Fatal Care (34 page)

He turned to Farelli. “Don’t take any chances with her. Slam her ass down hard on the sidewalk, face down, hands out.”

“Oh, she’ll be spread-eagled,” Farelli said. “Don’t worry about that.”

Jake nodded. “And kick her purse away. That’s where she’ll be carrying.”

“Got you.”

Jake started to walk away. Then he turned back. “And tell the cop inside to stay out of sight. We don’t want to spook the hitter.”

“How long you figure it’ll take you to get to the postal inspector?” Farelli asked.

“A couple of hours, if we’re lucky.”

Farelli watched Jake drive away, and then he walked over to his car, an unmarked two-year-old Chevy that was parked two doors down.

He waited in the front seat, watching the Mail Boxes Etc. store and thinking how smart the hitter had been. She was a pro who knew how to cover her tracks. Even though they had a street address for her, they still might not get her. Because she might have never used the address—which was really a front for a P.O. box—for any mail other than that which came from the Department of Motor Vehicles. The DMV wouldn’t accept a P.O. box number as an address. They required a street address to register a car. And the hitter wasn’t about to put her real address on any official document that could be traced. So she went to a Mail Boxes Etc. facility that gave a Wilshire Boulevard address and not a P.O. box number to its customers.

Smart
, Farelli thought again,
so damn smart
. But they’d eventually catch her, and she’d talk her head off to save herself from sucking cyanide in a gas chamber. Oh, yeah, they’d catch her. Because now they had her name. Sara Ann Moore. And if she had a car here, that meant she lived here. And somewhere they’d find a real address. Maybe from records at the phone company or electric company. Somewhere they’d find her.

Farelli slouched down behind the steering wheel to wait for her.

Sara Ann Moore couldn’t find a parking space near the Mail Boxes Etc. store, so she went to a car-wash facility two blocks away. They had a $24.95 special on a quick wax job that took an hour to perform. And that was fine with Sara. She had the whole afternoon to kill before her meeting with David Westmoreland.

Walking away from the car wash, Sara put on oversize sunglasses to protect her eyes from the bright sunlight. It was a very warm day, and she was glad she hadn’t worn her blond wig. It was too hot for that, she thought. And besides, her short brown hair was growing out, the blond streaks not nearly so pronounced. She liked it much better at this length, and men were noticing it more, too.

Her thoughts returned to David Westmoreland, and she wondered again what the meeting was about. Maybe it was another hit, which would be nice. Particularly if it was going to be a high-priced, high-profile job. Another possibility was that some of her recent customers were demanding refunds because the deaths were found to be premeditated murder and not accidental. Like the Edmond Rabb hit. How in the world did they discover that the old fart hadn’t just dropped overboard and drowned accidentally? Maybe they were only guessing, with the insurance company doing anything and everything to hold up payment. The bastards were good at that.

She came to a busy intersection and waited for the light to change. She gazed at the row of stores where Mail Boxes Etc. was located. The shop on the end, run by Vietnamese, did manicures and pedicures. Sara decided to treat herself and get her nails done. That would take up at least an hour, and by then her car would be ready. But first she’d check her mail.

The light changed and Sara crossed the street.

She stopped in the manicure shop and made an appointment, promising to be right back. She hurried down to Mail Boxes Etc. and entered, paying no attention to the Chevrolet parked two doors down or to the man slouched down behind the wheel.

Sara had to wait. A heavy-set, middle-aged woman was at the wall lined with postal boxes, struggling with the combination to her box.

“Damn,” the woman said after another unsuccessful try.

A uniformed policeman stepped out from behind the postal boxes, saying, “Ma’am, may I see your ID, please?”

“Wh-what?” the woman stammered.

“May I see your ID?” the policeman repeated.

Sara turned quickly away and looked at a rack of greeting cards, picking one and studying it intently, all the while watching the cop in her peripheral vision.

“What’s this all about?” the woman asked, handing over her driver’s license.

“We’ve had some problems with the mail boxes here,” the policeman lied lamely.

Bullshit
, Sara thought, her face buried in the birthday card. If they had problems with the mail boxes, they’d call a postal inspector, not a cop.

