(1/12) Blindsight

by Cook, Robin

  Despite not being on call, Laurie had decided to go into the office. Her intentions notwithstanding, she’d not been productive with her work the previous evening after Lou had dropped her off. Wine and work did not mix well with Laurie.

  Emerging from her building, Laurie was pleasantly surprised to find a crisp fall day. The sun had already taken on its weak winter look, but the sky was clear and the temperature moderate. Being a Saturday, the traffic and its resultant exhaust was minimal on First Avenue, and Laurie enjoyed the walk up to Thirtieth Street.

  As soon as she arrived, Laurie went straight to the ID office to check on that day’s cases. She was relieved to see there were no new candidates for her overdose series. The schedule was filled with the usual Friday-night homicides and accident cases reflecting a normal night of murder and mayhem in the Big Apple.

  Next Laurie headed for the toxicology lab. She was relieved she wouldn’t have to dodge John DeVries. He certainly wouldn’t be in on a Saturday. She was pleased to find hardworking Peter at his usual spot in front of the newest gas chromatograph.

  “Nothing yet along the lines of a contaminant,” Peter told her, “but with that huge new sample I got yesterday, we might be in luck.”

  “What kind of sample?” Laurie asked. “Blood?”

  “No,” Peter said, “pure cocaine taken from the gut.”

  “Whose gut?” Laurie asked.

  Peter checked the specimen tag before him. “Wendell Morrison. One of Fontworth’s cases from yesterday.”

  “But how did he get a sample from the gut?”

  “I can’t help you there,” Peter said. “I have no idea how he got it, but by giving me as much as he did, it makes my job considerably easier.”

  “I’m glad,” Laurie said, puzzled by this unexpected bit of news. “Let me know what you find.”

  Laurie left the toxicology lab and went to her office. After finding his number in the office directory, she called George Fontworth at home. He answered on the second ring; Laurie was relieved not to have awakened him.

  “Don’t tell me you’re in the office,” he said when he heard who it was.

  “What can I say?” Laurie said.

  “You’re not even on call,” George said. “Don’t work so hard. You’ll make the rest of us look bad.”

  “Sure,” Laurie laughed. “I’m not impressing anyone around here. You know what Calvin told you: you weren’t even supposed to talk with me yesterday.”

  “That was kinda stupid,” George agreed. “What’s on your mind?”

  “I’m curious about the first case you did yesterday,” Laurie said. “Wendell Morrison.”

  “What do you want to know?” George asked.

  “Toxicology told me that you had given them a cocaine sample from the deceased’s gut. How did you come by that?”

  “Dr. Morrison took the drug orally,” George said.

  “I thought you told me both your cases mainlined it,” Laurie said.

  “Only the second case,” George said. “When you asked me the route of administration, I thought you were only referring to that one.”

  “All of my cases took the drug IV, but one of Dick Katzenburg’s took it orally only after trying to take it IV.”

  “Same with Dr. Morrison,” George said. “His antecubital fossae looked like pincushions. The guy was overweight and his veins were deep, but you’d think a doctor would have been a bit better at venipuncture.”

  “There was still a lot of cocaine in the gut?” Laurie asked.

  “A ton,” George said. “I can’t imagine how much the guy ate. Part of the gut was infarcted where the cocaine had closed down the blood supply. It was just like one of those cocaine “mule’ cases where the condoms break in transit.”

  “Was there anything else of note?”

  “Yes,” George said. “He had a CVA from a small aneurysm. It probably burst during a seizure.”

  Before Laurie hung up she told George about the little bit of tissue she’d taken from beneath Julia Myerholtz’s fingernail and sent up to the lab.

  “I hope you don’t mind my butting in on your case,” Laurie said.

  “Hell no,” George said. “I’m just embarrassed I missed it. With the way she had excoriated herself, I should have looked under her nails.”

  After wishing George a good weekend, Laurie finally settled down to her paperwork. But as she experienced lately, she couldn’t take her mind off the troubling aspects of her overdose series. Despite her conversation with Lou, some of the details of the Myerholtz case continued to bother her.

