Extreme Measures (30 page)

“Thank you for seeing me,” Eric said.

“I’m a professor. I’m supposed to see you, so I’m seeing you.”

“I wanted to ask your opinion about a problem.”

“That Leone woman?”

“Yes, sir.”

Eric laid out his sets of EKGs and, as quickly as he could, reviewed the theories he had developed and the research he had done the night before. Ivor Blunt
listened quietly, although he continually tapped his fingertips together as if to say, “Get to the end, please, because I already know the question
and
the answer.”

“Here,” Eric concluded, “are the three toxins I came up with as possible agents in these cases. I wanted to know what you thought of my theories, and also whether you could detect these substances in Loretta Leone’s blood.”

Blunt studied the list for a bit.

“Amanita, aconite, tetrodotoxin,” he murmured. “Nice stuff, nice stuff. Well, sir, the answers to your questions are: no, no, no, and yes, yes, yes.”

“Pardon?”

“No, I don’t believe any of these three drugs can cause the kind of picture you describe, and yes, I could detect any of them if they were there and I knew what I was looking for.”

“But what about those accounts of simulated death in tetrodotoxin poisoning?”

“Scientific Swiss cheese.”

“What?”

“Far too anecdotal. No blood sample testing, no levels, that sort of thing. These are big-league toxins, Doctor, I’ll grant you that. And nanogram for nanogram, tetrodotoxin may be the nastiest and most fascinating of them all. But I don’t see it slowing metabolism enough to fool a competent doctor with modern diagnostic tools.”

Two competent doctors with very modern tools were fooled
, Eric wanted to say. But the toxicologist seemed impatient and anxious to get on with his day.

“I understand,” Eric said. “One last question: If I were to obtain some of the Leone woman’s blood, would you test it for me?”

“Completely off the record, I might. As I told you before, the medical examiner has not chosen to involve me in this case. The word I received was that he suspected incompetence on the part of a certain physician,
but had absolutely no suspicion of foul play. I think he’s dropped the matter altogether.”

“Thank you, Dr. Blunt,” Eric said, backing from the office. “Thank you so much for doing this for me.”

“Just tell those women out there that mouse was your fault,” Blunt said.

Eric left the office and went directly to the autopsy suite. He began with the secretary and, over the next half hour, worked his way through the technicians, the residents, and finally the director of anatomic pathology. There was no physical evidence whatever that Loretta Leone had ever been autopsied: no dictation (the medical examiner’s office must have the tape, he was told), no body, no blood, and no tissue samples, either in formalin or in wax blocks awaiting sectioning and staining.

He tried calling Dr. Roderick Corcoran, but was told by the medical examiner’s office that Corcoran was on vacation for two weeks. The M.E. who was covering him had no information on the case, although she was certain that any tissue or blood samples that had been taken would still be at White Memorial.

Totally dismayed, Eric pressed on, interrupting one person after another to help him search through samples of frozen blood and bottled organs. Everyone he dealt with named someone else as probably responsible for the material he wanted. Finally, as he stood by the department secretary’s desk trying to make an appointment to see the chief, he was paged to the E.R. to help deal with a mounting backlog at the triage desk.

As he left the office, a well-groomed man in his twenties who had been sitting in the waiting area stepped into the hallway and called to him.

“Excuse me, Dr. Najarian, but I was waiting to speak with Dr. Pollard, and I couldn’t help overhearing your conversation with his secretary. You’re interested in Loretta Leone’s autopsy?”

“That’s right,” Eric said, assuming the man was a resident. “Why, can you help me?”

“That depends on what you’re looking for.”

“What I’m looking for are some tissue or blood samples,” he said.

“And you can’t find any?”

“Nothing. People at the M.E.’s office think they’re here. People here think they’re at the M.E.’s office.”

“That’s strange,” the man said.

“Par for the course, I would say.” Eric glanced at his watch. “Listen, I’ve got to get upstairs. Maybe I can check with you on this later. Where will you be in, say, an hour or two?”

“Probably at my paper.”

“What?”

“I work for the
Herald
. My name’s Cal Loomis.”

Loomis reached out his hand but Eric ignored the gesture.

“Why didn’t you say who you were in the first place?” he asked.

Loomis smiled.

“You never asked me,” he said. “Now, if it’s possible, I’d like to talk to you in more detail about these missing specimens.”

“Go to hell,” Eric said.

He turned and hurried off down the corridor.

It was after nine before Laura forced herself out of bed and into the shower. For years she had listened to men tell her how beautiful she was, but Eric Najarian was the first to make her feel that way. She felt reluctant to dress—to end the night that had brought so much pleasure to both of them. Finally she chose an outfit—slacks and a light pullover—that she felt would not make any particular kind of impression on the police, and headed off.

She was crossing the lobby when the desk clerk motioned her over.

“Excuse me, Miss Enders,” he said, “but you
have a visitor. He’s been waiting quite a while. I told him you probably wouldn’t mind his calling upstairs, but he wanted to wait.”

He gestured toward the front windows, where a uniformed policeman stood watching the passing scene. His expression gave no indication that such a visitor was anything but commonplace at the Carlisle.

The officer turned as Laura approached him. He was a young man—somewhere between twelve and twenty was Laura’s initial impression. His hat seemed a size too big, and she smiled at the fleeting thought that his service revolver might be something his parents gave him for Christmas.

“I’m Laura Enders,” she said. “You’re waiting to see me?”

“Yes, ma’am. I’m Officer Mayer. Captain Wheeler asked me to pick you up and bring you down to headquarters to meet with him. Something about your brother.”

“Have they found him?”

“I don’t know, ma’am. I was just asked to pick you up.”

