Robin Cook - Vector

“Down to see Calvin,” Jack said. “He told me that if my case turned out to be anthrax he wanted to know right away.”

“Cheer up!” Chet urged. “You look like death warmed over.”

Jack tried to smile. He walked down to the elevator and pushed the button. What he didn’t tell Chet was that his restless mood hadn’t resulted only from the anthrax case’s resolving itself so easily. It was also about the mystery with Laurie. Why had she called at 4:30 A.M. to make a dinner date? And why was Lou coming, too?

As the elevator descended, Jack tried to think how he could get back at her. The only idea that came to mind was to buy her a Christmas present over the next few days and then start giving her confusing hints. Laurie was always wildly curious about presents and the suspense ate at her. Two months of suspense would surely be adequate revenge.

Emerging on the first floor, Jack felt better. The Christmas present idea was sounding better and better, although now he’d have to think of something to buy.

Calvin was in his office working on the reams of paper that passed over his desk every day. His hand was so large that the way his fingers had to hold his pen looked comical. He glanced up when Jack approached the desk.

“Are you sure you don’t want to bet on that anthrax diagnosis?” Jack asked.

“Don’t tell me it was positive?” Calvin leaned back in his chair, and it protested loudly under his weight.

“According to Agnes it was anthrax,” Jack said. “Cultures are pending.

“Holy crap!” Calvin exclaimed. “This is going to raise some hackles in the Department of Health.”

“Actually I don’t think that’s the case,” Jack said.

“Oh?” Calvin replied. Jack never failed to surprise him. “Why the hell not?”

“Because the disease does not spread person to person, and because it was an occupational exposure limited to the decedent. The source is apparently safely locked up in a warehouse in Queens.”

“I’m all ears,” Calvin said. “Talk to me!”

Jack explained the Corinthian Rug Company connection, and the recent shipment of rugs and goatskins from Turkey. Calvin nodded as Jack spoke.

“Thank the Lord for small favors,” Calvin said. He tipped forward in his chair, and the workings again moaned in complaint. “I’ll have Bingham call Patricia Markham, the Commissioner of Health. Why don’t you phone the city epidemiologist: the one you worked with so closely concerning the plague case. What was his name?”

“Clint Abelard,” Jack said.

“Yeah, that’s the guy,” Calvin said. “Give him a call. It will foster that cooperative interagency agenda the mayor’s been harping on.”

“Clint Abelard and I hardly worked closely,” Jack said. “Back then when I tried to call him he wouldn’t even talk to me on the phone.”

“I’m sure he’ll feel differently in light of what eventually transpired,” Calvin said.

“Why not have someone else on our capable staff make the call?” Jack said. “Like one of the janitors.”

“Hold the sarcasm,” Calvin said. “Don’t cause problems! Call the man! Case closed! Now, what about that prisoner death?”

“What do you mean, What about the prisoner death’?” Jack asked. “You saw the blood in the neck muscles and the broken hyoid bone. They had him in a deadly choke hold.”

“What about his brain?” Calvin asked. “Did you find anything?”

“You mean like a temporal lobe tumor,” Jack said. “So we could suggest he’d had a psychomotor seizure that turned him into a raving madman. Sorry! The brain was normal.”

“Do me a favor and look at the histology carefully,” Calvin said. “Find something!”

“This case is in the hands of our happy toxicologist,” Jack said. “Maybe he’ll come up with cocaine or something like that.”

“I want the completed file including death certificate on my desk by Thursday,” Calvin said. “I’ve already got a call from the attorney general’s office.”

“In that case it would help if you gave John DeVries a call,” Jack said. “A request to the lab for a rapid result coming from the front office would have far more import than from a grunt like me.”

“I’ll call John,” Calvin said. “But irrespective of what John comes up with, it’s going to be your job to make sure there’s something in the file that leaves the door open, even if only by a crack.”

Jack rolled his eyes and headed for the door. He knew what Calvin was implying, namely that the police commissioner had impressed Bingham that the involved officers needed some justification for the deadly restraining force they’d used. Jack knew prisoners could be violent, Dealing with them was a job he did not envy. At the same time there had been episodes of abuse on the part of the police. Making judgments beyond the forensic facts was a slippery slope Jack refused to descend.

“Hold up!” Calvin called out before Jack was beyond earshot.

Jack leaned back in the deputy chief’s office.

“There’s someone else I want you to call about the anthrax case,” Calvin said. “Stan Thornton. Do you know him?”

“Sure,” Jack said.

Stan Thornton was the director of the Mayor’s Office of Emergency Management. He’d been the featured speaker at one of the Thursday afternoon medical examiner’s conferences organized in the spirit of interagency cooperation. The topic had been mortuary challenges in the event of a disaster associated with a weapon of mass destruction.

Jack had found the talk disturbing. Prior to the lecture he’d never seriously contemplated the logistics of dealing with a massive number of casualties. Just the problem of identification of thousands upon thousands of dead people was mind-numbing. On top of that was the dilemma of what to do with them.

“What would you like me to tell him?” Jack questioned.

“Tell him exactly what you told me,” Calvin said. “Considering the case is a limited occupational exposure, it’s more a courtesy call than anything else. But since anthrax came up in his discussion of bioterrorism, I’m sure he’d at least like to know about the incident.”

“Why me?” Jack complained. “I’m not good at this professional courtesy stuff.”

“You’ve got to learn,” Calvin said. “Besides, it’s your case. Now get out of here so I can get some work done.”

Jack left the administration area, stopped on the second floor to get a sandwich out of a vending machine, then headed up to the fifth floor. Although he intended to return directly to his office, he couldn’t resist sticking his head into Laurie’s. His idea was to press her once more about the nature of the “big secret.” Unfortunately she wasn’t there. Dr. Riva Mehta, her officemate, told Jack that Laurie was closeted with the law enforcement officers in Bingham’s office.

Grumbling under his breath about how his day was going, Jack plopped himself down in his desk chair.

“You look as bad as when you left,” Chet said. “I hope you didn’t provoke the deputy chief into some sort of argument.”

Jack and Calvin were frequently at odds. Calvin believed in strict rules and set protocols. Jack viewed all regulations as guidelines. He believed that intelligence and native instincts were far more practical than bureaucratic edicts.

“It’s a bad hair day,” Jack said evasively. He scratched the top of his head and then cracked his knuckles while deciding which one of the unpleasant tasks he’d been assigned he should attack first. As he opened up his phone directory to look for Clint Abelard’s number, an unpleasant idea occurred to him. Maybe Laurie had gotten a job offer someplace like Detroit, or worse yet, someplace on the West Coast. It made sense; if she were relocating, she’d certainly want to tell him and Lou, and since such a move would undoubtedly represent a promotion, she’d probably be excited about it. For a moment Jack stared into space while he tried to imagine what life in the Big Apple would be like without Laurie. It was difficult to contemplate; it was also depressing.