ColdScheme (24 page)

“Was he able to describe it?”

“He got a few words out before they gave him a shot. He said
his friend burst apart.”

“Exploded?”

He moved his head uncertainly. “He couldn’t say much. He was
shaking. What’s on that gurney has to be a result of an explosion but he said
it wasn’t the regular kind. He only heard a slight noise, a crackle.”

“A silent explosion?”

“Not really. The ambulance already took away three
bystanders. They were close to him when it happened. They weren’t hurt, just
splattered. They said they thought a glass fixture had fallen down and broken.”
He lifted his head and looked to where the news vans had parked. “That’s all we
need, live coverage to spread the panic.”

He took out a notebook, scribbled the victim’s name and
address and tore out the page, handing it to me. “They already sent someone to
talk to the next of kin but I think he lived alone. Murphy said that his friend
was a widower, no children.”

I took the note, thanked him and said we would share
whatever additional information we gathered, then waved at Ken and Field.

Palk lived alone, five blocks east, in an efficiency unit in
a seniors’ low-rise complex.

“I didn’t know him. We have four-hundred and thirty
residents living here,” the complex manager said, opening the door. We asked
him to show us Palk’s unit. He wanted to get back to his TV set and didn’t like
the interruption.

“How did he pay rent?” Ken asked, when we entered the small,
neat room. There were no walls. The space was portioned off into different
living areas by bookcases and furniture.

“I don’t collect rent,” the manager mumbled. “Everything’s
electronic these days. We use direct withdrawal from people’s accounts.”

“What do you do?” I asked, not hiding what had flashed
through my mind.

“I fix things,” he said with a dark frown.

I motioned around. “Did you ever fix anything in this unit?”

“Maybe, I don’t know. We have four-hundred and—”

“I know.” I interrupted him. “Then you have maintenance
records?”

His memory improved. “Nah, the guy who lived here was a
fixer.”

“You remember him then.”

He shrugged. “A month ago a light burned out in the
corridor. I came to fix it. It wasn’t just the bulb. There had to be a short in
the system. He was coming in, saw me and said he could take a look.”

“Did he?” I asked pleasantly.

He grimaced. “Yeah. He rewired the whole floor in a couple
of hours.”

“So he was handy. Did you pay him?”

“I’ve got to go. The office is empty. Make sure the door’s
closed when you leave,” he said, hurrying out.

Palk was a neat man and another victim without family. Other
than a few pictures of his late wife, dated on the back, we didn’t find
anything to suggest that he had relatives. He was an avid reader, mostly sports
and history. He was sixty-four and retired but we didn’t know where he’d
worked. If he knew how to do electrical wiring, he’d be in the trades.

“Olsen will get that from Murphy,” Ken said.

Field kept looking around. He picked up articles, examined
them and put them down.

Other than two shelves filled with books, Palk did not have
many personal possessions. The fridge was half-empty, the cupboard sparsely
stocked. He had two sets of plates and utensils, a few cooking pots and a
toaster oven. He had a pullout couch, a chair and a TV. The unit was less than
five hundred square feet. True economy.

Field opened up a closet. He stared into it for a long time.

“What are you looking for?” I came and stood beside him. The
closet was tiny. Other than a coat, two jackets, a parka and two pair of
shapeless shoes, there wasn’t much inside.

“Tools,” he said.

“Right,” I intoned softly. “He should have tools.”

On our way out, we stopped by the manager’s office. He
cracked the door open. Field asked him to step outside. He started to refuse,
reconsidered and came out.

“Did Mr. Palk have a car?” Field asked.

“I don’t know. We have four—”

“Did he use your tools when he fixed the lighting or did he
use his own?” Field interrupted.

“He had all the shit in a box. I didn’t have the tools with
me. That’s why I couldn’t fix it right away.”

“What kind of tool box was it?”

“I don’t know…red, I think. I had to help him get it. It was
damn heavy.”

“We didn’t find any tool box in his unit,” Field said,
taking out a notepad.

“I didn’t take it,” the manager bristled. “He probably took
it back.”

“Back where?” Field asked quickly.

“The plaza where he did that shit on the side.”

“What plaza?”

“I don’t know. We have—”

Field cut him off. “We’re investigating Mr. Palk’s murder.
It’s important that you remember. Of course, you said you have maintenance
records.”

“A plaza in Brooklyn somewhere that closed down.”

“The name?” Ken took out a pen and offered it to Field.

“Greek, Helen something.”

