“Get yourselves clean bowls,” Gloria directed. “Then pick another cereal.”
“Better read me that article about the drug deaths,” Paul said with a hoarse voice.
Gloria read the whole article straight through. When she was finished, Paul headed for his den.
“Aren’t you going to finish your breakfast?” Gloria called after him.
“In a minute,” Paul said. He closed the door of the den behind him and pressed the button on his automatic dialer that would connect him to Angelo.
“Who the hell is this?” Angelo muttered sleepily.
“Did you read this morning’s paper?”
“How am I going to read this morning’s paper? I’ve been sleeping. I was out doing you know what until all hours.”
“I want you, Tony, and that harebrained pill-pusher Travino over here this morning,” Paul said. “And read the paper on the way. We got a problem.”
“Franco!” Marie Dominick said with surprise. “Isn’t this a little early for you?”
“I have to talk with Vinnie,” Franco said.
“Vinnie’s still sleeping,” Marie said.
“I figured he was, but if you could please wake him up—”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m sure,” Franco said.
“Well, come on in then,” Marie said as she opened the door wide.
Franco stepped inside. “Go on into the kitchen,” Marie said. “There’s coffee already made.”
Marie disappeared up a short flight of steps while Franco wandered into the kitchen. Vinnie’s little boy, Vinnie Junior, was seated at the table. The six-year-old was busy slapping a short stack of pancakes with the back side of a spoon. His older sister, Roslyn, age eleven, was at the stove poised to turn over the next batch of flapjacks.
Franco poured himself a cup of coffee. Then he wandered into the living room and sat on a white leather sofa and gazed at the new peppermint-colored shag carpet. He was amazed. He didn’t think you could buy shag carpet anymore.
“This better be good!” Vinnie thundered as he came into the room. He was dressed in a silky, paisley print robe. His hair, which was normally immaculately slicked back, was virtually standing on end.
Instead of explaining, Franco handed Vinnie the paper. Vinnie grabbed it and sat down. “So what am I supposed to be looking at?” he growled.
“Read the article about drug deaths,” Franco said.
Vinnie’s forehead wrinkled as he read. He was silent for about five minutes. Franco sipped his coffee.
“So what the hell?” Vinnie said, looking up. He slapped the paper with the back of his hand. “What the hell are you doing waking me up for this?”
“See those names at the end of the list? Fletcher and the other ones? I followed Angelo and Tony last night. They whacked those people. My guess is that they’ve whacked the whole bunch.”
“But why?” Vinnie demanded. “Why with cocaine? They giving the stuff away?”
“I still don’t know why,” Franco admitted. “I don’t even know if Angelo and Tony are on their own or taking orders from Cerino.”
“They’re taking orders,” Vinnie said. “They’re too stupid to do anything on their own. God! This is a disaster. The whole city is going to be crawling with feds and narcs on top of normal, everyday cops. What the hell is Cerino doing? Has he gone crazy? I don’t understand.”
“I don’t either,” Franco said. “But I just established a connection that goes through a couple of people who know Tony. Someone will get in touch with you.”
“We got to do something,” Vinnie said, shaking his head. “We can’t let this go on.”
“It’s hard to know what to do until we know what Cerino’s up to,” Franco said. “Give me one more day.”
“Only one,” Vinnie said. “After that we move.”
Laurie was filled with dread as she faced her office building. What a difference a day made! Yesterday and the day before she had breezed in and out like she owned the place. Now she was afraid to cross the threshold. But she knew it was what she had to do. The calmness she’d felt in her apartment had vanished.
As she drew closer, she saw that a swarm of restless reporters had already descended on the place to get the story—her story. Her thoughts had been so focused on Bingham, she hadn’t been thinking of them. There were at least as many there now as there had been for the preppy murder II case. Maybe more.
Might as well get it over with, she decided. Entering the reception area, she was instantly recognized. Microphones were pushed in her face along with a cacophony of questions and the pop of camera flashes. Laurie pushed her way through to the inner door without a word. A uniformed security man checked her photo identification before admitting her. The reporters were unable to pursue her beyond that door.
