Next

CHAPTER 022

It was a bad day for Marty Roberts, made much worse by a phone call from Emily Weller:

“Dr. Roberts, I’m calling you from the mortuary. It seems there’s a problem with my husband’s cremation.”

“What kind of problem?” Marty Roberts said, sitting in his office in the pathology lab.

“They’re saying they can’t cremate my Jack if he contains metal.”

“Metal? What do you mean, metal? Your husband didn’t have any hip replacements or war injuries, did he?”

“No, no. They are saying that his arms and legs have metal pipes in them. And the bones have been removed.”

“Really.” Marty stood up in his chair and snapped his fingers in the air, getting Raza’s attention in the autopsy room outside. “I wonder how that could have happened.”

“I was calling to ask you the same thing.”

“I don’t know what to say. It’s quite beyond me, Mrs. Weller. I must say, I’m shocked.”

By then Raza had come in the room.

“I’m going to put you on speaker, Mrs. Weller, so I can make some notes as we speak. Are you with your husband at the crematorium now?”

“Yes,” she said. “And they are saying he has lead pipes in his arms and legs, so they can’t cremate him.”

“I see,” Marty said, looking at Raza.

Raza shook his head. He scrawled on a pad, We just took one leg. Put in wood dowel.

Marty said, “Mrs. Weller, I can’t imagine how this might have happened. There may have to be an inquiry. I am concerned that the funeral home, or perhaps the cemetery, may have done something improper.”

“Well,” she said, “they say he has to be reburied. But they also say maybe I should call the police, because it looks like his bones were stolen. But I don’t want to go through the ordeal of the police and everything.” A long, pregnant pause. “What do you think, Dr. Roberts?”

“Mrs. Weller,” he said, “let me call you right back.”

Marty Roberts hung up the phone. “You dumb fuck! I told you: Wood, always wood!”

“I know it,” Raza said. “We didn’t do that lead job. I swear we didn’t. We always use wood.”

“Lead pipe…” Marty said, shaking his head. “That’s crazy.”

“It wasn’t us, Marty. I swear it wasn’t us. Must have been those bastards at the cemetery. You know how easy it is. They hold the ceremony, the family shovels a little dirt, and everybody goes home. Coffin isn’t buried. They don’t do the actual burial sometimes for a day or so. That night, they come in, take the bones. You know how it works.”

“How do you know?” Marty said, glaring at him.

“Because, one time last year, woman calls, her husband is buried with the wedding ring, and she wants the ring. Wants to know if we took it off him for the autopsy. I said we didn’t have any effects, but I would call the cemetery. And they hadn’t buried him yet, and she got the ring back.”

Marty Roberts sat down. “Look,” he said, “if there is an investigation, if they start looking at bank accounts…”

“No, no. Trust me.”

“That’s a laugh.”

“Marty, I’m telling you. We didn’t do it. No metal pipe. No.”

“Okay. I heard you. I just don’t believe you.”

Raza tapped the desk. “You’d better use the prescription with her.”

“I will. Now get out of here while I call her back.”

Raza crossed the autopsy room and went into the changing room. No one was there. He dialed his cell phone. “Jesu,” he said. “What the fuck you doing, man? You put lead pipes in that car crash guy. Shit, Marty’s mad. They’re trying to cremate the dude, he’s got lead pipes in him…Man, how many times do I have to tell you? Use wood!”

“Mrs. Weller,”Marty Roberts said, “I think you better rebury your husband. That seems to be your only option.”

“You mean, unless I go to the police. About the stolen bones.”

“I can’t tell you what to do,” he said. “You’ll have to decide the best course of action. But I’m sure a prolonged police investigation will turn up a prescription in your name for ethacrynic acid from Longwood Pharmacy, on Motor Drive.”

“That was for my personal use.”

“Oh, I know that. It’s just a question of how ethacrynic acid happened to end up in your husband’s body. That could be awkward.”

“Your hospital lab has found traces of that?”

“Yes, but I am sure the hospital would stop the lab work as soon as you dropped your lawsuit against them. Let me know what you decide to do, Mrs. Weller. Good-bye for now.”

He hung up and looked at the thermometer in the autopsy room. The temperature was 59 degrees. But Marty was sweating.

“I was wondering when you’d show up,” Marilee Hunter said, in the genetics lab. She didn’t look happy. “I’d like to know exactly what part you played in all this.”

“In all what?” he said.

“Kevin McCormick called today. There’s another lawsuit from that Weller family. This time it’s the son of the deceased, Tom Weller. The one who works for a biotech company.”

“What’s his suit about?”

“I was only following protocol,” Marilee said.

“Uh-huh…What’s the suit about?”

“Apparently his health insurance was canceled.”

“Because?”

“His father has the BNB 71 gene for heart disease.”

“He does? That makes no sense. The guy was a health nut.”

“He had the gene. Doesn’t mean it was expressed. We found it in the tissues. And that fact was duly noted. The insurance company picked it up and canceled the son as ‘pre-ill.’”

“How did they get the information?”

“It’s online,” she said.

“It’s online?”

“This is a legal inquiry,” she said. “Under state law it’s all discoverable. We’re required to post all lab findings to an FTP address. In theory it’s password-protected, but anyone can get to it.”

“You put genetic data online?”

“Not everyone’s data. Just the lawsuits. Anyway, the son is saying he did not authorize the release of genetic information about himself, which is true. But if we release the father’s information, as we’re required by state law to do, we also release the son’s, which we’re required by lawnot to do. Because his children share half the same genes as the father. One way or another, we break the law.” She sighed. “Tom Weller wants his insurance back, but he won’t get it.”

Marty Roberts leaned against the desk. “So where does it stand?”

“Mr. Weller sued me along with the hospital. Legal is insisting this lab no longer touches any material from the Wellers.” Marilee Hunter sniffed. “We’re off the case.”

Off the case! No more investigation, no digging up the body! Marty Roberts felt nothing but relief, although he did his best to appear distressed. “It’s so unfair,” he said, “the way lawyers just run our society.”

“Doesn’t matter. It’s over, Marty,” she said. “It’s done.”

Marty went back to the pathology lab later that day. “Raza,” he said, “one of us has to leave this lab.”

“I know,” Raza said. “And I’m going to miss you, Marty.”

“What do you mean?”

“I got a new job,” he said, smiling. “Hamilton Hospital in San Francisco. Their diener just had a heart attack. I start day after tomorrow. So with packing and everything, this is my last day on the job.”

Marty Roberts stared. “Well,” he said. He didn’t know what else to say.

“I know you get two weeks,” Raza said, “but I told the hospital this was a special case and you would understand. By the way, I have a guy who would be a good replacement. He’s a friend of mine, Jesu. Very good guy. Works in a funeral home right now, so it would not be a big transition.”

“I’ll meet with him,” Marty said. “But I think maybe I will pick my own guy.”

“Hey, sure, no problem,” Raza said. He shook hands with Marty. “Thanks for everything, Dr. Roberts.”

“You remembered.” Marty smiled.

Raza turned and left the lab.