Робин Кук - Genesis

Taking out his mobile phone, Jack placed a call to Laurie. She had told him not to bother, to concentrate on holding down the fort at the OCME, and that she would be perfectly fine, but he couldn’t resist. She picked up quickly, as if she already had the phone in her hand. “Are you on your way to the hospital or still at home?” Jack asked after mutual hellos were exchanged.

“I’m in an Uber at the moment,” Laurie said. Her voice was upbeat. He wondered if it was a true reflection of her feelings or if it was for his benefit. “I should be there in a half hour, traffic permitting.”

“I wanted to give you a follow-up on the Nichols situation,” Jack said.

“Thank you,” she said. “What a shock! What a tragedy.”

“I couldn’t agree more,” Jack said. “When Bart Arnold first told me about it, I was flabbergasted. But I wanted to let you know I have everything under control. I’ll be doing the autopsy, and I’ve already called Dr. Henderson like you requested.”

“Thank you, dear,” Laurie said. “I’m sorry to dump this on you, but Bart wasn’t able to get George Fontworth right away, which was the reason he called me. Anyway, I think you’re better suited to deal with this than George for a number of reasons. I suppose Dr. Henderson was shocked as well.”

“He already knew about it,” he said. “The police had contacted him or Vernon Pierce. Anyway, he already knew.”

“Good,” Laurie said. “That made it easier for you. They must be at wit’s end over at the medical center. This is two overdoses within a week. That’s not good PR, to say the very least.”

“He again offered to do the autopsy over there,” Jack said. “I told him it had to be done here at the OCME by law.”

“I think that’s just pressure coming from the top,” Laurie said. “I’m glad you again set them straight on that issue.”

“More important, how are you holding up?” Jack said. “I know we talked about it last night, but I felt guilty leaving you on your own this morning.”

“I’m perfectly fine,” she said. “Trust me! I’ve adjusted to this need for surgery. I knew it was coming at some point, so I’ll be glad to get it out of the way. Obviously, the whole situation is more difficult for you than it is for me. I’m absolutely convinced it is better for you and for the OCME that you are there and working. I’m going to be fine.”

“I could meet you at Admitting if you’d like,” he suggested.

“It’s not necessary, Jack,” Laurie said with a hint of exasperation in her voice. “How many times do I have to tell you, I’ll be fine? As I understand it, I’ll be going directly from Admitting to Pre-op. I won’t be sent to a room until I’m released from the post-anesthesia unit after the surgery is over. You concentrate on handling this situation with poor Dr. Nichols.”

“Okay, okay,” Jack said. The last thing he wanted to do was make things more difficult for Laurie. “I will take care of the autopsy, and then I’ll see you in your room after your surgery. Any idea of what room you’ll be in?”

“I’ve been assigned to 838 in the Kimmel Pavilion unless something unforeseen happens,” she said. “I’ll see you there. I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Jack said.

For a few minutes he sat in his office. Both calls left him feeling mildly uneasy without knowing exactly why. Slapping the surface of his desk with both palms, he stood, stretched, and walked out into the hallway. On his way down to the elevator his mind switched from musing about his phone calls to the task at hand: doing the autopsy on Aria Nichols. He couldn’t help but wonder what it was going to be like dissecting someone with whom he had worked just the day before. There was no doubt it would be unsettling on some level and made more complicated by the negative feelings he’d had about the woman’s personality.

May 11th

11:15 A.M.

After the phone conversation with Dr. Jack Stapleton, Carl felt better than he had for almost a month. Figuratively speaking, it seemed as if the clouds were beginning to part to allow at least a tiny ray of sunshine to penetrate through what had been a dark, threatening, overcast sky. The nightmare had started less than a month ago, when Kera turned what he’d hoped to be a pleasant evening into a disaster by informing him that she was pregnant. And not only was she pregnant, but she was happy about being so.

Initially Carl couldn’t believe it and thought Kera was joking. Although she had expressed a distaste for condoms, it had been his understanding that she was very careful about her cycle, which she insisted was as regular as clockwork. On several occasions she’d informed him when it might not be a good time to get together, and he’d understood and respected her judgment by rescheduling their trysts. The fact that there hadn’t been a warning on the evening in question he had to believe wasn’t totally a mistake on her part but rather something she’d half planned.

The affair had started the night of the medical center Christmas party, and from his rendition of the story, it involved Kera’s actively pursuing him. One way or another they had found themselves enjoying each other’s company, exchanging entertaining and self-deprecating stories of their respective childhoods, his in Massachusetts and hers in Los Angeles. They also found that they were both avid skiers in winter and enthusiastic surfers in summer. When the evening had drawn to a close, they had exchanged numbers with the idea that they would have a drink together at some unspecified date.

When they did get together for a drink that had been instigated by Carl a week later, he didn’t hide that he was married, had been for just shy of twenty years, with three children, one in college and two in high school. He also felt he had been up front and entirely honest in explaining that his wife had gone back to her successful career as an advertising executive when their youngest child had entered middle school and that their intimacy had suffered to the point of being almost nonexistent, all of which was true. What he didn’t tell her was that he’d had a series of affairs over the previous ten years. He also didn’t tell her that his wife’s income trumped his and he had no intention of getting divorced as he was literally and figuratively wedded to his lifestyle.

As soon as Carl had been told by Kera that she was pregnant, he offered to arrange and pay for an abortion. Having already had the experience with a previous lover, he expected Kera would eventually see the light and agree and that would be the end of it. But instead of coming around to his way of thinking, Kera became progressively committed to having the child. At the same time, she became progressively committed to the idea that she and Carl had to arrange a meeting with his wife and put it all out in the open despite his having said over and over that he had no intention of leaving his family. It was when Kera threatened to call his wife that Carl had decided he had little choice and that it was either his life or Kera’s life.

Having been successful in keeping the relationship with Kera a secret and out of the medical center’s potent gossip mill, he was certain he could accomplish what needed to be accomplished with the help of the lethal power of fentanyl and with the opioid crisis as a cover. What he hadn’t expected was to be thwarted by Aria Nichols and her unexpected and dogged interest in finding the father of the fetus. That was the beginning of the dark clouds, especially when he realized he had no idea how much Madison Bryant knew about his affair with Kera.

Solving the potential Madison Bryant threat had not been easy, especially when she somehow managed to live through getting run over by a train, which he had managed to make happen. Yet persistence paid off, thanks to potassium chloride, and once again Carl had thought he was in the clear. But instead of the storm clouds dispersing, they re-formed with the unexpected arrival of genealogical family trees that would have fingered him if he hadn’t come up with the story that he was friends with Paul Sommers, the Manhattan district attorney. Carl had known he had been adopted since he was a child and had never had any interest whatsoever in his genetic past until now. At some point in the near future he’d get the family trees Aria Nichols had made from the safe-deposit box, where he had stashed them, and find out about his genetic family. It was heady stuff. The idea his birth mother was living over on Fifth Avenue was intriguing although after Aria’s description, he had little interest in meeting her.