He sent the next one to Raimy.
Just saw you called. What’s up? I’m flying to DC. Talk later?
He started to text the detective but stopped. That pushy prick can call me back. He didn’t leave a message, so it must not be that important, he thought.
Dressed and packed, Gabriel left his hotel room, made his way to the lobby, and tossed his key in the express check-out box at the front desk. During the short ride to Logan Airport he made a few calls to Pilgrim Trust to confirm that the morning interviews they’d planned were all set.”
By the time he’d finished his calls, his driver had pulled up to the terminal.
He made his way inside, checked in, cleared security, and waited at the gate for his flight to Reagan National Airport.
He ran over the upcoming schedule in his head. He sighed.
It’s going to be a hectic week.
He had no idea just how hectic.
Chapter 45
Mort Tanzler wrapped up his overnight shift. The morning sun rose and Raimy would arrive soon. It had been a very quiet night, so he used the time to work on the smear campaign.
Tanzler drafted a formal complaint quickly. He was quite familiar with the regulatory and legislative boundaries physicians were required to uphold, having violated many of them himself.
After a brief description of the accident victim, he provided an accurate list of Souza’s personal possessions, augmented by a false assertion that those possessions included an envelope containing lab reports and a hand-written note from Raimy. He cited the statutory rules Raimy had broken by delivering the lab reports on Lohan and Patel to Pablo Souza’s hotel room.
Raimy’s handwritten note was the nail in the coffin,
The note signed by Dr. Robinson requested that Mr. Souza publish the toxicological reports on the internet. My supervising colleague is Dr. Robinson. He completed a supplementary review of my autopsy of Liam Lohan and he conducted the primary autopsy on Asrani Patel. He had means and opportunity to steal those reports.
“Fool.” Tanzler smirked as he concluded the letter.
He re-read the document, then, satisfied, he faxed it to the Board, emailed a copy to Arvind Bhatt, and then tapped out a text to Nino before leaving for the day.
Complaint on the way to the Board and my boss. Reaction likely in less than 24 hours.
Chapter 46
It was just after 8 in the morning when Raimy started his shift. He’d had a restless night. Excited by the mysterious hacker information, he was also frustrated that he could not connect with Pablo.
Maybe today I can reach Pablo. See if he posted my stuff and got any new response from Trail, that bio-science hacker.
He sighed and entered the examination lab.
There was only one overnight case waiting for him to check. A hit-and-run victim.
Raimy scanned the body on the examination table.
“Oh, my God!”
He recognized Pablo immediately. Momentarily frozen, Raimy felt a river of cold sweat seep down the center of his back.
Dazed, he robotically pulled out his smartphone and dialed Gabriel.
Hi, you’ve reached Gabriel Sweeney. I can’t take your call right now…
“Dammit,” he blurted, waiting for the recorded message to end.
“Gabriel. It’s Raimy. Call me immediately. I have very bad news. It’s Pablo. He’s been in some kind of accident. He’s…um…he’s dead, Gabriel. He’s dead. Just call me. As soon as you get this.”
Raimy ended the call and remembered the text Gabriel sent him about leaving for DC.
He’s probably in-flight right now. Shit!
He leaned on the examination table, steadying himself, trying to pull himself together.
Do your job, Raimy…just do your stinking job. Damnation!
He took a deep breath. Closed his eyes and exhaled. Then he started a visual examination of the body…of Pablo. He saw the massive injuries below the waist and checked against Tanzler notes.
…dislocation of both knees…tendon ruptures...compound fractures of both femur bones…fractured pelvis…
“Jesus! The lower body injuries are massive,” he whispered. “Pablo, my hacker friend, you would never have danced again if you survived this.”
He didn’t see any head or chest trauma.
“He must have been hit by a small car,” Raimy speculated, getting lost in his work.
Raimy continued the tedious process. He examined Pablo’s organs and studied the initial toxicological reports that arrived from the techs upstairs.
Liver, brain, kidneys, lungs…all look good. Some early damage to the heart…nothing serious. Overall, pretty healthy for a middle-aged man.
But Raimy was puzzled when he read Tanzler’s cause-of-death statement.
