Public Anatomy Read online

  With Liza draped across his arms, he carried her up the steps to the stage. The men kept their places and watched as he laid Liza on the hard stone floor. He removed a black mask from his pocket and pulled it on his head like a cap. The dog started barking and yanked at its leash, which Foster had secured around one of the columns. The Organist adjusted the lights so that Liza was fully illuminated.

  He had given Foster a laptop computer and instructed him to bring it. The Organist located the computer off to the side of the stage and connected the camera cable to it. He typed the web address for SurgCast and its home page appeared. He lifted the shoulder-mounted camera up to Foster’s shoulder and made sure he had proper control of it. Then the Organist turned on the camera and manipulated it on Foster’s shoulder toward Liza. A quick glance at the laptop screen thrilled him.

  Liza’s supine body was being broadcast live on the Internet.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-TWO

  Eli and Lipsky found the black Trans-Am parked outside the grounds of Elmwood Cemetery, partially hidden behind a group of tall shrubs. Lipsky pulled to a stop behind the sports car and cut the engine.

  He had asked for backup and specified no lights, no sirens. So far, no backup at all.

  “What’s he doing,” Lipsky wondered. “Burying her alive?”

  If they could trap the killer in the cemetery, they had him. If he got spooked and ran, they might never find him—or Liza. Lipsky and Eli got out of the car, careful not to slam the door.

  “He won’t take the time to bury her,” Eli answered. “He wants to torture her by cutting out her uterus.”

  “Why a cemetery?” Lipsky asked. “Better yet, why this cemetery?”

  “The dissection must be carried out in a public place,” Eli whispered. “That was the Vesalius method. The Organist will follow it.”

  Just outside the stone wall that surrounded the cemetery, they crossed the arching bridge and entered the grounds. Eli thought of the many times he had been here to visit his mother’s grave. He never imagined he would come to Elmwood on the trail of a killer.

  “Spent a lot of time in cemeteries when I was young,” Lipsky said, louder than Eli would have liked.

  “Funerals?”

  “No, graveyards make a great place to hide when you’re running from the police. No one wants to go in them at night.”

  “And here we are,” Eli said.

  “Here we are.”

  They stopped at the end of the bridge. The only sound was the hum of traffic on Interstate 240. Light from a full moon reflected off tombstones that dotted the landscape before them. No sign of the Organist or Liza.

  “Why Elmwood?” Lipsky asked, this time in a softer, more reverent tone.

  Eli began to move quickly along the stone path. “To recreate the scene from Vesalius’s title page, he needs five Corinthian columns standing in a semicircle as a backdrop.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Lipsky said. “He can find that here.”

  Eli kept moving. “Follow me.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-THREE

  The Organist unbuttoned Liza’s blouse.

  With her chest bare, Joey the Flicker let out a primal, “Yeah!”

  The man continued to undress her.

  “Let’s see it all,” one of the men said, followed by a round of muffled laughter.

  The Meatman wasn’t laughing. “This ain’t right,” he said and walked away. “Y’all can have it.”

  The six men from the clinic who remained stopped laughing. They considered the Meatman their unspoken moral leader, if they had one.

  Liza was completely unclothed now and the men stared in silence. The Organist made Foster stand with the camera below Liza’s feet so that the image broadcast on the Internet would show him at Liza’s side with the motley cast of spectators scattered among the columns behind him. He checked the image on the computer. It was frightfully similar to Vesalius’s immortalized scene.

  “Perfect.”

  He pulled the black mask over his face.

  Foster asked him what the mask was for, but he received no answer.

  Like a symphony conductor, the Organist raised his arms, held them steady, and said, “I need all of you to watch me but don’t move from your positions. We’re broadcasting live.”

  From his pocket, he removed a slender leather case and opened it to reveal a scalpel. The spotlight reflected off stainless steel. He admired the surgical tool, held it to the light.

  “What do you mean, broadcasting live?” Joey the Flicker asked.

  The Organist turned quickly, and Joey cowered near his column.

  “I need you to shut up or none of you gets any money.”