“Hellenic Plaza?” Ken threw me a guarded look.

“Yeah, that’s it.”

“That plaza closed down two months ago,” Ken said. “How
could Mr. Palk have brought home a tool box from his job a month ago, if…”

“It could have been a couple of months ago. I don’t
remember.”

“That’s understandable,” Ken nodded. “We must take a look at
your maintenance records.”

An hour later, the manager was still looking through the
mess in his files. Someone knocked on the door. He grunted and went to open it.

“Ah, Mrs. Libby,” he said, raising his voice. “Do you
remember when the lights went out on your floor?”

“That was way back in January, when it was still dark. We
needed those lights on even during the day. The window at the end is still
boarded. You said you would get someone to fix it. That was in February.” He
shut the door and came back.

“Four months ago,” he said, looking relieved. “My tenant
remembered. I guess time flies.”

“Yes it does,” I told him, heading outside. “Especially when
you watch TV instead of doing your job.”

Palk was retired and probably picked up short-term contracts
to keep busy.

“That has to be the connection to Creeslow,” Ken said, as we
headed for the morgue. “Palk could have done a wiring job for the limo
service.”

Ken drove. Field sat beside him, while I sat in the back.
They discussed motive and why Palk had been chosen. They noticed I was quiet.
Field turned around.

“Troubled?” he asked softly.

I was, for many reasons. “He was a sixty-four year old
retired tradesman,” I said. “He didn’t have much money or anything else. Why do
that to him? He was no threat to anyone. He was just…handy,” I finished heavily
and lowered my head.

“They are ruthless,” he said.

I moved my head from side to side, not lifting it. “It’s
more than that, Field. They’re inhuman.”

“Someone’s really twisted. Whoever it is has total contempt
for life,” Ken said, briefly glancing over his shoulder.

“Someone’s playing God,” I answered.

* * * * *

“Unless you brought dinner, there isn’t much else to do
here.” Joe welcomed us gloomily. He hadn’t bothered to greet us but stood over
a table, hands planted on either side of a heap covered with plastic. He kept
his head lowered as he spoke.

“You can have this job. I’m ready to retire. I might as well
become a mortician. It’s a damn lucrative business. I could open up a chain of
funeral parlors and laugh all the way to the bank. It’s a warning, of course,”
he said furiously and smashed his hands down on the table.

I felt uncomfortable and didn’t know why. Joe was moody and
temperamental. We had often seen him throw things when he was frustrated. I
thought him capable of fury, rage, sarcasm or indifference but not defeat. I’d
never heard him sound so bitter and dispirited.

“Warning about what?” Ken asked. Field started to look
around, examine all the gadgetry that Joe had installed in the morgue.

Joe smacked his hand down on the table again. “Who was he?”
he demanded hoarsely.

“Christopher Palk, a retired tradesman—” Ken started to say.

Joe cut him off with the swish of his hand. “Who was he?” he
repeated grittily.

Ken looked at me, not sure what to say.

I understood. “No one,” I said. “He was just handy.”

“Precisely!” Joe straightened up and turned to face me. He
motioned at the remains that had been transferred to the table, still wrapped
in drawstring plastic. “When you execute someone who is no threat to anyone, it
has to be a warning.”

“So it’s the same situation as with the waiter,” I said.

“The waiter served,” he said cynically.

“Each of these four deaths—executions—served a purpose, Joe,”
I told him. I already knew what purpose the latest murder served and hoped Ken
and Field would not share this information with Joe. The state he was in, he’d
pick a fight with a colleague in Hopkins at the drop of a hat.

“Did you find out why they executed the first programmer,
Meg?”

“You told us the motive was not as important as finding
whoever is making these explosive devices,” I pointed out mildly.

He snorted. “When have you ever listened to me?” He ran a
hand over his eyes. “I didn’t mean to tell you how to do your job. It was just
a suggestion, my perspective.”

“We listened, Joe and we still don’t know why the first
victim was executed.”

“Then what purpose did his death serve?”

“A field test, a trial, to define the range of the device.”

He looked at me with a twisted smile. “You’ve got a lot of
work to do.”

“Brick’s death was not a warning,” I maintained.

“Sure it was,” he snorted. “A public warning, ‘Here’s what I
can do’. It’s the same with the rest.”

I didn’t think so but I wasn’t going to discuss any more
theories with Joe. He must have seen my reluctance and snorted, “A harmless old
man, right? The entire city’s going to be paranoid. Don’t bother going back to
your office. The phone lines will be tied up for weeks. Everyone who as much
feels a twinge in his chest will call.”

