He couldn't describe his present feeling. The air seemed to be vibrating, his thoughts precise-as in the middle of an operation. He felt righteous and angry-why was he forced to defend such obvious logic?
He checked his watch: eight-twenty. From the top of the hill closer to town, the cellular would operate. He could call Pamela. She could reschedule some of the morning appointments and be out here in a little over forty minutes. Why waste a specimen like this? he thought, pausing by Washington's cage. Make the most with what you've got. "Some lessons," he told the young man, "are better learned first-hand." He returned the shock collar's remote device to its hook on the cage, clearly confusing his captives. "Remember our little skirmish yesterday? I certainly "won't allow that to happen again." It wasn't a confusing situation to Elden Tegg: With a strong specimen such as Washington, the dart gun was clearly the only way to go.
"This is my son Miles."
"Hello, Miles." Dr. Crystal Light Horse, a transplant surgeon on the University of Washington's-the U-Dub's-medical staff whom Dixie knew through his lecture series, wore an oversized lab coat and a laminated name plate that included the hospital's insignia. She seemed young for a practicing surgeon, mid-thirties. She was a Native American with laughing eyes, barn-wood brown. She pursed her lips whenever Boldt spoke, her attention focused on him as if she were looking down a gun sight.
Boldt wondered at all the social obstacles she had overcome to get here.
He said, "We tried Miles in day care for about three days, but we noticed this look in his eyes," he explained. "Do you have kids?"
it Two. "Then you know what I mean."
"No."
"You see that look?" Boldt asked, pointing at his son. "That sparkle? Well, that's him, you know? And after day care," he waved a hand in front of his own face like a magician, and acted out the transformation, "gone. just this glazed look like no one was home."
She bristled. "Both my children went through day care, and I never noticed any such thing." "As a surgeon," Boldt asked, "have you ever had to remove a person's foot from his mouth?"
That won a smile. "Thankfully, no." She added, "It's a good thing you're a policeman. It looks as if you have a kleptomaniac on your hands." Miles had stolen a fountain pen off her desk-expensive by the look of it. Boldt wrestled it free and returned it. Miles promptly grabbed it again. His father stole it back and fed him a Bic.
Her office was buried in books and papers. He worried that she might be one of those more-diplomas-than-you-can-count type-A educators, quick to lecture, short on substance.
He explained, "I need to throw a hypothetical situation at you.
I'm involved in an investigation that is really more your field than mine, and I'm at a loss for specific leads to follow."
"A scent."
"Exactly."
"I'll do what I can."
"Let's suppose you're a transplant surgeon which you are-who, for one reason or another, finds herself in need of a great deal of money." "You're broke."
He nodded. "You're broke and you hear that overseas or maybe right here in this country, this city, people are willing to pay big money for certain organs."
"There's no evidence that in this country-" He raised a hand, interrupting; he didn't want her getting ahead of him. "Now as I understand it, in transplanting something like a kidney, you would want the donor to be blood type O."
"Not accurate: You would prefer the donor organ to match the recipient's blood group exactly."
"But to sell?" he inquired.
She bristled again. "Type O might indeed make it easier to sell," she agreed. "Type O is the largest, most common blood group, and Type O organs have the lowest rate of rejection in transplants into any other blood group."
He suggested, "So, if you put yourself in the roll of the harvester-"
"The procuring surgeon," she corrected. "We don't like the word 'harvester."' "Nor do I" He completed, "How would you, as the procuring surgeon, locate a potential donor with blood type O?"
"The procuring surgeon is looking for cadavers.
I suppose the first resources I would draw upon would be the hospital morgue, the Medical Examiner's office, and any of a number of mortuaries."
Boldt took notes. Miles took his pacifier out and threw it across the desk at Dr. Light Horse, who scooped it up, brushed it off, and offered it back to him. Miles liked that. He accepted it gladly and sucked noisily. Boldt asked, "And if those resources weren't available to you or were exhausted for one reason or another, what then?"
She offered him a cold and puzzled look. "You're not suggesting?"
"What am I suggesting?"
"Someone living?"
"It's possible, isn't it? I've read about Egypt, India ..."
"But those people are desperate for money.. "There are people desperate for money in this country as well-in this city as well."
"But it's different there," she protested, clearly upset, "in terms of professional health services. It's true that some Third World countries have limited resources, limited access to technologies such as dialysis. The reason for the high prices, for the whole transplant mess in these parts of the world is that without those transplants people die. It's different here. Much different."
He admired her vehemence. She was morally and ethically undone by what he was suggesting. "Which means that your market is overseas, if I'm reading you right."
"Now you're scaring me."
"Good." He wanted her scared, because he felt scared for Sharon Shaffer, for whoever else was scheduled next for the knife. "Here in Seattle?"
"You can't quote me on that," he said.
She thought long and hard. "Blood type? Depends what kind of resources you have, I suppose. You would need computer access, of course, but what comes immediately to mind are hospital records, the Red Cross, the insurance companies. Any of those databases would be likely to list blood type. / "A plasma bank?" he asked. "Just exactly how far along in this investigation are you?"
He handed her several autopsy photos of two of the incisions.
"Dixie suggested you have a look at these."
She studied them thoughtfully. "Anything special?" he asked.
She continued to look them over. "Perfectly competent closures.
Although the incisions are a little large."
As Boldt wrote this down, one of his notes caught his eye. "What kind of team does he need? How many assistants?"
"It depends on which organ we're talking about and which procedure." "Kidneys," he said. "Harvesting kidneys."
"For a kidney procurement it's helpful to have an assistant. But again, I'm thinking in terms of cadavers," she corrected herself. "A live procurement? An anesthesiologist, a surgeon, a nurse or two." "Could it be done with less?"
She nodded. "A surgeon and an assistant at the bare minimum." She added, "You'd be busy."
Miles was getting restless. Boldt contained him, but lost his train of thought. "Have you thought about where this would be done?" she asked. "A location?" Then in a professorial tone of voice: "I see problems with this premise of yours. First, when a procurement is done in a hospital, the organ becomes part of the system. There's an airtight system in place. There has to be, because of the public's wariness about the whole transplant process. It's called UNOS-the United Network of Organ Sharing. The procuring institution assigns the organ a UNOS number. The recipient of that organ is assigned that same number. It all has to match. There is a paper trail a mile long the moment an organ leaves a body-hearts, kidneys, livers, marrow, it doesn't matter. The procuring surgeon lists an organ's destination as part of that paperwork the name of the hospital or organ bank. The paperwork follows that organ everywhere. The organ is transported in specially sealed and labeled ice chests. It's all computerized. UNOS does an incredible job. I just don't see how someone could get away with what you're implying."