Shadowfires

across the
trail, and she would not take offense at their misdirected suspicion
as long as it kept them baying after the wrong scent.
    She said, “Lieutenant Verdad, surely the most logical explanation
is that, in spite of Dr.
Kordell's assertions, the body has simply been misplaced.” Both the stork-thin medical examiner and Ronald Tescanet protested. She quietly but firmly cut them off. “Or maybe it was kids playing an elaborate joke. College kids. An initiation rite of some sort. They've
been known to do worse.”
    “I think I already know the answer to this question,” Benny said.
“But is it possible that Eric Leben was not dead after all? Could his
condition have been misjudged? Is it possible that he walked out of
here in a daze?”
    “No, no, no!” Tescanet said, blanching and suddenly sweating in
spite of the cold air.
    “Impossible,” Kordell said simultaneously. “I saw him. Massive
head injuries. No vital signs whatsoever.”
    But this off-the-wall theory seemed to intrigue Verdad. He said,
“Didn't Dr. Leben receive medical attention immediately after the accident?”
    “Paramedics,” Kordell said.
    “Highly trained, reliable men,” Tescanet said, mopping his doughy
face with a handkerchief. He had to be doing rapid mental arithmetic
right now, calculating the difference between the financial
settlement that might be necessitated by a morgue screwup and the far
more major judgment that might be won against the city for the
incompetence of its paramedics. “They would never, regardless of
circumstances, never mistakenly pronounce a man dead when he
wasn't.”
    “One-there was no heartbeat whatsoever,” Kordell said, counting
the proofs of death on fingers so long and supple that they would
have served him equally well if he had been a concert pianist instead
of a pathologist. “The paramedics had a perfectly flat line on the
small EKG unit in their van. Two-no respiration. Three-steadily
falling body temperature.”
    “Unquestionably dead,” Tescanet murmured.
    Lieutenant Verdad now regarded the attorney and the chief medical
examiner with the same flat expression and hawkish eyes that he had
turned on Rachael. He probably didn't think Tescanet and Kordell-or the paramedics-were covering up malpractice or malfeasance. But his nature and experience ensured his willingness to suspect anyone of anything at any time, given even the poorest reason for suspicion.
    Scowling at
Tescanet's interruption, Everett Kordell continued, “Four-there was absolutely no perceptible electrical activity in the brain. We have an EEG machine here in the morgue. We frequently use it in accident cases as a final test. That's
a safety procedure
I've instituted since taking this position. Dr. Leben was attached to the EEG the moment he was brought in, and we could find no perceptible brain waves. I was present. I saw the graph. Brain death. If there is any single, universally accepted standard for declaring a man dead, it's
when the attending physician encounters a condition of full and
irreversible cardiac arrest coupled with brain death. The pupils of
Dr. Leben's eyes wouldn't dilate in bright light. And no respiration.
With all due respect, Mrs. Leben, your husband was as dead as any man
I've ever seen, and I will stake my reputation on that.”
    Rachael had no doubt that Eric had been dead. She had seen his
sightless, unblinking eyes as he lay on the blood-spattered pavement.
She had seen, too well, the deep concavity running from behind his
ear all the way to the curve of his brow: the crushed and splintered
bone. However, she was thankful that Benny had unwittingly confused
things and had given the detectives yet another false trail to
pursue.
    She said, “I'm sure he was dead. I've no doubt of it. I saw him at
the scene of the accident, and I know there could have been no
mistaken diagnosis.”
    Kordell and Tescanet looked immeasurably relieved.
    With a shrug, Verdad said, “Then we discard the hypothesis.”
    But Rachael knew that, once the possibility of mis-diagnosis had
been planted in the cops' minds, they would expend time and energy in the exploration of it, which was all that mattered. Delay. That was the name of the game. Delay, stall, confuse the issue. She needed time to confirm her own worst suspicions, time to decide what must be done to protect herself from various sources of danger.
    Lieutenant Verdad led Rachael past the three draped bodies and
stopped with her at an empty