Page 7 of Equalizer
Winston drove them up to the front entrance. “I’ll be over there.” He pointed to an area for coaches. “In case we need to make a quick exit.” He patted the broad sweep of his cape to indicate his gun.
“Hoping that’s not needed,” Calvin said under his breath. Owen had a strong suspicion otherwise.
They were dressed in suits and cloaks, so their appearance gave no pretext to turn them away, and they walked in through the main doors as if they belonged. Signs directed them to the morgue, although even without them, Owen would have guessed the basement.
His mental shielding kept the ghosts at bay, although it didn’t mute them completely. Those who didn’t try to speak to him flitted past them in the hallways, still trapped even after death. Most of those pale revenants were repeaters, wispy images that no longer retained much of the spirit’s personality or memory.
Newer, stronger ghosts watched them pass with baleful glances and flashes of erratic energy. Thanks to the salt and silver they carried, as well as protective charms and the matching warding tattoos Owen had recently talked Calvin into getting, the ghosts didn’t try to harm them, but Owen couldn’t imagine how the hospital workers faced spending their days within the haunted halls.
“This is a huge building,” Calvin murmured. “Like a castle of the damned.” Owen noticed that Calvin kept his right hand clasped on his left wrist, doing his best to avoid touching anything.
The ghosts are bad enough. I wouldn’t want to know what the walls remember.
“Good intentions gone horribly wrong,” Owen replied. They found the morgue, and Owen opened the door.
The smell of formaldehyde and decay assaulted them when they stepped inside. This morgue was easily as large or larger than the one at the county hospital, reminding Owen of how many people were sent here and never left except in death.
At the moment, no one was in sight. Calvin and Owen seized the opportunity to have a look around, taking in the number of slabs and drawers and the general condition of the space. It wasn’t quite as tidy or organized as the County Hospital, making Owen wonder whether that spoke to the professionalism of the staff or the burden of a constant influx of the dead.
“What are you doing here?” A florid-faced man with thinning gray hair bustled in from the next room. He wore a white lab coat, and his expression of righteous indignation suggested to Owen that they had just met Dunning’s coroner.
“We’re investigating the recent disappearances of bodies from morgues, and we’d like to ask you a few questions.” Owen left out sharing their credentials for the moment.
“I don’t know anything about that. You’re not authorized. Get out,” the coroner snapped. “You can’t just barge in here.”
“This is public property,” Calvin pointed out. “And the public has a right to know if their family members’ remains are being treated with respect.”
The coroner gave a bitter laugh. “You think they care? Those families didn’t give a damn about these poor bastards when they were alive. They’d probably thank someone for Burking the body and saving them burial expenses.”
Owen hadn’t expected quite such a cold assessment, even if he suspected it might be true for many of the patients.
“Do you think that’s what happened?” Calvin picked up on the coroner’s slang term for body snatching. “Families offering the dead to someone who will take the corpse off their hands?”
“That’s not what I said,” the doctor protested, going pale. “You’re twisting my words.”
“We asked about missing bodies. You brought up body thieves. We’re just looking for answers,” Owen replied levelly. The doctor’s agitation made him wonder whether the man just took umbrage to having his reputation tainted or had darker reasons for fearing investigation.
“I don’t have anything to tell you,” the doctor maintained as his initial discomfort morphed into rage. “Get out, or I’ll have security throw you out.”
Calvin and Owen exchanged a look. “Sounds like you’re covering something up.” Owen hoped to provoke the coroner into revealing something useful.
“There are over one thousand patients here, nearly all of them in a bad way. Tuberculosis, scurvy, mental problems, all the things that come with too much alcohol and too little good food. They have one foot in the grave when they’re sent here. We do the best we can. The last thing we need is a couple of muckraking reporters stirring up trouble. Get out.”
Calvin and Owen exchanged a look, and Owen gave the man an inscrutable smile. “Suit yourself.”
“What does that mean?” As angry as the coroner was, Owen saw a hint of uneasiness in his eyes.
“We were going to give you a chance to provide insight into the story. It will go on without you—and we’ll note that Dunning was uncooperative. People will come to their own conclusions about why,” Owen said with a shrug.
Owen understood the man’s reticence to talk with reporters, but the missing bodies story had gotten a lot of press and was practically tailor-made for gossip.
The man swallowed like a gigged fish, managing to look even more pale. “I don’t know anything about missing bodies.”
“You’re in charge, aren’t you?” Calvin cocked his head inquisitively. “Even if it didn’t happen on your watch, you should get reports, right?”
“I’m not here twenty-four hours a day,” he protested. “This is a big complex. People come and go. When a death happens, the body is brought here. The next shift takes care of it. We only have one person on staff at night. They can’t be everywhere at once.”
“And no one told you that five bodies have been reported missing in the last two months?” Owen picked up the questions.
