Chapter 30
Inside a sterile operating room
at Aurora Life Extension, VictoStone watched the patient's heart oscillate between mild and severe tachycardia, from one hundred twenty to over two hundred thirty beats per minute, a transient condition resulting from the epinephrine and hypothermia.
Stone studied the EKG and cursed each new acceleration, knowing that an escalating arrhythmia could lead to cardiac arrest.
Sweating now, Stone pressed the cold paddles of the defibrillator to the patient's chest, bracketing his heart. The 360 joules that shot through the man's chest made his body bounce like a ragdoll against the OR table.
Stone glanced at the EKG monitor. Suddenly, there was a rhythm spiking across the monitor screen.
140 beats a minute, but steady ... 120 ... 100.
Stone felt his own pulse soaring.
Simultaneously, the electroencephalograph showed alpha and beta brain waves within normal parameters. The patient's lips were no longer painted the blue of the oxygen-deprived. They were alive with color. The man's eyes jiggled for a second and the lids fluttered.
Stone consulted his watch and let out a breath of amazement.
He'd done it. By God he'd done it!
At that moment, the Director buzzed himself into the sterile room and gazed at the patient, then at the cardiac monitor and finally at Stone. He grabbed a nearby table to keep from falling.
Then Stone saw him begin to cry.
Chapter 31
Josh Logan stared uneasily at
the document, not wanting to think too intensively about its implications. But it wasn't going to go away. If Marty was right--and it appeared she might be--someone had some explaining to do. Still, he sometimes wondered if Marty was playing with a full deck.
"She's not there," Marty said.
"Because of that document?"
She nodded.
"You read it. It's authentic. Her nurse gave it to me."
"What if it isn't ... authentic?"
"Why would anyone do that?"
"Attention. Happens all the time."
Josh stepped forward. "You're sure?"
"Absolutely. I've been a reporter for ten years. I know a fraud when I see one. This girl was no fraud. She wanted me to know. I don't know how she got her hands on that paper, but she did. And I believe her. Now are you going to help me or not?"
Josh studied her. His cynicism about people lately, and the lengths they will go to, was well earned, perhaps because it was based on first-hand knowledge. Still, the horrors implicit in Marty's statement exceeded anything he could even imagine.
"You seem convinced to me."
Marty shook her head. "I am, I told you."
With Marty standing against the wall, Josh began to pace in the kitchen.
"It just doesn't make sense," he said. "Unless ..." he stopped. His back was to Marty.
"What?" Marty asked.
"How much do you know about the attending physician in Tucson?"
"You mean the one who admitted her in the ER?"
He nodded.
"I did some checking on him."
Josh chuckled. "Imagine that."
"His name is Tim Busfeld. He's been a trauma surgeon at Tucson General for ten years. He's well respected by staff. Had very few, if any, complaints and there's nothing that stands out about his professional life. Now, his personal life is not so happy."
Josh cocked his head. "Let me guess. He's divorced three times and can't stay married. That's a regular occurrence for an ER doc. They spend all their time at the hospital and it ruins their family life."
"No, I'm afraid it's worse," Marty said. "He's still happily married. Unfortunately, he had a five-year-old daughter who drowned, two years ago. Staff at the hospital told me it hit him really hard, as you can imagine. He hasn't been the same since. The odd thing is no one at the hospital who was close to him was ever invited to a funeral or any kind of memorial for the child. Seems kind of strange."
"Maybe he just wanted his privacy."
"Something tells me there's more to it."
"There goes the journalist in you again."
* * *
After she left Josh's house, Marty arrived at her office. She placed her laptop and mail on the desk, then shrugged out of her jacket. It was a warm late-March morning, and yellow light streamed in the window, making a horizontal bar of gold light across the spines of the reference books housed on the wall next to her. She settled at her desk to open her mail when a knock sounded on her door.
"Come in," Marty said.
John Weeks, her managing editor had a sullen look on his face as he entered.
