Informed Consent (12 page)

G
reta didn’t want
to be crass, but she couldn’t help wishing Mrs. Chevitz would hurry up and die already. The woman was just lingering at this point.

She checked her watch. It was nearly four in the afternoon, almost a full day after Adina Chevitz’s family arrived to say their goodbyes. She put her container of soup in the microwave and pressed the button to heat it. Just as she was thinking that she ought to call over to the lab and send poor Mikki home until further notice, the door to the physician’s lounge swung open.

She glanced up, expecting to see Athena or one of the staff coming in to take a late lunch or early dinner break. Instead, Naya Andrews, the African-American attorney, stood in the doorway smiling right at her. Greta instinctively stiffened.

“Can I help you?”

“You absolutely can,” Naya answered in a gleeful tone. She took three quick strides and quickly crossed the room. “This is for you.” She pressed a manila envelope into Greta’s hand. “I can’t believe I finally get to say this in real life. You’ve been served.”

Greta stared blankly at her for several beats before she turned her gaze down to the envelope she was now holding. “I … don’t understand.”

“Right. I bet you don’t. That’s okay; let me make it crystal clear so there’s no confusion. Today, Adina Chevitz filed a motion for an emergency temporary restraining order against you.”

“Against me?” Greta’s legs started to buckle and she leaned against the refrigerator for support. “There must be some sort of mistake.”

“There’s no mistake. United States District Judge Pamela Nolan granted the order less than an hour ago. Her order, as issued, enjoins you from interfering in any way with the prompt burial of her body in compliance with Jewish law; specifically, you are forbidden to cause any part of her body, including, but not limited to, her brain tissue to be autopsied, biopsied, or sampled or to in any way desecrate her corpse. Any attempt on your part to do so—or to otherwise go against Mrs. Chevitz’s religious beliefs and stated wishes—will be a violation of a federal court order.” The woman rattled off the legalese from memory and with evident relish.

“She enrolled in the study,” Greta said weakly, as the prospect of moving forward—which had been so close, so real—evaporated.

“That’s right. She enrolled in a study that entailed giving periodic blood samples while alive. That doesn’t conflict with her religious beliefs. A post-mortem brain tissue slice would. I’m going to leave a copy of the order at the front desk and advise the staff as to its contents. If Mrs. Chevitz should happen to die this weekend, they will be instructed to turn her body over as quickly as practical to the Jewish burial society with which her family contracted. We’re serving the university, too, but the legal department is unlikely to look at the order before Monday. If I were you, I’d get in touch with your boss right now and explain the situation because the judge is likely to hold a hearing first thing Monday. That’s a little piece of free advice from me to you.”

Greta stared mutely at the woman. Her entire body had gone numb.

The attorney turned on her heel and walked out of the room.

After several moments, Greta fumbled in her pocket and took out her phone. The Andrews woman was right, she should call her boss. But her finger hesitated over the contact card for Virgil Buxton. Instead, she pressed it down on a different contact entry.

“The Alpha Fund,” an unaccented female voice answered in a bored tone.

“This is Dr. Greta Allstrom. I have … a problem.”

S
asha was brewing
coffee when she heard a soft tapping at the front door.

“I’ll get it,” Connelly called from the front of the house.

A moment later, she heard Naya’s greeting and then the low murmur of voices as Connelly no doubt confirmed Naya’s hunch that the twins were sleeping soundly upstairs. The pair came into the kitchen as she was stretched up on her tiptoes trying to reach the largest of the oversized coffee mugs.

She turned and shot her husband a look. “You must have unloaded the dishwasher last. I can’t reach them.” She harbored a growing suspicion that he intentionally put items out of her reach for his own amusement.

“Let me get those for you, short stuff. You want some coffee, Naya?”

“I believe I do.”

Sasha raised a brow at that. Naya rarely drank caffeine this late in the day. “Are you about to crash?”

“I think so. My adrenaline was really pumping, but as soon as I served Dr. Allstrom, I got so sleepy.”

“Makes sense. Have a seat and tell me all about it. Was she furious?”

Naya let herself fall into one of the kitchen chairs. “No, more like stunned.”