  “Who cares about the money,” another extra said. “Just give us the booze.”

  The Organist sprang toward the man’s throat with the scalpel, grabbing him and accidentally knocking Joey into one of the columns. An overlay stone above the column shifted and cracked as though the whole structure might crumble.

  Foster stepped forward to help Joey, but the Organist flashed his scalpel and Foster retreated back to his position.

  The Organist returned to Liza’s right side. He knelt over her, placed the scalpel against the skin of her abdomen, and sliced.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FOUR

  Bright red blood squirted from the fresh incision on Liza’s abdomen. The pain cut through even the drugs the Organist had injected. Liza moaned and lashed about on her concrete bed.

  The Organist seemed surprised by the sudden flow of blood; all of the other victims had been dead at the time of his cutting. He jabbed one hand into the wound and another against Liza’s throat to hold her down.

  “Hey, that’s real blood,” Joey the Flicker said.

  The dog lunged against its leash, knocking pebbles loose from the overlay stones with each pull.

  Foster left his position. “What the hell are you doing to her?”

  The men closed in for a better look. Liza choked and gagged from the grip of the Organist’s hand.

  “This is all part of the movie,” the Organist said. “Get back.”

  “No, you get back,” Foster said.

  The men surrounded the Organist.

  “This is bullshit.”

  Rather than leave the scene, the Meatman had hidden behind one of the columns. “Yeah,” he said. “Let her go.” He grabbed the Organist’s shirt and yanked him back. Liza gasped for breath as all six men descended on him, kicking and stomping his body and head.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-FIVE

  From a distance Eli could see the lights, as on a movie set. Lipsky trailed him by a few steps as they passed an upright mausoleum. The Corinthian columns came into full view.

  “What the hell?” Lipsky said.

  Thunder rumbled to the west, followed by a flash of lightning. Neither man noticed.

  Eli was stunned by the ingeniousness of it. The Organist had recreated all the key features of Vesalius’s title page. The outdoor setting, a background of Corinthian columns, the spectators. His eyes accommodated to the bright light and he saw the dog. Then he saw Liza.

  Eli heard Lipsky engage the chamber of his 9-mm Glock. They moved toward the scene, carefully at first. About twenty yards away, they saw the men positioned behind the masked Organist close in around him.

  Eli saw the blood on Liza’s abdomen. He and Lipsky broke into a sprint, dodging low-lying tombstones.

  Before they could reach the platform, the first blow hit the Organist, a single kick to the head. Then another blow, and another, until the overpowering circle of men covered him.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SIX

  “Step away. Now!”

  Gun drawn, Lipsky stopped at the edge of the platform.

  Liza was bleeding profusely from her abdominal wound. At her side, Eli grabbed her torn blouse and used it to both cover her and stanch the hemorrhage. He held pressure on the wound with his injured hand and wiped blood away with his good hand, relieved to find that the Organist’s knife had not pen
etrated deeply into the abdominal cavity. Her face was bruised, a laceration split her left eyebrow, but her short, raspy breaths gave evidence that she was alive.

  The group of men followed Lipsky’s order and retreated, their hands raised instinctively. Foster, who up until now had been too shocked to stop filming, dropped the camera and stood there, paralyzed.

  Lipsky moved in with his gun pointed at the Organist, who had curled on his side in an attempt to hide his face from the blows. Lipsky punched numbers into his cell phone while he watched the assailant for a few seconds. He jabbed his hip with the tip of his shoe.

  Nothing.

  “Where’s our damn backup?” Lipsky yelled into the phone. “Center of Elmwood Cemetery. And send an ambulance.”

  Lipsky rolled the Organist’s face to him. Blood ran from the man’s mouth and his nose. His right ear was mangled, a chunk of cartilage missing.

  “Doc, come here a second.”

  Though the night air was humid, Liza was shivering. She was coming to and trying to open the one eye that wasn’t swollen shut. The cloth Eli had placed on her abdomen was soaked but the flow of blood had stopped. He became aware of his shirt plastered to his back, but not from sweat. A steady rain had begun to fall, and he hadn’t noticed it.

