The Killing Harvest

by Don Donaldson

  On the ride there, Sarchi finally had the opportunity to ask him why she got that customer unavailable message when she’d tried to call him while he was in Chicago.

  Looking embarrassed, John said, “I turned my phone off when they asked us to do that on the flight out of New Orleans, and I forgot to turn it back on. I didn’t realize it until they mentioned it again on the plane coming back to Memphis. I know . . . rookie mistake, considering what we were involved in.”

  “It made me worry a little bit about you, but no real harm done.”

  With time out for playing Frisbee with Guinness and lunch at Dale’s, it took three days to plant all the daffodils. On the third day, as Sarchi covered the last bulb and pressed the earth firmly over it, she looked at John. “We’re finished.”

  He took her hand and helped her to her feet. “In the spring, when they’re all in bloom, we’ll have a picnic on the hill.”

  “I’d like that.”

  They looked deeply into each other’s eyes, then melted together in a long kiss. “Thanks for the last three days,” she said against his chest. “It was just what I needed. But now, it’s time I got back to my kids at the hospital.”

  John dropped her off at home a little after four o’clock. The first thing she did was call Kate McDaniels’s pager. Within a minute, her call was returned.

  “Kate, I’m coming back to work tomorrow.”

  “That’s wonderful. Do you feel up to an admitting shift? We need someone to cover for Jim Hartley.”

  “Same old place, I see. Ask for a drink, and they hand you a fire hose. Sure, I can do that.”

  The next morning, when Sarchi appeared in the kitchen in scrubs, Linda looked up from the paper in surprise. “You’re going back to work? Good for you. Say, there’s something in the paper this morning about that Latham character. He made a couple of statements to a reporter . . .” She riffled through the paper and folded it at the spot. “Get this . . .”

  She began to read aloud the same baloney Latham had pedaled to Sarchi in jail. When she finished, Linda looked up from the paper. “I’ll bet his lawyer is thrilled with this. He’s admitted everything.”

  “We had him pretty well wrapped up anyway,” Sarchi replied. “As for that crap about the kids he damaged eventually getting better, my nephew hasn’t shown any improvement.”

  “I don’t want to be siding with Latham, but there is something to what he says. The brains of kids are adaptable. There’s still a chance for Drew.”

  “I hope so.”

  “You did a good thing, stopping this guy. To be honest, I didn’t think you had that kind of grit.”

  “I didn’t before I met Latham.”

  “Then something worthwhile came out of it.”

  “Not nearly enough to cover the cost.”

  “Your friend, Sharon?”

  Her eyes suddenly wet, Sarchi nodded.

  Linda got up and put her arm around Sarchi’s shoulder. “Sure, bad things happened. But it’s over, and you have to move on.” She tightened her grip briefly, then let go. “I’ll see you at the hospital.”

  But it wasn’t completely over. When Sarchi had called Detective Veret a few days ago, he’d said there was no doubt that Sharon’s killer was Lee-Ann Hipp, Latham’s surgical nurse. But the woman had fled and so far hadn’t been found. Veret was sure she’d be located, but, until that happened, it certainly wasn’t over.

  IT SEEMED THAT everyone in the hospital knew about Sarchi’s role in exposing Latham, so her return led to an endless round of congratulatory handshakes and pats on the back. When she had a few free minutes, she dropped by Mel Pierce’s office to say hello. Arriving at his open door, she saw him hard at work, his desk surrounded by cardboard boxes of file folders and notebooks.

  “You look busy.”

  He glanced up from the folder in front of him. “Well, it’s the woman of the hour. I heard you were back. How are you feeling?”

  “Like I’m getting far too much attention.”

  “It’s your fifteen minutes. Soak it up. You deserve it.”

  “What’s in the boxes?”

  “Copies of all the material confiscated from Latham.”

  “How’d you get it?”

  “Someone with a medical background has to go through it before his trial. I volunteered and was accepted. There’s a hell of a lot of stuff here, but it’s the only way I’ll ever find out the details of what he was doing.”

  “Some of it is in two papers by a man named Timmons published in the late eighties in Acta Neurologica.”

  “I’ve read them. There were copies in the second box I opened.”

  “Have you found anything that explains exactly how he was infecting the kids with the virus carrying the breakdown gene?”

  “I’ve had to piece it together from several documents and from conversations with detectives in New Orleans, but yeah, I believe I do know that. When they had a patient who needed a transplant, they checked the tissue typing records they’d hijacked from the cord blood repository and picked a child who was an exact match for their patient. Then they sent a midget dressed as a kid to that child’s school to deliver the viral vector into the target’s eyes with a water pistol. I hear the midget and a woman he worked with are also in custody.”

  “Not that I care about their welfare, but that method of delivery sounds risky. A little wind blowing in the wrong direction, and the one holding the water gun could become infected.”

  “Before approaching each child, they injected themselves with an antiviral agent. I also found this.” He picked up a notebook to his right and thumbed through it, then turned it around and laid it on the desk so she could see the page he’d selected. “That’s the formula for the gene inactivating solution they used to cure the kids once Latham was finished with them. It’s a little different from what Timmons used on mice.”

