Джеймс Паттерсон - The Midwife Murders

“And now I’ve got to tell you just one more thing, one more thing you may already have figured out, and many of you know. Because these are kidnappings, we’re dealing with a federal crime. That means the FBI is already crawling up our butts. A few members of their CARD team, the Child Abduction Response Deployment folks, have already been brought up to speed. They could be a help. They could be a hindrance. But whatever it turns out to be, it is a fact. They’ll join us here. And we’d be idiots not to welcome their help. So there’s no need to speak any further on that subject.

“This is my last thing. Then I’ll shut up. I want to give you what else we’re doing here in New York City. FYI, there are NYPD detectives and soon FBI agents at every hospital— every hospital—in every borough in New York. Lenox Hill. Beth Israel. Bellevue. This goes from Richmond Med Center on Staten Island to Montefiore in the Bronx, and everything in between. They’re assigned to walk-in clinics, to fancy-ass private cosmetic surgery places. Hell, the commissioner is so into this, I think he’d stick police guards at every doctor’s office in New York City if he could. On and on. He’s with us every inch of the way. There’s no need to go into everything else, but we have all the police labs open. We’ve interviewed anyone who might have seen something. The entrance and exit security was extremely tight. So it could have been an inside job.”

He pauses for a few seconds. He looks at the ceiling, then quickly around the room. Now when he starts to speak, he sounds somber and sad.

“Look. We just don’t know enough. I’ll be here for the next twenty-four hours. At least.”

He pauses again. Then, “Go about your business. Except for you two …” Blumenthal is looking directly at me and Dr. Sarkar. “I need to talk to you two. Everyone else, thank you. And, Dr. Katz, if you need a cigarette, go outside and smoke.”

CHAPTER 17

“LISTEN, YOU TWO. I don’t have a helluva lot of time,” says Leon Blumenthal, “so you’ll have to forgive me if I put my nice-guy personality on ice.”

Sarkar, who looks like he could collapse from exhaustion at any moment, nods.

I say, “Sure,” and I try to remember a time in my short relationship with Blumenthal when I ever witnessed that “nice guy personality.”

We sit, and Blumenthal leans in toward us from the other side of the cafeteria table.

This is the closest I’ve been to him physically. His hazel eyes are rimmed with red. He needs a shave, and his haircut looks like one of those ten-dollar jobs you get out in my neighborhood.

He’s also—and I’m surprised and embarrassed to be thinking this—cute as hell … in that grumpy dad-bod way.

Blumenthal looks directly at Dr. Sarkar and speaks. “Is there anything, anything at all, anything you remember—any little thing that was slightly out of the usual during the surgical procedure on the victim, on Kovac?”

Without hesitation, Sarkar says, “No. Absolutely not. It was difficult. But I have dealt many times before with people who were assaulted—stabbings, domestic violence, slashings, vehicular accidents. This one was particularly brutal, and the fact that it was immediately postnatal didn’t make it easier. But I cannot supply you with any further information.”

I decide that my opinion is needed here. “I don’t think Dr. Sarkar can minimize the seriousness of working on a patient who was in her ninth month. The uterine wall … the … What else, Rudi?”

I don’t know why I spoke the name “Rudi,” but as soon as I say the word, Blumenthal’s eyes widen, for a split second. He looks back and forth once between Dr. Sarkar and myself, clearly trying to evaluate what the deal is—personal, professional, friendly, romantic—between the two of us.

Sarkar must sense it, too. The doctor brings the conversation right back to business. “With the exception of the uterine-wall damage, it is all very typical—muscle damage, arterial damage, blood loss.” Sarkar is starting to sound as if he is bored. It is clear to me that he just wants the interrogation to be over. All he wants is an icy martini and a nice long nap.

Blumenthal, however, is not yet finished. “Going back to the operation itself for a moment. Was there anyone’s behavior that you would call unusual? For example, did anyone excuse herself, or himself—in other words, did anyone leave the room?”

I decide once again to jump in. I guess butt in is the right expression. “Well, of course. People often leave the room, rescrub, and then come back. People have to use the bathroom or they don’t feel good or they’re tired and need a short break—”

“Thanks for the clarification, Ms. Ryuan, and, yes, that’s what I mean by unusual. Now maybe you can allow Dr. Sarkar to answer.”

“My answer is no,” Sarkar says. “One of the nurses became fatigued. So she left, and a few minutes later a sub came in for her. A few minutes after that a sub came in for the gas man.”

Blumenthal looks up from his laptop. “The gas man?”

“The anesthesiologist,” I explain.

Blumenthal gives a minuscule smile, then says, “Is there anything else? Even the tiniest thing. Someone made a passing comment. Someone had something to say about the victim. Someone had something that, damn it, we could honestly call a clue.”

The devil in me surfaces for a second. This might be an opportunity to implicate Nurse Franklin, but that’s just my own petty irritation. And making up lies is not my biggest talent.

“Please think, Dr. Sarkar,” Blumenthal says.

Sarkar is starting to show some of his annoyance at the constant prodding.

So of course I speak. To no one in particular I say, “What about Helen Whall?”

“Helen Whall?” Sarkar asks.

“Yes, the plastic surgeon,” I say.

With a speck of anger in his voice, Sarkar says, “I know who Helen Whall is, Lucy. What about her?”

Blumenthal reads from his computer screen. “Helen Whall, respected surgeon, GUH staff member, enters 4:17. Says Sarkar and team guardedly optimistic. Adds—”

Rudi perks up considerably. He says, “I don’t recall Dr. Whall leaving the OR, and I certainly don’t recall asking her to update anybody on my patient’s condition.”

“Rudi,” I say, “Helen Whall implied that you asked her to let us know what was going on, that she was out there because you wanted her to tell us how Katra was doing.”

“Possibly you simply don’t remember doing this, Doctor?” asks Blumenthal. “You were under a great deal of stress.”

“No,” he says, and he is firm in his answer. “I would have remembered asking Dr. Whall to do that. She was standing by primarily for the wrap, the suturing. As it turns out, we didn’t need her. But I’m still glad I brought her in.”

“We’ll talk to Dr. Whall,” says Blumenthal. Then he adds, “And my guys are also doing follow-up investigations of everyone who was involved with the surgery.”

Sarkar barely nods, and then Blumenthal says, “So I guess that’s it for now.”

I can’t help it. I say very loudly, “That’s it? You’ve got to be kidding, Detective.”

“Lucy, please don’t start,” says Sarkar.

If I had a dollar for every time a man said to me, “Lucy, please don’t start,” I’d be the richest woman in New York.

But Blumenthal’s casual attitude is, in fact, making me crazy-angry, and I just can’t hold it inside me. I raise my voice. “A baby is missing, stolen, kidnapped, maybe murdered, Detective Blumenthal. A woman is practically murdered, left for dead. And you say, ‘that’s it for now.’”

“Thanks for your opinion, Ms. Ryuan,” Blumenthal says. “But I don’t think you’re precisely qualified to advise on a New York City crime.”