Ridley Pearson - The Angel Maker

"Miles," he said to his sleeping six-month-old child in the carrier, "this is the 'other woman' I've told you so much about."

"He's adorable."

"I hope he gets his mother's hair.",And her brains," Daphne said. He glanced down at the folders and then up at her, disapprovingly. "You're not supposed to take these out of the office," he declared. "They aren't ours. Dixie gave them to me," she said, referring to the chief pathologist of the medical examiner's office. "He thought they might help convince you that we have something."

"We?"

"I need a partner, someone with whom Shoswitz will allow me to partner. As of this morning, Dixie is a believer, but I can't very well partner with a pathologist."

"Wait a minute! I agreed to be a sounding board, that's all. There are a dozen guys who could run with this thing." His eyes strayed to the folders again, and she realized she was taking the wrong approach with him. For Lou Boldt, it was always the victims-the evidence-that did the talking.

She said, "You take each one of these autopsies separately, and they don't say much. You add them up, and we've got a problem."

Boldt leaned forward, his big hand shielding the boy's small head, and dragged the folders across the table. "Maybe I don't want to read these," he said, sensing the trap they represented. She willed him to open the top folder-just get him started, that was all it would take. "Sure you do," she argued. "Three of them? You're suggesting a pattern?" he said, thinking aloud. "Pathology reports-so they're dead. They're connected to what happened to Cindy Chapman, or I wouldn't be here, would I?"

She leaned forward and nudged the files even closer. "If Dixie came up with these, then the pattern, the similarity between them, has to do with the way in which they were killed."

"The way they died," she corrected. "And who they were or weren't. All three filed as unsolved cases. There may be more." "Runaways?"

"They make such nice victims: No one knows they're here; no one knows they're gone."

"Don't do this to me."

"To you? This isn't about you.- She ran her red nail down the spine of each folder. "This is about Glenda Sherman, Peter Blumenthal and Julia Walker."

He reached for the first folder, but stopped himself once again.

She said, "How do you prove something like this? He's counting on that-whoever is doing this. He's counting on our paying no attention. These kids are as good as John Does to us. They're nobodies."

"I want to help, to do what I can, but it's not easy. There are a lot of forces at play here. Even if I did reactivate, there's no saying I'd end up on this particular ticket."

"I'm not buying that. The lieutenant would do anything to have you back. He'd meet any conditions you laid out. Scheduling, day care, anything. What's the latest with the IRS? I I "You don't miss a beat, do you?"

The baby spit out the pacifier. Boldt caught it in a reflex only time or instinct had developed. She was in over her head. There were a lot of forces at play. He returned the pacifier to the waiting lips. He placed his huge hand on the boy's tiny head and encouraged him back to sleep. "You're a natural."

"Cherish or perish."

"Maybe you're right. Maybe you shouldn't read these files. I don't want to take you away from him."

"Smooth. Very smooth."

"I mean it."

"I know you mean it. That's the problem." /'You didn't answer me-about the IRS? I I "We have to make an appointment. Liz and I. She's our accountant."

"Is it a big deal?"

"If it means more money, yes, it's a big deal. Liz had a horrible delivery..

"Yes, I heard."

"It ran into some serious money. Insurance companies are wonderful until you show them the bill. Anyway … You want to remind me that I'm in a financial bind and that Liz and I could use a second income, that I could borrow from the credit union. I know what you're up to. Point taken. Okay?" He scrunched his nose. "Do you smell something?" He grabbed the bag and stood. "In a minute everyone in the library will smell it. My son and I are going to pay a little visit to the boy's room."

"You read these," she persisted, "and you realize he's a surgeon. Has to be. That gives us a place to start." "A surgeon?" he asked, eyeing the folders.

She reached over and hoisted the top folder. "Can you read and change diapers at the same time?"

"Absolutely not."

"Then let me," she said, motioning for the baby. "You won't like it. It's messy."

"You read the files, I'll handle Mr. Miles."

"You're a poet."

She motioned again for the child. Boldt unfastened the carrier and passed his son to her, along with the bag. "Cloth diapers," she noticed. "Classy."

"Environmentally sound. That's Liz-ever the proper mother and citizen. "Read," she chided. She didn't want to hear about Liz.

When she returned, wondering whether she could ever live with doing that several times a day, his face was buried in one of the files. The two others were spread open in front of him. Fast reader. Fast learner. Lou Boldt. "How sure are you about this?" he asked. Accepting Miles, he thanked her and attempted to return him to the carrier. Fully awake, the boy struggled to be free, tying up Boldt's hands and attention. "Cindy Chapman the woman who sought out The Shelter-is missing a kidney." She touched the files. "All three of these kids died from hemorrhaging associated with a," and she quoted," 'surgically absent' organ. Two kidneys: Walker and Sherman. Blumenthal was missing a lung. I think we may have a doctor selling stolen organs on the black market."

"A black market for organs?"

She fingered the photocopies in front of her. "Is it so impossible a thought? I have a half-dozen articles here: Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, fama, New England Journal of Medicine. In Third World countries, harvesting is an everyday occurrence. That's what it's called: organ harvesting. Nice ring to it, huh? Organized, well run. Quite the business. Fifteen thousand dollars a kidney-that's the going rate. Fifteen thousand. it's so obvious that something like this would grow out of the lack of donor organs. Transplant technology has outraced supply. It's all in here," she said, again tapping her copies of the articles. "There are not enough far-sighted people out there who think to become donors prior to their deaths. Livers, kidneys, lungs, hearts, ovaries, testicles, eyes, bone marrow, you name it. There's a shortage in nearly every category. And what happens when there's a shortage? It's simple economics. Third World countries are hit the worst because they lack the technology for life-support: the dialysis machines, the respirators. Egypt, India, Argentina, Brazil-kidneys practically trade on the open market. If you're an Egyptian farmer who's had a bad crop, you go into the city and sell one of your kidneys. You come home a few weeks later with ten years' worth of income. And when those organs are in short supply? Maybe the doctors there turn to their colleagues overseas."

"Fifteen grand a kidney?"

"Lungs about the same. Livers and hearts go for ten to twenty times that."

"But not here. Not in this country."

"Not in my backyard? Come on! What would you pay to stay alive? What happens when you find yourself number one hundred and fifty on an organ donor list where they're averaging three transplants a month and your doctor has given you six months to live? You start making inquiries. You beg, borrow, or steal the money necessary, and you buy what no one will donate. You establish a market. Where there's demand, someone will supply. It never fails. If you're a doctor, can you imagine how frustrating it must be to see your patients die because so few people will take the time to fill out a couple of forms?"

"You're right about it giving us a way to investigate it." "Us? You said 'us."' "What you do is identify their method of selection."