Rupture Read online

  Immediately off the foyer, he pictured the hallway leading to the great room, the Hall of Cadavers. The size and shape of a basketball court, it held thirty-five tables spaced ten feet apart. Each table was seven feet long with a stainless steel center and legs that could be adjusted for height. All the tables would be empty in July.

  The room had as many windows as it did tables. Before the building was air-conditioned, the massive windows, placed high along the ceiling, could be opened to allow the formalin fumes to escape. It had been Eli’s job to open them early each morning before the students arrived. While his father and Gaston uncovered the bodies and prepared them for dissection, Eli would remove a long wooden pole from the wall. Using the hook on the end of the pole, Eli would release the latch, find the notch in the bottom sill of each frame, and pivot the windows open. He could still hear the creak of grinding, rusty hinges that marked the beginning of each new day. Afterward, he walked the half-mile to his school to study the mundane subjects of English and math.

  Late afternoons, he returned to lock the windows. They could stay open to provide ventilation, but on a wet day, if the wind blew hard enough, the rain would splash in.

  The first week that ten-year-old Eli was responsible for the windows, an overnight thunderstorm awakened him. With the wind and rain beating on the window of his bedroom, Eli immediately knew he had forgotten to close the windows in Anatomy Hall. He crept out of the house and ran the near-mile to the medical campus, drenched to the skin. When he arrived, the rain and wind had subsided, with only a few flashes of lightning to give him a glimpse of the damage to the hall. The large center window on the west side had rotated into a horizontal position. That’s when he heard movement in the corner of the room full of cadavers. When the next flash of lightning illuminated the chamber, he saw Gaston lying naked on top of one of the bodies. The man had braced himself on his hands and was rhythmically pushing and pulling against the body beneath him, his back arched. Abruptly, he turned his head and looked straight at Eli. The image of two bodies, their pale skin starkly lit by the last signs of the storm, remained imprinted in Eli’s memory long after the room became dark again. A few seconds later, a final flash, and Gaston was gone.

  Eli ran home as fast as he could. He returned the next morning with his father, saying nothing. Gaston was already there, mopping up the water that had blown in overnight. But the damage had not been caused by the rain. The wind had blown the plastic covers off three cadavers, and their open abdomens and dissected extremities had become the resting place for the leaves and twigs that the storm had torn from the maple tree outside the window. One exposed brain had bits of trash contaminating deep into its recesses.

  Eli was sickened by the sight of what his forgetfulness caused. He knew his father would be furious. But before Eli received the blame, Gaston spoke up. He told Elizer Branch that he was the one who had opened the window before the storm and had forgotten to close it. Eli looked at Gaston and wondered why he was taking the blame that was his alone.

  Then he knew.

  Eli spent the rest of the day with those who had donated their bodies, picking out the dirt and leaves that he had allowed to defile their dignity. Nothing further of that stormy night was ever spoken.

  Behind the hall, close to where Eli stood in his scrubs with his penlight, were the boiler rooms where large black pipes hissed and emitted loud eructations of steam every three minutes, even in July. This performance was preceded by a rhythmic pecking of steel against steel, as if someone were inside trying to knock free with a hammer. No matter how desensitized the anatomy students became, this sound reverberated in their ears for months after leaving the hall. In the midst of formalin and death and the noise of the boiler, Gaston had lived for over forty years.

  Eli left the storage area and moved along a side corridor that led him toward the sounds of pecking and hissing. Humidity condensed on the walls and oozed to the floor, where a sheen festered, waiting for summer insects to brood and lay eggs. Everywhere the corridor was wet and unnaturally cold, as though the underworld were sending up drafts off a block of ice.

  Eli followed the hallway that emptied into a room he recognized as the embalming chamber. In its center stood the familiar wooden table, the same splintered planks, weathered like a neglected deck but pickled from years of formalin seeping from overfilled veins. Of all the sights and smells of death that infused Anatomy Hall, it was this room, this table that disturbed Eli most. Maybe because it looked like an instrument of capital punishment, leather straps for ankles and wrists, as if its occupant would struggle free or be pardoned by a last-minute court decision. Eli skirted the table as though it were electrified.

