CHAPTER 37
The day had been long, with very sick hospitalized patients to manage. Now, it was time to go home and recharge. Jack longed to Skype with Nick and Claire and then take a long jog with his running mate, Trinity. The outdoors would do him a lot of good. Jack walked out of the main building with two of the medical students, discussing details of their required homework assignments for the next day.
“Hey, Dr. Norris,” asked a security guard. “Is it Miller time for you?”
Jack said good-bye to the med students and walked over to the guard. “Hi, Dillon. How are you doing in your new position?”
“It’s a piece of cake. It still blows my mind that Trepur—uh, Lagrange—was able to fool us all. If I could get my hands on that bastard—” The guard stopped in midsentence, his gaze far off into the parking lot.
“What is it?” said Jack.
“I just thought I saw Lagrange.” Dillon looked intently into a group of visitors deep in the parking area.
Jack looked in the same direction. “Yeah, I see him, too.”
The security guard darted off toward the man they thought might be Lagrange with Jack right behind him. From their vantage point, the two observed a man walking away from them who was getting into a small, light-blue vehicle. The person had similar hair characteristics and body build to Lagrange’s. At this time of day, many people were coming and going in and out of the area, so the progress of the two men was slow.
“Hey, you! Stop!” yelled the security guard as they made their way into the lot. They were now about fifty yards away from the man.
“Is it really him?” said Jack.
“I’m not sure.” They continued to weave in and out of groups of people, hurriedly hoping to stop the man who was now starting up his car.
“It may not be him,” said Jack. The car drove off its parking space and slowly proceeded toward the exit. The two men continued their foot pursuit.
“Pete to Dillon, come in, Dillon,” yelled the walkie-talkie hanging from the guard’s belt. The two stopped, Jack’s eyes still on the moving auto.
“This is Dillon. What’s up, Pete?” he radioed.
“We have a dispute here in the office. Can you come by right now?”
“Sure, I’ll be right there. Over and out.” Dillon locked eyes with Jack. “It’s probably not Lagrange, and by now the car’s almost out of the hospital grounds. Sorry, but I gotta go.” He walked briskly back toward the hospital, leaving Jack alone among busy strangers who walked by in all directions.
Jack turned toward the position where the suspect vehicle was lasted spotted. There he is. He’s behind some stopped cars. Jack ran to the doctors’ parking garage, which was only a short walk away. He entered the Lexus and drove rapidly to the exit. He stopped at a red light on St. John’s Drive and Washington Street, an intersection the other car was about to pass by. The light-blue car had already exited the hospital campus at another street up the road. Jack’s eyes continued to track it. It’s a light-blue Nissan. As the vehicle drove by, Jack was able to get a better glimpse at the driver. Though he still couldn’t be sure it was Lagrange, the resemblance was uncanny.
Jack took a right turn and accelerated. The van behind him hit his brakes and then honked his horn loudly, having been cut off. Jack raised his right hand apologetically and looked in the rearview mirror. The Nissan was about five cars ahead of him as he stopped at a red light. Jack opened his door and planned on dashing toward the other vehicle, when, after only one and a half steps, he noticed that the SUV in front of the Nissan turned right at the red light, and so did the light-blue car.
“Huh, don’t do this to me,” whispered Jack to himself as he ran back to the Lexus. The light turned green, and the van behind him honked loudly once more. Jack raised his hand contritely and rushed to reenter his vehicle. Soon the traffic was moving forward again but slowly. Jack turned right as soon as he could. He drove on, all the while spying for the compact car. There you are! The Nissan was now about ten cars in front of him. After a few more blocks, the light-blue car turned left. Jack imitated the move as soon as he could.
“Where are you, Lagrange?” whispered Jack as he slowly inched along Green River Avenue, his neck craned, hoping to spot the Nissan. The light of day had been mostly replaced by dusk as the diving sun disappeared into the horizon, little by little.