  Sarchi leaned over and scanned the list of components, only a few of which she recognized.

  “I spoke to Carl Lanza about this, and he said it looks like the entire virus transporting the breakdown gene was incorporated into the host genome,” Pierce said. “The inactivating solution clips the virus out of the genome and then chops the virus up so it basically disappears.”

  “So you’ll probably be testifying at the trial.”

  “Wouldn’t be surprised.” His amiable expression changed to one of discomfort. “I hope you’re not upset at me for refusing to back you when you visited Latham’s hospital to lodge your complaints about him.”

  “You supplied me with the scans and the video I needed.”

  “But I wouldn’t let you use my name.”

  “Everybody involved could have done things differently,” Sarchi said, thinking of Sharon. “I can’t afford to dwell on that.”

  After a pause in which she struggled to get Sharon out of her thoughts, Sarchi looked intently at Pierce. “You seem to have all the answers today, so tell me this—what makes someone who set out to help people end up harming them and believing it’s okay?”

  “That’s a tough one. I’ve talked to a fellow who was in the same residency program with Latham and another who was on staff at Vandy when he was there. Both say he was extremely ambitious and had extraordinary ability. That’s apparently a dangerous combination. When you seem to have no peers, I’d guess it’s difficult for some people not to get carried away with themselves to where they believe their wishes and judgment are all that matter.”

  “It’s still hard for me to see how he could have made the choices he did.”

  Pierce smiled. “Good. That means we don’t have to worry about you.”

  She was about to plead not guilty to possessing either of the attributes that had destroyed Latham when she felt her pager vibrate. The number displayed was Koesler’s office.

&nb
sp; Now what?

  She excused herself and returned the call on a hall phone. “This is Doctor Seminoux.”

  “Doctor Koesler would like to see you if you’re free.”

  After all she’d been through, Sarchi found, as she made her way to Koesler’s office, that the prospect of another confrontation with the man had hardly any effect on her. She found him immaculate and pristine as ever behind his desk.

  “Ah, Doctor Seminoux, please have a seat.”

  She put herself in a chair and waited to hear what he wanted. But he looked at her for an awkwardly long time without speaking, his fingers working the desktop like a calculator keypad. Finally, he tapped the desk hard with stiffened fingers and leaned back in his chair.

  “I was wrong about you,” he said. “About the drug issue. But in my defense, I was merely acting in good faith on information that had come to me. I could hardly be expected to know the data in question were unreliable.”

  “Is this an apology?”

  “It’s an explanation. However, there is another issue, the matter of the chief residency. I do owe you an apology for that. As a favor to George Latham, I gave the position to Rachel Moore instead of you. But I didn’t know then what kind of man he was.”

  “That doesn’t matter. You shouldn’t deny anyone something they deserve as a favor to a third person.”

  “I’m not prepared to discuss my ethics with you. But I do want to make things right.”

  “You’re not thinking of taking the chief residency away from Rachel . . .”

  “I can’t do that. But my private practice pediatric group is losing a member. So, if you’d like his slot, it’s yours.”

  Much as Sarchi now wished to stay in Memphis, she didn’t want a handout. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll pass.”

  Koesler’s face clouded. “You’re not even going to ask about the details? I assure you, you won’t find a better position anywhere in the country.”

  “Knowing the offer was made merely to appease your conscience is enough.”

  “That wasn’t the primary reason. We live in a soft country, where things come easily and people can get along fine without a backbone, if they’re bright enough. You were once that way. I’d rather not have that kind of person in this residency program, but the committee never considers anything but academics and medical skills. So I’m surrounded by weakness, except in my private practice. There, I make the call. You don’t work with me there unless you’re a fine doctor and have the fiber to stand straight under fire. After what you’ve done in the last few weeks, you, Doctor Seminoux, are such a person. And it would be an honor to work with you. So what do you say? Come to dinner with the group, talk to them, see what you think. Then we’ll discuss details, and you can make your decision.”

  “If I should eventually decide to accept your offer, would you be meddling in my cases?”

  “Probably. But I’d expect you to defend yourself.”

  “Do you get the last word?”

  “Not if you’re strong enough.”

  Sarchi thought a moment and said, “Set up the dinner.”

  From Koesler’s office, Sarchi returned to the ER to see a little boy who’d been hit under the chin with a seesaw and had bitten his tongue less severely than all the blood suggested. Shortly after she’d finished with that case, her pager displayed John Metcalf’s number. He picked up in the middle of the first ring.

  “Sarchi, did you hear?”

  “Hear what?”

  “It was just on the news. Latham is dead. He was stabbed with a sharpened spoon by another inmate. I thought something like this might happen when I read his comments in the paper. Cons hate child molesters, and, in a way, that’s what he was.”

  “I can’t say I’m sorry. With the screwed-up judicial system in this country I was afraid he might get off with a much lighter punishment than he deserved.”

  “How about we have a commemorative dinner Thursday night to observe the occasion?”

  “Isn’t that kind of ghoulish?”

  “We won’t toast his death or anything. We’ll just sit quietly and reflect on how beautiful life can be sometimes.”

