Michelle took the bottle of wine to the kitchen while Julie went to the living room. The furniture, mostly black leather and wood pieces, was tasteful, but not extravagant. Light from the fireplace warmed the room and cast a flickering glow across the beige walls.
It was harder to be in a couple’s home than Julie had anticipated. She and Sam had talked long into the night about decorating the place they would buy together. For inspiration, Julie had gotten into Pinterest, and had pinned plenty of images to boards to keep track of her ideas. It was what couples did. That, and cook, and help with homework, and binge-watch shows on Netflix.
Julie’s home was decorated with all the flair of a Pottery Barn catalogue. She was good at medicine, but lacked imagination when it came to interior design. That had been Paul’s bailiwick when they were married, and true to form, his current place was a hip, industrial loft space with a neo-bohemian vibe. Julie had figured she and Sam would take advantage of his considerable skill with the table saw, and have lots of wood throughout their home—wherever that was going to be.
Now Julie would stay with her tried-and-true approach: practical, affordable, and good enough. She had wanted to make home design decisions with Sam, and felt guilty for envying what Michelle and her husband shared.
Julie studied the art on the walls, which went well with the rest of the room’s décor. Her attention was drawn to a black-and-white photograph of a handsome young man with a friendly smile.
“That’s Andrew,” Michelle said, returning with two glasses of wine. “That’s my son who died.”
“I’m sorry. He looks like you,” Julie said.
Michelle’s husband Keith emerged from the kitchen carrying a plate of baked Brie with almonds and one of shrimp cocktail.
“There’s more where this came from,” Keith said.
Julie knew Keith from work, and he had come with Michelle to Sam’s funeral. The quick embrace they shared felt natural. Keith was a tall, handsome man, with neatly trimmed brown hair and eyes that sparkled when he flashed his brilliant smile.
An internist by training, Keith was part of a relatively new trend in health care. Hospitalists, which was Keith’s actual job title, specialized in the care of hospitalized patients. They could work on most any floor and deal with every aspect of the patient’s needs during their hospital stay. Like many hospitalists Julie knew, Keith moonlighted at other hospitals, which was a bit of a hush-hush practice, something not to be flaunted in the face of White’s powerful CEO, Roman Janowski.
Julie’s eyes went to something rather unusual hanging on the wall—two colorful beetles mounted with pins inside a wooden box frame.
Keith came over when he noticed Julie observing the specimens. “Lovely, aren’t they,” he said.
Julie grimaced slightly. “If anything with an orange body and green head landed on me, my first thought would be squish it, not frame it.”
“Actually it’s orange abdomen and green thorax, but I get your point.”
Michelle came over. “Keith’s first field of study, his first love really, was medical entomology,” she said.
“Diseases caused by insects have killed more people than bombs or bullets combined.” Keith said this with a sardonic grin.
“I was a research scientist,” he added, “traveled to exotic locales, collected specimens, tried to understand how these creatures potentially could harm or transmit diseases to humans.”
“What changed your career trajectory?”
“Money,” Keith said blandly. “Research just doesn’t pay like traditional medicine. I had a son and one on the way. I dropped out of research, went to medical school, and became a doc. These lovelies, Calodema regale blairi, the male being the smaller of the pair, are somewhat rare and a nice little reminder of that time in my life.”
“They actually are quite beautiful,” Julie said, studying them closely.
“I’ve always been drawn to uncommon beauty, until I met Michelle.”
Keith gave his wife a gentle kiss on the forehead, and though the moment was sweet, Julie found it painful. Reminders of all she had lost would be everywhere now. With time, she hoped, they would be easier to accept, though she doubted they could ever be ignored.
“He’s still drawn to uncommon beauty,” Michelle said, a hint of disapproval in her voice. “Now he has rats. A cage of them he keeps downstairs. What are there, six?”
Keith looked a little annoyed.
“About,” he said. “They’re actually wonderful pets, and much easier to take care of than dogs.”
“But less cuddly than cats,” Michelle felt inclined to add.
