Tess Gerritsen - Harvest

Shit, DiMatteo. You're starting to sound desperate.

She scooped up her half of the junk mail, carried it to the trash can, and stepped on the pop-up lid pedal. Just as the mail was tumbling in, she glimpsed a large brown envelope stuffed at the bottom. The word yachts, printed in bold letters in the return address, caught her eye. She dug out the envelope and brushed off the coffee grounds and egg shells. At the top left was printed: East WindYachts Sales and Service Marblehead Marina It had been sent to Mark. But it was not addressed to their Brewster Street house. It had been sent to aPO Box.

She looked again at the words: Yacht Sales and Service.

She left the kitchen and went to Mark's desk in the living room.

The bottom drawer, where he kept his files, was locked, but she knew where the key was. She'd heard him plunk it into the pencil cup. She found the key and opened the drawer.

Inside were all his household files. Insurance papers, mortgage papers, car papers. She found a tab with BOAT written on it. There was a folder for Gimme Shelter, his J-35. There was also a second folder. It looked new. On the tab was written: H-48.

She pulled out the H-48 file. It was a sales contract from East Wind Marine. H-48 was an abbreviation for the boat's design. A Hinckley yacht, forty-eight feet long.

She sank into a chair, feeling sick. You kept it a secret, she thought. You told me you'd withdraw the offer. Then you bought it anyway. It's your money, all right. I guess this makes it perfectly clear.

Her gaze moved to the bottom of the page. To the terms of sale. Moments later, she walked out of the house.

"Cash for organs. Is it possible?"

In the midst of stirring cream into his coffee, Dr. Ivan Tarasoft stopped and glanced atVivian. "Do you have any proof this is going on?"

"Not yet. We're just asking you if it's possible. And if so, how could it be done?"

Dr. Tarasoft sank back on the couch and sipped his coffee as he thought it over. It was four-forty-five, and except for the occasional scrubsuited resident passing through to the adjoining locker room, the Mass Gen surgeons' lounge was quiet. Tarasoft, who'd come out of the OR only twenty minutes ago, still had a dusting of glove talc on his hands and a surgical mask dangling around his neck. Watching him, Abby was comforted, once again, by the image of her grandfather. The gentle blue eyes, the silver hair. The quiet voice. The voice of ultimate authority, she thought, belongs to the man who never has to raise it.

"There're been rumours, of course," saidTarasoff. "Every time a celebrity gets an organ, people wonder if money was involved. But there's never been any proof. Only suspicions."

"What rumours have you heard?"

"That one can buy a higher place on the waiting list. I myself have never seen it happen."

"I have," said Abby.

Tarasoft looked at her. "When?"

"Two weeks ago. Mrs. Victor Voss. She was third on the waiting list and she got a heart. The two people at the top of the list later died."

"UNOS wouldn't allow that. Or NEOB. They have strict guidelines."

"NEOB didn't know about it. In fact they have no record of the donor in their system."

Tarasoft shook his head. "This is hard to believe. If the heart didn't come through UNOS or NEOB, where did it come from?"

"We think Voss paid to keep it out of the system. So it could go to his wife," said Vivian.

"This is what we know so far," said Abby. "Hours before Mrs Voss's transplant, Bayside's transplant coordinator got a call from Wilcox Memorial in Burlington that they had a donor. The heart was harvested and flown to Boston. It arrived in our OR around 1 a.m., delivered by some doctor named Mapes. The donor papers came with it, but somehow they got misplaced. No one's seen them since. I looked up the name Mapes in the Directory of Medical Specialists. There's no such surgeon."

"Then who did the harvest?"

"We think it was a surgeon named Tim Nicholls. His name is listed in the Directory, so we know he does exist. According to his CV, he trained a few years at Mass Gen. Do you remember him?"

"Nicholls," murmured Tarasoft. He shook his head. "When was he here?"

"Nineteen years ago."

"I'd have to check the residency records."

"We're thinking this is what happened," said Vivian. "Mrs Voss needed a heart, and her husband had the money to pay for it. Somehow the word went out. Grapevine, underground, I don't know how. Tim Nicholls happened to have a donor. So he funnelled the heart directly to Bayside, bypassing NEOB. And various people got paid off. Including some of the Bayside staff."

Tarasoft looked horrified. "It's possible," he said. "You're right, it could happen that way."

The lounge door suddenly swung open and two residents walked in, laughing, as they headed for the coffee pot. They seemed to take forever as they fussed with the cream and sugar. At last they left the room.

Tarasoft was still looking stunned. "I've referred patients to Bayside myself. We're talking about one of the top transplant centres in the country. Why would they go outside the registry? Risk getting into trouble with NEOB and UNOS?"

"The answer's obvious," said Vivian. "Money."

Again they fell silent when another surgeon walked into the

HARVEST

lounge, his scrub top soaked with sweat. He gave a grunt of exhaustion and sank into one of the easy chairs. Leaning back, he closed his eyes.

Softly Abby said to Tarasoff: "We need you to look up the residency file on Tim Nicholls: Find out what you can about him. Tell us if he really did train here. Or if his CV's a complete fabrication."

"I'll just call him myself. Put the questions to him directly."

"No, don't. We're not sure yet how far this reaches."

"Dr. DiMatteo, I believe in being blunt. If there's a shadow organ procurement network out there, I want to know about it."

"So do we. But we have to be very careful, Dr. Tarasoft." Abby glanced uneasily at the dozing surgeon in the chair. She lowered her voice to a whisper. "In the last six years, three Bayside doctors have died. Two suicides and an accident. All of them were on our transplant team."

She saw, from the look of shock on his face, that her warning had had its intended effect. "You're trying to scare me," he said. "Aren't you?"

Abby nodded. "You should be scared. We all should."

Outside, in the parking lot, Abby and Vivian stood together under a grey, drizzling sky. They had arrived in their separate cars, and now it was time to go their own ways. The days were growing so short now; only five o' clock, and already the light was fading. Shivering, Abby pulled her slicker tighter and glanced around the lot. No maroon vans.

"We don't have enough," said Vivian. "We can't force an investigation yet. And if we tried, Victor Voss could just cover his tracks."

"NinaVoss wasn't the first one. I think Bayside's done this before. Aaron died with three million dollars in his account. He must have been getting payoffs for some time."

"You think he got second thoughts?"

"I know he was trying to get out of Bayside. Out of Boston. Maybe they wouldn't let him go."

"That could be what happened to Kunstler and Hennessy." Abby released a deep breath. Again she glanced around the lot, searching for the van. "I'm afraid that's exactly what happened to them."

"We need other names, other transplants. Or more donor information."

"All the information about donors is locked up in the transplant coordinator's office. I'd have to break in and steal it. If it's even there. Remember how they misplaced the donor papers on Nina Voss?"

"OK, so we go at it from the recipient side."

"Medical Records?"

Vivian nodded. "Let's find out the names of who got transplanted.

And where they were on the waiting list when it happened."