Connelly took three mugs down and started pouring coffee into them while Sasha joined Naya at the table. “Did you tell Dr. Kayser he could go home?” she asked.

Naya shook her head. “He actually can’t. It’s still
Shabbat
until sundown. If Mrs. Chevitz dies, he’s going to have to make the arrangements for the family. They can’t do any work on their Sabbath.”

“Surely there’s an exception for handling a death.”

“You’d think so, wouldn’t you? The fact that this all went down on
Shabbat
really complicated things.” She reached up and took the coffee mug from Connelly’s hands.

Sasha shared her eagerness. “Thanks, babe,” she said, taking her own steaming mug from her husband. “What things?” she asked Naya.

“All the things. Like, for instance, at first Mrs. Chevitz’s son said she couldn’t possibly sign her affidavit because writing is work.”

“How’d you get around that one?”

Naya took a sip of the hot coffee before responding. “It took a while. Dr. Kayser and I tried to convince the children that Jewish law would have to make an exception in this instance, but they wouldn’t budge. I was beginning to think I was going to have to file it unsigned with an explanatory footnote and hope she lived past the Sabbath so she could sign it and I could update the filing.”

Sasha grimaced. “Ugh.”

“I know, right? But, Adina Chevitz woke up in the middle of all the handwringing and asked what was going on.” Naya chuckled. “She’s sharp as a tack, by the way. She said ‘give me the blasted papers.’ She read the affidavit, twice, carefully and then signed it with her left hand.”

Connelly, who’d been rummaging in the refrigerator, came over to the table bearing a plate of cheese, olives, and nuts. “Here. Nibble. You two are going to need protein if you’re working through the night, which I suspect you are. But what’s the significance of signing left handed?”

“Apparently, there are all these exceptions for a woman who goes into labor on the Sabbath. Mrs. Chevitz’s fourth child was born around midnight on a Friday and she signed her admission forms to the labor and delivery unit in 1956 with her non-dominant hand on the advice of her then-rabbi. She declared that an exception that applied to entering the world ought to apply to exiting it. And that was that.”

“Thank goodness.” Sasha picked up a handful of nuts and turned to smile at Connelly. “Thanks for the snacks.”

“You’re welcome. Are you two planning to go into the office or are you going to work here?”

“I think we have everything we need to do it from here, and it’ll be more comfortable,” she answered.

“Okay, in that case, I have to run an errand. I’ll be back in a bit.” He leaned down, kissed her forehead, and then walked out of the kitchen before she could ask any questions about his errand.

“What was that all about?” Naya asked, popping an olive into her mouth.

Probably Doug Wynn
, Sasha thought.

“I’m not sure,” she said.

H
ank looked as tired
as Leo felt. So tired, that he regretted showing up unannounced at his boss’s home on a Saturday night.

“If this isn’t a good time—” he began, but Hank waved the rest of the sentence away.

“I could use some adult conversation. Want a beer?”

“Definitely.”

“Come on, then. I’ll get us some cold ones and we can sit out back on the deck. That way you can fill me in on your trip up north without us having to worry about waking the kids.” Hank led him through the first floor to the kitchen in the back of the house.

“The big ones can’t be sleeping already,” Leo remarked. The six children who Hank had adopted ranged in age from five to eighteen

“No, they’re not. Cole is out with his friends, and the middle two are streaming a movie. But the little ones are sleeping. Let’s keep it that way.” He reached into the refrigerator and pulled out two bottles. He twisted the cap off one, passed it to Leo, opened his own, and then headed for the back deck.

Leo followed, making sure the screen door didn’t bang shut behind him.

“So,” Hank asked as he took a seat at the patio table, “was the visit to Wynn fruitful? Does he actually know anything about your father?”

“You could say that.” Leo pulled out the chair across from Hank and lowered himself into it. “Whatever else he is, though, Doug Wynn’s not former law enforcement.” He leaned back and let the bracing night air flow over the day’s growth on his chin. The effect was the same as taking a power nap. Instant energy.

“You sure about that? Nobody but a spook would have a completely blank slate.”

“I’m positive. And that’s not entirely true,” Leo countered.

“For example?”

“Your slumbering angels, for one, would turn up as blanks in a search.”