…my preliminary findings are that the cause of death is massive blood loss and internal organ injury as a direct result of the accident documented in the EMT and BPD reports.
Raimy was irritated. He hated sloppiness.
…massive blood loss?…internal organ injury? What in the blue blazes is Tanzler talking about? The blood loss was bad but not that bad…and none of Pablo’s organs are damaged. Mort’s better than this. What’s going on?
He checked the Boston Police Department incident report and the Boston Emergency Medical Services paperwork.
Cops arrive at the scene just before 9 pm…Boston EMS gets there at 9:05…investigating officer on the scene said the victim showed no signs of life…advised immediate transport to Mass General emergency.
Raimy checked the paperwork from the attending emergency physician.
Patient presents non-responsive at 9:17 pm. No heartbeat. No blood pressure. No breath signs. EEG confirms brain inactivity. Pupils dilated and unreactive. 9:25 pm no change. Estimated time of death 9 pm. Death pronounced at 9:26 pm, Tuesday, August 7.
“Pablo was dead on arrival? That just doesn’t make sense.”
Raimy re-checked for evidence of excessive bleeding. The abdominal aorta, located just above the waist, was intact. If severed in the crash, then Pablo would have bled to death in 30 seconds or less.
Raimy sorted through the summary findings from the lab techs for the blood, urine, and tissue samples.
scant alcohol present…positive for low-levels of THC…no cocaine markers…negative for amphetamines, PCP, methamphetamine, benzodiazepine, or morphine.
Then he drilled into every page of the toxicological reports, especially the detailed test results data. Raimy felt his body start to burn with excitement...and fear. Everything in the results was negative…except the mass spectrum screen for diamorphine.
“Jeez. Third time’s the charm. Looks like your Martian Heroin is in you, Pablo,” Raimy declared out loud, convinced beyond any doubt that he had found something new, deadly, and largely untraceable in three bodies in as many weeks.
“But how? And why?” he asked the lifeless body in front of him.
He remembered Lilo, the kid with the tattoos – Liam Lohan – the drug overdose case, and proceeded to scrutinize every part of Pablo – looking for injection sites. His torso, arms, undamaged parts of Pablo’s legs, the feet, between the toes and fingers, under the fingernails, in the mouth, under the tongue, and the most dangerous place to inject drugs – the neck.
Clean. All clean. Could this be a contagion?
Raimy called the lab techs. He needed to rule out one more possibility.
“Hi, it’s Dr. Robinson. Good morning. I have a question. Yes, regarding the overnight hit-and-run victim. Yes, that’s right, Pablo Souza. Did you get samples from the victim’s stomach? You did? Good. I’ll need a tox-screen for heroin, specifically diamorphine. Yes. All three. The food only. Right, the Marquis, the gas chromatography, and the mass spectrum. As soon as possible. Thanks very much.”
He hung up the phone and lingered over a new, troublesome realization.
Was it a coincidence that all three Martian Heroin bodies came in on Tanzler’s watch?
; Raimy couldn’t help the nascent uncertainty he felt for his colleague. He’s missing things. Basics. It’s weird. Mort’s a pervert but his exams are usually solid. Unusual for Mort. I need to check something.
He covered up Pablo, cleaned up the examination table, filed the reports, and locked up the lab before going to his office. Raimy logged into his computer, found the file sets he needed for the closed-circuit recordings of the lab.
“This ought to clear things up,” Raimy hummed, referring to the video surveillance installed to monitor Tanzler’s promise to quit his deviant obsession. He entered the password that only he and Arvind knew and began the time-consuming task of watching Tanzler’s autopsies.
First up was the autopsy on Liam Lohan from July 23rd.
“That looked okay,” Raimy muttered an hour later, and launched the next video for Asrani Patel.
What in the world? Tanzler didn’t examine Patel’s organs at all. He just removed them and bagged ‘em. I can’t believe it, Raimy thought.
He closed the file and opened the recording for last night, the one for Pablo Souza.
Oh my God. Mort just cut open Pablo, removed the organs, and bagged ‘em. Again. He didn’t even look at them.
