Mercy (17 page)

“And you said it’s mostly found in women.”

“Menopausal women, to be precise, and yes, ninety percent of the time.”

“So that makes Sam’s case even more unusual,” Michelle said, taking a sip of her wine.

“I’m looking for an expert on takotsubo,” Julie said. “Someone who could review the slides.”

“There’s nobody at White?”

“Not the foremost expert that I’m looking for,” Julie said. “You’d think with my contacts, I’d be able to find the right person, but it’s not that easy.”

“Not that easy for what?” Keith asked, returning to the room with a dusty bottle of red wine.

“Julie is looking for a medical expert who knows about cardio—something,” Michelle said.

“Takotsubo cardiomyopathy,” Julie said.

Keith thought hard a moment. “Ah yeah, I’ve heard of it. Ballooned ventricle. Very unusual.”

He opened the wine, but left it on the table to breathe.

“It’s how Sam died,” Michelle said.

“We think,” Julie clarified. “It’s not definitive. But the markers are there. I’m trying to figure out why it showed up in a healthy, male heart when there wasn’t any associated stress event.”

“Nobody at White could help?” Keith asked.

Julie shook her head, looking defeated. Never before had she spent more time in White Memorial’s sizable research library than she had over these past few days. Her obsessive nature had gotten Julie through medical school, and it kicked in again to fuel her research into this rare heart ailment. Over the course of several days she had nearly drained a bottle of saline drops to keep moisture in eyes dried from hours spent gazing at the computer screen.

“Lots of dead ends and not a lot of leads. I got some names, but so far not a lot of callbacks. Look up ‘busy’ in the dictionary, and you’ll find a picture of a cardiologist.”

Julie was being kind. She had knocked on the doors of almost every cardiologist at White. Badgered them with questions until they stole glances at the clock or their pager. Most were polite, most respected her motivation, but all could give her only a smidge more than what she’d gleaned from her own research. The disease was too unusual for any of them to have more than a cursory understanding of it.

Every ailment had its guru to whom other docs turned for counsel, to whom their patients were referred. Julie needed to find that person for takotsubo cardiomyopathy, but he or she was as elusive as the reason Sam had suddenly presented with the condition.

“We deal with that callback challenge all the time,” Michelle said. “Very Much Alive is always on the hunt for doctors who support our mission.”

Julie’s expression brightened. “You know, I should have asked you sooner,” she said.

“Asked me what?”

“Very Much Alive—you guys are a global organization, right?”

“That’s right. A lot of our focus is on US law, but there are international implications to what we do, sure.”

“And you network with doctors all the time,” Julie said.

Keith chuckled as if to say that was an understatement. “Michelle’s more networked than an HMO,” he said.

“So you must know how to find these doctors. Not only from various hospitals, but online too.”

“We do monitor the Internet to look for trends,” Michelle said. “It’s one way we identify thought leaders in various fields.”

“Then maybe you can help me find my takotsubo expert. I could post my questions to the more popular Web sites and message boards, at least. See if I get any hits.”

Michelle nodded with enthusiasm. “Absolutely,” she said. “I’d be thrilled to help. Especially if it can bring you some closure.”

“But after we eat,” Keith added. “Our food is getting cold.”

Keith escorted everyone to a beautifully set table, served generous portions of his beef stir-fry, and poured wine into new glasses. Julie smiled and thanked him, but she was too anxious to eat. Michelle had given Julie something that had been as elusive as the expert she sought. She gave Julie hope she could find out exactly how Sam died.

CHAPTER 21

Lincoln Cole had been sitting for hours in the white cargo van parked across the street from Julie’s apartment. Tell someone you work as a private investigator, and they’d probably conjure up an image of a wisecracking gumshoe with a thirst for adventure. The reality was much less glamorous, but Lincoln had had no delusions about the work when he left law enforcement for self-employment. He’d expected the hours of waiting for something to happen, and that was what he got: lots of waiting, lots of spying on cheating spouses, lots of surveillance work, lots of background checks, and lots of boredom.

