“OK,” Lou said. “Then let’s talk generalities. Did all these people have the same diagnosis?”
“No,” Jordan said.
“They didn’t?” Lou questioned. He visibly sagged. “Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure,” Jordan said.
Lou looked down at his blank pad and thought for a moment. Raising his eyes he asked: “Were these patients related in some unlikely way? For example, were they customarily seen on the same day, anything like that?”
“No,” Jordan said.
“Could their records have been kept together for some reason?”
“No, my records are alphabetical.”
“Could any of these patients have been seen on the same day as Cerino?”
“That I can’t say,” Jordan admitted. “But I can tell you this. When Mr. Cerino came to see me, he never saw any other patient nor did any other patient see him.”
“Are you sure of that?” Lou asked.
“Positive,” Jordan said.
The intercom connecting the surgical lounge to the OR crackled to life. One of the OR nurses told Jordan that his patient was in the room waiting for him.
Jordan got to his feet. Lou did the same.
“I’ve got surgery,” Jordan said.
“OK,” Lou said. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”
Lou put on his hat and walked out of the surgical lounge.
Jordan followed him to the door and watched as Lou continued down the long hallway to the main hospital elevators. He watched as Lou pushed the button, waited, then boarded and disappeared from view.
Jordan’s eyes swept the hallway for Cerino’s man. Stepping across the hall, he peered into the surgical waiting room. He was encouraged when he didn’t see the gaunt man anyplace.
Turning back into the surgical lounge, Jordan sighed. He was relieved that Lou had left. The meeting with him had left Jordan feeling more rattled than ever, and it wasn’t only because of the fear that Cerino’s man would see them talking. Jordan sensed the detective didn’t like him much, and that could mean trouble. Jordan was afraid he’d have to put up with the man’s annoying presence in the future.
Stepping into the men’s locker room, Jordan splashed his face with cold water. He needed to pull himself together to try to relax a moment before going into the OR and doing Cerino. But it wasn’t easy. So much was happening. His mind was in a turmoil.
One of the thoughts that was particularly disturbing was that he’d realized there was one way that the five homicides were related, including Mary O’Connor. He’d realized it while Lou Soldano had been talking with him, but Jordan had chosen not to say anything about it. And the fact that he had so chosen confused him. He didn’t know if the reason he’d not mentioned it was because he wasn’t sure of its significance or because it scared him. Jordan certainly did not want to become a victim himself.
Walking down toward the operating room where Paul Cerino was waiting, Jordan decided that the safest course of action for him was to do nothing. After all, he was in the middle.
Suddenly Jordan stopped. He’d realized something else. Despite all these problems, he was doing more surgery than ever. There had to be another part to it all. As he started walking again, it all began to make a kind of grotesque, malicious sense. He picked up his pace. Definitely playing dumb was the way he should handle it. It was the safest by far. And he liked to do surgery.
Pushing into the operating room, he went up to Cerino, who was significantly sedated.
“We’ll have you done in no time,” Jordan said. “Just relax.”
After giving Cerino a pat on the shoulder, Jordan turned and headed out to scrub. As he passed one of the orderlies in scrubs, he realized it wasn’t one of the orderlies. Jordan had recognized the eyes. It was the gaunt one.
11
4:30 p.m., Friday
Manhattan
Laurie was hesitant to visit the lab again. She didn’t want to risk another run-in with John DeVries. But attempting any more paperwork just then was ridiculous. She was far too distracted. She decided to find Peter. Surely he had to have more results by then.
“I know you promised to call if you found anything,” Laurie said once she’d found him, “but I couldn’t help but stop by just to check how you were doing.”
“I haven’t found a contaminant yet,” Peter said. “But I did learn something that might be significant. Cocaine is metabolized in the body in a variety of different ways producing a variety of metabolites. One of the metabolites is called benzoylecgonine. When I calculated the ratio of cocaine and benzoylecgonine in the blood, urine, and brain of your victims, I can estimate the amount of time from injection to death.”
“And what did you find?” Laurie asked.
“I found it was pretty consistent,” Peter said. “Roughly an hour in thirteen of the fourteen. But in one of the cases it was different. For some reason Robert Evans had practically no benzoylecgonine at all.”
“Meaning?” Laurie questioned.
“Meaning that Robert Evans died very quickly,” Peter said. “Maybe within minutes. Maybe even less, I really can’t say.”
“What do you think the significance is?” Laurie questioned.
“I don’t know,” Peter said. “You’re the medical detective, not me.”
“I suppose he could have suffered an instantaneous cardiac arrhythmia.”
Peter shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. “And I haven’t given up on a contaminant. But if I find something, it’s going to be in nanomoles.”
Leaving the toxicology department, Laurie felt discouraged. Despite all her efforts she didn’t feel any further along in her investigation of these unlikely overdoses than she had been at the start. Intending to talk again with George Fontworth and have him explain what had surprised him on the autopsies, Laurie descended to the basement level and poked her head into the autopsy room. She didn’t see George, but she saw Vinnie and asked about George.
“He left about an hour ago,” Vinnie said.
Laurie went upstairs to George’s office. The door was open but he wasn’t there. Since his room was adjacent to one of the serology labs, Laurie went in and asked if anyone had seen George.
“He had a dentist’s appointment,” one of the techs said. “He mentioned he’d be back later, but he didn’t know when.”
Laurie nodded.
Stepping out of the lab, she paused outside George’s office. From where she was standing she could see the autopsy folders from the two overdose cases he’d handled that day.
Looking over her shoulder to make sure no one was watching, Laurie stepped into the office and opened the top folder. It was Julia Myerholtz’s file. That was the case George had been working on when Laurie had gone over to his table. She hastily read through George’s autopsy notes. Immediately she understood what he had meant by the “surprise.” Obviously he’d responded the same way Laurie had with Duncan Andrews.
Looking at the forensic investigator’s report, Laurie noticed that the victim had been identified at the scene by “Robert Nussman, boyfriend.”
Taking a piece of scratch paper from a pad on George’s desk, Laurie jotted down Julia’s address.
Laurie was just about to open the second file when she heard someone coming down the hall. Sheepishly, she closed the folder, pocketed the piece of scrap paper, and stepped back out into the hall. She nodded and smiled guiltily as one of the histology techs passed by.
Although Bingham had chastised Laurie for visiting Duncan Andrews’ apartment, she decided she would go to Julia Myerholtz’s place. Hailing a cab, she convinced herself that Bingham’s anger had more to do with the unique fact that the case was such a political hot potato. He hadn’t objected to examination of the scene per se-or so Laurie rationalized.
Julia’s apartment was in a large posh building on East Seventy-fifth Street. Laurie was quite surprised when the doorman came to the curb to open her door for her as she paid the cab fare. It amazed her to experience the kind of style some people enjoyed in the city. The ambience was certainly a far cry from her own in Kips Bay.