Code Blue

by Debra E Blaine

  So, Tobi called Reggie, another friend from her synagogue. He and his wife Lynn were good friends, and Reggie was almost like a surrogate brother, but she usually texted with him or saw him Friday nights at services. She never called.

  “Hi, Tobi. Everything okay?”

  “I don’t know, Reggie, I’m being ridiculous. I’m sitting in my car in the driveway and I’m afraid to get out. I feel like someone might have followed me––which makes no sense, I know, since my community is gated.”

  “Tobi! Stay in your car. Call the police and I’ll be right over.”

  “No, don’t do that … I think I’m just imagining things. I’ve been really skittish lately, for no good reason, I’m sure. Too many Criminal Minds episodes, maybe. Just … would you stay on the phone with me until I get inside?”

  “Of course, but that doesn’t sound like the safest thing.”

  “I’m getting out of the car now.” Tobi got out with her still full lunch bag and her purse, looking around furtively. The sky was inky black and the street was now deserted under the lamps. “Wow, it’s slippery. Winter showed up when I wasn’t watching.”

  “Yes, be careful.”

  Tobi got inside and locked the deadbolts. “Okay, I’m home and locked up. Thanks, Reggie. I feel pretty foolish right about now.”

  “Not a problem, kiddo, but I’m not getting off the line until you walk into every room and every closet. Did you check the garage?”

  Tobi looked in the garage, behind the patio furniture, bicycle, and gardening tools, and then walked through the entire house with Reggie on the phone. Pantelaymin sat near the stairs, gazing at her curiously.

  “Panni doesn’t seem to be alarmed. If there were someone here, she’d probably be hiding.”

  “Unless he brought catnip with him. Did you check everywhere?”

  “Everywhere. Thanks, Reg.”

  “Do you want me and Lynn to come over for a while?”

  “No, I’m okay. I have to work again in the morning, and I’m beat. Thank you, though. I’m a little embarrassed ….”

  “Don’t be. Coming Friday night?”

  “Of course.”

  “Okay, I’ll see you then. Call if you need anything.”

  Reggie hung up. She knew he was going to text her a few times a day now to make sure she was alright. She did feel embarrassed, but at least now, someone would be checking up on her.

  Chapter 35

  Ismar Rufini sat in his car down the street from his home with the defroster on. It was 10:05 p.m. He kept looking at the text message he had received, telling him to make himself available at 10:00 p.m. sharp. Finally, his phone rang.

  “Dr. Rufini, it is you?”

  “Yes.” He licked his lips. The voice grated like pebbles on glass and the accent was thick, unmistakably Russian. I’m screwed, he thought. “Who is this?”

  “That is not important. I am from the Project, that is all you need to know. Have you been investigating the doctor? What have you learned about her brother?”

  Ismar’s voice quavered.“She says her brother died many years ago.”

  “We believe her brother did not die many years ago. Come on, Dr. Rufini, what did you find out?”

  “She believes he did, I’m sure of it. And she will not talk to me. She … she doesn’t like me.”

  “That is too bad, Dr. Rufini, because we are not convinced. She has to go, and you are going to have to do it.”

  “Me? Why me? And why is her brother important?”

  “That is not your business. Your business is to do what we tell you. You like your house, dah, Doctor? You like your money for your house, and your new beautiful wife?”

  “I was thinking of maybe selling … it’s … a very big house. You shouldn’t have to give me so much money.” Ismar’s defroster was on full force, but the windows were still fogging up.

  “The day we stop giving you money, Dr. Ismar, is the day you are dead. Haha, good joke, nyet? Doctor, you just get information to us, we all will be very happy. And the lady doctor. You get rid of her.”

  Ismar’s voice squeaked. “I … I can’t. I give you information. Lot of information. Lot of cases. But I can’t kill ….”

  “What did you say, Dr. Ismar?” The voice was icy.

  Ismar swallowed hard. “I can’t kill. That is where I draw the line.” He tried to sound confident but his voice shrilled.

  “Mr. Ismar, you kill all the time. Every time you give us the name of someone who is terribly sick, someone we can insure, each time, you kill. You just don’t want to get your hands dirty, nyet? It is too late for that. Remember, you owe us for solving your ‘problem’ in Turkey.”

  Ismar was silent.

  “You have one week. If it is not done, bad things will happen.”

  The phone went dead. The only sound was the white noise from the heater. Ismar turned down the fan and cracked open the window. He put his head back and just tried to breathe.

  How would he get himself out of this? His whole life was a saga of going from one disaster to another, but he had always managed to stay afloat before.

  About ten years ago, he had made a terrible mistake. Doctors were not paid well in Turkey, so he took a side job—okay, he had known it was underhanded, but that was why it was so lucrative, right? He copied some documents onto a flash drive in Turkey and put it in the hands of Dmitri Medvedev’s men, then President of Russia. He couldn’t help but think now that had Putin been president, he would have been much more appreciative in the end. The documents were influential in establishing the pact for the Samsun-Ceyhan oil pipeline, from which Russia would have been the larger beneficiary. But the pact fell apart at the end of 2009, and Ismar was discovered and brought up on charges in Turkey. He had been looking at many years in prison—if he were lucky.