Keith rolled his eyes. “I think rats are marvelously intelligent and trainable,” he said. “I breed them, it’s a hobby. Happy to show you.”
Winston had made Julie a little uneasy at first. She could not imagine how she would respond to a cage of rats, but she was not about to find out.
“I think I’ll pass,” Julie said.
Keith’s expression took a serious turn. “I know you and Michelle have talked since the funeral,” he said. “But I wanted you to know that the service was very moving. Your eulogy brought tears to my eyes.”
“And he doesn’t cry easily,” Michelle said in a way that suggested some exasperation with her husband’s stoicism.
“Thank you,” said Julie.
The service had been well attended and utterly heartbreaking. Sam’s parents flew back from Michigan, and other relatives and friends traveled even greater distances to pay their respects. Julie’s father had died five years ago, but her seventy-nine-year-old mother was there, supportive as always.
Julie had managed to get through her speech. In it, she talked about Sam: his heart, his compassion, his love for his students, many of whom had come. Many of them were in tears.
“Ever since the funeral, I’ve been letting people turn in front of me,” Keith said. “Your eulogy really made me think.”
It had made a lot of people think, from what Julie heard afterwards.
“Sam loved to ride. It brought him tremendous joy,” Julie had said at the service. “One thing I noticed on our long rides together was that Sam would always slow down and let another driver make a turn, or go in front of him. It wasn’t simply a kind gesture on his part. He was saying something else. He was saying to the other driver, ‘Where you are going is just as important as where I am going.’ This was a theme of his life—your journey is just as important as my journey. He genuinely cared about the lives of other people, and wanted to know everything he could about their journey. And it was this that drew people to Sam’s side.”
“I had the same reaction as Keith,” Michelle said. “It’s like I have a whole new awareness.”
“I’m glad to know that. I just spoke the truth. That was who Sam was.”
“You must still be reeling,” Michelle said.
“Well, to be honest,” Julie said, “I’ve been a bit obsessed.”
“Obsessed? How so?” Michelle asked.
Keith excused himself to fetch another bottle of wine from the cellar. “Don’t get lost down there,” Michelle said. Then to Julie, “I swear, that basement is like his own beetle burrow. He’ll vanish for hours, fiddling away on different projects. Anyway, you were saying.”
“Right, my obsession. The lab results from pathology came back and supported my friend Lucy’s conclusion. Sam died of takotsubo cardiomyopathy.”
Michelle gave a slight shrug. “Is that unusual?”
“Highly,” Julie said. “It’s atypical in men. Usually it’s women over fifty who get it, but it’s rare for them as well. It’s sometimes referred to as ‘broken heart syndrome.’ It’s a stress phenomenon that may be caused by a sudden surge of stress-related hormones, so it could also be triggered by fear.”
“Is it always fatal?” Michelle asked.
“No,” Julie said. “Often the condition reverses itself within a week. It feels like a heart attack, but it’s extremely rare for it to be
a fatal one.”
“So it’s different than a heart attack,” Michelle said.
“It is a heart attack, but an unusual one. The EKG read is very distinct. It’s typically not trigged by heart disease, because it’s stress-based, and the autopsy confirmed Sam’s arteries weren’t blocked. Other than that ballooning, Sam’s heart was perfectly healthy. I’ve never seen a case of it, and neither have any of the cardiologists at White I spoke with. It’s very rare—two percent of heart attacks, maybe less.”
“And you said it’s mostly found in women.”
“Menopausal women, to be precise, and yes, ninety percent of the time.”
“So that makes Sam’s case even more unusual,” Michelle said, taking a sip of her wine.
“I’m looking for an expert on takotsubo,” Julie said. “Someone who could review the slides.”
“There’s nobody at White?”
“Not the foremost expert that I’m looking for,” Julie said. “You’d think with my contacts, I’d be able to find the right person, but it’s not that easy.”
“Not that easy for what?” Keith asked, returning to the room with a dusty bottle of red wine.