Trying to maintain her composure, Laurie went directly to the ID office. Vinnie was there reading his paper. Calvin was there too.
Laurie gazed into the black man’s face. He stared back at her, hiding his feelings. His eyes were like black marbles, perfectly framed by his wire-rimmed glasses.
“Dr. Bingham wants to see you,” Calvin said flatly. “Unfortunately he can’t see you until he finishes dealing with these reporters. He’ll call you in your office.”
Laurie would have liked to try to explain, but there wasn’t much she could say. And Calvin didn’t seem interested. He returned to whatever work he was doing when Laurie had entered. Laurie decided to check the autopsy schedule before going to her office.
Her name was not on the list. She noticed the three names she’d read in the newspaper: Kendall Fletcher, Stephanie Haberlin, and Yvonne Andre. Apparently they were new cases that fit her series.
Laurie approached Calvin. “I guess you know I’d like to do the posts on these overdoses,” she said.
Calvin looked up from his work. “Personally I don’t care what your preferences are,” he said. “The fact of the matter is that you are to go to your office and wait for Dr.
Bingham’s call.”
Embarrassed at this obvious snub, Laurie glanced at Vinnie, but he seemed riveted to the sports page as usual. If he’d heard the exchange, he wasn’t about to show it.
Feeling like a child banished to her room, Laurie went up to her office. Deciding she might as well try to get some work done, she sat at her desk and pulled out some folders. She was just about to start when she sensed someone’s presence. She looked to the open doorway and saw a rumpled Lou Soldano. He didn’t look happy.
“I personally want to thank you for making my life miserable,” Lou said. “Not that I wasn’t under enough stress from the commissioner before your little revelation to the press, but this just puts the icing on the cake.”
“They distorted what I said,” Laurie said.
“Oh, sure!” Lou said with sarcasm.
“I never said anything about a cover-up,” Laurie said. “All I said was the police didn’t believe the affair involved them. That’s essentially what you told me.”
“My own little mischief-maker. It’s like your call to Internal Affairs wasn’t enough. You had to be sure to really get me.”
“That call was deserved,” Laurie snapped. “And talk about calls, you couldn’t have been much ruder when I called you yesterday. I’ve had quite enough of your glib sarcasm.”
Laurie and Lou glared at each other until Lou broke off and averted his gaze. He stepped into the room and sat down in his usual chair.
“The comment on the phone was juvenile,” he admitted. “I knew it the second it came out of my mouth. I’m sorry. The problem is that I’m jealous of the guy. There, I said it. Whatever is left of my ego, you can kick around as much as you like.”
Laurie’s anger subsided. She let her head fall into her hands, her elbows on the desk. “And I’m sorry if I caused you any trouble at work,” she said, rubbing her eyes. “I certainly didn’t mean to. But you know how desperate I’d become. I had to do something in order to live with m
yself. I couldn’t see any more of these people die without trying something.”
“Did you have any idea of the upheaval you’d be causing?” Lou asked. “And the effects?”
“I still don’t know completely,” Laurie said. “I knew there would be some fallout from the story, otherwise I wouldn’t have given it. But I didn’t know the extent. And I didn’t know they’d distort the facts. On top of that they reneged on my condition of remaining anonymous. I haven’t seen my chief yet, but from the way the deputy chief spoke with me, it’s not going to be a pleasant talk. I could even be fired.”
“He’ll be mad,” Lou said. “But he won’t fire you. He’s got to respect your aims if not your methods. But he’s going to take a lot of heat for this. He won’t be a happy man.”
Laurie nodded. She appreciated the reassurance she’d not be terminated.
“Well, I’d love to stick around to see how this all turns out, but I’ve got to go. My office is in an uproar, too. I just had to come down here and get it off my chest. I’m glad I did. Good luck with your boss.”