Raimy randomly checked two other Tanzler cases.Lemme see what he did while I was on leave. He opened two recordings from different days during the last week in July.
Son of a bitch. Those two look good. Normal. Perfect.
He looked up at the wall clock. Just after 2 in the afternoon. He compartmentalized his mixed emotions – his shock and sadness over Pablo’s death, the renewed excitement for this chemical discovery, the creeping fear that he had stumbled onto something deadly, and his colleague Mort Tanzler’s possible role in all of it.
I have to let Arvind know about this. Gotta tell Gabriel, too. Jesus. Why hasn’t he called me?
Before Raimy could do anything, his desk phone started trilling.
“Hello? This is Dr. Robinson.”
“Hey Doc, it’s Ming Liu in tech lab. I have the results of the tests you ordered. Pablo Souza’s stomach contents. Right?”
“Yes. That’s right. I’ll come over and pick them up. Thank you.”
Raimy downloaded the video recordings of Tanzler’s autopsies on Lohan, Patel, and Souza. He saved them to his Google Drive. He walked over to the tech lab and picked up the report before heading back to the pathology examination room to review it.
“Let’s see what this says,” he mumbled.
Once again, the Marquis and gas chromatography results were negative for diamorphine. But the mass spectrum test was off. The major ions were there…but there were additional ones.
“It’s the same new ions. The same ones I saw in Lilo and Patel. And now Pablo. It was in his food,” he whispered
The he had a chilling thought. Was Pablo poisoned?
Raimy pulled out his smartphone and texted his boss, Arvind.
Arvind, we need to talk. I know you’re at a conference, but this is serious stuff. Call me soon. Please. Raimy
Then he tapped out another message, more urgent, and more alarming, to Gabriel.
Where are you? Are you okay? We need to talk. Soon. Very urgent. Raimy
The shaken doctor walked over to the examination table and stared down at the man who had been so full of life just a few hours ago.
Was Pablo poisoned? Was Gabriel a target, too? Jesus, I could have eaten that food.
Raimy was out of his element.
Should I call the police? I wish Arvind would get back to me. Or Gabriel.
Chapter 47
Frustrated, scared, and hyper-conscious of the moaning air conditioning, the routine bleeps from the computer equipment, the waste water rushing through the building pipes, and even the noisy compressor starts from the multiple freezers and refrigerators in the lab – Raimy finally noticed Pablo’s personal effects bag.
Shit. I better take care of this, he thought and started checking the contents. He matched up the items with the handwritten catalog – trying not to think about the personable man who was sitting with him, alive and laughing, 18 hours ago.
…pair of sneakers…blue dress shirt…dark blue windbreaker…socks…jeans…brown wallet…credit cards…wristwatch…car and house keys…
“Oh, shit…oh, shit…shit, shit, shit,” he fretted and as he read the last item:
…envelope with handwritten note and lab reports…
Raimy saw his career, his reputation, and his job evaporate before his eyes. He knew that note would be in his handwriting, and the lab reports were the ones he printed off the night before. And he knew that removing those reports and sharing them was transgression of the highest order.
“Dag nabbit. There’s no way I can sidestep this. Jesus, what was I thinking? Friggin’ ambition. Dang it, dang it, dang it all!”
Raimy nearly collapsed. His torso convulsed as he tried to keep it together. But he couldn’t. The tears streamed from his eyes. He was blubbering, alone, in a morgue, next to a dead man.
Then his phone rang.
“Yeah? What? Who is this?” It was all Raimy could muster.
“Raimy, it’s Gabriel. Oh my God, man. Is it true? Are you fucking with me? Is Pablo okay?”
“Pablo’s dead. I think he was poisoned. I think you’re in danger. It’s messed up. I’m in a bad place.”
“Oh my god. No…goddammit…not Pablo…what the fuck…I can’t believe it…”
Raimy could hear Gabriel sobbing on the other end of the line, repeating his disbelief.
Gabriel couldn’t believe it, and he was furious. “He’s dead? He’s really dead?”
“I’m staring at him now. I had to re-check the autopsy. Yeah, he’s dead. I’m so sorry, man.”
“It’s that fucking chip and Patel. Tell me again. When...how...did this happen?”
