Harmful Intent

by Robin Cook

  “I want you to leave,” Carol said angrily. “Leave or I will call the police.”

  “You can’t call the police,” Devlin said matter-of-factly, as if he knew something Carol didn’t.

  “And why not?” Carol asked indignantly.

  “Because I’m not going to let you,” Devlin said. He laughed his hoarse laugh and began to cough. When he got control of himself, he added: “I hate to tell you this, but the police don’t have a lot of concern for Jeffrey Rhodes these days. Besides, I’m the one who’s working for law and order. Jeffrey lost his rights when the conviction was handed down.”

  “Jeffrey was convicted,” Carol said. “I wasn’t.”

  “A mere technicality,” Devlin said with a wave of his hand. “But let’s talk about something more important. What’s for dinner?”

  Jeffrey took the trolley to Cleveland Circle and then walked up Chestnut Hill Avenue before weaving his way through the quaint suburban streets toward Kelly’s. Lights were coming on in kitchens, dogs were barking, and kids were playing outside. It was a picture-perfect neighborhood with Ford Taurus station wagons pulled up in front of freshly painted garage doors. The sun was low on the horizon. It was almost dark.

  Once Jeffrey had decided to go to Kelly’s, all he’d wanted to do was be there. But now that he was approaching her street, he felt indecision returning. Decision-making had never been a problem before. Jeffrey had decided on a career in medicine in junior high school. When it came to buying a home, he’d simply walked through the front door of the house in Marblehead and said, “This is it.” He wasn’t accustomed to being so genuinely torn. When he’d finally managed to make it up the walk to her front door and ring the bell, he almost wished she wouldn’t be home to answer.

  “Jeffrey!” Kelly exclaimed as she opened the door. “This is the day for surprises. Come in!”

  Jeffrey stepped inside and instantly realized how relieved he was that Kelly was home.

  “Let me have your jacket,” she said. She helped him out of it and asked what had happened to his glasses.

  Jeffrey put a hand to his face. For the first time he realized he’d lost them. He guessed they’d bounced off when he’d thrown himself out of the hotel room.

  “Not that I’m not glad to see you—I am. But what are you doing here?” She led the way to the family room.

  “I’m afraid I had company waiting for me when I got back to my hotel room,” he said, following behind her.

  “Oh, God. Tell me all about it.”

  Once again, Jeffrey filled Kelly in. He recounted the entire episode with Devlin at the Essex Hotel, including the gunshots and the injection of succinylcholine.

  Despite her dismay, Kelly had to giggle. “Only an anesthesiologist would think of injecting a bounty hunter with succinylcholine,” she said.

  “There’s nothing funny about all this,” Jeffrey said ruefully. “The real problem is that the stakes are higher. And so are the risks. Especially if Devlin finds me again. I had a hard time deciding to come over here. I think you should reconsider your offer to help.”

  “Nonsense,” Kelly said. “In fact, after you left the hospital today I could have kicked myself for not inviting you to stay here.”

  Jeffrey studied Kelly’s face. Her sincerity was disarming. She was so obviously concerned. “This Devlin character shot at me,” Jeffrey repeated. “Twice. Real bullets, and he was laughing like he was having a good time at a turkey shoot. I just want to make sure you understand the degree of danger that’s involved here.”

  Kelly looked Jeffrey straight in the eye. “I understand perfectly,” she said. “I also understand that I have a guest room and you are in need of a place to stay. In fact, I’ll be offended if you don’t take me up on my offer. Now is it a deal?”

  “It’s a deal,” Jeffrey said, barely suppressing a smile.

  “Good. Now that that’s settled, let’s get you something to eat. I’ll bet you haven’t had anything to eat all day.”

  “Not true,” Jeffrey said. “I had an apple and a banana.”

  “How about some spaghetti?” Kelly said. “I can have that ready in half an hour.”

  “Spaghetti would be great.”

  Kelly went into the kitchen. In a few minutes she had some diced onions and garlic sautéing in an old iron skillet.

  “I never went back to my hotel room once I got away from Devlin,” Jeffrey told her. He was leaning over the back of the couch so he could watch Kelly’s activities in the kitchen.

