Robin Cook - Vector

After leaving the toxicology lab, Jack took the stairs to the fifth floor. He was feeling considerably better. With a spring to his step he ducked into histology. He found Maureen O’Conner, the supervisor, with her coat on in preparation for leaving.

“Just my luck!” Maureen said in her quaint Irish brogue. “I’m late for a pathology conference and Mr. Right walks in looking chipper and eager.”

Laughter resonated around the room.

Jack and his officemate, Chet, were the only two unmarried male medical examiners on staff, and Maureen and her team of woman histology assistants got great enjoyment out of teasing both of them. They had plenty of opportunity, since their office was just down the hall.

“I don’t have any conference to go to,” one of the other women offered. “I’m available.” More laughter erupted.

Jack opened his satchel and took out the bottle with the ellipse of Connie’s skin.

“Oh, drat,” Maureen moaned. “It doesn’t look like a social call.”

Jack smiled. “On this visit all I’m looking for are some slides from this skin sample, but tomorrow is another day.”

“Hear that, girls?” Maureen called out.

A chorus of enthusiastic “yeses” rang out.

Maureen took Jack’s sample bottle and handed it off to the nearest technician “Consider it done,” she said to Jack. “What kind of stains?”

“Just the usual,” Jack said. “I want to make sure the pathology is trauma, not infection.”

“When do you need it?”

“The sooner the better,” Jack said.

“Why do I bother asking?” Maureen said while tilting her head back as if talking to God.

Jack left the histology lab and started down the corridor. As he approached Laurie’s office, he could see that her light was on. Veering into her doorway, he stopped. Seated inside were Laurie and Lou. Neither was talking, but rather they were staring off in different directions. The atmosphere was tense.

“Is this a wake?” Jack asked.

Laurie and Lou looked up. Laurie was plainly irritated. Lou was obviously contrite.

“Partners in crime, I hear,” Laurie snapped when she caught sight of Jack.

Jack raised his hands. “I surrender. What’s the crime?”

“I told her about Paul Sutherland’s sheet,” Lou confessed. “And I told her that you knew.”

“I see,” Jack said. “And as we feared the messenger is getting blamed.”

“Now don’t you start supporting him,” Laurie said. “He wasn’t supposed to be snooping like that. I certainly didn’t ask him to.”

“I suppose that’s true,” Jack said. “But under the circumstances, I think you should know your future husband’s line of work.”

“What do you mean, line of work’?” Laurie questioned with renewed anger. “What on earth are you implying?”

“I only told her about the cocaine possession,” Lou explained.

“Uh oh,” Jack said. He swallowed uncomfortably.

“Paul does not deal in drugs,” Laurie said indignantly. “If that’s what you are implying.”

“Can I come in?” Jack asked.

“You’d better,” Laurie snapped. “And you’d better explain yourself.”

Jack pulled over a chair and sat next to Lou. He looked Laurie in the eye. She stared back defiantly.

“Paul Sutherland is an arms dealer,” Jack said. Laurie’s blue-green eyes swept back and forth between Jack and Lou. “How do you know that?” she demanded in a voice that had lost a shade of its anger.

“Lou found that out at the same time he found out about the cocaine possession,” Jack said.

Lou nodded guiltily. He looked down at his hands in his lap.

“What do I care if he’s an arms dealer?” Laurie said airily, trying to make it sound as if it didn’t matter.

Neither Jack nor Lou responded. Knowing Laurie as well as they did, they weren’t fooled.

“What kind of arms?” Laurie asked.

“At the moment I’m not sure,” Lou said. “But as recently as 1994 he specialized in AK-47 assault rifles of Bulgarian manufacture.”

The color drained from Laurie’s face.

“Lou and I argued about who should tell you this,” Jack said. “But one way or the other, we thought you should know, given your feelings about gun control.”

Laurie nodded, sighed, and looked off. Jack wasn’t sure if she was angry or sad or both. For a full minute no one spoke. Finally, Laurie broke the silence: “Thank you, gentlemen, for discharging your civic duty. I’ve been informed. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a lot of work to catch up on.”

Jack exchanged a glance with Lou. They both got to their feet and put their chairs back where they thought they should go. They said their goodbyes, but Laurie didn’t respond. She’d already pulled the contents of one of her uncompleted cases from its file folder and seemed to be absorbed in it.

The two men walked down the hall toward Jack’s office. They didn’t speak until they thought Laurie couldn’t hear.

“I was going to congratulate you on your courage in talking to Laurie,” Jack said, “until I realized you’d cleverly engineered it so that I had to spill the real beans.”

“Thank God you arrived,” Lou said. “She was making me feel like dirt, which wasn’t hard, since I was already questioning my own motives.”

“I still think it was the best thing for Laurie,” Jack said, “even if there’s a chance we did it for ourselves as well as for her.”

“I suppose I can try to look at it like that,” Lou said without enthusiasm.

“Listen, you got a moment? I want to tell you about a case.”

Lou glanced at his watch. “As late as I am, I suppose another half hour doesn’t matter.”

“It won’t take that long,” Jack said.

Jack preceded Lou into his office and snapped on his light. “Where the hell is Chet? I haven’t seen him since this morning. It’s not like him to just disappear.”

Lou sat down while Jack picked up a sheet of paper from the center of his desk.

“Hmmm,” Jack voiced after reading the note. “This is from Ted Lynch, the DNA guru. It seems that the tiny blue star from the Corinthian Rug Company office was heavily contaminated with anthrax spores. Considering the surface area, he estimates that there wouldn’t be room for one more spore. Now that’s curious.”

“What does it mean?” Lou asked.

“Beats me,” Jack said. He tossed the paper onto his desk. “I suppose it’s telling me something, but I haven’t the foggiest notion what it is. It sounds almost as if the star had been dropped into a bowl of anthrax.”

“Let’s hear about this case you wanted to tell me about,” Lou said.

Jack told the story of Connie Davydov. Lou listened intently and smiled about the part involving the funeral home. “Had Warren ever been in that kind of place before?” Lou questioned. Lou knew Warren through Jack.

Jack shook his head.

“He must have squirmed when he had to see the guy getting embalmed.”

“He said it was the worst experience of his life.”

“I can imagine,” Lou said.

“But it couldn’t be helped,” Jack said. “I needed him there to intimidate the funeral director. Actually, I’m surprised I got away with doing what I did.”

“Why are you telling me this story now?” Lou questioned. “Can I help somehow?”

“I’m wondering if you can do something about the body,” Jack said. “I’ve no idea what the plans are concerning embalming or cremation, but I’d like it to stay intact. I’d really like to do a full postmortem. Is there a way you could intervene?”

“Not without some involvement of this office,” Lou said.

“That’s what I was afraid of,” Jack said. “Well, no harm in asking. I’m going to wait around tonight for the results of the assay. If it’s positive for some kind of poison or overdose, I’ll give you a call.”