  Gaston’s room was strategically positioned off the embalming chamber, since this room was where he spent most of his working day. A single bare lightbulb hung from a ceiling cord where it cast an irritating glare. Eli stood in the doorway of Gaston’s tiny room, sadness sweeping over him like wind through a vacant house.

  How could anyone live here, day after day, year after year? Every respiration a breath of formalin until mucous membranes morphed into leather. A life oddly preserved in a world of death.

  The sadness he felt was not from the loss of Gaston as a friend or teacher or estranged family—whatever he was. It was the cruel reality that Eli was the only witness to the morbid pleasure the man had found in his life.

  The room was the size of a mansion’s walk-in closet, an exact square of maybe twenty by twenty feet. A foldout cot was pushed against the corner, low to the floor. One straight-backed chair held multiple layers of clothes folded over it. Against the wall stood a cardboard table holding a pyramid of cans—a week’s worth of food. A washbasin in the corner sat on a square board. For a moment, Eli could see the old man standing there, a can held close to his mouth with the sharp lid pried open, long grey hair mingling with a cold bite of soup.

  A prison cell. This is what it’s like to serve in prison.

  Gaston had no television or radio. Certainly no home computer. What was there to do? Yet Gaston was free to go and come as he pleased. Eli imagined the old man lurking in the hall to check on the inhabitants, an innkeeper for the dead.

  Even though the room offered no toilet, Eli did not detect the smell of urine. He noticed that hooked on the cot was a plastic urinal, the handheld kind from a hospital. He remembered there was a toilet in the locker room where the med students changed into scrubs.

  He must have emptied it in there.

  This was all there was.Is it possible, Eli wondered,for someone to live such a bare existence? He looked along the wall and under the table for some relic of Gaston’s life. Something that held together the scraps of who he was, where he came from, who he wanted to be.

  The bulb cast a shadow off the edge of Gaston’s cot, and spider webs beaded with dust bridged the foot-high gap off the floor. There was no other place to hide what Eli was hoping to find. He leaned down, brushed the webs away with his hand, and felt along the floor until he reached the edge of a box. Even Gaston had a few possessions to collect and pass on. As Eli pulled the box from under the cot, it scraped heavily along the cement floor.

  It was a hatbox. And it was not covered with webs and dirt, so it must have been removed and opened recently. Only a thin layer of dust partially obscured the brand name. Stetson. Eli could not imagine Gaston in a cowboy hat.

  He placed the box on the cot and removed the lid, the old, thin mattress sagging as he sat on it. The box was full, and on top of the stack lay a purple notebook, the kind with spiral binding that leaves ragged bits when a page is torn out. On its pages, Eli saw remarkably elegant handwriting, not at all the scribble he expected. It was a journal, each entry a page or so in length, separated by a single dateline in quotation marks.

  The final entry was dated July ninth, the day Gaston died. It began:

  They came for me again today at 10 o’clock, Benny the assistant, and the muscle they call Tongue. I was up and waiting for them
this time, not having slept the night. Tongue grabbed me by the neck but I waved him off.

  Eli remembered the feel of Tongue’s hands on his legs. A chill passed through him.

  After we crossed the river, they drove around back and we entered through the loading dock, as before. I climbed on the table and Benny and the nurse lingered over me. Their stares told me this was the beginning of the end. As if they cared.

  The doctor did more work on the graft without a drop of local anesthesia. I watched the catheter on the screen, piercing the femoral artery and snaking through the iliac to the aorta. The tip of the catheter wiggled like a worm in the metal graft cage. Retribution for all those bodies. Now me, a living cadaver.