  Laurie pulled out the folders on the three cases she’d posted on Thursday: Stuart Morgan, Randall Thatcher, and Valerie Abrams. Using a scratch pad, she jotted down each of the three’s address.

  In another minute, Laurie was out the door. She caught a cab and visited each of the three scenes. At each residence, Laurie talked with the doorman. After explaining who she was, she obtained the names and telephone numbers of the doormen who had been on duty Wednesday evening.

  Back at the office, Laurie began her calls. The first she put through was to Julio Chavez. “Did you know Valerie Abrams?” Laurie asked after explaining who she was.

  “Yes, of course,” Julio said.

  “Did you see her Wednesday night?” Laurie asked.

  “No, I didn’t,” Julio said. “At least I don’t remember.”

  Lou was probably right, Laurie told herself after she’d thanked the man and hung up. She was probably wasting her time. Still, she couldn’t resist dialing the next name on the list: Angel Mendez, the evening doorman at Stuart Morgan’s apartment.

  Laurie introduced herself as she had before, then asked Angel if he knew Stuart Morgan, and the answer was the same: “Of course!”

  “Did you see Mr. Morgan Wednesday night?” Laurie asked.

  “Of course,” Angel said. “I saw Mr. Morgan every night I worked. He jogged after work every day.”

  “Did he jog on Wednesday night?” Laurie asked.

  “Just like every other night,” Angel told her.

  Again Laurie wondered about the inconsistency of a guy who thought enough of himself to run every night taking drugs. It didn’t make a lot of sense.

  “Did he seem normal?” Laurie asked. “Did he seem depressed?”

  “He seemed fine when he went out,” Angel said. “But he didn’t jog as far as usual. At least he came back very soon. He wasn’t even sweaty. I remember because I told him he’d not worked up a sweat.”

  “What did he say in return?” Laurie asked.

  “Nothing,” Angel said.

  “Was it usual for him not to say anything?” Laurie asked.

  “Only when he was with other people,” Angel said.

  “Was Mr. Morgan with other people when he came back from jogging?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Angel said. “He was with two strangers.”

  Laurie sat up. “Can you describe these strangers?” she asked.

  Angel laughed. “No, I don’t think so,” he said. “I see so many people in a day. I just remembered he was with strangers because he didn’t say hello.”

  Laurie thanked the man and hung up. Now this was something. She could still hear Lou’s admonition warning her not to play detective, but this striking similarity to the Myerholtz case could be the beginning of a big break.

  Finally, Laurie called the last name on her list: David Wong. Unfortunately David couldn’t remember seeing Randall Thatcher on Wednesday night. Laurie thanked him and hung up.

  Laurie decided to turn her attention to one more case before returning to her paperwork. She went to Histology and asked for the slides of Mary O’Connor. Back in her office, she scanned the heart slides under her microscope to study the extent of atherosclerosis. It was moderate on microscopic just as Paul had said it had been on gross. She also didn’t notice any cardiac myopathy.

  With that out of the way, Laurie couldn’t think of another reason to avoid her work. Pushing her micro
scope to the side, she pulled out her uncompleted cases and forced herself to begin.

  “So this is it?” Lou asked. He waved a typed sheet of paper in the air.

  “That’s what we’ve been able to come up with,” Norman told him.

  “This is a bunch of doctor gobbledygook. What the hell is “keratoconus’? Or here’s a gem: “pseudophakic bullous keratopathy.’ What is this crap? Will you please tell me?”

  “You wanted the diagnoses of the victims who were seeing Dr. Jordan Scheffield,” Norman said. “That’s what the teams came up with.”

  Lou read the page again. Martha Goldburg, pseudophakic bullous keratopathy; Steven Vivonetto, interstitial keratitis; Janice Singleton, herpes zoster; Henriette Kaufman, Fuchs endothelial dystrophy; Dwight Sorenson, keratoconus.

  “I was hoping they would all have the same condition,” muttered Lou. “I’d hoped to catch twinkle-toes Scheffield in a lie.”