“Last night. The hit-and-run was around 9 pm. I didn’t find out until I came in this morning. That’s when I called you. Around 8, maybe 8:15.”
Gabriel didn’t speak for a long time. Raimy heard the man breaking down again on the end of the line.
“I’ll call you back, Raimy. I need a moment. I’m in DC. Keep your phone on. I’ll call you back. I’ll call you right back.”
Gabriel clicked off, leaving Raimy hanging on their last words exchanged.
When did this happen…around 9 pm…around 9 pm.
Another chill ran down his spine, and his hands turned clammy. Raimy nearly lost his balance as he remembered something.
I went to Pablo’s hotel room with the lab reports at 9:45 last night. I didn’t put them under his door until close to 10. How the hell did Pablo have those reports and my notes on him if the accident was at 9 pm? It’s impossible.
Raimy dashed back up to his office, logged on to his computer and pulled the entire overnight video recordings. He skimmed through the autopsy until he got to the part where Tanzler started cataloging Pablo’s personal belongings. He watched as Tanzler examined and bagged item after item. No envelope.
No envelope!
He fast-forwarded until close to the end of Tanzler’s shift. Then he saw it.
That son-of-a-gun added the envelope more than four hours later. How did Tanzler get it? Why is he adding it to the bag? I’m being set up. That son of a mother trucker is setting me up!
Raimy seethed.
He downloaded the entire video segment and saved it to his Google Drive. Then he sent all the videos to Gabriel’s email. He sent another batch to Arvind’s email, too.
Raimy nearly jumped out of his chair when his mobile started trilling.
“Raimy, it’s me, Gabriel. I can talk more now.”
“Gabriel, there’s more. A lot more. I think you and I are in serious danger.”
“Talk to me, man.”
Raimy laid it all out. His clinical methodology kicked in.
“Gabriel, there are a few things that separately are just odd…but together I think, well, it’s incriminatory.”
Gabriel agreed but pressed his new friend. “Do you think you made a mistake? It sounds so crazy.”
“I get it. And, no, it’s no mistake. Not three times with the same result on three different samples.”
“Jesus Christ! I almost ate that damn burger. Dammit! This is nuts. I thought the pool was an accident. Now the food is poisoned.”
“Exactly. Gabriel, I think someone is trying to kill you…the pool, the burger. Someone wants you dead.”
“Goddammit….and you’re a target, too!”
“That’s right. Pablo couldn’t possibly have those reports on him 45 minutes before I dropped them off. Someone got those reports and planted them.”
“Jesus fucking Christ. Who would do that? And why?”
“I don’t know. I think we should call the police. Now.”
“Pablo was my best friend. He saved my life. I’m not letting this shit go. But we are not calling the cops.”
“What!? Why the heck not?”
“A bunch of reasons. Like you said. On their own, it’s just circumstantial but collectively…I dunno…it just can’t be a coincidence.”
Gabriel ran down the list: Det. Keeler is sketchy according to a local lawyer. The young cop that escorted him to the precinct to see Keeler also showed up at the pool after the woman drugged him, and again in the hotel lobby. Pablo’s gear tampered with. And the saved text message on Asrani’s phone about the cops’ help.
“Holy crap!”
“Yeah. I don’t think we can trust the cops. We have no idea how far up the chain this goes.”
“But I have the tox reports. Three cases in as many weeks. That’s solid evidence.”
Gabriel thought about it. “True. But your colleague, Tanzler is it? Well, he’s setting you up. So, can you honestly tell me you trust everyone in your department?”
“Whoa. Dude. Are you saying my boss is dirty?”
“No. I’m asking if you’re willing to bet your career…and my life…on it. Are you?”
Chapter 48 – Wednesday, August 8 (Metropolitan DC)
Gabriel sat in his Ritz-Carlton hotel suite in McLean, Virginia, a short distance from the Pilgrim Trust Bank headquarters. He checked his email and immediately saw a message from Raimy. It included a link to a Google Drive. He clicked through and downloaded everything to his laptop straightaway. He made copies on a flash drive, too. He could tell from the file size that he was in for several hours of viewing.
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