Harvest

by Tess Gerritsen

  She decided to drive to Elaine’s house.

  For the past few days, she’d been asking around for Elaine’s new phone number. Neither Marilee Archer nor any of the other transplant team wives had even known that Elaine’s number had been changed.

  Now, with the images of Kunstler and Hennessy still painfully sharp in her mind, she headed west on Route 9, to Newton. Talking to Elaine was not something she looked forward to, but over the last few days, whenever she thought about Kunstler and Hennessy, she couldn’t help thinking about Aaron as well. She remembered the day of his funeral, and how no one had even mentioned the two previous deaths. Any other group of people would have found it an unavoidable topic. Someone would normally have remarked, This makes number three. Or Why is Bayside so unlucky? Or Do you think there’s a common factor here? But no one had said a thing. Not even Elaine, who must have known about Kunstler and Hennessy.

  Not even Mark.

  If he kept this from me, what else hasn’t he told me?

  She pulled into Elaine’s driveway and sat there for a moment, her head in her hands, trying to shake off her depression. But the pall remained. It’s all falling apart for me, she thought. My job. And now I’m losing Mark. The worst part about it is, I don’t have any idea why it’s happening.

  Ever since the night she’d brought up the subject of Kunstler and Hennessy, everything had changed between her and Mark. They lived in the same house and slept in the same bed, but their interactions had become purely automatic. Like the sex. In the dark, with her eyes closed, she could have been making love to anyone.

  She looked up at the house. And thought: Maybe Elaine knows something.

  She got out of the car and climbed the steps to the front door. There she noticed the newspapers, two of them, still rolled up and lying on the porch. They were a week old and already yellowed. Why hadn’t Elaine picked them up?

  She rang the doorbell. When no one answered, she tried knocking, then rang again. And again. She could hear the bell echoing inside the house, followed by silence. No footsteps, no voices. She looked down at the two newspapers and knew that something was wrong.

  The front door was locked; she left the porch and circled around the side of the house, to the back garden. A stone path trailed off into curving beds of well-tended azaleas and hydrangeas. The lawn looked recently mown, the hedges clipped, but the flagstone patio seemed disconcertingly empty. Then she remembered the furniture, the umbrella table and chairs that she’d seen here the afternoon of the funeral. They were gone.

  The kitchen door was locked, but just off the patio was a sliding glass door that hadn’t been latched. Abby gave it a tug and it glided open. She called: “Elaine?” and stepped inside.

  The room was vacant. Furniture, rugs—it was all gone, even the pictures. She stared in bewilderment at the blank walls, at the floor where the missing rug had left a darker rectangle on the sun-faded wood. She went into the living room, her footsteps echoing in the bare rooms. The house was swept clean, vacant except for a few advertisement postcards lying just inside the front door mail slot. She picked one up and saw it was addressed to Occupant.

  She went into the kitchen. Even the refrigerator was empty, the surfaces wiped down and smelling of disinfectant. The wall telephone had no dial tone.

  She walked outside and stood in the driveway, feeling completely disoriented. Only two weeks ago she had been inside this very house. She had sat on the living room couch and eaten canapés and eyed the Levi family photos over the fireplace. Now she wondered if she’d hallucinated the whole scene.

  Still in a daze, she got in her car and backed out of the driveway. She drove on automatic pilot, scarcely paying attention to the road, her mind focused on Elaine’s bizarre disappearance. Where would she go? To uproot her life so abruptly after Aaron’s death didn’t seem rational. Rather, it seemed like something one did out of panic.

  Suddenly uneasy, she glanced in the rearview mirror. She’d made it a habit to check the mirror, ever since Saturday, when she’d first glimpsed the maroon van.

  There was a dark green Volvo driving behind her. Hadn’t it been parked outside Elaine’s house? She couldn’t be sure. She hadn’t really been paying attention.

  The Volvo blinked its lights on and off.

  She accelerated.

  The Volvo did too.

