Undeniable

by Tom Grace

  They heard several voices talking, though the content of the conversation was difficult to discern. The discussion grew more heated, doors slammed, and they heard a sharp tone, like an expletive being deleted from a broadcast. The voices disappeared, replaced by music.

  “He’s not there,” Grin said.

  “How can you be sure?”

  “That bit of music is the theme song for one of those reality shows—you know the kind with a bizarre family that is too unreal to be real. Nolan hates those things. I don’t care how seductive the good doctor might be, he would not be there with her willingly if that was the evening’s entertainment.”

  “Guilty pleasure television,” Roxanne agreed. “The kind you watch curled up in your rattiest sweats with a pint of Häagen-Dazs.”

  “Ben & Jerry’s man, myself.”

  “I would have never guessed. Any other ideas?”

  “If he’s off the grid, there has to be a reason. I can’t think of one that would be good, which leaves us with bad,” Grin said. “I can take a look at police and hospital reports to see if he pops up. After that, I’ll check the morgues.”

  “Just find him.”

  FORTY

  NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

  SATURDAY, MARCH 21; 12:25 AM

  A blast of hot air greeted Detective Jack Redding as he strode through the vestibule into the emergency room at Saint Luke’s Hospital. His overcoat flapped revealing the navy wool blazer and charcoal pants that clad the young detective’s lean frame. He withdrew a leather badge holder from his jacket pocket and flashed his gold shield at the woman in scrubs manning the receiving desk.

  “So where’s the John Doe that was dumped on your doorstep?” Redding asked.

  “Must be a quiet night if you’re chasing a mugging, Jack,” the receiving nurse replied.

  “Quiet’s what I live for—it keeps my wife happy.”

  “Happy wife, happy life,” the nurse said as she scrolled through a computer screen of information.

  “With any luck, this will be my last call of the night—my next shift starts at the crack of dawn.”

  “That’s what we get for choosing careers in a twenty-four-seven-three-sixty-five-day profession. The gentleman you’re looking for is in Exam 6. I’ll take you back.”

  Redding followed the nurse through the triage area and a hectic maze of exam and procedure rooms. She glanced at the name scrawled on the dry erase portion of the room sign to confirm the identity of the patient within and checked the chart.

  “Dr. Lang is treating this patient. I’ll see if I can’t scare him up for you.”

  “Thanks,” Redding replied.

  He slid open the privacy curtain and stepped inside the exam space. The victim—a man roughly his own age—lay motionless on the bed, apparently asleep. The man’s face was swollen and bruised. Numerous abrasions had been cleaned and dressed, lacerations closed with butterfly bandages. A blanket covered the man’s legs, but from what Redding could see of his bare arms and the shape of his torso beneath the hospital gown, the man had a taut, athletic build. Redding studied the man’s hands and saw no abrasions or signs of forceful impact. On his left hand, the man wore a simple gold band.

  “A beaut, ain’t he?”

  Redding turned his head as a beefy young man with a tightly cut afro and trimmed goatee entered the exam room. He wore a white doctor’s coat over the ubiquitous scrubs with a stethoscope draped over his neck. A laminated photo ID clipped to his coat pocket identified the man as Dr. Lang.

  “Have you spoken with him?”

  Lang shook his head. “Out cold since he got here.”

  “What do you know?”

  “He took a beating, but it was quick. His injuries were still very fresh when he came in—whatever happened to him likely happened within an hour of his arrival.”

  “Doesn’t look like he put up much of a fight.”

  “I didn’t find any defensive wounds, at least not any recent ones.”

  “What do you mean?” Redding asked.

  “This guy has been shot and cut on more than one occasion. I worked at the VA in med school, and a scar resume like what this guy is sporting—he’s got experience in hand-to-hand combat.”

  “Did him a lot of good tonight. So why’s he still out?”

  “Don’t know yet. We did a head scan on him and found no sign of a brain bleed or skull fracture. He had some alcohol in his system, like a couple glasses of wine—nowhere near what it would take to do this. I’m thinking drugs or a powerful anesthetic. We’re running a full tox screen before we attempt to rouse him chemically. I don’t think he’s in any danger, and we’re monitoring his vitals, which is all we can do until we know more about what we’re dealing with.”

  “What’s your take on his injuries?”

  “There’s a very distinct pattern of bruising on his lower back, where he was hit several times in a concentrated area. The bruising on his chest is less severe and more uniform. I’ve seen this kind of thing before when someone is pinned against a wall and punched.”

  “Bruising both sides at the same time.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Where are his clothes?” Redding asked.

  Lang opened a corner cabinet and retrieved a sealed plastic bag containing every article of clothing the man wore upon his arrival. Redding donned a pair of latex gloves, opened the bag’s seal and carefully began to examine its contents.

  “No wallet or ID on him, right?”

  “None that we found,” Lang replied.

  “Still got his wedding ring and—” Redding glanced into the back, “—his watch. Seiko with a leather band. Pain to remove with gloves on—time consuming. The perp was in a hurry and snatched what he could get fast.”

  Item by item, Redding meticulously searched each garment starting with the overcoat. The garment was stained with salt and filth from the alley. The pockets were inverted and empty.

