GRAY MATTER (12 page)

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Authors: Gary Braver

BOOK: GRAY MATTER
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“Who may I ask is calling?”
For some reason Rachel could not get herself to announce her name. “I—I’m calling about his study on birth defects.”
“Yes.”
“Well, I’d like to talk to him about it, please … to make an appointment if that’s possible.”
“I’m sorry but Dr. Chu is out of town today and won’t be back until the end of the week. Is there something I can help you with?”
“No, I’d like to speak directly with him. I can come to his office when he’s free.”
“What is your name, please?”
Now she couldn’t go back or she might be dismissed. “Rachel Whitman.”
“Ms. Whitman, Dr. Chu is very busy. So if you could please give me some idea what your interest is—if you’re a student, or a researcher, or a pharmaceutical rep …”
Before Rachel could think, she said, “I took LSD laced with TNT some years ago, and I’m concerned my child has been … affected.”
“I see.” There was a long pause. “He’s free next Wednesday at one,” she said, then gave directions to the office in New Haven.
When she hung up, Rachel’s eye fell on the baby picture of Dylan on the fireplace mantel. He was sitting in the bathtub covered with big puffs of bubblebath and laughing happily. He looked gorgeous.
According to the report on Chu’s study, two-thirds of the TNT women studied had given birth to children with birth defects, and half of those suf fered damage to the brains.
Not my baby.
Please, dear God …
When Rachel got off the phone, there was a message from Sheila to meet her at the Dells. She had some “important information” for her. So she drove to the club and went in the side entrance, which took her through the lounge.
Because it was a little after ten, the room was empty. But as she passed through, she spotted Brendan LaMotte behind the large mahogany bar with a buffing cloth. But instead of polishing glasses, he appeared to be slouched low with his back to her. As she walked by, she caught him unawares, sniffing from an open bottle of liquor. Startled, he capped the bottle and pretended to be wiping it clean and lining it on the shelves.
Rachel did not want to make a scene, so she continued through the lounge with no more than a chirpy “hello” which was her cue that being underage, he would be fired if caught.
Sheila was waiting for her at a table. A waitress came over and took their orders and left.
“Here you go,” Sheila said and pulled out one of her business cards. On the back she had written: “Nova Children’s Center.”
Also, a telephone number and address: “452 Franklin Avenue, Myrtle.” That was a town between Hawthorne and Gloucester.
“So, what is the place?”
“A complete child-care center with therapists, child psychologists, pediatricians, development experts, neurologists, whatever. The whole shebang for kids.”
“You mean a clinic?”
“Well, kind of. But it’s
very
unique.”
“I’ve never heard of them.” But then again she had only lived in the area for six months. “So, what makes them so unique?”
Rachel lowered her voice. “Well, what I know is that they can help children with learning disorders and, you know, neurological problems, brain dysfunctions. Stuff like that. Some kind of
enhancement
procedures.”
“Enhancement procedures?”
“Yeah, for kids with memory and information-processing problems. Whatever.”
Sheila was being vague again, probably not to offend Rachel with the suggestion that Dylan had a neurological disorder. “You said something about corrective procedures.”
“That’s what I’m telling you. I’ve heard they can, you know … raise a kid’s IQ—maybe even double it.”
“Double it! That’s not possible.”
Sheila rolled her eyes in frustration. “Look, sweetie, I don’t know the ins and outs, so I don’t want to mislead and all. But they’ve got all kinds of programs, procedures, and stuff—I’m not sure of the details—but what I do know is that they’re very exclusive, if you know what I mean. Like they don’t take just anybody, and they’re très expensive. But you got their number, so why don’t you just call them and make an appointment and bring in all your questions, okay?”
“How do you know so much about them?”
“Because this is a small town and I’ve lived here for twenty years is how come. Look, give them a call, they’re supposed to be the best, and they’re in your own backyard. If Dylan’s got a problem, he can be fixed.”
“Whom do I ask for?”
Sheila lowered her voice to a near whisper. “Lucius Malenko.”
“Who?”
Sheila wrote the name on the card. “He’s one of the directors. You’re going to want to talk to him eventually, but first you’ll have to bring Dylan in to be tested so they can see what his problems are. So, call and make an appointment. You can’t lose.”
Rachel thanked her and stared at the name. Lucius Malenko.
“If Dylan’s got a problem, he can be fixed.
”
I
t was a little before noon when Greg showed up at the Essex Medical Center. He would have put it off until the evening, but Nurse Cynthia Porter and the others were working the ER day shift. Instead of reporting to Lieutenant Gelford where he was heading, Greg slipped out of the barracks and headed north.