“Thanks,” Laurie said. “And I’m glad you came too.”
After Lou left, Laurie put in a call to Jordan. She could have used some moral support, but he was in surgery and wasn’t expected back in the office until much later.
Laurie was just settling down to work again when there was a knock on her door. She looked up to see Peter Letterman standing before her.
“Dr. Montgomery?” Peter said tentatively.
Laurie welcomed him in and offered him a seat.
“Thank you,” Peter said. He sat and gazed around the office. “Nice place.”
“You think so?” Laurie questioned.
“Better than my broom closet,” Peter said. “Anyway, I won’t take too much of your time. I just wanted to let you know that I’ve finally picked up a trace contaminant or at least a foreign compound in the sample you sent up from Randall Thatcher.”
“Really!” Laurie said with interest. “What did you find?”
“Ethylene,” Peter said. “It was only a trace since the gas is so volatile, and I haven’t been able to isolate it from two other cases that I tested.”
“Ethylene?” Laurie questioned. “That’s odd. I don’t know what to make of that. I’ve heard of using ether in free basing, but not ethylene.”
“Free basing is associated with smoking cocaine,” Peter said, “not taking the drug IV the way the folks in your series did. Besides, even in smoking, ether is only used as a solvent for extraction. So I don’t know why ethylene turned up. It could even be a laboratory error for all I know. But since you’ve been so interested in the possibility of a contaminant, I wanted to let you know right away.”
“If ethylene is so volatile,” Laurie said, “why don’t you look for it in the samples from Robert Evans? Since you determined he’d died so quickly, maybe there would be more of a chance to find it if it had been involved.”
“That’s a good idea,” Peter said. “I’ll give it a whirl.”
Laurie kept her eyes on the empty doorway for a moment after Peter had left. Ethylene was hardly the kind of contaminant she’d expected. She thought that they might find some exotic central-nervous-system stimulant like strychnine or nicotine. Laurie wasn’t familiar with ethylene. She’d have to do a little research.
Glancing through the pharmacology book she and Riva kept in the office, Laurie didn’t find much on the gas. She decided to check the office library upstairs. There she found a long article on ethylene in an old pharmacology book. Ethylene was featured more prominently in the older book because it had been used as an anesthetic agent a number of years ago. It had ultimately been abandoned because it was lighter than air and flammable. Those two qualities made the gas too dangerous for use in operating rooms.
In another book Laurie found that ethylene had been noted around the turn of the century to prevent carnations in Chicago greenhouses from opening. The ethylene had been in the greenhouse illuminating gas. On a more positive note she read that the gas was used to hasten the ripening of fruit and in the manufacture of certain plastics like polyethylene and Styrofoam.
Although this background information was interesting, Laurie still didn’t see why ethylene would turn up in cocaine overdose/toxicity cases. Feeling discouraged, she replaced the books on their respective shelves and returned to her office, hoping she hadn’t missed Bingham’s call. Maybe Peter was right: his finding of ethylene had resulted from a laboratory error.
When Lou got back to police headquarters, he was handed a stack of urgent messages from his captain, the area commander, and the police commissioner. Clearly all of officialdom was in an uproar.
Going into his office, he was surprised to find a newly appointed detective sitting patiently by his desk. His suit was new, suggesting he’d only recently become a plainclothesman.
“Who are you?” Lou asked.
“Officer O’Brian,” the policeman said.
“You have a first name?”
“Yes, sir! It’s Patrick.”
“Nice Italian name,” Lou said.
Patrick laughed.
“What can I do for you?” Lou asked, trying to decide on the order in which to return his messages.
“Sergeant Norman Carver asked me to come by to try to collate the medical information you have relating to those gangland killings. You know, all those people who were also patients of Dr. Jordan Scheffield. He thought I might be good at it because I’d been premed for a while in college and had worked in a hospital summers before switching to law enforcement.”
“Sounds reasonable,” Lou said.
“I came up with something that might be important,” Patrick said.
