Snapshot (31 page)

“Thelma Hodges is Emily Woodrow. Your Dr. Muir is holding her prisoner.”

“Oh, come on,” he said.

“She's probably drugged out of her mind.”

His hair was cut so short it barely moved when he shook his head. “I can't believe that.”

“Don't believe it,” I said. “Come
see
it.”

“Try me in the morning. After you get a good night's sleep.”

I crossed the rug, so that only the width of the desk separated us. “This nurse you just talked to, Donovan—she doesn't exactly sound like the soul of discretion.”

“Ava? She'll talk your ear off. You heard.”

“Think she's gonna keep quiet about your call? Think she's not curious about why a psychiatrist's interested in Dr. Muir's sick niece? She's probably checking to see if Muir's on duty right now.”

“It was Dr. Muir who recommended me, who brought me into this,” Donovan protested. “To help Emily.”

“And why didn't you tell me that before?”

Donovan lowered his eyes as if he were studying the grain of the desk. “He asked me to keep it confidential. He has other therapists he generally recommends. He didn't want them to feel that he was planning any major changes … didn't want them to feel threatened.”

“So he doesn't normally refer patients your way?”

“She's actually the first. I'd hoped—”

“He chose you because you're inexperienced, Donovan. Or else to help him keep an eye on her. Was that part of the deal? Did you report to him?”

The therapist hesitated. “He asked about her occasionally.”

“Did you tell him Emily had hired me?”

“No,” he said. “You were essentially Emily's own idea. And I wasn't sure he'd approve.”

“He's got her,” I said. “He's holding her against her will.”

“Why on earth would he? You wake me up in the middle of the night to tell me a—some kind of Gothic horror story! What? Do you think the man's suddenly gone mad? Do you imagine he keeps some kind of captive harem in the middle of a respectable hospital?”

I paced, pressing the heels of my hands against my temples. I could feel my pulse pounding. “Okay, try this,” I said. “Come back to my house. There's a guy passed out in my living room.”

“That's not my problem,” he said angrily.

I softened my voice. “The man's name is Tony Foley. He lived with Tina Sukhia; they were engaged. He's drunk. Wake him and he'll tell you. And I can show you.”

“Show me what?”

“Pictures of a bottling plant used to manufacture phony chemotherapy drugs.”

He shook his head again, lifted a hand to the back of his neck.

I wanted to grab his arm, force him to move. I made myself speak slowly, deliberately instead. “Someone's manufacturing phony Cephamycin right next door to JHHI. It killed Rebecca Woodrow and four other children. God knows how many other kids have been killed.”

“Others?”

“Tina Sukhia used the wrong Cephamycin. She grabbed a package meant for faraway places, far-away deaths. Deaths where the mortality statistics are so grim that a few more deaths wouldn't be noticed.”

Both of Donovan's hands were active now, kneading the muscles in his neck.

With effort, I kept my voice low. “Come with me. Talk to Tony. You're the one who told me you couldn't understand the relationship between Dr. Muir and Dr. Renzel. Well, here's a connection: they travel together, Chief of Staff and Chief of Pharmacy, to international conventions. They peddle phony drugs together, to backwater nations.”

“You're absolutely wrong.”

“Tina Sukhia didn't believe it. She's dead. Your hero's feet are not just made of clay, they're made of shit, and I can prove it.”

He didn't bother with slippers or an overcoat. If any of the neighbors peered out from behind their closed blinds, they must have raised their eyebrows at the sight of us hustling across the damp grass.

In my living room, Tony Foley snored loudly. A red light flashed on my answering machine.

“Even if we could wake him—” Donovan began distastefully.

I waved the
Globe
in his direction. “Here. Four years ago, the Cephagen Company voluntarily repackaged Cephamycin, at great expense, to come up with a tamper-proof package, a package sealed with a trademark hologram. Why?”

“Why? Because of Chicago and the Tylenol scare.”

“Cephamycin's not stocked on regular pharmacy shelves.”

“So?”

“They must have
had
a counterfeiting problem. Or anticipated one. Do you know how much a dose of Cephamycin costs?”

