Robin Cook - Blindsight

“I didn’t call you to get a lecture,” Laurie said wearily.

“I can’t help it,” Lou said. “You need some advice from someone who cares. I don’t think you should see that guy anymore.”

“OK, Dad, I’ll keep it in mind.” With that, she hung up the phone. She was tired of Lou’s condescending paternalism, and for the moment she couldn’t talk with him. She had to give herself some time to calm down. The man could be so infuriating, especially when she needed support, not criticism.

Laurie’s phone started ringing almost as soon as she’d hung up, but she ignored it. She’d let Lou stew for a little while. She unlocked her office door and walked down the silent hallway and took the elevator to the morgue. At that hour the morgue was desolate, with most of the skeleton evening staff on dinner break. Bruce Pomowski, however, was in the mortuary office. She hoped he hadn’t heard about her being fired.

“Excuse me!” Laurie called from the doorway.

Bruce looked up from his newspaper.

“Is the Fletcher body still here?” she asked.

Bruce consulted the log book. “Nope,” he said. “Went out this afternoon.”

“How about Andre or Haberlin?” Laurie asked.

Bruce referred to the book again. “Andre went out this afternoon, but Haberlin is still here. The body is going out to Long Island someplace any minute. It’s in the walk-in.”

“Thanks,” Laurie said. She turned to leave. Obviously Bruce hadn’t heard she’d been taken off the payroll.

“Dr. Montgomery,” Bruce called. “Peter Letterman was looking for you earlier and I’m supposed to tell you to be sure to go up and see him if I run into you. He said it was important and that he was going to be around for a while tonight.”

Laurie felt torn. She wanted to view the Haberlin body, thinking that a brief examination could very well substantiate her suspicions. At the same time she didn’t want to miss Peter if he had something to tell her.

“Listen,” Laurie said to Bruce. “I’m going to run up and see if Peter is still here. Don’t let that Haberlin body go until I see it.”

“You got it,” Bruce said with a wave.

Laurie went to the fourth floor and the toxicology lab. When she saw a light coming from Peter’s door, she breathed a sigh of relief: Peter was still there.

“Knock, knock,” Laurie called out, pausing at the door. She didn’t want to give Peter a scare.

Peter looked up from a long computer printout he was studying. “Laurie! Am I glad to see you! I have something I want to show you.”

Laurie followed Peter to the gas chromatograph/mass spectrometry unit. Peter picked up another computer printout and handed it to Laurie. She studied it with little comprehension.

“It’s from Robert Evans,” Peter said proudly. “Just as you suggested.”

“What am I looking at?” Laurie asked.

Peter pointed with his pencil. “There,” he said. “That’s a positive for ethylene, and it’s a lot more evident than it had been in Randall Thatcher’s case. It is no laboratory error or false positive. It’s real.”

“That’s weird,” Laurie said. She’d really come to think the ethylene reading in the Thatcher case had been an error.

“It might be weird,” Peter said, “but it’s real. No doubt about it.”

“I need another favor,” Laurie said. “Can you open the DNA lab for me?”

“Sure,” Peter said. “You want me to open it now?”

“If you don’t mind.”

Peter got his keys and led Laurie down a flight of stairs to the lab on the third floor.

As they went in, Laurie explained what she was up to. “I was shown a Polaroid of a match but it was just a preliminary. It concerns the Julia Myerholtz case. You probably recognize the name.”

“Certainly,” Peter said. “I’ve run lots of samples on her.”

“I want to find that Polaroid,” Laurie said. “I need a copy of it. I don’t need a duplicate photograph; a copy from the copy machine will be fine.”

“No problem,” Peter said. He knew exactly where to look. Once he had the Polaroid in hand, he went to the copy machine. Laurie followed.

While the copy machine warmed up, Peter looked at the photo. “It’s pretty obvious they don’t match,” he said. “Is that what you expected?”

“No,” Laurie said. “It was a shot in the dark.”

“Interesting,” Peter said. “Do you think it is significant?”

“Absolutely,” Laurie said. “I think it means Julia was fighting for her life.”

“You think she’s still in there?” Tony asked. He was more antsy than usual. “She could have left while I was going back to get you. And if she’s not in there, then we’re wasting our time sitting here like a couple of chumps.”

“You’ve got a good point,” Angelo said. “But before we move in I wish we could make sure she didn’t call the cops. I still don’t understand why she split unless she didn’t think we were real cops. I mean, isn’t she the solid-citizen type? What does she have to hide from cops? It doesn’t make sense, and when something doesn’t make sense, it means I’m missing something. And when I’m missing something, it scares me.”

“God, you’re always worrying,” Tony said. “Let’s just go in there, get her, and be done with it.”

“All right,” Angelo said. “But take it easy. And bring the bag. We’re going to have to play this one by ear.”

“I’m with you all the way,” Tony said eagerly. Due to the unconsummated chase after Laurie, Tony’s appetite for action had been honed to a razor’s edge. He was a bundle of nervous energy.

“I think we’d better put the silencers on our guns,” Angelo said. “No telling what we’re going to meet. And we’re going to have to work fast.”

“Great!” Tony exclaimed. With obvious excitement he pulled out his Bantam and attached the silencer. It took him a moment because his hand trembled with pleasurable anticipation.

Angelo gave him a hard look, then shook his head in exasperation. “Try to stay calm. Let’s go!”

They got out of the car and ran across the street and between the two mortuary vans. They ran hunched over, trying to avoid the drizzle as much as possible. They entered the same way they had that afternoon, through the morgue loading dock. Angelo was in the lead. Tony followed with the black doctor’s bag in one hand and his gun in the other. In an attempt to conceal the gun, he had it partially under his jacket.

Angelo was almost past the open door to the security office when someone inside yelled, “Hey! You can’t go in there.”

Tony collided with Angelo when his partner stopped abruptly. A guard in a blue uniform was sitting at his desk. In front of him was a game of solitaire.

“Where you guys think you’re going?” he asked.

Before Angelo could respond, Tony raised his Bantam and aimed it at the surprised guard’s forehead. He pulled the trigger without a moment’s hesitation. The slug hit the guard in his head, just above his left eye, so that he fell over onto his desk, his head landing with a solid thump on his card game. Except for the pool of blood forming on the desk top, a passerby might have thought the man was simply asleep on the job.

“What the hell did you shoot him for?” Angelo snarled. “You could have given me a chance to talk with him.”

“He was going to give us trouble,” Tony said. “You said we had to be fast.”

“What if he has a partner?” Angelo said. “What if the partner comes back? Where will we be then?”

Tony frowned.

“Come on!” Angelo said.

They peered into the mortuary office. There was cigarette smoke in the air and a live butt in an ashtray by the desk, but no one was in sight. Leaving the office and advancing cautiously into the morgue proper, Angelo glanced into the small auxiliary autopsy room used for decomposed bodies. The dissecting table was barely visible in the half-light.