  Norman shrugged. “Sorry,” he said. “I can get someone to translate those terms to regular English—if there’s any English to cover it.”

  Lou settled back in his chair. “So what do you think?” he asked.

  “I don’t have any bright ideas,” Norman said. “When I first saw the doctor’s name pop out of the data, I thought maybe we had something. But now it doesn’t look that way.”

  “Any of the patients unhappy with their care?” Lou asked.

  “Only positive in that arena is the Goldburgs,” Norman said. “Harry Goldburg had initiated a malpractice suit against Dr. Scheffield after the doctor took out his wife’s cataract. Apparently there was some complication and she wasn’t seeing much through that eye.”

  “What’s all this other stuff?” Lou asked, grasping at a fat file folder filled with typed pages.

  “That’s the rest of the material that has been gathered by the investigative teams,” Norman said.

  “Jesus Christ,” Lou said. “There must be five hundred pages in here.”

  “More like four hundred,” Norman said. “Nothing’s jumped out at me yet, but I thought you’d better go through it, too. And you might as well get started: there’ll be more coming as we interview more people.”

  “What about Ballistics?” Lou asked.

  “They haven’t gotten to us yet,” Norman said. “They’re still on last month’s homicides. But preliminary opinion is that there were only two guns involved: a twenty-two and a twenty-five caliber.”

  “What about the housekeeper?” Lou asked.

  “She’s still alive but has yet to regain consciousness,” Norman said. “She was shot in the head and she’s in a coma.”

  “Do you have her protected?” Lou asked.

  “Absolutely,” Norman said. “Around the clock.”

  Having finally made some progress on her paperwork, Laurie made a neat stack of her completed cases. With them out of the way, she pulled out the records of the overdose cases. Sorting through, she set aside the three she wanted: Duncan Andrews, Robert Evans, and Marion Overstreet. These were the cases she had autopsied on Tuesday and Wednesday. She copied the addresses and packed up.

  Laurie made the same kind of tour she’d made that morning. Only this time she found that the doormen she wanted to question were on duty again.

  She was disappointed with the results at the Evans and Overstreet residences. Neither doorman could tell her very much about the evenings in question. But it was a different story at Duncan Andrews’.

  When the cab pulled up to the building, Laurie recognized the blue, scalloped canvas awning and the wrought-iron door from her previous visit. As she got out of the cab, she even recognized the doorman. He’d been the same one on duty on her last ill-fated visit. But recognizing the doorman did not deter her. Although she thought there was an outside chance that her visit might get back to Bingham, she was willing to risk it.

  “Can I help you?” the doorman asked.

  Laurie looked for signs of recognition on the doorman’s part. She didn’t see any.

  “I’m from the medical examiner’s office,” Laurie said. “My name is Dr. Montgomery. Do you remember my coming here Tuesday?”

  “I believe I do,” the doorman said. “My name is Oliver. Is there something I can do for you? Are you here to go back up to the Andrews apartment?”

  “No, I don’t want to disturb anyone,” Laurie said. “I just want to speak with you. Were you working Sunday night?”

  “Yes I was,” Oliver said. “My days off are Monday and Thursday.”

  “Do you remember seeing Mr. Andrews the night he died?”

  “I think I do,” he said after thinking about it. “I used to see him most every night.”

  “Do you remember if he was alone?” Laurie asked.

  “That I can’t tell you,” Oliver said. “With as many people who go in and out of here, I wouldn’t be likely to remember a thing like that, especially almost a week later. Maybe if it was the same day or if something happened out of the ordinary. Wait a minute!” he suddenly cried. “Maybe I do remember. There was one night that Mr. Andrews came in with some people. I remember now because he called me by the wrong name. He used the superintendent’s name.”

  “Did he know your name?” Laurie asked.

  “For sure,” Oliver said. “I’ve been working here since before he moved in. That was five years ago.”

  “How many men were with him?” Laurie asked.

  “Two, I think. Maybe three.”

  “But you’re not positive which night?” Laurie asked.