  “Well, I should hope not.” She got some ground beef from the refrigerator.

  “I only mentioned it because I’m afraid I’ve lost Chris’s notes—the ones I borrowed.”

  “No problem,” Kelly said. “I told you I was going to get rid of them anyway. You saved me the trouble.”

  “I’m still sorry.”

  Kelly began to open a can of peeled Italian tomatoes with an electric opener. Over the whir of the motor she said, “By the way, I forgot to tell you. I talked to Charlotte Henning over at Valley Hospital. She told me that they get their Marcaine from Ridgeway Pharmaceuticals.”

  Jeffrey’s jaw dropped. “Ridgeway?”

  “That’s right,” Kelly said as she added the ground beef to the onions and the garlic. “She said Ridgeway’s been their supplier since Marcaine went generic.”

  Jeffrey faced around on the couch and stared out the window at the darkened garden outside. He was stunned. The idea that the Marcaine from Memorial and Valley had come from the same pharmaceutical manufacturer was crucial to his theory of a contaminant. If the Marcaine used in the Noble and Owen operations were from different suppliers, there was no way to argue that they’d come from the same contaminated batch.

  Unaware of the effect of her information on Jeffrey, Kelly added the tomatoes and some tomato paste to the beef and the onions and garlic. She sprinkled in some oregano, stirred, and lowered the gas for the mixture to simmer. She got out a large pot, filled it with water, and set it on the stove to boil.

  Jeffrey joined her by the kitchen counter.

  Kelly could sense something was wrong. “What’s the matter?” she asked.

  Jeffrey sighed. “If Valley uses Ridgeway, then the idea of a contaminant is out the window. Marcaine comes in sealed glass containers, and any contaminant would have to be introduced during manufacture.”

  Kelly wiped her hands on a towel. “Couldn’t a contaminant be added later?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “What about after the vial is opened?” Kelly suggested.

  “No,” Jeffrey said with finality. “I open my own vials and extract the drug immediately. I’m sure Chris would have done the same.”

  “Well, there has to be a way,” Kelly said. “Don’t give up so easily. That’s probably what Chris did.”

  “To get a contaminant into one of those ampules would mean penetrating the glass,” Jeffrey said almost angrily. “It can’t be done. Capsules yes, glass ampules no.” But even as he said this, Jeffrey began to wonder. He remembered chemistry lab in college, where he’d been required to fashion pipettes using a Bunsen burner and glass rods. He could remember the taffylike feel of the molten glass as he’d wait until it was red hot before pulling it out into a wispy cylinder.

  “Do you have any syringes here?” he asked.

  “I still have Chris’s medical bag,” she said. “There might be some in there. Shall I get it?”

  Jeffrey nodded, then went over to the stove and turned on one of the front burners next to the simmering spaghetti sauce. The flame would certainly be hot enough. When Kelly returned with Chris’s bag, he took a few syringes and a couple of ampules of bicarbonate from it.

  He heated the tip of the syringe until the metal glowed red hot. Taking it from the fire, he quickly tried to push it into the glass. It didn’t penetrate well. Then he tried heating the glass and using a cold needle, but that didn’t work either. Then he tried heating both the needle and the glass, and the needle went throu
gh easily.

  Jeffrey pulled the needle out of the ampule and studied the glass. Its once smooth surface was misshapen and a tiny hole remained where the needle had been inserted. Placing the ampule back over the burner, the glass became soft again, but as he tried to rotate it, the molten glass distorted more, and he only succeeded in burning himself and making a mess of the whole end of the ampule.

  “What do you think?” Kelly asked, squinting over his shoulder to see.

  “I think you’re right,” Jeffrey said, newly hopeful. “It might be possible. It’s not that easy. I certainly made a mess of this one. But it suggests it could be done. A hotter flame might help, or one that can be better directed.”

  Kelly got Jeffrey a piece of ice and wrapped it in a dishtowel for his burned finger. “What kind of contaminant are you thinking about?” she asked.

