Grave Situation (49 page)

“You son of a bitch,” Allan
spat.

At the corner of his vision, he saw
Jim, Harvey and Keating watching them intently.

Allan didn’t want to know the parts
they had intended to take from Cathy. What he learned so far was
more than enough to decipher.

“What the hell
do you mean,
business?
” he asked. “Are you making money at this
somehow?”

Sodero hesitated and then
nodded.

In a grudging voice, he said,
“Come. I’ll show you.”

He led them through the kitchen and
down the basement stairs to a huge room with a bar, pool table, and
various pieces of fitness equipment.

On the other side of the room,
Sodero stopped at a closed door. With one hand on the knob, he
turned to them.

“You might want to put on your
masks, gentlemen.”

Then he swung open the
door.

Even through the mask Allan
detected a strong smell like nail polish remover. When Sodero
flicked on the light inside the room, a collective gasp came from
the four men.

“Jesus Christ,” Jim
mumbled.

Allan stood in the doorway, frozen.
His mind couldn’t fully grasp what he saw.

It resembled an autopsy room, but
different somehow. Tile covered the floor and walls. A dissection
table sat in the middle of the room with a tray beside it that held
an assortment of surgical instruments. Along the back wall was a
network of pipes leading into what looked to be pressurized tanks
of various sizes.

To the right, there were several
body parts on a long stainless steel table—heads, arms, legs, and
torsos, enough to piece together two or three human figures. All of
the parts had their skin removed so that only the muscle and sinew
showed.

Allan stepped inside the room, a
chill passing through his body. Slowly, he walked over to the
table.

“The plastinates are safe to
handle,” Sodero told him. “They’re completely sanitary.”

Allan looked at
him as if he’d come from another world. “The
what?
”

“The plastinates. That’s what
they’re called.”

Allan reached out and touched an
arm on the table. It felt stiff, unreal.

“What’s it coated in?” he
asked.

“A silicone polymer,” Sodero said.
“First I skin the body part and then I remove all the fat that I
possibly can. I then give it a series of acetone baths to dehydrate
the tissue. When that’s done, I let it sit in a silicone bath under
vacuum until the acetone is replaced by the silicone.”

A moment of silence passed as both
men stared at each other.

Unbelievable
, Allan thought.
It’s like he’s actually proud of his
work.

“Whatever lead you into something
like this?”

“Have you ever
heard of
Body Worlds?
”

“No. What’s that?”

“It’s a traveling exhibition of
preserved human bodies and internal organs. Gunther von Hagens is
the man behind it.

“Last summer while in Augsburg,
Germany, I took in one of his exhibitions and immediately became
fascinated with his work. I wanted to try this plastination for
myself and shortly after I got on with Doctor Coulter, I started
experimenting with human organs.”

Allan couldn’t believe what he was
hearing. He shook his head with a strange amazement.

“I know Coulter didn’t give you
the organs.”

“I stole them,” Sodero said
modestly. “Sometimes when he left me alone to sew up the torso, I’d
put some organs in my insulated lunch bag. He never
knew.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you?”
he asked again.

Sodero blushed and then
shrugged.

Allan turned his attention back to
the table and it was then his gaze settled on an object that made
him gasp.

There, behind a plastinated human
arm, two eyes in a jar of liquid stared at him.

Allan swallowed and moved closer.
The irises were blue.

“Were these given to you by
Eagles?” he asked Sodero.

“His friend got those.”

Allan’s own eyes shut as a terrible
realization formed in his mind.

Trixy
Ambré.
Had to be.

DNA would prove it either way, but
Allan’s instinct told him that they belonged to her.

“Who were they supposed to come
from?” he asked.

Sodero paused. “I don’t remember
the name now. But I was surprised at the shape they were in. I had
Stephen try for a set before, but they were too shrunken to be of
any use.”

Allan’s stomach
tightened.

Of any use?

“So you think they came from
someone freshly dead?”

“I think so.”

“Like Trixy Ambré?”

“Yes,” Sodero said weakly. “I
suspected it after you called Coulter on Saturday.”

Inwardly, Allan winced and turned
away. He felt a new swell of horror and sympathy.

His gaze swept the room and he saw
piled in one corner, rolls of tape, corrugated boxes, bubble wrap,
and bags of packing peanuts.

With great reluctance, he looked at
Sodero again. “Who are you shipping them to?”

Sodero hesitated, as if deciding
how much to say. At length, he said, “Everybody. But mostly medical
students and anatomists.”

Are people that fascinated by the
macabre?

Allan walked around the dissection
table. He could feel himself sweating in the coveralls.

He noticed a stainless steel trough
pushed against the wall and he went over to it, looking inside. It
was half-filled with a liquid that Allan realized was the source of
the strong smell.

Immersed in one end of the trough
was a shaved human head; nearby, in a wastebasket, a thatch of gray
hair.

Allan had seen enough.

He turned to Keating, who stood
outside the doorway with a balled hand to his nose.

“Sam,” he said. “Take Lawrence
downtown.” To Jim and Harvey, “Process everything.”

He walked out of the room, took off
the mask, and unzipped the front of his coveralls.

Jim came over to him, “What are you
going to do?”

