Fatal Cure

by Robin Cook

  “What was that?” Ben questioned.

  “I have no idea.”

  “It must be Japanese.”

  “I wouldn’t know,” Sheila said. “But hallelujah, he’s said something. He must recognize you.”

  “Must be just from earlier today. Prior to today I’d seen him a couple of times, and then only briefly. But it’s a good sign. If the father doesn’t appear soon, apparently I’m going to be the guardian.”

  “Really?” Sheila questioned. “We had no idea.”

  “I told it to the EMT,” Ben said. “I even told the EMT the kid’s name. It’s Shigeru Machita.”

  “I think you’d better talk with the social worker on the case.”

  “Of course,” Ben said. He glanced at his watch. He didn’t have a lot of time, since he’d committed himself to return to the city, but he thought it important to straighten out the identity and insurance issues.

  While Sheila went to get the social worker, Ben stayed in Shigeru’s room and tried to get the infant to say another word or respond to gentle tickling. Although he did not utter another word, he was physically responsive to the tickling.

  Five minutes later Sheila returned with a tall, attractive Hispanic woman. She wore a blue silk dress beneath her long white coat. Her name, of course, was Maria, with a family name of Sanchez.

  Sheila had done the introductions, and as soon as they’d been completed, Maria suggested that they talk in the nurses’ lounge behind the nurses’ desk. She had the demeanor of a savvy business-woman who took her job seriously.

  “Sheila mentioned that you had told the EMT the child’s name and the fact that you were the guardian,” Maria said as soon as they were seated and cut off from the bustle of the floor.

  “I told him the name of the child and that after the father’s will was probated I would possibly be the guardian. That is, of course, if the father is also dead, as feared. I’m really surprised there was such a lack of communication.”

  “The emergency room is a busy place.”

  I don’t need a lecture about life in the ER, Ben thought but didn’t say. He’d spent too much time in the ER as a surgical resident. To his assessment of Maria’s demeanor he added seemingly inappropriate animosity. Ben had begun to feel that he was being treated as a questionable character, trying to waltz in and steal an orphaned child.

  “We’re sorry your communication to the EMT did not get properly relayed. Be that as it may, what is your relationship to the child?”

  With a somewhat hardened tone, Ben said, “I was or still am, again depending on the status of the father, his employer.”

  “Is there some question as to the status of the father? We were told the child’s parents were both murdered.”

  “The mother was, but not the father. The father’s whereabouts is not yet known, although there are some who believe he, too, is dead.”

  “Why do you believe you will be the guardian?”

  For a moment Ben paused, wondering why he was bothering to answer all these questions. Maybe he should just go to the office and bring back Satoshi’s will. But then he remembered it needed to be probated.

  “Did you hear my question?”

  “I did, but I’m beginning to feel this is akin to an interrogation, which I find inappropriate.”

  “Why didn’t you come in with the child rather than showing up later?”

  “It wasn’t my choice. I was detained by the police after I had inadvertently stumbled on the murder victims. I found the child hidden in the house.”

  “Well, let me inform you what has gone on here at the hospital in your absence. With no name and no information, I contacted a social worker at DYFS, the Division of Youth and Family Services, here in New Jersey, which is under the Department of Children and Families. She went immediately to one of the DYFS lawyers, who, in turn, went to family court and got DYFS appointed temporary guardian so we would be able to treat the child beyond emergency care. So far it hasn’t been needed. But DYFS is now the guardian. That’s a fact you’ll have to live with.”

  “What if I produce the will and the DYFS lawyer can look at it.”

  “It wouldn’t matter. The DYFS lawyer cannot change the ruling, only family court, and you couldn’t take the will to family court because it is not probated. And since you don’t know the father’s whereabouts or state of health, you can’t go to probate court. For now you are stuck with DYFS as the temporary guardian.”

  Ben was mildly overwhelmed.

  “Let me ask you another question,” Maria said when Ben failed to respond. “This child is obviously Japanese, or at least of Asian ancestry, and Sheila said he’d spoken when you arrived, but it wasn’t English. Is he an American citizen?”

  “No, he’s Japanese,” Ben said.

  “Well, that makes it even more difficult, at least in my experience. In a case like this you cannot take anything for granted. A probate judge will decide the issues, not necessarily on what any documents say but on what he believes is in the best interest of the child.”

  “Oh,” Ben said simply as a new wave of concern spread over him. Up until that very moment he still thought the licensing-agreement situation was safe and shielded from change. But now, suddenly, he was learning from a woman with experience in the arena of family law and probate that the licensing agreement’s circumstance was not cast in stone but rather open to the interpretation of what was in the best interest of the child. Even Ben had to accept it would be difficult to justify his role as a trustee of the entity that owned the iPS patents when he was also CEO of iPS USA. It was a huge conflict of interest. And now Ben had to deal with the possibility of iPS USA losing its control of the Satoshi patents. Before visiting the hospital he’d been confident he was destined to be both guardian and trustee for Shigeru. Now there was the possibility he would be neither.

