Fractured Memory (15 page)

Eli cleared his throat. “I understand your anger at me—particularly if you are innocent. Remember, your help in this matter could help your appeal, so I expect you to drop that tone and have a civil conversation. Otherwise there’s no reason for us to carry on. I can solve this without you.”

“Can you?” Heller challenged. “Because I tried several times to help you before my case went to trial and you wouldn’t have anything to do with me. I guess it was hard for you, Eli, to critically look at the clues and not jump to the easy bait.”

Julia placed her fingertips on the table. “The reason we’re here is that someone is trying to kill me. We’re trying to find out who this person is—”

“Your partner perhaps,” Eli floated out.

“Since I didn’t commit these crimes, I didn’t have a partner.”

Eli shoved his chair back, and the metal scraping against linoleum sent icy threads through Julia’s body. Was Eli disengaging? Or did he feel he couldn’t set aside his disdain to have a productive conversation?

“Tell me,” Julia said. “What’s your theory of these crimes?”

“Have you wondered why the Hangman became active again?” Heller asked.

Eli nodded but didn’t say anything.

“I knew Evelyn Roush—pretty well as a matter of fact.”

“In what capacity?” Eli asked, the disdain gone from his tone.

Julia’s heartbeat settled down a little. Perhaps this could be a productive interaction.

“She approached me about three years ago.”

“What did she want?” Julia asked.

“Her company, Medical Interventions International, developed a new style of ventilator that was able to read brain activity to know when the patient was going to take a breath. It had been successful in adults, but she wanted a research trial in pediatrics.”

“What’s the benefit of that for a patient?” Eli asked.

As Dr. Heller talked, Julia began to remember how excited the unit was for this type of life-support equipment. Coordinating the patient’s breathing with a ventilator was hard. When the patient medically improved enough to come off the machine, he had to prove he was strong enough to breathe on his own. The best thing to progress a patient to this point was for the patient to feel as though his breathing was as natural as possible, which meant there couldn’t be a lag between when a patient triggered a breath and when the machine gave one. Breathing is generated from nerve impulses originating in the brain. If a machine could sense these nerve impulses, the patient would have a more natural breathing pattern.

“That was like speaking Chinese, Doc,” Eli said.

“The important thing to understand is that the technology was the most advanced thing to come along ever for ventilator support.”

“What was Evelyn’s proposition?”

“A multicenter research trial. Things like this take time to get approval. Clinical trials need to go through a special review board. It adds prestige to your hospital if you can be aligned with breakthrough discoveries like this one.”

“You would get a benefit as well, right?” Eli asked.

“Of course. I’m not one to risk my professional career without getting some recognition in the process, but this machine really
was
good for patients. The adult studies showed that it decreased overall ventilator time, which led to a bunch of other positive benefits. The less time patients are in the hospital, the less they’re exposed to life-threatening infections, and their risk for mortality decreases.”

“The longer you stay in the hospital, the more at risk you are for infection and death?” Eli asked.

Heller nodded. “I merely repeat what the medical studies show.”

“Were there any problems in the adult trials?” Julia asked.

He turned his attention back to Julia. “There had been a few deaths, but it was unclear if it was related to the machine or to how ill the patient was. When a hospital decides to run these trials and you are working with a population of sick people—many times it’s assumed that it’s the trial that caused their death, but oftentimes the illness they suffer from is just as responsible.”

“How many deaths in the adult population?” Eli asked.

“None that could solely be attributed to the ventilator.”

“Dr. Heller—it’s not like you’re at risk of losing your license or anything,” Eli said.

“Three deaths in thousands of patients. Hardly significant.”

Julia understood what he meant in the medical sense. There was always the weight of benefitting the patient versus causing harm, and to move medical advancement forward...there would always be patients who died as a result. It was hard for people outside medicine to understand this quandary without feeling that the medical establishment was being reckless with people’s lives.

“What does all this have to do with your case and the death of Evelyn Roush?” Eli asked.

“Have you ever wondered why the Hangman is active now?”

