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“Yeah, man. You in the middle of something?”
“Not really. I just wrapped up a meeting with the cops. ”
“Are they anywhere with this?”
“No,” Terry said, and his voice sounded like all the weariness in the world. “And no one has floated a useful theory as to why Boyd would risk breaking into the morgue just to steal Ruger’s corpse. ”
“Sounds like Boyd is off the rails,” Crow offered. “Maybe there’s no one in the driver’s seat anymore. ”
“Who knows. There’s another wrinkle in this, too. ”
“Jeez, Wolfman, I’m not sure how many more wrinkles this town can take. ”
“Now you’re singing my song. Keep this between us, okay?”
“Lips are sealed, bro. ”
“We think Boyd has at least one more accomplice. ” Terry told him about the hospital door being opened and the alarm disabled. “He had to have inside help. ”
Crow chewed on that for a minute. “I find that hard to buy. If there was an inside man, why didn’t he just dump Ruger onto a gurney and wheel his ugly ass to the back door? That way Boyd would never have been spotted at all. ”
“Saul Weinstock raised the same concern, but Ferro said that the inside man may have known about the security camera. The hallway surveillance camera has been broken since the middle of September, so anyone who went into the hall to unlock the doors would not have been spotted. Only if he’d actually entered the morgue would the tape have picked him up. ”
“Okay…I can see that, but that means that this inside guy had to know all of this. The broken camera, the morgue camera, everything, and he’d need access to the keys. ”
“Right. They checked out everyone who was on duty last night and got nowhere. Just dead ends and no leads. ”
“This doesn’t make me feel too good, Terry. ”
“Me, neither, but at least you’re out of it. ”
“And I’m happy as hell about that, too. So’s Val. ” Then he slapped his forehead—and winced all the way down to his toes. “Geez, Terry, I am the world’s biggest idiot. ”
“Not a news flash there. ”
“No, I mean I forgot to tell you why I called. ”
“If this is more bad news I’m going to go lay down in traffic. ”
“Terry…Val and I are going to have a baby!”
There was a silence followed by a sound that Crow was absolutely sure was a sob. Just the one, and then more silence. Finally, in a strange, choked whisper Terry said, “Thank God. ” And then without warning he hung up.
Crow looked at the phone in his palm. That was certainly not the kind of answer he expected to get. “Weird,” he said, and then punched in a new number.
(5)
Saul Weinstock stood in the small morgue office, watching the cleaning staff put the finishing touches on the room. The forensics teams had finally left and the last streamers of crime scene tape had been torn down and stuffed into trash cans. Ferro had given him an all clear to reopen for business, and with three autopsies still pending, it was going to be a long day. All of this should have been done ages ago, and Weinstock didn’t like how much the delay made him look like the top idiot at Dumbass Rural Hospital. His cell phone rang; he saw it was Crow and answered, “Hey, buddy. ”
“You sound chipper,” Crow said,
“I’m not, but thanks for your lack of perception,” Weinstock said with a grin. “How are you doing? How’s Val?”
“That’s what I was calling about,” Crow said and went into a two-minute rant about impending fatherhood. By the time he reached the point where he was planning to coach Little League, Weinstock was laughing.
“I know already, you chucklehead. Oh, don’t act so surprised—she’s my patient, I’m her doctor, remember? Confidences become fast and loose in such circumstances. You don’t want to know the details—they’re so sordid. ”
“How long have you known?”
