by Tom Grace
“Well, I don’t do miracles,” Hawthorne said with a smile, “but I do try to coax nature along in the right direction. Now, I’ve reviewed the medical files you sent over this morning, and your physicians have done a very thorough medical assessment on you both. I assume they have fully explained the specifics of your situation.”
Roxanne and Nolan shared a glance like a couple bracing for the worst.
“They have,” Nolan said. “My wife is perfectly healthy and capable of conceiving a child and carrying a pregnancy to full term. I, on the other hand, am incapable of either generating or delivering sperm.”
“Azoospermia,” Hawthorne concurred. “From your physical work up, ultrasound imaging, and detailed medical history, I see your doctors found no physical defect or evidence of past trauma or exposure that could cause your condition. Your hormone and serum inhibin-B levels provide no conclusive indication of obstructive or non-obstructive azoospermia. I assume they have told you that the next logical step is a testicular biopsy.”
“That’s why we’re here,” he said. “For a second opinion on what we know so far and to discuss our options.”
“For you both to produce a biological child, you need an egg and a sperm. We have a ready supply of healthy eggs and a question mark with regard to sperm. If the biopsy reveals the presence of sperm cells in your testes, then you are a candidate for testicular sperm extraction and routine in vitro fertilization.”
“And if a biopsy reveals no sperm cells?” Nolan asked.
“As you’ve probably already been told, without sperm, there is no conventional way to conceive a child who is both your genetic offspring.”
Roxanne turned and buried her face in Nolan’s chest with a sob. He embraced her tenderly, resting his cheek against the top of her head. Hawthorne directed her eyes down to the medical reports on her tablet computer to provide the couple with a small measure of privacy.
Roxanne composed herself and dried her eyes with a tissue. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
“No need,” Hawthorne reassured her. “The desire to have children is essential to who you are and the relationship that you share. A negative biopsy doesn’t close the door on your being parents. Donated sperm could be used to achieve pregnancy, and, of course, there’s adoption.”
“My wife and I are only children,” Nolan explained. “The end of the line, literally, for both of our families.”
“My parents are from China,” Roxanne offered. “They are a bit old-fashioned. We would be happy with any child of our own, but a son would make them very happy.”
“And my folks wouldn’t mind someone who could carry the family name into another generation, too,” Nolan added. “I’ll lay our cards on the table, doctor. Our first choice is to have a child of our own, and we’ll exhaust every option to make that happen. We have health insurance, but that’s not an issue—we have the financial resources to cover any treatment I need to father our child. Neither of us wants to go the donor sperm route, so we will adopt if we cannot make children of our own.”
With both hands, Roxanne clasped Nolan’s hand tightly. “We want a large family with brothers and sisters. Can you help us?”
“As I said, I try to coax nature along in the right direction, and I have had some success with difficult conditions such as yours. To start, I would like to perform a physical exam and repeat some of your blood work to recheck your hormone and inhibin-B levels. How long are you in town?”
“Just through the weekend,” Nolan replied. “And I’m here now, if that’s convenient for you.”
“I could get started, if you have no other plans,” Hawthorne offered. “I’ll need you for about two hours.”
Nolan looked at his watch and turned to Roxanne, “Think you can find somebody to go with you to the theater tonight?”
“Oh, what are you seeing?” Hawthorne asked.
“Hamilton,” Roxanne replied.
“It’s wonderful. I hate to ruin your date.”
“I’ve seen it, but it’s her first time.” Nolan said. “Hon, you can pick up the tickets at the box office. They’re under my name.”
Roxanne nodded then kissed Nolan on the lips as she was preparing to leave. “For luck, darling. I’m going to leave you to it then. See you later back at the hotel.”
Hawthorne rose from her chair. “I’ll show you out, and I promise to return your husband in the same condition you left him.”
“Thank you so much,” Roxanne replied, “And since we’re disrupting your evening, the least he can do is buy you a nice dinner.”
“As it so happens, I have an eight-thirty reservation at Café Joul. It’s a charming French bistro that’s just a short walk away.”
“I like French,” Nolan said.
“Wonderful. I’ll let them know there will be two of us dining tonight.”
“The woman is leaving the clinic,” Angelo reported. “The man is still inside.”
Peng studied the map display on his tablet computer. It showed the half of the block containing the medical professional building. A pair of blinking dots indicated the location of Kilkenny and Tao based on cell phone GPS and cell-tower triangulation. The x-y-z coordinate data for Tao indicated that she was descending while Kilkenny’s coordinates showed that he was moving within the clinic suite.
“Remain in position to observe the man’s movements,” Peng ordered.
Tao emerged from the building alone and hailed a taxi.
“What do you want us to do about the woman?” Sal asked.
“We’ll continue to track her by GPS. I’m more interested in what Kilkenny is doing at this clinic. Get Toccare on the phone.”
A moment later, Sal handed his phone to Peng.
“Good evening, Mr. Toccare,” Peng said.
“What can I do for you?”
“You can answer a question. Your associates and I are outside the same building where we delivered my samples yesterday morning. Tao has just left the building and Kilkenny remains inside. Is the Hawthorne Fertility Clinic in any way involved with my samples?”
