Free Beyond the Pale by Mark Anthony Page A

touched it with her own hand. Yet somehow that thing had worked to pump blood through the man’s body. They had detected the pulse. If the story did make the tabloids, then the headlines would be exactly and terribly right. The man had a heart of iron.
    She had run a hand through her hair, her words scathing. “What do you want me to do when the police ask me why their suspect died, Morty? Lie to them?”
    Morty had said nothing, and had fidgeted with the collar of his shirt instead. It was clear from his expression this was exactly what he wanted.
    She had stared at him in genuine amazement. “Do you actually enjoy being a worm, Morty?”
    He had assumed a self-important air. “Whether I enjoy it or not isn’t important. It’s my job.”
    Grace had taken that opportunity to accidentally step on his toes. While he clutched his foot she had made her escape. And she had told Officer Erwin everything, just as it had happened. It seemed impossible, even absurd, but she knew what she had seen. While some people could deny the truthin order to protect their small minds from anything that might expand them beyond the comfortable and ordinary, Grace was not one of those people.
    Nor, she suspected, was Officer Erwin. He asked her several more questions, and while he raised his eyebrows more than once at her answers, he did not express any doubt that she was telling the truth. He shut his notepad and slipped the pen into a pocket.
    “Thanks for your help, Dr. Beckett.” He fell silent and gazed into space. Finally he turned his eyes back toward her, his words quiet. “We think we have it all figured out. But we don’t, do we? We’re not even close.”
    A shiver coursed up Grace’s spine. She had no answer for that.
    Erwin stood. “I’m going to talk to the nurses who assisted you, Dr. Beckett. If you don’t mind, that is.”
    Grace thought of Morty Underwood’s puffy, anxious face. “Be my guest.” She lifted the mug. “And thanks for the coffee.”
    “I bet it’s cold by now.”
    “I don’t mind.”
    Officer Erwin grinned, then moved away across the ED’s admitting area. Grace sipped the cold coffee, and though she wouldn’t have thought it possible then, she found herself smiling. Then her smile faltered, the small hairs of her neck prickled, and she looked up.
    After a moment she saw him. He stood some distance down one of the hallways that led from Admitting, watching her. Dark suit, dark hair. He leaned against a wall in a casual, elegant posture. How long had he been there? For a moment his deep-set eyes locked on hers. His gaze was searching, as if he wanted something of her.
    Curious—or was it compelled?—Grace started to rise from her chair. Just then a gurney rattled by and blocked her view. A moment later the gurney passed through a doorway. Grace looked back down the hall. It was empty. The dark-haired man was gone. She sank back into her chair and clutched the coffee mug. Maybe the man hadn’t been watching her after all, maybe he had been waiting for someone else.
    Maybe, but she doubted it.

12.
    Leon Arlington liked his job.
    In fact, he liked it a lot. Leon always had been a night person, so he didn’t mind the late hours. And with its thick cement walls, the place was nice and quiet, which made it good for thinking. Leon liked thinking, too. He thought about lots of things while he worked down in the cool silence of the morgue. Things like, how long it would take to walk to the moon, if you really could walk there? And what was the best kind of tree? And if he could drink just one drink for the rest of his life, would it be water or Mello Yello? Hoo boy, that was a good one. He still hadn’t figured that out yet.
    But the biggest reason Leon liked his job was simple: Dead folk gave him no trouble. No trouble at all. He had worked plenty of other jobs where he had had to deal with living people. They were always wanting something different from what he gave them, or telling him how to do