Death Benefit

by Robin Cook

  Now the same feelings flooded Pia’s brain. The security guards were coming at her with the same silent intensity, drilling her with their beady eyes. Pia stood stock-still and closed her eyes. Just like the Eden Falls policemen, the men parted right in front of her and went on either side . . . and moved on. The man to her left brushed past her upper body, then turned and said something—was he apologizing or saying “Get out of the way,” or making a lewd remark? Pia didn’t know. She breathed out with relief, unaware that she’d been holding her breath.

  Pia was embarrassed by the depth of her paranoia. She shivered and a chill ran down her spine. The unnerving episode had taken only seconds. She wiped perspiration from her forehead and then hurried on toward Broadway. By the time she passed the hospital entrance, her breathing and pulse were almost back to normal. On Broadway she relaxed further as there were significantly more people. She felt safer there—she was safer there. In the near distance loomed the subway entrance swallowing pedestrians like an insatiable monster. A gust of wind blew the umbrella she was holding almost out of her hand, and she fought with it for a moment to get it under control. Once she did, she closed it and hurried forward to the stairs.

  47.

  168TH STREET AND BROADWAY

  NEW YORK CITY

  MARCH 25, 2011, 3:56 P.M.

  Holy shit, there she is!” Genti shouted, pointing, as Prek made the right-hand turn from Broadway onto 168th Street running between the Columbia University Medical Center on the left and the Armory on the right. Genti’s glance had alighted on the woman carrying a shopping bag when the wind blew her umbrella, threatening to lift her into the air. He saw her face clearly, and it was the Grazdani girl, no doubt about it. She was walking quickly toward the subway entrance. “Stop!” Genti shouted as Prek slowed.

  “Who’s with her?”

  “No one, I didn’t see no one,” shouted Genti. “Let me out. Wait for me here.”

  Genti, who was riding shotgun, leaped from the van the moment Prek was able to stop. He ran after Pia, who he guessed was maybe twenty yards ahead of him, making her way toward the subway entrance. As he ran, Genti checked that the gun was secure in his jacket pocket. He wasn’t certain what he’d do if he caught up with her—should he shoot her in the street? Grab her and bring her back to the van?

  He just knew the one thing he couldn’t do was lose her.

  Genti watched Pia disappear from his view as she descended quickly into the station while he weaved in and out of the cars, gypsy cabs, buses, and vans on the busy corner of Broadway and 168th Street. He reached the subway entrance and rushed down the stairs but couldn’t see her. Was she catching the A train or the 1? Probably the express train, the A, he thought. He was desperately looking ahead for her, half pushing people out of the way.

  “Excuse me, excuse me.” He didn’t want to get too aggressive: New Yorkers were liable to get aggressive right back at you. Genti rarely rode the subway and didn’t have a Metro card that he could swipe to get through the turnstiles, and he certainly didn’t have time to stop and buy one from a machine. Hoping there were no cops looking out for fare dodgers, he followed a schoolkid and pushed through the turnstile behind him.

  Genti had to choose, the A or the 1. Changing his mind, he opted for the 1, and as he neared the giant, aging elevator that took riders to the platform deep underground, he caught a glimpse of Pia at the head of a group of passengers who’d just got on. The doors began to close. He saw she was standing to the side, ready to be first off. He raced forward.

  “Hold the elevator!” he shouted. “Hold it.”

  Genti reached the doors as they were almost closed and frantically tried to stop them. For a moment his hand was trapped and he was forced to pull it out quickly. He looked around. Stairs. Genti wasn’t careful anymore; he pushed past an old woman and leaped down the refuse-strewn stairs three or four at a time. He didn’t know that the platform was the equivalent of eight stories below and pressed on, dodging the few passengers walking up or down, yelling at everyone to get the fuck out of the way. He was breathless but reached the bottom only to find that the elevator had already discharged its load of descending passengers, and new ones were already boarding.

  Genti took in lungfuls of air, his hands on his knees. He was the first to admit not being in the best shape. Then he heard nearby the high-pitched squeal of a subway train’s brakes. Uptown or downtown? He guessed she was going downtown, as the majority of people were doing. He pushed forward and heard the mechanical sound of train doors opening. He entered a barrel-ceilinged passageway leading from the elevators to the station itself. Suddenly there was a crowd of people coming toward him, filling the tunnel from one side to the other. They’d just disembarked from the train, and he had to fight his way through them. When he reached the platform, he looked up and down its length, spotting Pia farther down the platform.

  Genti saw her clear as day. She was right there, maybe thirty feet in front of him. She stepped into a car.

  Then Genti made a mistake. While he waited for the “Please stand clear of the closing doors” announcement that always preceded the train’s departure, Genti marched down the platform intending to board the train through the same door she did. Then, as he drew level, the doors closed without warning. Genti banged on the door and looked back toward the conductor about twenty feet away. “Hey, man, the door!”

  The conductor ignored him, and the train’s brakes released with a hiss of air. Genti looked into the car. Pia’s and Genti’s eyes locked for a brief second before the train began to pull away from the station. All Pia saw was another guy trying to push his way onto the train.

