Robin Cook - Marker

"What's going on?" Lou asked. "Are you okay? Aren't you going to do the case?"

Laurie turned and faced her friend. Her eyes were brimming with tears.

"Hey," Lou said. "What is with you?" He pulled off his mask, peeled off the gown covering his street clothes, and enveloped her in a sustained hug. She didn't resist.

After several minutes, Lou leaned back to see Laurie's face, still keeping his arms around her. She worked her arm up between them and wiped her eyes with her hand, then dried it on the front of her scrub shirt.

"Are you ready to talk?" Lou asked softly.

Laurie nodded but made no attempt to free herself from Lou's embrace. She took a deep breath, started to talk, stuttered, and then stopped to wipe her eyes again.

"Take your time," Lou urged.

"I'm afraid I know the identity of the headless body," Laurie said finally in a halting voice. "It's Roger Rousseau, my friend from the Manhattan General."

"Good God!" Lou said, half in sympathy and half in irritation. "Now you see why I said amateur sleuthing is dangerous."

"I don't need a lecture," Laurie said. She pushed herself out of Lou's arms.

"I'm sorry, I know you don't, but this is a disaster."

"Tell me about it," Laurie challenged. "This person was someone important in my life, and I'm the one who put him up to what he did. Oh, God, what a mess!" Laurie cradled her head in both hands.

"Excuse me, Dr. Montgomery, but that's not what happened. You made a suggestion for him to come up with some names. Unless I'm off base, you didn't put him up to going around talking to people. That was his idea."

"At the moment, that seems like an academic distinction," Laurie said while letting her hands fall to her sides.

"Are you going to do the case?" Lou asked.

"No, I'm not going to do the case," Laurie snapped.

"Okay, okay. You don't have to get mad at me. I'm on your side."

"Sorry," Laurie said with a shake of her head.

Robert Harper, the head of security, passed by Laurie's line of sight down near the walk-in cooler. After disappearing in the direction of the autopsy room, he did a double take and returned to view. He quickly approached.

"The media people are getting restless," Robert reported. "They've heard about the headless corpse and now insist on getting details."

"How did they hear about the new arrival?" Laurie demanded.

Robert made a questioning gesture with his hands. "I've no idea. Marlene just called me to come up there to calm them down."

Laurie looked at Lou. Lou put up his hands. "I didn't tell them."

Laurie shook her head dejectedly. "This is a circus."

"What should I tell them?" Robert asked.

"Tell them that I'm calling the deputy chief."

"I doubt that will satisfy them."

"It's going to have to," Laurie said. She pushed between both men and walked out of the storeroom on her way back to the autopsy room.

Robert and Lou exchanged a quick glance before Robert headed back upstairs. Lou went after Laurie. By quickening his step, he caught up with her. "Rousseau's got to be posted," he said.

"You don't have to tell me what I already know," Laurie said. She pushed open the autopsy door, leaned in, and told Marvin to take a break and that she would be back to him in a little while. She then headed for the back elevator. Lou followed.

As they rode up in the elevator cab, Lou looked at Laurie, who stared back. For the moment, her shock and sadness had turned to anger.

"Maybe this is the wake-up call," Laurie said. "Maybe now all you naysayers will think a bit more seriously about this series of mine."

"I beg to differ," Lou corrected. "Rousseau's death does not unequivocally validate that the deaths of the patients in your series are homicides. All it does is confirm that we have a killer at the Manhattan General who is targeting doctors and nurses. Maybe this individual is killing patients, maybe he's not. Avoid jumping to conclusions."

"I don't care what you say, I think they are related."

"Maybe so," Lou said. "Did Rousseau leave any other name besides Dr. Najah?"

"No, that was the only one."

"But you suspect he had more."

"There's no doubt he had more. He said as much."

"Do you think he might have written the names down?"

"I do. He mentioned he had lists."

"Well, thank the good Lord for small favors."

They arrived at Laurie's floor. Lou hurried after Laurie, who bolted out of the elevator and headed down to her office. When Laurie sat down at her desk and picked up her phone, Lou did the same at Riva's desk. With some hesitation, Laurie dialed Jack's number. She prayed he'd be in his apartment and not out playing basketball. To her relief, he picked up on the second ring.

"I hate to bother you," Laurie began.

"Bother? It's no bother. It's good to hear from you."

"I know I said I'd wait for your call, but something has come up. Jack, I need you here at the OCME."

"Are the cases so uninteresting that you need comic relief?" Jack suggested. He started to say more, but Laurie cut him off.

"Please, hold the sarcastic humor! Roger Rousseau was brought in this morning as an unidentified homicide victim. He was shot last night at the Manhattan General Hospital."

"I'll be right there," Jack said and hung up.

After slowly replacing the receiver, Laurie put her elbows on her desk, cradled her head with her hands, and rubbed her eyes. Ever since that fateful night in Jack's apartment when she couldn't sleep, it was as if her life had spun out of control. She seemed to be hurled from one upheaval to another. Behind her, she could hear Lou talking with some of his men over at the Manhattan General. He was telling them to seal Dr. Roger Rousseau's office until he got over there and to run a background check on a doctor named Najah.

An involuntary moan escaped Laurie's lips as she straightened herself up and took her hands away from her face. She would need to grieve for Roger, but it would have to be later. She picked up the phone and dialed Calvin's number. After she spoke briefly with his wife, Calvin came on the line.

"What's up?" Calvin asked in an impatient tone. He did not like to be bothered at home without good reason.

"I'm afraid a number of things. First things first, but I'm not sure how to say this."

"I'm not in the mood for games, Laurie. Just tell me what you have to tell me."

"All right. I'm ninety-nine percent sure that the chief of the medical staff at the Manhattan General, the doctor friend with whom I have been confiding about my series, is at this moment lying on a table in the autopsy room, waiting to be posted. He'd been shot last night in the hospital and found this morning in the anatomy cooler."

For a moment, Calvin didn't say anything. Laurie might have thought they'd been disconnected if she couldn't hear his breathing.

"Why aren't you one hundred percent sure?" Calvin finally asked.

"The corpse is headless and handless. Whoever did this to him didn't want him identified."

"So he was brought in as a John Doe?"

"That's correct."

"And how did you make the ninety-nine percent identification?"

"I recognized a rather unique tattoo."

"So, I suppose it's safe to say this individual was more than a friend."

"He was a friend," Laurie persisted. "A good friend."

"Okay," Calvin said, willing to change the subject. "Knowing you as I do, I assume you take this episode as further support to your serial-killer idea in regard to your series."

"It stands to reason. It was just yesterday morning that I told the victim about the Queens cases and suggested he look into employees who had transferred from Saint Francis to the General. He left me a voice message during the night, saying that he'd come up with some potential suspects, whom he was going to approach."