana said.

“Resurrectionists,” Angelo added, recovering his wits.

“Sack-'em-up men,” Dana countered.
She was good
.

“Wait a minute,” Angie said, holding out her hands. “Are you saying you think whoever took these bodies is selling them to doctors?” Nick remembered that Angie's mom worked at the hospital. He couldn't recall for sure whether she was a nurse, a doctor, or did paperwork. But whatever it was, Angie was clearly upset.

“No,” Dana and Angelo both said at the same time. The two of them looked at each other for a moment.

“Doctors don't buy corpses from grave robbers anymore,” Angelo said. “Stealing bodies is a crime now.”

“Besides,” Dana said, “there are plenty of legal ways to obtain corpses. Lots of people donate their bodies to science.”

Nick was impressed. He'd always thought of Dana as a dumb jock. But listening to her talk, he had to admit she was pretty smart too.

Around the stadium, people began heading toward the exits even though there was still almost a full quarter to go in the game. Surprisingly, the visitors' side of the stadium was nearly empty. “So if it wasn't for money, you think some guy dug up the bodies for a joke?”

“Not some
guy
,” Dana said. “Some
guys
. It would take at least two strong men to dig up a coffin and pull out the body.”

Angelo nodded, pointing at the picture on Tiffany's phone. “See how only part of the grave is open? They dig out the top half or so. Then one guy goes down in the hole, breaks open the coffin, and loops a rope around the chest of the corpse. The other guy pulls on the rope, and presto, one dead body.”

Tiffany wrinkled her nose. “That's nasty.”

“It's actually quite fascinating to study,” Angelo said. “The resurrectionists used wooden shovels because they were quieter than metal, and lanterns with only a small opening so villagers wouldn't catch them taking the bodies.” He looked up from the phone and blinked as though realizing what he'd just said. But Dana was bobbing her head up and down.

For the next ten minutes the two of them went on and on about
mortsafes
and methods of stealing bodies Nick had never imagined. It was almost like they were speaking a different language.

Angie took the phone and flipped through the rest of the pictures. “So here's what I don't get. If people don't buy bodies anymore, why did someone go to all the trouble of stealing these?”

Nick had been wondering the exact same thing. But he wasn't about to let Angie know it. Instead he gave a big yawn as if he were bored by the whole conversation, while still listening carefully.

“Body snatching isn't near as uncommon as you might think,” Dana said. “There are all kinds of reasons for taking corpses.”

Angelo turned to a page in his notebook. “Abraham Lincoln's body was dug up and reburied ten times.”

“And don't forget Alexander the Great,” Dana said.

Angelo's face took on a look of concentration. “St. Nicholas.”

Dana looked every bit as determined not to be outdone. “Einstein's brain.”

During the last minutes of the game, Dana and Angelo continued to compare stories of missing or stolen dead people. It was like a gruesome debate—the two of them trying to prove who knew the most. As far as Nick was concerned it didn't mean much one way or the other. They'd already determined the bodies in the local cemetery weren't from anyone famous. And if they weren't stolen for money, why were they taken? The possibilities were interesting, to say the least.

When the game finally ended in a humiliating 77-to-10 loss, the whistle blew and the Pleasant Hill band launched into a listless rendition of the school song. The Rams' coach jogged slowly out to the middle of the field, slouched over as if he carried a heavy weight on his back. His team had been destroyed by a school he probably thought was going to be a piece of cake.

The Sumina coach, who also walked out to the middle of the field and shook hands, was tall, with bony arms and stilt-thin legs. He appeared to be like a hundred years old. Thick-rimmed glasses and wild gray hair made him look more like a history professor than a football coach. His long, pale face was sort of creepy.

“What are you doing?” Tiffany shrieked.

Nick spun around, his mind imagining dead bodies or worse. Instead, he found Tiffany staring horrified at Carter, who was standing several rows back, wolfing down a piece of pizza. “You want some?” he asked, holding out a greasy slice.

Tiffany put a hand over her mouth as though she were about to throw up.

“Where did you get that?” Nick asked. He was pretty sure he didn't want to know.

“It's like a buffet up here.” Carter held up a pizza box with several cold pieces inside and a half empty carton of popcorn. “Who'd have thought people would leave all this food uneaten? Guess the game must have ruined their appetites.” He climbed over a couple of benches. “Look, Milk Duds!”

Angie frowned. “Your friend is disgusting.”

Nick couldn't really disagree.

“You know,” Angelo said. “If we could actually figure out who the body snatchers are, the publicity would almost guarantee that our movie would win the contest.”

“Totally,” Nick said. “You, me, and Carter will figure out who's stealing bodies while Angie and her friends . . . play house. Or whatever it is girls do.”

“Fat chance,” Angie snarled. “You wouldn't even know about the bodies if we hadn't told you. You'll still be tying your shoelaces when we work it all out. That is if you can ever pull your friend away from his scavenging. I think he just scraped up a piece of cheese someone stepped on.”

