Harmful Intent (14 page)

“And if I do turn myself in, won't the court be likely to deny bail entirely?”

“Jeffrey, you have no choice. In light of your attempt to flee the country, you haven't exactly done much to encourage its trust.”

Randolph started to say more, but Jeffrey cut him off. “I'm sorry, but I'm not prepared to go to jail. Under any circumstances. Please do whatever you can from your end. I'll get back to you.” Jeffrey slammed the receiver down. He couldn't blame Randolph for the advice he had given. In some respects it was just like medicine: sometimes the patient just didn't want to hear the doctor's proposed therapy.

With his hand still resting on the receiver, Jeffrey turned back into the reception area to see if anyone had overheard his conversation. The young miniskirted girl and her john had disappeared upstairs, and the clerk was again glued to his tiny TV set. Another man, who looked to be in his seventies, had appeared and was sitting on the tattered couch, thumbing through a magazine.

Dropping another coin into the phone, Jeffrey called home.

“Where are you?” Carol demanded as soon as Jeffrey muttered a dull hello.

“I'm in Boston,” he told her. He wasn't about to tell her anything more specific, but he felt he owed her that much. He knew she would be furious that he had left without a word, but he wanted to warn her in case Devlin headed back. And he wanted her to pick up the car. Beyond that, he didn't expect anything along the lines of sympathy. An earful of fury was what he got.

“Why didn't you tell me you were leaving the house?” Carol snarled. “Here I've been patient, standing by you all these months, and this is the thanks I get. I looked all over the house before I realized your car was gone.”

“It's the car I need to talk to you about,” Jeffrey said.

“I'm not interested in your car,” Carol snapped.

“Carol, listen to me!” Jeffrey yelled. When he heard that she was going to give him a chance to speak, he lowered his voice,
cupping a hand around the receiver. “My car is at the airport at central parking. The ticket stub is in the ashtray.”

“Are you planning on forfeiting bail?” Carol asked incredulously. “We'll lose the house! I signed that lien in good faith . . .”

“There are some things more important than the house!” Jeffrey snapped in spite of himself. He lowered his voice again. “Besides, the house on the Cape has no mortgage. You can have that if money's your worry.”

“You still haven't answered me,” Carol said. “Are you planning to forfeit the bail?”

“I don't know,” Jeffrey sighed. He really didn't. It was the truth. He still hadn't had time to think things through. “Look, the car's there on the second level. If you want it, fine. If not, that's fine too.”

“I want to talk to you about our divorce,” Carol said. “It's been on hold long enough. As much as I sympathize with your problems, and I do, I have to get on with my life.”

“I'll have to get back to you,” Jeffrey said irritably. Then he hung up on her as well.

He shook his head sadly. He couldn't even remember a time when there had been warmth between Carol and him. Dying relationships were so ugly. Here he was on the run and all she could worry about was property and the divorce. Well, she had her life to get on with, he supposed. One way or the other, it wouldn't be much longer. She'd be rid of him for good.

He looked at the phone. What he wanted to do was call Kelly. But what would he say? Would he admit to having tried to flee and failed? Jeffrey was filled with indecision and confusion.

Picking up his briefcase, he strode across the lobby, consciously avoiding looking at the two men.

Feeling even more alone than he had before, he climbed the four flights of twisting, filthy stairs, and returned to his depressing room. He stood at the window, bathed in the red neon glow, wondering what he should do. Oh, how he wanted to call Kelly, but he couldn't. He was too embarrassed. Stepping over to the bed, he wondered if he could sleep. He had to do something. He eyed his briefcase.

The only light in the room came from the television set. A forty-five-caliber pistol and a half-dozen vials of Marcaine on a bureau by the TV glimmered in the soft light. On the screen, three Jamaican men stood in a cramped hotel room and all three were visibly edgy. Each one was carrying an AK-47 assault rifle. The burliest of the three kept glancing at his watch. Perspiration stood on their foreheads. The obvious tension of the Jamaicans stood in sharp contrast to the sonorous reggae rhythm that pealed from a radio on the nightstand. Then the door burst open.

