I guess ‘winter’ had finally arrived in New Orleans. A cold front had blown through during the day – and I use the term ‘cold’ front loosely. Any temperature below sixty is considered ‘cold’ in New Orleans, and the news on the radio in the Anatomy Office said the high for the day would only reach forty degrees. Burrrrr! And to make matters worse, by the time I left for the day, it had started to rain.
The weather didn’t do anything to help my frame of mind that evening. The vision of all those bodies, where they were going, and what was going to happen to them kept running through my mind over and over again like a bad sci-fi film. I tried to find a logical explanation for everything I had found. Surely there couldn’t be anything illegal going on in such a respected institution. But the questions kept popping into my head. Were the bodies I had seen in the coolers the ‘biological specimens’ listed on the invoices? Who or what was Delta Biologicals? Who was PPS, and what did they do? Why were they paying so much for the ‘specimens’, and where was that money going?
No matter what scenario I devised, I kept coming to the same conclusion – someone was selling bodies or body parts, which was not only illegal, but, in my mind, completely immoral. The people who had donated their bodies had done so because they wanted to give their most precious possession – their body – to help educate future physicians. Not only did this kind of activity violate the trust that those people had put in the institution, but I kept thinking about how the families of those individuals would feel if they knew that their loved ones were being bought and sold like pieces of meat.
The smart thing for me to do would be to forget about what I had found, walk away from it, and mind my own business. After all, what could I do about it if what I suspected was indeed true? Who could I go to with this information? Dr. Roberts? Definitely not! If my suspicions were correct, he not only already knew about it, but was probably behind it in the first place. Go over his head to the school administrators? It would be my word against his. Guess who’d come out ahead on that one.
And, I reminded myself, I’d been helping to prepare cadavers down in the morgue since I came to the medical school. I could be accused of being a part of whatever was going on. Even if someone believed me, I had no proof. By the time an investigation could take place, I was sure all the bodies would be gone. And since the invoices only listed ‘biological specimens’, that could mean anything and be easily explained away. The reality was that no matter what happened, if I said anything, my career would be over.
Going to sleep that night wasn’t easy. I kept waking up at various times throughout the night, then couldn’t go back to sleep. The last time I turned over to check the clock, it read five o’clock. There didn’t seem to be any point in just laying there thinking, so after extricating myself from the sheets, I made my way to the kitchen to make some coffee.
The coffee was both a good and bad idea. Sure, it helped to jump start my heart (did I mention I’m not a morning person), but, with the little sleep that I had gotten, it made me shaky as hell. My mind was racing, and I couldn’t seem to focus. I kept going back over the question of what, if anything, I was going to do about what I suspected. I forced myself to eat a little breakfast, thinking that food might stabilize my blood sugar and keep me from having a total meltdown.
By the time I got to my office, I felt at least half-way human, and I had made a decision. I’d keep quiet about what I had seen and try to carefully gather more information, or should I say, evidence, to confirm my suspicions. ‘Carefully’ being the key word here. Looking back now, I guess you could say that I was still in a state of denial that the people I respected, even if I didn’t actually like them, would be involved in such a disgusting business. But to be totally honest, I think part of my decision not to act too quickly was made out of fear – not fear that they would hurt me, but fear for my career. Sort of a ‘cover your ass’ decision.
One of the first things I’d do would be to see what I could find out about the company known as PPS or Phoenix Procurement Services. Since my course hadn’t started yet, I had some time to do a little investigating. I’m always amazed at what you can find on the internet. Using various search engines, I was able to find PPS and to gather some information about who they were and what they did.
In essence, they were what are called ‘body brokers’, who act as middle men between sources that have donated bodies, like medical schools, and whoever needs them for medical research, surgical seminars, or other purposes. For a fee, they will provide bodies – whole or in parts. Some brokers are legitimate businesses, but some are only a very small step above ‘body snatchers’.
Since I knew that they were doing business with Delta Biologicals, and not directly with the Medical College, my guess was that PPS didn’t care very much about where they got their ‘specimens’. And I was right. My internet search yielded more damaging information about PPS. As it turned out, PPS had been investigated on more than one occasion for illegitimate practices. Most of the cases were dismissed for lack of evidence – no remains and no paper trail. Even when they were found guilty of some infraction, all they got was a slap on the wrist and a minimum fine. Since body brokering was such a lucrative business, I doubted that they even noticed the monetary consequences that had been imposed.
