Harvest

by Tess Gerritsen

  “But that’s not what happened.”

  “What did happen?”

  “I told you. I’ve told you everything—”

  “Did you kill Mary Allen?”

  “No.” She leaned forward, her hands clenched in fists on the table. “I did not kill my patient.”

  Lundquist looked at Katzka. “She’s not a very good liar, is she?” he said, and he walked out of the room.

  For a moment neither Abby nor Katzka spoke.

  Then she asked, softly, “Am I under arrest now?”

  “No. You can leave.” He rose to his feet.

  So did she. They stood looking at each other as though neither one of them had quite decided that the interview was over.

  “Why am I being released?” she asked.

  “Pending further investigation.”

  “Do you think I’m guilty?”

  He hesitated. She knew it was not a question he should answer, yet he seemed to be struggling for some measure of honesty in his reply. In the end, he chose to avoid the question entirely.

  “Dr. Hodell’s been waiting for you,” he said. “You’ll find him at the front desk.” He turned to open the door. “I’ll be talking to you again, Dr. DiMatteo,” he said, and left the room.

  She walked down the hall and into the waiting area.

  Mark was standing there. “Abby?” he said softly.

  She let him take her into his arms, but her body registered his touch with a strange sense of numbness. Detachment. As if she herself were floating above them both, observing from a distance two strangers embracing, kissing.

  And from across that same distance, she heard him say: “Let’s go home.”

  Through the security partition, Bernard Katzka watched the couple walk toward the door, observing how closely Hodell held the woman. It was not something a cop saw every day. Affection. Love. More often it was couples wrangling away, bruised faces, cut lips, fingers pointed in accusation. Or it was pure lust. Lust he saw all the time. It was out in full view, as blatant as the whores walking the streets of Boston’s Combat Zone. Katzka himself was not immune to it, to that occasional need for a woman’s body.

  But love was something he had not felt in a long time. And at that moment, he envied Mark Hodell.

  “Hey, Slug!” someone called. “Call on line three,”

  Katzka reached for the telephone. “Detective Katzka,” he said.

  “This is the ME’s office. Hold for Dr. Rowbotham, please.”

  As Katzka waited, his gaze shifted back toward the waiting area, and he saw that Abby DiMatteo and Hodell were gone. The couple with everything, he thought. Looks. Money. High-powered careers. Would a woman in her enviable position risk it all, just to ease the pain of a dying patient?

  Rowbotham came on the line. “Slug?”

  “Yeah. What’s up?”

  “A surprise.”

  “Good or bad?”

  “Let’s just call it unexpected. I have the tissue GC-MS results back on Dr. Levi.”

  GC-MS, or gas chromatography-mass spectrometry, was a method used by the crime lab for identification of drugs and toxins.

  “I thought you already ruled out everything,” said Katzka.

  “We ruled out the usual drugs. Narcotics, barbs. But that was using immunoassay and thin-layer chromatography. This is a doctor we’re talking about, so I figured we couldn’t go with just the usual screen. I also checked for fentanyl, phencyclidine, some of the volatiles. I came up with a positive in the muscle tissue. Succinylcholine.”

  “What’s that?”

  “It’s a neuromuscular blocking agent. Competes with the body’s neurotransmitter, acetylcholine. The effect is sort of like d-tubocurarine.”

  “Curare?”

  “Right, but succinylcholine has a different chemical mechanism. It’s used in the OR all the time. To immobilize muscles for surgery. Allow easier ventilation.”

  “Are you saying he was paralyzed?”

  “Completely helpless. The worst part of it is, he would’ve been conscious, but unable to struggle.” Rowbotham paused. “It’s a terrible way to die, Slug.”

  “How is the drug administered?”

  “Injection.”

  “We didn’t see any needle marks on the body.”

  “It could have been in the scalp. Hidden in the hair. It’s just a pinprick we’re talking about. We could easily have missed it with all the postmortem skin changes.”

  Katzka thought it over for a moment. And he remembered something Abby DiMatteo had told him only a few days ago, something he hadn’t completely followed up on.

  He said, “Could you look up two old autopsy reports for me? One would be from about six years ago. A jumper off the Tobin Bridge. The name was Lawrence Kunstler.”

  “Spell it for me. . . . Okay, got it. And the next name?”

  “Dr. Hennessy. I’m not sure about his first name. That one was three years ago. Accidental carbon monoxide poisoning. The whole family died as well.”

  “I think I remember that one. There was a baby.” “That’s the one. I’ll see if I can’t get exhumation orders rolling.”

  “What are you looking for, Slug?”

  “I don’t know. Something that might’ve been missed before. Something we might pick up now.”

  “In a corpse that’s been dead six years?” Rowbotham’s laugh was plainly skeptical. “You must be turning into an optimist.”

  “More flowers, Mrs. Voss. They were just delivered. Do you want them in here? Or shall I put them in the parlor?”

  “Bring them in here, please.” Sitting in a chair by her favorite window, Nina watched the maid carry the vase into the bedroom and set it down on a night table. Now she was fussing with the arrangement, moving stems around, and the fragrance of sage and phlox wafted toward Nina.

