Damaged (28 page)

Liz closed her eyes against the pain, but there was no pain. When her eyes flew open she saw Joe Black fall forward, grabbing at his leg with one hand, the gun still in his other.

There was a shout from the top of the stairs. “FBI. Drop it. Now.”

He hesitated.

Another shot chewed up the carpet next to him.

He threw the gun aside.

Liz stood paralyzed as Maggie climbed down the steps, her gun still pointed at Black.

“Liz, grab his weapon.”

She obeyed.

“Is he the only one?” Her eyes darted around the cabin and quickly returned to Black. When she glanced up for an answer, all Liz could manage was a nod.

“Everybody okay?” Maggie finally asked.

Liz heard the helicopter returning. All eyes lifted to the ceiling, again.

“How did you—”

But Maggie interrupted her. “We have to do this quickly.” Then to Liz she said, “Wilson’s in a pissy mood.”

THURSDAY, AUGUST 27

CHAPTER 66

PENSACOLA, FLORIDA

Liz woke up as the last stream of sunset lit the room. She had slept hard. Her mouth was dry, her eyelids still heavy. It took a few seconds to remember where she was. Second floor. Her dad’s house. Her old room had been made into a guest bedroom but there were still remnants of her childhood—a porcelain doll on the dresser, the embroidered pillow shams—and reminders of her mother.

She could hear chain saws down below despite the hum of the window air conditioner. Her dad had set up the unit especially for her, dropping a bright-orange electrical cord out her window, stringing it down the side of the house and along the backyard to the garage where he had it plugged into one of his generators. A definite luxury, since the window air conditioner took almost as many watts as one of his refrigerators.

“You deserve to sleep,” he had told her when she came home for the first time around noon. It was already in her bedroom window. She hadn’t asked how he’d managed to put it there with only one hand, his left one wrapped in a soft cast that made it look like he was wearing an oven mitt.

In the last two days Liz had napped for only a few hours at a time, rotating in barracks set up for them at NAS. The hurricane had lost some of its steam, winds dropping to 135 miles per hour as it made landfall. Its path had slipped to the east, sparing Pensacola the brunt of the storm. By the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, a cat 4 meant “devastating damage” but not “catastrophic damage” like a cat 5.

Liz and her aircrew had rescued dozens of people from their flooded homes. Some still refused to leave, insisting they needed to stay and protect what belongings remained from looters. One man argued with Liz, refusing to leave his roof unless she allowed him to take four suitcases he had stuffed with valuables. By the end of the first day, Wilson no longer complained about sharing cabin space with an assortment of cats and dogs that accompanied their injured owners. And after having a madman almost shoot her, everything else seemed tame. But she’d bagged too many hours and now she was grounded.

Liz got up, pulled on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt. She glanced out the window, looking down over the street. Electrical wires still dangled from branches. Debris piles lined one side of the cul-de-sac where neighbors continued to drag and toss pieces of huge live oak trees, several of them uprooted. And in the middle of the street was the Coney Island Canteen. Lawn chairs were gathered around the mobile unit while her dad and Trish cooked dinner for their neighbors. He’d mentioned to Liz earlier that they were grilling steaks, burgers, hot dogs—even lamb chops—salvaging what they could from everyone’s freezers. County officials were estimating the power being out for at least a week.

Liz could see him wiping the sweat from his forehead as he stood over the grill. She still couldn’t shake that image of him holding
his bloodied hand, the front of his jumpsuit soaked with blood. His face so pale. He’d spent the hurricane in the hospital, calling Trish to pick him up as soon as the main roads were cleared. From what Liz understood,
Trish hadn’t left his side.

Trish had refused to talk about Scott. All Liz knew was that he had spent the hurricane locked inside the funeral home’s walk-in refrigerator. Liz had heard that Joe Black had left several corpses with Scott, and now he and the funeral home were under investigation.

As soon as Liz left her bedroom, the warm air hit her. She was damp with sweat by the time she joined her dad in the street.

“You didn’t sleep very long, darling.”

“I’m hungry.”

“Well, sit yourself down. You came to the right place.”

The aroma of grilled meat and the spices her dad used overpowered the gasoline fumes from generators and chain saws. The sun was almost down. It would be pitch-dark in a couple of hours. Several neighbors were bringing out lanterns and setting them up for their evening meal in the street. The one advantage after a hurricane was that there were no mosquitoes, no bugs of any kind. But also no birds.

“Liz, you’re just in time,” Trish said. “Why don’t you set up some plates and cups.”

“She needs to rest,” her dad said, surprising both of his daughters. Usually he let Trish boss Liz around. It was easier than getting in the middle. “Ask Wendy to help.”

Trish stared at him for a minute before finally taking his advice.

“Have you heard anything from your FBI friend?” her dad asked.

“Just for a few minutes this morning when I was still at NAS. Otherwise, cell-phone towers are down.”

“She’s one brave girl.” He pulled an ice-cold bottle of beer from the cooler at his feet and handed it to Liz. “And so are you.”

CHAPTER 67

JACKSONVILLE, FLORIDA

Maggie stopped her rental car at the security booth. She handed over her badge and waited while the guard picked up the phone. She lifted her arm to adjust the rearview mirror and a pain shot through her elbow. Actually her entire body hurt. Who knew jumping from a helicopter could be so physically strenuous?

The guard passed back her badge.

“First building to your right. The others are waiting.”