  They brought me back to the hall and Tongue dropped me on the cot. Benny put a bottle of Percocet in my hand. Said to take as many as I wanted. I put them away and waited for the pain to hit. I want to feel completely alive for the final hours.

  Eli closed the journal and placed it on the cot beside him. Eli’s brief pang of compassion was quickly replaced with the details of Gaston’s clinical history; diagnostician merging with criminal investigator.

  Gaston was transported somewhere for a procedure, a catheterization through his groin—to his aorta.

  The puncture wounds at the crease of Henry’s leg.

  It was all connected somehow.

  The tiny holes that Meg had found.

  Lankford’s death.

  But how did the catheterization cause the rupture? By poking holes with a needle? No, couldn’t be. With the pulsating aortic pressure, the vessel would rupture immediately and Gaston would have bled out. Whatever was done was a gradual process, like a slow-release capsule. If the catheterization took place a little before noon, the rupture did not occur for another ten to twelve hours.

  Eli looked back in the box, the sum of the man’s possessions, a life. Beneath Gaston’s journal lay a stack of newspaper clippings held together with a single paper clip. The first clipping was from the Commercial Appeal’s business section. Eli was surprised to see himself—a head shot as part of the article that announced his appointment as assistant professor at the medical school. He thumbed through the other articles quickly, puzzled. This was not Gaston’s life but that of the Branch’s. His mother’s obituary, his father’s, an article from the Sunday Appeal about Anatomy Hall, the pair of father and son anatomists. Then a headline that made Eli’s stomach clinch.

  REGENCY BIOTECH INTERNATIONAL RELOCATES TO MEMPHIS

  Why would Gaston care about RBI?

  The next article was faded and brittle. The date in the upper left corner read 1973, and the headline announced:

  ANATOMY PROFESSOR’S SON UNDERGOES RISKY, LIFE-SAVING OPERATION

  Eli read the article quickly, skipping to find the names. Elizer and Naomi Branch. The child’s name—Henry.

  He skipped to the bottom of the article.

  The expense of the operation will be covered by a start-up company, Regent Biotech, located in New York City. Dr. Branch expressed gratitude to the company for covering his son’s medical bills.

  Eli remembered Regent Biotech from his Internet search, the precursor to RBI. But that was 1973, surely a different company. The final sentence of the article confirmed his fear.

  Regent Biotech is trying to develop metal stent devices to be used in cardiovascular disease.

  Eli was completely absorbed in his reading now, unaware of the room’s glare and formalin stench. He held the brittle paper with both hands. A fine tremor began and the paper rattled.

  I must have read it wrong, Eli thought.Could my father have been involved with this company, Regent Biotech?

  The room had been quiet until Eli felt air moving under him. This was immediately followed by the escalating whine of a hydraulic lift, like an amusement park ride starting slow and gaining speed. The sound was not loud, but it was abrupt and difficult to locate. Eli felt disoriented. Later, Eli would remember dropping the clippings.I should have stuffed them in my pocket. He stood, and as the room seemed to spin, he closed his eyes a moment.

  When he opened his eyes, Eli could tell the noise emanated from below him. But he was confused by the fact that the building did not have another floor below the basement—not one he was aware of. He felt a draft of air pulling toward a corner of the room. Eli pushed the washbasin away and lifted the board to reveal a square hole, two feet across, as though a chunk of concrete had been excised. The high-pitched sound dropped off, the monster whip ride coming to a stop. But the noise of the machine, or whatever it was, continued to run. Eli heard a series of knocks, evenly spaced about a second apart, like gears catching in the loops of a giant chain. And then the whirring sound again and the process started over. Eli leaned over the hole and felt a slight tug, as though a vacuum pulled him down.

  What the hell?

  There was no flash of light or flame such as Eli expected to see. The hole beneath him was completely black. But one swipe of his penlight revealed the iron rungs of a ladder. In all the years that Eli had spent in this building, he had never known of another level or heard sounds such as these. He hesitated, but then his curiosity got the best of him. He stepped onto the ladder.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  DOWNTOWN MEMPHIS

  AUTOMATIC SLIM’S TONGA CLUB

  8:55 P.M.

