“Was he killed the same way?” Laurie asked as she went through the folders until she came across Bruno’s.
“Same way,” Lou said. “Gangland-style execution. Shot in the back of the head from close range.”
“And with a small-caliber bullet,” Laurie added as she finished with Bruno’s folder and picked up the phone. She dialed the morgue. When someone answered, she asked for Vinnie.
“Are we together again today?” Laurie asked.
“You’re stuck with me all week,” Vinnie said.
“We got two floaters,” Laurie said. “Bruno Marchese and…” Laurie looked over at Lou. “What’s the name of the other one.”
“We don’t know,” Lou said. “There’s been no ID.”
“No wallet?” Laurie asked.
“Worse than that,” Lou said. “Both the head and the hands are missing. This one they didn’t want us to identify at all.”
“Lovely!” Laurie said sarcastically. “The post will be of limited value without the head.” To Vinnie she said, “I want to be sure Bruno Marchese and the headless man get X-rayed.”
“We’re already working on it,” Vinnie said. “But it’s going to be a while. They’re in line. Busy down here today. There was some kind of gang war up in Harlem last night, so we’re knee deep in gunshot wounds. And by the way, the headless corpse is a woman, not a man. When will you be down here?”
“Shortly,” Laurie said. “Make sure we have a rape-kit for the female.” She hung up and looked over at Lou. “You didn’t tell me one of the floaters was a woman.”
“I didn’t have a chance,” Lou said.
“Well, no matter,” Laurie said. “Unfortunately, the cases you are interested in won’t be first. I’m sorry.”
“No problem,” Lou said. “I like to watch you work.”
Laurie scanned the material in the folder on the headless woman. Then she perused one of the overdose folders. She’d only got as far as the investigator’s report before she reached for the last folder and scanned its investigator’s report. “This is amazing,” she said. She looked up at Lou. “Dr. Washington said these cases were the same as Duncan Andrews. I had no idea he was speaking so literally. What a coincidence.”
“Are they cocaine overdoses?” Lou asked.
“Yes,” Laurie said. “But that’s not what makes them such a coincidence. One’s a banker, the other an editor.”
“What’s so amazing about that?” Lou asked.
“It’s the demographics,” Laurie said. “All three were successful professionals, actively employed, young single people. Hardly the usual overdose we’re accustomed to seeing around here.”
“Like I said: what’s so amazing about that? Aren’t these people the kind of yuppies who made coke popular? What’s the big surprise?”
“The fact that they took cocaine is not the surprising aspect,” Laurie began slowly. “I’m not naive. Behind the veneer of material success can lie some pretty serious addictions. But as I told you the overdose cases we get in here are usually the truly down and out. With crack you see a lot of very impoverished, lower-class people. We do see more prosperous people from time to time, but usually by the time the drugs kill them, they’ve already lost everything else: job, family, money. These recent cases just don’t strike me as typical overdoses. It makes me wonder if there wasn’t some kind of poison in the drug. Now where did I put that article from the American Journal of Medicine?” she said, talking more to herself. “Ah, here it is.”
Laurie pulled out a reprint of an article and handed it to Lou. “Street cocaine is always cut with something, usually sugars or common stimulants, but sometimes with weird stuff. That article is about a series of poisonings resulting from a kilo of cocaine cut with strychnine.”
“Wow,” Lou said as he scanned the article. “That would be quite a trip.”
“It’d be a quick trip in here to the morgue,” Laurie agreed. “Seeing three rather atypical OD cases with such strikingly similar demographics in two days makes me wonder if they each got the cocaine from the same contaminated source.”
“I think it’s a long shot,” Lou said. “Especially with only three cases. And quite frankly, even if your hunch is right, I’m not that interested.”
“Not interested?” Laurie couldn’t believe what she was hearing.
“With all the problems this city has, with all the violence and street crime going down, it’s hard for me to muster much sympathy for a trio of fancy pants who have nothing better to do with their leisure time than do illegal drugs. Frankly I’m much more concerned about poor slobs like that headless female floater we got downstairs.”
Laurie was stunned, but before she could launch into a rebuttal, her phone rang. She was surprised to hear Jordan Scheffield on the other end when she picked up.
“I finished my first case,” he said. “Went perfectly. I’m sure the Baron will be pleased.”
“Glad to hear it,” Laurie said, glancing self-consciously at Lou.
“Did you get the flowers?” Jordan asked.
“Yes,” Laurie said. “I’m looking at them this very minute. Thank you. They were just what the doctor ordered.”
“Very clever,” Jordan laughed. “I thought it would be an appropriate way to let you know that I’m looking forward to seeing you tonight.”
“The gesture might fall into the same category as your limo,” Laurie said. “A bit on the extravagant side. But I appreciate your thinking of me.”
“Well, I just wanted to check in. I’ve got to get back to surgery,” Jordan said. “See you at eight.”
“I’m sorry,” Lou said once Laurie had hung up. “You could have told me it was a personal call. I would have stepped out into the hall.”
“I usually don’t get personal calls here,” Laurie said. “It took me by surprise.”
“A dozen roses. A limo. Must be an interesting guy.”
“He is interesting,” Laurie said. “In fact, he said something last night that I think you’ll find interesting.”
“That’s hard to believe,” Lou said. “But I’m all ears.”
“The man on the phone is a doctor,” Laurie said. “His name is Jordan Scheffield. You may have heard of him. Supposedly he’s quite well known. At any rate, he told me last night that he has been taking care of the man you are so interested in: Mr. Paul Cerino.”
“No fooling!” Lou said. He was surprised. He was also interested.
“Jordan Scheffield is an ophthalmologist,” Laurie said.
“Wait a sec,” Lou said. He held up a hand while he reached into his jacket and pulled out a tattered pad of paper and a ballpoint pen. “Let me write this down.” While he bit on his tongue, he wrote out Jordan’s name. Then he asked Laurie to spell ophthalmologist.
“Is that the same as optometrist?” Lou asked.
“No,” Laurie said. “An ophthalmologist is a medical doctor trained to do surgery as well as manage medical eye care. An optometrist is trained more to correct visual problems with eyeglasses and contact lenses.”
“What about opticians?” Lou asked. “I’ve always mixed these guys up. No one ever explained it to me.”
“Opticians fill the eyeglass prescriptions,” Laurie said. “Either from an ophthalmologist or an optometrist.”
“Now that I have that straight,” Lou said. “Tell me about Dr. Scheffield and Paul Cerino.”
“That’s the most interesting part,” Laurie said. “Jordan said that he was treating Mr. Cerino for acid burns of the eyes. Someone had thrown acid in Paul Cerino’s eyes to blind him.”
“You don’t say,” Lou said. “That could explain a lot. Like maybe these two gangland-style executions of Lucia people. And what about Frankie’s eye? Could that have been acid?”
“Yes,” Laurie said. “It could have been acid. It will be tough to determine since Frankie was in the East River, but on the whole, the damage to his eye was definitely consistent with an acid burn.”