  “I don’t know specifically,” Jeffrey admitted, “but I’m thinking about some kind of toxin. Whatever it is, it would have to exert its effects in very low concentration. Plus from what Chris had written, it would have to cause nerve cell damage without causing kidney or liver damage. That eliminates a lot of the usual poisons. Maybe I’ll know more when I get my hands on Patty Owen’s autopsy report. I’ll be very interested to see the toxicology section. I’d seen it briefly during discovery for both trials and I remember it was negative except for a trace of Marcaine. But I’d never examined it closely. It hadn’t seemed important at the time.”

  With the water boiling furiously in the pot, Kelly tossed in the pasta. She turned to face Jeffrey. “If this is how the toxin got in the Marcaine”—she pointed to the ampule and syringe Jeffrey had set on the counter—“it means that someone is tampering with Marcaine on purpose, deliberately poisoning.”

  “Murdering,” Jeffrey said.

  “My God,” Kelly said. The full horror was beginning to dawn on her. “Why?” she asked with a shudder. “Why would someone do that?”

  Jeffrey shrugged. “That’s a question I’m not prepared to answer. It wouldn’t be the first time someone’s tampered with medication or purposely used it to no good. Who can say what the motivation is? The Tylenol killer. That New Jersey Doctor X, the one who killed patients with overdoses of succinylcholine.”

  “And now this.” Kelly was visibly shaken. The idea of some crazy person stalking the halls of Boston hospitals was too much to take in. “If you believe this might be true,” she said, “don’t you think we should talk to the police?”

  “I wish we could,” Jeffrey said. “But we can’t for two reasons. First of all, I’m a convicted criminal and a fugitive. But even if I weren’t, we have to recognize that there is not the slightest bit of proof of any of this. If anyone went to the police with this story, I doubt very much they would do anything at all. We need some sort of evidence before we go to the authorities.”

  “But we have to stop this person!”

  “I agree,” Jeffrey said. “Before there are any more deaths and any more convicted physicians.”

  Kelly said her next words so softly that Jeffrey could barely hear. “Before there are any more suicides.” Her eyes filled with tears.

  To hold her emotions in check, Kelly turned to the boiling pasta. She fished out a strand of the spaghetti and threw it at the front of the dish cabinet. It stuck. Wiping her eyes, she said, “Let’s eat.”

  “I’ll call you as soon as the procedure is over,” Karen Hodges told her mother. She’d been on the phone for almost an hour and was beginning to feel a little irritated. She felt like her mother should be trying to comfort her, not vice versa.

  “Are you sure this doctor is okay?” Mrs. Hodges asked.

  Karen rolled her eyes for the benefit of her roommate, Marcia Ginsburg, who smiled in sympathy. Marcia knew exactly what Karen was going through. Marcia’s mother’s calls were just as nagging. She was constantly warning her daughter about men, AIDS, drugs, and her weight.

  “He’s fine, Mother,” Karen said without bothering to disguise her exasperation.

  “Tell me again how you found him,” Mrs. Hodges said.

  “Mother—I told you a million times.”

  “All right, all right,” Mrs. Hodges said. “You just be sure to call me as soon as you can, you hear?” She knew her daughter was annoyed, but she couldn’t help being concerned. She’d suggested to her husband that they fly to Boston to be with Karen when she went in for the laparoscopy, but Mr. Hodges said he couldn’t leave the office. Besides, as he’d pointed out, a laparoscopy was only a diagnostic procedure, not a “real operation.”

  “It’s real if it concerns my baby,” Mrs. Hodges had replied. But in the end she and Mr. Hodges remained in Chicago.

  “I’ll call you as soon as I can,” Karen said.

  “Tell me what kind of anesthesia you’re going to have,” Mrs. Hodges said, hoping to stall her daughter. She didn’t want to hang up.

  “Epidural,” Karen told her.

  “Spell it.”

  Karen spelled it.

  “Don’t they use that for deliveries?”

  “Yes,” Karen said. “And also for procedures like laparoscopies when they aren’t sure how long it will take. The doctor doesn’t know what he’s going to see. It might take awhile, and he didn’t want me unconscious.

  “Come on, Ma, you went through this with Cheryl.” Cheryl was Karen’s older sister, and she too had trouble with endometriosis.

  “You’re not having an abortion, are you?” Mrs. Hodges asked.

