Robin Cook - Blindsight

“Certain facts have come up,” Lou continued. “I’m hoping you might have some explanations.”

“I have another operation,” Jordan said. He started to get up.

“Sit down, Doctor,” Lou said. “I only want a minute of your time. At least at the moment. We’ve been puzzling over five recent homicides which we have reason to believe were done by the same person or persons, and the only way we have been able to associate them so far, other than the manner in which they were killed, is that they were your patients. Naturally we’d like to ask you if you have any idea why this has happened.”

“I’d just been informed about it an hour ago,” Jordan said nervously. “I haven’t the slightest idea why. But I can tell you there is no way that it could involve me.”

“So we can assume they have all paid their bills?” Lou asked.

“Under the circumstances, Lieutenant,” Jordan snapped, “I don’t think that is a very funny comment.”

“Excuse my black humor,” Lou said. “But guessing how much that office of yours had to cost and knowing you have a limo-”

“I don’t have to talk with you if I don’t want to,” Jordan said, interrupting Lou and again motioning to get up.

“You don’t have to talk with me now,” Lou said. “That’s true. But you’d have to talk with me eventually, so you might as well try to cooperate. After all, this is one hell of a serious situation.”

Jordan sat back. “What do you want from me? I don’t have anything to add to what you already know. I’m sure you know much more than I.”

“Tell me about Martha Goldburg, Steven Vivonetto, Janice Singleton, Henriette Kaufman, and Dwight Sorenson.”

“They were patients of mine,” Jordan said.

“What were their diagnoses?” Lou asked. He took out his pad and pencil.

“I can’t tell you that,” Jordan said. “That’s privileged information. And don’t cite my mentioning the Cerino case to Dr. Montgomery as a precedent. I made a mistake talking about him.”

“I’ll be able to get the information from the families,” Lou said. “Why don’t you just make it easy for me?”

“It’s up to the families to tell you if they so choose,” Jordan said. “I am not at liberty to divulge that information.”

“OK,” Lou said. “Then let’s talk generalities. Did all these people have the same diagnosis?”

“No,” Jordan said.

“They didn’t?” Lou questioned. He visibly sagged. “Are you sure?”

“Of course I’m sure,” Jordan said.

Lou looked down at his blank pad and thought for a moment. Raising his eyes he asked: “Were these patients related in some unlikely way? For example, were they customarily seen on the same day, anything like that?”

“No,” Jordan said.

“Could their records have been kept together for some reason?”

“No, my records are alphabetical.”

“Could any of these patients have been seen on the same day as Cerino?”

“That I can’t say,” Jordan admitted. “But I can tell you this. When Mr. Cerino came to see me, he never saw any other patient nor did any other patient see him.”

“Are you sure of that?” Lou asked.

“Positive,” Jordan said.

The intercom connecting the surgical lounge to the OR crackled to life. One of the OR nurses told Jordan that his patient was in the room waiting for him.

Jordan got to his feet. Lou did the same.

“I’ve got surgery,” Jordan said.

“OK,” Lou said. “I’m sure we’ll be in touch.”

Lou put on his hat and walked out of the surgical lounge.

Jordan followed him to the door and watched as Lou continued down the long hallway to the main hospital elevators. He watched as Lou pushed the button, waited, then boarded and disappeared from view.

Jordan’s eyes swept the hallway for Cerino’s man. Stepping across the hall, he peered into the surgical waiting room. He was encouraged when he didn’t see the gaunt man anyplace.

Turning back into the surgical lounge, Jordan sighed. He was relieved that Lou had left. The meeting with him had left Jordan feeling more rattled than ever, and it wasn’t only because of the fear that Cerino’s man would see them talking. Jordan sensed the detective didn’t like him much, and that could mean trouble. Jordan was afraid he’d have to put up with the man’s annoying presence in the future.

Stepping into the men’s locker room, Jordan splashed his face with cold water. He needed to pull himself together to try to relax a moment before going into the OR and doing Cerino. But it wasn’t easy. So much was happening. His mind was in a turmoil.

One of the thoughts that was particularly disturbing was that he’d realized there was one way that the five homicides were related, including Mary O’Connor. He’d realized it while Lou Soldano had been talking with him, but Jordan had chosen not to say anything about it. And the fact that he had so chosen confused him. He didn’t know if the reason he’d not mentioned it was because he wasn’t sure of its significance or because it scared him. Jordan certainly did not want to become a victim himself.

Walking down toward the operating room where Paul Cerino was waiting, Jordan decided that the safest course of action for him was to do nothing. After all, he was in the middle.

Suddenly Jordan stopped. He’d realized something else. Despite all these problems, he was doing more surgery than ever. There had to be another part to it all. As he started walking again, it all began to make a kind of grotesque, malicious sense. He picked up his pace. Definitely playing dumb was the way he should handle it. It was the safest by far. And he liked to do surgery.

Pushing into the operating room, he went up to Cerino, who was significantly sedated.

“We’ll have you done in no time,” Jordan said. “Just relax.”

After giving Cerino a pat on the shoulder, Jordan turned and headed out to scrub. As he passed one of the orderlies in scrubs, he realized it wasn’t one of the orderlies. Jordan had recognized the eyes. It was the gaunt one.

4:30 p.m., Friday

Manhattan

Laurie was hesitant to visit the lab again. She didn’t want to risk another run-in with John DeVries. But attempting any more paperwork just then was ridiculous. She was far too distracted. She decided to find Peter. Surely he had to have more results by then.

“I know you promised to call if you found anything,” Laurie said once she’d found him, “but I couldn’t help but stop by just to check how you were doing.”

“I haven’t found a contaminant yet,” Peter said. “But I did learn something that might be significant. Cocaine is metabolized in the body in a variety of different ways producing a variety of metabolites. One of the metabolites is called benzoylecgonine. When I calculated the ratio of cocaine and benzoylecgonine in the blood, urine, and brain of your victims, I can estimate the amount of time from injection to death.”

“And what did you find?” Laurie asked.

“I found it was pretty consistent,” Peter said. “Roughly an hour in thirteen of the fourteen. But in one of the cases it was different. For some reason Robert Evans had practically no benzoylecgonine at all.”

“Meaning?” Laurie questioned.

“Meaning that Robert Evans died very quickly,” Peter said. “Maybe within minutes. Maybe even less, I really can’t say.”

“What do you think the significance is?” Laurie questioned.

“I don’t know,” Peter said. “You’re the medical detective, not me.”

“I suppose he could have suffered an instantaneous cardiac arrhythmia.”

Peter shrugged. “Whatever,” he said. “And I haven’t given up on a contaminant. But if I find something, it’s going to be in nanomoles.”