  “Put them here, next to me.”

  “Of course, ma’am.” The maid moved the vase to the small tea table beside Nina’s chair. She had to make room for it by taking away another vase of Oriental lilies. “They’re not your usual flowers, are they?” the maid said, and her tone of voice was not entirely approving as she regarded the usurping vase.

  “No.” Nina smiled at the unruly arrangement. Already her gardener’s eye had picked out and identified each splash of color. Russian sage and pink phlox. Purple coneflowers and yellow heliopsis. And daisies. Lots and lots of daisies. Such common, undistinguished flowers. How did one find daisies so late in the season?

  She brushed her hand across the blossoms and inhaled the scents of late summer, the remembered fragrance of the garden she had been too ill to tend. Now summer was gone, and their house in Newport was closed for the winter. How she disliked this time of year! The fading of the garden. The return to Boston, to this house with its gold-leafed ceilings and carved doorways and bathrooms of Carrara marble. She found all the dark wood oppressive. Their summer home was blessed with light and warm breezes and the smell of the sea. But this house made her think of winter. She picked out a daisy and breathed in its pungent scent.

  “Wouldn’t you rather have the lilies next to you?” the maid asked. “They smell so lovely.”

  “They were giving me a headache. Who are these flowers from?”

  The maid pulled off the tiny envelope taped to the vase and opened the flap. “‘To Mrs. Voss. A speedy recovery. Joy.’ That’s all it says.”

  Nina frowned. “I don’t know anyone named Joy.”

  “Maybe it’ll come to you. Would you like to go back to bed now? Mr. Voss says you should rest.”

  “I’ve had enough of lying in bed.”

  “But Mr. Voss says—”

  “I’ll go to bed later. I’d like to sit here for a while. By myself.”

  The maid hesitated. Then, with a nod, she reluctantly left the room.

  At last, thought Nina. At last I’m alone.

  For the past week, ever since she’d left the hospital, she had been surrounded by people. Private duty nurses and doctors and maids.
And Victor. Most of all, Victor, hovering at her bedside. Reading aloud all her get-well cards, screening all her phone calls. Protecting her, insulating her. Imprisoning her in this house.

  All because he loved her. Perhaps he loved her too much.

  Wearily she leaned back in the chair and found herself staring at the portrait hanging on the opposite wall. It was her portrait, painted soon after their marriage. Victor had commissioned it, had even chosen which gown she should wear, a long mauve silk patterned faintly with roses. In the painting she was standing under a vine-covered arbor, a single white rose clutched in one hand, her other hand dangling awkwardly at her side. Her smile was shy, uncertain, as though she were thinking to herself: I am only standing in for someone else.

  Now, as she studied that portrait of her younger self, she realized how little she’d changed since that day she’d posed as a young bride in the garden. The years had altered her physically, of course. She’d lost her robust good health. In so many ways, though, she was unchanged. Still shy, still awkward. Still the woman Victor Voss had claimed as his possession.

  She heard his footsteps and looked up as he came into the bedroom.

  “Louisa told me you were still up,” he said. “You should be taking your nap.”

  “I’m fine, Victor.”

  “You don’t look strong enough yet.”

  “It’s been three and a half weeks. Dr. Archer says his other patients are already walking on treadmills by now.”

  “You’re not like any other patient. I think you should take a nap.”

  She met his gaze. Firmly she said: “I’m going to sit here, Victor. I want to look out the window.”

  “Nina, I’m only thinking of what’s best for you.”

  But she had already turned away from him, and was staring down at the park. At the trees, their fall brilliance fading to winter brown. “I’d like to go for a drive.”

  “It’s too soon.”

  “. . . to the park. The river. Anywhere, just away from this house.”

  “You’re not listening to me, Nina.”

  She sighed. And said, sadly, “You’re the one who’s not listening.”

  There was a silence. “What are these?” he said, pointing to the vase of flowers by her chair.

  “They just arrived.”

  “Who sent them?”

  She shrugged. “Someone named Joy.”

  “You can pick these kinds of flowers at the roadside.”

  “That’s why they’re called wildflowers.”

  He lifted the vase and carried it to a table in a far corner. Then he brought the Oriental lilies back and set them beside her. “At least these aren’t weeds,” he said, and left the room.

  She stared at the lilies. They were beautiful. Exotic and perfect. Their cloying fragrance sickened her.

  She blinked away an unexpected film of tears and focused on the tiny envelope lying on the table. The one that had come with the wildflowers.

  Joy. Who was Joy?

  She opened the flap and took out the enclosed card. Only then did she notice that something was written on the back of the card.

  Some doctors always tell the truth, it said.

  And beneath that was a phone number.

  Abby was home alone when Nina Voss called at five P.M.

  “Is this Dr. DiMatteo?” said a soft voice. “The one who always tells the truth?”

  “Mrs. Voss? You got my flowers.”

  “Yes, thank you. And I got your rather odd note.”

  “I’ve tried every other way to contact you. Letters. Phone calls.”

  “I’ve been home over a week.”

  “But you haven’t been available.”

  There was a pause. Then a quiet, “I see.”