  “Mother, I have to go,” Karen said. The last question had pushed her over the edge. Now she was angry. After all this talk, her mother thought she was lying to her. It was ridiculous.

  “Call me,” Mrs. Hodges managed to get in before Karen hung up.

  Karen turned to Marcia and the two women looked at each other for a moment, then burst out laughing.

  “Mothers!” Karen said.

  “A unique species,” Marcia said.

  “She doesn’t seem to want to believe that I’m twenty-three and out of college,” Karen said. “Three years from now when I graduate from law school, I wonder if she’ll still be treating me the same way.”

  “No doubt in my mind,” Marcia said.

  Karen had graduated from Simmons College the year before and was currently working as a legal secretary for an aggressive and successful divorce lawyer named Gerald McLellan. McLellan had become more a mentor than a boss to her. Recognizing her intelligence, he had urged her to go to law school. She was scheduled to begin at Boston College in the fall.

  Although Karen was the picture of general health, she’d suffered from endometriosis since puberty. Over the last year, the problem had worsened. Her doctor had finally scheduled her for a laparoscopy to decide on treatment.

  “You have no idea how happy I am that you’re going with me tomorrow, not my mother,” Karen said. “She’d drive me bananas.”

  “It’ll be my pleasure,” Marcia said. She’d arranged to take the day off from work at the Bank of Boston to accompany Karen to day surgery and then escort her home unless it turned out Karen was to stay overnight. But Karen’s doctor thought it very unlikely that would happen.

  “I am a little worried about going tomorrow,” Karen admitted. Except for a visit to an emergency room after falling from a bicycle when she was ten, she’d never been in a hospital.

  “It will be a breeze,” Marcia assured her. “I was worried before my appendectomy, but it was nothing. Really.”

  “I’ve never had any anesthesia,” Karen said. “What if it doesn’t work and I feel everything?”

  “Haven’t you ever had a shot at the dentist?”

  Karen shook her head. “Nope. I’ve never had a cavity.”

  Trent Harding moved the glassware from the cabinet next to the refrigerator and took out the false back. Reaching in, he pulled out the .45 pistol and let it rest in his hand. He loved the gun. There was a slight smear of oil on the barrel from the last time he’d handled it. He took a paper towel and
lovingly polished it.

  Reaching back into the hiding place, he pulled out the clip loaded with shells. Holding the gun in his left hand, he inserted the clip in the bottom of the handle. Then he pushed it home so that it clicked in place. The maneuver gave him a feeling akin to sensual pleasure.

  Hefting the gun again, it felt different now that it was loaded. Holding it the way Crockett had on Miami Vice, he aimed it through the kitchen door at the Harley-Davidson poster that hung on the living room wall. For a second he debated with himself if he could get away with firing the pistol in his own apartment. But he decided it wasn’t worth the risk. A .45 made one hell of a bang. He didn’t want the neighbors calling the cops.

  He laid the gun on the table and went back to his secret cache. He reached in and pulled out the small vial with the yellow fluid. He shook it and looked at it in the light. For the life of him, he had no idea how they got the liquid from the skin of frogs. He’d bought it from a Colombian drug dealer in Miami. The stuff was great. It had turned out to be everything the guy had promised it would be.

  With a small 5 cc syringe, Trent drew up a tiny bit of the fluid, then diluted it with sterile water. Under the circumstances, he didn’t have any idea how much to use. He had no experience to rely on for what he was planning now.

  Trent carefully returned the vial to its hiding place, then replaced the plywood and the glassware. He capped the syringe full of the diluted toxin and pocketed it. Then he tucked the pistol into his belt so that its barrel was cold against the small of his back.

  Going to the front closet, Trent got out his Levi’s denim jacket and put it on. Then he checked in his bathroom mirror to make sure the gun couldn’t be seen. From the way the jacket was cut, there wasn’t even a bulge.

  He hated losing his parking spot on Beacon Hill, knowing he’d have a devil of a time finding another when he returned, but what were his options? He covered the distance to St. Joe’s in a quarter of the time it took him to go there on public transportation. That was another thing that bothered him about doctors. They got to park at the hospital during the day. Nurses were not allowed unless they were supervisors, or they worked either the evening or the night shift.