Angelo and Dana glanced at each other while Nick steamed. What was the deal with his friends? One seemed to want to hang out with
girls
while the other wanted to search for half-eaten hot dogs. He couldn't decide which was more disgusting.

“Who's that?” Tiffany asked.

Nick followed her pointing finger to see a strange figure walking across the empty field. The man—or was it a woman?—looked like no one Nick had ever seen before. Cloaked in a long black overcoat and sunglasses, he seemed to be searching for something on the field. Every so often, he stopped to pick something up or look closely at the grass.

“Equipment manager?” Angie suggested. “Maybe he's looking for a mouthpiece.”

“I've never seen a manager who looked like that,” Dana said. The figure stopped, knelt on the ground, and appeared to smell the grass. Nick couldn't imagine any reason for doing that.

“He's even freakier than Carter,” Angela said.

The man looked directly up at the kids, who were the only ones still up in the bleachers. He seemed to realize they were watching him and scrambled to his feet. As he raced off the field, something dropped out from under his coat to the grass. The man apparently didn't notice. He ran to the tunnel with awkward crablike steps and disappeared into the darkness that led to the locker rooms.

“What did he drop?” Angelo asked, squinting.

Dana cupped her hands to her eyes. “It doesn't look like a piece of equipment.”

Nick looked from Angelo, who was squeezing his monster notebook, to Carter, who was wiping a mustard stain from his chin. Whatever the guy had dropped, he wanted to reach it before the girls could. “Come on!” he shouted, breaking into a run.

Nick raced down the bleachers, hurdling benches and jumping steps in an effort to beat the girls to the field.

“Get back here!” Angie shouted from close behind him. “We saw it first.”

He had no idea what the guy had dropped. For all Nick knew it was a sweaty hip pad. But he was still stinging from Angie finding out about the missing corpses before he did, and he wasn't about to get beat by a girl.

At the bottom of the steps, a metal railing separated the bleachers from a short drop to the grass. Still running, Nick grabbed the bar and hurdled over. Before he could clear the rail completely, a hand closed around his ankle. Off balance, he fell to the ground.

A second later Angie landed on his stomach, knocking all the air out of his chest with a
woof
. “Cheater,” she growled, crawling across the grass. Still trying to catch his breath, Nick wrapped both arms around her leg and held on as she tried to get to her feet.

“Not . . . yours,” he gasped.

A tall shape leaped gracefully over both of them, and Nick had a moment of hope that Angelo was going to get there first before seeing Dana lope across the football field like a wide receiver racing for a pass. A moment later Angelo ran past far less gracefully, the pages of his notebook flapping as he huffed and puffed.

Nick disentangled himself from Angie just as Carter and Tiffany jogged by. Carter shoved what looked like a giant pretzel into his mouth. Tiffany held down her fluttering scarf with one hand and clutched her sunglasses with the other.

Feeling like someone had hit him in the gut with a bowling ball, Nick got to his feet and shuffled across the football field to the circle of kids. Angie didn't look much better, limping beside him.

“What is it?” Nick called hoarsely.

Angelo looked back, his face pale. “Well . . .”

“Whatever it is, it's ours,” Angie said, pushing her way past the other kids.

Carter stepped backward, letting the last of his pretzel drop to the grass. “You can have it.”

As the circle of kids parted, Nick caught a glimpse of what they'd all been staring at. Nestled in the bright green grass, almost exactly balanced across the fifty yard line, was what looked for all the world like a severed human forearm.

Angie's sneakers skidded as she came to a quick halt. “That's not real, is it?”

Angelo licked his lips, his glasses fogging in the cold night air as he breathed heavily. “Based on the . . .” He couldn't seem to finish his thought.

Nick couldn't believe they were falling for it. It was totally fake. “Get real. It's just a prop—like they use in the movies. Probably some player from Sumina Prep playing a trick on us.” Fake-looking or not, it was cool. He could just imagine putting it in his trick-or-treat bag the next Halloween and freaking out all the health nuts who tried to give him apples.

Before anyone else could make a move, he reached down and grabbed the arm by the wrist. It felt warm. He was trying to understand how that could be, when the stadium lights went out with a loud clang.

In the sudden darkness, something banged against Nick's leg and he stumbled to the side. Someone screamed. Angie? Tiffany? Carter?

The arm seemed to twitch in his grip and fingers closed around his wrist, nails digging into his skin. With a howl, Nick flung the arm away. Someone rammed into his side and he flew through the darkness, getting a mouthful of mud and grass as he hit the turf.

Somebody grunted and another scream tore through the night.

“Let go of me,” shouted a voice that he was pretty sure belonged to Angelo.

All around Nick, people were running and yelling. A foot kicked him in the head and green and red lights spun before his eyes like an out-of-control Christmas tree.