“Joe,” I said carefully, “is there any way you can distance
yourself from this—”

His derisive laughter stopped me.

“I’m not solving the case fast enough for you, Meg?”

“That’s the problem, Joe. You’ve become involved far more
than it’s required or safe for a medical examiner to do,” I said quietly.

“So you want to shut me out of it for my own safety, is that
it?”

“I want you to leave the detective work to us,” I said,
voice hardening. “If you need a vacation, by all means, take a vacation.
Distancing yourself from all this…death, will be rejuvenating.”

He snickered. “I’m a pathologist. Death is my business.”

“Then rent a cozy cabin in Vermont and write a research
paper on explosive pacemakers,” I said, frustrated that I wasn’t getting
through to him.

“Maybe,” he said, his shoulders sloping down. “But first I
have to do my job. So I’m going to follow protocol and analyze blood from our
latest victim, to confirm as I did on all the others that there’s nothing
whatsoever to catch.”

“Following protocol, no matter how useless, is calming,” Ken
said.

“Oh, I’ll be very calm at Hopkins,” Joe snickered. “In fact,
I’ll probably be the only doctor there who is.”

Chapter Fourteen

For the next two days I kept stifling shivers. It felt as if
an army kept marching over my grave, back and forth, to make sure I didn’t miss
the message. Field took his agents and went to meet with the Chairman and those
few associates my father still trusted.

He called me during the break in what sounded like a marathon
brainstorming session.

“Your father’s not sure whether the Justice Department can
touch Blank. We have nothing that would connect the Tavistock Chief Economist
to any of the murders or the money-laundering scheme. The man is our
President’s trusted and valued friend, a godfather to his daughter. My boss is
certainly not brave enough to even suggest Mr. Blank is implicated in this
without steel-clad proof,” he said.

I knew what he meant. It would be professional suicide for
anyone to speak ill of R. Bishop Blank, never mind accuse him of criminal
activity. The only evidence that connected him to the crimes was the ramblings
of a dead psychiatric patient. Ken took notes when we visited Patricia and duly
put down all her fragmented replies in a report. However, even my Criminal Law
professor would have balked at making a case out of such evidence.

“Meg?”

“Still here, Field. I was just thinking—even if we apprehend
the criminal mastermind behind the chest bombs and he or she implicates Blank
in the scheme, we still won’t have enough clout to indict him.”

“Yeah.”

“However,” I said and waited.

“Don’t stop,” he raised his voice. “No matter how
outrageous, I’m open to suggestions.”

“Well, Mr. Blank is my father’s old and trusted friend,
which means the only one on Mr. Blank’s level is my father.”

“You want me to tell the Chairman to deal with his Chief
Economist?” He didn’t sound outraged, merely resigned.

I chuckled. “It might not reflect well on the Justice
Department, particularly the FBI or the Baltimore police but Blank must answer
to someone higher in this laundering scheme simply because of the staggering
amounts of money involved. He might be the key figure here in the continental
US but I think he’s just a director of funds entrusted to his care by many offshore
interests.”

“You’re saying that Bishop Blank has an offshore boss?”

“I suspect many Latin American syndicates are involved in
this cold scheme so he’d have many nasty and unforgiving bosses—who pay him for
this excellent service.”

“Yes, I see where you’re going with this.”

“My father has already identified three hundred corporate
accounts in various Tavistock banking institutions and frozen the funds in
those accounts. He also said there might be many more such accounts. Tell my
father to make it a priority for his banking staff to identify as many of these
accounts as they can—as fast as they can—then take appropriate action, with
Justice Department’s blessing. Tell him to approach other banking institutions,
create a joint task force, with the objective to flush out suspect accounts.”

“Blank’s Latin American bosses—or customers—will take care
of him for us,” he said.

“It’s a mercenary solution but if our Justice Department
can’t touch him…” My voice trailed off.

“Thanks,” he said, “I’ll give you full credit for the idea.
Now I have to go back to the meeting. Be careful and keep me posted on any new
developments.”

Ken, sitting on my living room floor, had listened to my
conversation.

“Dangerous,” he said when I closed my cell phone.

“For whom?”

“For your father,” he said very evenly.

I smiled. “When this is over, I’ll roll up my sleeves, cook
up a storm and throw a party—just for my friends and family. Then I’ll tell you
a story. Now’s not the time for it.”

“I wasn’t going to ask,” he said.

