The Orphans (Orphans Trilogy Book 1)

by Matthew Sullivan

  “Maximizing profit is the most important objective, the second most important objective, and the third most important objective in business,” was the line Charlie recalled Terry saying in an interview on Bloomberg Television.

  By the time Charlie had finished his closing arguments, he had successfully swayed his internal jury. Not guilty would be the verdict they would return, without any need for further deliberations. That is, if not for the lone dissenter, the voice in Charlie’s head that was still causing a stir. It refused to go away. It needed more evidence before it could reach any judgment.

  Charlie pleaded to the little doubt left in him.

  It responded with Walter’s words, “Your parents died of heart attacks. That’s why they crashed.” The words kept repeating, turning jurors with each iteration until the jurors in Charlie’s court were split down the middle.

  Frustrated, Charlie chewed on his lip with such force he nearly broke skin. He had been so close to putting it all behind him, but in the end, he had come up short. There would be no quick and easy way out. Charlie was forced to come to terms with the fact that there was only one way that he could close the case and move on.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Before setting off for the San Mateo County Coroner’s Office, Charlie did a quick scan over the contact spreadsheet on Walter’s flash drive. He surmised that in his worst-case scenario—the one where Walter was correct about Terry—it would be much better to be safe than sorry and know for a fact that the coroner wasn’t secretly a member of this alleged conspiracy prior to asking for his help.

  Charlie didn’t find the coroner’s name on the contact list; however, there were a handful of the names in the spreadsheet that he did recognize. He had heard some of them in his Civics class, and a few others were prominent business leaders that he had come across while doing his own research. Of all the names Charlie skimmed, there was one in particular that stood out among the others: James Podesky.

  It wasn’t the name itself that caught Charlie’s eye. It was the first time he’d seen the name. It was James’s age that had practically jumped out at Charlie. James was just sixteen years old. Charlie counted this information as another strike against Walter’s theory. As far as Charlie was concerned, there was no way any truly malevolent consortium, no matter how small in size or ambition, could possibly include someone who was barely eight months older than him.

  Charlie told his grandfather that he was going to hang out with a friend. He probably could have gotten away with not saying anything to Grandpa Kim before he left—the old man most likely would never have even noticed that he was gone—but he was used to telling his parents where he was going, so it was more a matter of habit.

  From his bed, Grandpa Kim just nodded like he had heard and understood Charlie. His eyes never left the tv screen at the foot of the bed.

  “All right … great talk,” Charlie said sarcastically, and then continued on his way.

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Charlie arrived at the Coroner’s Office shortly after five o’clock. He had feverishly pedaled his GT Performer for ten miles—a combination of bike trails and city streets—before skidding to a stop just as the last car was leaving the parking lot. “Wait!” Charlie shouted as he waved his arms, attempting to catch the attention of the driver.

  It worked. The suv lurched forward a couple feet before slamming on the brakes. The driver backed up to Charlie and lowered his window. “Is there something I can help you with?”

  Charlie immediately recognized—based off of the picture he’d seen on the web—that the man was not the coroner. “Uh,” Charlie stammered, buying himself time as he wasn’t quite sure if he should take this man up on the offer. He opted to play things safe and close to the vest. “I don’t know. I was actually hoping to speak to the coroner.”

  “Sorry. He took off about a half hour ago, along with everyone else. That’s what happens when the 49ers are on Thursday Night Football. They leave the Ravens fan to do all the work. But the good news is that anything he could’ve helped you with, I can help you with, too,” the man said with a smile before introducing himself as Dr. Eugene Huang, the chief medical examiner.

  Charlie responded with just his first name. Even though Dr. Huang had identified himself as the medical examiner, Charlie was still hesitant to divulge much else without confirming that his name wasn’t on the contacts list first. If only he had thought to copy the spreadsheet to his phone. But in his hasty exit, Charlie hadn’t thought that far ahead. He hadn’t even thought to bring the flash drive with him. It sat on his desk at home, as useless as the lint in his pocket.

  “What can I do for you, Charlie?” Dr. Huang asked. “Are you working on a school paper or something?”

  “No,” Charlie said. “I mean, yes, but that’s unrelated.”

  “Okay, well, what did you want to ask Coroner Stevens?”

  Charlie considered his options. He could let down his guard and trust this eager medical examiner, or he could come back another time. It didn’t take much time or convincing for Charlie to make up his mind. He knew that he didn’t want to wait until later. He wanted to get it over with right then and there. He wanted to wipe it off his books.

  Charlie reminded himself that he didn’t actually believe in the significance of the list, anyway. He was only there for that last piece of evidence that he needed, or lack thereof. If Dr. Huang was his only means to obtaining said evidence, so be it. “I wanted to ask him something about my parents,” Charlie said.

  Dr. Huang was certain he had heard Charlie correctly; he had said “parents” and not “parent.” Dr. Huang put two and two together. “Your parents were Alan and Mary Kim, weren’t they?”

  Charlie nodded solemnly.

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Dr. Huang said. “I wish I could do more for you. But at the very least, I can help you with whatever you need.”