“Uh huh,” Lou said. He stared at the messages to call the police commissioner. That was the one that was the most disturbing. He’d never gotten a message to call the police commissioner. It was like a parish priest getting a call from the pope.
“All the patients had different diagnoses,” Patrick continued, “but they did have one feature in common.”
Lou looked up. “Oh?”
Patrick nodded. “They were all scheduled to have surgery. They were all going to have operations on their corneas.”
“No kidding?” Lou said.
“No kidding,” Patrick said.
After Patrick had left, Lou tried to make sense of it. He’d been disappointed when he’d failed to find a common link between the murder victims besides the fact they’d been patients of Jordan Scheffield. But now there might be something after all. It couldn’t be simple coincidence.
Looking at his stack of phone messages, Lou decided to postpone returning the calls. He’d be better off following up on this new information. After all, he already knew what his higher-ups were calling him about. They wanted to complain about his lack of progress in the gangland murders and probably give him an earful about Laurie’s overdose series to boot. If there was a chance he could start to break the case with this cornea stuff, he’d be better off pursuing it now before he spoke to them.
Lou decided to start with the doctor himself. He figured he’d get the usual runaround, but he was determined to speak with the man, patients or no.
But when Lou asked for Jordan, Scheffield’s receptionist told him that Jordan was in surgery over at Manhattan General and that he had many cases scheduled. He wouldn’t be back in the office until late in the day.
Lou pondered his options. Returning his urgent messages still wasn’t his next choice. He decided persistence was the virtue of the day; he’d pay the eye doc another visit even if it meant barging in the operating room. He’d witnessed about a dozen autopsies that week; could surgery be much worse?
“What the hell happened?” Paul bellowed. Angelo, Tony, and Dr. Louis Travino had been hauled on the carpet. They stood like errant pupils before the school principal. Paul Cerino was seated behind his massive partners desk. He was not happy.
Dr. Travino wiped his forehead ner
vously with a handkerchief. He was a balding, overweight man with a vague resemblance to Cerino.
“Isn’t somebody going to answer me? What’s the matter with you people? I asked a simple question. How’d this story get into the papers?” He swatted the newspaper on his desk in front of him. “All right,” Paul said when it was clear no one was about to volunteer anything. “Let’s start from the beginning. Louie, you told me this “fruit gas’ would not be detectable.”
“That’s right,” Louie said. “It’s not. It’s too volatile. Nothing was said about the gas in the papers.”
“True,” Paul said. “But then why are they describing these overdoses as murders?”
“I don’t know,” Louie replied. “But it wasn’t because they detected the gas.”
“You’d better be right,” Paul said. “I don’t think I have to remind you I’ve been covering your sizable gambling debts. The Vaccarro family would be very unhappy with you if I suddenly wasn’t good for the money.”
“It wasn’t the gas,” Louie reiterated.
“So what was it? I’m telling you, this article has given me a very bad feeling. If someone’s screwed up, heads are going to roll.”
“This is the first suggestion of trouble,” Louie said. “Otherwise everything has been doing fine. And look at you, you’re doing great.”
“Then how did this female doc come up with the real story?” Paul asked. “This Laurie Montgomery is the same broad who blabbed to Lou Soldano about the acid being tossed in my face. Who is this chick?”
“She’s one of the medical examiners in the Manhattan office,” Louie said.
“You mean like that character Quincy that used to be on TV?” Paul asked.
“Well, it’s a little different in real life,” Louie said. “But basically the same.”
“So how did she suspect something?” Paul asked. “I thought you said there’d be no figuring this. How did this Laurie Montgomery guess what was going on?”
“I don’t know,” Louie said. “Maybe this is something we should ask Dr. Montgomery.”
Cerino considered the suggestion for a moment. “To tell you the truth,” he said, “I’d been thinking the same thing. Besides, this Laurie Montgomery could become a big pain in the ass if she keeps up the detective work. Angelo, you think you might arrange a little, er, interview with the little lady?”