Fatal Care (27 page)

Nancy was glancing nervously over her shoulder. Brennerman and the detective were slowly making their way across the laboratory.

Joanna said quickly, “Nancy, I’d like to talk with you some more, but away from here. Would that be possible?”

“Sure.”

“Do you live close by here?”

“Not too far. My house is in Canyon Country.”

Joanna wrote down the address. Canyon Country was a pleasant middle-class neighborhood that was located south of Lancaster. “Why don’t we do lunch? That way you can teach me all about the enzyme preparation and the hot zone laboratory. And we’ll bill Memorial Hospital for it.”

“Sounds good,” Nancy said as if she meant it. “Let me jot down my phone number for you.”

“Well, thanks for your help,” Joanna said, loud enough for the approaching Eric Brennerman to hear. She placed the file cards back into her purse and stood.

“Did Nancy clear up the benzyl alcohol business for you?” Brennerman asked.

“She certainly did,” Joanna answered. “It was exactly as you said. There was some concern that alcohol might interfere with the enzyme’s activity.”

“And the preparation was purified by ultrafiltration,” Brennerman added. “Right, Nancy?”

Nancy nodded. “Correct. There were no contaminants present and no preservative was used.”

Brennerman turned to Joanna. “If you’d like more of that particular batch of enzyme to test in your laboratory, we’ll be glad to provide it.”

“Please do,” Joanna said, picking up her purse. “I don’t want to miss anything here.”

Brennerman escorted them across the laboratory and past the glass cubicles where a security guard was waiting. The guard was holding two small boxes of microscopic slides.

“I almost forgot,” Brennerman said, snapping his fingers. “We found two more boxes of slides on the experimental animals that were injected with the enzyme. I guess Mirren must have overlooked them.”

Joanna took the slide boxes and placed them in her oversize purse, wondering what else Alex Mirren might have conveniently overlooked.

“If there’s anything else we can do,” Brennerman continued, “just let us know. We want to get to the bottom of this disaster every bit as much as you do. And if there are any new developments, we’d appreciate hearing about them as quickly as possible.”

“You’ll be one of the first to know.”

Joanna and Jake followed the guard down the narrow corridor to the reception area where they returned their visitor’s cards. Then they walked out into a cool, overcast day.

“Did you learn anything?” Jake asked.

“Nothing that we didn’t already know,” Joanna replied. “She admitted she was sleeping with him.”

“Did he try any kinky stuff on her?”

“Once, but she didn’t go for it. She ran like hell and never came back.”

“Smart girl.”

The wind kicked up, blowing sand directly at them. Joanna turned and waited for it to die down. “If Nancy wanted to, she could sue Bio-Med for millions for sexual harassment.”

“He was that big of a bastard, huh?”

“More than you’ll ever know,” Joanna said. “But that doesn’t bring us any closer to finding out who killed him. All we seem to be doing is running into one frustration after another with no real answers. And my investigation into the cases of cancer caused by that damn enzyme isn’t going any better.”

“No luck at all?”

“Not even a hint,” Joanna said wearily. “You know, Jake, for once I really feel overwhelmed. It’s like I’ve got way too much on my plate.”

“Then take a break and step back.”

“That’s what I plan to do,” Joanna said, nodding to herself. “But only for a night. Tonight I’m going to busy myself in the kitchen, making veal marsala and a spinach soufflé. With maybe a nice red wine to wash it down. Are you interested?”

“Oh, Lord! I wish I could,” Jake said. “But I’ve got police business tonight. Can I take a rain check?”

“I’ll think about it,” Joanna said, and gave him a playful elbow in the side.

They moved across the asphalt parking lot, heading for their car. Both kept their eyes on the ground, looking for any creatures that might have crawled in from the desert during the night. In her peripheral vision, Joanna saw a truck parked at the rear of the Bio-Med plant. Again she noticed there was no loading dock or road along the side of the building.

Joanna pointed at the side of the building. “Why would they have a delivery area with no road leading up to it?”

Jake studied the area briefly. “I’d guess for security,” he said. “When you’re going through sandy ground, vehicles can’t go very fast. Nor could a person on foot, for that matter.”

“In some ways this factory resembles a fortress, doesn’t it?”