Crockett entered first, clutching a nine-millimeter automatic with the barrel pointed to the ceiling. With one swift, catlike move, he put the barrel against the first Jamaican's chest and pumped one silent, deadly bullet into him. Crockett had his second bullet into the second man by the time Tubbs cleared the doorway in time to take care of the third. It was all over in the blink of an eye.

Crockett shook his head. He was dressed in his usual: an expensive linen jacket by Armani over a casual cotton T-shirt. “Good timing, Tubbs,” he said. “I would have had trouble nailing the third dude.”

As the closing credits came onto the TV screen, Trent Harding high-fived an imaginary companion. “All
right!
” he exclaimed in triumph. TV violence had a stimulating effect on Trent. It charged him with aggressive energy that demanded expression. He lived to picture himself pumping bullets into chests the way Don Johnson did so regularly. Sometimes Trent thought he should have gone into law enforcement. If only he'd elected to join the military police when he enlisted in the Navy. Instead, Trent had decided to become a Navy corpsman. He'd liked it okay. It had been a challenge and he'd learned some
far-out stuff. He'd never thought about being a corpsman before going into the Navy. The first time he thought of it had been when he'd heard a talk during basic training. He found the idea of performing physicals oddly appealing, and he liked the idea of guys coming to him for help so that he could tell them what to do.

Trent got up from the living room couch and walked into his kitchen. It was a comfortable apartment with one bedroom and two baths. Trent could afford better, but he liked it fine where he was. He lived on the top floor of a five-story building on the back side of Beacon Hill. The bedroom and the living room windows looked out onto Garden Street. The kitchen and the larger of the two bathrooms faced an inner courtyard.

Pulling an Amstel Light from the refrigerator, Trent popped the top and took a long, satisfying gulp. He thought the beer might calm him down some. He was anxious and edgy from the hour of
Miami Vice.
Even reruns got him riled up enough to want to hit one of the local bars to see if he could scare up some trouble. He could usually find a homo or two along Cambridge Street to rough up.

Trent looked like a man who was looking for trouble. He also looked like he'd found it more than a couple of times. A stocky, muscular man of twenty-eight, Trent wore his bleach-blond hair in the severe, flat-topped hairstyle popularly known as a fade. His eyes were a piercing crystal blue. He had a scar below his left eye that ran back to his ear. He'd gotten it from being on the wrong end of a broken beer bottle in a barroom scuffle in San Diego. It had taken a few stitches but the other guy had had to have his entire face rearranged. The guy had made the mistake of telling Trent that he thought he had a cute ass. Trent still got hot every time he thought of the episode. What a creep, that goddamned fag.

Trent went back to his bedroom and set his beer down on top of the TV. He picked up the military-issue .45 pistol that he'd “cumshawed” from a Marine for amphetamines. It felt comfortable in his large hand. Gripping the pistol with both hands, Trent leveled the barrel straight at the TV screen with arms stiff and elbows locked. He spun around to point the gun out the open window.

Across the street a woman was opening her bedroom window. “Tough luck, baby,” Trent whispered. He aimed the pistol carefully, lowering the barrel until the front and rear sights lined
up perfectly, targeting the woman's torso. Slowly, deliberately, Trent pulled the cold steel of the trigger.

As the firing mechanism clicked, Trent called out “Pow!” as he pretended the gun kicked in the air from its recoil. He smiled. He could have drilled the woman if he'd put in the clip. In his mind's eye he saw her hurled back into her apartment, a neat hole through her chest and blood squirting out.

Laying the pistol on the TV next to his beer bottle, Trent grabbed one of the vials of Marcaine from the bureau. Tossing it in the air, he caught it with his other hand behind his back. He calmly sauntered back to the kitchen to retrieve the necessary paraphernalia from its hiding place.