“Why do you think?” Julia asked.

“During our trial we had two pediatric deaths. In the first death, there was no question that it was related to the patient’s illness. Overwhelming sepsis. Not much to be done there.”

“And the second?” Eli asked.

“Clearly related to the ventilator. Julia, do you remember this child?”

“Yes, he was around twelve. Had tried to—”

“Hang himself.”

“Someone so young?” Eli said.

“We could have all sorts of discussions about the state of society, families and teaching kids how to deal with failure, but it’s not unheard of. What we don’t know is if he meant to kill himself or if he was participating in some sort of game.”

“What happened with the machine in this boy’s case?” Eli asked.

“The breathing machine delivered successive breaths without letting any air come out. Your lungs are like balloons and they’ll pop when they get overinflated. That’s what happened, and he eventually succumbed to the complications from that event. The hospital was quick to pay out millions. This is what you, as in the police, never understood. Each of the Hangman’s victims took care of this child.”

This. One. Child. Could it be true? And if so, did Dr. Heller remember the name of the patient? Did Julia? Getting the hospital to release any records, particularly if they were related to a lawsuit, wasn’t going to happen in the span of one or two days.

“We checked a similar angle—since all the victims were part of health care in some capacity, but not all the victims worked at just one hospital.”

“Then you didn’t check the right way,” Heller said.

Julia recalled the respiratory therapist that had been part of a float agency.

Heller continued. “The Hangman’s second victim, Theresa, was a nurse the hospital was having trouble with and had been fired as a result of inputting bad patient data that led to an overdose of a drug. She had other problems, but that was the biggest.”

The potassium error?

“I’m not sure what the hospital would or wouldn’t have disclosed, but by the time Theresa popped up dead she’d been employed by another care facility for at least six months.”

“I still don’t understand how the CEO of MII is the linchpin to your case,” Eli said.

Heller leaned forward and licked his dry, cracked lips, his voice low, almost as if these walls weren’t thick enough to keep the secret he was about to divulge.

“The FDA just approved that ventilator for use in pediatrics. Many hospitals will begin to use it and they won’t need special permission. The Hangman is killing the people he thinks are responsible for this child’s death—he’s likely a relative of this boy.”

“The CEO’s death changed your mind?” Julia said.

“Let’s just say her death focused my vision. My malpractice attorney had a copy of this patient’s record for review before the hospital settled. After Evelyn’s unfortunate event hit the news, I had him review the patient’s chart to see if each of these workers was involved with this patient.”

“And?”

“Every. Single. One.”

“Why didn’t you share this with the police?” Eli asked.

“My goal is to use this information for an appeal. What can you do? What would the DA do? He’s not exactly shown his willingness to assist in overturning cases.”

Eli’s frown confirmed to Julia what Heller said was true.

“How do you explain your blood at the Hangman’s crime scenes?” Eli asked.

“I’ve been thinking a lot about that, too.”

He reached for Julia again and then shook his head when he couldn’t touch her. “My wife, do you remember her?”

“Karen? I know who she is, but I don’t think I ever worked with her.”

“She worked in the directed donation section of the blood bank.”

Something burst inside Julia’s chest. Why would a woman betray her husband in such a way? Frame him for heinous murders?

“Let me see if I follow,” Eli said. “Julia has mentioned to me that you’ve given blood for patients who are having surgery. Your wife would have access to your blood because she works with the units that are given for specific patients, so she’s the Hangman?”

Heller shook his head. “No, I don’t think she’d have the strength to do what the Hangman does.”

“But what’s the reason she would do something so...”

“Vile?”

“Exactly,” Eli said. “To frame you for murder seems to be taking things to the extreme. An unbelievable extreme.”

“I was having an affair with a nurse in the PICU. She became the first Hangman’s victim. I think my wife gave a pint of my blood to whoever the Hangman is, and I became the perfect scapegoat.”

Eli stood from the table. “Julia, I think we have what we need.”

Dr. Heller stood as well and the guards approached him with the slow motion of wolves stalking their prey. “Julia, you know me. You have to believe that I would never do something so terrible.”