“It is,” Toccare replied.
“Then I suspect we have a serious security problem.”
“Do you want these two taken care of?”
“Not until we determine why they are here and the extent of this security breach. I will report to my superiors and request direction. I suggest you confer with your Italian associates regarding their security.”
THIRTY-FIVE
7:45 PM
Nolan sat atop an examination table dressed only in a gown that closed across his front like a bathrobe, a thankful improvement from familiar, drafty, back-slit gowns. He experienced a sense a déjà vu as Hawthorne repeated many elements of the physical examination performed just a few days earlier in Florida. In addition to an uncomfortably thorough prostate examination, Nolan experienced for the first, and hopefully only, time a testicular ultrasound.
“We do all of our blood work here in our own lab,” Hawthorne explained as she monitored the blood flowing from the vein in Nolan’s arm into the last of five test tubes.
“Why is that?” he asked.
“A general practice looks for a wide swath of things that varies from patient to patient. I’m a specialist, so I only look at a narrow range of hormones and other markers tied to reproduction, and I require great precision. And since much of what I do is lab work, I just happen to have one.”
“Handy.”
“I think so.”
“What exactly are you looking for in my blood?”
“Chemical markers indicating that your testes are, in fact, making sperm. If we get a positive result, then I’ll harvest some and use them to fertilize your wife’s eggs.”
And if not, Dr. Hawthorne mused, I’ll harvest some other cells and use them to coax nature along. Either way, you and your wife will have a child of your own.
The doctor affixed a laser printed barcode label to each of the test tubes, then returned her attention to Nolan
’s arm. She wound a non-adhesive wrap around his arm several times—the tacky fabric stuck to itself but would not remove hair from his arm when Nolan eventually removed it.
“You can take that off in five hours,” Hawthorne said. “Now there’s only one more thing I need from you.”
“What’s left?”
Hawthorne handed Nolan a plastic sample jar and lid. “A semen sample. And there’s a selection of gentlemen’s magazines in the drawer, if that would help.”
“No need, doc. When my wife confirmed our appointment this afternoon, we assumed you’d want a sample and came prepared.”
Nolan slipped off the table and retrieved a sealed sample bottle from his coat pocket. He was thankful Roxanne had thought ahead and, through a bit of preemptive lab work, produced a sample of his semen free of sperm. Since the crime he and Roxanne were investigating required significant genetic expertise, they assumed they could not simply use a sample from any azoospermic man—even sans sperm, semen contains DNA.
“Well then,” Hawthorne said as she accepted the sample bottle. “you can get dressed while I store your samples and make a few notes in your file. I’ll be back shortly.”
Alone, Nolan quickly slipped back into his clothes and checked his phone for messages and e-mails while he waited for Hawthorne to return. A few minutes later, he heard a rap of knuckles on the door.
“Are you decent?” she asked.
“As I’ll ever be,” he replied.
The door opened to reveal that the doctor had also changed. In place of medical scrubs and white lab coat, she now wore a stylish patterned skirt over black leather calf boots, a silk top and a tailored wool blazer. Wavy tresses of brunette hair cascaded down past her shoulders, and an assortment of colorful, funky jewelry completed the transformation.
“And I must say that you clean up pretty well, too,” Nolan said appreciatively.
“I spend enough hours working in scrubs, so I never wear them outside the clinic, not even for lounging at home. There has to be some separation from my work and the rest of my life.”
“A healthy perspective for any occupation, but especially one as challenging as yours, doc.”
“It’s hard not to feel some of the stress my patients have to deal with, but I try not to take it home. And since I am off the clock, so to speak, please call me Deena.”
THIRTY-SIX
8:10 PM
Roxanne changed into a sleek, gray running suit and doubled back from the hotel. A taxi dropped her at Columbus Circle, a few blocks from the professional building that housed Dr. Hawthorne’s clinic, and she closed the remaining distance on foot.
“Nolan and the doc are moving,” Grin announced through Roxanne’s earbuds, monitoring Nolan’s position remotely via cell phone GPS. “They’re heading down.”
Roxanne turned off Central Park West and slowed as she approached the building from the opposite side of the street. A tight cap concealed her hair, and she blended in with the pedestrian traffic that evening. Coming to a stop, she stripped off one of her touch-tip gloves, placed two fingers on her neck and feigned taking her pulse.
“They’re just coming out of the lobby,” she said into the earbud microphone. “Am I clear upstairs?”
“Yep. The doc punched in the alarm codes and switched off the lights. According to the security logs, the cleaning crew won’t reach her suite until eleven.”
“They’re walking down the street, so I assume they’re dining local. Let me know when they settle in someplace, then I’ll make my move.”
“Will do,” Grin replied.
Roxanne ran through a series of stretches, loosening her muscles as she watched Nolan and the doctor disappear into the distance. Nearby, a beige cargo van started up, pulled away from the curb and merged into the steady stream of traffic. She hadn’t seen anyone get into the vehicle, which meant the driver was already inside when she had arrived.