"Marty, I'm afraid I have some bad news."
Marty straightened herself a little. "Oh?"
"I just talked to the police. Terry Brooks was found murdered."
Marty threw her hand to her mouth and felt bile in her throat. "Oh, God."
Chapter 32
Josh Logan stood in his kitchen,
picked up the files he'd taken and opened the top folder. The first file contained a mixture of photocopies and lined yellow pages filled with Hench's tight, flawless script. The copied pages, Josh thought, were probably routine procedures or portions of the process that had been used repeatedly, perhaps with the patients he'd seen at Ford. The handwritten notes probably represented something unique about that particular patient.
Josh was already familiar with much of the scientific procedure contained in the files, having immersed himself in every article he could find on Aurora Life Extension and cryogenics as a whole. Hench, however, had taken the science to a whole new level, albeit a deadly one, and Josh was looking for any clue that would substantiate his suspicions. His mind went back to the file Marty had showed him. Another piece of the puzzle.
Don't jump to conclusions,
Josh warned himself,
wait until you have all the proof.
The number of patients transferred to Aurora in the last twelve months was staggering for a company whose science was barely noted outside its own circle of believers. According to the files, there had been twenty transfers to the facility in the last four months alone.
Behind the first set of pages, Josh found another set, which were neatly stapled together and attached to the left side of the file with a two-pronged clip. This second set contained patient diagnosis, length of stay at Ford, cause of death and date of transfer agreement. Fastened to these was the actual agreement from Aurora Life Extension authorizing transfer. Skimming down the list of patients, Josh came upon the name he was looking for: Cynthia Harwell. Her cause of death was listed as Cerebral Infarct secondary to complications from surgery. There was no mention of a drug reaction. Next, Josh studied the agreement that Cynthia Harwell had signed. He set down the folder and reached behind him, pulling another file from the counter. This one was the O.R agreement Harwell had signed on her admission. Comparing the signatures, it was obvious to Josh; this was not the same person signing. Going back to the Aurora file, he noticed something even more significant. Cynthia Harwell's agreement for cryo-transfer was signed on March 1
st
. There was only one problem with that.
Cynthia Harwell was in a deep coma on that date.
Someone had obviously forged her signature.
Chapter 33Arthur Hench took the call in stunned silence. Never before had a patient's family threatened him with a lawsuit. Ford's reputation, being what it was, had always precluded that. But here was Sarah Davis on the other end of the line, screaming in his ear that she never agreed to have her husband sent to Aurora Life Extension. She didn't believe her husband agreed and was convinced he was tricked into signing the papers Hench presented to her.
"I assure you, Mrs. Davis, no one coerced your husband into signing anything against his will. Perhaps, as I suggested, he was going to tell you the day of his unfortunate demise."
Hench's suggestion only seemed to infuriate Sarah Davis that much more, so he assured her that he would have the family liaison contact her, first thing in the morning. Hench bid her goodbye and swung his chair around to stare out at the desert below the Ford Institute. In the distance, evening thunderclouds were forming over the far desert. Hench turned away from the view.
She's going to be trouble.
Now, he grabbed the phone from its cradle and mashed the top button on his speed dial.
It was his direct line to Aurora Life Extension.
Chapter 34
The grizzled mortician looked up
in annoyance at Marty Branigan.
Marty extracted a flat I.D. folder from the inner pocket of her jacket. "I'm here about Alley Teaks."
The mortician clamped the Danish briar pipe in his mouth, and examined Marty's credentials. He frowned. "Phoenix Sun? I thought that rag went out of business."
Marty looked at him evenly. "No, not quite. Now, about my inquiry. I know this was the funeral home where Ally was allegedly sent after her death. Did you have any unusual requests by the family for her internment?"
The mortician stared at her for a moment, sucking his pipe, then rose. Marty followed him into an adjoining room where several caskets were stacked.
