Chapter Text
Things have been going missing, somewhere in between the ER and the morgue. And by things he means, well, not bodies, but parts. Organs. A liver here, a kidney there. Never anything intended for donation, just spare parts. A small cut of skin and tissue from a leg.
The first one he chalks up to negligence, someone received the wrong instructions for a postmortem examination. An unfortunate mistake, but these things happen. The second one means someone is making this kind of mistake twice, which is already twice more than it should have happened, and whoever's teaching down there sure as hell should have caught the error and corrected it by now.
The third one is what makes him sure this isn't an accident. Someone is stealing human remains in the hospital.
It wasn't all right away, weeks, even a month in between each one. But of course he kept an eye on it after the first one was noticed. Just in case.
He's not sure who else has noticed, who else is keeping track. And the last thing he wants is rumors spreading around about this, whatever this is.
At best, it's an overzealous and conscienceless med student trying to get in extra practice. At worst... he's not sure what the worst would be. Selling deceased organs on the black market? Some sort of cult activity? A budding serial killer taking trophies?
He's checked the records on every body that's been found with something missing, of course. No obvious mistakes, no sign of deliberate negligence. Some of them were patients that died under his watch, he knows his team did everything they could.
Actually, he's checked the records on every body that's come out of the ER in the past six months. Nothing he can point to as deliberate. Something that was missed, a gamble on the wrong medication. Awful, but mistakes.
He does notice more discrepancies between the cases from the ER and the reports from the morgue. Even smaller- a flap of skin from an incision site, an earlobe. A toe.
There's no pattern to it he can see, not in which parts are taken, how often something goes missing, not even the time of day. As far as he can tell it's not happening on any one person's shifts in particular, but there's so many workers in the hospital. Doctors, nurses, staff, janitorial, not to mention how many other people are around the ER on a daily basis- EMS, cops, families of patients.
Well, there is one pattern. It never happens on his shift. Patients he oversaw, yes, but the bodies usually aren't sent to the morgue right away, going to viewing rooms for the families or identification. Nothing goes missing until after the bodies leave the ER, he's sure of that at least.
Maybe that makes this someone else's problem, but there's no chance he can just sit back and wait until someone does something, or everyone starts noticing. What else is he supposed to do, call the cops and get the entire building shut down?
He'll handle it himself, whatever it is. He starts doing stakeouts, or random inspections, or wandering around the morgue after his shifts trying to find anything. Whatever you want to call it. He's not very successful, mostly just getting himself suspicious looks from the morgue techs. And of course, when he does run in to someone out of place-
"What're you doing down here, brother?"
"Could ask you the same thing."
It's tense for about a second before they both come to the same decision, Robby opening his mouth to explain but Abbot beating him to it. Catching each other up, comparing notes. Abbot's been watching the security cameras, even set up a few hidden ones of his own. Never seems to be anyone out of place though, nothing but morgue techs, hospital staff, med students, and bodies. Someone must've found a spot out of the view of any cameras, a place to desecrate the dead without anyone seeing.
It's been a few weeks since the last part went missing- a liver. Robby figures they're due for another theft any day. If the cameras aren't working, they'll have to do it themselves. So they take turns. Anytime a body is ready to go down, they call the other, who goes and waits in the morgue for as long as they can.
After the 5th day of this he's almost ready to call it quits, the hours starting to get to him. Jack calls him at 3 AM, and he goes.
He's still not sure what he's looking for. And he doesn't see it first, he hears it.
He follows the sound, nearly holding his breath to keep listening. Leading him to a door he thought was locked, a room that hasn't seen use in years.
He almost decides not to look, to stand right here in front of the door and call the cops and have them deal with whatever it is.
He wants to know. Needs to know. What could drive a person to this.
When he opens the door, there's a body on the examination table. And a small frame curled in one corner, holding something in his hand.
There's blood on his face as Whitaker looks up at him.
He doesn't say anything. This has to be some kind of mistake, some explanation. He got bled on again and went down here to...hide, or something.
"Robby," the way he says his name is somewhere between a plea and mourning. Those blue eyes staring up at him, not angry or scared or remorseful. Just sad.
"I don't want to kill you."
He doesn't even register it as a threat at first, the way he says it so quietly. It's not until he moves again that he understands what he's seeing.
Whitaker lifts the bloody mass in his hand to his mouth, and takes a bite.