Probably putting his phone into hands-free mode for the drive home, she surmised before dismissing the van from her thoughts.
“They’ve gone inside a building and stopped,” Grin said. “Based on the address, it’s a French place—high Zagat rating. Lucky dogs.”
“Probably room service for me tonight. I’m heading in.”
She waited for the traffic to pause for a red light and crossed at mid-street, weaving between the idling vehicles. She moved directly toward the front door and stopped at the card reader.
“Give me a sec—” Grin said, “—and you’re in.”
The light on the card reader flashed from red to green, and Roxanne pulled open the building’s front door. She quickly ascended to the clinic floor, and Grin cleared the way for her clandestine entry.
“I am so glad you work for us,” Roxanne said as she quietly closed the clinic door behind her.
“Just doin’ my part for the cause. Let me know when you got my gizmo in place, and I’ll start downloading.”
“It’s a shame all the clinic computers aren’t networked. Then you could do this without me, and I could be enjoying some haute cuisine.”
“I can’t fault the good doctor for being cautious with her research and patient files—if a computer can’t surf the Internet, then it can’t be hacked. I only wish more folks were as careful with sensitive data.”
Night light fixtures in the ceiling provided Roxanne with minimal but adequate illumination to navigate the otherwise darkened suite. Mechanical locksets secured several of the doors within the clinic. She quickly defeated the one on the lab door and entered the space. Motion sensors inside the lab detected her entry and the ceiling lights flickered on. She had noticed the energy saving devices elsewhere in the clinic during her earlier visit with Nolan and was not startled when the lights came on. She was thankful that the lab was an interior space with no windows.
Roxanne quickly located the lab computer and roused the machine from sleep mode. The computer asked for a password.
“I’m at her computer and it wants her password,” she said.
“As we expected. Wired or wireless keyboard?”
“Wired.”
“Does the keyboard have a USB port?”
“Yes.”
“Great” Grin said. “Jack into it with the cable that came with your iPhone and start that app I sent you.”
Roxanne did as Grin instructed and mated her phone to the keyboard. Almost immediately, the touch screen filled with scrolling rows of characters extracted from the keyboard buffer. Every recent keystroke, thousands in total, appeared on the screen. Grin’s app carefully dissected the stream of characters looking for repeated sequences that appeared out of place with character strings that preceded and followed. In a few minutes, Roxanne had an ordered list of likely passwords. At the top of the list was an odd string of letters and numbers: B3njam1n$.
“Benjamins,” she said softly.
“What?” Grin asked.
“Swap out the numbers and the dollar sign with letters, and Hawthorne’s password reads Benjamins.”
“A leet swap,” Grin said. “Beefs up the password strength a bit over just a word, but not much. I guess that’s what she’s all about.”
“All about?”
“The Benjamins—she’s all about the Benjamins. C-notes. Hundred dollar bills,” Grin explained. “Hawthorne’s in it for the money.”
“Well, let’s see if Benjamins is what gets us into her computer.”
Roxanne typed in the string and Hawthorne’s computer responded by granting access. The background of the screen desktop was a black and white image of a newborn child’s face nestled against his mother’s breast. The photo was tastefully modest yet profoundly intimate and powerful. The child was still coated with vernix from the womb, and the mother’s skin glistened with the sweat of her labor. The child’s eyes were open, looking up toward the mother’s face, which was beyond the frame of the image.
“Oh my,” Roxanne sighed.
“Something wrong?” Grin asked, concerned.
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br /> “No, it’s nothing,” she stuttered, embarrassed. “We’re in.”
“Then sit back and enjoy the ride while I do my thing.”
Grin took control of Hawthorne’s computer and began copying every file it contained. From her side, Roxanne accessed the laboratory logs looking for anything that might prove useful. She located four records containing Gloria Castillo’s name. Two of the records listed the names of the biological parents whose child Castillo carried, the other two did not. The timing of one of Castillo’s pregnancies matched up with the appearance of Sean Kilkenny’s alleged offspring. Searching the clinic database for other pregnancies involving a surrogate mother and no listed biological parents revealed a total of eight children born in this manner.
“Grin, you said Jamison handled eight settlements similar to Sean Kilkenny’s, right?”
“Eight including Sean’s, yes.”
“We’ll have to check the timing, but Hawthorne has eight children in her records with no listed biological parents.”
“Interesting. I’ll check the dates once I finish the download.”
Roxanne moved on to active procedures, sorting from newest to oldest. At the top of the list she found lab work for Nolan’s Egan alias. Skimming through the remaining active procedures, Roxanne noted the meticulous nature of Hawthorne’s record keeping. Every lab consumable and piece of equipment was documented. She logged the times, temperatures, and visual images for each fertilization, and noted whether or not it succeeded in becoming a viable embryo. Her records described a cold, clinical process with such specificity that her work could be scientifically assessed and reproduced. It was good science, Roxanne noted, but something inside her wondered about the human element.
Flipping through the active IVF records, one caught her eye not for what was on the screen, but what was missing.
“Grin, I may have a ninth child,” Tao said, pouring over the record.