  She turned right, onto a major thoroughfare. Ahead stretched a suburban strip of gas stations and mini-malls. Witnesses. Lots of witnesses. Yet the Volvo was still right behind her, still blinking its lights.

  She’d had enough of being pursued, enough of being frightened. To hell with this. If he wanted to harass her, she’d turn the tables and confront him.

  She swerved into the parking lot of a shopping mall. He followed her. One glance outside told her there were plenty of people around, shoppers pushing carts, drivers searching for parking spots. Here was the place to do it.

  She slammed on the brakes.

  The Volvo screeched to a halt inches from her rear bumper.

  She scrambled out of her car and ran back to the Volvo. Furiously she rapped at the driver’s window. “Open up, damn you! Open up!”

  The driver rolled down his window and looked out at her. Then he removed his sunglasses. “Dr. DiMatteo?” said Bernard Katzka. “I thought it was you.”

  “Why have you been following me?”

  “I saw you drive away from the house.”

  “No, before. Why did you follow me before?”

  “When?”

  “Saturday. The van.”

  He shook his head. “I don’t know about any van.”

  She backed away. “Forget it. Just quit tailing me, okay?”

  “I was trying to get you to pull over. Didn’t you see me flash my lights?”

  “I didn’t know it was you.”

  “Mind telling me what you were doing at Dr. Levi’s house?”

  “I stopped by to see Elaine. I didn’t know she’d moved.”

  “Why don’t you pull into that parking space? I’d like to talk to you. Or are you going to refuse to answer questions again?”

  “That depends on what you’re going to ask me.”

  “It’s about Dr. Levi.”

  “That’s all we’re going to talk about? Just Aaron?”

  He nodded.

  She thought about it. And decided that questions could go both ways. That even the close-mouthed Detective Katzka might be induced to give out information.

  She glanced toward the mall. “I see a doughnut shop over there. Why don’t we go in and have a cup of coffee?”

  Cops and doughnuts. The association had become an urban joke, reinforced in the public’s mind by every overweight cop, by every patrol car ever parked outside a Dunkin’ Donuts. Bernard Katzka, however, did not appear to be a doughnut fan; he ordered only a cup of black coffee, which he sipped without any apparent pleasure. Katzka did not strike Abby as the sort of man who indulged in much of anything that was pleasurable, sinful, or even remotely unnecessary.

  His first question came right to the point. “Why were you at the house?”

  “I came to see Elaine. I wanted to talk to her.”

  “About what?”

  “Personal matters.”

  “It was my impression that you two were just acquaintances.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  He ignored her question. “Is that how you’d characterize the relationship?”

  She let out a breath. “Yes, I guess so. We know each other through Aaron. That’s all.”

  “So why did you come to see her?”

  Again she took a deep breath. And realized she was probably clueing him in to her own nervousness. “Some strange things have happened to me lately. I wanted to talk to Elaine about it.”

  “What things?”

  “Someone was following me last Saturday. A maroon van. I spotted it on the Tobin Bridge. Then I saw it again, when I got home.”

  “Anything else?”
/>   “Isn’t that upsetting enough?” She looked straight at him. “It scared me.”

  He regarded her in silence, as though trying to decide if it really was fear he was seeing in her face. “What does this have to do with Mrs. Levi?”

  “You’re the one who got me wondering about Aaron. About whether he really committed suicide. Then I found out two other Bayside doctors have died.”

  Katzka’s frown told her this was news to him.

  “Six and a half years ago,” she said, “there was a Dr. Lawrence Kunstler. A thoracic surgeon. He jumped off the Tobin Bridge.”

  Katzka said nothing, but he had shifted forward, almost imperceptibly, in his chair.

  “Then three years ago, there was an anesthesiologist,” continued Abby. “A Dr. Hennessy. He and his wife and baby died of carbon monoxide poisoning. They called it an accident. A broken furnace.”

  “Unfortunately, that kind of accident happens every winter.”

  “And then there’s Aaron. That makes three. All of them were on the transplant team. Doesn’t that seem like a terribly unlucky coincidence to you?”

