Miracle Cure (21 page)

She sighed, carried the bowl back into the den, and sat on the couch.

She glanced at the file she had read yesterday.

Unbelievable. Harvey and Bruce had done it. Cured AIDS.

Turned an HIV positive into an HIV negative. Historic.

Jennifer picked up Scott Trian's file and fingered through the pages until she arrived at the spot where she had left off. She scanned down the page. There. The spot where Trian became HIV negative. She read on. Trian's condition progressed nicely now, though not without some setbacks. Bruce noted:

There are times when Scott is made so weak from the injections of SRI that I fear for him. Harvey and I talked about it last night. We both agree that we have to do something to lessen the side effects. Still, the alternative death from AIDS is far worse than what we are seeing in Trian.

The file held no more surprising revelations, just a few scattered notes about Trian's reaction to SRI. Bruce's last note read:

DNA? A vs. B

What did that mean? She shrugged, put down the file, and picked up another. Whitherson, William. His file was very much like Trian's.

Whitherson had also been transformed to HIV negative, but he had other problems:

Bill's family is so damn un supportive His father won't speak to him, and his mother feels trapped between her husband and her son, afraid to talk to Bill because her husband would see it as some sort of betrayal.

p" Horse's asses, both of them. The funny thing is Bill still loves them like mad. He calls them all the time. I hear him pleading over the phone in a hushed, defeated voice.

"But don't you understand? I'm dying." Still nothing.

And the same last note:

DNA? A vs. B. She read about Krutzer, Theodore, next. His pattern was very similar to the others with only a few noticeable differences:

Unlike Whitherson's family, Teddy's seems positively unbelievable. His father and mother have not only accepted their son's homosexuality, they seem to encourage it. His father invites Teddy's boyfriend to the house on weekends. They go fishing together.

And then further:

Another cured patient. It's too good to be true. Krutzer's illness had never been acute, nothing worse than a bout with hepatitis and a few skin rashes. And now he's cured. Harvey made a suggestion today which I think is valid. The conversation between Harvey, Eric, and me went something like this.

Harvey: You do all the testing on Krutzer, Bruce. Don't let anyone else but yourself touch this case. You do the tests in the lab yourself.

Eric: Why?

Harvey: Independent research. If different people handle different cases, then one man cannot be accused of tampering with the results. I suggest you try to bring in Markey on this one.

Me: Okay, I'll give him a call. I doubt he'll be interested.

Harvey: At least we can say we offered him the opportunity.

Eric: I'm not sure why we have to do this. We don't have time to play lab technicians.

Harvey: It's too important, Eric. We can't let there be any holes in our research for our enemies to exploit.

The rest of the files read similarly, each with its own unique twists and turns. Nothing odd about that. What was odd, however, was that they all ended with the same strange note:

DNA? A vs. B. Jennifer was about to reach for the last file when she remembered the small styrofoam containers. She glanced at them, stacked on the edge of the couch. Each one had a patient's name taped to the outside. She pried open the one that read

"Trian, Scott."

Inside were two small test tubes labeled A and B. What the...?

She pulled the small test tubes more like vials really out of the snug holders. Blood. They were blood samples. She examined the other styrofoam containers. All were the same. A patient's name taped to the styrofoam outside, two test tubes labeled A and B both filled with blood on the inside.

What for?

Then she noticed the small white envelope.

It had fallen under the couch and only a corner of it was visible.

Jennifer reached down and picked up the envelope. Plain white. No return address, no markings. The kind of envelope you'd buy at a five and ten. Bruce had written "Susan" across the front in his familiar scrawl. Jennifer turned the envelope over.

When she read what Bruce had written across the back seal, she felt her stomach drop into her feet. In small, plain block letters, it said:

TO BE OPENED UPON MY DEATH.

"Need some help?"

Max Bernstein looked up at Sara.

"Yeah, come on in. Where's Michael?"

"Being treated," Sara replied.

"Are those the patient files?"

Max nodded, a fresh pencil in his mouth.