  “Thanks. I just wanted to make sure that my parents didn’t die of heart attacks.”

  Dr. Huang was clearly baffled by Charlie’s request. Had nobody explained to Charlie what happened? That didn’t seem possible. “Uh, I don’t know what anyone’s told you,” he said, treading lightly, “but your parents died in a car crash.”

  “Yeah, I know about the crash. I wanted to make sure they didn’t have heart attacks first. Like maybe that’s what could’ve have caused them to crash. Not that it did. I just wanna make sure it didn’t.”

  Like everyone else, Dr. Huang had heard the rumors. More than anyone, he knew the speculation was supported by a fair amount of forensic evidence, but not so much evidence that he had been willing to make that conclusion in his official report. Instead, he painted a rosier picture, which he repeated to Charlie. “Given the information we accumulated, it appears your father fell asleep at the wheel. That’s what caused the crash.”

  “And from that same information, you were able to determine that he didn’t have a heart attack, right?” Charlie said, eagerly awaiting the confirmation he expected to receive. He was so certain it was coming that he had already planted his foot on his bike pedal and was preparing to push off.

  “No, not exactly,” Dr. Huang said.

  “Wait. What do you mean?” Charlie said, confused. His foot slipped from the pedal and back to the pavement.

  “We didn’t perform a full autopsy. So we never actually checked to see if he did or didn’t have a heart attack.”

  “Why wasn’t there a full autopsy?”

  “Taking into account your father’s age, the nature of death, and probable cause, it wasn’t part of the protocol. But we did perform a series of toxicology exams. The blood alcohol, and everything else, all came back clean.”

  “But you never actually checked for a heart attack?”

  “No. But trust me, your parents didn’t die of heart attacks. That much I’m pretty sure of.”

  Charlie hadn
’t ridden all that way for just a “pretty sure.” He needed more than that to put any lingering suspicion to bed and turn out the light. “So you’re not 100 percent sure?”

  “No, but only because we didn’t run the tests. I can tell you that I am damn near 99.9 percent sure, though.”

  “Well, how about you run whatever test you need to run, and then we both can be 100 percent?”

  “I—”

  “Said you would help me,” Charlie said, finishing Dr. Huang’s sentence for him, albeit with different words than the medical examiner had intended. “That’s what you said.”

  Dr. Huang looked Charlie up and down. He could tell by the desperation in Charlie’s eyes that he wasn’t about to give up easy. The medical examiner shook his head. “Fine.”

  ◆ ◆ ◆

  Dr. Huang led Charlie inside the forensics laboratory. A series of wash stations lined the wall by the entrance. Empty steel examining tables occupied the center of the room. Along the back wall were all of the medical examiner’s technological toys, some much newer than others.

  “I really shouldn’t be doing this,” Dr. Huang said for the fifth time.

  Charlie ignored him, just as he had the previous times.

  Dr. Huang continued, “Once the test is over, I’m out the door and on my way home to my wife’s chicken parmigiana.”

  “Me, too,” Charlie said. “Minus the part about your wife’s chicken parm. Unless she made extras.” He was confident that it would all be over shortly. The test would come back negative and they would both go on with their evenings: the medical examiner to his wife’s home cooked meal, and Charlie to his Language Arts paper that he still hadn’t made a dent in.

  Dr. Huang went to the back of the lab and got to work. He readied a vial with solution, added a test strip, and then dripped a few of the leftover drops of Alan’s blood. He capped the vial and gave it a couple firm shakes. “The best way to diagnose a myocardial infarction is through a full autopsy,” he said. “But since we don’t have that option, we’ll have to rely on a rapid test. We’ll give it a minute, and then we should have the results.” He set the vial in a test-tube holder.

  “Is that like a litmus test or something?” Charlie asked.

  “More or less. Except we obviously aren’t checking the pH. When someone has a heart attack, their body releases enzymes and proteins into their bloodstream. One of those proteins is called troponin. That’s what we’re looking for. Since it’s a rapid test, it won’t reveal the exact levels. But it’ll give us the approximate concentration.”

  “What if my dad had a heart attack a while ago?”

  “That wouldn’t be an issue. The body absorbs the enzymes and proteins fairly quickly. Anything over a couple weeks wouldn’t register.”

  “Okay. Good.” Charlie said.

  They both turned their attention to the vial. The test strip was still as white as a brand-new Hanes undershirt.

  “It should be done any second,” Dr. Huang said as he checked the time on his cell phone and then started a text to his wife.

  “If it turns red,” Charlie inquired, “that means the test was negative, right?”

  “Actually, it’s—” Dr. Huang stopped himself, realizing that there was only one reason Charlie would ask such a specific question. His eyes lifted from the cell phone screen and matched Charlie’s gaze, which was locked on the vial.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Charlie and Dr. Huang continued to stare at the vial in stunned silence, their jaws hanging from their hinges. Floating in the solution, the test strip had turned a deep maroon. Not only did Charlie and Dr. Huang share physical reactions, they also shared an enveloping sense of disbelief; however, their mutual feeling was actually very different applications of the same word.