Lincoln had skills, though. He was an ex-cop, after all—albeit one with an anger management issue, according to the brass who shit-canned him ten years back. The closest thing to a criminal is a cop, so yeah, Lincoln had all sorts of skills that he applied to his new trade.

As a general practice, private investigators did not operate above the law, but Lincoln was adept at circumventing it. The straight-up corporate gigs paid well enough, but the ones that required him to cross some legal lines always paid the best. The question Lincoln had been asking himself of late was where to draw that line. He was fifty, and this was really a younger man’s game. His savings were respectable, but Lincoln had no desire to live a respectable life. He wanted to be down in St. John’s, sipping piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. He had no commitments here in Boston, no wife, no kids, and he still had his looks, thank God for that, but it would help to have the cash to attract the kind of women who appealed to his sensibilities: long on legs and short on needs.

To offset damage to his body from hours sitting in his van, Lincoln worked out religiously. For a man half a century old, he kept in fantastic shape. He weighed 180 on the nose and stood five feet eight inches tall, perfectly average all around, which was good for a business that often required him to blend into his environment. Despite having a slender frame, Lincoln could still bench 225 with ease, knock out 120 sit-ups in two minutes, and he moved athletically for a guy who never went beyond high school sports. He suffered from male pattern baldness, but thanks to a nicely round head could rock a buzz cut like Bruce Willis. He kept his face clean-shaven so he could apply various facial hair disguises, which went with the large collection of wigs he owned. Lincoln put on personas the way others did pants. It was a part of the job he loved.

The job tonight was Julie Devereux. She had been his sole source of income for the better part of a week. He had no idea why she was on his employer’s radar. It was not his business to ask. He was paid to get information, which in this case required him to keep tabs on everything Dr. Devereux did and said, and to track everywhere she went.

Lincoln had been with the van the whole time, feeding the meter frequently because Dr. Julie had been out of his sight for hours. Even without visual contact, Lincoln knew exactly where she had gone. She had driven to Shrewsbury and back, which matched the plan Lincoln had heard Julie make on a phone call to a woman named Michelle.

Lincoln liked the new software from TrueSpy. It gave him total control over Julie’s Android phone. Without her knowing, he could, among other things, listen in on her calls, read her messages, and track her location via the phone’s built-in GPS. None of this was legal, of course. None of these tactics were sanctioned by the USAPI, the governing body of private investigators. But that organization could care less about Lincoln’s modest savings account, or his plan to sip cocktails on some faraway beach with leggy blondes. So screw them.

From the shadows of the van, Lincoln watched Julie turn her car into the garage adjacent to her Cambridge apartment building. Evidently the good doctor could afford a deeded parking space in the lower levels.

Lincoln retreated to the back of the van, where he turned on all six fifteen-inch video monitors. The monitors were secured to a custom-made metal rig and stacked in two rows of three. Soon enough Julie would be back in Lincoln’s sight.

In one of the center consoles, Lincoln watched Julie enter her condominium and hang her coat in the front hall closet. The camera recording her every moment was hidden inside a hollow plant holder that held a nice assortment of fake flowers. A few days back, while Julie was at work, Lincoln had entered her home and cut a small hole into that plant holder. He’d pushed the lens completely flush against the hole so there was no noticeable gap, and affixed the unit with duct tape to secure it.

Getting inside was easy. He could have picked the locks, but instead put on a janitor disguise and gained access to Julie’s office at work. He snatched her keys and phone from her purse during a long hospital shift. He installed the TrueSpy software on her phone and had copies of the keys made at a place he knew did not bother to check ID. Lincoln returned the items, and Julie never knew they had gone missing.

The feeds from inside the condo were being broadcast wirelessly, through an encrypted channel. Lincoln could access them from his home computer if he wanted. But he’d told his employer he would be outside when she got home, and he’d keep watch until she fell asleep. It was their dime, after all. Lincoln had no idea where this job was headed, but his gut told him it would involve a lot more than illegal spying.