He met Nurse Porter in a small conference room in the ER complex. With her was a radiologist, introduced as Dr. Adrian Budd, and a resident physician, Dr. Paul Doria. They were there at Nurse Porter’s request.
Greg sat down opposite them and removed from his briefcase the photographs of the skulls, including the computer schematics with the holes marked. “There’s a pattern of evidence that may shed light on what happened to these kids,” he said, and he described the circumstances surrounding each of the remains.
While Greg spoke, Dr. Budd and Nurse Porter listened with interest. But Dr. Doria, a mutt-faced man with a goatee, nodded impatiently in time with his “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” That annoyed Greg. When he finished, Doria glanced at his watch. “I wish we could help, but we can’t.”
“Why not?”
“Patient confidentiality,” Doria said curtly. “We can’t release the patient’s name or discuss his condition.” He made a move to get up.
Greg looked at Cindy. “On the telephone, you said you would be able to show me the X rays so we could make comparisons.”
“I know, but then I checked with my supervisor, and we can’t do that.”
She made a woeful expression. “I’m really sorry, Officer. I just found out, or I would have saved you the trip.”
Greg looked at them, thinking of his two-hour drive and what Gelford would say if he found out that Greg had come up here and returned emptyhanded.
Doria took a step from the table toward the door. “The only way we could release them is through a court order or a subpoena. Sorry.”
Budd began to inch his chair back from the table also.
“Well, then, what can you tell me?”
“Just that the patient had scars on his head that looked similar to those in the newspaper,” Nurse Porter said.
“Any idea where they came from?”
“No.”
“Did you ask him?”
“Yes, but he didn’t know.”
“How could he not know?”
Her face clouded over since Greg wasn’t going to let go. “Well, I don’t know,” she said reluctantly. “Unless it was some kind of procedure he had at a young age.”
“Have you ever seen scars like those before?”
Porter glanced at the others. “Well, not really.”
“They were very unusual,” Budd added, and Doria shot him a hard look.
“Can you at least tell me how old he was?” Greg asked.
Cindy looked at Doria who made a half-nod to end the discussion. “Eighteen.”
Greg conspicuously wrote down on his pad: “Male—eighteen.”
“White?”
“Mmm.”
“And what did he come into the ER for?”
“Excuse me, Officer,” Doria cut in. “But we can’t do this.”
“Do what?”
“Try to get around protocol by playing twenty questions. I mean, if you had a crime and a court order, that would be different. But you don’t, and we’re not at liberty to discuss the case. Patients have their rights.”
The others nodded.
“Then can you tell me what kind of medical procedure these holes
might have come from?” He spread out the skull photos and moved them closer to them.
“I don’t think we can continue,” Doria announced, backing away.
“Why not?”
“Because you’re indirectly asking us to disclose a patient’s condition by having us diagnose these remains. And we can’t do that.”
“But you may help solve a crime.”
“What’s to say those holes had anything to do with a crime?” Doria asked.
“Because nobody knows what they were for. So I’m suspicious.”
“Well, if you think there’s a connection,” Doria said, “then get a subpoena.”
That was a legitimate option, but it could take days, even weeks. And that would alert Lieutenant Gelford, who would go ballistic to know Greg was still pursuing this. There was another option.
Greg stood up so he was eye to eye with Doria. “You worked on this patient, correct?”
“You know that.”
“And you were aware that this eighteen-year-old had scars on his head that he himself was not aware of, correct?”
“So?”
Greg picked up the photocopy of the newspaper article on the mystery skull and held it to Doria’s face. “This is child abuse as far as it can go—kidnapping and murder.”
“What’s your point, Officer?” Doria asked.
“My point is that in the state of Massachusetts, as doctors and nurses you are mandated reporters of child abuse. By penalty of law, it is incumbent upon you to report directly to the DSS any suspicions you have that a minor has been wrongfully injured. Failing to do so can result in your arrest and incarceration.”
“But we had no such suspicions,” Doria protested. “The kid had old scars.”
“But you said the kid didn’t know he had them.”
Doria’s face turned red. “Many adults walking the streets have scars from appendectomies, but they didn’t get them from abuse as children.”
“You’ve treated a patient with very unusual scars in his head similar to those of a murdered child. Did you notify the DSS?”
Doria looked at Dr. Budd who both looked at Nurse Porter. Sheepishly, Porter said, “Well, I called you.”
“That’s not what I asked you,” Greg said. “Did you file a report with the DSS as mandated by law?”
“No.”
“Wait a minute,” Doria said. “Are you threatening us, Officer?”
“No, I’m offering you an option to jail.”
“I don’t believe this,” Doria said.
“Believe it.”
