Colchester was incensed. “Are you threatening me?”
“Not according to the law,” Julie said as she stood up from the table. “I hope I won’t be hearing from you or your—associate, again.”
She opened the office door and walked out of the room.
CHAPTER 30
Julie headed in the direction of the parking garage with her head lowered to shield her from the cold, biting wind. Early afternoon, and it was dark as midnight already. She missed the autumn even though the official start of winter was still several weeks away. The shorter days and longer nights made everything harder, including making phone calls outside. Julie needed to reach Sherri Platt, right away, but doubted she could get a cell signal down in the garage. The wind was making the outdoors incredibly unpleasant.
Julie took shelter in a store alcove and dialed White Memorial’s main number from memory. An operator patched her through to oncology, where Sherri had transferred after Donald Colchester’s death. The duty nurse checked the shift schedule: Sherri was off and would not be back until morning. Julie pulled the doctor card, said it was important, and got Sherri’s cell phone number. Home numbers these days were anachronistic.
What Julie needed now was a place to make her phone call. Eventually, she found a warm place inside Emmet’s Irish Pub. The noise level made it hard to hear and the smell of Irish coffee proved more than a little tempting. Julie could use a drink, just one, to settle nerves frayed from three intense back-to-back encounters—the stranger, the trooper, and the legislator. She found a quieter nook at the back of the bar and made a call that went straight to voicemail.
“Sherri, it’s Dr. Julie Devereux. I’m sure you remember me from the other day. Listen, I know what happened to you. At least I think I do. William Colchester forced you into testifying against Brandon, didn’t he? You never overheard Brandon speaking to Donald Colchester. I’m not saying you took a payment or anything, but I suspect the representative used some sort of intimidation. He did so with me. I was nearly attacked at a roadside stop earlier this afternoon. We need to stand together on this, Sherri. I need your help setting right what I think is wrong. I believe now there’s a real possibility Brandon is an innocent man, and Donald Colchester’s death may be linked to the same thing that killed my fiancé. We need to talk. Please, Sherri. You have to do the right thing here.”
Julie left her number. Had she said enough? Brandon’s life might well depend on it. The next stop Julie made was to the bar, where she ordered an Irish coffee. She’d had three sips of a truly magnificent beverage when her phone rang. Julie’s heart leapt. It had to be Sherri calling back.
She glanced at her phone’s display and wondered what reason Lucy might have for calling.
“Hey there,” Julie said, blocking her left ear with her hand so she could hear over the noise.
“I figured out the identity of Brandon’s secret admirer. He’s my diener, Jordan Cobb.”
“Your diener?”
“Yeah, I don’t have a full story just yet. He was being a little cagey about it, because he was definitely looking at medical records he had no business looking at.”
“But—but—he’s a diener. The guy who contacted Brandon had to be an M.D. I’m sure of it.”
“I tested him,” Lucy said. “And trust me, this kid knows his stuff.”
“Well, let me talk to him.”
“I would, but he’s gone. Said he had to get home to sit for his siblings. I wasn’t about to hold him hostage, but I wanted you to know that you got your man.”
“Can you give me his address?” Julie said.
Lucy had it on file. Julie was certain she had never been to Jordan Cobb’s neighborhood before.
“What are you thinking?” Lucy asked.
“I’m thinking I’m already in Boston and it’s not that far a drive from here to Dorchester.”
* * *
PARKING IN Dorchester was no better than parking in Cambridge. The only difference was that the cars here were generally older models and a lot more street-hardened. Julie found a space in front of a boarded-up Laundromat and a tailor. Even though this was a vibrant neighborhood, with plenty of vehicle and pedestrian traffic, Julie was a fish out of water. The men fixed hostile expressions on her.
It did not help matters that Julie appeared to be completely lost as she tried to figure out if 48 Norton was on the other side of the street. Many of the stores were closed and the front entrances secured by metal roll-down doors, tainted by graffiti. There were no chain stores here. No Starbucks, no Hannaford’s. Instead Julie walked past stores like Check Cashing, JP Wireless, and Peguero’s Market.
