Robin Cook - Blindsight

Laurie pulled out the folders on the three cases she’d posted on Thursday: Stuart Morgan, Randall Thatcher, and Valerie Abrams. Using a scratch pad, she jotted down each of the three’s address.

In another minute, Laurie was out the door. She caught a cab and visited each of the three scenes. At each residence, Laurie talked with the doorman. After explaining who she was, she obtained the names and telephone numbers of the doormen who had been on duty Wednesday evening.

Back at the office, Laurie began her calls. The first she put through was to Julio Chavez. “Did you know Valerie Abrams?” Laurie asked after explaining who she was.

“Yes, of course,” Julio said.

“Did you see her Wednesday night?” Laurie asked.

“No, I didn’t,” Julio said. “At least I don’t remember.”

Lou was probably right, Laurie told herself after she’d thanked the man and hung up. She was probably wasting her time. Still, she couldn’t resist dialing the next name on the list: Angel Mendez, the evening doorman at Stuart Morgan’s apartment.

Laurie introduced herself as she had before, then asked Angel if he knew Stuart Morgan, and the answer was the same: “Of course!”

“Did you see Mr. Morgan Wednesday night?” Laurie asked.

“Of course,” Angel said. “I saw Mr. Morgan every night I worked. He jogged after work every day.”

“Did he jog on Wednesday night?” Laurie asked.

“Just like every other night,” Angel told her.

Again Laurie wondered about the inconsistency of a guy who thought enough of himself to run every night taking drugs. It didn’t make a lot of sense.

“Did he seem normal?” Laurie asked. “Did he seem depressed?”

“He seemed fine when he went out,” Angel said. “But he didn’t jog as far as usual. At least he came back very soon. He wasn’t even sweaty. I remember because I told him he’d not worked up a sweat.”

“What did he say in return?” Laurie asked.

“Nothing,” Angel said.

“Was it usual for him not to say anything?” Laurie asked.

“Only when he was with other people,” Angel said.

“Was Mr. Morgan with other people when he came back from jogging?” she asked.

“Yes,” Angel said. “He was with two strangers.”

Laurie sat up. “Can you describe these strangers?” she asked.

Angel laughed. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I see so many people in a day. I just remembered he was with strangers because he didn’t say hello.”

Laurie thanked the man and hung up. Now this was something. She could still hear Lou’s admonition warning her not to play detective, but this striking similarity to the Myerholtz case could be the beginning of a big break.

Finally, Laurie called the last name on her list: David Wong. Unfortunately David couldn’t remember seeing Randall Thatcher on Wednesday night. Laurie thanked him and hung up.

Laurie decided to turn her attention to one more case before returning to her paperwork. She went to Histology and asked for the slides of Mary O’Connor. Back in her office, she scanned the heart slides under her microscope to study the extent of atherosclerosis. It was moderate on microscopic just as Paul had said it had been on gross. She also didn’t notice any cardiac myopathy.

With that out of the way, Laurie couldn’t think of another reason to avoid her work. Pushing her microscope to the side, she pulled out her uncompleted cases and forced herself to begin.

“So this is it?” Lou asked. He waved a typed sheet of paper in the air.

“That’s what we’ve been able to come up with,” Norman told him.

“This is a bunch of doctor gobbledygook. What the hell is “keratoconus’? Or here’s a gem: “pseudophakic bullous keratopathy.’ What is this crap? Will you please tell me?”

“You wanted the diagnoses of the victims who were seeing Dr. Jordan Scheffield,” Norman said. “That’s what the teams came up with.”

Lou read the page again. Martha Goldburg, pseudophakic bullous keratopathy; Steven Vivonetto, interstitial keratitis; Janice Singleton, herpes zoster; Henriette Kaufman, Fuchs endothelial dystrophy; Dwight Sorenson, keratoconus.

“I was hoping they would all have the same condition,” muttered Lou. “I’d hoped to catch twinkle-toes Scheffield in a lie.”

Norman shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I can get someone to translate those terms to regular English-if there’s any English to cover it.”

Lou settled back in his chair. “So what do you think?” he asked.

“I don’t have any bright ideas,” Norman said. “When I first saw the doctor’s name pop out of the data, I thought maybe we had something. But now it doesn’t look that way.”

“Any of the patients unhappy with their care?” Lou asked.

“Only positive in that arena is the Goldburgs,” Norman said. “Harry Goldburg had initiated a malpractice suit against Dr. Scheffield after the doctor took out his wife’s cataract. Apparently there was some complication and she wasn’t seeing much through that eye.”

“What’s all this other stuff?” Lou asked, grasping at a fat file folder filled with typed pages.

“That’s the rest of the material that has been gathered by the investigative teams,” Norman said.

“Jesus Christ,” Lou said. “There must be five hundred pages in here.”

“More like four hundred,” Norman said. “Nothing’s jumped out at me yet, but I thought you’d better go through it, too. And you might as well get started: there’ll be more coming as we interview more people.”

“What about Ballistics?” Lou asked.

“They haven’t gotten to us yet,” Norman said. “They’re still on last month’s homicides. But preliminary opinion is that there were only two guns involved: a twenty-two and a twenty-five caliber.”

“What about the housekeeper?” Lou asked.

“She’s still alive but has yet to regain consciousness,” Norman said. “She was shot in the head and she’s in a coma.”

“Do you have her protected?” Lou asked.

“Absolutely,” Norman said. “Around the clock.”

Having finally made some progress on her paperwork, Laurie made a neat stack of her completed cases. With them out of the way, she pulled out the records of the overdose cases. Sorting through, she set aside the three she wanted: Duncan Andrews, Robert Evans, and Marion Overstreet. These were the cases she had autopsied on Tuesday and Wednesday. She copied the addresses and packed up.

Laurie made the same kind of tour she’d made that morning. Only this time she found that the doormen she wanted to question were on duty again.

She was disappointed with the results at the Evans and Overstreet residences. Neither doorman could tell her very much about the evenings in question. But it was a different story at Duncan Andrews’.

When the cab pulled up to the building, Laurie recognized the blue, scalloped canvas awning and the wrought-iron door from her previous visit. As she got out of the cab, she even recognized the doorman. He’d been the same one on duty on her last ill-fated visit. But recognizing the doorman did not deter her. Although she thought there was an outside chance that her visit might get back to Bingham, she was willing to risk it.

“Can I help you?” the doorman asked.

Laurie looked for signs of recognition on the doorman’s part. She didn’t see any.

“I’m from the medical examiner’s office,” Laurie said. “My name is Dr. Montgomery. Do you remember my coming here Tuesday?”

“I believe I do,” the doorman said. “My name is Oliver. Is there something I can do for you? Are you here to go back up to the Andrews apartment?”

“No, I don’t want to disturb anyone,” Laurie said. “I just want to speak with you. Were you working Sunday night?”