Body Parts (Rye & Claire 1)

body parts

©2009 by Kit Crumb

All
rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or used
in any form or by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical,
including photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and
retrieval systems without written permission of the publisher.

Lost Lodge Press

40 Water Street

Ashland, Oregon 97520

[email protected]

cover design by Chris Molé

Acknowledgments

Thanks to Rob
Parnell and my brother Kim who first read this manuscript in it’s
roughest form and still found enough merit in the writing to encourage
me to continue. Thanks to Chris Molé for her beautiful cover and help
with all aspects of publishing this book.

Note to the reader

The manuscript for
Body Parts was completed in 2003. I was inspired to write this story by
an article in a nationally published newspaper that exposed the illegal
distribution of donated human body parts by a major University. I felt
that through a story fictionalizing pornography and the black market
sale of body parts I could illustrate the vulgar and heinous nature of
an industry that exists in almost every country on earth.

Other Kindle books by Kit Crumb:

Retribution
Cutter’s Legacy: The Search for Yamashita’s Gold

Slider

Measure of Time

Chapter One

To the aides, cnas, med techs,
or anyone not in the operating room, Jan Eckert was at the little clinic above the town of Denton Beach
undergoing a fairly common heart procedure to correct a defective heart valve.

As she lay on a gurney in the
hall just down from Operating Room 13, the local anesthetic she’d been
given started lulling her into relaxation. Her shoulder length jet-black
hair was bound and tucked inside a surgical cap. Her nude body modestly
covered with a sheet.

The orderly responsible for
transporting Jan from her room to the O.R. couldn’t take his eyes off
her. The more he tucked in the sheet the more it revealed the flowing
curves of her body. He noticed how young she was, how the skin around
her eyes was without blemish or wrinkle.

Operating Room 13’s chief
nurse, Bonnie Clouse, popped her head out of the OR door and looked down
the hall. “Quit fussing and move it, doctor’s real restless tonight,”
she snapped at the orderly, letting the door shut as she stepped back
into the OR.

Anesthesiologist Derrick Corwin watched her from his position on the stool at the head of the operating table.

“Rumor is the doc’s pissed, you know anything about that, Bonnie?” he asked.

Bonnie Clouse brought the
instrument tray into position next to the operating table, she answered
without taking her attention from her task.

“He was expecting three
patients, tonight, I think…” she didn’t get the chance to finish.
Quickly turning at the sound of the operating room door opening, she
faced Dr. Peter Simms as he entered.

The anesthesiologist spun on
his stool in time to catch the doctor’s eye. “Derrick, crank her up.
We’ve got a hot one tonight,” Simms said. Taking his cue, Derrick began
checking gas levels and green lights. Minutes later, the orderly wheeled
Jan Eckert in and lifted her onto the operating table where her vitals
were checked and two IVs inserted into her arm.

Dr. Simms stood just off the foot of the table, taking in every step of the final pre-op procedures.

Derrick was standing now,
speaking in low reassuring tones to his patient. “I’m going to place
this mask over your mouth and nose. I want you to breathe slowly but
deeply. This is my special blend—it’ll help you relax.” In reality it
was pure oxygen, the Propofol in the IV would put her out within five
seconds of the first drip.

As he spoke, Jan opened her eyes and smiled up at the young anesthesiologist.

“Patient’s awake, Doctor,” Derrick said.

Simms walked around to stand next to Derrick so he could look directly down at his patient.

“It’s alright my dear, I’ve done thousands of these MVP corrections.” Then to Derrick he whispered, “Do you think she heard me?”

“No, Doctor.” Derrick turned
back to check her pulse and respiration. “BP 96 over 69, pulse 44, I’d
say she’s out.” He then pulled her eyelids back. “No ocular reflex,
she’s out.”

“Good to go?” Simms asked.

“Good to go, Doctor,” Derrick said.

Just to be sure, Derrick
leaned over and gently probed the palm of her hand with a needle while
watching her heart rate and pulse for any change that might indicate she
was still sensitive to pain.

“She’s all yours, Doctor,” Derrick said.

Simms walked back to the
patient’s side taking up a scalpel and sliced through the skin, cutting
up from the mark that started just below and to the right of the xiphoid
process and continuing up the middle of the breastbone, stopping at the
interclavicles.