  Genti turned to stare down the conductor, who drew his head into his cab with a slight smile on his face as the train picked up speed. Genti watched it disappear into the tunnel, keeping his eyes on its taillights until they disappeared into the gloom.

  He’d failed.

  Genti walked back to the elevator. In some ways he was embarrassed that he’d missed the girl, but he rationalized that it probably was for the best. Maybe he would have had trouble getting her out of the station without interference. Besides, he reasoned, if they were supposed to get the boy too, it would be easier to get them together and deal with them at the same time. If they’d taken the girl, the boyfriend might have gone to ground and been hard to find.

  By the time Genti had ridden up in the elevator he was feeling much better about having missed Pia. And he had been reminded of what a beauty she was. He looked forward to snatching her off the street and taking her to Buda’s isolated summer house where no one could hear anything going on inside.

  Genti stepped onto the street and looked for the white van but couldn’t spot it. He called Prek, who told him he was down beyond the Neurological Institute where he’d been able to snag a great parking place between the medical school and the dorm just beyond where 168th Street turns into Haven Avenue.

  Genti walked west and soon saw the van. He got in and related how he’d just missed her in the elevator and then missed her a second time, as she was getting on the subway car. He said he was so close it was frustrating.

  “It’s not the worst thing,” Prek said, echoing Genti’s earlier thoughts. “This is the perfect spot right here. Hopefully, if we’re lucky, when she shows up it will be with the boyfriend, and we’ll be waiting. I’m thinking we need to get them together.”

  “How will we know which one he is?” Genti said. “I bet she has a lot of boyfriends.”

  As if Aleksander Buda were reading their minds, Prek’s cell phone buzzed. It was an e-mail from Buda with an attachment. When Prek opened the JPEG he found himself staring at George’s medical school admission photo listing his height and weight.

  “He’s six-one, one-ninety, with blond hair,” said Prek. “Taller than most. We shouldn’t have too much trouble picking him out.”

  “Perhaps he’ll come by on his own,” Genti said.

  “No, my sense is they’ll be together sin
ce they seem to be spending a lot of time together recently. I know I would if I was him. I imagine they’ll meet up when she comes back from wherever she’s going.”

  48.

  CORNER OF FIRST AVENUE AND THIRTIETH STREET

  NEW YORK CITY

  MARCH 25, 2011, 4:40 P.M.

  As the last of the daylight threatened to fade away completely thanks to the low clouds and rain, Pia paused outside the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, gazing at the front of the half-century-old building. It wasn’t inviting in the least, with its weird façade of blue glazed tiles that reminded her of the Ishtar Gate of ancient Babylon. She’d seen pictures of the latter in an almost equally ancient Encyclopœdia Britannica at the academy. She glanced at the tile and then at the outdated 1960s-style aluminum-framed windows. World-class ugly.

  Pia had been worried about making it in time, but she’d been lucky with the trains. Now that she was there, she wasn’t as confident as she had been about going in cold like this. She had no contacts there, no one she knew she could trust, no one she knew on any level, and this wasn’t a feeling she liked. She was very aware that this was the New York City OCME and she’d had a lot of bad experiences with various city agencies as a child. The state may have provided her with food and shelter, but it had also fed and sheltered her enemies and abused her. There was not a lot of reason not to worry that this city agency wouldn’t be equally as nasty.

  Pia had another thought. What would happen if she went in there and actually succeeded in her mission? What if she asked to see Rothman’s body and somehow got permission and then found that he had in fact been irradiated, proving that he and Yamamoto were murdered? Her mind raced. There’d be a huge police action, and she’d be at the center. It would be a media circus. She and George would be questioned, she’d have to voice her myriad suspicions and assist with inquiries and make statements and possibly appear in court. But then she touched her tender jaw and remembered the beating and the warning she’d gotten the night before. She had no choice. The answers to her questions lay in this building, or they were nowhere at all.

  Taking a deep, fortifying breath, Pia tucked her umbrella under her arm and went in the front door.

  The reception area showed every bit of its fifty years. It was dark and somewhat dingy with a worn dark brown leather couch and a few other worn, mismatched chairs. The linoleum floor was cracked and scarred. On a low coffee table were some dog-eared magazines with the address labels torn off the covers. There was a crowd of people sprinkled on the furniture and some leaning against the wall. Soon it became apparent they were all together, members of a grieving African-American family with at least three generations represented. Two teenaged girls were hugging in a corner, crying softly.

  “Excuse me,” Pia said, approaching the receptionist. A security guard sat at another table off to the side next to a set of glass doors. The receptionist, carefully dressed and pleasantly plump, was wearing a name tag that read “Marlene.” She looked up. She had a friendly smile.

  “Yes, honey.”

  “Hi. I’m a medical student and I’d very much like to talk to one of the medical examiners.”

  “Are you here to find out about teaching opportunities at the OCME, like the elective for medical students?”

  “Maybe,” Pia said, wanting to keep her options open.

  “Maybe?” Marlene questioned, with a smile. “What is it exactly you want to talk to the medical examiner about?”

  Pia hesitated.