  “You’re on.”

  “HOW YOU COMIN’ on findin’ Lee-Ann Hipp?”

  Claude Veret looked up at his captain. “I just learned her family moved to Covington from Lucien, Mississippi. I’m about to call the county sheriff over there and see if she has any relatives in the area who might be harboring her.”

  “Good. Keep on it.”

  Veret looked at the Post-it bearing the number of the sheriff’s office and made the call.

  It took well over two minutes for the person who answered to get the sheriff on the line. Veret then explained his reason for calling.

  “Detective,” the sheriff said, “you want Lee-Ann Hipp, we’re gonna have to exhume her.”

  “What happened?”

  “Died in a house fire. She had an aunt lived alone in Lucien for years back in the woods—tough old gal. She died about a year ago and left the house to Lee-Ann. Far as I know, Lee-Ann never come to claim it. Just had it boarded up. Five days ago the place burned to the ground. Bein’ so far off the road, it was near gone before anybody could get to it. And damned if we didn’t find Lee-Ann’s car there and her body inside what was left of the house. Had no idea she was a wanted woman, or I would have contacted you.”

  “Who identified the body?”

  “I’m from that area, and I’d seen her some over the years, so I had an idea what she looked like, but I got a copy of her Louisiana driver’s license to refresh my memory. What with the fire and all, the body wasn’t in the best shape. But you could tell it was her. And she was wearin’ her high school class ring with her initials on it.”

  “How’d the fire start?”

  “Probably from a tipped-over kerosene lamp. The place was wired for electricity, but I guess Lee-Ann figured if she had it turned back on, we’d know she was there.”

  “How do you figure a kerosene lamp tipped itself over?”

  “I don’t follow you.”

  “If you knocked a kerosene lamp over and it caused a fire that got out of control, would you stay in the house?”

  “I’d get out.”

  “Exactly. Most people who expire in a house fire die in their sleep from inhaling carbon monoxide and other toxic gases.”

  “You sayin’ this was no accident?”

  “Maybe not.”

  “Any idea who’d want her dead?”

  Unaware that Latham had been killed, Veret said, “One good one, but he’s already in jail.”

  “I don’t have the resources to do anything about this.”

  “Then don’t. I wasn’t there, so I can’t say what happened. Leave it as is.”

  Veret hung up, leaned back in his chair, and closed his eyes to organize his thoughts.

  A LITTLE AFTER ten o’clock, Sarchi was paged to the information desk in the hospital lobby where someone was asking for her. She arrived to find a woman she didn’t know waiting.

  “I’m Doctor Seminoux. What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Evelyn Klyce,” the woman said. “Gilbert’s mother.”

  Gilbert Klyce—the paralyzed boy from the Brunswick Developmental Center.

  “I’ve been reading about this man, George Latham, in the paper,” she said. “And I think Gilbert may be one of his victims.”

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  SHOCKED AT EVELYN Klyce’s statement, Sarchi took her to a table in the sparsely populated cafeteria where they could talk.

  When Drew had come into the ER paralyzed, his muscles were flaccid, and he had no reflexes. In time, had his condition persisted, that would have changed as the nerve cells supplying his muscles became hyperexcitable, and all his jo
ints would have become flexed as Gilbert’s were. So, that aspect of Gilbert’s condition was not inconsistent with his mother’s suspicions. But Gilbert was blind and deaf as well. And if his illness was caused by Latham, why was he still in that state? These problems made Sarchi believe, as Evelyn shed her coat and draped it on a chair, that the woman was simply grasping at hope.

  Evelyn was probably in her mid-thirties, and her face clearly showed the stress of having a permanently paralyzed child. She was dressed in a white blouse and dark skirt, components that could easily be mixed and matched. That and her simple cloth coat suggested she was making do on a limited income.

  “Now,” Sarchi said when they were both settled. “Why do you think Latham was involved in Gilbert’s illness?”

  “When it happened, four years ago, Gilbert was five, the same age as those other children,” Evelyn began. “And we were living in Nashville. The paper said that four years ago Latham was working in Nashville, at Vanderbilt.”

  “The parents of all the kids Latham made sick gave their child’s umbilical cord to the New York Repository for cord blood,” Sarchi said. “Did you do that?”

  “No.”

  “Where was Gilbert born?”

  “In Nashville.”

  This lack of a connection with the cord blood repository seemed to prove pretty clearly that Evelyn was way off the track in her suspicions. Still, feeling badly about how little she’d been able to do for Gilbert, Sarchi figured she could at least appear interested in what his mother had to say. “I interrupted. Please go on.”

  “My husband—Gilbert’s father—was a Christian Scientist. You know, the group that doesn’t believe in doctors. So when Gilbert became ill, he wouldn’t let me take him to the hospital. Said God would heal him. He was a very stupid man. He and his friends prayed and prayed for Gilbert, but he didn’t get better.”

  “That explains why his records say the precipitating illness was presumed to be viral encephalitis,” Sarchi said. “I’ve always wondered why the diagnosis was so equivocal. Do you remember the sequence of events when he got sick? Did it happen quickly?”