First he had to remove the glasses from the shelf of one of his kitchen cabinets next to the refrigerator. Then he gently lifted the plywood square that led to his secret cache: a small vault of space between the cabinet's back and the exterior wall. Trent brought out a single vial filled with yellow fluid and an array of 18-gauge syringes. He'd picked up the vial from a Colombian in Miami. The syringes easily came into his possession through his hospital job. He carried both vials and the syringes back to his bedroom along with a propane torch he kept under the kitchen sink.

Trent reached for his bottle and took another swig of beer. He set the propane torch on a small tripod he kept folded under his bed. Taking a cigarette from the pack by the television set, he lit it with a match.

Trent took a long drag, then lit the propane torch with the cigarette. Next, he took one of the 18-gauge needles. After drawing up a tiny amount of the yellow fluid, he heated the tip of the needle until it glowed red hot. Keeping the needle in the flame, he picked up the vial of Marcaine and heated its top until it too started to become red. With deft, practiced moves, he pushed the hot needle through the molten glass and deposited a drop of the yellow fluid. Next was the trickiest part. After disposing of the needle, Trent began to twirl the vial, slipping it back into the hottest part of the flame. He kept it there for a few seconds, long enough for the puncture site to fuse closed.

He continued to twirl the vial even after he pulled it from the flame. He didn't stop until the glass had cooled considerably.

“Shit!” Trent said as he watched the very end of the vial suddenly dimple into an unwanted depression. Though virtually unnoticeable, Trent couldn't risk the blemish. If someone was careful enough to notice, they'd discard the vial as a defect. Or
worse, someone on the ball might get suspicious. Disgusted, Trent tossed the vial into the trash.

“Dammit,” he thought as he grabbed another vial of Marcaine. He'd have to try again. As he repeated the process, he became more and more intense, angrily cursing when even the third attempt ended in failure. Finally, on the fourth try, the puncture site sealed properly; the curved tip maintained its smooth hemispherical contour.

Holding the ampule up to the light, he inspected it carefully. It was close to perfect. He could still tell that the tube had been punctured, but he had to look carefully. He thought it might have been the best one he'd ever done. It gave him great satisfaction to have mastered such a difficult process. When he'd first thought of it a number of years ago, he'd had no idea if it would work. It used to take him hours to do what he could now do in minutes.

Once he had accomplished what he'd set out to do, Trent returned the vial of yellow fluid, the .45 pistol, and the remaining vials of Marcaine to the hiding place. He replaced the false back of the cabinet and put the glasses back.

Picking up the doctored Marcaine vial, he gave it a good shake. The drop of yellow fluid had long since dissolved. He turned the ampule upside down, checking to see if there was a leak. But the puncture site was as he expected it to be: airtight.

Trent gleefully considered the effect his vial would soon have in St. Joseph's OR. He thought particularly about the high-and-mighty doctors, the havoc he would wreak in that lofty quarter. In his wildest dreams, Trent couldn't have settled on a better career.

Trent hated doctors. They always acted as if they knew everything, when in reality many didn't know their ass from a hole in the wall, especially in the Navy. Most of the time Trent knew twice as much as the doctor did, yet he had to do their bidding. In particular, Trent loathed that true pig of a Navy doctor who'd turned him in for pocketing a few amphetamines. What a hypocrite. Everybody knew the doctors had been making off with drugs and instruments and all sorts of other loot for years. Then there was that real pervert doctor who complained to Trent's commanding officer about Trent's alleged homosexual behavior. That had been the straw that broke the camel's back. Instead of going through some stupid court-martial or whatever the hell they were planning to do, Trent had resigned.

At least by the time he got out, he was properly trained. He
had no trouble getting nursing jobs. With nursing shortages widespread, he found he could work anywhere he pleased. Every hospital wanted him, especially since he liked working in the OR and had experience in that area from his stint in the Navy.

The only trouble with working in a civilian hospital, aside from the doctors, was the rest of the nursing staff. Some of them were as bad as the doctors, particularly the supervisors. They were always trying to tell him something he already knew. But Trent didn't find them as irritating as the doctors. After all, it was the doctors who conspired to limit the autonomy Trent had had to practice routine medicine in the Navy.