  Lipsky, still bent over the Organist, called to Eli again. Of the men who’d attacked the Organist, only Foster and the Meatman remained. They took a collective step back when Eli stood and walked past them. Joey and the others had fled the scene.

  “See if he’s alive,” Lipsky said, his gun still aimed at the man’s head.

  Eli knelt and placed two fingers against the Organist’s neck. Blood coursed in a thick line down his shoulder and over a prominent tattoo. The artwork was amateurish, and he had not recognized the design the first time he had seen the tattoo. But they were clear now—three weasels, just like in the Vesalian coat of arms.

  A police car topped the hill, sirens wailing and headlights flashing through sheets of rain.

  “He’s alive,” Eli said.

  Lipsky keyed his phone again. “Make that two ambulances to Elmwood Cemetery.” Then to Eli, “Bet paramedics don’t get called here very often.”

  Foster laughed nervously at the detective’s joke. He’d inched closer to Liza. Lipsky motioned with his gun for him to step back.

  Eli returned to Liza’s side. She was trying to talk but her lips were too swollen. He heard static on Lipsky’s radio. A clear voice said, “Two ambulances on the way.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-SEVEN

  The rain lasted all night. Fresh water droplets now hung from blades of grass and reflected in the morning sun. A mist hovered in the air, slowly reviving a parched earth. Eli imagined the brown grass showing a hint of green.

  He drove along Walnut Grove Road, having taken a brief detour through a pleasant residential neighborhood. On the radio, Smokey Robinson sang about the tears of a clown. The song seemed fitting with what he saw from the overnight shower.

  The rain had knocked the heat down and the day was actually agreeable. At a four-way stop, Eli waited for an elderly couple to pass in front of him. The man held on to his wife and nodded to Eli in appreciation.

  Across the street, three children splashed in water caught by a drainage ditch. What should have been an ordinary sight seemed in every way marvelous. He watched the kids in their newfound pool until the car behind him honked.

  A few minutes later, Eli entered Gates Memorial Hospital. He walked through the double glass doors not as hospital faculty, not even as a physician sneaking in to see a patient he had no privileges to treat. He arrived early the first morning after the showdown in Elmwood Cemetery to visit an injured colleague.

  Liza French had been taken directly from the cemetery to the operating room, not the usual direction of patient flow. Her abdominal wound was repaired with a relatively simple procedure. Although she lost almost a liter of blood, her laceration did not enter the abdominal cavity. She was expected to make a full physical recovery. Her mental recovery remained in question. She was traumatized by the threat to her life and she did not yet know that portions of the assault had been shown live on a webcast.

  Eli found her hospital room on the trauma unit. Two surgery residents bent over her. A medical student ripped open packages of sterile gauze, and tore strips of tape as the young doctors removed Liza’s old blood-stained dressing and redressed her abdominal wound. Liza winced from the tape removal. She saw Eli standing in the doorway and stared at him through the pain. The residents recognized him. Like military recruits in the sudden presence of a superior officer, they stopped their procedure.

  “Please, continue,” Eli said.

  The residents went back to work, but the medical student remained distracted. The resident snatched the roll of tape from her hand.

  Eli turned to leave. There was nothing that he had to say that couldn’t wait until later, if ever. More importantly, he had a meeting to attend this morning—one he hoped would bring closure to the disorder of the last few days. He looked at Liza. Her eyes were wet as she mouthed, “Thank you.”

  In the lobby, Eli passed small groups of visitors waiting for news of their family members still in the operating room. They held to cups of coffee and open newspapers to pass the time. Even though his stay was brief, Eli felt a sense of relief to be leaving the hospital. He slowed his pace for a young man in a wheelchair trying to exit through the same doors. The boy tried to roll the wheelchair with one hand while pulling an IV pole with the other. Eli noticed a chest tube snaking out the back of his hospital gown to a fluid container hanging on the pole.