“Nurse,” Simms said, extending his hand.

Clouse, who’d been following the doctor’s progress, was ready. She placed a small circle saw into his outstretched hand.

As he flipped the switch,
the operating room came alive with a whining whir. Stepping tight
against the table, holding the saw with both hands, Simms allowed the
rotation of the blade to draw itself and his hand along the incision. He
briskly pulled it out and turned off the motor when he reached the top
of the cut.

The whirling blade singed the
skin along the incision leaving the faint scent of burned flesh
lingering in the air, a familiar odor that no one seemed to notice.

Simms, still poised over his patient turned his head and looked intently at Derrick.

“Not a blip, Doctor, she didn’t feel a thing.”

“Spreaders,” Simms said, once again extending his right hand.

Clouse dabbed the perspiration from the doctor’s forehead, then stepped back out of the way.

“Thank you, Nurse.”

He gently placed the
spreader on the patient’s chest, allowing the flat bars to slip into the
groove in the bone made by the saw. Holding the device in place with
one hand, he began turning a small crank with the other, listening
intently for the familiar “crack” indicating the separation of the
ribcage. He then gazed into the cavity that housed the still-beating
heart.

“Clamps,” Simms said, extending his hand yet again.

One at a time, he pinched off the major blood sources leading to the heart.

“OK, Nurse, get the suction
ready.” He began snipping the arteries, keeping one hand under the heart
as the once dry cavity filled with blood.

“Keep it clear, I‘m losing view. That’s it, that’s it.” He elevated the heart slightly, then snipped some more.

“BP and heart rate dropping, Doctor,” Derrick said.

“Nurse.” Simms didn’t need to say anything more. Clouse knew exactly what to do.

“Doctor, the ice chest is on your left,” she said.

With a smile of victory, the
doctor lifted the heart for the camera and staff to see, placed it in
the icy container, and then turned to Derrick with a questioning look.

“She never felt a thing Doctor, never felt a thing,” Derrick reassured him.

Simms smiled and sighed with relief. “Good work everyone.”

Chapter Two

Traffic on the four lanes of drake’s drive
narrowed into two and crept along, a fact that was lost on Rusty
Kidding as he guided his Honda Gold Wing motorcycle along the dotted
line between lanes.

When traffic began to speed
up, Cecil Dumont exhaled loudly, gently accelerating. “Finally,” he
said. Out of the corner of his eye, he detected a space opening on his
right.

“Yes!” Cecil said. He cranked
the wheel hard as he nosed out of his lane and aimed for the space,
gunning the engine. He never saw the motorcycle.

Cecil’s SUV struck the Gold
Wing hard, catapulting Rusty twenty feet through the air. He landed on
his side in the outside lane and slid onto the dirt shoulder.

Cecil barely felt the
collision and wouldn’t have stopped if not for the blaring horns, and
the fact that traffic was suddenly slowing again.

***

Sweat trickled down Claire
Anderson’s temples, sides and back, turning her sleeveless sweatshirt a
charcoal gray where it pressed against her breasts and spine. She
finished her workout and glanced up at the clock, their shift had
already started and Rye wasn’t back with the ambulance yet. She crossed
the floor, grabbed a towel, and headed for the bathroom.

Wondering if the annual
maintenance hadn’t turned into something more than points, plugs, and an
oil change, she paused, considering the consequences of attempting a
shower.

“Half an hour into our shift
and not a single call, what the hell?” Claire muttered under her
breath. She stripped and was just adjusting the water temperature when
the scanner crackled to life. “God, I knew it.”

“1180, accident reported by cell phone, 1067 request unit 88 in vicinity of Drake’s Drive, respond.”

Claire grabbed her underwear,
making the towel into a toga and ran into dispatch. After the general
call response, she flipped to Rye’s frequency.

“Rye, pick up,” Claire said. “What’s your 1020?”

Rye unclipped the hand-held mike from the dashboard. “ETA ten minutes to HQ.”

“Better make that five minutes. Big 1180 on Drake’s Drive. Out.”

A short, feisty woman, Claire
was ready to do whatever it took to get the job done. To become an
Emergency Medical Technician, an accomplishment of which she was
fiercely proud, she’d had to deal with a childhood phobia and compete in
a male dominated profession.

