He didn’t, and he had her against a wall. Without a warrant, any more nudges could push her behind a legal blind. “Of course, but maybe you can tell me if his files contain any record of neurosurgery?”
She seemed tentative. “Well …” she began.
“Doctor, Grady Dixon has been dead for three years and it’s presumed he was kidnapped and murdered.” He was hoping the drama of that would override protocol.
“I see. Neurosurgery?” She glanced at the screen. “Well, no, nor would we have any record of that sort unless he had been a patient of ours. That’s a completely separate entity from what we do on site. Besides, I’d imagine the parents would have consulted neurospecialists in Tennessee.”
“Of course. And just who are the neurosurgeons here?”
“Actually, we have two: Dr. Stephen Kane and Dr. John Lubeck.”
He took down the names. “Is there a Julian Watts in your database?”
“Julian Watts. Why is that name familiar?” she asked. Then her expression contorted. “He wasn’t the boy murdered by his mother last week, was he?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Oh, how horrible. I read about that.”
“Can you check if he had taken a SchoolSmart test?”
She slowly turned to the computer again and tapped a few more keys. “Oh, my! He’s in the database … but he was not a SchoolSmart candidate.” She hit a few more keys. Then she sat back and stared at the screen, a look of surprise on her face. “He’s listed as a patient of Dr. Malenko.”
“Dr. Malenko?”
“Yes, he’s one of our neurologists. Dr. Lucius Malenko.”
“Do you have any idea why Julian was seeing Dr. Malenko?”
“I don’t, but even if I knew I couldn’t give you that information. Besides, Julian was one of his private patients.”
“Private patients?”
“From his private practice.” Then she glanced back at the screen. “I’m just surprised he didn’t mention the boy’s … what happened.”
Greg filed that away. Then he pulled out the schematic and showed her. “Any idea what kind of neurological procedure would have produced these holes?” He briefly explained the origin of the drawing.
She shook her head. “I’m a psychologist, not a neurologist.”
“Could they have been the results of some surgical treatment of epilepsy?”
“I suppose.”
The woman looked as is she were becoming uncomfortable with the interrogation, knowing full well that she didn’t have to proceed without a warrant. “One more question, if you don’t mind,” he said, without giving her a chance to respond. “How many people here have access to your database?”
“The entire professional staff.”
“I see.” He thanked her and left.
On the way out, he stopped at the reception desk again. “I’m wondering if I could speak to Dr. Malenko.”
“I’m afraid he’ll be out of town for a few days. Would you like to make an appointment?”
“When do you expect him back?”
“Next Thursday.”
“Do you have a number I can reach him at?”
“I can give you his other office. You can leave a voice message.”
“That’ll be fine.”
She jotted down the address and number on the back of the center’s card and handed it to him.
As he returned to his car, he noticed the slot for L. Malenko. Greg wasn’t sure what he had: two dead six-year-olds—one from Tennessee, the other from parts unknown. Two teenagers—one dead known teenager, one alive unknown teenager—both from the North Shore of Massachusetts. Except for the live one, they were all murder victims, one by his mother. The only commonality was their gender and the fact that each had neurosurgical bore holes in the skull. Two were connected to Nova Children’s Center. And two points determine a straight line.
He looked at the little white reserved parking sign. L. MALENKO.
Greg didn’t know why, but he had the prowling suspicion that this L. Malenko might connect a couple more points.
53
“Going back up there is outright insubordination, and you know that, Greg.”
Because of the traffic, he didn’t return to the office until nearly five. And the dispatcher said that Gelford wanted to see him in his office immediately.
Again, Gelford was not alone, but flanked by Chief Norm Adler and Internal Affairs Officer Rick Bolduk. Something told Greg that they were not here because of tardiness.
Gelford, of course, was ripped because Greg had gone against his notice to drop the Sagamore Boy case—which meant that this was a mano a mano thing—a personal offense against his supervisor who prided himself on running his ship on uncompromised discipline. But Gelford would hear him out first.
“I realize that, but I’m telling you, there’s a connection. What I need is a court order for that database.”
“And what’s that going to do?”
“It’s going to let me cross-reference missing children from three and four years ago with kids who were part of the SchoolSmart program.”
“Because one of your skull kids happened to take a test?”
“Yeah, and because three dead kids had similar holes in their skulls and two of them are linked to the Nova Children’s Center. And two of the three kids were very smart, and a fourth unknown and still alive has the same kind of holes. And I want a court order to obtain his identity and check his medical records. He too could be in their files.”
“Before you go banging on some judge’s door, you’ve got to have evidence that a crime’s been committed,” Rick Bolduk said. “All I’m hearing is circumstantial evidence.”
“I’ve got the testimony from two doctors who are convinced that these kids might have undergone some experimental procedure. And one of those kids, Grady Dixon, was kidnapped and possibly murdered. So was the Sagamore kid. That’s evidence enough for me.”
“They’re not our jurisdiction. None of them. We don’t own them,” Gelford said, his face turning red again. “One kid’s from Tennessee. The Sagamore kid is from God knows where.” He picked up the schematic of the North Shore boy’s X rays. “And this kid’s still wearing his head. There’s no goddamn crime.”
“There’s one more thing,” Greg said. “Two neurophysicians say that these patterns trace the areas of the brain associated with intelligence and memory.”
“So?”
“It’s possible some kind of experiment is being done on kids’ brains, maybe tampering with intelligence or memory. I don’t know, but I think it’s something nasty and should be investigated.”
All three of them stared at Greg as if he had just reported the landing of Martian spaceships.
Gelford, who was nearsighted, removed his glasses and picked up a fax lying on some other papers. “While you were gallivanting around the North Shore today, a Reed Callahan was severely beaten up and hospitalized by Mr. Ethan Cox. And in case you don’t recognize the latter’s name, he was assigned to you last week on the school break-in, and had you done your job and questioned these kids and brought him in as you were supposed to, Cox would have been behind bars before he tried to shut up the Callahan boy who’s now in the ICU of Cape Cod Hospital with a fucking concussion.” Gelford’s face was purple with rage.
“I got held up in traffic.”
“Maybe you were, but something tells me your distraction with this skull shit has compromised your attention, your efforts, and your abilities to fulfill your assigned duties. This Callahan kid may not come out of his coma. He might also die because Cox took a baseball bat to him, and you could have stopped him because he’s got three previous assaults on his record and two B and Es. He’s a fucking animal, and you didn’t go after him but flew off to Cape Ann to look for skulls.”