  “His pants were sporting those bunny ears when he came in,” Lang said. “Mugger must have picked him clean.”

  Redding nodded and checked the back pockets, finding them empty as well. Moving on to the man’s blazer, he searched the outer breast pocket—again empty—and checked the flap pockets. Both remained sewn shut, the pockets merely decorative. Inside, the label read Burberry and the quality of construction left no doubt the jacket was authentic. The left side breast and lower buttoned pockets were both empty, but in the right breast pocket he found a business card.

  “The Hawthorne Fertility Clinic. Dr. Deena Hawthorne.” Redding offered the card to Lang. “You ever hear of her?”

  Lang read the card. “Nope. A lot of letters after her name, too. Some I don’t recognize, but the rest say she’s a serious medical specialist. That reminds me, he came in with a bandage and a cotton ball in the crook of his left arm, like he’d given blood. See if you can find what that was about.”

  Redding nodded. “The clinic probably keeps banker’s hours, but maybe they have a service to answer calls after hours. Any luck and maybe the good doctor can identify your patient.”

  Redding pocketed Hawthorne’s card, then fished out one of his own and handed it to Lang.

  “Call me if he wakes up,” Redding said. “I’ll chase the doc down in the morning. And if she has a medical history to go with the name, I’ll pass it on.”

  “I’d appreciate it,” Lang said.

  FORTY-ONE

  4:50 AM

  Lang’s tablet computer chimed as he finished treating a young girl with a serious ear infection. As soon as the girl and her parents were on their way home, he slipped into the on-call room for a cup of coffee and to review his incoming reports. At the top of the list was the toxicology blood screening for his John Doe.

  “About time,” Lang said, tapping the link to view the report.

  The initial assay showed no irregularities, a normal white blood cell count and a blood alcohol level well below the legal limit. The toxicology report found no strong sign of
any prescription or illegal drugs in the patient’s blood stream, but minor spikes in the report indicated the possible presence of some unknown chemistry. Lang scanned through the reports for metals and other toxins and again found unusual but faint indications of something at work in his patient. He picked up the house phone and dialed the direct line for the night lab tech who had processed his blood samples.

  “Hey, Mira, I just finished reviewing the report you sent me on my John Doe.”

  “Pretty bizarre, eh? I checked my equipment and reran the tests. Your patient has something going on, but I’ve never seen readings like these before. I passed my findings on to the CDC to see what they can make of it. Maybe it’s some new kind of roofie.”

  “If it is, then it’s definitely longer lasting that what I’m used to seeing. My patient has been here for nearly seven hours and has shown no sign of regaining consciousness.”

  “Sorry I couldn’t be of more help. I’ll let you know when I hear back from the CDC.”

  “Thanks.”

  Lang cradled the phone and reviewed everything he’d done to treat John Doe. His assessment and treatment of the man’s injuries were textbook. His vitals remained strong, indicating he was in no imminent danger. Had the tox screens come back completely negative, he would have called in a neurologist for a consult, which was still an option.

  That his patient had shown no sign of regaining consciousness led Lang to consider two possibilities beyond the long-lasting roofie hypothesis. Either his patient had severe head trauma that he missed on the CT scan or he was somehow still exposed to the agent causing the unconsciousness.

  Lang returned to Exam 6 and found the John Doe just as he had left him. He closed the curtain and donned a fresh pair of examination gloves. Lang started with the dressing wound around the man’s right elbow. The cotton ball looked as he expected, a compressed ball of white fluff with a small dot of dried blood. He sniffed the cotton ball but detected no odor. Lang bagged the dressing and cotton ball and continued his examination.

  The needle site on the man’s arm was unremarkable and had been done by an experienced hand. He checked both arms and found an older mark on the left arm. Lang then surveyed other areas of the body favored by IV drug users and found no additional needle marks.

  Starting with the top of the man’s head, Lang searched for anything out of the ordinary. The man’s red hair was thick, making it difficult to view the scalp. He found a few old small scars that were easily hidden by the dense mane. Working front to back, Lang’s hands and eyes touched and viewed every square inch of skin on the man’s head.

  Lang tilted the man’s head up and continued with the soft flesh of the neck. Aside from freckles, he found nothing. He slipped his hand around the back of the man’s neck, just below the nape, and felt a square patch adhered to the skin. Lang turned the man slightly to see what his fingers had discovered and saw a transdermal patch. Looking close, he could not see any marks indicating who had made the patch or what medicine it was intended to deliver.

  Rechecking the man’s hands and mouth, Lang found none of the telltale signs of tobacco use.

  “You’re not trying to quit smoking and you sure don’t need that kind of birth control,” Lang said to John Doe. “And if it’s for migraines or back pain, we can deal with that once you wake up.”

  Using a pair of tweezers to avoid even gloved contact with whatever chemistry might be involved, Lang carefully removed the patch. The skin beneath was slightly reddened but quickly resumed its normal appearance. Lang retuned his patient to a supine position and carefully bagged the patch. He then removed his gloves, turning them inside out, and dropped them in the medical waste bin.