“Julie is looking for a medical expert who knows about cardio—something,” Michelle said.
“Takotsubo cardiomyopathy,” Julie said.
Keith thought hard a moment. “Ah yeah, I’ve heard of it. Ballooned ventricle. Very unusual.”
He opened the wine, but left it on the table to breathe.
“It’s how Sam died,” Michelle said.
“We think,” Julie clarified. “It’s not definitive. But the markers are there. I’m trying to figure out why it showed up in a healthy, male heart when there wasn’t any associated stress event.”
“Nobody at White could help?” Keith asked.
Julie shook her head, looking defeated. Never before had she spent more time in White Memorial’s sizable research library than she had over these past few days. Her obsessive nature had gotten Julie through medical school, and it kicked in again to fuel her research into this rare heart ailment. Over the course of several days she had nearly drained a bottle of saline drops to keep moisture in eyes dried from hours spent gazing at the computer screen.
“Lots of dead ends and not a lot of leads. I got some names, but so far not a lot of callbacks. Look up ‘busy’ in the dictionary, and you’ll find a picture of a cardiologist.”
Julie was being kind. She had knocked on the doors of almost every cardiologist at White. Badgered them with questions until they stole glances at the clock or their pager. Most were polite, most respected her motivation, but all could give her only a smidge more than what she’d gleaned from her own research. The disease was too unusual for any of them to have more than a cursory understanding of it.
Every ailment had its guru to whom other docs turned for counsel, to whom their patients were referred. Julie needed to find that person for takotsubo cardiomyopathy, but he or she was as elusive as the reason Sam had suddenly presented with the condition.
“We deal with that callback challenge all the time,” Michelle said. “Very Much Alive is always on the hunt for doctors who support our mission.”
Julie’s expression brightened. “You know, I should have asked you sooner,” she said.
“Asked me what?”
“Very Much Alive—you guys are a global organization, right?”
“That’s right. A lot of our focus is on US law, but there are international implications to what we do, sure.”
“And you network with doctors all the time,” Julie said.
Keith chuckled as if to say that was an understatement. “Michelle’s more networked than an HMO,” he said.
“So you must know how to find these doctors. Not only from various hospitals, but online too.”
“We do monitor the Internet to look for trends,” Michelle said. “It’s one way we identify thought leaders in various fields.”
“Then maybe you can help me find my takotsubo expert. I could post my questions to the more popular Web sites and message boards, at least. See if I get any hits.”
Michelle nodded with enthusiasm. “Absolutely,” she said. “I’d be thrilled to help. Especially if it can bring you some closure.”
“But after we eat,” Keith added. “Our food is getting cold.”
Keith escorted everyone to a beautifully set table, served generous portions of his beef stir-fry, and poured wine into new glasses. Julie smiled and thanked him, but she was too anxious to eat. Michelle had given Julie something that had been as elusive as the expert she sought. She gave Julie hope she could find out exactly how Sam died.
CHAPTER 21
Lincoln Cole had been sitting for hours in the white cargo van parked across the street from Julie’s apartment. Tell someone you work as a private investigator, and they’d probably conjure up an image of a wisecracking gumshoe with a thirst for adventure. The reality was much less glamorous, but Lincoln had had no delusions about the work when he left law enforcement for self-employment. He’d expected the hours of waiting for something to happen, and that was what he got: lots of waiting, lots of spying on cheating spouses, lots of surveillance work, lots of background checks, and lots of boredom.
Lincoln had skills, though. He was an ex-cop, after all—albeit one with an anger management issue, according to the brass who shit-canned him ten years back. The closest thing to a criminal is a cop, so yeah, Lincoln had all sorts of skills that he applied to his new trade.
As a general practice, private investigators did not operate above the law, but Lincoln was adept at circumventing it. The straight-up corporate gigs paid well enough, but the ones that required him to cross some legal lines always paid the best. The question Lincoln had been asking himself of late was where to draw that line. He was fifty, and this was really a younger man’s game. His savings were respectable, but Lincoln had no desire to live a respectable life. He wanted to be down in St. John’s, sipping piña coladas and getting caught in the rain. He had no commitments here in Boston, no wife, no kids, and he still had his looks, thank God for that, but it would help to have the cash to attract the kind of women who appealed to his sensibilities: long on legs and short on needs.
