J. Robb - Conspiracy in Death

Eve brooded for a minute before reminding herself that her personal business couldn't interfere with the job. "The killer has to be trained, and highly skilled, in laser surgery and organ removal."

"Yes, I read Dr. Morris's conclusions and agree. This doesn't, however, mean you're looking for a member of the medical community." She held up a finger before Eve could protest. "He could be retired or he could have, as many, many surgeons do, burnt out. Quite obviously he's lost his way, or he would never have violated the most sacred of oaths and taken a life. Whether or not he's licensed and practicing, I can't tell you."

"But you agree that if not now, at one time he was."

"Yes. Undoubtedly, based on your findings at scene and Morris's postmortem, you're looking for someone with specific skills that require years of training and practice."

Considering, Eve angled her head. "And what would you say about the type of person who could coldly and skillfully murder an essentially dying man for an essentially worthless organ, then save the next patient under his care on the table in the operating room?"

"I would say it's a possible type of megalomania. The God complex many doctors possess. And very often need to possess," she added, "in order to have the courage, even the arrogance to cut into the human body."

"Those who do, enjoy it."

"Enjoy?" Mira made a humming sound. "Perhaps. I know you don't care for doctors, but most have a vocation, a great need to heal. In any highly skilled profession there are those who are… brusque," she said. "Those who forget humility." She smiled a little. "It isn't your humility that makes you an excellent cop but your innate belief in your own talent for the job."

"Okay." Accepting that, Eve sat back, nodded.

"However, it's also your compassion that keeps you from forgetting why the job matters. Others in your field and in mine lose that."

"With cops who do, the job becomes routine, with maybe a little power tweaked in," Eve commented. "With doctors, you'd have to add money."

"Money's a motivator," Mira agreed. "But it takes years for a doctor to pay back the financial investment in his education and training. There are other, more immediate compensations. Saving lives is a powerful thing, Eve, having the talent, the skill to do so is for some a kind of burst of light. How can they be like others when they've put their hands into a human body and healed it?"

She paused, sipped contemplatively at her tea. "And for some among that personality type," she continued in her soft, soothing voice, "there can and often is the defense of emotional distance. This is not a human under my scalpel, but a patient, a case."

"Cops do the same."

Mira looked straight into Eve's eyes. "Not all cops. And the ones who don't, who can't, might suffer, but they make much more of a difference. In this investigation, I think we can agree straight off on some basic points. You are not looking for someone with a personal grudge against the victim. He is not driven by rage or violence. He is controlled, purposeful, organized, and detached."

"Wouldn't any surgeon have to be?" Eve asked.

"Yes. He performed an operation, successfully, for his purpose. He cares about his work, demonstrated by the time and effort he took in the operation. Organ removal and transplant is well out of my field, but I am aware that when the donor's life is not a concern, such a procedure doesn't require this kind of meticulous care. The careful incision, the sealing of the wound. He's proud of what he is, very likely past the point of arrogance. He is not afraid of consequences, in my opinion, because he doesn't believe there will be any. He is above that."

"He doesn't fear being caught?"

"No, he doesn't. Or he feels protected in the event his actions are discovered. I would conclude that he is successful – whether he is now actively practicing or not – secure, devoted to his task, and very likely enjoys some prominence in his circle."

Mira sipped her tea again, frowned. "I should say they. Your report stated there were two involved. I would think it would be standard practice to bring an anesthesiologist or trained assistant to handle that end of the procedure, or a second surgeon with some knowledge of anesthesia to assist."

"They didn't have to worry about the patient surviving, Eve pointed out. "But I'd think he wouldn't settle for anyone but the best. And it would have to be someone he trusted."

"Or controlled. Someone he knew was loyal to the purpose."

Eve lifted her cup, then had to control a wince when she remembered it wasn't coffee. "What's the purpose?"

"As to the motive behind taking the heart, I only see two avenues. One is profit, which seems very narrow, given Dr. Morris's evaluation of the victim's overall health. The second would be experimentation."

"What kind of experiments?"

Mira lifted a hand, waved it vaguely. "I don't know, but I'll tell you, as a doctor myself, the possibility frightens me. During the height of the Urban Wars, illegal experimentation on the dead and dying was quietly accepted. It wasn't the first time in history atrocities were commonplace, but one always hopes it would be the last. The justification then was that so much could be learned, other lives saved, but there is no justification."

She set her tea aside, folded her hands on her lap. "I'm praying, Eve, that this is an isolated incident. Because if it's not, what you're dealing with is more dangerous than murder. You could be dealing with a mission, cloaked under a veil of the greater good."

"Sacrifice the few to save the many?" Eve shook her head slowly. "It's a stand that's been taken before. It always crumbles."

"Yes." There was something of pity and something of fear in Mira's quiet eyes. "But never soon enough."

Most people were creatures of habit. Eve figured a second rate chemi-dealer who enjoyed gobbling up his own products would follow the rule. If memory served, Ledo liked to spend his worthless days fleecing suckers at Compu-Pool or Sexcapades at a nasty little joint called Gametown.

She didn't think a few years in a cage would have changed his recreational choices.

In the bowels of downtown, the buildings were slicked with filth, the streets scattered with it. After a recycling crew had been attacked, their bones broken and their truck destroyed, the union had crossed this four-block section off the list. There wasn't a city employee who ventured into what was known as the Square without combat gear and stunners. It was in their contract.

Eve wore a riot vest under her jacket and had ordered Peabody to do the same. It wouldn't keep them from getting their throats slit, but it would stop a knife to the heart.

"Put your stunner on wide range," Eve ordered, and though Peabody exhaled sharply, she said nothing.

Her run on cults that linked any knowns to the type of murder they were investigating had turned up nothing. She'd been relieved. Having dealt with that kind of terror and butchery once, Peabody knew she'd live happily never having to deal with it again.

But as they drove into the Square, she thought she'd take a few bloodthirsty Satan worshipers over the residents of this sector any day of the week.

The streets weren't empty, but they were quiet. Action here waited for dark. The few who loitered in doorways or roamed the sidewalks did so with their eyes sharp and moving, their hands in pockets that held a weapon of choice.

Midway down a block, a Rapid Cab rested on its roof like an upturned turtle. Its windows were smashed, its tires stripped, and several interesting sexual suggestions had already been spray painted over its sides.

"Driver must have been brain damaged to bring a fare down here," Eve muttered as she swung around the abandoned cab.