3 Men and a Body (15 page)

smile that had driven men crazy. It seemed impossible that

her radiant smile had been snuffed out forever.

“Excuse me.”

Carlotta looked up to see a young man, maybe twenty,

with bright red hair and pale blue eyes, wearing a dark suit

and a priest’s col ar. He carried a small ornate box.

“Yes?” she asked.

“I’m here to bless the body of Kiki Deerling.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “And you are?”

“Father Albert Morgan, minister to the Deerling family.”

She took in details. He wore black combat boots, not

exactly what she’d expect from the clergy. And he had

tattoos on his knuckles. Sure, priests could have a

checkered past and make questionable fashion choices,

but he did not strike her as someone the Deerling family

would have sent on such a delicate errand.

Carlotta pretended to check the log behind the desk. “Your

name isn’t on my list, Father Morgan. May I see some

identification?”

He smiled and nodded, then turned on his heel and bolted

for the exit.

“Kook,” she murmured. He probably had a camera in that

box. And how had he gotten through security? Even their

cel phones had been held at the checkpoint.

She rol ed up the magazine and went in search of a

bathroom, wandering down what looked to be a likely hall,

since a pay phone and a water fountain sat at the end. She

found the ladies’ room and relieved herself. When she

emerged from the bathroom, a man stood at the pay

phone, his back to her. He wore the uniform of an orderly,

but his shoes were Ferragamo. More strangely, next to

him was a gurney, with a body bag on it—an occupied

body bag.

“It’s time,” he said into the phone, talking fast. “Bring the

SUV around to the west entrance now. Tel the helicopter

pilot to stand by.”

Carlotta frowned. Helicopter? The man slammed down the

phone, then saw her, and his eyes narrowed to a point. He

reached for her and managed to grab the end of her

ponytail. She wrenched loose, minus a few hair fol icles,

and ran to find Coop.

She burst through the glass double doors that he and

Wesley had gone through, racing down hallways, calling

his name. A couple of orderlies stopped her, and she asked

to be taken to the chief medical examiner, that it was an

emergency. At the sound of hurried footsteps, she looked

up to see Coop, Wesley, a man who fit the description of

the doctor the clerk had described, and another man she

assumed to be the coroner running toward her.

“The body is gone,” Coop informed her quietly.

“There’s a body on a gurney next to the pay phone on this

floor,” she said. “Hurry! I heard the guy say a helicopter is

standing by.”

She led them back to the phone, but the gurney and the

man were gone. They took the stairs to the first floor and

ran outside to see a long black SUV peeling out of the

parking lot, but heading away from the paved entrance

and toward an open, marshy field.

“I’ll radio security,” the coroner said, looking completely

panicked.

Coop ran to his van. Carlotta and Wesley fol owed and

vaulted inside. Coop turned over the engine and slammed

the vehicle into gear, then turned it toward the black SUV

and gave chase over the bumpy field. She and Wesley

hung on while the gurney and other equipment in the back

clanged noisily. Ahead of them, the SUV blew a back tire

and slowed, but kept going. Coop pul ed close enough to

ram the back of the SUV, and sent it spinning into a

shallow, sandy ditch. The driver opened the door and

jumped down.

“That’s the guy I saw by the pay phone,” Carlotta

confirmed.

Ferragamo Shoes made a run for the tree line without

looking back. By the time they stopped the van and

climbed out, he had disappeared.

Coop opened the back door of the SUV to reveal a body

bag. He checked the tag on it and nodded. “It’s her.”

He unzipped the bag a few inches and his jaw hardened.

Carlotta glanced at the girl’s startlingly white, famous face.

Her hair looked freshly washed, the only thing about her

that stil seemed alive. The area around her nose was

swol en and irritated, probably where tubes had been

inserted. Her neck was bluish, and a red circular imprint

stood out on her col arbone.

Coop zipped the bag closed. “Give me a hand, Wes.”

While they loaded the body into the back of the van,

Carlotta heard a helicopter in the distance. She looked up

and saw a chopper come into view, then veer away from

the property.

Security vehicles descended on them. The shaken chief

medical examiner emerged from one of the cars and

verified the body was the correct one. In the melee, Dr.

Talon, the other man who had come to claim the body,

had vanished.

“If that was even his name,” the coroner said, clearly

distraught. “He said he was Ms. Deerling’s personal

physician, that the family wanted him to view the body.

His papers seemed to be in order.” Dr. Shores wrung his

hands. “This is highly unusual. I’m going to need all of you

to give a statement to the police.”

“I understand how you feel,” Coop said to the medical

examiner in the same voice she’d heard him use with

victims’ family members. “But if the police get involved,

then it’s a matter of public record and wil reflect badly on

your morgue. Do you really want to feed the media frenzy

and put the Deerling family through that? We have Ms.

Deerling, and that’s what’s important, isn’t it?”

Dr. Shores considered Coop’s words, then nodded. “You’re

right. And the sooner she’s out of my morgue, the better.”

“There’s just one thing,” Coop said. “I noticed the body

hasn’t been autopsied, and I understood I was to take it

directly to the funeral home. Has there been a mistake?

Do I need to take it to the Atlanta morgue?”

“No,” the man said. “The family objected to an autopsy,

and because of the young woman’s history of asthmatic

attacks, I agreed to it, after examining the body. Like you

said, there was no use putting the family through

unnecessary suffering.”

Coop nodded, but from the set of his mouth, Carlotta

knew he wasn’t satisfied with the doctor’s explanation.

They waited another hour while paperwork was

processed, the body was placed in a box with dry ice, and

a Florida license plate was added to the van. Then they

made the long drive back to col ect their phones at the

security checkpoint, and exited with two other vans. The

vehicle behind them was sparkling clean, with a pink bow

tied on the antenna—the decoy van.

