C is for Corpse

"Well, there's usually something to go on. Broken glass, skid marks, transfer traces on the victim's vehicle. Maybe the guy jumped out of his car and swept up all the soil and paint flecks, I don't know. I do trust Bobby's intuition on this. He says he was in danger. He just can't remember why."

Dr. Fraker seemed to consider that briefly and then shifted in his seat. "I'd be inclined to believe him myself. He's a bright boy. He was a gifted student, too. It's a damn shame there's so little left of that. What's he think is going on?"

"He hasn't any idea and, as he points out, the minute he remembers, he's in more trouble than he is now. He suspects somebody's still after him."

He cleaned his glasses with a handkerchief, contemplating the matter. He was a man apparently accustomed to dealing with puzzles, but I imagined his solutions were derived from symptoms instead of circumstances. Diseases don't require an underlying motivation in the same way homicide does.

He shook his head slightly, his eyes meeting mine. "Odd. The whole thing's a little bit out of my range." He put his glasses on, turning businesslike. "Well. We better figure out what's going on, then. What do you need from me?"

I shrugged. "All I know to do is start back at square one and see if I can determine what kind of trouble he was in. He'd worked for you for what? Two months?"

"About that. He started in September, I believe. I can have Marcy look that up if you want exact dates."

"I gather he was hired here because of your relationship with his mother."

"Well, yes and no. We generally have a slot available for a premed student. It just happened that Bobby filled the bill in this case. Glen Callahan's a very big cheese around here, but we wouldn't have hired him if he'd been a dud. Can I get you some coffee? I'm about to have some."

"All right, sure."

He leaned sideways slightly, calling to the secretary, whose desk was in his line of sight. "Marcy? Can we get some coffee in here, please?"

To me, he said, "You take cream and sugar?"

"Black is fine."

"Both black," he called out.

There was no reply, but I assumed it was being taken care of He turned his attention back to me. "Sorry to interrupt."

"That's all right. Did he have desk space down here?"

"He had a desk up front, but that was cleared out, oh, I'd say within a day of the accident. Nobody thought he'd survive, you know, and we had to bring somebody else in pretty quickly. This place is a madhouse most of the time."

"What happened to his things?"

"I dropped them by the house myself. There wasn't much, but we put what we came across in a cardboard box and I passed it on to Derek, I don't know what he did with it, if anything. Glen was at the hospital twenty-four hours a day at that point."

"Do you remember what was in it?"

"His desk? Odds and ends. Office things."

I made a note to myself to check for the box. I supposed there was a chance it was still at the house somewhere. "Can you walk me through Bobbys day and show me what sorts of things he did?"

"Sure. Actually, he divided his time between the lab and the morgue out in the old county medical facility on Frontage Road. I've got to make a run out there anyway and you can ride along if you like, or follow in your car if that's easier.

"I thought the morgue was here."

"We've got a small one here, just off the autopsy room. We've got another morgue out there."

"I didn't realize there was more than one."

"We needed the added space for the contract work we do. St. Terry's maintains a few offices out there, too."

"Really. I didn't think that old county building was still in use.

"Oh yes. There's a private radiology group that works out there, and we've got storage rooms for medical records. It's a bit of a hodgepodge, but I don't know what we'd do without it."

He glanced over as Marcy came in with two mugs, her gaze carefully affixed to the surface of the coffee, which was threatening to slop over the sides. She was young, dark-haired, no makeup. She looked like the sort of person you'd want holding your hand if the lab techs did something excruciating.

"Thank you, Marcy. Just on the edge of the desk here is fine."

She set the mugs down and gave me a quick smile on her way out.

Dr. Fraker and I discussed the office procedures while we drank the coffee and then he took me on a tour of the lab, explaining Bobby's various responsibilities, ajl of whjch seemed routine and not very important at that. I made a note of the names of a couple of his co-workers, thinking I might talk to them at a later date.