  “What are you formulating here? That someone’s stalking the transplant team? Killing them off one by one?”

  “I’m just pointing out a pattern here. You’re the policeman. You should investigate it.”

  Katzka sat back. “How is it you got involved in all this?”

  “My boyfriend’s on the team. Mark doesn’t admit it, but I think he’s worried. I think the whole team’s worried, and they’re wondering who’s going to be next. But they never talk about it. The way people never talk about plane crashes when they’re standing at the boarding gate.”

  “So you’re worried about your boyfriend’s safety?”

  “Yes,” she said simply, leaving out the larger truth: that she was doing this because she wanted Mark back. All of him. She didn’t understand what had happened between them, but she knew their relationship was crumbling. And it had all started to deteriorate the night she’d mentioned Kunstler and Hennessy. None of this she shared with Katzka, because it was all based on feelings. Instinct. Katzka was the kind of man who worked with more tangible coinage.

  Obviously, he’d expected her to say more. When she remained silent, he asked: “Is there anything else you want to tell me? About anything at all?”

  He’s talking about Mary Allen, she thought with a flash of panic. Looking at him, she had the overwhelming urge to tell him everything. Here, now. Instead she quickly avoided his gaze. And responded with a question of her own.

  “Why were you watching Elaine’s house?” she asked. “That’s what you’re doing, isn’t it?”

  “I was talking to the next-door neighbor. When I came out, I saw you pull out of the driveway.”

  “You’re questioning Elaine’s neighbors?”

  “It’s routine.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Almost against her will, her gaze lifted to his. His gray eyes admitted nothing, gave nothing away.

  “Why are you still investigating a suicide?”

  “The widow packs up and leaves practically overnight, with no forwarding address. That’s unusual.”

  “You’re not saying Elaine’s guilty of anything, are you?”

  “No. I think she’s scared.”

  “Of what?”

  “Do you know, Dr. DiMatteo?”

  She found she could not look away, found there was something about the quiet intensity of his eyes that held her transfixed. She felt a brief and completely unexpected flicker of attraction, and she had no idea why this man, of all people, should inspire it.

  “No,” she said. “I have no idea what Elaine’s running from.”

  “Maybe you can help me answer another question, then.”

  “Which is?”

  “How did Aaron Levi accumulate all his wealth?”

  She shook her head. “He wasn’t particularly wealthy, as far as I knew. A cardiologist earns maybe two hundred thousand, tops. And he was sending a lot of that to his two kids in college.”

  “Was there family money?”

  “You mean like an inheritance?” She shrugged. “I heard Aaron’s father was an appliance repairman.”

  Katzka sat back, thinking. He wasn’t looking at her now, but was staring at his coffee cup. There was a depth of concentration to this man that intrigued her. He could drop out of a conversation just like that, leaving her feeling abandoned.

  “Detective, how much wealth are we talking about?”

  He looked up at her. “Three million dollars.”

  Stunned, Abby could only stare at him.

  “After Mrs. Levi vanished,” he said, “I thought I should take a closer look at the family finances. So I spoke to their CPA. He told me that shortly after Dr. Levi died, Elaine discovered her husband had a Cayman Islands bank account. An account she’d known nothing about. She asked the CPA how to access the money. And then, without warning, she skipped town.” Katzka gave her a questioning look.

  “I have no idea how Aaron got that much money,” she murmured.

  “Neither does his accountant.”

  They were silent a moment. Abby reached for her coffee and found it had gone cold. So had she.

  She asked, softly: “Do you know where Elaine is?”

  “We have an idea.”

  “Can you tell me?”

  He shook his head. “At the moment, Dr. DiMatteo,” he said, “I don’t think she wants to be found.”

  Three million dollars. How had Aaron Levi accumulated three million dollars?

  All the way home, she considered that question. She couldn’t see how a cardiologist would be able to do it. Not with two kids in private universities and a wife with expensive taste in antiques. And why had he hidden his wealth? The Cayman Islands was where people stashed their money when they wanted it kept out of sight of the IRS. But even Elaine had not known about the account until after Aaron’s death. What a shock it must have been to go through her dead husband’s papers. To discover that he’d been hiding a fortune from her.