“Hey, you jerk. Watch where you’re going!” yelled a man in his twenties who was crossing the intersection. The light had turned red, but Jack hadn’t noticed. The man thumped the Lexus’s hood forcibly, yanking Jack’s attention into reality.
“Sorry, man. My fault,” said Jack, his right hand in the air. As soon as the pedestrian crossed the road, Jack’s mind was back on the mysterious man’s car. The light turned green, and Jack gunned the accelerator once more. There he is, thought Jack, spying the vehicle. The eight cylinders kicked in as the Lexus sped on. The compact car turned left, and so did Jack, now only three cars behind. The Nissan turned right into a driveway. Although there were wall-to-wall houses on both sides of the street, no one was around. A garage door started its sluggish upward motion as the man sat in the small vehicle. Jack turned onto the driveway and parked inches from the Nissan.
“Hey, sir. Can I talk to you for a minute?” yelled Jack, exiting the Lexus. “Is that you, Lagrange?” Startled, the man slowly and nervously turned to see who was causing all the ruckus.
CHAPTER 38
The three people who made up the cleaning crew were hard at it. Raul, Maria, and Sabrina were two hours into their chores, which would typically take three to three and a half hours to complete. The outpatient clinic was otherwise deserted at this early time of the morning. Soon the nurses, patients, and doctors would arrive, and they would all expect the place to be presentable. Still left to clean were the back bathrooms and the five small offices.
Mexican music blared loudly from a portable cassette player, accompanied at times by Raul. He took the men’s bathroom, while Sabrina entered the women’s, each propping the door open. Maria went into one of the offices. It was pretty well organized, and little effort would be required today. A sizeable pile of charts covered the desktop. Otherwise, the clutter was minimal and could be left alone. Maria emptied the trash from the small metal can under the doctor’s desk into her larger garbage container, which she wheeled around the office. As she placed the emptied canister under the desk, she pushed the chair over, causing it to fall with a thunderous racket. Disgusted with her clumsiness, Maria walked over to pick it up. As she did so, she noticed a fresh small round crimson stain on the carpet.
“Sangre?” she whispered. “Blood?” The drop grabbed her attention and piqued her curiosity. A few feet away were two more drops and then another, all leading toward the closet. As usual, the closet door was closed, but the doors were unlocked. Maria opted to take a look-see inside. She opened the closet doors. A light automatically turned on, illuminating the inside of the small space.
“Ay, Dios mio!” she exclaimed loudly.
“Que paso?” said Raul as he rushed in. “What happened?” Maria was frozen in place, her hands cupping her mouth and face. Raul stepped in the direction of her gaze. Sabrina ran in as well. She made the sign of the cross when she realized what frightened Maria.
“Call nine-one-one,” said Raul. “Rapido!” Sabrina, who spoke the best English, picked up the phone and dialed.
Within minutes, sirens grew just outside Newton Memorial Hospital, and soon two officers arrived in the outpatient clinic area. One of them spoke Spanish to the excited cleaning crew, who directed him immediately to the closet. The door was ajar. On the floor, in the corner, barely out of sight, the cops beheld the unmistakable evidence of a crime.
“Call the crime lab, Matt,” commanded Sergeant Pedro Sanchez to his subordinate. “I’ll work on getting us a search warrant. Don’t touch anything. They’ll want to dust for fingerprint
s.”
“What’s in the closet, Sarge?” asked Officer Lydia Moody, vying for position to see the mysterious contents.
“It’s a bloody T-shirt.”
“This is a cardiology office, Sarge. Maybe they study blood in here?”
“You may be right. But there are also fresh blood drops,” said Sanchez, pointing at the stains right outside the closet and behind the chair.
“What’s under the T-shirt?” said Moody, using a pen to lift up the jersey. “Wow. Now I’m convinced.” Partially hidden by the shirt was a large serrated hunting knife, its blade measuring approximately seven inches. It was stained with blood.
“This is the real McCoy,” said Sanchez.