"This sucker just gets weirder and weirder."

Sara sat down, unsnapped her brace and rubbed her leg.

"I'm listening."

"Okay," Max began.

"Here are the medical files for all the victims. Let's start with Trian. He was one of the first patients, admitted almost three years ago. Whitherson came in about the same time. Same with Martino, the intravenous drug abuser."

"And Bradley?"

"That's just it. Bradley is the oddball out. He was in here less than a year. He was in the middle of treatment. He was doing well, but he had not yet turned HIV negative. It doesn't fit. Did Harvey fill you in on our talk?"

"Did he tell you about his theory about someone trying to destroy the clinic?"

Sara nodded.

"It made sense to Michael and me."

"Made sense to me too, but there are so many holes. Take Bradley Jenkins, for example. Let's assume that these conspiracy guys are out to get rid of the cured AIDS patients the proof, to use Harvey's word.

Then why kill Bradley Jenkins? He was a new patient at the clinic. And why move his body behind a gay bar? And another thing. If you're out to do serious damage to a place and you don't care about killing a few people in the process, why pussy-foot around? Why not go all out? Why not burn down the Pavilion? Why not just kill Harvey and Eric and destroy their records?"

"I see your point."

"I don't know, Sara, something just doesn't fit. Why did the killer make the murders so obvious?"

"He's a psycho."

"A psycho who has penetrated the inner sanctum of this hospital? I don't think so."

"Maybe he wanted to distract everyone by making them think he was just targeting the gay community," Sara said.

"How so?"

"His first two victims were blatant homosexuals killed in a gruesome manner," Sara explained.

"The press was bound to pick it up. The killer knew that. He also knew that the world would immediately assume the murders were the work of a psychotic homophobe. No one looked deeper than that pat explanation at first. The world searched for the Gay Slasher, a man who murders homosexuals randomly, not a calculating killer intent on exterminating patients at a confidential clinic."

"But the press didn't go after the story that much until..."

"Until they killed the son of a famous senator," Sara finished.

"Which explains why he killed Bradley. It attracted media attention.

Everyone finally focused in on the Gay Slasher."

Max scratched his face, thinking.

"I see what you're saying, but it still doesn't jibe. Why did the killer move Bradley's body behind the gay bar?"

"So the world would know he was gay," Sara tried.

"The killer wanted everyone to think he was the Gay Slasher, a man who terrorized the gay community. Trian and Whitherson were known homosexuals. Bradley's sexual preference, on the other hand, was a well-kept secret. What better way to reveal the truth than to dump Bradley's body behind a gay bar in the Village?" "Okay," he said, "that's theory one. I'm not sure I buy it, but let's move on."

"I don't completely buy it either," Sara said, "but let me throw something else out at you. Could the killer just have been after Bradley?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, could the killer have murdered Trian and Whitherson to make it look like a serial killer when the real target was Bradley all along?

Could someone have been out to destroy Senator Jenkins by "

"Forget it.

I thought about that already. It makes no sense.

Why kill Ricky Martino after the fact? Why break into the lab?

And what about the clinic connection? Are you just going to write that off as a coincidence? And what about Grey's supposed suicide "

"Enough already," she interrupted.

"I get the point. Forget I mentioned it."

"Sony" He stacked the files and pushed them away.

"Nervous about tonight's press conference?"

"Terrified. But I'm a lot more afraid of this disease."

Max nodded.

"Michael's strong, Sara. Harvey will cure him."

Harvey Riker picked up his private line.

"Hello?" "Hello, handsome," Cassandra said.

"I'd like to rip your clothes off."

"I'm sorry. You must have the wrong number."

"All the better," she replied.

"How did your meeting go with Northeastern Air?"

"It's not over yet. How's your day been?"

He considered telling Cassandra about Michael's condition but quickly dismissed the thought. It was not his place to say anything.

"Not good. We lost a patient last night. Murdered, we think."

"Another one?"

"Yes."

Cassandra hesitated.