  Three million dollars.

  She pulled into the driveway. Found herself surveying the neighborhood for a maroon van. It was getting to be a habit, that quick glance up and down the street.

  She walked in the front door and stepped over the usual pile of afternoon mail. Most of it was professional journals, two of everything for the two doctors in the house. She gathered them all up and lugged them into the kitchen. On the table she began sorting everything into two piles. His junk, her junk. His life, her life. Nothing here worth a second glance.

  It was four o’clock. Tonight, she decided, she’d cook a nice dinner. Serve it with candlelight and wine. Why not? She was now a lady of leisure. While Bayside took its sweet time deciding her future as a surgeon, she could stay busy fixing things up between her and Mark with romantic dinners and feminine coddling. Lose the career but keep the man.

  Shit, DiMatteo. You’re starting to sound desperate.

  She scooped up her half of the junk mail, carried it to the trash can, and stepped on the pop-up-lid pedal. Just as the mail was tumbling in, she glimpsed a large brown envelope stuffed at the bottom. The word yachts, printed in bold letters in the return address, caught her eye. She dug out the envelope and brushed off the coffee grounds and egg shells.

  At the top left was printed:

  East Wind Yachts

  Sales and Service

  Marblehead Marina

  It had been sent to Mark. But it was not addressed to their Brewster Street house. It had been sent to a P.O. box.

  She looked again at the words: East Wind Yachts Sales and Service.

  She left the kitchen and went to Mark’s desk in the living room. The bottom drawer, where he kept his files, was locked, but she knew where the key was. She’d heard him plunk it into the pencil cup. She found the key and opened the drawer.

  Inside were all his household files. Insurance papers, mortgage papers, car pa
pers. She found a tab with Boat written on it. There was a folder for Gimme Shelter, his J-35. There was also a second folder. It looked new. On the tab was written H-48.

  She pulled out the H-48 file. It was a sales contract from East Wind Yachts. H-48 was an abbreviation for the boat’s design. A Hinckley yacht, forty-eight feet long.

  She sank into a chair, feeling sick. You kept it a secret, she thought. You told me you’d withdraw the offer. Then you bought it anyway. It’s your money, all right. I guess this makes it perfectly clear.

  Her gaze moved to the bottom of the page. To the terms of sale.

  Moments later, she walked out of the house.

  “Cash for organs. Is it possible?”

  In the midst of stirring cream into his coffee, Dr. Ivan Tarasoff stopped and glanced at Vivian. “Do you have any proof this is going on?”

  “Not yet. We’re just asking you if it’s possible. And if so, how could it be done?”

  Dr. Tarasoff sank back on the couch and sipped his coffee as he thought it over. It was four forty-five, and except for the occasional scrub-suited resident passing through to the adjoining locker room, the Mass Gen surgeons’ lounge was quiet. Tarasoff, who’d come out of the OR only twenty minutes ago, still had a dusting of glove talc on his hands and a surgical mask dangling around his neck. Watching him, Abby was comforted, once again, by the image of her grandfather. The gentle blue eyes, the silver hair. The quiet voice. The voice of ultimate authority, she thought, belongs to the man who never has to raise it.

  “There’ve been rumors, of course,” said Tarasoff. “Every time a celebrity gets an organ, people wonder if money was involved. But there’s never been any proof. Only suspicions.”

  “What rumors have you heard?”

  “That one can buy a higher place on the waiting list. I myself have never seen it happen.”

  “I have,” said Abby.

  Tarasoff looked at her. “When?”

  “Two weeks ago. Mrs. Victor Voss. She was third on the waiting list and she got a heart. The two people at the top of the list later died.”

  “UNOS wouldn’t allow that. Or NEOB. They have strict guidelines.”

  “NEOB didn’t know about it. In fact, they have no record of the donor in their system.”