The call to headquarters was placed, and soon the room was crawling with criminologists. A court order had been verbally obtained. The closet and its contents were photographed copiously from multiple angles. The bags containing the bloody garment and the bloodied knife were confiscated and processed to be examined in detail in the medical examiner’s lab. The plastic evidence bags were labeled “Obtained from a closet in the office of Dr. Jack Norris.”
An hour later, a search warrant was obtained, and a Lexus sedan in the doctors’ parking lot was searched. One of the officers jimmied open the driver’s door, and eventually the trunk lid was popped. In the trunk, a bloodied machete was uncovered as well as a small Styrofoam cooler.
“Look what I found,” said Detective Brad Mills, uncovering the lid of the cooler to inspect its contents. Three cops approached the trunk of the car.
“What the hell is that?” asked Moody.
“It’s a heart,” said Mills, his eyes fixated on the fleshy organ. “I think it’s a human heart. Call the crime-lab people. We need this processed as soon as possible.”
“How do you know it’s a human heart?” asked Moody.
“Because I actually pay attention when I attend the autopsies at the medical examiner’s office.”
“Well, we’ll soon see if you’re right.” Moody radioed headquarters.
The items were photographed, processed, and then transported to the crime lab to join the previously gathered material evidence. The organ and tissue, as well as blood on the machete and knife, would soon be analyzed and identified.
By midafternoon, some of the answers were in. This was definitely a human heart. It was relatively fresh and did not contain formaldehyde or any preservative as would normally be used in teaching specimens. Full genetic material testing was pending, but the preliminary results were in.
Detective Brad Mills’s cell phone chimed.
“It’s Lagrange’s heart,” said the medical examiner. “The guy you’ve been after for months.”
“No shit,” said Mills. “Are you sure?”
“Genetics don’t lie, my friend. One hundred percent match. This heart belonged once to Simon Lagrange.”
CHAPTER 39
Jack had several surgeries to perform, which took all morning. The rounds started with his medical students, interns, and residents. No time for lunch today. They were about halfway done when Jack’s beeper alerted.
“It’s the outpatient cardiology clinic,” said Jack, looking at the display. “Someone needs my help. Let me answer this.” He dialed the number.
“This is Dr. Norris. Someone paged me.”
“One sec. I’ll get Shalyn.” A pause.
“Dr. Norris, have you been to the clinic this morning?” said Shalyn.
“No, I started at the hospital today. We’re making rounds now. What’s going on?”
“The cops are all over the place. They roped off your office.”
With these words, Jack felt as if someone sucker-punched him in the stomach, forcing the air out of his lungs. Memories of the massacres of years ago resounded loudly in his head as a feeling of doom grew inside him. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw three cops in uniform come around the corner. The police officers walked briskly toward him.
“Dr. Jack Norris, you are under arrest for the murder of Simon Lagrange,” proclaimed one of the officers. “You have the right to—”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! Hang on,” said Jack. “Wait. I’m under arrest?” He felt as if an enormous, invisible boa constrictor clutched him by the throat. “I killed who?”
“…remain silent,” said the cop, continuing a string of memorized words. “Anything you say can and will be held against you in a court of law.”
The officers forced Jack’s hands behind his back, and within seconds he was in handcuffs.
“You’re making a mistake. I didn’t kill anybody,” said Jack. The cops escorted him down the hall. “This is a mistake!”
Jack looked back and addressed his trainees. “Find another attending physician and finish rounds.”
The apprentices stood there dumbfounded. Perturbed.
Jack and the cops turned the corner and were out of their sight. Jack tried to slow down but was shoved hard from behind. Though the cops were nice enough to enter and exit the hospital via a back entrance so most of the routine at Newton Memorial remained undisturbed, through word of mouth, by quitting time every soul within the institution would be apprised of what had happened to the cardiology department head.