"Do you really think that Reverend Sanders is connected to this?"

"I wouldn't put it past him."

"And my father?"

Harvey weighed his words carefully.

"It seems strange to me that the same day your father denied knowing Sanders personally, you hear them arguing in his study. Why did he lie to us? What was he trying to hide?"

Harvey's intercom buzzed before she could answer.

"Hold on a second, Cassandra." He pressed the intercom button.

"Hello?"

"Doctor Riker?"

"Yes," Harvey replied.

"There's a call for you on line seven."

"I'm in the middle of something here. Is it important?"

There was a small pause.

"Its Dr. Raymond Markey."

Harvey felt afraid. The Assistant Secretary of Health and Human Services never called unless it was bad news.

"Hold on a second." He pressed a button.

"I'll call you back, Cassandra."

He pushed another button.

"Dr. Markey?"

"Hello, Dr. Riker. How are you this morning?"

"Not very well."

"Oh?"

"Another one of our patients died last night. He may have been murdered."

"Murdered?" Markey repeated.

"My God, Riker, how many does that make?"

Harvey caught himself just before saying the number four.

"Uh, three."

"What was the latest victim's name?"

"Martino."

"Martino, Martino... ah here it is. Riccardo Martino? Intravenous drug abuser?"

"That's him."

"So let's see. The other two were Trian and Whitherson. Both gay.

Multiple stab wounds. The same with Martino?"

"No."

"Then what killed him?"

"An injection of cyanide."

"My God, how awful. Terrible thing."

"Yes, it is. I'm really beginning to worry about the safety of my other patients."

"Yes, well, I wouldn't worry about that too much. I'm sure this is all nothing more than a terrible coincidence."

A terrible coincidence?

"With all due respect, sir, three patients all from the same clinic have been killed."

"Yes, but you're forgetting one important factor: Bradley Jenkins, the senator's son, was also found stabbed to death.

According to the police, he was murdered by the same man who killed Trian and Whitherson this so-called Gay Slasher. And Jenkins was not a patient at the clinic. I have your patient list right in front of me and his name is not on it."

Harvey froze, trapped. For some reason he was sure that Raymond Markey was smiling on the other end of the phone.

"Well, yes, but-"

"So there is nothing to worry about. Now if Jenkins had been a patient at the clinic, well, then we'd have quite a problem on our hands. Your reports would be inaccurate. And if that were the case, then everything in the reports could be questioned. We'd have to assume other discrepancies exist. All your studies would have to be re-examined and all your findings would be considered tainted. You could lose your grant."

Harvey felt something in his gut tighten. The show tonight.

The report on the clinic, on the murders... on Bradley Jenkins.

Lieutenant Bernstein's voice came back to him.

"What exactly is Parker going to cover?" Max had asked Sara.

"The AIDS cure? The Gay Slasher connection? Senator Jenkins' kid being treated at the clinic?"

And Sara's answer.

"All of it."

Raymond Markey did not speak for a few moments, allowing his words to float about, settle, and then burrow into the surroundings.

The son of a bitch already knows about Jenkins, Harvey thought.

But how? And why didn't I think of this before? What the hell is going on here?

At last Raymond Markey broke the silence.

"But of course," he said, "we both know that Bradley Jenkins was not a patient at the clinic so you have nothing to worry about. The deaths are nothing but an awful coincidence. Goodbye, Dr. Riker."

Raymond Markey put down the phone. In front of his desk Reverend Sanders sat smiling. Such an eerie smile, Raymond thought. So genuinely jolly, friendly, gentle. Not sinister at all.

What a mask it was. Incredible really as incredible as the man himself. Markey knew Sanders' history. Poor boy from the south.

Father was a farmer who ran moonshine across state lines. Mother was a drunk. Sanders had conned, clawed, and blackmailed his way out of poverty, stampeding over anything that got in his way.

He was shrewd. He knew how to manipulate people and consolidate a power base. His influence had started with the poor and uneducated and now stretched into some of Washington's most powerful circles.