Allan touched his eyes. “I have to
go back to Acresville.”

For a moment, he watched as Keating
slapped cuffs on Sodero’s wrists. Then he quietly left everyone and
went outside to his car.

As he slouched in the driver’s
seat, exhaustion overtook him. Through the windshield he gazed at a
patch of blue sky, trying to pull his thoughts together.

“What do you know about Herb
Matteau?”

“There’s nothing to know,” David
said. “He’s squeaky clean. No priors of any kind. Not even a
parking ticket.”

“What does he do for a
living?”

“He’s a dairy farmer.”

Allan considered this. “An
honorable profession.”

“Yes,” David agreed. “He made the
news here last month. Had an environmental issue that ended up
killing a bunch of fish in Elm River. Court came down quite hard on
him.”

Allan shut his eyes.

Armstrong sat back, steepling his
fingers in front of him. “Another important issue to consider is
the recent stressor, the triggering event that brought about this
murderous rage in this man. What was it that set him
off?

“This could’ve been a job loss, a
separation or divorce, the break-up of a girlfriend, the birth of a
baby into an already unhealthy relationship, or the death of a
loved one.”

Allan opened his eyes. He took out
his cell phone and called David. When he answered, Allan told him
all that Sodero had said.

David was quiet for a long moment.
Allan imagined him trying to let it all sink in, as he
had.

“You know it makes sense,” David
remarked finally. “I have Stephen Eagles’ cell phone
records.”

Allan heard the rustle of
paper.

“There have been
several calls placed to Herb Matteau,” David continued. “Beginning
back in early May and leading right up to yesterday when Eagles
was
murdered. In fact, Eagles called
Matteau yesterday and a few minutes later, Matteau called him
back.

“The duration of each call during
this three week span was never any longer than two
minutes.”

Wouldn’t friends
talk longer?
Allan
wondered.

“Sounds almost business-like,” he
said, watching Keating and his team shepherd Sodero across the
front lawn to their van.

“Yes, it does,” David said. “The
only other call before that bunch was on Christmas Eve.”

“One friend wishing another a
Merry Christmas.”

David drew a breath.
“Yup.”

“I think this Herb Matteau might
be our guy,” Allan said.

“I’ll get a search warrant
ready.”

“I want to go to his place with
you.”

“When can you be here?”

Allan turned over the ignition.
“I’m leaving now.”

50

Acresville, May 24

4:52 p.m.

Herb stared at the revolver in
front of him.

He sat in the kitchen with his
elbows on top of the table and his chin cradled in both hands. He
felt empty, lost, overwhelmed by guilt with a dull ache in the pit
of his stomach that just wouldn’t go away.

Why can’t I end it? Leave this
nightmare once and for all?

As hard as it was to live, dying
seemed that much harder.

To make matters worse, he was out
of beer, out of whiskey and in no shape to drive to town for
more.

He rose and wobbled a bit and had
to brace himself on the table. The kitchen shifted slightly around
him. After a few moments, he felt all right again. He walked to the
living room, to the open door where he leaned against the jamb. He
gazed out at the front yard, caught up in his thoughts.

He’d been standing there for about
five minutes when a movement out on the country road caught his
eye. He turned his head and saw an Acresville Police car followed
by an unmarked sedan. They were traveling fast without flashing
lights or sirens. As they neared his driveway, they slowed down and
began to turn onto it.

Goosebumps suddenly exploded across
Herb’s skin.

The cops had
pieced everything together.
Now they’re
coming for me.

Heart racing, Herb slammed the door
and threw the deadbolt into place.

Allan’s gaze swept over the windows
of the farmhouse as he drove up. He saw no one looking
out.

David was behind the wheel in the
lead car. He parked by the edge of the front lawn. Allan stopped
behind him and shut off the engine. Through the windshield he
surveyed the property. The farm looked uninhabited. There were no
tractors, no cows in the green span of fields.

He wondered what happened. Had the
man who lived here just given up on everything?

In the living room, Herb peeled the
curtain aside and watched the three men getting out of the cars.
His mouth went dry.

He recognized the older man as
Chief Brantford and he could see that there was a folded sheet of
paper in his hand. The slim-built cop next to him was the same one
who had been here the night before.

Herb didn’t recognize the third man
getting out from the unmarked car behind them. He looked
middle-aged with graying hair and tired eyes. He wore black slacks
and a tweed sport coat.

The Chief moved toward the front
walk, stopping briefly to look at something on the paper. He
checked his watch and then headed for the veranda. The young cop
followed him.

The unknown man lingered near his
car. With a slow sweep of his head he seemed to be inspecting the
property.

Damp with sweat, Herb backed away
from the window. His legs were weak. Fear roiled inside him like a
fever.

Footsteps now. Then a tap came at
the door.

Shit.

Near panic, Herb stared across the
room at the revolver on the kitchen table.

Warrant in hand, David knocked on
the door a second time. Waited. Put his ear close to the door, but
heard nothing from within.

Sam stood on the other side of the
door, one hand on his sidearm.

“Maybe he’s not home, Chief,” he
said.

David looked at him. In a muted
tone, he answered, “I think he is, son. He might know why we’re
here.”