When they reached the parking lot, Jack was guided into the back of one of the squad cars. A patrolman sat behind the wheel. Detective Brad Mills arrived from the outpatient clinic and sat in the front passenger seat. And the journey to the police headquarters began.
Mills looked back into Jack’s eyes. “So why did you keep the heart?”
“I kept the what?”
“The heart. When you killed Lagrange, why did you keep the heart? You like souvenirs?”
“Wait a minute. I didn’t kill anybody.”
“That’s what they all say,” said Mills. “Look, I understand why you did it. Hell, I would have done it, too, if I were in your place.”
“I didn’t. I’m innocent.”
“Yes, they all say that, too.”
“I’m a doctor, for crying out loud. I don’t go around killing people.”
“I must tell you, though, we’ve been looking for him all this time. How did you find him before we did? Did he come to you? Did he threaten you and your family again? If he did, you can blame it all on self-defense.”
“I didn’t kill Lagrange. I haven’t seen him.”
“If he came back to kill me, I would definitely have killed him myself. For self-protection. But I wouldn’t keep the heart as a souvenir. That’s where you made a teeny mistake.”
“I told you, I didn’t kill him.”
“So, what’s his heart doing in your trunk? And his bloodstains in your car? And the machete? The knife in your closet?”
“I didn’t put them there. I’m being framed. Can’t you see?” said Jack in agony. “I’m being framed!”
CHAPTER 40
Jack was taken through the arrest process, fingerprinted, and photographed from the front and side. He was given the opportunity to make a phone call, and he immediately dialed Claire. He explained his precarious situation.
After what seemed to be an eternity of waiting inside a filthy cell, Jack was escorted to the interrogation room. After a long while, Detective Mills came in with a cup of coffee and a cardboard box labeled Simon Lagrange—Evidence.
“Sorry we don’t have Starbucks,” said Mills, placing the burnt coffee in front of Jack. “Do you take sugar or cream?”
“This is fine,” lied Jack, the stench of bad java hitting his nostrils.
“Are these your clothes?” asked Mills, throwing a bag on the table. The clear plastic bag contained workout garb visibly stained with blood.
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He picked up the sack.
“Here, let me make it easier for you.” Mills grabbed the plastic bag and turned it so Jack could read the word
s on the backside of the shirt: Norris on top, The Heartbeats under that, and a large number 7 underneath it all. “This is your soccer-team jersey, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“We found it in your car. These bloodstains on your jersey were tested,” Mills said, pointing at the crimson blotches. “The blood belongs to one Simon Lagrange. How do you explain all this?”
“I’m being framed. Someone wants you to think I killed Lagrange, but I didn’t.”
“Do you know Dillon Pierson?”
“Sure, he’s a security guard at Newton. He’s in charge now. Why?”
“Did he see Lagrange on hospital grounds about a week ago?”
Jack was mystified. He nodded.
Mills said, “Were you with him that day?”
“I see where this is going. Yes. I was talking to him just outside the hospital when we both thought we saw Lagrange. As it turned out—”
“Did you pursue that man?” said Mills. “He turned out to be Lagrange, and you killed him!”
Mills removed several pictures from the cardboard box and placed the black-and-white photographs on the table right in front of Jack.
“These are pictures of me driving off Newton’s parking lot. So what?”
“These are pictures of you speeding out of the hospital chasing Lagrange, the day Dillon Pierson and you spotted Lagrange. These pictures don’t do it justice. You should see the videos.” Mills had slowly walked around and was now right behind Jack. “Here are the time and date stamps of when and where the pictures were taken.” A pause for effect. “This is a light-blue Nissan, and this is Lagrange in there behind the wheel, isn’t it?”
Jack shook his head. “No!”
“As it turned out, we believe the murder occurred about one to two weeks ago. These pictures were taken ten days ago.” Mills again pointed at the date on the pictures. “What a coincidence, huh? You would have had plenty of opportunity, and we all know you have plenty of motive.”
HARMED - Book 2: Seconds From Revenge Page 14