Jake nodded. “Like I said before, it’s the perfect place to build a prison.”

They hurried to their car as the wind kicked up again.

Lucy Rabb and Mervin Tuch were locked in a tight embrace. They were humping each other so hard that the bed almost came out of the bolts that secured it to the floor. Tuch’s body suddenly stiffened.

“Oh, Jesus! Oh, Jesus!” he groaned over and over again.

“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Lucy rose to meet him, arching her body acutely.

They fell together in a heap, breathing hard, still embracing. Outside they could hear seagulls squawking overhead and small waves rocking gently against the side of the
Argonaut
. A cool breeze came in through the open porthole.

“It doesn’t get any better than this,” Tuch gasped, catching his breath.

“I hope not.” Lucy sighed deeply and moved from under him. “I don’t know if I could stand it if it got any better.”

“You’d stand it,” Tuch chuckled.

“Damn right I would!”

Tuch swung his legs over the side of the bed and reached for his cigarettes. He lit two, handing one of them to Lucy Rabb. “This is the life, isn’t it?”

“It’s perfect.”

“Not quite yet,” Tuch said, exhaling blue smoke. “It’ll be perfect when this mess is over and done with.”

“We’re almost there,” Lucy said, unconcerned.

“No, we’re not.” Tuch got up and put on a terry-cloth bathrobe. He looked down at his abdomen, where an obvious paunch was protruding. He sucked in his stomach. “We’re not out of this by a long shot.”

“I don’t know what you’re so worried about.”

“I’m worried about a detective who’s clever as hell. He knows your husband was murdered. And I can tell you that Sinclair is the type who won’t stop until he finds out who killed your husband, and why.”

Lucy shrugged. “He can try all he wants. All he’s got is some blonde he can’t identify.”

“And she was supposed to be such a pro,” Tuch spat out. “We were guaranteed Edmond’s death would look like an accident.”

“You were the one who hired her,” Lucy said.

“
We
hired her,” Tuch corrected her. “And it was your money that paid for it.”

“Do we get our money back, since the pro screwed up?”

Tuch stared at her in disbelief. Here was a woman soon to be worth millions, and she was grasping for a $15,000 refund. “Let it go,” he advised.

“Fifteen thousand is fifteen thousand,” Lucy snapped. “And I want it back.”

“Don’t be stupid,” Tuch retorted. “The smart move is to distance ourselves as far away from the killer as possible. All it takes is one mistake and we could spend the rest of our lives in prison.”

You mean
you
could spend the rest of
your
life in prison
, Lucy thought.
You were the one who set up the hit on my husband, and you were the one who paid for it with money from one of my husband’s accounts. And although you told me all the details—who, how, where, and how much—I’ll say I know nothing and swear to that with my right hand on a stack of Bibles. I was just the grieving widow who you took advantage of. Lawyers aren’t supposed to screw recently widowed women they represent
.

Tuch studied her expression, reminding himself that she was greedy and could be cold as ice when it came to money. “All I’m saying is that now is the time for you to be very careful.”

“And you should be careful, too,” Lucy said tonelessly.

“Oh, I plan to be.”

Tuch lit another cigarette and began pacing around the cabin. He glanced over at Lucy Rabb, who was lying nude on the king-size bed, her brunette hair swept over the side of her face. She was so beautiful and her body so perfect. And she could fuck a man to death and make him smile while she was doing it. But was she greedy! Just like most women, including his wife, who was fifty and plump and constantly bitching about her life.

Tuch felt a twinge of guilt as he thought about his wife, whom he’d married twenty-two years ago, and his two sons, who were doing so well in college. But soon he’d leave all that behind for a new life with Lucy Rabb—and her money. Oh, how much he needed the Rabb millions! Tuch was near bankruptcy from bad investments and stock market speculation. His house in Brentwood and his condominium in Palm Springs were heavily mortgaged. He had even borrowed the maximum against his pension plan. The only thing he had of value was his Bio-Med stock, and that hadn’t paid off a nickel. All profits were still being spent on expansion and new equipment. Tuch’s thoughts went back to the Rabb millions. Just thinking about them made him feel better.