  “Actually, I’d like to discuss a specific case. Two cases, to be more precise.”

  “Are they relatives of yours?”

  “No.”

  “Perhaps it’s best if you talk to the department of public relations if it’s information about a specific case you want, seeing as you’re not a relative.”

  Pia saw she was losing ground. The last thing she wanted was to be shunted off to the public relations department, where she surely wouldn’t get access to Rothman’s corpse. Fearing she might be turned away, Pia studied the receptionist’s face, trying to think of an approach. Marlene seemed to be a congenial person and for a brief moment Pia toyed with the idea of telling at least a partial truth. Quickly she decided against it. Any way she explained the reason she was there that approached the truth would sound too bizarre.

  “Actually, I also want to talk about the teaching opportunities here. The two cases I mentioned are teaching cases that I’ve heard about. I’ve come all the way down from Columbia.” Pia smiled to try to cover up any potential inconsistencies. “I’ve become interested in forensics. Very interested.”

  Marlene was confused—what did this girl really want? She was also impressed that she had come all the way from Columbia Medical Center way up in Washington Heights. That took some effort, especially late on a Friday afternoon. Marlene didn’t have the heart to send her away without talking to someone. Besides, she was a pretty thing, and Marlene knew exactly who would be more than happy to speak with her.

  “Okay then. I’ll call Dr. McGovern.”

  “Is he a medical examiner?”

  “He’s a medical examiner and he also happens to be the coordinator for teaching at OCME.”

  “Thank you.” Pia was delighted.

  Marlene put in a call to Chet McGovern and motioned for Pia to take a seat. Pia stepped away from the receptionist’s desk. She didn’t sit down as there were no chairs available. It was close to five o’clock, so she had to make a quick impression on this McGovern guy. A moment later the glass doors opened and a heavyset woman in a lab coat appeared, holding a clipboard. She introduced herself to the grieving family as Rebecca Marshall, an ID coordinator, and asked them to follow her. Dutifully the entire clan disappeared through a door marked ID ROOM.

  Pia took one of the newly vacated seats and tried to be patient. While she waited she tried to decide what approach to take with the medical examiner. Should she be aggressive or coy? Eventually she decided she’d have to wait and see what kind of man Dr. McGovern turned out to be. She was hoping for someone on the youngish side, someone she could flirt with to a degree. Over the years she’d learned she had an effect on most men, and she thought that this was one of those situations where it could work to her advantage. Usually it was the opposite.

  A few minutes later her prayers were answered when a youngish man came through the inner doors in a long white lab coat with the confident air of a doctor. When he took one look at Pia, who was the only person in the waiting room, his face lit up. Pia recognized the reaction. She’d seen it too many times not to. He appeared to be in his forties, early fifties at most. He was blond and good-looking in a masculine, all-American way, somewhat like George, and Pia could tell he was in good shape.

  He came right over to Pia like a bee to honey and introduced himself. Pia did the same, avoiding his stare. She recognized the type immediately: an irrepressible Lothario who undoubtedly saw every attractive single woman younger than him as a challenge. She was encouraged.

  After the introductions, which included him repeating proudly that he was indeed the current coordinator for teaching at the OCME, he said, “Let’s go up to my office and see if we can’t help you out. Thanks, Marlene.”

  McGovern winked at Marlene behind Pia’s back, and Marlene rolled her eyes.

  As McGovern escorted Pia to his third-floor office he peppered her with questions about where she was at medical school, what year, and what she thought she might like to specialize in. He mentioned how interesting medical forensics was and offered up his credentials.

  Pia played along, answering McGovern’s questions, acting as if she were interested in his life story and achievements. They entered McGovern’s small office and sat on either side of McGovern’s untidy desk.

  “Sorry about the mess. So what can I do for you, Miss, er . . .” McGovern’s eyes shone with the struggle he was having remembering her name.

  “Grazdani. Thank you for seeing me with so little warning.”

&nb
sp; “My pleasure, I’m sure.”

  “I want to know about autopsies that were performed here on Dr. Tobias Rothman and Dr. Junichi Yamamoto from Columbia University Medical Center. They died the morning of March twenty-fourth—yesterday—of typhoid fever.” Pia was all business, taking McGovern aback. “I’m assuming autopsies have already been done,” she said.

  “Er, well, er, I wasn’t involved in either one, and I haven’t heard much scuttlebutt around the office other than one of them was the famous Nobel-winning researcher. All I heard was that he died of an extremely aggressive infection. But let me check what we have.”

  McGovern keenly wanted to be helpful. He looked at Pia, and she half smiled back at him. Using the computer on his desk, McGovern looked up the names to get the OCME accession numbers and then brought up the individual cases.

  “Here we are. Yes, it says the autopsies were performed the afternoon of the twenty-fourth, so that was, er, yesterday. The day they died.” McGovern scrolled through one file, then the other.

  “They certainly were both serious infectious cases with severe erosion of the gut, both small intestine and large. Wow! Anyway they’re considered OSHA cases, which was the main reason they were autopsied.”

  “OSHA cases?” Pia questioned. She’d heard the acronym but couldn’t remember what it was for.