“No.”

“The
Globe
calls it extremely expensive.”

“Research costs run high,” he said.

“Hundreds of thousands?” I asked. “Millions?”

“Hundreds of millions,” Donovan said, “to get a new drug on the market. Years of research.”

“Could Cephamycin go for as much as a thousand dollars a dose?” I asked.

“I suppose it could. Maybe more.”

Tina had mentioned fifty-dose cartons. Fifty thousand dollars a pop, I thought. Enough for expansion, a new wing, a whole new sterile floor. “Look at this,” I said.

Donovan held the shiny paper gingerly between his index finger and thumb. I watched his expression shift while he read Tina Sukhia's appeal to the World Health Organization; he scanned it once, twice.

He lifted the silvery paper to the light, eyeing the three-dimensional
C'
s. “Was this enclosed with the letter?” he asked gravely. “Is this the genuine seal from a Cephamycin package?”

“I don't know for sure,” I said. “Emily Woodrow gave it to me, the morning you brought her over. When she said she'd lost her glove.”

“She didn't trust me.”

“You had ties to JHHI,” I said. “When I showed the hologram to Tony Foley, he swore it was the same as the one Tina'd enclosed in her letter.”

“He's drunk. He might say anything.”

“You want proof, help me load him into my car. The matching hologram should be at his place. You can see for yourself.”

Donovan sank into the chair near my desk, fingered the sash of his robe. “Once we've got that kind of evidence,” he said slowly, “we'd need to go to the authorities.”

“Yes,” I agreed. “Absolutely. The minute Emily Woodrow's out of that hospital.”

The red light on my message machine flashed accusingly. I punched the button, listened long enough to hear Mooney's voice. Hit “reset.”

I wouldn't call him back. I'd been a cop too long. I knew too much about bureaucratic delays and foul-ups. The police are a necessary force, not a perfect one. They're big and sloppy and secrets have a way of spreading like wildfire through the ranks.

You don't do brain surgery with a chain saw. It wasn't one of my grandmother's Yiddish maxims, but she would have agreed with the sentiment.

40

Cancers grow with no regard for the clock. Incisions heal and scar, babies wail indignant cries, and the elderly rattle their last breaths in their own due time. Hospitals know no night or day.

I fronted into a metered space scarcely a block from the hospital entrance. It was close to six
A.M
.

“I'm not sure we should do this,” Keith Donovan said.

I ignored him. It wasn't the first time he'd voiced his doubts.

“Go home,” I urged. “Walk. Take a cab.”

“You won't know how to take care of her.”

“I'm surrounded by hospitals. You did your part. I appreciate it. Now go home.”

“I can't.”

“Wait in the car, then. Can you drive?”

“Of course I can drive.”

“Give me five minutes, then move to a loading zone or a fire hydrant, something right in front of the ER. Keep the engine running.”

“I'm not afraid to go in.”

“Then quit stalling.”

Still harnessed by his safety belt, he stared at me searchingly.

Tina's white hospital smock was short and a trifle tight, but topping my own white pants, it looked okay. I hadn't bothered trying on any of her slacks when Donovan and I had deposited her drunken fiancé at the Buswell Street apartment. Donovan had helped me maneuver Foley's bulk into the tiny elevator, which had made lurching progess to the fourth floor. I doubted I could have handled Tony without him.

I'd certainly never have located the tiny but convincingly identical holographic seal without his help.

Donovan wore hospital greens, a relic of med school.

In addition to the smock, I'd taken a few props from Tina Sukhia's closet: a stethoscope, a clipboard, a flashlight more powerful than the one I normally keep in my handbag. A name tag hung from the pocket of the smock, but its photo ID was so small no one could distinguish Tina's dark smiling face from my own pale grim one. Not at a distance.

I'd yanked my hair back and up, wound it into a tight knot, and secured it with the dead woman's bobby pins, still scattered on a tray in the bathroom. I'd asked if I should bring the cap, but that was only for ceremony, Donovan said. For graduation photos.

A shaft of early sunlight pierced the windshield of my Toyota and scattered into dust motes.