Maggie had gotten up early to catch footage of the storm damage. Charlie Wurth had told her earlier that Pensacola was lucky. At the last minute the storm had suddenly weakened and veered to the right. It made landfall as a category 4, but that was better than they expected. Watching the news reports, Maggie certainly didn’t think Pensacola was lucky. The storm had still ripped apart roofs, blown out windows, and flooded homes. Electricity was out for more than a hundred thousand customers and not expected to be up and running for at least a week.

She had talked to Liz Bailey earlier, too, relieved to hear that Walter and Charlotte were okay. She was especially glad to hear
that Walter would retain full use of his left hand, but it would take months of rehab. And despite sounding totally exhausted, Liz seemed to be handling the aftermath of the storm.

A military cargo plane flew low over Maggie’s car, preparing to land. As she parked in front of the building she could feel the vibration. She eased out of the car and was grateful there was only a set of five steps. Ridiculous. She thought she was in good shape. She didn’t like being reminded of dangling from that cable. Without effort she could conjure up the terror. She could hear the wind swirling around her and feel the rain pelting her face.

She needed some sleep, that’s all. Last night she had dreamed of severed hands coming up out of the water and clinging to her. Okay, she needed dreamless sleep. Maybe another of Platt’s massages. That brought a smile.

Inside the door, she had to show her badge again. A small woman in uniform led her down a hallway and into a conference room. Benjamin Platt was in uniform. She didn’t recognize the other two men.

Platt did the introductions.

“Agent Maggie O’Dell, this is Captain Carl Ganz and Dr. Samuel McCleary.”

Dr. McCleary decided to open defensively. “Joseph Norris has been a respected part of this program for almost ten years.”

Maggie could see Platt bristle.

“Then you understand, Dr. McCleary,” she began, “that means you may have contaminated tissue and bone from as long ago as ten years.”

“All of our tissue is tested.”

“But only for certain diseases,” Platt said.

“No one could have predicted what happened at NAS in Pensacola,” McCleary insisted, shaking his head. “That was one mistake.
One out of thousands. And we’ve traced the grafts and bone paste Captain Ganz used. We think it all came from one donor.” He pointed to a document already set among a pile on the table. “One donor who may have been dead longer than twelve hours.”

“Actually, it was more like twenty-one hours,” Platt said.

“We don’t know that for certain.”

“He was dead long enough for his bowels to burst and
Clostridium sordellii
to start spreading to his tissue.”

“You have no proof of that,” McCleary said.

“What about the donors Joe Black obtained without certification?” Maggie asked.

“Joseph Norris,” McCleary corrected her, “followed procedure as far as I am able to judge.”

“There’s a funeral home in Pensacola,” Maggie told him, “that has two bodies. The Escambia County sheriff says both are homeless men who disappeared just days before the hurricane. The funeral director insists Joe Black brought them there and cut one of them up to be sold and used for educational conferences.”

This time McCleary was speechless.

“Joe Black was making a nice living on the side,” she continued. “Diener by day, body broker during the weekends and on his days off. He admits to using soldiers’ amputated parts when he came up short on an order. He already confessed that he used a few of your donors’ bodies. The surgical conferences paid big bucks and he couldn’t keep up with the demand.”

“You’ll need to check our entire supply,” Ganz said to McCleary. “Norris also admits to making substitutions, replacing healthy tissue with damaged tissue.”

Dr. McCleary nodded, an exaggerated bobbing of his head that told Maggie he would allow the possibility but didn’t agree.

“Come,” he said, and he led them out of the room and down a long hallway. “You want to do this, fine. I’ll show you what you’re in for.”

He slid a key card and waited for the security pad to blink green. He waved the three of them into a huge room that reminded Maggie of a police evidence room, only the shelves were replaced with drawers, one on top of another. Refrigerated and freezer drawers. Rows and rows.

“Would you like to start with the feet?” McCleary said, pointing at one end. “Or perhaps the eyes?”

Damaged
A Maggie O’Dell Novel
Alex Kava

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

The introduction, discussion questions, suggestions for further reading and author biography that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of
Damaged
, the eighth installment of Alex Kava’s spine-chilling Maggie O’Dell series.

FOR DISCUSSION

1. The novel opens with a map, dated Saturday, August 22, detailing Hurricane Isaac’s wind speed, travel speed, and projected path. What mood does this prelude create?

2. How does the author set up the reader’s interest in and sympathy for Danny Delveccio, the surfer who sleeps in his Chevy Impala, and Charlotte Mills, the eccentric, beachcombing widow? How does this technique impact your reading of Joe Black’s character?

3. Why is Maggie’s boss, Assistant Director Raymond Kunze, angry with her over the Potomac serial killer case? Is he justified? Is Maggie simply being paranoid when she ponders whether Kunze “splattered her with the killer’s brains … to do just that—splatter her” (
this page
) and considers that perhaps what he wants is to psychologically “shove her and see if she’d fall” (
this page
)? Why would she persist in this seemingly abusive work climate when her work is considered brilliant across several government agencies?

4. Maggie’s internal struggle about her first helicopter ride—“A refusal or even hesitancy would be a mistake, especially with this macho group” (
this page
)—is reminiscent of Liz’s inner monologue as she prepares to jump at the start of the novel: “Liz kept her hesitation to herself” (
this page
) and refuses to let her aircrew see “even a hint of her reluctance” (
this page
). What challenges do these women face in two male-dominated fields? Do they hold their own through the course of the novel? Does each garner the respect they want from their male colleagues by the end? What are the other female characters in the novel like?