Page 8 of Equalizer
The coroner wiped a hand across his sweaty forehead. “Maybe. It gets busy here. What was I supposed to do about it? Cops don’t care any more than the families do.”
The man’s complete lack of concern for the humanity of the hospital’s patients made Owen angry, forcing him to tamp down on his reaction before he took a swing at the coroner.
“How about launching an internal investigation to figure out who is stealing corpses?” Owen replied. “Did you even ask around? Or did you figure someone did you a favor because there were five fewer bodies to bury?” He hoped his pointed comment would goad the coroner into saying more than he intended.
“A janitor got fired, so I heard. Didn’t know the man. He worked the night shift. That’s all I heard. Why he did it and what became of the bodies, I have no idea,” the man retorted. “Now get out of my morgue.”
“Thank you for your time,” Calvin said as they departed, managing a civil tone that Owen couldn’t have mustered.
They didn’t speak until after they were in the carriage, and Winston headed out of the institution’s gates.
“Well, that was interesting,” Owen said in a tart tone.
Calvin gave a dark chuckle. “I guess you can call it that. There wasn’t anything handy for me to read by touch except the mortuary tools, and that’s a hard no.” He shivered. “The coroner certainly didn’t give a damn about the missing bodies until he realized the situation might reflect badly on him. Do you think he’s involved?”
Owen paused to think for a moment, then shook his head. “No—he’s too lazy. He might accept a bribe to look the other way or be out of the morgue at a particular time so the theft could happen, but he doesn’t strike me as industrious enough to come up with the scheme himself.”
“Hmm. I guess you’re right. It’s bad enough that he’s like that at Dunning, where no one seems to give a rat’s ass about the patients, but I hope he isn’t the standard for hospital morgues,” Calvin replied, his feelings clear in his tone.
“Not that it’s an excuse, but I would imagine that to be a tough job for someone with empathy,” Owen grudgingly admitted.
“Your patients aren’t ever going to get better. At most you can bring closure. When the families are involved, that might be gratifying, feeling that you helped them let go. But a place like Dunning? How do you work somewhere that houses one thousand people no one cares about? I’d think you’d have to learn not to care as well, or it would be overwhelmingly depressing,” Owen said.
Calvin took his hand, threading their fingers together, and let their knees bump in a gesture of reassurance. “All the more reason for us to get to the bottom of the thefts. And we will.”
Owen squeezed Calvin’s hand, appreciating the support.
“It was like that back in Boston…” Calvin looked out the window instead of at Owen. He rarely spoke about his rough younger days, and Owen watched him closely as he talked. “People talk about how awful the street gangs were—and theydefinitely were bad—but the gangs formed because no one else cared.
“The cops couldn’t be bothered, so when there were thefts, or someone got beat up, the gangs handled it. But no one hears about how they got food to people who were hungry or took up a collection if someone needed medicine,” Calvin went on. “The Church didn’t take care of everyone, especially the people it didn’t consider to be deserving. Neither did the aid societies. We did what we could.”
Even if the money passed on as charity was stolen. Like they say, needs must when the devil drives.
Owen looked at their joined hands, running his thumb over Calvin’s enlarged knuckles. Calvin flinched. Owen understood. No matter how much he dressed up or how fine his clothing, one look at his hands marked him as a brawler. That was another reason Calvin fancied thin leather gloves in the winter, which hid his damaged hands and helped him avoid getting a psychic reading from everything he touched.
“Had to learn to hold my own in the gang. At least when I went into the Army, I knew how to fight. By the time I came back, a lot of the guys I ran with were dead or in jail. I was lucky my father gave me an ultimatum about going into the military, or I probably would have gone the same way,” Calvin added.
Owen raised their hands and pressed a kiss to Calvin’s. “I’m glad you got out. You did the best you could with the cards you were dealt. There’s no shame in that.”
“Not to you, and that’s one more thing I love about you,” Calvin replied. “But a lot of other people aren’t so charitable. I was lucky I didn’t have an arrest record when I mustered in. I deserved one—I just didn’t get caught.”
Owen watched Calvin closely. “What you saw growing up, it helps you see those patients at Dunning as people. That’s a good thing to come out of a bad situation.”
Calvin sighed and squeezed Owen’s hand again. “I guess so. But it makes it all the harder to get to the bottom of the thefts when the cops and authorities aren’t going to care more than that coroner did. They don’t want the bad headlines, so they’ll have to look like they’re doing something, but if it weren’t for that, they wouldn’t bother.”
“Then we’ll embarrass them into it with the help of ourmuckrakingreporter friends.” Owen tried to cheer Calvin. “Get them to do right in spite of themselves.”
The Dunning campus sprawled over one hundred and sixty acres. That included the poor farm where residents grew crops as well as space for the buildings and a large cemetery to accommodate the dead no one else claimed.
“The cemetery serves the whole county,” Owen pointed out as Winston pulled up to the modest gates. Unlike the large stone entranceways at Chicago’s private cemeteries, the Cook County Cemetery had two brick pillars with a wrought iron sign between them, probably erected with labor from the residents.
“All of the other hospitals, foundling homes, and halfway houses send their unclaimed dead to be buried here, as well as the Dunning corpses,” he added, remembering his research. “They might not be quite as fresh as stealing them out of the morgue, but there have been several recent graveyard thefts as well, so whoever wants the bodies doesn’t care.”
Calvin frowned, looking out the carriage window. “No headstones or mausoleums—or statues. Not even a cross or an angel. Hardly any trees or bushes. It’s just empty. That’s sad.”
“I imagine there are plot records somewhere—but maybe not,” Owen said. “For the John Does, there’s no name to record. The Tuberculosis sanitarium probably used mass graves at the worst of the plague.” The emptiness of the cemetery seemed a final indignity, making the plight of those buried here even more stark.
“I’d hope that even grave robbers have higher standards than taking plague bodies,” Calvin replied, wrinkling his nose. “I can’t imagine they’d be good for anything. Certainly not for stealing parts to reuse, if we’re right about that.”
