Ridley Pearson - The Angel Maker

"You're probably right." She picked up the autopsy photos and studied them intently. She was getting caught up in this as well. "That's a large incision for a kidney. Did I mention that?" "Large?" Boldt asked. "Is that significant?" She had mentioned it, he realized; he'd even made a note of it on the top of the page. Was the surgical method unique? Would it provide them with a "signature" that they could later use to prosecute a suspect? He caught himself holding his breath, waiting for her.

She appeared so deeply in thought for such a long time that he wondered if she had forgotten his question. She tested her coffee and avoided his eyes in a way that prevented him from interrupting.

Miles was being a real pain in the ass. He wouldn't hold still.

Boldt tried to occupy him with a plastic ring, but Miles wasn't having anything to do with it. He wanted some floor space. He wanted some moving room.

She finally said, "This incision is larger than necessary. These closure techniques are antiquated. It's doubtful that this is the work of a contemporary surgeon. A retiree is more likely. Unless the surgeon simply doesn't care how it comes out. But cosmetics are an important part of any surgery: Keeping the scar small. The subcutaneous closure is a continuous-interlocking stitch. It's an unusual stitch, but very strong."

Boldt wrote down in large letters: STITCHING. Retiree? This meant something, though he didn't know what. More to investigate; more to work with. Impatience stole into him-a cop's biggest enemy. Where was Sharon Shaffer at this moment? What had they done to her? What did they have planned for her?

Dr. Light Horse glanced at her watch, and Boldt took his cue.

He packed up Miles, put his notebook away. As she walked them to the elevator, he stopped and said, "Let me ask you this … If type O is the best blood type for transplants, why would this harvester want someone with type AB-negative?"

Bloodlines had provided Boldt with Sharon's records that included her blood type. The Professor had confirmed that the blood found on the chair in her apartment was also AB-negative.

She appeared puzzled. "Is this person soliciting organs?" He explained, "We believe he's kidnapped a woman. She's blood type AB-negative, not O." Her face tightened. "What is it?" he asked. "AB-negative is an extremely rare blood group."

"So I'm told. But what's that mean for a transplant?" She led him over to a string of seats by a Coke machine. He felt nervous, worried about Sharon. She obviously felt this would require some explanation.

Miles liked the lights of the Coke machine; he seemed mesmerized.

She explained, "The human body is blessed with an immune system to fight disease. The technical aspects of transplant surgery were pretty much worked out twenty years ago. Haven't been improved much since then. The main avenue of research has been into convincing the body's immune system not to destroy the transplanted organ. The body will reject any organ to some degree, unless it is from an identical twin. Blood is a tissue. A transfusion is the simplest example of a tissue transplant. Are you with me?" Boldt nodded. "We all belong to certain blood groups, and many of those blood groups are incompatible with one another. An organ is made up of both a blood type and several different tissue types, making matching-for the transplant surgeon-even more complex. The focus for the last twenty years has been to suppress the body's immune system far enough to accept a transplanted organ, but no so far as to allow infection. That's a fine line. in the past five years, drugs have come a long way in helping to accomplish that. One day soon, immune suppression may be a thing of the past. But for the present, in the more critical organs-the heart, the liver, the pancreas-you need an organ not only the right size but also the best possible tissue match. The closer the match, the less rejection; the less you have to suppress the immune system, the less chance of a fatal infection. Okay? We talked about kidneys. It is true that type O organs transplant well because O is accepted more easily by the other blood groups. The body puts up less of a fight. If someone is selling organs, as you suggest, it makes sense to procure type O-it's your biggest market; not only the largest blood group but a good second choice if you don't have an exact blood-type match. Type ABNEGATIVE is less than four percent of the population. In the major organs, if you had an AB-negative recipient, you'd want an AB-negative donor to have any chance at all."

"A custom job, is that what you're saying?"

She cringed at the term. "It's a specific match. That is what I'm saying. A special order."

The elevator opened. Dr. Light Horse caught it and held it for Boldt and his restless passenger.

She walked him to the front of the building. She walked quickly, expecting him to keep up.

As they stopped to shake hands, she said, "The implications of what you're suggesting are horrible, of course. The medical community as a whole and surgeons in particular are just beginning to address ways of more closely monitoring the donor crisis. If more people donated their organs at death, we wouldn't be seeing any of this. If you're looking for a possible candidate," she continued, "I would start with surgeons reprimanded by the AMA-someone suspended and out of work. Frustrated. Angry. I assume we agree this person is deranged, and such thinking could easily distort the Hippocratic Oath. As doctors, we're sworn to save human life wherever possible. He or she reasons that the donor can get by on one kidney, that the recipient will die without that replacement organ. You have three dead, you said. Three out of a hundred or three out of five? That is how he is thinking. He may be playing percentages, I'm sorry to say." She touched his arm. "All this is just the long way of saying that it could be anyone disturbed enough to convince himself that what he's doing is not only acceptable, but ethically sound. He may see himself as an angel of mercy."

Mention of the word "angel" triggered vivid images from his youth. He remembered playing in the snow, lying down and fanning his arms and legs so that the impression he left behind resembled that of an angel. Only now he saw things differently: Inside that impression lay the bleached white bones of a skeleton. He said, "An angel? Hardly. An angel maker is more like it."

It gave Pamela Chase a sense of importance to be summoned at a moment's notice out to the farm. He needed her! Perhaps he would make love to her again; perhaps his calling-her out here had nothing whatsoever to do with work, as his phone call had implied.

A low, mid-morning smoke-gray fog hung over the area where the farm sat, running from the ground to the tops of the tall trees that rimmed the ridges behind it. She spotted the fog only briefly before disappearing into it, and this made her wonder whether you ever saw things for what they were while you were inside them, a part of them.

The fog forced her to drive more slowly, and it gave her a few minutes to think. Seemed like all she did was think-that's how a person all alone spends her time, she thought, trapped inside your thoughts and dreams as this car was trapped inside the fog. Moving slowly. Crawling. Waiting for the phone to ring. Waiting for the workday to start. Waiting. Always thinking ahead, never really being where you are, but somewhere you hope to be. Strange way to live your life.

She parked alongside his Trooper and watched the mud as she climbed out, because she had been on her way to work when the phone had rung and wasn't very well prepared for the conditions out here. She loved the man-that was her problem. He knew it, too, which put her at a disadvantage because there was little she wouldn't do for him, and he made the most of it. With sex now part of their relationship, she wondered where it might lead next. Either it would turn magical or sour-no telling which. If those tics of his were any indication, then it was going sour. She wasn't sure where they had come from, but it gave her an incredibly creepy feeling each time one happened, and they were getting worse. No doubt about that.