  “I can’t be sure,” Oliver agreed. “But I remember he called me Juan and it confused me. I mean, he knew my name was Oliver.”

  Laurie thanked Oliver and headed home. What to make of this odd streak of similarities? Who were these two men, and were they the same pair in each case? And what did it mean that a young, intelligent, dynamic man would mix up the names of his doorman and his superintendent? Probably nothing. After all, Duncan could have been thinking about calling Juan for a problem in his apartment just as he was arriving home.

  Entering her own tenement, Laurie cast an appraising glance around the interior as she walked to the elevator. She noted the cracked and chipped tiles on the floor and the peeling paint on the walls. Comparing it to the residences she’d been visiting, it was a slum. The depressing thing was that all the overdose victims had been about Laurie’s age or younger, and obviously had been doing a lot better than she was financially. Laurie was already paying more rent than she thought she could afford on her salary, and she was living in a comparative dump. It was depressing.

  Tom lightened Laurie’s mood the moment she entered her apartment. Having been sleeping all day as well as through the previous night, the cat-kitten was a ball of energy. With truly awesome leaping ability he caromed off walls and furniture in a fantastic display of exuberance that made Laurie laugh to the point of tears.

  Unaccustomed to the luxury of free time to splurge on herself, Laurie took full advantage of the next several hours by taking a nap as well as a bath. Since there had been no message from Jordan to the contrary, she assumed their dinner plans had not changed from the prearranged nine p.m.

  After taking a half hour to decide what to wear, which encompassed trying on three different outfits, Laurie was ready by five of nine. Contrary to the previous two outings, Jordan himself showed up on time at nine sharp.

  “You’re really going to get my neighbors talking now,” Laurie told him. “I’m sure they’re thinking I’ve been seeing Thomas.”

  Jordan had made reservations for them at the Four Seasons. As with the other restaurants he favored, Laurie had never dined there. Although the food was excellent, the service impeccable, and the wine delightful, Laurie couldn’t help but compare it unfavorably to the nameless restaurant Lou had taken her to the night before. There was something so winning about that chaotic, bustling little place. The Four Seasons, on the other hand, was so quiet it was distracting. With the only sounds being the tinkle of ice again
st the waterglasses or the clink of the sans-serif flatware against the china, she felt she had to whisper. And the décor was so purposefully daunting with its stark geometry, she felt intimidated. Laurie choked on her water when a pesky thought occurred to her: What if it wasn’t the restaurant she preferred so much as the company?

  Jordan was relaxed and expansive, going on about his office. “Things couldn’t be better,” he said. “I got a replacement for Marsha who is ten times better than Marsha ever was. I don’t know why I was so worried about replacing her. And my surgery is going fine. I’ve never done so much surgery in such a short period of time. I just hope it keeps up. My accountant called me yesterday and told me this is going to be a record month.”

  “I’m glad for you,” Laurie said. She was tempted to mention her day’s revelations but Jordan didn’t give her a chance.

  “I’m toying with the idea of adding an additional exam room,” he said. “Maybe even taking in a junior partner who would see all the junk patients.”

  “What are junk patients?” Laurie asked.

  “Nonsurgical ones,” Jordan said. He spotted a waiter and called him over to order a second bottle of wine.

  “I looked at Mary O’Connor’s slides today,” Laurie said.

  “I’d prefer to keep the conversation on happier subjects,” Jordan said.

  “You don’t want to know what I found?” Laurie asked.

  “Not particularly,” Jordan said. “Unless it was something astonishing. I can’t dwell on her. I have to move on. After all, her general medical condition was not my responsibility but rather her internist’s. It’s not as if she died during surgery.”

  “What about your other patients who were killed?” Laurie asked. “Would you like to talk about them?”

  “Not really,” Jordan said. “I mean, what’s the point? It’s not as if we can do anything for them.”

  “I just thought you’d have a need to discuss it,” Laurie said. “If I were in your shoes, I’m sure I would.”

  “It depresses me,” Jordan admitted. “But it doesn’t help to talk about it. I’d rather concentrate on the positive things in my life.”