Julia wanted to reach out to him—to offer him some form of human comfort. How many lives had the Hangman destroyed? It wasn’t just the victims—it was also their families and other innocents along the way.

Eli shoved his hands into his pockets. “I’m going to take what you said very seriously, Dr. Heller. If you are innocent of these crimes, I promise you that there won’t be anyone who will work harder than me to get you out of here.”

Heller nodded. “Don’t want your record to be tarnished?”

“No, I don’t want to live with the guilt of knowing I’ve sent an innocent man to jail and didn’t do anything about it. If your theory proves out, I’ll help you get back on your feet. I promise. I need to know that boy’s name.”

“Jason Montgomery.”

“Do you have his birthday? Do you know where he was born? What are his parents’ names?”

“Father’s name is David, and the mother’s name was Carolyn.”

“Was?” Julia said.

“She’s no longer alive. Committed suicide shortly after her son’s death.”

* * *

As soon as they were through security, Eli was on his phone.

The theory Heller floated out there seemed plausible, but it also had a lot of holes, which was common with criminals trying to do everything they could to get out of jail. Eli and his team still hadn’t identified who had hired Ryder Dymond to kill Julia, and Eli remained unconvinced that Heller wasn’t involved. What the interview proved to Eli was that Heller had a partner and that perpetrator also needed to be identified. And that man had been the one to hire Ryder. Still, Eli was going to keep his word.

“FBI Forensics Lab. Shawn Jaeger speaking.”

Eli’s breath caused static on the line as he and Julia walked back to his car. “Shawn. Eli Cayne.

A slow exhalation. “Eli, I don’t have anything for you yet.”

“I’m calling on a different issue.”

“Same case?” Shawn asked.

“Yes. Can you tell if blood left at a crime scene comes from a donated pint of blood?” Eli asked.

“We wouldn’t think that right off. I don’t believe I’ve ever had a case like that, but we’d get suspicious if the blood at the scene didn’t clot or had a low DNA yield. After the person donates, the components of blood are separated into packed red blood cells, platelets and some other things, and packed red blood cells don’t have the same amount of DNA that whole blood does.”

“By what other ways could you tell?”

“You can test the blood for the preservative used in blood banking.”

“Shawn—”

“Let me guess...another favor?”

“Can you look back at the blood samples used to identify Heller and test it for the preservative?”

“Now I’m intrigued. I’ll get right on it,” Shawn said.

Eli disconnected the call and dialed the next person he needed to talk to. “Q—I just met with Heller.”

“And?”

“Well, he’s floating out quite a theory. Of course, he denies all involvement in the crime.”

“Of course.”

“I need you to get some information for me from Heller’s lawyer. I don’t think we have enough time to work through the hospital to get what I want. I need to locate a particular patient’s father. Son’s name was Jason Montgomery. Father’s name David.”

“What am I looking for exactly?”

“A current address. I need to talk with him. Also, I need an address for Heller’s wife—or ex-wife probably. Karen Heller.”

“Okay—this pertains to Julia’s case?”

“I hope so.”

“Eli, what’s going on? You’ve not been updating me appropriately, and I’m not on board with you protecting Julia twenty-four-seven. We all need a break or we lose focus.”

What could Eli say? He didn’t want to be apart from Julia. He had already lost focus. He had to see this thing through for both their sakes.

Quentin changed tactics when Eli didn’t answer. “How is Julia holding up?”

They made it to Eli’s vehicle. He watched as Julia got inside but delayed a few moments.

“Ryder’s interview was pretty hard on Julia’s psyche. It’s obvious they’re still coming for her.”

“You can’t be alone today,” Quentin said. “You need backup. Has there been a fallout between you and Ben?”

Eli chewed his inner cheek. “No, sir.”

“Then come by and get him. What’s your plan?”

“I’m going back to talk to Ryder’s wife. I have a hunch and I need to see if it plays out. If not, hopefully by then you’ll have figured out how to make contact with these other two people.”