“Don’t look at the cameras,” Coop said. “Don’t give the

vultures any footage.”

They pul ed away and, as hoped, the media descended on

the van behind them. Coop turned toward the interstate

and they were all quiet for a long while, conscious of the

pop-culture significance of their cargo. Wesley, especial y,

was silent. He was probably thinking how close in age he

was to Kiki Deerling, and realizing that a young life could

end just as quickly as an old one.

Carlotta’s heart was stil thudding overtime in her chest.

“Have you ever had anything like that happen before?”

Coop shook his head, his expression solemn. “This is a

first.”

“Do you think those two men were in cahoots?” Wesley

asked.

Carlotta leaned over to pick up the rol ed magazine she’d

accidental y lifted from the check-in counter and then

dropped on the floorboard during the chase. “There were

three men.” She told them about the nervous redheaded

“priest.” “Maybe they were all in on it together.”

“Maybe,” Coop said. A muscle jumped in his jaw.

“What would someone do with a body?” Carlotta asked.

“Al kinds of bad things,” he replied. “There are a lot of

sickos out there, especial y when a celebrity is involved.”

“What are the penalties for stealing a body?” Wesley

asked.

“Abuse of a corpse is a felony,” Coop said. “Stealing a

corpse, receiving it il egal y, al felonies.”

“So if those guys were caught, they’d go to prison?”

“For several years,” Coop confirmed.

“What paparazzo would risk going to prison?” Carlotta

asked.

Coop shrugged. “Someone who was going to be paid wel

for photos, or for the body itself.”

“That’s so vile,” she said. “Coop, you saw the body. Did it

look like she’d had an asthma attack?”

He answered without looking at Carlotta. “I don’t have

enough information to form an opinion.”

“But why was her neck so bruised?”

He shrugged. “She could’ve fallen and bruised herself

during the attack. Or it could have been caused by

someone in the hospital holding her down, or a piece of

equipment they used to try to resuscitate her. There are a

lot of possible reasons.”

“What happens during an asthma attack?”

“The muscles in a person’s airways start to spasm, and to

make matters worse, the respiratory system produces a

thick mucus.”

“Why?”

“There are many different triggers, some of them

environmental, such as chemicals.”

“What about pet hair? She had a pug.”

“That can be a trigger, too, and pugs are notoriously heavy

shedders. Drugs can also be a trigger, both over-the-

counter and il egal ones. And sometimes there’s no

obvious trigger at all.”

“But don’t most people with asthma have an inhaler?”

“They’re supposed to. Quick-relief inhalers wil help relax

the spasms and reopen the airways.”

“So she must not have had her inhaler with her.”

“Or maybe she couldn’t get to it fast enough, or perhaps it

was out of medicine. There are lots of possibilities.”

“So her death might have been prevented.”

“If it was an asthma attack, then yes, with the right

treatment administered as quickly as possible, her death

might have been prevented.”

Carlotta frowned. “If?”

Coop shifted in his seat, then glanced in the rearview

mirror. “Let’s all be alert. I won’t relax until we’re back in

Atlanta.”

“This has been a wild trip,” Wesley offered.

Coop glanced over at Carlotta and murmured, “You can

say that again.”

She warmed at his reference to their near miss in the hotel

room, and felt a pang of guilt for deceiving him about the

Daytona stopover. “I really do appreciate you inviting me

to come along.”

“Glad you were at least able to get some business done,”

he said quietly, so Wesley wouldn’t hear.

“Business and pleasure,” she said.

“You don’t have to humor me.”

“I’m not.”

He opened his mouth to say something, but Wesley’s head

suddenly appeared between them. “When are we going to

stop and eat lunch?”

Coop pushed up his glasses and pinched the bridge of his

nose as if in pain. “This trip can’t be over soon enough.”

17

It was a couple of hours before Coop gave in to Wesley’s

wheedling and pul ed off on an exit ramp to find a

restaurant. Coop picked a table next to a window where

the van was visible. They placed an order, then Wesley

excused himself to go to the men’s room.

“He’s probably stealing a smoke,” Carlotta said.

“You think so?”

“It’s what I want to do,” she said with a laugh.

“So you both smoke, but are trying to keep it from one

another?”

“Apparently.”

“To be so close, you and Wesley aren’t very honest with

each other.”

“I think that’s our secret to staying close.”

“Why didn’t you want to tel him about your father leaving

you the note? Or that his fingerprints were found in

Daytona?”

She sighed. “You’ve been around Wesley long enough to

know that he doesn’t exercise the best judgment.”

“Yeah, I noticed.”

“He thinks our dad is completely innocent of everything

he’s accused of. He has this fantasy that one day our

parents are going to come home and we’l all be one big,

happy family again. I just don’t want him to get his hopes

up.”

“He’s not a kid anymore, Carlotta. You can’t protect him

from disappointment.”

“I know. But now he’s old enough to react recklessly and

get himself in real adult trouble. If I’d told him about the

hotel robbery, he would’ve crashed in there and

complicated things.”

“Or he would’ve helped you,” Coop said. “You said that

Jack underestimated your father. I think sometimes you

underestimate Wesley. He’s smart. And he has as much at

stake here as you do.”

Carlotta opened her mouth, but she didn’t know how to

respond.

The waiter delivered their drinks and Wes reappeared. She

studied her brother as he sat down. He was looking a little

gray—maybe the smoking wasn’t agreeing with him.

Sometimes he seemed so mature, but other times, he was

all teenager. Stil , he wasn’t a malicious person. Even when

he did bad things, it was usually with good intentions.

Or was that the mother in her taking up for him again?