Fredric Stern - The Endorphin Conspiracy

Geoff sat stiffly in his chair, annoyed at O’Malley’s cockiness. As if the New York cop understood what a goddamned endorphin or a PET scan really was!

“Hey, Doc, don’t get defensive about your lady friend. I gotta ask certain questions, ya know, chase down every possible connection.”

“Sorry.”

“How well do you think you know her?” O’Malley asked.

Geoff thought of their night together, Suzanne’s baby picture, her pained expression when he asked about her family. “We work together, and we’ve become friends lately. Fairly well, I guess.”

O’Malley sat back in his seat and flipped pages back and forth, then rubbed his forehead as if he was trying to make sense of it all. “Let’s move on to the big picture now. I want to be sure I have this right, because the chief’s gonna’ look at me like I’m a loony toon—and maybe I am—but I gotta have my facts in order here. Interrupt me if I say something wrong. Science ain’t exactly my strong point. Fact is, I flunked biology in high school.”

Geoff nodded, wondering why he had wasted his time trying to explain it all to this fool.

O’Malley flipped the pages back to the beginning once again. “In a nutshell, you say there’s some kind of secret experiment going on at the New York Trauma Center—the foremost medical center of its kind in these United States of America—where patients, including that little girl and maybe the cop who jumped out the window, are being injected with a new chemical that makes them crazy, then kills them.”

O’Malley paused for a moment and looked up at Geoff. “Is this statement accurate so far?”

“That’s correct.”

“Further, you say Dr. Josef Balassi, Director of Research, and unknown others, possibly including Dr. Pederson, Head of Neurosurgery, are involved in the project, as you call it, or in a cover-up of some kind.”

Geoff nodded in agreement.

“You also state you believe Dr. Howard Kapinsky did not commit suicide but was murdered.”

“He was too much of a self-centered asshole to commit suicide,” Geoff responded with conviction.

O’Malley looked up at Geoff and said in an amused voice, “Doc, even assholes commit suicide. Besides, there was a suicide note that appeared to be written in his own hand, full of talk about some homosexual relationship and rejection. A pretty standard note. So, you have another reason? Because if you do, I’d like to know.”

“Howard Kapinsky, gay? I don’t believe it. He was about as sexual as a eunuch.”

“Believe it, doc.”

“Has the note been analyzed by a graphologist?”

“It’s in the process.” O’Malley voice hardened. “Do you realize if it turns out to be a homicide, you’re at the top of the list of suspects? I’m aware of the nature of your relationship with Kapinsky, the fact you two couldn’t stand each other and that the day before he was found dangling from the rafters like a side of beef you came close to punching him out in front of several witnesses.”

“My feelings toward Howard Kapinsky were no secret, but I think he was onto something. He had developed a theory of a mercy killer at the medical center. I thought he was crazy at the time. He was acting anxious, and his medical decisions had become erratic. I think he was murdered by the people behind the experiments, to send me a signal to stay away, or to make me a suspect and keep me from getting any closer. Either way, they’d achieve their goal.”

“That they might have, doc.” O’Malley eyed him up and down, as if committing Geoff’s body language to memory. “You would certainly be high on the list of suspects, though my instincts tell me you probably couldn’t do it. Well, let’s move on here.” O’Malley made a few corrections on his pad. “You suspect one Jesus Romero, the crazy Puerto Rican who held that little girl hostage at the zoo, was given the same drug when he was a patient at the Trauma Center, months before the incident, and that’s what made a previously normal Joe flip out and do such a terrible thing.”

“That’s right.”

“And an anonymous pen-pal named Proteus has been dropping hints only to you about everything that’s been going on?”

“I don’t know if anyone else has received any messages. I can speak only for myself,” Geoff said.

“Finally, the fanatic Hasidic Rabbi on the subway train—the same train you were on—who blew away poor, innocent people on their way home from work, got the same drug, probably given to him when he was a patient at the Trauma Center.”

Geoff nodded. It all seemed so clear. It made perfect sense. “That’s right.”

“Do you have a motive , doc? I mean if this is truly goin’ on—and I’m not saying it is or it isn’t at this point—what’s the reason? And you better have a good one you can back up, because there are some pretty powerful people involved here with a lot more to lose than yourself.”

“Not yet.”

“Do you know what common thread seems to connect all of these incidents? What one thing is always right there at the center of the action each time, right there in the eye of this hurricane, so to speak?” O’Malley asked, raising his brow.

Geoff felt O’Malley’s sea-green stare burn through him like a laser beam from across the table. He returned the stare without hesitation. “Yes, captain, I do.”

O’Malley removed the cigar from his mouth and pointed it across the table. “You.”

Geoff had been so caught up in the events of the last few days, he’d barely had time to go to the bathroom, let alone attempt to decipher the encrypted message he’d printed in Balassi’s office. Now that he had returned from the Trauma Center after dropping off the vials for Suzanne, cleaned out his office and checked for any more e-mail messages—there were none—he had some time on his hands.

O’Malley had given him food for thought, and he began questioning Suzanne’s motives. Perhaps she had used him—why, he wasn’t sure—to get those vials for her, but he had used her in a sense, as well. She had risked her fellowship position by running the autopsy assays, retrieving the PET scan data from the computer, pulling the rabbi’s chart, all at his request. Geoff had to wonder what stake she had in all this. Was it simply intellectual curiosity, their mutual attraction, or something more?

Geoff assumed one of the security guards tipped off Balassi, who noticed the missing vials and simply put two and two together. Geoff felt the intruder was connected to other events, through Balassi not through Suzanne, as O’Malley had suggested.

Geoff dismissed the police guard O’Malley had posted in the apartment and locked the door securely behind him. He entered the living room, checked his voice mail on his cell phone. There were two new messages. He sat down on the couch, listened to the first message.

“Hi Geoff, Suzanne here. Just wanted to let you know I found those theatre tickets I told you about. I think they’re a matched set, just like we said they would be. I should know for sure by seven-thirty or eight tonight. I’ll be working late in the autopsy room, so stop by. Eight o’clock,okay? I’ll be waiting for you. See you tonight.”

At first Geoff wondered what the hell she was talking about, then realized she was trying to be discreet about the endorphin vials. She must have gotten some heat about them from her department head and was trying to keep a low profile. He shook his head, checked the next message.

“Hi, big bro, Stefan here. I’ve got good news and bad news regarding the, uh, project I’ve been working on. How about the good news first? Proteus sent those messages from within the NYTC. No surprise, huh? But he’s a real pro man, I mean, he has to be someone with big, big time resources and government connections. But even professionals screw up from time to time, and I think I caught one. Interesting routing pattern. Seemed random at first, but there’s always a pattern, even to randomness.