“That was good of you.”
“I’ll see you tomorrow. If they set you free, I’ll drive you home.”
“Thank you.”
The nurse came back and took his tray.
“Do you know where my cell phone is?” he asked.
“Where was it?”
“I’m not sure.”
She went to a closet and came back with the phone. “In your jacket pocket.”
“Thanks.” He switched on the phone. “I don’t suppose you have an iPhone charger?”
“I’ll see what I can do.” She came back with one in a couple of minutes.
“I don’t hear my heart beeping anymore,” Stone said.
“You complained about it, so I disconnected you. Your roommate was complaining, too.”
“When am I getting out of here?”
“The doctor will visit you shortly.”
As if on cue, an impossibly young physician walked into the room. He did a cursory examination of Stone and said, “One more night, for insurance. You’ll be discharged in the morning if you don’t die overnight.”
“That’s encouraging,” Stone said, and the young man walked over to Sam Spain and put a stethoscope to his chest.
Stone plugged in his cell phone and checked his messages; nothing that couldn’t wait.
“Did you know your roommate?” the doctor asked.
“Vaguely,” Stone said. “Why was your question in the past tense?”
“Because Mr. Spain is dead, probably has been for an hour or so.”
“Shit,” Stone said.
“My condolences,” the doctor said, drawing a sheet over Sam Spain’s head.
Shortly, a policeman came into the room with two orderlies and uncuffed the Spain corpse, then the orderlies transferred the body to a gurney and wheeled it out.
“Shit,” Stone said again. Now how were they going to figure out whom Sol Fineman was delivering to? Then he had a thought. He got out of bed, went to the closet, and found Sam’s clothes and searched them. His iPhone was in a jacket pocket. Stone got back in bed and switched it on. “Oh, God,” he said.
He rang for the nurse again. “You know the corpse that just departed?”
“Yes, I’m afraid I missed that.”
“Where is it?”
“In our morgue,” she replied, “waiting for the autopsy.”
“Listen, there’s something I need from the corpse.”
“I don’t think it has anything left to give.”
“Yes, it does. I need its right thumb.”
“What?”
“In fact, maybe it should be a whole hand.”
“I’m sorry, we don’t hand out body parts here.”
“I understand. How about if you wheel it back up here so I can use its thumb to get into Sam’s iPhone?”
“We operate procedurally around here,” she said. “We don’t have a procedure for taking a corpse out of the morgue and putting it back in a room. It works the other way around.”
“Okay, okay. Tell you what, don’t let them take it to the city morgue until I’ve had a chance to get the police back here. They’ll figure it out.”
“I’ll see what I can do,” she said, then left.
Stone called Dino.
“You’re still alive?”
“I’m much better, thank you. Sam Spain died a little while ago.”
“Well, shit, I wanted to question him again about the destination of the picture.”
“Yeah, I know, but I’ve got Sam’s iPhone. If we can get into it, we can see a list of who he called recently.”
“That’s good news.”
“Not yet it isn’t.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“We’re going to need a fingerprint to unlock the phone.”
Dino thought about that for a minute. “Was Sam right-handed or left-handed?”
“He tried to shoot me with his right hand.”
“So we’ll need what, his right thumb?”
“Maybe the index finger, too. The body’s in the morgue, awaiting autopsy.”
“Do we know who the pathologist is?”
“Whoever’s on duty, I guess. I asked the nurse to see that the corpse isn’t taken to the city morgue.”
“I’ll be right over,” Dino said.
39
The following morning Stone was sitting up in bed, waiting for the doctor to come and discharge him. Dino got there first.
“I’ve been down in the morgue, arguing with the pathologist who’s about to do the autopsy on Sam,” Dino said, sinking into a chair.
“Arguing?”
“He is unwilling to separate any fingers from the corpse.”
Stone picked up Sam’s iPhone, which had been charging next to his bed, and handed it to Dino. “Then take this down to the morgue and find a finger that works without amputating it. You know how it works — you’ve got one of these, too.”
“Why didn’t I think of that?” Dino asked, shoving the phone into his pocket. “I’ll be back soon.” He stalked out of the room and down the hallway.
The young doctor walked in. “How are you feeling?” he asked Stone.
“Just great!”
“Let me do a little checkup. He began to listen to Stone’s heart and poking and prodding. “Our radiologist has pronounced your brain undamaged. You were just shaken up by the blow to the head.”
“May I get out of here?” Stone asked.
The doctor picked up his chart from the foot of the bed and began writing on it, then he signed it and returned it to its hook. “You are officially discharged,” he said. “You can get dressed while I get a wheelchair for you.”
“I don’t need a wheelchair,” Stone said.
“Hospital policy — it’s a liability thing. Don’t move without it.”
Stone got into his clothes, pocketed his phone, and sat on his bed, waiting.
Dino came back into the room. “It didn’t work,” he said. “I tried every finger. The pathologist said it was probably a body temperature thing, and Sam didn’t have any to spare. I mentioned a microwave, but the doctor nixed that. Why are you sitting on your bed? Let’s get out of here.”
“I have to wait for a wheelchair.”
“Hang on.” Dino left the room and came back half a minute later with a wheelchair. “There was one in the hall. Hop aboard.”
Stone got into the chair and was wheeled down the hall at top speed, waving at the nurses. They took the elevator to the ground floor and raced for the emergency exit. A moment later, they were cruising downtown.
“Something I should point out,” Dino said.
“What’s that?”
“We were going to charge Sam Spain with attempted murder for trying to shoot you, but of course he’s dead now.”
“So?”
“Now, since Sam is dead and you’re not, we’ve got an assistant DA who’s thinking of charging you with Sam’s murder.”
“That’s preposterous,” Stone said. “He was trying to shoot me.”
“No witnesses to that,” Dino said.
“I was taped to a chair, for God’s sake, how could I murder him?”
“By hitting him in the head with the cosh. The DA’s got the X-rays and the murder weapon.”
“Stop saying that — it wasn’t murder, it was self-defense.”
“And when the uniforms got there, you weren’t taped to the chair, and you were pointing a gun at Sam Spain.”
“Of course I was!” Stone yelled. “I cut myself loose. I didn’t know if he was playing possum, and his own gun was within his reach.”
“The EMTs said he was unconscious when they got there,” Dino said. “Look, if he charges you, I’ll testify to your good character at your preliminary hearing, but you should know I’d get cross-examined pretty thoroughly, and I can’t lie for you.”
“Who’s asking you to lie?”