Робин Кук: Intervention

Fifteen minutes later, a neighbor, noticing the glow coming from outside his house, looked out and then frantically called nine-one-one. Eleven minutes later the first fire trucks appeared, but by then the only possible thing to save was the chimney.

7:49 A.M., THURSDAY, DECEMBER 11, 2008

NEW YORK CITY

Since Jack wasn’t doing autopsies for the week, he didn’t make it a point to arrive at the OCME particularly early, and today he arrived at seven-forty-nine. On normal days by that time he surely would have already picked out what he considered the best cases and would already be down in the autopsy room with Vinnie Amendola, giving him a hard time or vice versa. Instead, Jack was content to be locking up his bike at the side of one of the intake garages in full view of security. When he was finished, he gave security a wave, comforted by knowing the guys would keep an eye on his bike.

Since Shawn and Sana were not expected in until ten or thereabouts, Jack decided to finish the paperwork on all his outstanding cases if possible, so that when he went back to doing autopsies he’d be starting out with a perfectly clean slate, something he’d not experienced in the thirteen years he’d been there. Wanting to get a coffee as well as a sense of what was generally happening in the morgue that morning, Jack went up to the ID room, where he knew one of the better MEs was on duty for the week, Dr. Riva Mehta. She had been Laurie’s office mate for many years and was a dedicated, intelligent, and hardworking colleague, which was more than Jack could say about too many others on the staff.

He could smell the coffee even before he got there. Although he teased Vinnie mercilessly about most everything else, Jack never teased him about making the coffee. Vinnie had it down to a science, and by not varying his technique, the coffee was not only good for institutional brew, it was also consistent. After a half-hour bike ride, it always hit the spot.

“Anything particularly interesting?” Jack asked Riva, squeezing behind her where she was sitting at the desk to glance over her shoulder before turning his attention to the coffee.

“It’s about time, you lazy bum,” a husky voice announced.

Jack looked up from the coffee machine to see his old friend Lieutenant Detective Lou Soldano toss Vinnie’s Daily News aside and struggle to his feet. As usual, when Lou appeared early in the morning, it looked as if he’d been up all night, which he had been, with his tie loosened, his shirt’s top button unbuttoned, and his broad cheeks and neck stubbled. To complete the picture, the dark bags under his eyes hung down like a hound dog’s to intersect with his tired smile creases, while his closely cropped hair, which was never particularly combed, was standing up on end near his cowlick. It looked like he hadn’t been home for a week, not just overnight.

“Lou, old friend,” Jack said with true affection. “Just the man I want to see.”

“Yeah, how’s that?” Lou asked warily, as he sauntered over to join Jack at the coffee machine. They briefly shook hands.

“I never apologized for the ridiculous conversation I forced you to have. Remember? It was about chiropractic.”

“Of course I remember. Why do you think you have to apologize?”

“I was on a mini-crusade, and I think I carried it all a little too far for a couple of people, yourself included.”

“Bullshit, but if you want to apologize, fine! You’re forgiven. Now apologize for coming in here so late. I’ve been here for forty-five minutes thinkin’ you’d be coming through the door any second.”

“I’m off autopsies this week.”

“Christ! Wouldn’t you know! How about letting me know next time?”

“I would have let you know this time if I thought you cared. What’s up?”

“It was a busy night last night, besides the usual mayhem. There was an arsonist’s fire in the West Village, which burnt up three people, two of whom the archbishop tells me you knew.”

“Who?” Jack demanded, although he had a sudden painful feeling he already knew, especially it being the West Village, with the archbishop involved. “Was it on Morton Street?”

“Yeah, it was. Forty Morton Street. How well did you know them?”

“One more than the other,” Jack said, catching his breath. He suddenly felt weak-kneed. “Good grief,” he added, with a shake of his head. “What happened?”

“We’re still piecing it all together. How did you know them?”

Jack handed Lou the coffee he was holding and then poured himself another. “I think we better sit down,” he said. When they had, Jack told the story about Shawn and Sana Daughtry, and that he had known both Shawn and the archbishop in college. Until he knew more from Lou, he didn’t mention the ossuary. “I was at Forty Morton Street last Saturday night for dinner.”

“Lucky you weren’t there last night,” Lou said. “It was a typical arsonist’s blaze. The accelerant was gasoline in the basement, but not a lot of help was needed. The house was an eighteenth-century wood-frame firetrap.”

“Have you made IDs on the three victims?”

“Reasonably, but we’re hoping for confirmation from the OCME. We’re quite sure two of the victims are the owners of the house, but we need to corroborate. Everybody is burnt up to a cinder. The third victim was more difficult to identify. We ended up finding some of his belongings, and he is now the prime arson suspect. His name we believe is Luke Hester, and it turns out he’s one of these religious nuts who lives upstate at a monastery with a dubious reputation that is dedicated to the Virgin Mary. By contacting the monastery, we learned he was on some kind of assignment to the archbishop of New York, who we then roused out of bed. From the archbishop we got the story. Apparently, this third victim, who truly is supposed to have been some kind of religious fanatic, was temporarily living with the Daughtrys. It’s the archbishop’s fear that the religious guy killed both himself and the couple as a kind of martyrdom to keep them from publishing anything negative about the Blessed Mother, Mother of God. Can you believe this? I tell you, only in New York City.”

“How was the archbishop when you spoke with him?” Jack asked. He could hardly imagine what James was thinking. Jack was sure he must be devastated.

“He was not a happy camper,” Lou admitted. “In fact, he was devastated,” he added, as if reading Jack’s inner thoughts. “Right after I told him, he couldn’t talk for several minutes.”

Jack didn’t respond but rather just shook his head.

“Well, I came over here to watch you do the posts,” Lou said. “Just in case some unexpected information becomes available, which you, in particular, are famous for.”

“Who’s doing the three burned cases?” Jack called over to Riva.

“I am,” Riva answered. “But if you want one or two or all three, just let me know.”

“No, thank you!” Jack responded. He had already made up his mind to help James rather than Lou by gathering up all the evidence of the ossuary affair and getting it into James’s hands. “There you go, Lou,” Jack said to his detective friend. “Dr. Mehta is one of the best. I’m certain you will find her more charming than I, and even a bit faster.”

“When are you planning on starting, honey?” Lou called over to Riva. Jack cringed. Riva didn’t like to be called “honey” by chauvinistic policemen, as evidenced by her not bothering to answer. With his back toward Riva, Jack stepped between her and Lou and made a motion of drawing his finger beneath his chin as if cutting his throat. “No honey or darling or anything like that,” Jack whispered, for Lou’s benefit.