Claire and her husband, Rye
Anderson, were co-owners of the Mad Dash Search and Rescue Ambulance
Service. Rye was a bull of a man, six foot three inches tall with a
thick mustache that covered his entire upper lip. It matched his
eyebrows, which overshadowed his deep green eyes. Claire loved the way
he was always ready with a laugh at the slightest hint of something
funny.

Rye could hear the subtle
edginess brought on by adrenaline in his wife’s voice. They both loved
the freedom of owning their own business, and the excitement of being
EMTs that went along with the satisfaction of helping people.

Claire whirled around in the
captain’s chair and ran out of the dispatch room, dropping the towel as
she entered the utility closet. She stepped into her bra and panties,
then into the orange and gray jumpsuit, grimacing as she brought the
zipper up and over her chest.

She often complained to Rye that the jumpsuit was designed for a man. He never complained.

She tied her long, chestnut
brown hair into a ponytail. Looking around at the small room and the
walls that seemed to be crowding her, she shivered, shook it off, then
located and grabbed one of the jump kits. Checking to be sure it
contained everything they needed to work away from the ambulance, she
headed for the front door.

Rye had popped on all the
lights but only two of the sirens. With the new sound systems in most
cars, drivers were more likely to see flashing emergency lights than
hear a siren. He crept the ambulance through the busy intersection of
Ripkey and Burnt, then hit nearly sixty for the final miles of the
four-lane Lawrence Expressway that would take him to Snoop Drive, his
home and Mad Dash headquarters.

The driveway in front of the
converted old Victorian was a gentle u-shape that cut to within four
feet of the front stoop, where Claire was waiting. The ambulance had
barely slowed before she grabbed the door handle, tossed in the jump
kit, and vaulted into the passenger seat,

Fastening her harness she
said, “Drake’s Drive, half-mile before Smokey Lane turnoff, take the
expressway directly to Exit 19.” She then flipped on four sets of toggle
switches setting off all the sirens.

“What’s the call?” Rye asked, keeping his eyes on the traffic.

She consulted her call sheet. “Motorcycle down, somebody called it in with a cell phone. No details.”

“So we’ll be solo?”

“I relayed the call, but we’ll definitely be first on the scene,” Claire yelled over the sound of the sirens.

The scanner lit up like a
Christmas tree, screaming an accident alert on a dozen channels. Rye
reached over and cut the volume so he could stay focused on the changing
traffic patterns. Vehicles were slowing. “Get me out of here.”

Claire played co-pilot,
enjoying the occasion to issue directions rather than dodge cars that
didn’t respond to sirens and lights.

“Left!” Claire said, pointing.

Rye scanned the road ahead for a turn lane, there wasn’t one. “Where?”

Claire’s index finger stabbed the air like a jackhammer. “There, turn now!”

Trusting his partner
completely, Rye cut left across two lanes of on-coming traffic, bracing
himself as the ambulance jumped the curb and headed into an open field.

“Where now?” Rye’s voice stuttered as the two-ton vehicle bounced over uneven ground.

“Left, there. See that oak?
Drake’s Drive opens up just the other side.” As Rye cut left across the
field Claire reached for a handhold on the dash and missed.

When they finally came to a
stop on the shoulder of the road Rye was amazed that everything in the
back of the ambulance hadn’t shaken loose. He grabbed the backboard;
Claire grabbed the jump kit.

He spotted the squirming
figure of Rusty Kidding through the crowd and began to run, Claire right
on his heels. They had to weave and elbow their way through the gawkers
to reach him.

She knelt next to Rusty, sliding the jump kit toward Rye who had settled at the victim’s feet.

“Hey buddy can you hear me? What’s your name?”

The man attempted to rise up on one arm, but fell back. “Rusty,” the man answered slowly.

She smiled at him as Rye began cutting away the pant leg from ankle to knee.

“Sorry about the leathers,
Rusty,” Claire said, but he was now unconscious. She slipped a C-collar
around his neck and a blood pressure cuff around his upper arm, while
Rye set his leg where the tibia and fibula were broken. She stared at
the cuff in disbelief, re-adjusted it on his upper arm and began pumping
the bulb again. She stabbed at his neck for a pulse.

“We’re losing him!” she cried, as she sliced through the leather jacket.