  Eli stopped as the recognition took hold, flashes of the boy’s gunshot wound to his heart, the chaotic scene in the small emergency room in Whitehaven, and Eli’s crazy trip to Gates Memorial straddling the boy’s chest to keep him from bleeding to death.

  The kid was going to make it. He would be showing his scars and boasting to his buddies in a few days.

  Eli lifted the IV pole across the carpeted door mat. “You leaving?”

  The boy looked back at Eli but did not recognize him. Just another adult getting in his way.

  “Need some fresh air, dude.”

  Just outside the door, the boy grabbed the IV pole from Eli and said, “Thanks,” so Eli would leave him alone.

  Before entering the parking garage, Eli looked back at the boy. He was hunched forward with cupped hands, lighting a cigarette.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-EIGHT

  The driver’s license in his wallet identified him as Nathaniel Franklin Canavan.

  Nathan Canavan.

  The Organist.

  While Liza French lay in a heavily guarded room at Gates Memorial Hospital, her face and lips too swollen to talk, Basetti dug into the Canavan family history. Lipsky sent him on this mission while the detective finished up his paperwork on the whole messy incident.

  Basetti was quite savvy with this freelance investigation. A little Internet research, a few targeted phone calls to relatives and friends of the Canavan family brought forth some valuable information. In the parking lot of Gates Memorial, Eli found the crime technician sitting in his car and staring at the screen of his cell phone. Basetti spilled all he knew.

  Nathan’s mother had been a nurse and aspiring artist who received recognition among the local colony of painters, sculptors, and other creative types. His dad had left the family when Nathan was a young boy. His overachieving, could-do-no-wrong sister, Cate, was a fourth-year medical student on the way to an OB-GYN residency, ready to conquer the world. That left Nathan as the one who never quite got it all together.

  He was rejected by every medical school to which he applied, his prior transgressions, which included a hit-and-run and a vaguely described assault and battery, proved too great a barrier. To please his mother, he managed to get accepted as an anatomist’s assistant, processing bodies for dissection at the medical school. The work seemed to fit him. Though he pissed off the living, the dead didn’t
seem to mind. And he was surrounded by the real subjects of his mother’s art. The anatomy professor who hired him quickly noticed his familiarity with anatomical structures, the result of hours spent reading his mother’s anatomy texts and watching her sketch anatomical subjects.

  He began assisting the new medical students with their dissections. He told his mother that although he couldn’t get into medical school, he could teach those who did. She was most proud.

  But then, fitting to his history, Nathan became overzealous in his job, sneaking into the anatomy lab at night, performing the dissections himself, arranging the bodies in poses to mimic his mother’s art. At first his antics were considered a prank by the medical students, a way to cope with the stress of the discipline of anatomy, until the real perpetrator was discovered. Not only was Nathan fired, but a desecrating-the-dead lawsuit was filed against him by the medical school and the families of the deceased. Once again he disappointed his mother, this time in shame.

  An anatomy expert from Ole Miss named Salyer was called in and testified in the trial. Ultimately, the prosecution lacked enough evidence to link Nathaniel Canavan to the scene. The suit was dismissed. He bounced around doing various jobs, always supporting his sister, the success of the family. His most recent employment was as a support technician at Renaissance Robotics. His time for recognition would come. And his skills in anatomical dissection would not go to waste. While he couldn’t make his mother proud while she was alive, he would prove his worth by exacting revenge for her death.

  CHAPTER SEVENTY-NINE

  When Eli pulled into the parking lot of the Poplar Avenue Free Clinic, a short line had already formed outside. The front door was closed and it appeared the clinic had not yet opened.

  Lipsky had already updated Eli on the status of the assault victim, Cate Canavan. The previous night, Cate had been taken to the emergency room, examined, and found to be uninjured, at least physically. Before releasing her, the police took her statement. She told the police she had never before seen the man who had assaulted her and Liza. She told them she had gone to Dr. French’s house to ask for a letter of recommendation in support of her residency application. A man broke into the house and assaulted her and Dr. French. Cate said the man would have killed her had Dr. Branch and the police detective not arrived when they did.