  Dr. Huang’s reaction was one of absolute astonishment. It had never occurred to the seasoned medical examiner that he could actually be wrong. He had never been. It was something he didn’t take lightly. “I can’t believe I missed this,” Dr. Huang said as he gently shook his head. He turned to Charlie. “I’ve never seen test results with such concentrated levels of troponin.”

  Charlie didn’t respond, mostly because he had barely registered a word that the medical examiner had said. His mind had been too busy reinforcing his own disbelief: his refusal to accept the positive test result as truth, as well as the consequences that came with that result.

  Dr. Huang noted Charlie’s blank look. He put his hand on Charlie’s shoulder to make sure the boy heard what he said next. “There’s no doubt your father had a heart attack. And given the symptoms that would typically precede a heart attack of that severity, I’m surprised he was able to drive at all.”

  “No!” Charlie screamed as he yanked his shoulder free and covered his ears. “That’s wrong. You’re wrong. That’s a false positive or something. It’s gotta be!” Charlie’s breaths puffed short and fast like a steam engine trying to conquer the highest mountain that had ever seen tracks.

  Dr. Huang waited for Charlie to calm down and lower his hands before continuing, carefully, “For you and me both, I wish it were. But if that were a false positive, we’d maybe get a hint of red. That’s it. I’m sorry, but there’s nothing false about those results.”

  “But it has to be,” Charlie whimpered, his voice weighted with anguish. He had reached the end of his long rope of excuses. But just when he was about lose his grip, he found a couple more inches of rope. “Run the test on my mom,” Charlie demanded with a sudden burst of confidence. He knew that was his last shot. If his mother didn’t have a heart attack, there was still a chance that Walter was wrong. The evidence wouldn’t be enough to give Charlie the closed case that he had originally sought, but it would be enough to force a mistrial, and that was much better than the alternative. “Run it,” Charlie repeated.

  “You realize that the odds of both of your parents having heart attacks simultaneously are slimmer than winning the Powerball five times in a row, right?”

  “I’m counting on that.” Charlie said as his eyes stayed fixed on the positive test strip and his thumb began flipping the pages of his pocketed Moleskine.

  “They would’ve had to have been drugged. But if they were, it would have shown up in the toxicology.”

  Charlie didn’t even bother responding. He just kept staring at the strip, focusing every ounce of energy in his body in an attempt to will the strip back to its original white.

  Dr. Huang sighed. He knew this was just another losing battle. Plus, as much as he wanted to get home, there was a part of him that was just as curious as Charlie. “All right, all right,” he said.

  Dr. Huang readied a new vial, and then added the test strip and a few drops of Mary’s blood. A couple shakes and it was good to go. They both watched the vial with bated breath.

  A minute—which felt more like an hour—passed, and nothing had changed. And then, in a flash, the strip turned from its porcelain white to the same dark maroon as the other strip.

  “I’ll. Be. Damned,” Dr. Huang said, not believing his eyes. “You know what this means?”

  Charlie knew what it meant for him. It meant that the jury had spoken. It meant that he had to accept that Walter was right. It meant that his parents and Walter had been murdered. And it meant that Terry Heins was responsible for it all.

  Even though Dr. Huang didn’t have the same information as Charlie, he had enough to know that foul play was involved. When Charlie didn’t respond, Dr. Huang answered his own question. “It means I need to run more tests and find out how they were drugged. I need to change my report and open their file back up. I also need to notify the lead officer working the case.”

  “No!” Charlie blurted out. “You can’t.”

  “What?” Dr. Huang said, taken aback by Charlie’s extreme reluctance. “I don’t understand. Isn’t that what you wanted?”

  �
�No. It isn’t. None of this is what I wanted. In fact, I wanted the exact opposite. I just wanted to be sure that it was a regular accident. That’s all.”

  “Well, it wasn’t. And whoever’s responsible for this needs to be found. They need to be held accountable.”

  “I already know who’s responsible for their deaths.”

  “You do?” Dr. Huang said, his eyes fluttering from the shock of Charlie’s admission. “Why didn’t you tell me that earlier?”

  “Because I didn’t wanna believe it was true.”

  “Who killed your parents?”

  “It’s better for you if you don’t know. The person behind their deaths is incredibly powerful. All you need to know is that if you change your report, the only thing you’ll accomplish is putting the both of us at risk.”

  Everything Charlie had just said sounded completely crazy to the medical examiner, but then again, so was everything that had led up to that moment. “I don’t know,” Dr. Huang said.

  “Please,” Charlie begged. “You gotta trust me on this.”

  Dr. Huang was still not quite ready to yield to Charlie’s demands. “We need to do something.”

  “I know,” Charlie said. He knew they—or more important, he—needed to do something, he just didn’t know what. And then he remembered the pdf contract on the thumb drive. “Just let me handle that. At least give me a little time to see what else I can find out. To get more evidence.”

  Dr. Huang considered Charlie’s proposal. It went against every code that he had sworn to uphold, but Charlie was both determined and persuasive. “Fine,” Dr. Huang said, relenting once more. “I’ll give you two weeks. But after that, I’m reopening the file and you’re giving me the name of who you think was behind this.”