Lincoln’s audio feed distorted when Allyson chortled.
“I’d like that very much,” Allyson said. “The sample needs to come from a patient who had hives, is that right? And death from cardiac arrest with no history of heart disease?”
“That’s right on both accounts.”
“I have a friend who can check for me. In fact, I have a lot of friends there. Nobody likes what White Memorial, Roman specifically, has done. Let me get back to you.”
Lincoln tensed with excitement as a lengthy wait put him on edge. In time, the phone rang again.
“Julie, I think there’s a body you can take a sample from. He died on Monday. The body is still in our morgue because the family can’t agree where he’s going to be buried; actually met him a week ago, while I was giving Roman a hospital tour. Albert and Roman talked about a number of things, including scars Albert said he got from hives.”
“Sounds like post-inflammatory hyperpigmentation,” Julie said.
“I’m looking at his medical record right now and that’s what it says. No mention anywhere of heart disease. Does that help?”
Lincoln laughed out loud. It was too easy, too perfect.
“I think it helps tremendously. What was the patient’s name?” Julie’s voice was ripe with excitement.
“Albert Cunningham,” Allyson said. “He was the public address announcer for the Boston Red Sox.”
“Tomorrow is Thanksgiving,” Julie said. “The hospital will be quiet.”
“That’s right. Why?”
“Do you really want to help me?”
“I really want to hurt Roman Janowski.”
“This might. I think this just might.”
“Then I want to help.”
“Give me your address. I’ll come over tonight if that’s all right with you. I’ll get the badge and we can work out the logistics. Tomorrow, I’ll go get the sample.”
“Works for me,” Allyson said, and she gave Julie her address.
It worked for Lincoln Cole, too. His first shift at Suburban West happened to be scheduled for the next afternoon.
CHAPTER 45
At five thirty on the afternoon of Thanksgiving, Julie drove her Prius into a sparsely filled parking lot at Suburban West and picked a space away from the building and far from any floodlights. She was composed, but her insides were quaking. Never in her life had she brazenly broken a law, but now she felt out of options. This was no longer about figuring out what killed Sam. Julie truly believed others would die if she did nothing. The killer, it seemed, had found a new feeding ground at West.
Jordan shared Julie’s sentiments, but was quiet on the drive. He was too occupied reviewing the process and techniques of producing human tissue blocks for testing purposes. He could apply various media to embed the samples in molten, melted, or paraffin wax. Being an ICU doc gave Julie confidence that she could do the biopsy well enough, but she knew nothing about the machines required to produce routine tissue embedding. Thankfully, her partner-her secret admirer-was more than capable around a lab.
Julie put the car in park and cut the engine. She turned her head and saw the basement entrance to the pathology lab, just as Allyson Brock had described. As Allyson promised, no security cameras were mounted to the outside walls. It gave Julie confidence that everything Allyson said about the lab, the layout, and the location of the body would be accurate as well.
“Did you ever get in touch with Lucy?” Jordan asked.
He was referring, of course, to the note Lucy had written and stashed in Allyson’s mailbox.
“No. She doesn’t feel safe, it’s obvious from what she wrote to Allyson. But she’s done plenty for us. If we can get her the sample, she’ll find a way to test it where she’s not being watched.”
“Who is watching her?” Jordan asked.
“It’s got to be Coffey and Colchester.”
“Yeah, gotta be. But I still don’t fully get the motive.”
Now it was Julie’s turn to fall silent, head bowed in thought.
“It’s a cover-up, I’m guessing,” she said. “Let’s say a powerful drug comes on the market for treating something unrelated to the cardiovascular system, but it can also cause a fatal allergy. A symptom of the allergy is hives. It could be very expensive for the manufacturer, so Coffey gets hush money to keep a lid on the potential allergic reaction. A similar thing happened with GM not too long ago. They knew the ignition switches were faulty, but it was cheaper to stay quiet about it than deal with the problem, and it cost lives. And later a whole lot of GM’s cash.”
“So how does Colchester fit in?” Jordan asked.
“I still think Colchester was working overtime to get Brandon convicted,” Julie said. “Like I said, maybe he was doing it for his wife, I’m not really sure. But he was damn well determined to see what he thought was justice get done. I think he bribed Sherri and planted the drugs. During the trial, Coffey approached Colchester with his thoughts about exhuming Donald’s body. The people who paid Coffey enough hush money to buy him that plane couldn’t let that happen. Colchester wants his conviction and he’s willing to reward the judge to get it. Maybe he takes a little extra cash from Coffey’s employers for his campaign war chest as a bonus. Who knows?”
A twitch in Jordan’s eye became a little more pronounced. “Never did have much love for politicians,” he said.
JORDAN’S FIRST thought when he turned on the lights: there was no comparing Suburban West’s pathology lab to the one at White Memorial. This space was about half the size, the ceiling low enough for Jordan to be aware of its proximity to his head. No cobwebs or corrosion on any of the equipment, but it was antiquated and some of the microscopes might have been borrowed from a high school chemistry classroom. A powerful stench of formaldehyde was at least one thing the two facilities had in common.
Jordan stepped into the hallway. Julie was right, Thanksgiving was a perfect time to steal some tissue samples. The place was as quiet as the dead they had come to visit. Both he and Julie wore white lab coats that Jordan brought from home. It would provide an air of authenticity should someone happen upon them. Perhaps with a little luck, and a lot of conviction, they could be convincing enough to be left alone.
A blue sign hanging from the ceiling pointed the way to the hospital morgue. Jordan made his way down the quiet corridor with Julie close behind. He was first into the morgue’s anteroom. He paused by the cold stainless steel table where bodies could be properly weighed, measured, and photographed by a wide-angled camera mounted to the ceiling.
“You good?”
“Good,” Julie answered.
He picked up the nervousness in her voice and wondered if she would have gone through with this alone.
Jordan led the way into the autopsy suite, an open space with a rust-colored floor ideal for camouflaging bloodstains. The walls were lined with stainless steel racks filled with surgical supplies, and plenty of empty rolling carts for moving bodies around. In the middle of the room stood several freestanding sinks with attached exam tables and scales hanging above the basins for weighing organs.
They passed the specimen preparation and storage area before entering a chilly room behind a sealed door where the bodies were kept. Allyson had described the area welclass="underline" a row of metal lockers, three bodies per stack, each cooled to 51.2 degrees Fahrenheit. With a tug on the handle, Jordan opened the top locker of the middle row, number eight. The body inside was sealed in black plastic. Jordan slid the tray out and undid the zipper. A toe tag confirmed it was Albert Cunningham. Refrigeration had kept Albert in decent shape, with little decomposition and only a slight rotten smell. Tufts of gray hair poked up from Albert’s oval-shaped head, and he had no expression on his waxy face. Jordan raised the height on the cadaver lift and slid Albert out of the storage unit. The lift lowered with a foot release.