Again Lincoln thought about his imaginary line dividing legal activities from the other kind. How far was he willing to step across? He guessed the answer depended on how much his employer was willing to pay.

On a different monitor, Lincoln watched Julie wash her hands in the kitchen sink, then rummage through her fridge, ultimately electing to eat nothing. He had hidden this camera inside a wall socket near the toaster oven, which gave him a good view of the cooking area and the kitchen island where Julie and Trevor ate most of their meals. He had used wall sockets for a few other hidden cameras, including the ones in Julie’s bedroom and the bathroom.

Lincoln thought this was a fine-looking home, much nicer than his apartment in East Boston. The kitchen was large and spacious, with stainless steel appliances, granite counters, cherry cabinets, and hardwood floors throughout. The other rooms were just as nice. Not that Lincoln lived in a hovel, but nothing about his apartment was upscale or inviting. He never entertained, and when he did sleep with women, it was always at their places, not his. Except for a few drinking buddies from his policing days, Lincoln kept few close ties. Most people pissed him off eventually.

Julie left the kitchen. The next time she showed up it was on the monitor in the bottom row, far left. She had entered the boy’s bedroom. Lincoln knew her son was with Paul, but Winston, the guinea pig, had stayed behind. Julie checked the pet’s water and food, then left that room as well.

In a different monitor, Lincoln watched Julie pee. It did not turn him on or anything—he was not sick like that—but when she changed into a nightshirt and underwear, he got a good look at her body and felt a little stir down there. For a woman in her forties, Julie Devereux was quite the looker. She was not the kind of taut twenty-five-year-old he fantasized about having his way with on the beach, but she had a respectable physique. He would have no qualms inviting her into the sack.

Anything he did to Julie, though, would require a cash payment from his employer. He could not think of one reason they would want him to do the horizontal bop, but he could conceive of other things they might ask.

How far over that imaginary line are you willing to go, Lincoln Cole?

He thought about those white-sand beaches and doing a whole lot of nothing all day long. Depending on the payday, he could cross that line as far as this job took him.

CHAPTER 22

Allyson led Romey into Suburban West’s expansive boardroom. The members—four men and two women, business and community leaders from the western suburbs of Boston—sat along one side of the long cherrywood table. Allyson took a seat next to the vice chairman of the board, an owl-faced man in his sixties named Thomas Winn. Romey wore his best suit to the meeting—a solid blue Paul Fredrick number that hung just right across his shoulders and had a slimming effect when buttoned.

Tremendous effort had gone into preparing for this meeting, and Romey felt confident the outcome would be in his favor. He also came with more than just assurances of better days ahead. He could not simply offer up a carrot and expect these seasoned business leaders to follow him, salivating. He was no snake oil salesman. Romey had to guarantee the reward and thereby assume most of the risk, eliminating at least one major obstacle the board might present. The biggest wild card remained Allyson. Would she play Romey’s game, or a game of her own?

Instead of sitting, Romey placed his briefcase on a chair and pushed it away, making room for him to stand. Standing made his short stature a benefit, as it allowed him to look down to make eye contact with each member of the board seated across from him.

He began immediately, with no introduction. He was on the agenda, and he had seen the e-mail that went around with his bio attached. No reason for redundancy. Administrators like Romey did not need an M.D. degree to be respected. They needed only to produce results, which Romey’s resume supplied in spades. He had climbed from assistant comptroller at White Memorial to comptroller, with no other candidates interviewed for the position. Romey, who was a wizard at hospital finance, had saved the CFO from his own idiocy on many occasions. The CEO back then took notice, to the point of replacing the CFO with Romey. In this new position Romey pulled out all the stops and the hospital began not only to improve its financial position, but to flourish. When the CEO retired, the board wanted to continue the hospital’s moneymaking ways and promoted Romey to the head position. He had never given the board cause to doubt their decision, something the White Memorial balance sheets made quite clear to the board at Suburban West.

“Health care is a changing industry and I am afraid, my friends, that your small suburban hospital is a dinosaur.”
That’s it, Romey—start ’em off with a bang.
He paused for effect.