  Some Russian oligarch had gotten him out, he never learned who, and had told him he was grateful for his service to his country, and set him up in New York. He helped Ismar get into an American medical residency program and start a new life. He gave him money and promised more, as long as Ismar would continue to give information if requested.

  It seemed he’d had had no choice, even though he had to leave his family behind, a wife and two girls. Handing over information had seemed innocuous enough in the beginning, and it was something out of which he had made a secondary career, anyway. He was never told anyone’s name, except that periodically, men from “the Project” asked for “favors.” He was an owned man now, and it seemed his debt would never be paid in full. It was so unfair. He wouldn’t have needed to be rescued if he hadn’t helped the Russians to begin with.

  Ismar knew the information he gave sometimes cost people their lives, but they were already very sick. And wasn’t that the way of the world? But … to kill someone with his own hands? Could he manage that?

  Chapter 36

  Ismar’s words grated on Tobi. Had she said she “has” a brother? She never said that out loud, even though in her heart, she knew she had a brother still. Or so she had felt for ages. She realized abruptly that the feeling had finally faded, when she wasn’t paying attention. When had that happened? When did she stop believing Reuben was alive out there somewhere? Recently, to be sure, not nineteen years ago. Not even after her mother died.

  She remembered that day like it was yesterday. Mom had transformed from the theatrical, narcissistic, and demanding woman of 160 pounds into a tiny, frail, and weak old lady, barely able to speak over a whisper. Suddenly, Tobi was transported back in time to 2013, standing in the doorway of Hannah’s room at the Commack Home for the Aged, gazing at her mother until she looked up.

  “I brought you your favorite, fried chicken wings from KFC,” Tobi had said.

  “They said I’m not supposed to eat that anymore.” Her mother sighed. “They yelled at me in dialysis after you brought them last week.
”

  “Yeah, well I spoke to your nephrologist,” Tobi said as she walked into the room, “and he agreed that I can bring you whatever you want. Better for you to eat what you like then to eat nothing at all. You need calories, Mom, you have no strength.”

  “I know,” she said. “Did you come straight from work?”

  “Yeah, it’s Thursday, my late night.”

  “You work so hard, darling. I wish you didn’t have to work so hard.” Her voice was barely audible.

  Tobi sat at the bedside and unwrapped the wings on the hospital table. Tobi never did have anyone to take care of her and no longer expected to, so, of course, she always worked hard. Troy was the one man she thought would always be there, but he had up and left one day with no explanation. “T and T” he used to say. “Dynamite together.” But they had quietly blown up for some reason completely unknown to Tobi. To make matters worse, it was the same week Reuben died, just when she needed him most. They were both ghosts in her heart.

  Her mother took a greasy bite and put it down, slowly and deliberately wiping her hands on the napkin. She seemed to take an eternity to swallow it. “Mmm, delicious. But that’s enough.” The one bite had nearly sapped all the strength from her.

  After a moment, Hannah managed a weak smile. “Benny came to visit last night.”

  “He told me.”

  “He’s a good boy. You did a good job with him.”

  They looked at each other across the chicken. The hospital gown was three sizes too big, and it hung on her mother like a bedsheet on a skeleton. At least she would have closure on this death, Tobi thought. They had never let her see Reuben’s body. He had been decomposing for three days when he was found, and the funeral director had been firm. “He doesn’t look like your brother anymore. It’s not a memory you want,” he’d said.

  The whole thing had seemed so wrong to Tobi on a gut level. In her heart, she was certain there was a mistake. She had needed to see his body to believe it, but they told her she was having a normal response for anyone grieving. She had even tried to force her way into the morgue, which was no small thing, since she’d been a regular gym rat at the time, but Mom had gotten hysterical and demanded that Tobi follow the funeral director’s advice. Of course, because Mom didn’t want to see him like that.

  Then he was cremated like their father had been, again, because Mom was sure that was what Reuben would have wanted—as if Reuben had thought about it, at forty-three years old. No one had ever asked what Tobi wanted. For years after, Tobi used to fantasize that he had run off to Fiji or someplace, just to get away from all of them. She had always felt it in her bones that he was really still alive somewhere out there. She would have given almost anything to see him one last time. Even after so many years, she hadn’t quite accepted that he was dead.

  Sitting in Hannah’s bleak, aseptic room that day, Tobi had played with her onyx ring. It had been her mother’s when she was a teenager, and her mother had given it to Tobi when she was very little, before all their conflict had started. Before she had been disowned so many times, Tobi could barely remember why. She’d started wearing it again in Hannah’s last few months. Her mother followed her gaze.

  “I’m sorry,” her mother said suddenly.

  Tobi startled and looked up. “For what?”

  Hannah sighed for so long, Tobi thought for a minute she was exhaling her last breath. She felt a sting of fear.

  “For everything,” Hannah whispered.

  Their eyes locked. So much to say. Did any of it even matter anymore? She ached for the loving relationship they’d never had. And never would.

  “It’s late,” Hannah said. “Go get some supper,” and she closed her eyes.