A police car, siren blaring and lights flashing, zoomed by. Julie jumped a little as it passed. By the light of the strobes, she noticed a kid on a fixed-gear bicycle riding toward her. The kid, who looked to be about Trevor’s age, wore a stiff-brim baseball hat and puffy down jacket. He slowed as he approached and circled Julie as if she were carrion to his buzzard.
“Yo lady, yo lady, whazzup? Whatchu doin’ here, lady? Who you looking for?”
Julie stopped walking. This seemed to surprise the boy. Maybe he was accustomed to strangers picking up the pace, never making eye contact.
“Forty-eight Norton Street,” Julie said. “Jordan Cobb. Do you know him?”
The kid laughed. “Yeah, yeah, I know him. Whatchu looking for him for? He in any trouble?”
“No. He’s not, but I’m cold and I would like to get inside.”
The kid seemed to appreciate Julie’s straightforward approach. His bravado retreated a little as he pointed to a building on the other side of the street.
“He lives over there,” the kid said. “Night, lady. Careful out here.” The kid rode away.
Julie crossed the street and buzzed apartment number three. She waited. On the drive over, she’d thought about calling first, but what Lucy had said about him being cagey changed her mind. Better to catch Jordan by surprise. She waited for the intercom, but instead heard a young girl’s voice call down from the apartment above.
“Who is it? Intercom’s broken.”
Julie stepped back and looked up at the silhouette of a girl leaning too far out the open window for Julie’s comfort.
“My name is Julie Devereux. I’m a doctor at the hospital where Jordan Cobb works. Is Jordan home?”
“He’s home.”
“May I come up and speak with him?”
The girl poked her head inside, but reappeared a moment later.
“Look out,” the girl said.
Julie stepped back as something dropped from the girl’s hand. It hit the pavement with a clank. Julie looked at the ground and saw the girl had tossed down a ring of keys.
“Buzzer’s broken too,” the girl said.
CHAPTER 31
Jordan Cobb greeted Julie at the apartment front door. There was no foyer, so when Julie entered she stepped into a living room that barely accommodated the sofa, two chairs, and a television. The walls were painter’s white, but decorated with a scattering of family photos. Aromas coming from the kitchen told her someone was cooking dinner.
Seated on the couch were two young girls, close in age, one maybe eleven and the other a bit younger. It was the older girl with mocha-colored skin, pigtails, and a pretty blue dress who had tossed out the keys. Both girls had books spread out in front of them and were doing homework while the TV played the kind of cartoon Trevor had only recently stopped watching.
Jordan, still wearing his scrubs from work, greeted Julie with an apprehensive expression.
“I’m in big trouble, aren’t I?” he said.
“No, Jordan, you’re not. But before we get into that, I’d love to meet your sisters, if I could.”
The older girl jumped off the couch and approached Julie with an outstretched hand. She had a firm shake and made eye contact the way Julie taught Trevor to do.
“I’m Teagen,” the girl said, in a confident voice. “And this here is my sister, Nina.”
> “How do you do,” Julie said, returning the keys to Teagen. “It’s very nice to meet you both.”
“Nice to meet you,” Nina said in a softer voice.
She was the shy one, Julie thought.
“I see you’re doing homework, so I don’t want to disturb you. But I would like a moment of time with your brother. Is there a place we can talk?” Julie asked Jordan. “In private?”
Jordan gave a nod. He escorted Julie into a small but serviceable kitchen, where a pot of water heated on the stove and an oven gave off warmth. Julie looked around, wondering if Jordan’s mother might be at home, but got the feeling Jordan was in charge.
“The girls are my half-sisters,” Jordan said, stirring the pasta in the boiling water. He checked the chicken in the oven using a meat thermometer and turned over the asparagus on the bottom rack. “My mom’s at work. She works for Marriott and does the overnight shift sometimes. I look after the girls when she’s gone.”
“Need any help with dinner?”