To offset damage to his body from hours sitting in his van, Lincoln worked out religiously. For a man half a century old, he kept in fantastic shape. He weighed 180 on the nose and stood five feet eight inches tall, perfectly average all around, which was good for a business that often required him to blend into his environment. Despite having a slender frame, Lincoln could still bench 225 with ease, knock out 120 sit-ups in two minutes, and he moved athletically for a guy who never went beyond high school sports. He suffered from male pattern baldness, but thanks to a nicely round head could rock a buzz cut like Bruce Willis. He kept his face clean-shaven so he could apply various facial hair disguises, which went with the large collection of wigs he owned. Lincoln put on personas the way others did pants. It was a part of the job he loved.
The job tonight was Julie Devereux. She had been his sole source of income for the better part of a week. He had no idea why she was on his employer’s radar. It was not his business to ask. He was paid to get information, which in this case required him to keep tabs on everything Dr. Devereux did and said, and to track everywhere she went.
Lincoln had been with the van the whole time, feeding the meter frequently because Dr. Julie had been out of his sight for hours. Even without visual contact, Lincoln knew exactly where she had gone. She had driven to Shrewsbury and back, which matched the plan Lincoln had heard Julie make on a phone call to a woman named Michelle.
Lincoln liked the new software from TrueSpy. It gave him total control over Julie’s Android phone. Without her knowing, he could, among other things, listen in on her calls, read her messages, and track her location via the phone’s built-in GPS. None of this was legal, of course. None of these tactics were sanctioned by the USAPI, the governing body of private investigat
ors. But that organization could care less about Lincoln’s modest savings account, or his plan to sip cocktails on some faraway beach with leggy blondes. So screw them.
From the shadows of the van, Lincoln watched Julie turn her car into the garage adjacent to her Cambridge apartment building. Evidently the good doctor could afford a deeded parking space in the lower levels.
Lincoln retreated to the back of the van, where he turned on all six fifteen-inch video monitors. The monitors were secured to a custom-made metal rig and stacked in two rows of three. Soon enough Julie would be back in Lincoln’s sight.
In one of the center consoles, Lincoln watched Julie enter her condominium and hang her coat in the front hall closet. The camera recording her every moment was hidden inside a hollow plant holder that held a nice assortment of fake flowers. A few days back, while Julie was at work, Lincoln had entered her home and cut a small hole into that plant holder. He’d pushed the lens completely flush against the hole so there was no noticeable gap, and affixed the unit with duct tape to secure it.
Getting inside was easy. He could have picked the locks, but instead put on a janitor disguise and gained access to Julie’s office at work. He snatched her keys and phone from her purse during a long hospital shift. He installed the TrueSpy software on her phone and had copies of the keys made at a place he knew did not bother to check ID. Lincoln returned the items, and Julie never knew they had gone missing.
The feeds from inside the condo were being broadcast wirelessly, through an encrypted channel. Lincoln could access them from his home computer if he wanted. But he’d told his employer he would be outside when she got home, and he’d keep watch until she fell asleep. It was their dime, after all. Lincoln had no idea where this job was headed, but his gut told him it would involve a lot more than illegal spying.
Again Lincoln thought about his imaginary line dividing legal activities from the other kind. How far was he willing to step across? He guessed the answer depended on how much his employer was willing to pay.
On a different monitor, Lincoln watched Julie wash her hands in the kitchen sink, then rummage through her fridge, ultimately electing to eat nothing. He had hidden this camera inside a wall socket near the toaster oven, which gave him a good view of the cooking area and the kitchen island where Julie and Trevor ate most of their meals. He had used wall sockets for a few other hidden cameras, including the ones in Julie’s bedroom and the bathroom.
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