“Yes, you were but confessions will just have to wait—for
you and Jazz.”

“I understand. I won’t slip. I promise.”

An hour later, we decided that we should go see Bourke.

“We’ve assigned all non-essential administrative and
clerical personnel to man the phone lines, calming down Baltimore citizens,”
Bourke said when we staggered into his office, deafened by the noise and hubbub
in our headquarters.

I glanced at Ken and receiving his nod I said, “We have two
possible suspects, Chief but we don’t have enough evidence to bring either of
them in for questioning.”

“Why not?” he asked, sounding exhausted.

“Both are doctors. We don’t want to add to the panic and
pandemonium at Hopkins, though not both doctors work at the hospital.”

“What about the FBI?”

I told him what Field and his agents were doing and where.

“I don’t give a rat’s ass who nails the stinking son of a
bitch, as long as he’s stopped,” Bourke said, sounding uncharacteristically
coarse.

“The kind of people Mr. Blank has befriended in the Latin
American countries are notoriously unforgiving and uncharitable when it comes
to losing millions of dollars earned through various criminal activities,” I
said.

“Good,” Bourke declared and smacked his hand down on his
desk. As if it was a signal, his phone rang. He snatched it. “Yeah,” then
listened, his face growing even more haggard. He put the phone down a lot more
gently than he picked it up.

“There’s been an incident at Hopkins,” he said, lowering his
head. “Joe’s gone berserk.”

* * * * *

When we arrived at Hopkins, everywhere I looked, I saw signs
of tension. Even the walls seemed to be quivering, strumming with it as if
vibrating machines were inside them.

The hospital staff had been grouped and each cluster of
three or four was either being questioned by a uniformed police officer or
guarded. Now and then, a nurse would leave and hurry down the corridor then
disappear into a room.

We were on the sixth floor, the cardiac ward. Half of it was
rooms filled with patients, the other half was operating theaters and post-op
facilities.

Sven came out of the doorway, looked around, saw us and
waved.

We entered a lounge that looked like a makeshift campaign
headquarters. Officers used any surface they could find to take notes, even as
those providing information stood by. Every step I took was punctuated by
someone’s beeper. Cell phones were not allowed.

I saw Joe. He sat on a squat table in the corner, hands
stuck under his armpits. His head drooped so low I thought he was asleep.

I opted for a simple approach.

“What happened, Joe?” I asked, with no particular emphasis.
I watched his foot shod in a sneaker, scribe an arch on the floor.

“Read the statement. I already gave it to somebody,” he said
in a dead voice.

“We will. Talk to me.”

He placed his hands on his knees. Both were bandaged up to
the elbows. He said, “A guy came to the Emergency Room. He thought he had a
bomb in his chest. I was on the fourth floor, in the labs, picking up paperwork
on Palk’s blood analysis. There had to be traces, explosive substance,
something. I don’t give up that easily. Quigley was in. I heard his name paged.
I went up to see him. He didn’t think there was anything that could be stuck
into a patient that would result in the kind of pressure that it would explode
the body. I said that maybe a small amount of hydrocarbon-fuel, gas, liquefied
under pressure, might be possible, but he said I was full of shit. There are
dinitro, tetranitro and octanitrocubane propellants and explosives. I tried to
explain four-membered ring compounds. The chemistry should not have been that
hard to understand—for a doctor. Quigley said that I should go dazzle idiots on
the street with my human cruise missile theory and not to waste his time. He
said you could probably clamp something inside. Make the lungs or intestines burst
but not the whole body. We argued. Then he got a call. The guy was already in
O.R. on six. He had no insurance. He was another Palk, a retired tradesman.
Paxton Morris took him.

“We went up to six. Morris had the patient swabbed and
marked. He was going in. I wanted to see the guy’s x-rays. Hell, if he had that
shit in his chest…” His voice trailed off.

Field touched my arm, handing me a sheet of paper. He
blinked once and nodded at it.

I took it and started reading.

Like the rest of us, Joe carried a gun. He’d frightened me
with it, once or twice, when I grew bold and leaned over his shoulder too much
at the morgue. I thought that’s where he normally left it, not took it to the
hospital when picking up lab results. He argued with Quigley. I knew it would
have been a violent confrontation. Quigley had tried to block his entry into
the O.R. They scuffled. Joe drew his gun and slashed his colleague. The
momentum of rage had carried him into the op-theatre.

I wasn’t sure whether this incident was responsible for what
happened next.