“Thank you, ma’am,” the cop said, returning the license. He disappeared back behind the wall of postal boxes.

Sara glanced over at the manager, who was busily talking on the phone at the rear of the store. She carefully placed the birthday card back on the rack. Then she took a deep breath and began to inch her way to the door.

Sara moved aside as another woman entered the store—a tall young woman with blond hair. The young blonde approached the postal boxes.

In an instant the cop appeared from behind the wall, gun drawn. “Freeze! And don’t even think about moving!”

A plainclothes cop rushed through the door, brushing past Sara. He had his gun out and pointed at the blonde. “Get your hands up against the wall and keep them there!”

“Wh-what have I done?” the blonde shrieked, petrified with fear.

“Just do as you’re told,” the plainclothes cop ordered, his gun trained at the blonde’s head. “Now, get those goddamn hands up!”

Sara slipped out of the store. She walked slowly past the manicure shop and turned the corner. Ahead two sightseeing buses had stopped and were offloading passengers. Most of the people were blond and fair-complected with cameras around the necks. Sara hurried toward the buses and disappeared into a crowd of German tourists.

Lori McKay went to the blackboard and put check marks by the names of the three patients who had received the lipolytic enzyme and had developed cancer.

“We’ve retested the enzyme preparations from Bio-Med for the third time and found nothing,” she told Joanna. “They contain no preservatives, and there’s no contamination of any kind.”

“Oh, something is there,” Joanna said, sipping coffee as she studied the blackboard. “We just haven’t found it yet.”

“Well, we’d better find it soon, because we’re running out of specimens and places to look.”

“Did you restudy the microscopic slides?”

“Until my eyes dropped out,” Lori replied. “There was nothing new. The normal tissue in their organs appears to be incredibly healthy, and the cancers look bizarre and mean as hell.”

“What about the electron microscopic studies?” Joanna asked.

“Dennis Green is checking on that now,” Lori answered. “But when you hear nothing from those people, it usually means they’ve found nothing.”

Joanna sighed wearily. “We’re not making any progress here. We’re just fumbling around in the dark.”

“Well, we’d better shed some light on something real quick, or the newspapers are going to eat us alive.”

Joanna nodded. “I just saw yesterday’s front-page article.”

“It’s not as bad as today’s editorial,” Lori went on. “They flat-out say we experimented on desperate patients without warning them of all the possible side effects. They said the public should expect more from doctors, particularly those at Memorial.”

“No doubt that was written by the colleagues of the editor who developed renal cancer.”

“No doubt.”

“And you know what the sad part is?” Joanna asked.

“What?”

“What they wrote was true.”

The phone rang. Lori picked it up and spoke briefly. Then she placed her hand over the receiver. “It’s Simon Murdock.”

Joanna groaned and reached for the phone. “Yes, Simon.”

“I may require your assistance in a somewhat delicate matter.”

“Tell me how I can help.”

“The news media is demanding we have a press conference on this cancer-causing drug,” Murdock told her. “They want details, and I want you to be there to answer the scientific questions.”

“I’d put that conference on hold for now,” Joanna advised.

“That’s easier said than done.” Murdock described the intense pressure being put on him to hold a public hearing. The pressure was coming at him from all sides. Even his own board of directors at Memorial was demanding a full and open disclosure.

Joanna listened patiently, feeling sorry for Murdock and knowing he had no way out.

A second line on Joanna’s phone began to blink. Quickly she signaled to Lori, pointing at the wall phone.

Lori hurried over and picked up the phone. She spoke for a moment and then waved to Joanna. “It’s Lieutenant Sinclair.”

Joanna covered the receiver with her hand, mentally blocking out Murdock’s voice. “Take a message,” she called over softly.

Joanna returned to her conversation with Murdock, but she kept her eyes on Lori and tried to overhear her conversation with Jake.

Lori was saying, “She’s on the other line. Can I take a message? . . . Uh-huh, uh-huh. . . . No more than six hours. . . . Uh-huh. . . . Okay. I’ll make sure she gets the message.”

Lori hung up.

Joanna turned her full attention back to Simon Murdock. “Here’s my best advice, Simon. Delay the press conference. Tell them we’re now finishing our investigation, and once that’s done we’ll be glad to meet with them and discuss our findings.”