  Meg Daily told the waitperson to give her a corner table. “Someone will be joining me. Tall, with slightly graying hair, cut short.”

  “Can I get you something to drink while you wait?”

  “No, thank you.”

  The waitperson removed the wine list from her table.

  “You know,” Meg said. “I will have something after all. A margarita, frozen, with salt.”

  “Sure, and I’ll keep an eye out for that Mr. Someone,” he said with a swagger of his hip, as though he might snatch Eli for himself.

  The restaurant was filled with dinner guests and the bar scene festive. A young crowd stood at the long polished driftwood bar with drinks in hand, continuous chatter. The décor was anything but bland. A zebra-print banquette lined the wall and each colorfully upholstered bar stool was occupied. Meg removed her cell phone from a tiny black purse that she hadn’t used for years. She called the sitter to check on her daughter as the waiter brought the margarita. She wiped off the excess salt and took a sip while hearing that Margaret was fast asleep. She placed her phone on the table and took another mouthful of the frozen drink. She opened the menu and an offering of voodoo stew caught her eye as did the coconut mango shrimp. Above the rim of her glass, she noticed a young man at the bar looking at her. He turned on his orange bar stool to face his friend.

  Meg savored the drink, letting the ice slide along her tongue. She tried to remember the last time she had a margarita but the memory was erased by the rush of a cold headache. Meg closed her eyes and put her head in her hands. When the sensation passed and she raised her head, the man at the bar was smiling at her. She looked away and fidgeted with her purse. But through her peripheral vision, she knew he was walking toward her. She saw that her blouse had shifted off her shoulder and her bra strap was showing. It was too late to fix it.

  “Are you okay?”

  His V-neck sweater had short sleeves that revealed rippled biceps. He looked as if he had just left the gym. And he was young, very young, college age or just beyond.

  “Yes, I’m fine, thank you.”

  “If you don’t like that drink, I’ll buy you another one.”

  Meg laughed and then covered her mouth.

  This cute young hunk just gave me a line.

  Meg looked over at his friend as though maybe this was a bet or a dare. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “No, I’m very serious.” He offered his hand. “My name’s Jake.”

  During the brief handshake, Meg felt bits of salt stuck to her fingers. Jake motioned to the empty chair at her table.

  “Thank you, really, but I’m meeting someone.”

 
He backed up and said, “If you change your mind, I’m right over there.”

  Meg winked at him as he returned to the bar. She glanced at her watch.

  At least I think I’m meeting someone.

  At the opposite end of the bar, away from Meg, a man opened a copy of the New York Times. He was older than the bar patrons around him and dressed in black slacks, a black, long-sleeved shirt, and fancy dress shoes. He stroked his goatee methodically, pretending to read the paper, as he closely watched Dr. Meg Daily.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  ANATOMY HALL

  9:00 P.M.

  Eli held to the ladder and searched blindly for the floor with his foot. The only sound now was that of water dripping, not the pat-pat cadence of a faucet, but the spew of a leak through cracks in the wall. When he felt an uneven gravel surface beneath him, Eli stepped off the ladder. He turned to face a dark room, degrees cooler than the upper level and with the pervasive smell of an electrical fire, snuffed out.

  Before he turned on the penlight, he took a few steps forward until the crest of his right hip met the solid edge of a table. The faint light from above revealed the splintered surface of thick wood, more workbench than desk, pushed against the wall. He could see a lamp on the table and felt for the switch before he realized it didn’t have one. Conveniently located at the base was a pile of stick matches. He struck one against the lamp base and let the flame locate the kerosene-saturated wick. Eli smiled at the ease and proficiency with which he lit the antiquated lamp. He was equally surprised by the warm light cast across the room, shadows dancing with each flicker.