Morris set off the device in his patient’s chest. This time
it was a more powerful explosion. Two nurses and the anesthetist suffered cuts
and puncture wounds, mostly from the medical tools and equipment.

Morris suffered cuts too but they didn’t incapacitate him.
Joe barged in and faced the blood and tissue splattered surgeon—with a gun in
his hand. He accused him of killing the patient, setting off the device on
purpose—destroying evidence that would have implicated him.

“Morris might not have done it on purpose, Joe,” I said
quietly. The pager activity had died down.

He snorted. “Sure he did. He got rid of the evidence.”

I sighed. It could be true. Morris may have been startled
but not to a degree that saw him reach for a chest saw and attack Joe.

The medical examiner was defending himself when he shot the
surgeon who reacted in a bizarre way. Why did Morris turn hostile, I wondered?
Why attack the pathologist? Joe’s intrusion was unexpected and it might have
enraged the heart surgeon to have his work interrupted but not to such degree
as to launch an attack with a saw.

Then again, maybe Morris’ nerves snapped and that’s the way
it happened.

Suddenly, Joe lifted his head. I found myself staring into
the dark pools of misery. His eyes were hollow, sunken so deep that the sockets
looked like coal sacks.

“He came at me, Meg, with a buzzing saw. That damn thing
just about chewed off my hand. Maybe I shouldn’t have barged in. I think I fell
through the door when Quigley pushed me,” he said.

“With a gun in your hand?” I murmured.

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “That was stupid. I wasn’t
thinking straight. I just felt…if that device was whole… Quigley laughed at me.
That’s what made me…” His voice trailed off again.

Field touched my shoulder. “The administrators are here.
Let’s see what information we can get on Dr. Morris.”

* * * * *

Two days later, we sat in my kitchen. We went to the office
and left before we reached our desks. Palk’s death had panicked the entire
population of Baltimore. There were even more clerical and administrative
staff, manning the phones than we saw when we reported to Bourke. The media had
pounced on what happened at Hopkins. Our entire district was a war zone.

“Paxton Morris would have been charged but not with the criminal
activity we’re investigating,” Ken said, sliding his hand over the reports
scattered on the table.

We spent half a day at the Campbelford Security. It was a
private outfit that specialized in pharmacological and medical investigations.
Hopkins administration hired them to compile evidence on Dr. Morris. They
suspected him of stealing drugs from the hospital dispensary and storage.

Dr. Francis, one of the hospital directors, grimaced when I
asked him why Dr. Morris would resort to this but he answered my question. I
knew he didn’t like my choice of words—resort.

“I’ve made allowances for Paxton for a long time,” he said,
avoiding my eyes. “I warned him that if he continued providing free medication
to those who couldn’t afford it, he would be dismissed. He joined our staff
just over three years ago and drugs began disappearing from our dispensary
almost immediately. He was our prime suspect. I didn’t accuse him of theft but
I left him with a clear impression that I knew who was behind it. We’re talking
about heart drugs, most of them very expensive and not even covered by some
insurance plans. If he chose to donate a generic brand, I closed my eyes. But
he refused to use generics. He left me no choice, Detective. He was under
surveillance for the last nine months. The security was gathering evidence that
would be presented in court. He would have been charged.”

Campbelford gave us the surveillance tapes. Morris was
taking drugs without authorization but he didn’t experiment with implosive or
explosive implants. Those tapes absolved him.

“He’s not our man,” Ken sighed.

I felt Morris was set up but I had no idea by whom. Joe lost
his temper and Quigley did too but…

“How did Morris get involved with the patient who came to
the Emergency Room?” I asked.

“I checked it out,” Field said. “Morris was on call. The
emergency doctor summoned him when he saw the x-rays and only then paged
Quigley, who wasn’t supposed to be on duty but the protocol is to page the
Chief. It’s unfortunate that Quigley was also there…and so was Smeddin.”

“So that night, Morris would have attended anyone with
cardiac problems?” I wanted to clarify this.

Field nodded. “He put in triple shifts. He was a good
doctor. That bureaucrat didn’t deserve to have him on his staff,” he finished
with a snort. I knew he meant Francis.

“Stealing drugs is a criminal offence, Field.”

“I guess that didn’t worry Morris as much as if he let his
patients die,” he said.

I didn’t want to escalate our discussion into a social
injustice argument and dropped the issue.

We ordered pizza. Brenda came in and joined us. Mrs. Tavalho
and Jazz finished cleaning the yard and came inside.