“Given more time, do you think you can come up with an answer?” Murdock asked hopefully.

“I wouldn’t bet on it,” Joanna said. “But if I’m going to stand up in front of a news conference, I’ll want every bit of information at my fingertips.”

“I doubt if they will agree to a delay.”

“They will if you don’t give them any other choice.”

“I’ll get back to you later.”

Joanna put the phone down and looked over at Lori. “Well? What did Jake want?”

“He said to tell you that the fetuses were packed in ice,” Lori reported. “That was a mandatory requirement. Otherwise the fetuses were not bought.”

Joanna asked quickly, “What about the six hours?”

“The fetuses had to be delivered within six hours,” Lori said. “That, too, was mandatory.”

Joanna had other questions that only Jake could answer. Where were the fetuses delivered? Did Mirren actually pick them up from the Russian? Was there any way to show beyond a doubt that the fetuses ended up at Bio-Med? Damn, Joanna cursed to herself, now wishing she had talked to Jake.

“Why pack the fetuses in ice?” Lori asked, breaking into Joanna’s thoughts.

“They wanted fetal organs,” Joanna said, focusing her mind on the problem.

“But for what?” Lori persisted. “Fetal organs have no use.”

“Those organs are important to somebody,” Joanna assured her. “That’s why those fetuses were packed in ice and had to be delivered within six hours.”

“Maybe they wanted fetal bone marrow,” Lori suggested. “Maybe they wanted undifferentiated blood cells for some reason.”

“Then why eviscerate the fetuses and take their brains as well?”

Lori nodded. “You’ve got a point.”

“But that doesn’t bring us any closer to an answer.”

Lori wrinkled her brow, concentrating. “Do you think it’s possible that they discovered a way to transplant fetal organs into patients?”

Joanna shrugged. “Bio-Med is not involved in transplantation. That’s not what they do.” She gave the matter more thought, gauging it from a commercial standpoint. “And they don’t have the know-how or facilities to do it.”

“Maybe they’re transplanting the fetal organs into experimental animals.”

Joanna shook her head at the idea. “That has no commercial value. They wouldn’t be the least bit interested in that.”

“Why not take the easy route?” Lori asked. “You know, just ask the people at Bio-Med. Maybe there’s a simple answer.”

“They’d deny any knowledge of it,” Joanna said. “And remember, Mirren was the only one we can prove was involved with the fetuses, and he’s dead.”

“How about getting a search warrant?”

“You’re dreaming.”

The door opened, and Dennis Green walked into the forensic laboratory. “They found something interesting in the electron microscopic studies on Oliver Rhodes’s heart. I’m not sure what the hell it means, though.”

Joanna leaned forward. “Within the cardiac muscle cells?”

“Right,” Green went on. “They found viral particles scattered throughout, both in the malignant and nonmalignant cells.”

Joanna’s eyes widened. “Are they positive those are viral particles?”

“Positive.”

“Could they explain the presence of these particles?”

“Not really,” Green replied. “Somebody suggested Rhodes might have had a viral myocarditis. But that wouldn’t explain why he developed a malignancy of the heart.”

“Viruses are known to cause some cancers,” Lori said. “For example, in cats a virus causes feline leukemia.”

“But viruses have never been proved to cause cancer in man,” Green countered. “Except maybe for the Epstein-Barr virus in Burkitt’s lymphoma. And this patient surely doesn’t have a lymphoma.”

Joanna listened to the scientific exchange, but her mind was elsewhere. She was trying to concentrate on the viral particles and what their presence meant. What were those viral particles doing there? And how did they get into the cardiac muscle cells? Was it just a case of viral myocarditis? Was the finding simply a red herring that had no relationship to the malignancy?

“No,” Green was telling Lori, “they couldn’t identify the type of virus from the particles.”

“Too bad,” Lori said. “There are some viruses that are known to cause myocarditis with some frequency. Viruses like Coxsackie usually—”

“Wait a minute!” Joanna interrupted. “What makes you so certain this was a viral myocarditis?”

“I’m not certain,” Green said. “But the virus was present in the cardiac muscle cells and—”