“So what are we supposed to do?” Nurse Porter asked. She looked scared.
“Show me the X rays.”
“And if we don’t?” Doria asked defiantly.
“Then I will file a complaint with the attorney general’s office, and you’ll be arrested.”
Doria gave Greg a scathing look. “Give me a break.”
“I am.”
There was a moment of prickly silence. Then Dr. Budd said, “I have no problems with your seeing the films.”
“Me, neither,” Nurse Porter said.
Doria glowered at Greg like an angry schnauzer. “This is coercion, Officer, and you know it,” he said. “You can see them, but I’m drawing the line on revealing the patient’s name.”
“Fair enough.”
Doria left, and returned a few minutes later with a large envelope containing duplicates he had made without the patient’s name or ID number on them. He handed them to the radiologist.
Budd pulled out the X rays and slid them onto the light board. He studied them for a moment, then with a pen he pointed to faint impressions on the top and side images. “These are the holes. There’s a cluster of eight here above the left ear each about a millimeter and a half in diameter—and ten more above the eyebrow, just behind the hairline—here.”
The holes appeared on the images as white dots on the left profile, and tiny transect lines in the top views. “Can you tell how they were made?”
“Since they’re so sharply incised, my guess is a cranial drill,” Budd said.
“As the result of some medical operation or procedure?”
“Yes.”
The holes appeared to be clustered almost identically to those on the Sagamore and Dixon boys’ skulls.
“The ones in front I noticed while working on him,” said Cindy Porter. “But I didn’t know about the others until I saw the films.”
Budd continued. “What’s even odder are the three holes just behind the temple about where the left ear begins.” He tapped them out with the pen.
Not wanting to influence their interpretations, Greg held back on Joe Steiner’s speculations. “What do you make of them?”
“Well, I’m not really sure,” said Budd.
“Have you ever seen clusters of holes like these before?”
“No,” Budd said. “It’s possible he’d been treated for multiple tumors.”
“Except that the surgeon wouldn’t have to make so many holes,” Doria added.
Greg could see that he was warming up again. The threat of jail does that. “Why not?” Greg asked.
“Well, if you’re going to drill so many holes—whatever the reason—it’s a lot easier to pull back the skin first, then drill.” He put his fingers to his forehead and rotated the flesh. “The scalp moves around easily. It makes more sense to do a line incision and push the skin back, then close the incision after boring.”
“So you’re saying that this is an unusual technique.”
“Very,” Doria said. “Why go to this length to make all these little incisions when it’s easier to make a clean slice?”
“Unless he wanted to hide them,” Cindy suggested.
“Why hide them?” Greg asked.
“Maybe the surgeon was trying to avoid leaving a long Frankenstein scar,” said Budd.
“Couldn’t he have made it behind the hairline?”
“Sure, but then the kid grows up and starts losing his hair, and there it is.”
Greg turned to Nurse Porter. “You said he didn’t know he had them.”
“Yeah, he looked genuinely surprised when I pointed them out. In fact, he looked in the mirror like he was seeing them for the first time.”
“Which makes sense, since they were flush to the scalp,” Doria added. “Through the hair, he wouldn’t be able to feel them with his fingers. And he’d never notice them unless he shaved his head.”
“Why was he brought into the ER?”
“He slipped and banged his head against a glass door.”
“And you took the X rays to see if he had a concussion.”
“Yes,” Nurse Porter said.
Greg jotted down what they were saying. “Does his medical file have any record of his having a brain operation?”
“No. In fact, the only entry for him is for a sprained ankle four years ago. He apparently slipped on ice. But that’s it.”
“You still haven’t said what kind of brain operation this could be.”
Doria took the question. “Because I’m not sure. Holes are made through the skull either to take something out of the brain or to put something in. If it was to remove something, then we’re talking needle biopsies or the removal of tumors, lesions, or blood clots. But I have never heard of needing twenty-one holes for any of those procedures. Even if the patient had multiple tumors, I would think that the surgeon would have removed segments of the skull instead of making multiple holes over so large an area. And frankly, tumor masses that large would probably be fatal.”
He was right about the size, since the holes covered an area constituting most of the side of the head.
“The other possibility is putting something into the brain. He could have had interstitial radiation therapy—the insertion of radioactive pellets into tumor tissue. What bothers me is that radiation therapy is local. It’s not commonly used for widely spread or multiple tumors. Another thing, if he doesn’t remember, he must have been very young. And multiple radiation implants in a child are almost never heard of, because a child’s brain is very susceptible to radiation.”
“So, what are you saying?” Greg asked them.
All three of them shook their heads. “I don’t know what they did to him,” Doria said.

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