Jordan gave a laugh. “I think I got it, but fine if you want to pitch in.”
Julie hung her jacket on the back of a chair and got right to work. Cooking always relaxed her, and memories of the eventful day faded as she strained the pasta, flavored it with Parmesan cheese, and added some seasoning to the chicken. Afterwards, Julie set the table even though Jordan said that was the girls’ job.
“Gives them more time for homework,” Julie said with a smile.
When the table was set, Julie poured three glasses of milk, but Jordan would not be sitting just yet. He covered his plate with another plate to keep his food warm.
“Nina, Teagen, you girls eat without me,” Jordan called out. “I have to speak with Dr. Devereux alone for a minute.”
The girls came running the way puppies might. Soon they were seated and eating, happy as could be.
Julie followed Jordan down a narrow corridor into a small, dark room where she could make out the outline of a bed and not much else. Jordan turned on the light and Julie’s eyes went wide with surprise. The bookcases, of which there were several, sagged from the weight of all the heavy tomes. Julie had owned many of these titles because Jordan’s collection belonged in any medical student’s library. All the classics were there—Essentials of Medicine, Gray’s Anatomy, Sidman’s Neuroanatomy were just a few of the titles to catch Julie’s eye.
The rest of Jordan’s room was free of clutter, and his bed made to military standards. There was a wooden desk with a Dell computer on it and a chair well worn from hours of sitting. The desk alone was neater than any square inch of Trevor’s room.
“It isn’t much, but it’s all mine,” Jordan said, pulling out the desk chair for Julie to sit. He plunked down on the twin bed, which groaned and creaked under his weight.
Julie stood and gazed slack-jawed at his expansive library. “Jordan, how did you get this collection of books?”
“Would you believe one book at a time?” Jordan said. His grin was endearing. “I don’t buy much else. What my mom doesn’t need, I spend on books and research materials.”
“You’ve read all these?”
“Cover to cover. Understand it all, too. I’ve taken a lot of practice MCAT tests just to make sure.”
“I read your notes to Brandon Stahl. I have no doubt you did fine. I just can’t believe you’re self-taught.”
Jordan gave a shrug. She had seen him make the gesture before.
“I’m pretty confident I know my stuff.”
He smiled again, and Julie saw why Lucy always talked so fondly of him. He came across as warm and kindhearted, with a sweet, inquisitive nature.
“Do you want to be a doctor someday?”
“I did,” Jordan said, in a voice tinged with regret. “I always had a passion for medicine, biology, that sort of thing. When I was in seventh grade I made a model of the human body out of clay for an extra-credit science project. We’re talking a spleen, made to scale. You could take out any organ and put it back where it belonged. I still have the index cards explaining what every body part does.”
“Incredible to have such a clear vision and drive at that young age. I have a twelve-year-old son, and some days I think his only passion is Minecraft.”
Jordan chuckled. “Yeah, well he and Teagen would be fast friends. We only have this one computer and it’s a battle to get her off it. Nina, she’s more like me, more into books.”
“So why didn’t you pursue a medical degree?”
Jordan’s lip curled. “Not a lot of medical schools want to admit convicted felons.”
Julie leaned forward. Lucy had never shared any information about Jordan’s past.
“Convicted of what, if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Possession with intent to distribute. It was marijuana, and a lot of it. It’s hard out here—these streets, they can pull you in if you’re not careful. I made a bad choice and it landed me in prison. Did five years hard time at MCI Cedar Junction, so I know Brandon Stahl’s new home real well. In prison I kept at my studies. Read what I could. Petitioned publishers for their old textbooks, and a lot of them came through.”
“You probably already know this, but there are medical schools out there that will overlook your past.”
“Even if I found a school willing to take a chance on me, no way could I afford it. I still have to go to college. Before my arrest, my plan was to join the military. Become an army medic to help pay for school. My mom thinks everything happens for a reason. I agree, but I don’t think it’s God’s hand at work. I think we make choices and live with the consequences. That’s reason enough.”
