Calling Mel Brooks. Your Frankenstein is waiting. It was all Murphy could do to keep a straight face.

Nursing home supplies raw research material, he scribbled, knowing that he'd never use it. Not like that. It was too scary. Too confusing. The truth was that the geek doctor was probably as sincere as hell. He performed a service, and inflammatory stories would only scare possible donors away from a good cause.

Unless, of course, the doctor's good luck had something to do with Murphy's mysterious phone call.

"Have you been getting more donations lately?" he asked.

Davies paused a second to sign off on some result a staff member presented. "More?" he asked, his attention on the clipboard. "Yes, I suppose we have gotten more. It happens like that sometimes, though. This week, in fact, we've already had three. Two from the unit and one from the coroner."

Murphy looked up from his notes. "Coroner?"

"Yes. The healthy donation."

Did Murphy remind the guy that if a brain had been healthy it wouldn't have been in his refrigerator? "Murder victim?"

Davies looked up. "No, no. An accident. It was just released today, in fact. Not perfect, of course. Heat damage. But usable."

Did Murphy hope for recognition or misapprehension?

"Name of Adkins?" he asked.

Davies started a little, then blinked. "Of course, you work for the local paper. You'd know about him, yes?"

"Yes," Murphy said, knowing damn well he shouldn't have felt that flush of triumph simply because he'd just heard an interesting coincidence and he hadn't believed in coincidence since the day a brand-new twenty-dollar bill had shown up on his dresser not two hours after he'd caught his father playing sink the Bismarck with his cousin Mary. "I knew about him."

* * *

Not enough, obviously.

"You want to tell me why you're investigating Alex Raymond?" Sherilee demanded an hour later when Murphy dragged himself back into the newspaper.

Punching his blinking answering machine, Murphy feigned innocence. "You were the one who told me to do the dry-good series on the Neurological Research Group. I'm doing."

Sherilee aimed a computer printout at him like a signed confession. "And personal finances are, like, important to the spreading of the unit's good name how, Murphy?"

"I don't go through your desk, Sherilee," he said agreeably. "Don't you think it's bad manners to go through mine?"

"Not when you're not telling me what's going on," she retorted. "You work for me, Murphy, remember?"

Murphy held up a hand as he waited for his messages. It was better than laughing at Sherilee when she was serious. The only words he'd heard more in his life than "You work for me, Murphy, remember?" were "Closing time."

"Something came up I'm investigating."

Three messages. Beep.

"Not about Alex Raymond."

Beep. "I'd say you owe me," the deep, laughing voice announced on his recorder, "but I've been saying that for years. Call me back. I've dug into your boy, and I'm afraid I came up empty. But I might have some other tidbits you'll like."

Marty Gerst. City-desk editor of The Philadelphia Inquirer, which would have covered one of Alex Raymond's failed units.

"Murphy?" Sherilee insisted, up on her toes now. "You aren't going after Alex Raymond."

Beep. "Just thought I'd let you know," Pete Mitchell offered in tight tones that betrayed his excitement. "Your boy kept more to himself than just his service record. Call me."

Hmmmm. This town was like an old knit sweater. Pull one loose strand and the whole thing began to unravel.

Beep. "You haven't listened—" Murphy hit the button at light speed. He'd been threatened enough over the years to recognize another of the breed. Definitely not the voice he'd heard before. Probably the one Leary didn't want to talk about.

"Murphy?" Sherilee asked, on alert.

Murphy turned to her, leaned his hip against his desk. Dealt with Sherilee like every other editor he'd worked with before.

"You were right, Sherilee," he said. "Something is going on at the hospital. I'm just looking for some answers."

"Just tell me and every city official who's called today that you're not climbing up Alex Raymond's butt just for the fun of it."

Murphy lifted a wry eyebrow. "Alex Raymond is too fragile to protect himself?"

"No..." She huffed, shifted from foot to foot. Reddened. "Not exactly."

"Oh?"

"You're not from around here," she insisted, suddenly frustrated. "You just don't know what kind of person Alex is."

"So tell me."

"No way. Tell me what you think first."

He grinned. "I don't think anything. I'm just looking. Although I will admit that I'm having a little trouble with this shining-knight routine. I mean, do you really expect me to believe that this guy would keep coming back like George Foreman just because his mother died of Alzheimer's?"

"She didn't die of it," Sherilee said. "She killed herself. Like, hung herself in their garage, and Alex walked in on her when he came home from school. You don't think that's a good enough reason for him to be, like, a little obsessed?"

Yes, he did. He didn't want to, but he did think that would be plenty of reason. Damn it.

"Give me my reports," Murphy said, snatching them out of her hands.

"So?" Sherilee asked. "What are you going to do?"

"Find out why the coroner released a murder victim and then see if you might be right about Paul Landry."

Sherilee brightened like a kid hearing a snow day announced. "Really?"

Murphy couldn't help it. He knew he could get hauled up on any number of harassment charges, but she was so damned enthusiastic. He tweaked her nose. "Really."

He waited till she'd left to replay the threat.

* * *

Actually, Timmie got to Van Adder first, for the simple reason that when she stopped in the ER on the way up to see her father, Van Adder was ensconced in the lounge with Angie.

She probably should never have gone near him. She was in a bad enough mood as it was. Her fingers were sore from trying to finish that damn costume, she hadn't had any luck in matching the Restcrest deaths to the ER without access to a computer, and the nurse on her dad's unit had called again about his memory case items. So Timmie had been forced to root through mountains of trash in the hopes of unearthing the treasures her father had buried.

At four, when she should have been primping for the date she'd dreamed of since her seventh birthday, Timmie stalked into the hospital carrying a grocery bag under one arm and a rolled-up poster under the other. Three separate people asked her why she was scowling. She was scowling because she'd had to dig through history she'd done a lot to forget, and now she was going to have to present her findings to her dad like tarnished medals commemorating his accomplishments in a long-forgotten war.

That was why she was scowling.

Then she spotted Tucker Van Adder slouched in the lounge with his oversized butt on the sprung couch and his feet on a wheelchair, laughing with Angie like he owned the place, and she decided she shouldn't be the only one in a bad mood.

"Barb tells me you released Victor's case as an accident," she said, blocking the doorway.

Angie started like a philandering wife.