Brimstone (Pendergast #5)(87)
“First things first. I’m assuming you confirmed this is indeed the body of Ranier Beckmann?”
“Without question. I checked dental records.”
“Excellent. Please proceed.”
“I’ll summarize my original records and diagnosis.” The doctor flipped over some pages. “On March 4, 1995, the patient, Ranier Beckmann, was brought to the E.R. by ambulance. The symptoms indicated advanced stages of cancer. Tests confirmed an extensive-stage small-cell lung carcinoma with distant metastases. Essentially a hopeless case. The cancer had spread throughout the body, and general organ failure was imminent. Mr. Beckmann never left the hospital and died two weeks later.”
“You’re sure he died in the hospital?”
“Yes. I saw him every day on my rounds until he died.”
“And your recollection, going back over a decade, is still clear?”
“Absolutely.” The doctor stared at Pendergast over the tops of his glasses.
“Proceed.”
“I conducted this autopsy in two stages. The first was to test my original determination of cause of death. There had been no autopsy. Standard procedure. The cause of death was evident, there was no family request, and no suspicion of foul play. The state obviously doesn’t pay for an autopsy just for the hell of it.”
Pendergast nodded.
“The second stage of my autopsy, as per your request, was to identify any unusual pathologies, conditions, wounds, toxins, or other irregularities associated with the body.”
“And the results?”
“I confirmed Beckmann died of general organ failure associated with cancer.”
Pendergast quickly fixed his silvery eyes again on the doctor. He said nothing: the skeptical look said it all.
The doctor returned the look steadily. Then he continued, voice calm. “The primary was a tumor in his left lung the size of a grapefruit. There were gross secondary metastatic tumors in the kidneys, liver, and brain. The only surprising thing about this man’s death is that he hadn’t showed up in the emergency room earlier. He must have been in tremendous pain, barely able to function.”
“Go on,” Pendergast said in a low voice.
“Aside from the cancer, the patient showed advanced cirrhosis of the liver, heart disease, and a suite of other chronic, but not yet acute, symptoms associated with alcoholism and poor nutrition.”
“And?”
“That’s all. No toxins or drugs present in the blood or tissues. No unusual wounds or pathologies, at least none detectable after embalming and almost ten years in the ground.”
“No sign of heat?”
“Heat? What do you mean?”
“No indication that the body had experienced the perimortem application of heat?”
“Absolutely not. Heat would have caused a host of obvious cell changes. I’ve looked at forty, maybe fifty sections of tissue from this cadaver, and not one showed changes associated with heat. What an extraordinary question, Mr. Pendergast.”
Pendergast spoke again, his voice still low. “Small-cell lung cancer is caused almost exclusively by smoking. Am I correct, Doctor?”
“You are correct.”
“That he died of cancer is beyond a reasonable doubt, then, Doctor?” Pendergast allowed a skeptical tone to tinge his voice.
Exasperated, the pathologist reached down, grabbed two halves of a shriveled brown lump, and shoved them in Pendergast’s face. “There it is, Mr. Pendergast. If you don’t believe me, believe this. Take it. Feel the malignancy of this tumor. As sure as I’m standing here, that’s what killed Beckmann.”
It was a long, silent walk back to the car. Pendergast slipped behind the wheel—today he’d driven himself to Yonkers—and they exited the parking lot. As they left the gray huddle of downtown behind, Pendergast spoke at last.
“Beckmann spoke to us quite eloquently, wouldn’t you say, Vincent?”
“Yeah. And he stank, too.”
“What he said, however, was—I must confess—something of a surprise. I shall have to write the good doctor a letter of thanks.” He swung the wheel sharply, and the Rolls turned onto Executive Boulevard, passing the on-ramp for the Saw Mill River Parkway.
D’Agosta looked over in surprise. “Aren’t we heading back to New York City?”
Pendergast shook his head. “Jeremy Grove died exactly two weeks ago. Cutforth, one week ago. We came to Yonkers to get some answers. I’m not leaving until we have them.”
{ 45 }
The bus inched through a long, white-tiled tunnel in stop-and-go traffic and emerged from an underpass, a long ramp amidst steel girders in semidarkness.
New York City, thought the Reverend Wayne P. Buck.
Beyond the web of steel, he could see limpid sunlight, sooty tenements, a brief glimpse of skyscrapers. The bus lurched back into darkness, the brakes chuffing as the line of traffic stopped again.
Buck felt an indescribable mix of emotions: excitement, fear, destiny, a sense of confronting the unknown. It was the same thing he had felt a couple of years ago, the day he’d been released from prison after serving nine years for murder two. It had been a long, slow slide for Buck: delinquency, failed jobs, booze, stealing cars, bank robbery—and then the fateful day when everything went wrong and he’d ended up shooting a convenience store clerk. Killing a poor, innocent man. As the bus crept forward again, his mind went back over the arrest, trial, sentence of twenty-five to life, the manacled walk into the bowels of the prison. A period of darkness, best forgotten.