“Maybe your mom is right. If you had walked any other path, you might never have seen Brandon Stahl’s medical record. Maybe that is the reason.”
“Never thought of it that way.”
“You’ve been browsing medical records at White to help fill in your knowledge gaps. Is that it?”
Jordan made that signature shrug of his, and looked a little uncomfortable about sharing. “Yeah, it’s a hobby, I don’t know how else to explain it. Just fires me up to learn. I figured out how to get into the system without being caught. I took some online computer classes.”
Julie glanced at the old laptop computer on Jordan’s desk. “My goodness, you’re a self-taught hacker, too.”
“I come from the DIY generation—that’s do it yourself.”
“Yes, I’m familiar with the acronym. My son uses the same lingo. So, what made you look at the Donald Colchester file?” Julie asked.
“It was high profile. A nurse from our hospital kills a state rep’s son. He’s moving into my old home. How could I not look? Wasn’t thinking anything strange at first. Just looking, you know? Results from the cardiac troponin were high, so I didn’t even need to check the EKG to tell he had a heart attack. But I looked anyway. It was a pretty strange reading.”
“How good are you at reading EKGs?” Julie could not contain her surprise.
“I’m no cardiologist,” Jordan said, “but I get by.”
“What made you think takotsubo cardiomyopathy? That’s not an easy determination to make.”
Jordan motioned toward his bookshelf. “It’s all there. Just got to know how to look. For this one, I dug like an archeologist. The weird EKG made me look at the echo and, well, I’d never seen a heart valve look like that one before. Didn’t look like a heart attack brought on by morphine to me. Looked like something else entirely.”
“Takotsubo is a very rare stress phenomenon, so I’m not surprised you hadn’t seen it before. Well, I am surprised, because you’re a morgue technician with a physician’s mind, but you get my point.”
Jordan gave a laugh. “Thanks. If you ask me, I’d say it’s obvious Brandon Stahl’s defense team got it all wrong. But there’s nothing I can do about it now. Appeal is over. He lost.”
“What do you think about the morphine they found in Brandon’s apartment?”
“I thought about that a lot b
efore I wrote my letter. There were two possible explanations. I don’t think he killed anybody, so either Brandon’s a junkie and that’s tough luck, or somebody heard that recording and wanted to make sure Brandon did the time for that crime.”
“You think somebody planted evidence?”
“Wouldn’t be the first time it happened to an innocent man.”
“Let’s play out your theory, because I have the same suspicion, but for reasons we won’t get into. Donald Colchester suffers a fatal heart attack after Brandon Stahl is caught on tape offering to kill the legislator’s son. The tape isn’t heard until after the body has been buried. Someone thinks Brandon is going to get away with murder, so they make sure they pin it on him by bribing Sherri Platt to testify and planting evidence in Stahl’s apartment. That sound about right to you?”
Jordan’s eyes turned fierce. “More than right.”
“I’m pretty sure I know who’s behind it, too.”
“The father,” Jordan said.
“Yes. William Colchester. He’s got motive to keep Brandon in jail. Maybe his wife pressured him into it. According to Brandon, she was the hawk monitoring Donald’s quality of care.”
“So how do we help Brandon? I think the guy is innocent.”
“We’d have to prove there’s a pattern of takotsubo cases at White Memorial. My fiancé died of the same thing. I’m not a stats geek, but the probability of an unlikely event being isolated to the two cases we just happened to stumble upon is pretty darn low. I’m going to dig through the medical records of everyone who died from a heart attack at White and see if I’m right. It’s a long shot, but maybe it’s enough to overturn Brandon Stahl’s conviction. Maybe in the process I’ll figure out what really killed my fiancé.”
Jordan’s expression was skeptical. “I don’t know if I would do that if I were you.”
“Why not?”
“When I accessed Donald Colchester’s file, I noticed somebody had altered his medical records. I couldn’t tell who, or what they did exactly, but I do know they deleted information from his file.”
“Deleted?”
Mercy Page 20