  Tobi squeezed her mother’s hand for a long moment before she got up, and then stopped in the doorway to look back.

  “I love you, Mom.”

  “I know.”

  Tobi had cried all the way home.

  The nurse called her three hours later to say that her mother was gone.

  Tobi shook herself out of the past and looked down as Pantelaymin started rubbing her legs. When had she stopped believing Reuben was alive somewhere? Not in 2013. Not even last year. Sure, in her head, she “understood” he was dead, but in her heart … he was just … gone. She had stopped trying to think about it any other way, it was of no use. But Rufini’s questions made her realize that now, she did know he was dead, not just gone. For some reason, it upset her tremendously that she could not pinpoint the exact moment when that knowledge had come to her. As if by doing so, she might have been able to hold onto him a little longer.

  Chapter 37

  Inspector Bent was finally back, and after his run on the beach, Troy showered and went in to see him.

  “Come on in,” Bent said. “I’m sorry, I’ve been away on another matter. I heard you came by while I was gone.”

  “Yes. I’m not getting anywhere here, it’s time for me to leave.”

  A woman knocked once and came into the office with a message for Bent. While he read it, she glanced at Troy and then looked again closely.

  “I know you!” she said. “You’re the guy from EE! You were doing studies on the reef for us! You donated the coral transplants two years ago!”

  Bent looked up, and Troy tried to hide his first smile in weeks.

  “Busted,” he said.

  Bent looked from one person to the other, puzzled.

  “Inspector, don’t you recognize him? From Executors for Our Earth. He’s the guy. The. Guy.” She turned to Troy. “You’re, like, the CEO, right?” Troy nodded slightly.

  Understanding slowly grew on the inspector’s face. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “You didn’t ask. Really, I didn’t think it was relevant,” Troy said.

  Bent’s entire posture changed. “I’m so sorry I’ve kept you here so long! I’m sure you have important things you need to be doing. We really appreciate all your organization has done. You’ve brought the world awareness of our beautiful, dying reef and the tangible consequences of climate change, and you even funded much of the research that led to our understanding of the algae connection. And the transplants were from you too?”

  To the woman, Bent said, “Natalie, thanks for this message. I will handle it later.” Natalie left the room smiling and humming to herself.

  “No worries,” Troy said, “but I do need to be going. I was wondering, did you learn anything about this killer? Anything I might be able to use to track him stateside?”

  “Sit.” Bent motioned the chair and sat back in his own, now acting collegial. “Some, not much. About three weeks ago, a Maserati was found in Finch Bay that was rented to a Boris Gozinski, as was the penthouse suite here at the Sheraton On the Sea. Once we found the car, we went to the hotel, but there were a couple of kids hitting it off up there, who said some Russian guy gave them his key and told them to have at it, that he wasn’t coming back for a few days. Well, you know he never did come back. Suspect he’s long gone, and he’s our man. Most of the prints and DNA we found were from the kids, except for a half print that belongs to someone else, possibly this guy Gozinski.”

  Bent looked at Troy sheepishly, and pressed on. “We checked with customs; sure enough, this Gozinski guy came into the country three and a half weeks ago from Hong Kong on a private jet. The jet’s gone, but someone with a different name left on it. We have been trying to find him by facial recognition, using the scanned passport photo, to see if he used an alias, but it was a long shot, and nothing materialized.”

  Troy stared at him. Bent squirmed.

  “I’m sorry,” said Bent. “I could have shared that earlier, but we don’t typically discuss police findings with civilians. If I’d known about the Foundation—”

  “Really? Really? I’ve been spinning my wheels here waiting around and you didn’t keep your end of the
bargain!”

  “Well, I’m telling you now, that’s all I can say. We looked into this guy Boris Gozinski, and he is known to Interpol as a possible murder suspect from 2012. Became a cold case.”

  “What was the case?” Troy was trying to keep the steel from his voice.

  “Not sure—really, I’m not. Someone fingered him for the murder of a cardiac surgeon in London, but he had an alibi, and they had to let him go. Nothing else on him, except that someone was really convinced he did it, despite the evidence. They didn’t give me any other details. It was a long time ago.”

  Troy remembered Reuben following the London surgeon who was murdered. It was a clear connection. His frustration flared, and abruptly, he’d had enough. He stood up and handed Bent his card. His voice was cryptic.

  “I will be leaving in the morning. I would ask you, please, to let me know if you learn anything, particularly if you track this guy to the United States. Another innocent life may be in danger.”

  Bent stood up too. “I will, and I’m sorry. I wish you luck, my friend. Our reef’s friend. Please let me know if there is anything else you need.”

  Troy nodded stiffly and turned to the door, suddenly energized by his anger. It seemed pretty clear Marco’s murder was connected to Reuben, and therefore, to Tobi. He had wasted so much time here and now he needed to cross ten thousand miles to get to her. He felt like time was running out.

  Chapter 38

  The holiday week was always crazy busy, and the flu was so bad this year, it seemed worse than ever. Today was a steady stream of patients, and since they all seemed to have the flu, the morning flew by in a blur. Tobi smiled to herself, as she answered another text from Reggie, just checking in on her. How blessed she was to have such great friends.