  Ben exited FDR Drive at 34th Street and continued south on Second Avenue. The closer he got to OCME, the more unnerved he felt about everything: having to return for further questions from the Bergen County police detective, the chance that there might be changes in the key exclusive iPS licensing agreement, and that he was about to identify Satoshi’s body. For a few blocks he considered the idea of not identifying Satoshi even if it was him but abandoned the idea as it would just postpone the inevitable—and direct significant suspicion in his direction. Ben realized his only hope was to avoid any suspicion of involvement at all, and to do that he had to remain cooperative.

  He parked on a side street just a short distance from the OCME building. He paused a moment before entering but not out of fear of the sights he might be forced to confront within the morgue. Unlike laypeople, he had seen enough dead people to accept it as part of life. He’d even watched several autopsies as a student. He paused because his intuition was telling him loudly that Satoshi’s death, even though he had had nothing to do with it, was going to have serious consequences.

  To bolster his courage before entering, Ben reminded himself that there was a chance that the body he was about to see might not be Satoshi’s. He also reminded himself that even if it turned out to be Satoshi’s, there was no reason he couldn’t appropriately and sagely deal with the problems and dangers that might arise. Knowledge was always best. It was ignorance that invariably engendered mistakes. If Satoshi was in fact dead, it was best if he knew it before anyone else, and if it was a natural death, it might not have any consequence whatsoever.

  With a bit more confidence than he had had a few moments earlier, Ben pulled open one side of a double door and entered OCME. He checked his watch. It was almost quarter to five in the afternoon. Whatever was to happen, he didn’t want it to take too long because of his commitment to stop either back at the scene or at the Bergen County police station and face Tom Janow for more questions before finally being allowed to head home.

  The reception area was crowded with what seemed to be staff ready to leave after a long workday. He pushed through the people and approached the desk a
nd asked for Rebecca Marshall, the clerk he’d spoken to earlier on the phone. He was told Rebecca would be down shortly.

  Ben waited on an old vinyl couch, watching the people chatting in their dynamic little groups that formed and re-formed as people departed and new people joined. He wondered if they were aware of how unique their work was, and if they ever talked about it among themselves. They probably didn’t—a good example of the adaptability of the human organism.

  “Mr. Corey,” a voice called out.

  Ben looked up to his right. Somehow an African-American woman with a pleasant, kind face and tightly curled silver hair had managed to sneak right up to him. She clutched a manila case file and other papers to her chest. “I’m Rebecca Marshall. I believe we spoke earlier.”

  Rebecca let Ben through a door to Ben’s right and closed it behind them. “This is called the family ID room,” she explained. It was a modest-size space with a blue couch and a large round wooden table with eight wooden chairs. There were several framed posters with images involving the destruction that occurred on 9/11. Each had the caption NEVER FORGET in bold letters across the bottom. “Please,” Rebecca said, gesturing toward one of the chairs at the table. Ben sat, and Rebecca did as well.

  “As I mentioned on the phone, I am an identification clerk. As you can well imagine, identification of any body that is brought here is an extremely important part of our job. Usually we have family members who make the identification. If we have no family members, we rely on friends or coworkers. In other words, anyone who knows the victim. You understand, I assume?”

  Ben nodded, and to himself thought, I don’t need a lecture; just show me the damn body, and I’m out of here!

  “Good,” Rebecca said in response to Ben’s nodding. “To start, I need to see your identification. Anything official with a photo. A driver’s license is fine.” Rebecca retrieved a blank identification form from the materials she had been carrying.

  Ben took out his driver’s license and handed it to her. When she was satisfied it was him, she wrote down the information on the form. Her tone and gestures were practiced and respectful, giving Ben the sense that she would be equally competent to handle the situation, whether he threw a fit of grief-evoked rage or, as he was doing, expressing apparent indifference.

  With Ben’s identification out of the way, Rebecca opened the case file, which was in the form of a large folder secured with an attached rubber band. Opening the folder, she reached in and pulled out more than a half-dozen digital photos. Very deliberately, she placed them in the proper alignment in front of Ben, who purposely kept his eyes glued to Rebecca’s. When she was finished, they locked eyes for a moment before Ben looked down and focused.

  The photos were a series of shots, face-on and profile. They were taken purely for identification purposes in that they were only of the face. Any portion of the body that would have been visible was covered with a towel.

  Although Ben recognized Satoshi instantly, he purposefully kept his face neutral. He did not know why, but he did. Neither of them said anything, with Rebecca willing to let Ben take his time. In the stillness, an unintelligible murmur of the voices in the reception area could just be heard.

  “His name is Satoshi Machita,” Ben finally said, still glancing from one harshly lit photo to the next. He didn’t realize how disappointed he sounded, which he assumed Rebecca reasonably took for grief. Now it really starts, Ben added silently to himself. Suddenly he decided it was not a good thing or, more realistic, totally inappropriate for him to be showing any emotion. He looked up at the clerk. “I thought I was going to have to look at a body like in the movies.”

  “No,” Rebecca said simply. “We’ve been using photos for years. Before the digital camera, we used Polaroids. It is much better for most people than viewing the body, especially for family members or when the faces of the victims have been traumatized. But we have a way of letting people view the bodies if they insist. Would you prefer to see the body? Would it help your decision?”