My next step was to find out about Delta Biologicals. That turned out not to be so easy. I couldn’t find a thing about them on the internet, but what I did find out was that, if they were a real company doing business in the state of Louisiana, they had to be listed on the government roles somewhere. But they weren’t! After searching the internet and finding nothing, I contacted the city and state government offices directly to see if they were listed anywhere. No such company existed in the state of Louisiana.
Okay. Now I know that whatever is going on, it probably isn’t legal. So what do I do now? I still didn’t know who was behind it all. I had a pretty good idea, but I had to find out for sure. And the only person who I could trust to ask was Kyle.
Kyle was a good man who worked hard to take care of his family. I knew he wasn’t the mastermind behind something like this. All he was doing was following orders to keep his job. We had developed a pretty good working relationship, and I hoped that he would trust me enough to tell me what was going on.
I made my way down to the morgue hoping that Kyle would be down there. I had thought about having one of the secretaries page him and tell him that I needed to see him, but had decided against that. I thought it best if I approached him without any warning. When I got to the morgue, however, the door was locked. After knocking several times and getting no answer, I turned to leave. Just then, Kyle came around the corner, headed for the morgue.
“Hey, Sarah,” he said when he saw me. “What are you doing down here?”
“Hi, Kyle. I wasn’t too busy, so I thought I’d see if you needed any help down here.”
“Naw. I’ve got everything covered,” he said, as he unlocked the door of the morgue and started to enter the room.
“Kyle, there was something else I wanted to talk to you about. Have you got a minute?”
He looked at me kind of funny and hesitated a bit. “Sure. Okay.” He turned and walked into the morgue room, and I followed behind him.
Now that I was there, I really didn’t know exactly how to go about asking him the questions I had, so I just plunged right in before I could change my mind.
“Kyle. Who or what is Delta Biologicals?”
He turned and looked at me. He was obviously stunned by my question. He didn’t say anything right away, so I kept going, my words coming faster and faster.
“The other day when I was working down here, I saw a list of body donations and an invoice for specimens made out to a company called Delta Biologicals, and I was just wondering what Delta Biologicals is and what specimens they were referring to because I’ve never heard of Delta Biologicals, and I haven’t seen any ‘specimens’ in the whole time I’ve been working here.” I probably would have kept going, but I had to come up for air.
Kyle walked over to his desk and, without turning around, he said, “You shouldn’t be asking those questions, Sarah. It’s none of your business, and asking questions can only get you into trouble.”
“Kyle. Maybe it is my business. I’ve been working down here with you for months, helping with the donated bodies. If something’s not right, I need to know about it, or it could come back on me, too. Please, Kyle. Just tell me what Delta Biologicals is?”
I could see the indecision on his face and the fear in his eyes. He wanted to tell me, but was afraid. Then he said softly, “Delta Biologicals is Dr. Roberts.”
I knew it! But hearing him say it took my breath away. It took me a few seconds to start breathing again.
“Is Dr. Orrick involved?”
“He does what Dr. Roberts tells him to do.”
“Can you tell me exactly what’s going on and how long it’s been going on?”
“No. That’s all I’m going to say. And you have to give me your word that you’ll just forget what I said. For your own good.” His hands were shaking, and he said quickly, “I’ll just deny it if you ever tell anyone I told you that.”
I could see that there was no point in pushing him any further. I was only upsetting both of us. Besides, I had gotten my answer.
“Okay, Kyle,” I said. “As far as I’m concerned, this conversation never happened.” I turned and left the morgue.
When I got back to my office, I just sat there, thinking about what I now knew, and contemplating what I would or could do next. The only thing I really knew for sure was that Yancey Roberts operated an undocumented business under the name of Delta Biologicals that provided some kind of specimens to a company named PPS. When I really thought about it, that was about all I knew, and I only knew that because of a few pieces of paper and what Kyle had told me. The rest was all in my imagination. I didn’t have any proof that anything underhanded or illegal was going on. And even if I did, what, if anything, could I do about it.
The more I thought about it that night after I got home, the more I convinced myself that I should just mind my own business and stop letting my mind conjure up such bizarre plots. The whole thing was ridiculous. I really needed to get out more. This was a major medical school, and these were well respected, if not entirely likable, professors. There had to be a logical explanation for all of it. Nothing bad or illegal was going on or someone would have found out about it a long time ago.
By the time I went to bed, I had put the whole thing out of my mind, and I slept quite peacefully – with a little help from Monsieur Chardonnay.