  She has no idea how isolated she’s been, thought Abby. No idea how her husband has cut her off from the outside.

  “Is anyone else listening to this?” asked Abby.

  “I’m alone in my room. What is this all about?”

  “I have to see you, Mrs. Voss. And it has to be without your husband’s knowledge. Can you arrange it?”

  “First tell me why.”

  “It’s not an easy thing to say over the phone.”

  “I won’t meet with you until you tell me.”

  Abby hesitated. “It’s about your heart. The one you got at Bayside.”

  “Yes?”

  “No one seems to know whose heart it was. Or where it came from.” She paused. And asked quietly: “Do you know, Mrs. Voss?”

  The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of Nina’s breathing, rapid and irregular.

  “Mrs. Voss?”

  “I have to go.”

  “Wait. When can I see you?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “How? Where?”

  There was another pause. Just before the line went dead, Nina said: “I’ll find a way.”

  * * *

  The rain beat a relentless tattoo on the striped awning over Abby’s head. For forty minutes now she had been standing in front of Cellucci’s Grocery, shivering beneath the narrow overhang of canvas. A succession of delivery trucks had pulled up to unload, the men wheeling in dollies and cartons. Snapple and Frito-Lay and Winston cigarettes. Little Debbie had a snack for you.

  At four-twenty the rain began coming down harder, swirling with the wind. Gusts of it angled under the awning, splattering her shoes. Her feet were freezing. An hour had passed; Nina Voss was not going to show up.

  Abby flinched as a Progresso Foods truck suddenly roared away from the curb, spewing exhaust. When she looked up again, she saw that a black limousine had stopped across the street. The driver’s window rolled down a few inches and a man called: “Dr. DiMatteo? Come into the car.”

  She hesitated. The windows were too darkly tinted for Abby to see inside, but she could make out the silhouette of a single rear-seat passenger.

  “We haven’t much time,” urged the driver.

  She crossed the street, head bent under the beating rain, and opened the rear door. Blinking water from her eyes, she focused on the backseat passenger. What she saw dismayed her.

  In the gloom of the car, Nina Voss looked pale and shrunken. Her skin was a powdery white. “Please get in, Doctor,” said Nina.

  Abby slid in beside her and shut the door. The limousine pulled away from the curb and glided noiselessly into the stream of traffic.

  Nina was so completely bundled up in a black coat and scarf that her face seemed to be floating, bodyless, in the car’s shadows. This was not the picture of a recovering transplant patient. Abby remembered Josh O’Day’s ruddy face, remembered his liveliness, his laughter.

  Nina Voss looked like a talking corpse.

  “I’m sorry we’re late,” said Nina. “We had a problem leaving the house.”

  “Does your husband know you’re meeting me?”

  “No.” Nina sat back, her face almost swallowed up in all that black wool. “I’ve learned, over the years, that one doesn’t tell Victor certain things. The real secret of a happy marriage, Dr. DiMatteo, is silence.”

  “That hardly sounds like a happy marriage.”

  “It is. Strangely enough.” Nina smiled and looked out the window. The watery light cast distorted shadows on her face. “Men have to be protected from so many things. Most of all from themselves. That’s why they need us, you know. The funny thing is, they’ll never admit it. They think they’re taking care of us. And all the time, we know the truth.” She turned to Abby, and her smile faded. “Now I need to know. What has Victor done?”

  “I was hoping you could tell me.”

  “You said it had to do with my heart.” Nina touched her hand to her chest. In the gloom of the car, her gesture seemed almost religious. Father, Son, Holy Ghost. “What do you know about it?”

  “I know your heart didn’t come through normal channels. Almost all transplant organs are matched to recipients through a central registry. Yours wasn’t. According to the organ ba
nk, you never got a heart at all.”

  Nina’s hand, still resting on her chest, had squeezed into a tense white ball. “Then where did this one come from?”

  “I don’t know. Do you?”

  The corpselike face stared at her in silence.

  “I think your husband knows,” said Abby.

  “How would he?”

  “He bought it.”

  “People can’t just buy hearts.”

  “With enough money, people can buy anything.”

  Nina said nothing. By her silence, she admitted her acceptance of that fundamental truth. Money can buy anything.

  The limousine turned onto Embankment Road. They were driving west along the Charles River. Its surface was gray and stippled by falling rain.

  Nina asked, “How did you learn about this?”

  “Lately I seem to have a lot of free time on my hands. It’s amazing what you can accomplish when you find yourself suddenly unemployed. In just the last few days, I’ve found out a lot of things. Not just about your transplant, but about others as well. And the more I learn, Mrs. Voss, the more scared I get.”

  “Why come to me about this? Why not go to the authorities?”

  “Haven’t you heard? I have a new nickname these days. Dr. Hemlock. They’re saying I kill my patients with kindness. None of it’s true, of course, but people are always ready to believe the worst.” Wearily Abby gazed out at the river. “I have no job. No credibility. And no proof.”

  “What do you have?”

  Abby looked at her. “I know the truth.”

  The limousine dipped through a puddle. The spray of water drummed the underside of the car. They had veered away from the river and the road to the Back Bay Fens now curved ahead of them.