Trent put the doctored ampule of Marcaine in the pocket of his white hospital coat, which hung in the front closet. Thinking about doctors reminded him of Dr. Doherty. He clenched his teeth at the thought of the man. But it wasn't enough. Trent couldn't contain himself. He slammed the closet door with such force it seemed to jar the whole building. Just that day, Doherty, one of the anesthesiologists, had had the nerve to criticize Trent in front of several nurses. Doherty had chastised him for what he referred to as sloppy sterile technique. And this was coming from the moron who didn't put on his scrub hat or surgical mask properly! Half the time Doherty didn't even have his nose covered. Trent was enraged.

“I hope Doherty gets the vial,” Trent snarled. Unfortunately, there wasn't any way he could ensure Doherty's getting it. The chances were about one in twenty unless he waited until Doherty was scheduled for an epidural. “Ah, who cares,” Trent said with a wave of dismissal. It would be entertaining no matter who got the vial.

 

Although Jeffrey's new fugitive status heightened his indecision and confusion, he no longer had the slightest inclination toward suicide. He didn't know if he was acting courageously or cowardly, but he wasn't about to agonize further. Yet with all that had happened, he was understandably concerned about the possibility of a new round of depression. Thinking it better to throw temptation away, he took the step of getting the morphine vial from the briefcase, popping its lid, and flushing the contents down the toilet.

Having at least made a decision about one issue, Jeffrey felt slightly more in control. To make himself feel even more organized, he occupied himself by rearranging the contents of his briefcase. He stacked the money carefully, in the base, covering
it with the underwear. He then rearranged the contents of the accordion-style file area under the lid to make room for Chris Everson's notes. Turning his attention to the notes, he organized them according to size. Some of them were on Chris's notepaper, which had
From the Desk of Christopher Everson
printed on top. Others were written on sheets of yellow legal paper.

Jeffrey began to scan the notes, almost without meaning to. He was glad for anything that took his mind away from his current predicament. Henry Noble's case history was especially fascinating the second time around. Once again, Jeffrey was struck by the similarities between Chris's unhappy experience with the man and his own with Patty Owen, particularly with respect to each patient's initial symptoms. The major difference between the two cases was that Patty's had been more fulminating and overwhelming. Since Marcaine had been involved in both cases, the fact that the symptoms were similar was not surprising. What seemed extraordinary was that in both situations the initial symptoms were not what was expected in an adverse reaction to a local anesthetic.

Having been a practicing anesthesiologist for some years, Jeffrey was familiar with the kinds of symptoms that could occur when a patient had an adverse reaction to a local anesthetic. Trouble invariably arose due to an overdose reaching the bloodstream, where it could affect either the heart or the nervous system. Considering the nervous system, it was usually the central or the autonomic system that caused problems, either through stimulation or depression, or a combination of the two.

All this covered a lot of territory, but of all the reactions Jeffrey had studied, heard about, or witnessed, none had been anything like Patty Owen's, not with the excessive salivation, the tearing, the sudden perspiration, the abdominal pain, and the constricted, or miotic, pupils. Some of these responses might occur in an allergic reaction, but not from an overdose, and Jeffrey had reason to believe that Patty Owen had not been allergic to Marcaine.

Obviously, to judge by his notes, Chris Everson had been comparably troubled. Chris noted that Henry Noble's symptoms were more muscarinic than anything else, meaning the kind that were expected when parts of the parasympathetic nervous system were stimulated. They were called muscarinic because they mirrored the effect of a drug called muscarine, which came from a type of mushroom. But parasympathetic stimulation was not
expected with a local anesthetic like Marcaine. If not, then why the muscarine symptoms? It was puzzling.

Jeffrey closed his eyes. It was all very complicated, and, unfortunately, although he knew the basics, much of the physiological details were not fresh in his mind. But he remembered enough to know that the sympathetic division of the autonomic nervous system was the part affected by local anesthetics, not the parasympathetic part apparently affected in the Noble and Owen cases. There was no immediate explanation for it.