“You think he’s in witness protection?” Hank cocked his head. He’d adopted the Bennett children after their mother had been murdered despite being enrolled in the federal witness protection program.

“Maybe. He’s definitely opposed to folks dropping by uninvited.”

“What makes you say that?”

Leo took a long pull on his bottle before answering. He savored the icy liquid’s journey down his throat. Then he said, “For starters, the
punji
pit in his backyard.”

Hank’s bottle hit the glass-topped table with a thud. “A
punji
pit. You’re serious, aren’t you?”

“As cancer.” He laughed darkly. “Which, by the way, he has.”

“Who? Wynn or your dad?”

“Wynn is my dad.” Leo couldn’t tell if Hank was speechless or just searching for words that weren’t profane. He’d been on a no-swearing kick because the two youngest Bennetts had been parroting some colorful phrases. Either way, after listening to the crickets singing in the bushes for nearly a full minute, he decided to plow ahead with the rest of the story. “His real name is Duc Nguyen, and he’s dying of liver cancer.”

“Man. Talk about a gut punch,” Hank managed. His face sagged, as if it had absorbed the sadness of the news.

“Oh, there’s more. I can save him.”

“What? How?”

“He wants me to become a living liver donor. The doctors will remove a portion of my liver and transplant it to him.”

By the dim glow of the light filtering through the kitchen window, he saw Hank’s eyes widen. “Then what?”

“Then, both halves regenerate. Apparently, I’m back to normal in no time, and he recovers, too.”

“Are you considering doing it?”

There it was. The money question. “Am I considering it? Yeah, I’m thinking about it. But I need to research the transplant procedure, talk to some experts. And I’d like to see if I can’t learn a bit more about Duc Nguyen first, now that we have a real name.”

“You think he’s hiding something? Plenty of folks Americanize their names.” Hank narrowed his eyes and studied Leo’s face.

“Sure, lots of people do that. Not a lot of people have ambushes set up around their homes. Not a lot of people come up as blanks in
your
search results. Not a lot of people pay cash for their houses. I’d wager very few people do all of them.”

“I get it, smart ass,” Hank conceded. “You think he’s hiding from someone?”

“Yeah. He’s living in an extremely remote location, on a hard-to-access island. The house has a million-dollar view of Somes Sound and the mountains in Acadia National Park but it’s completely screened by trees. Then there’s the cloak-and-dagger way he contacted me. There’s something going on there.”

“Maybe he’s former Viet Cong?”

Leo shook his head. “No. My mom was clear about that much: he was a South Vietnamese civilian. But he puts off … a vibe. My gut says he got mixed up in something when he came here.”

“Any idea when that was?”

“According to him, he was already in the United States when I took my trip over there looking for him. That was in ‘85. So, before then.” Leo raised his bottle to his lips and was surprised to find that it was empty. He returned it to the table.

“You want another?”

“No, thanks. There’s something else.”

“Let’s hear it.”

“There was a Honda Civic in his shed. He lent it to me to drive back down to the town and told me to leave it in the ferry parking lot. I didn’t think much of it, but Sasha saw a poster about a missing car. And apparently, unrelatedly, there’s a missing kid from New York last seen on the island. The guy’s description matched the messenger who showed up at my house last week.”

Hank rubbed his temple as if the conversation was giving him a headache. “You think he literally killed the messenger?”

“All I know is there’s a missing guy. And Wynn may have had me move a car that could be tied to a crime off his property. I hate to ask you to go back to the well, but can you run him again? I’m going to work some other angles, but you have better access than I do to the official channels.”

“Of course I’ll put him through the databases and see what pops. But you be careful freelancing. If he is a bad dude, you don’t know what kind of viper’s nest you might disturb if you go poking around.” Hank’s forehead creased with worry.

“I know.” Leo stood. “I should get going. Thank you.”

Hank got to his feet. “Any time. You know, it sounds like one heck of a crap storm just blew into your life. But, hey, you found your father. That’s something good.”

Leo opened his mouth to explain that the man who’d sired him had no intention of playing a father role, even if he did decide to donate part of his liver. But it was late, he was tired, and, to be honest, he didn’t feel like unpacking his feelings. So he clamped his mouth shut and nodded.