“Please,” Donovan said. “Leave the gun in the car.”

“No,” I replied firmly.

He released his seat belt, opened the door, and I breathed again.

We entered through the swinging doors of the ER, two doctors—or a doctor and a nurse, depending on the viewer's assumptions—in earnest conversation, heads bent over a clipboard, reviewing vital charts. Donovan had suggested the ER approach. The general lobby, he'd declared, was the stronghold of security guards.

We walked through the electric-eye doors of the first available elevator with a purposeful stride. No one stopped us; I didn't expect to be stopped. A tiny elderly Indian woman joined us, smiling and nodding as if she'd smiled and nodded to us a hundred times before. It was probably a nervous tic, but it gave me confidence, made me feel like we'd get away with the charade.

“Fifth floor,” Donovan murmured, although my hand was already on the button.

“I know,” I said. “If this is too interventionist for you, you can peel off on two.”

“You'd get lost,” he said.

We slipped past the second floor, the third. The Indian woman got off on four.

“I hope there's a wheelchair up there,” I muttered.

“There's always a wheelchair. You bring one along, they'll wonder about you. Procedure.”

“That's why you're here,” I reminded him. “Just find the wheelchair, get the patient into it, and waltz,” I continued.

“I still think we ought to wait. There's more confusion during visiting hours—”

“Look, we've been through this. I want it done now, before the shift changes. If news of your phone call gets to Muir, Emily might disappear along with the next wave of personnel. New name, new location, or worse. Tell you the truth, Donovan, the main thing I can't figure is why she's still alive.”

“From the Alzheimer's and cancer diagnosis—the drugs indicated for that diagnosis—her memory may have been destroyed or altered in such a way that she could never be a credible witness,” he said.

I said, “Maybe you should have stayed in the car.”

The elevator slid to a stop. The doors opened.

“To the right,” Donovan said crisply. “Past two corridors, hang left. We'll circle behind the nurses' station. If they see us coming out of the room with her, they might assume we went through proper channels. Out is easier than in.”

We stopped at a utility closet, found and opened a lightweight chromium wheelchair.

“Good so far,” I told Donovan.

Room 508 displayed the name
HODGES
to the left of the door. A private room. Nothing but the best for Dr. Muir's niece.

The quiet hum of the place jangled my nerves. I pushed down on the lever and noiselessly swung the door of 508 inward. Donovan scooted the wheelchair inside. I joined him and flipped the light switch.

On the narrow bed, a woman slept, her mouth open, a faint snore emerging. A sour smell issued from the twisted sheets.

Her resemblance to the photos of the little dead girl was all that connected the sleeper to my memory of Emily Woodrow. Her matted blond hair showed dark roots. Her hands were ringless, the nail polish stripped. The area around her eyes seemed swollen and dark, her cheeks rough and large-pored. All her surface elegance was gone.

I glanced at Donovan to make sure. He nodded.

I shook her, murmuring “Shhhh.” She shifted, grunted in protest, but her eyes didn't open. Donovan lifted the chart at the end of the bed, studied it with pursed lips.

“What's she on?” I asked.

“I can hardly decipher a single word,” he said.

The door opened. “Excuse me. Is there a problem?”

The private duty nurse hadn't wandered far. Maybe to the nurses' station to chat. Probably just to the bathroom; she had a nervous, rabbity look about her. She seemed to expect to be scolded for leaving her charge.

“Nothing you need concern yourself with, Nurse,” Donovan snapped rudely. “Mrs. Hodges is taking a ride down to, uh, Radiology. Help me disconnect her from this monitor.”

The nurse blinked pale lashes. “How long will she be gone?”

“Twenty minutes, half an hour. I'll have an orderly wheel her back up.”

“Radiology?” She pressed her lips together firmly to keep them from shaking. “No one mentioned anything about Radiology.”

Donovan said, “What's your name, Nurse?”

“Helen Robins. Sir.”

“Helen. Make sure the IV line's secure.”

She came, cowed by his arrogance. I briefly considered knocking her on the head, gagging her, dumping her in the bed. She seemed so harmless that I wavered, and then she was back near the door.