"First of all, Ms. Branigan, all that is, as you already know, confidential. If I were to divulge any information, the Governor would have me thrown out of the state. Second, what the hell gives you the right to come into my office--"
Before he could finish, Marty shoved a piece of paper in front of him. She could see the color drain from his face and he took a step back.
"Alright, you win," he said. "Let's go into my office and talk."
Chapter 35
Sarah Savis had gone over
it in her mind five hundred times, but nothing made sense. Her lawyer had told her in no uncertain terms there was nothing he could do.
Jim had signed the document.
Why would he do that?
Her intellect answered loud and clear: he wouldn't.
And her gut sensed otherwise as well. It was irrational and it made no sense.
He wouldn't have done that.
She felt physically sick with unease.
She wiped hastily at her eyes with a Kleenex and stood up from the kitchen table. She ached in every muscle and joint, and what sleep she'd gotten had not lessened her exhaustion. She didn't want sedatives, she'd told her own doctor.
She wanted answers.
By now, Sarah had learned enough about Hench--some of it from him, much of it from the nurses--to know he had a stellar reputation. He had been a busy neurosurgeon, but over the last two years had dedicated more and more time to post-death resuscitation through cryonic suspension. His dedication to the relatively new science, in some nurses' estimates, bordered on obsession.
Perhaps too obsessed?
After numerous failed attempts to contact Aurora Life Extension, Sarah Davis decided to do the only thing a grieving wife could do. She would go there in person tomor, knock on their doors and demand to see her husband.
Frozen or not.
* * *
From the banks of mailboxes at the main entrance to the Leisure World Retirement Community, Diego Salvez learned that Sarah Davis was in villa twenty-nine. He scaled the stucco-coated wall and dropped down to plush grass, which bordered a median filled with palms and ficuses. Following the entrance drive, he found number twenty-nine.
No one was in sight. Leisure World was silent, peaceful.
Though it was a few minutes past midnight, lights were on in the Davis villa. Diego could hear a television blaring.
The window to the right of the door was covered with horizontal blinds. The slats were slightly open, allowing Diego to see a kitchen illuminated only by the low-wattage bulb of the range hood.
Positioning himself to the corner of the window, Diego had a view of the living room. Through the gap, a woman could be seen slumped in an oversize recliner, a glass of clear liquid in her hand, a half-empty bottle of gin on a small table next to her. Her head was tilted to one side and she appeared to be asleep.
Diego scanned the grounds to the left, right, and on the other side to the parking area. Still deserted.
He moved to the door and grabbed the handle giving it a powerful twist and it gave way with a metallic click. He pushed it open, entered and closed it behind him. The woman in the recliner did not stir. Diego closed the blinds all the way so anyone passing could not see in.
Assured that no one else occupied the residence, Diego moved cat-like over to the kitchen area. A folder lay on the counter, marked:
MEDICAL RECORDS: PRIVATE AND CONFIDENTIAL
PATIENT: JIM DAVIS
FORD INSTITUTE
He returned to the living room with the intention of killing Sara Davis.
But as he approached the recliner, from his peripheral vision he could see a bony hand wrapped around the neck of a half-empty gin bottle.
* * *
Sara Davis had come awake from a half-drunken stupor to full alert with such suddenness that her mind could hardly comprehend what was happening. She felt something storm into her so violently, defined only by its hatred and rage.
Who was this intruder?
Sara smashed the bottle against the side of the man's head with such impact that it was as loud as a shotgun blast. Gin and sharp fragments of glass rained down and clinked onto the furniture and hardwood flooring. The room was filled with the aroma of fermented juniper, but the underlying scent was the coppery smell of blood. The man's head bled like a clogged showerhead, but despite the deluge, to Sara's amazement, he barely seemed stunned. Instead, she felt herself being picked up. A powerful grip threatened to crush her windpipe and Sarah Davis felt the world slipping away.
* * *
The volcanic wrath that erupted in Diego Salvez was unlike anything he had experienced before, far beyond any rage incited by his antagonists in San Quentin.