Lucy watched the handsome lawyer pace around the cabin. He was so smart, she thought. But like a lot of smart men, he had a boring wife and a boring life and nothing to look forward to but more of the same. So damn smart, she thought again. And he fit so perfectly into her plans.

Tuch sat on the bed next to her and kissed her shoulder. “You’re beautiful.”

“I know,” she said, breathing in his ear.

Tuch felt himself stirring. “Are you ready for another round?”

“I think I could manage that,” Lucy said, and pulled him down on top of her.

Lori McKay looked up from her microscope. “Joanna, you won’t believe what you see when you look at this guy’s kidney.”

“Are you talking about the cancer?” Joanna asked.

Lori shook her head and moved aside to make room for Joanna. “I’m talking about the normal renal tissue next to it.”

Joanna peered through the microscope and carefully studied the kidney biopsy. She slowly moved the slide back and forth, seeing large clumps of bizarre, malignant cells. Adjacent to the cancer was normal renal tissue that looked surprisingly young. “How old was this patient?”

“Sixty.”

Joanna focused in on the glomeruli, the small cluster of capillaries through which the blood is filtered. They were fine and delicate with no evidence of atrophy or scarring. The renal tubules appeared equally healthy. “The normal part of this kidney looks as if it belonged to a teenager.”

“And it functioned like one, too,” Lori said. “He had a creatinine clearance rate of a hundred and forty cc’s a minute.”

Joanna leaned back. “It’s hard to believe this is all due to a procedure that unplugged his renal arteries.”

“I can’t think of another reason for it,” Lori said. “Can you?”

“Not offhand.” Joanna strummed her fingers against the countertop, trying to think through the problem. “Did this patient have a kidney biopsy before he received the lipolytic enzyme?”

Lori nodded. “Two years ago. It showed widespread atrophy and scarring, and his creatinine clearance was down to forty cc’s per minute. He was rapidly becoming a candidate for hemodialysis. Then he gets treated and ends up with super kidneys. It’s like the enzyme preparation brought about a miracle.”

“It also brought on cancer,” Joanna said, now thinking about the similarities in the three cases of cancer associated with the lipolytic enzyme. All had their arteries unblocked so that their organs suddenly received a markedly increased blood supply. And that would have resulted in more oxygen and nutrients flooding into the diseased organs. Those events would have surely improved organ function but wouldn’t have removed every sign of aging and disease. Nothing in modern medicine did that. But something here had. The heart, brain, and kidneys of these patients looked as if they belonged to teenagers.

“I’m so far behind on the experimental animal slides,” Lori complained, breaking into Joanna’s thoughts. “I’ve barely made a dent in them.”

“Same here,” Joanna said absently.

“And I haven’t even begun to study the fetal tissue slides.”

“I’ve looked at them. There’s really nothing there.”

And that was the absolute truth, Joanna told herself. The slides only revealed what they already knew. The fetuses had been eviscerated, and what was left behind showed no abnormalities or any clues as to where the fetuses had come from. There was no mutilation, just careful evisceration. Why? Why eviscerate? Why bury the remains? Why kill a Russian immigrant at the burial site? And why did the blond hitter who killed the Russian also kill Edmond Rabb and Alex Mirren?

More questions and more questions, Joanna thought wearily. And none being answered. It seemed as if the deeper she dug, the darker it became. She was getting nowhere, and it was taking up more and more of her time. And to make matters even worse, her workload at Memorial was now badly backed up.

Abruptly, Joanna pushed herself away from the desk. “That’s enough!”

“What?” Lori asked, startled.

“I said that’s enough for now,” Joanna repeated. “Let’s go home.”

Lori glanced up at the wall clock. It was 8:40. “My boyfriend is going to think something is strange when I come home this early.”

Joanna grabbed her coat and purse and took the elevator to the main floor. She hurried across the almost deserted lobby and went through sliding-glass doors into a cool, clear night. The moon was full, the stars around it twinkling in the black sky.

Near the front entrance to Memorial, Joanna saw a sport-utility vehicle pull up to the curb. She watched Elaine Dent, a pediatric cardiologist, peck her husband’s cheek and climb out on the passenger’s side of the front seat. In the back seat, twin boys were jumping around and waving to their mother. Joanna felt her biological clock ticking, and for the thousandth time wondered what life would be like with a husband and children.