  “No,” Ben said. “It is Satoshi Machita, I am sure. I don’t need to see the body.” Ben started to stand up, but Rebecca laid her hand on his forearm with the lightest touch he’d ever experienced from a person of authority.

  “There’s more, I’m afraid,” she said. “But let me ask a question first. The doctor on this case is still here at OCME this evening. I told her you were coming in for a possible identification. She asked me if she might be able to meet you and ask a few questions if you’d been able to identify the body.”

  Ben’s first reaction was no. The last thing he wanted to do was get hung up at OCME, since he’d already committed himself to more questions by Detective Janow. He wanted to get to Janow, get it over with, and get home around the time he had estimated when he had called his wife after leaving the hospital. But then he had a second thought. Maybe it might be a good thing to get hung up on an errand that the detective had sent him on. Maybe he could use getting caught at OCME as a way of begging off from seeing the detective again that night. He’d like to be more rested the next time he saw him. In addition, Ben was curious about Satoshi’s death, and a meeting with the medical examiner handling his case was a promising way to find out the details.

  “I can just call her and see if she’s available right this minute. We can take care of the rest of our business in the time it will take her to get down here. If you are willing, I want to make the call now to make sure I catch her before she leaves.”

  “All right,” Ben said. “As long as it can happen now and not delay me too much longer. I have another meeting scheduled this evening out in New Jersey.”

  Worried that Ben might change his mind, Rebecca immediately called up to Laurie’s office. When Laurie heard who it was, she tried to put Rebecca off, saying, “I’m in a meeting that’s about to end. Can I get back to you in a few minutes?”

  “That’s not going to work. The gentleman I mentioned needs to leave for a meeting in New Jersey, and I’ve already taken up too much of his time. He came here out of his way to help us identify the victim, which he’s done. We now know the identity of the case.”

  “Terrific!” Laurie said. “Hold on!”

  Rebecca could hear Laurie talking but not the words.

  Laurie came back on the line. “We’ll be right down!” Then she abruptly disconnected.

  Rebecca looked at the phone for a moment as if the phone would tell her who Laurie meant when she had said “we.” Hanging up, Rebecca turned back to Ben. “She’s on her way.”

  “So I heard,” Ben said.

  “So let’s finish up quickly. I want you to write on several of these photos ‘This is Satoshi Machita,’ and then sign your name.”

  “Fine,” Ben said.

  “Do you know Satoshi’s last address?”

  “I do but not his phone number. I have that at the office.”

  “Do you know if Mr. Machita had any particular medical problems, old injuries, or identification marks?”

  “I have no idea. He seemed healthy to me.”

  Rebecca was filling out the identification form as she was asking the questions. “What was your relationship with the deceased? That’s the last question.”

  “Employer,” Ben said.

  32

  MARCH 26, 2010

  FRIDAY, 4:58 p.m.

  Laurie got on the elevator first. She punched the button for the first floor but then pressed the door-open button and held it to keep the door from closing while Detective Lou Soldano and Jack boarded. Only then did she release the door, allowing it to close immediately.

  Laurie was in a rare, self-congratulatory mood. Just before she’d gotten the call from Rebecca, she’d finished her mini-news conference—mini because it was attended only by Jack and Lou, concerning the only two cases she currently had: the two unidentified Japanese men, which according to Rebecca was now only one unidentified man.

  In less than five minutes Laurie had been able to prove to Jack’s and Lou�
��s satisfaction that the second man, who was most likely a Yakuza hit man, as suggested by the extent of his tattoos, the pearling embedded in the shaft of his penis, and the fact that he was missing the last joint of his fifth finger, had killed the first individual during the commission of a robbery on a subway platform with an accomplice who was also of Japanese descent. She’d also been able to prove that the crime had most likely been carried out with an air-powered pellet gun hidden in an umbrella with a fatal dose of a toxin called tetrodotoxin.

  The last point about the tetrodotoxin was not yet official, although Laurie was convinced. When Laurie had mentioned that final point in her presentation, she had admitted that the findings had yet to be certified by John DeVries. Although Laurie had come up with the correct peaks on the mass spec, John still wanted to certify the results by running the sample of known tetrodotoxin Laurie had gotten from the hospital next door.

  “I cannot believe you’ve accomplished all this in two days,” Lou said. “You’re like an entire task force. You’re supposed to be part of the support for us detectives. Instead, you’ve done our job and yours. It’s unbelievable.”

  “Thank you,” Laurie said. She knew she was blushing. Getting such a compliment from Lou truly meant a lot to her.

  “On the security tapes there were two people involved in the killing,” Laurie said, to divert attention away from herself. “I hope you are taking that into consideration.”

  “Don’t worry, I remember. From what you’ve said, there’s probably another body out there in the harbor, which I’ll get right on. It’s good that we’ll be getting an ID on the first guy. It will provide a solid place to begin our investigation. As I said this morning, my biggest fear is that whatever is going on might be the harbinger of a nasty turf war.”

  “I don’t think number one was a member of the Yakuza,” Laurie said.

  “We’ll see,” Lou said.

  “And to think I tried to discourage you,” Jack said, speaking up for the first time.