And not too much escaped Cindy.
Claire laughed quietly but didn’t say anything to Conklin. She went to the far corner of the room and pushed the button that turned on the video camera. The light on the camera didn’t go on. She punched it a couple of times and still the little red eye was dark.
That was weird. The camera had been fine yesterday.
She pressed the intercom button, said, “Ryan, check the video setup, please.”
“Yes, ma’am. It was unplugged. It’s on now.”
“Why was it unplugged?”
“I don’t know. I just found it this way.”
Bunny entered the room from the door that led to the morgue. She signaled to Claire as if to say, I need to talk to you.
“What’s the holdup, Bunny?”
“I need to see you for a second, Doctor.”
Claire sighed, crossed the room, and followed Bunny to the morgue, a refrigerated room lined with stacks of stainless steel drawers, each designed to hold a body. Some of Claire’s patients had recently checked in. Some had been waiting for months for someone to ID them before they were buried as nameless corpses.
“What is it, Bunny?”
The girl’s blue eyes were shifting and her lips were trembling. Claire didn’t get it. What the hell?
“I can’t find her,” Bunny said.
“What are you talking about?”
“Faye Farmer,” Bunny said. “She’s gone.”
“What’s her drawer number?” Claire asked, exasperated. She went to the whiteboard, ran her finger down the list.
“Twelve,” said Bunny Ellis.
Claire turned away from the whiteboard, crossed to the wall of drawers, pulled the handle of number 12. The drawer slid out smoothly, bringing the corpse into view. There was a tag tied to the big toe. Claire saw instantly that there had been a screwup. Faye Farmer was not and had never been a seventy-year-old black man.
She said, “Who mixed up the bodies? What drawer is this man supposed to be in?”
“Seventeen,” said Bunny. “Dr. Washburn, I already checked.”
Claire reached down, opened drawer number 17. It was empty. She started pulling out drawers, slamming them closed, each body in its assigned box except for the black John Doe in Faye Farmer’s drawer.
Bunny was crying now. She was a competent young woman and liked to do a good job.
“Stop that,” Claire snapped. “Think. Did you see Ms. Farmer’s body after she was checked in yesterday?”
“Not after I logged her in. She’s supposed to be in twelve.”
“Who moved John Doe one thirty-two out of box seventeen?”
Bunny shrugged miserably. “Not me.”
The body couldn’t have left the premises.
That was impossible.
Chapter 18