Laura wished he would stop calling her ma’am. She followed him to the patrol car, which was parked out front.

“Is Captain Wheeler involved with missing persons?”

“Yes and no, ma’am,” Mayer said. “He’s a captain. He’s involved with anything he wants to be.”

“Oh.”

“But if your brother’s missing, and Captain Wheeler’s interested, I would think you have a good chance of finding him.”

“Wheeler’s that good?”

“The best, I’d say. Certainly the toughest.”

“That’s nice to hear. It’s a coincidence your being here. I was just on my way to Station Four to file a complaint against a funeral parlor owner.”

“Sure, ma’am.”

Laura saw amusement flicker across the young man’s face and sensed that she might be in for a long day.

Over the short ride to police headquarters, Laura learned what she could about the man who had sent for her. Wheeler was, according to Officer Mayer, a man who had come up through the ranks and earned his reputation primarily with vice and narcotics. Not too long ago there had been an organized demonstration of protest by a number of uniformed officers when he was passed over for the commissioner’s job.

Wheeler’s office was located on the third floor of the building Laura had visited on her first day in the city. As the patrolman led her to the elevator, she spotted Sergeant Thomas Campbell taking a statement of some sort from an elderly black woman, and looking every bit as indifferent to her story as he had been to Laura’s. As she stepped into the elevator she silently prayed that the encounter with Wheeler would amount to something more than just another set of forms.

“If you’ll wait here, please, ma’am,” the policeman said, nodding to a bench in the third-floor hallway.

He knocked at and then entered Wheeler’s office. Moments later he returned, told Laura to wait, and disappeared down the back stairs. Laura tried, unsuccessfully, to keep her excitement and expectations in check. Her experience with the police, both in D.C. and Boston, had been so uniformly unrewarding that just the thought of
meeting
with a captain who was interested in Scott had her imagination soaring. Several minutes passed, during which she played through any number of scenarios, testing her reaction to revelations ranging from proof of Scott’s death to his involvement in some sort of criminal activity.

At last Wheeler’s door opened. A tall, uniformed man, whose shoulders nearly spanned the doorway, smiled at her and motioned her over. He looked about
fifty, with thick reddish-gray hair and a confident, weathered face.

“Thank you for coming, Miss Enders,” he said, extending a beefy hand. “I’m Captain Lester Wheeler.”

Laura followed him into the office and settled in across the desk from him as Wheeler pulled one of her posters from his drawer.

“I’ve been meaning to get in touch with you about this for a couple of days,” he said. “Sorry to have taken so long.”

“Do you know something about my brother?”

“Do you?” he asked.

“I’m not sure I understand.”

“Miss Enders, do you know your brother’s occupation?”

“I’ve been sensing for a while that what I know is wrong,” she said. “He’s not in computers, is he?”

The policeman shook his head and smiled at the notion.

“No,” he said. “No, he’s not—or I should say, wasn’t. I … don’t mean to be too blunt, Miss Enders, but I have good reason to believe your brother is dead.”

Despite all her preparation, Laura felt herself sink at the news.

“Go on,” she said.

“Your brother was an agent for the government. And a damn good one, I might add. He worked for a group out of Washington that I frankly don’t know too much about, except that they supply undercover people to other agencies such as the FBI and DEA.”

“Communigistics,” Laura said.

“Pardon?”

“Nothing. I just think I know who he worked for.”

“Perhaps you do. Well, this past winter your brother was working undercover on loan to us. He was trying to break a drug-smuggling ring operating through the port in East Boston. It’s our belief that he
filmed a very big deal involving some people we’ve been trying to nail for a long time.”

“A videotape?” Laura could feel puzzle pieces dropping into place.

“Exactly,” Wheeler said. “We believe that Scott was taken somehow, and—I’m sorry to say it this way—perhaps even tortured.”

“God.”

“It’s an occupational hazard your brother lived with.”

“This is all so hard for me to believe.”

“If it was easy for you to believe,” Wheeler said, “then your brother wouldn’t have been very effective at what he did.”

“I understand. Go on.”

“Our sources have convinced us that, whatever they put Scott through, he didn’t crack. In fact, he nearly escaped.”

“Do you know for certain that he’s dead?”

“If you mean do we have his body, the answer is no. He probably drowned in Boston Harbor.”

“He may not have,” Laura said.

She recounted Eric’s resuscitative attempts on the derelict, and their subsequent visits to the Gates of Heaven.

“When your man picked me up, I was actually on my way here to file a complaint against Donald Devine,” she concluded.

“Interesting,” Wheeler said. “Very interesting. Miss Enders, I’m not sure what to make of your story about this Devine, but I can’t begin to tell you how badly we want that tape.”

“I … I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

“Your brother never communicated with you, however innocently?”

“Never. Except for an occasional phone call, these postcards are all I’ve ever gotten.” She handed him the small stack of cards from Boston. “There’s one other thing I haven’t told you yet,” she said when
Wheeler had finished scanning the postcards. “The day before yesterday, Eric and I received a message to check the East Boston docks for news of my brother.” She handed him the note and described the events that followed.

“Do you have any idea who saved you?” Wheeler asked.

“I was hoping you might know.”

The policeman shook his head.

“Obviously the Feds are playing their own game here,” he said. “They probably sent you this as a way of stirring things up. Perhaps they knew that Scott had been working around this warehouse. The man who saved your bacon had probably been following you. Miss Enders, excuse me for pressing, but this is so important. You have no inkling whatsover of where your brother might have hidden the video receiver?”

“Absolutely none.”

“Well then,” Wheeler said, “suppose we leave things at this: As soon as I have time, I’ll see what explanations your friend Mr. Devine has regarding this whole business with that body. You really think it was your brother?”