Cure (37 page)

Tom took Ben’s disclaimer in stride, and instead of responding, merely looked back at his notes. Ben felt his anxiety ratchet up another notch. He now had the feeling he was being played. He needed to get away; he needed time to think.

The officer dispatched to call Missing Persons rapped on Tom’s window. Tom lowered it and looked at him expectantly.

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“They do have a body that fits the description,” the officer said. “It’s at the New York OCME.”

“Thank you, Brian,” Tom said. He looked over at Ben and elevated a single eyebrow. “I think we are making progress.” Turning back to the officer, he said,

“Go back and find out where the boy from this disaster was taken.”

The officer did a kind of half-salute before returning to his squad car.

“Maybe, just maybe,” Tom commented, “we’ve solved the mystery of Satoshi, which I believe might ultimately provide key information for the death of the six people in this house.”

“Possibly,” Ben said without enthusiasm. A moment earlier he didn’t think he could possibly get more nervous. But he had been wrong. He didn’t see finding Satoshi as a positive step, at least not dead.

“I tell you what,” Tom said, as if sensitive to Ben’s mind-set. “I still have questions for you, but why don’t I let you go and see the child. I have to go inside and view a scene I don’t want to see. But you have to promise me two things. After you’ve seen the child, I want you to call and then go to the New York OCME over in the city and identify or not identify, as the case may be, the body they have in their cooler. Then I want you to come back here, or if I’m gone, drive out to the Bergen County police station, which is also in Hackensack.

Is that a deal?”

“That’s a deal,” Ben said, eager to get away.

“Now, hold on for a minute! I’ll find out for sure where the kid was taken.” Tom climbed out of the car. Simultaneously, so did the investigator from the district attorney’s office, who had been listening in the backseat.

Good grief, Ben said to himself, once alone. There had been nothing he’d liked about the conversation with Tom. Ben shivered at some of the things that he’d said and how he’d acted. From his perspective, it had been an interrogation, plain and simple, in which he did not shine. In a sudden burst of paranoia, Ben thought that the only thing positive about the interview was that he’d not been read his Miranda rights.

Ben straightened up and tried to calm himself. At least the conversation, or whatever it was, was over for now, and when it recommenced he’d have had time to think.

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Ben started the car when Tom returned to the driver’s-side window. “As I suspected, the child was taken to Hackensack University Medical Center. I hope all is well with him. And here, take my card.” Tom handed over his card. “It’s got my mobile number. I want to hear immediately, yes or no, on the ID in the city.”

“Wait a second,” Ben said, just as Tom was about to walk away. “I have a suggestion. I’m worried the child might be in danger. Obviously, whoever killed the entire family would probably have wanted to kill the child as well, and if and when they hear about his existence, they might want to finish the job.”

“Good point,” Tom admitted. “Thanks for the suggestion. I’ll put a detail on him right away.”

The route to the Hackensack University Medical Center had been quite direct, and even though it required going through several small towns, Ben arrived in short order. With his M.D. license plates, he used the doctors’ parking lot near the emergency-room entrance even though he knew he shouldn’t.

Although Ben’s visit to the Machita residence was far more harrowing and unnerving, the hospital visit was not a whole lot better, given his mental status.

But as troubling as the deaths at the residence were—if, in fact, Satoshi was dead—there was little risk involving a change in the status of the licensing agreement concerning the iPS key patents, a situation that would have been disastrous to iPS USA. Thanks to Satoshi’s insistence on a bit of estate planning, Ben had an ace in the hole, even without the wife’s signature on her will. He had Satoshi’s will and the trust document, which didn’t need the wife’s signature, both fully signed and executed, with the will creating a trust for the key patents and the trust document appointing Ben trustee. What that all meant to Ben was that after probate he would control the trust for the benefit of Shigeru, meaning there would be no challenge to the licensing agreement.

Unfortunately after the hospital visit Ben’s rosy understanding of the legal issues would be sorely undermined, and what had previously provided a modicum of comfort, the will and the trust document, he now feared might be more paper tigers than solid support for the status quo.

Ben had entered the emergency-room door and presented himself as Dr.

Benjamin Corey to command more respect, as the ER was packed.

Unfortunately, the ruse did not work with the harried emergency-room clerk, and Ben was forced to stand to the side and wait.

“I’m looking for a toddler who came in earlier,” Ben said authoritatively once he 228

had the clerk’s attention. “He came in by ambulance. His name is Shigeru Machita; he’s about one and a half years old. Is he still here in the emergency room, or has he been admitted?”

The clerk, dressed in scrubs, was being unmercifully hounded by several of his coworkers, but to his credit he stayed to finish with Ben. “There’s been no Shigeru Machita since noon,” he said, looking up from the screen.

“There has to be,” Ben said. “The police told me he was coming here.”

“Could it be under another name?” Ben asked.

“If it is, you’ll have to tell me,” the clerk said.

“Of course,” Ben said, hitting his head with the heel of his palm. “How about a generic name, like Baby Jack?”

“Yes, here’s one!” the clerk said, before shouting across the registration area to a coworker that he’d be there in a second. “It’s a baby John Doe,” he said to Ben.

“Could that be it?”

“Maybe,” Ben said. “What time did he come in?”

“Two-twenty-two this afternoon.”

“That’s about right,” Ben said. “Where is he?”

“He’s been taken up to pediatrics, room four-twenty-seven.”

“Gotcha,” Ben said. “How do I get there?”

The clerk gave rapid, complicated directions that concluded with the suggestion of following a blue line running on the floor. Ben forgot the directions and just followed the blue line on a labyrinthine route to a bank of elevators.

As he exited the elevator on the fourth floor and despite the chaos that reigned, one of the nurses from the nurses’ desk caught sight of him and called out,

“Excuse me. Can I help you?”

Ben angled over to the desk. The woman’s nametag read SHEILA, RN.

“I’m Dr. Ben Corey. I’m here to see baby John Doe in room four-twenty-seven.”

“That’s nice,” Sheila said sincerely. She was a boxy woman with dark skin and 229

mid-length brown hair heavily streaked with blond. “I’m the charge nurse on the floor. We were hoping someone would be coming in. The little darling hasn’t said a peep. The word is that his parents were killed in a mass murder.”

“So far it appears only the mother was killed,” Ben said, hoping it would remain true. “The father is missing. How is he doing?”

“Fine, considering what he’s been through. He was dehydrated when he came into the ER, but that’s been rectified. His electrolytes are now normal, and he’s eating and drinking. But he’s so quiet and hardly moves. He just stares at you with these huge, dark eyes. I’d like to have him say something, even cry.”

“I want to take a peek at him.”

“I’m afraid we can’t allow that, but you can speak with the police officer who’s here to guard him.”

Ben did just that. After the guard looked at Ben’s ID and looked at a list of doctors who had access, he was reluctant to let Ben in until Ben suggested Detective Janow be called. That was all it took, and Ben was escorted in by Sheila.

As Sheila described, Shigeru was lying motionlessly on his back in the crib with his eyes wide open. His eyes followed Ben as he came alongside the crib.

“Hey, big guy!” Ben said as he reached out and gently pinched the child’s skin on his upper arm. After releasing it, Ben could see the skin immediately pop back into its original position, something that hadn’t happened when Ben had gotten him out to the Range Rover. It was a crude but reliable test for dehydration. “Are they treating you okay here?” Ben twisted around the IV bottle to see what he was getting.

“Okasan,” Shigeru said suddenly.

Ben and Sheila looked at each other in surprise.

“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.”

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“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.

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“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.”

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