  John Doe’s vitals remained stable as Lang monitored for any sign of consciousness. After several minutes, his vigil was rewarded by a subtle movement of the man’s jaw.

  “Sir,” Lang said, “can you hear me?”

  “Uhnnn,” Nolan groaned.

  “Try and focus, sir. You’ve been out for a long time.”

  “Wa—wa.” Nolan’s swollen lip made it difficult for him to form words.

  “Water? Do you want water?” Lang asked.

  Nolan nodded. His mouth tasted like paste, and his tongue felt twice its normal size. And he felt pain, which meant he was still alive.

  FORTY-TWO

  KNOXVILLE, TENNESSEE

  7:25 AM

  The ringing of his cell phone roused Patrick Hunley from a deep sleep. It took a second to recall that he was in a hotel room in Knoxville. Half of the queen-sized bed he occupied that night was covered with file folders filled with the details of the Sandman case. The other half contained Hunley.

  He fumbled for the smartphone, which was still connected to a wall charger, and glanced at the screen. It was the CDC in Atlanta.

  “This is Special Agent Hunley,” he answered groggily.

  “I’m sorry to call so early, sir,” a woman’s voice replied, “but the flag in our system has the priority on this information set as urgent with you as the contact.”

  “What information?”

  “Sandman, sir. We received a request for help from a hospital in New York City about some unusual chemistry in a patient’s blood that they couldn’t identify. It’s a match for what we found in the Sandman victims.”

  Hunley felt a surge of adrenaline clear the fog of sleep from his brain.

  “Was it a child?” Hunley asked.

  “No. The patient is a Caucasian male in his thirties. The man was unconscious upon arrival and, at the time of the request, had not regained consciousness.”

  “And the chemical signature is a match?” Hunley asked.

  “Yes. That’s what triggered the flag. I’ve rechecked the request and it matches what we found in the blood work of the Sandman victims.”

  “Is my e-mail address on that flag request?”

  “Yes.”

  “Great. Send me everything you have on this. I need contact names at the hospital—the works.”

  “You’ll have it shortly.”

  “Thanks,” Hunley said warmly before ringing off.

  Just maybe, he thought, just maybe we caught a break.

  FORTY-THREE

  NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK

  9:10 AM

  Deena Hawthorne started her Saturday in the lab by checking the progress of the eight ova that she had fertilized early Friday morning. All were now zygotes—cells containing a completed set of human chromosomes inherited from the mother and father. Under her microscope, one of the single-celled zygotes shuddered and cleaved in half. Over the next few days, the half would cleave repeatedly in the first stages of embryonic development. The ball of cells would then be a blastocyst, and only after attaching to a uterine wall would it officially become an embryo.

  One of the other zygotes had already cleaved—a good sign of viability. The other six looked as though they would achieve first cleavage within the next few hours.

  She returned the petri dishes to the incubator and added some notes to her lab record. Her cell phone trilled with an incoming call. She glanced at the caller ID, saw the initials NYPD, and answered the call before it went to voicemail.

  “Doctor Hawthorne,” she said professionally.

  “Doctor, I’m Detective Redding with the New York Police Department. I hope I’m not catching you at a bad time, but I need your help with something.”

  “I’m just doing a bit of lab work, detective. I’ll be happy to help if I can.”

  “Great. I’m calling because a man was brought into, or rather dumped at, the emergency room at Saint Luke’s Hospital late last night. He had no identification on him, but he did have your business card. I was hoping you might be able to identify him.”

  “Is the man dead?” Deena asked nervously.

  “Oh no, but he is unconscious so we haven’t been able to question him. He appears to have been mugged, but we really don’t know. Can I describe him to you?”

  “Certainly.”

/>   “He’s about six foot one, fit looking guy in his mid-to-late thirties. Red hair, fair skinned with freckles. Dressed nice—blazer and slacks, tie, sharp wool overcoat.”

  “That sounds very much like the man I had dinner with last night.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Grant Egan.”

  “Would you be willing to meet me at Saint Luke’s to confirm this guy was your date last night?”

  “Yes, but he wasn’t my date. Mr. Egan and his wife are patients of mine. Oh, she must be frantic.”

  “Can I send a car to pick you up?”

  “No, detective. I’m not far from the hospital, but I need to change.”

  “Can we meet at the emergency entrance, say at ten?” Redding asked.

  “That would be fine.”

  “And if you have any medical history that you can share with the ER docs, I’m sure it would be much appreciated.”

  “Detective Redding?” Deena asked as she walked into the emergency room.

  Redding stood just inside the vestibule doors, his gold shield hanging from his belt.

  “Thanks for coming down.”

  “If he’s my patient, then I have a vested interest.”

  “What are you treating him for?” Redding asked.

  “You know I can’t answer that.”

  A nurse led them back to the exam room where the patient had spent the night. Lang was standing by the monitors making notations in his chart.

  “My God,” she said, clasping her hand over her mouth at the sight of the man’s injuries.

  “Is this Grant Egan?” Redding asked.

  “Yes.” Deena then turned to Lang. “Has he regained consciousness?”

  “Briefly, but he didn’t say anything coherent. He was groggy and very slowly coming around. Right now, he’s just sleeping off whatever is in his system.”