Stephen Jameson. Personal physician to Takeo Yoshihara.
Someone to pay attention to.
Therefore, Elvis Dinkins had listened carefully when Dr. Jameson suggested that if he ever came across anything in the hospital that seemed unusual, he would appreciate it if Elvis would let him know.
At the time, of course, Elvis hadn’t really known what might be considered unusual in a hospital. He’d waited, keeping a sharp lookout, but nothing “unusual” had come his way. Until now.
A teenage kid who’d died for some reason that even Dr. Hatcher hadn’t been able to figure out — now that was something else again! It was just lucky for him he’d been in the emergency room a few minutes ago when Sergeant Olani came in.
He’d hung around in the hall while the cop talked to Hatcher, and then clocked out at the end of the shift, right after Jo-Nell Sims. Except instead of leaving, he’d waited until Dr. Hatcher left, then printed out a copy of the autopsy report she’d done. For a minute he’d thought maybe that was all he would give Dr. Jameson, but then he remembered the doctor talking about how the lungs looked funny. That was when he’d decided to collect a sample of the kid’s lungs, too.
Now, though, as he stared at the loose stitches Dr. Hatcher had used to close the huge Y-shaped cut she’d made to gain access to the interior of Kioki Santoya’s body, he wondered if he could actually do it. His hands were starting to shake, and he hadn’t even cut the thread.
Gripping the handle of the scalpel he’d picked up in the operating room, Elvis Dinkins steeled himself and bent closer.
One by one he sliced through the stitches, until the corpse’s torso was gaping open.
Elvis Dinkins gazed down at the jumbled organs that had been packed back into the body after the autopsy was completed. His stomach churned again, and he had to struggle to keep from throwing up right there. But as he sank the scalpel deep into the tissue of the left lung, he told himself it wasn’t much different from cutting up the liver his mother used to fry with onions.
His nausea eased a little.
A few seconds later he had hacked a piece of the lung out and dropped it into one of the plastic specimen jars he’d found in the same cabinet as the scalpel. Of course, he had no idea what Jameson might find in the sample, but he thought it might be important.
Really important.
And if it was …
As he slipped out of the hospital, Elvis Dinkins was already dreaming about the future. Maybe after he got a job working for Takeo Yoshihara, he’d find a new apartment.
Hell, if he was lucky, the contents of the plastic bag might change his whole life!
The thought that they might also end his life never entered Elvis Dinkins’s mind.
CHAPTER 13
Jack Peters wished he knew what to say to the dozen teenage boys clustered around him. There was none of the laughter and playful jostling that ordinarily preceded track practice; this afternoon they all seemed lost in their own thoughts, and as the coach’s eyes moved from one face to another, he saw one common element.
Fear.
None of them knew why Kioki Santoya had died last night, and because they didn’t know, they were frightened.
He could almost hear what they were thinking:
What if Kioki had one of those new diseases, like ebola, where if you got it, you were dead in a few hours, puking your brains out, and bleeding everywhere?
What if someone killed Kioki?
What if …?
But there were so many “what ifs” that Jack Peters knew there was no way to answer all of them; indeed, until they knew what had happened to Kioki, there was no way to answer any of them. “I guess none of us feels like practice today,” he finally said. “I know I don’t. And I know a lot of people say that when something like this happens, the best thing is to stay busy, to do anything just to keep from thinking about it. But I miss Kioki, and …” His voice trailed off while he tried to clear the lump that had formed in his throat. “I just want to remember him, I guess. So I’m canceling track practice today. Any of you who want to hang around and just talk, I’ll be here. If you don’t want to, that’s fine, too.” Once again his eyes roamed over the team. “I guess that’s all I have to say,” he finished.
For a few seconds no one moved; it was as if each of them was waiting for someone else to act. But finally Rick Pieper, shoulders slumped, hands in pockets, started back toward the locker room. Kioki, Peters knew, had been Rick’s best friend. A moment later, Jeff Kina and Michael Sundquist followed Rick. As if taking their lead from the three who had been the last to see Kioki alive, the rest of the team began drifting back toward the locker room. The silence that had hung over the dozen boys on the field stayed with them as they stripped off their gym shorts and began pulling on their street clothes.
Ten minutes later, still together, Michael, Jeff Kina, and Rick Pieper emerged from the gym. Josh Malani was waiting for them.
“You wanta go get something to eat?” Josh asked, and Michael could tell by the uncertainty in his voice that Josh was wondering if any of them blamed him for Kioki’s death.
“I’m not very hungry,” Jeff said.
Josh’s eyes narrowed slightly. “Look, what happened to Kioki wasn’t our fault.”
“No one said it was,” Jeff replied. “I just wish I knew what happened. I mean—” He fell silent as he saw a police car turning into the school parking lot. “Uh-oh.”
The other three boys turned to follow Jeff’s gaze.
“You think they already figured out we broke into Ken’s Dive Shop?” Rick Pieper asked as the squad car pulled to a stop.
“We didn’t break in,” Josh Malani said quickly. The policeman was out of his car now and coming toward him. “And there’s no way he could know. All we’ll tell him is that we were at the arcade out in Kihei. Okay? Just playing video games.”
A moment later Cal Olani had ambled up to them, and Michael saw a glint of hostility flare up in Josh Malani’s eyes.
Cal Olani saw it, too. “Take it easy, Josh,” he said. “I’m not here to hassle you. Just wanted to ask you and your friends a couple of questions about last night.” He studied each boy’s face in turn, his eyes finally coming to rest on Michael. “Don’t think I know you.” He stuck his right hand out. “I’m Cal Olani.”
“Michael Sundquist,” Michael replied, automatically shaking the officer’s hand.
“So, were you with Kioki Santoya last night, too?”
Michael nodded.
“Mind if I ask you a few questions?”
Michael shrugged.
“What’d you guys do?”
Michael felt a knot of fear tightening in his stomach. He was certain the cop would know the moment he told the first lie. But before he could say anything, Josh Malani began talking.
“Come on, man, all we were doin’ was hangin’ at the arcade over in Kihei.”
“That true?” Olani asked Michael.
Michael could feel Josh’s eyes boring into him. Finally, telling himself that if he didn’t actually say anything it wasn’t really a lie, he shrugged noncommittally and did his best to mimic the slightly sullen look that had come over both Jeff Kina’s and Josh Malani’s faces the moment the cop appeared.
Olani turned to Rick Pieper. “You were the one who dropped the Santoya boy off?”
Rick nodded. “I offered to drive him all the way home, but he didn’t want my car to wake up his mom. So I dropped him off at his road.”
“He seem okay?”
Rick frowned. “You mean like was he sick or something?”
When the cop nodded, Rick shrugged. “I guess he was okay. I mean, he didn’t say he wasn’t, and he didn’t want me to take him all the way home, so I guess he must have been okay, huh?”