Robin Cook - Blindsight

“The man or the woman?” Tony asked, breaking his silence for the first time.

“The woman,” Angelo said. “And you can do her if you want.” He was feeling magnanimous with the evening’s work drawing to a close.

Breaking into the final house was a breeze. They did it from the alleyway, going through the back door. To their surprise they found the husband sleeping on the couch with an empty six-pack on the floor next to him.

Angelo told Tony to go upstairs by himself and that he’d keep his eye on the man. Angelo could see Tony’s eager smile in the half-light, and he thought the kid’s appetite for “whacking” was insatiable.

Several minutes later Angelo could barely hear the silenced report of Tony’s gun, followed quickly by another shot. At least the kid was thorough. A few minutes after that Tony reappeared.

“The guy move?” Tony asked.

Angelo shook his head and motioned for them to leave.

“Too bad,” Tony said. His eyes lingered a second on the sleeping man before he turned to follow Angelo out the door.

On the back stoop Angelo stretched and looked up at the brightening sky. “Here comes the sun,” he said. “How about some breakfast?”

“Sounds great,” Tony said. “What a night. It doesn’t get any better than this.” As he walked to the car he unscrewed his silencer from his gun.

7:45 a.m., Thursday

Manhattan

Although she hadn’t slept much thanks to her late-night call, Laurie made it a point to arrive at work a little early to compensate for having been late the day before. It was only seven forty-five as she mounted the steps to the medical examiner’s office.

Going directly to the ID office, she detected a mild electricity in the air. Several of the other associate medical examiners who usually didn’t come in until around eight-thirty were already on the job. Kevin Southgate and Arnold Besserman, two of the older examiners, were huddled around the coffeepot in heated debate. Kevin, a liberal, and Arnold, an arch-conservative, never agreed on anything.

“I’m telling you,” Arnold was saying when Laurie squeezed through to get herself some coffee, “if we had more police on the streets, this kind of thing wouldn’t happen.”

“I disagree,” Kevin said. “This kind of tragedy-”

“What happened now?” Laurie asked as she stirred her coffee.

“A series of homicides in Queens,” Arnold said. “Gunshot wounds to the head from close range.”

“Small-caliber bullets?” Laurie asked.

Arnold looked at Kevin. “I don’t know about that yet.”

“The posts haven’t been done yet,” Kevin explained.

“Were they pulled out of the river?”

“No,” Arnold said. “These people were asleep in their own homes. Now, if we had more police presence-”

“Come on, Arnold!” Kevin said.

Laurie left the two to their bickering and went over to check the autopsy schedule. Sipping her coffee, she checked at who was on autopsy besides herself and what cases were assigned. After her own name were three cases, including Stuart Morgan. She was pleased. Calvin was sticking by his promise.

Noting that the other two cases were drug overdose/toxicity cases as well, Laurie flipped through the investigator’s reports. She was immediately dismayed to see that profiles of the deceased resembled the previous suspicious cases. Randall Thatcher, thirty years old, was a lawyer; Valerie Abrams, thirty-three, was a stockbroker.

The day before she’d feared there’d be more cases, but she’d hoped her fears wouldn’t materialize. Obviously that wasn’t to be the case. Already there were three more. Overnight her modest series had jumped one hundred percent.

Laurie walked through Communications on her way to the medical forensic investigative department. Spotting the police liaison office, she wondered what she should do about the suspected thievery at the Morgan apartment. For the moment she decided to let it go. If she saw Lou she might discuss the matter with him.

Laurie found Cheryl Myers in her tiny windowless office.

“No luck so far on that Duncan Andrews case,” Cheryl told her before she could say a word.

“That’s not why I stopped by,” Laurie said. “I left word last evening with Bart that I wanted to be called if any upscale drug overdose cases came in like Duncan Andrews or Marion Overstreet. I was called last night for one. But this morning I discovered there were two others that I wasn’t called on. Have you any idea why I wasn’t called?”

“No,” Cheryl said. “Ted was on last night. We’ll have to ask him this evening. Was there a problem?”

“Not really,” Laurie admitted. “I’m just curious. Actually I probably couldn’t have gone to all three scenes. And I will be handling the autopsies. By the way, did you check with the hospital about the Marion Overstreet case?”

“Sure did,” Cheryl said. “I spoke with a Dr. Murray and he said that they were just following policy orders from you.”

“That’s what I figured,” Laurie said. “But it was worth a check. Also, I have something else I’d like to ask you to do. Would you see what kind of medical records you can get, particularly surgical, on a woman by the name of Marsha Schulman. I’d love to get some X-rays. I believe she lived in Bayside, Queens. I’m not sure of her age. Let’s say around forty.” Ever since Jordan had told Laurie about his secretary’s husband’s shady dealings and arrest record, she’d had a bad feeling about the woman’s disappearance, particularly in view of the odd break-in at Jordan’s office.

Cheryl wrote the information down on a pad on her desk. “I’ll get right on it.”

Next Laurie sought out John DeVries. As she’d feared, he was less than cordial.

“I told you I’d call you,” John snapped when Laurie asked about a contaminant. “I’ve got hundreds of cases besides yours.”

“I know you’re busy,” Laurie said, “but this morning I have three more overdoses like the three I had before. That brings the body count to a total of six young, affluent, well-educated career people. Something has to be in that cocaine, and we have to find it.”

“You’re welcome to come up here and run the tests yourself,” John said. “But I want you to leave me alone. If you don’t, I’ll have to speak to Dr. Bingham.”

“Why are you acting this way?” Laurie asked. “I’ve tried to be nice about this.”

“You’re being a pain in the neck,” John said.

“Fine,” Laurie said. “It’s wonderful to know we have a nice cooperative atmosphere around here.”

Exasperated, Laurie stalked out of the lab, grumbling under her breath. She felt a hand grip her arm and she spun around, ready to slap John DeVries for having the nerve to touch her. But it wasn’t John. It was one of his young assistants, Peter Letterman.

“Could I talk to you a moment?” Peter said. He glanced warily over his shoulder.

“Of course,” Laurie said.

“Come into my cubbyhole,” Peter said. He motioned for Laurie to follow him. They entered what had originally been designed as a broom closet. There was barely enough room there for a desk, a computer terminal, a file cabinet, and two chairs. Peter closed the door behind them.

Peter was a thin, blond fellow with delicate features. To Laurie he appeared as the quintessential graduate student, with a marked intensity to his eyes and demeanor.

Under his white lab coat was an open-necked flannel shirt.

“John is a little hard to get along with,” he said.

“That’s an understatement,” Laurie answered.

“Lots of artists are like that,” Peter continued. “And John is an artist of sorts. When it comes to chemistry and toxicology in particular, he’s amazing. But I couldn’t help overhearing your conversations with him. I think one of the reasons he’s giving you a hard time is to make a point with the administration that he needs more funding. He’s slowing up a lot of reports, and for the most part it makes little difference. I mean the people are dead. But if your suspicions are right it sounds like we could be in the lifesaving business for a change. So I’d like to help. I’ll see what I can do for you even if I have to put in some overtime.”