Mercy

CHAPTER 36

Java du Jour, a new coffee shop that had opened near White Memorial, sold copies of The Boston Globe. Michelle bought one and brought it over to the table where Lucy and Julie sat sipping their morning coffee. The day after Sherri Platt’s murder, The Globe ran a feature front-page story. It had also made national news because of the macabre connection to Brandon Stahl. Three days later, the story was relegated to the Metro section of the Boston papers. Without leads, there was little to hold the interest of a media-saturated public with a short attention span. The national outlets left coverage to the local press. With no suspects, police had opened a tip line seeking the public’s help in finding the killer.

The going theory was that Sherri Platt was the victim of some zealot, one of Brandon Stahl’s supporters, a misguided defender of patient self-determination, who had developed a personal vendetta against Sherri because of her testimony. When Brandon lost his appeal this deranged individual snapped, and took revenge.

Many of the initial news reports included a photograph of Julie taken off the Internet without her knowledge or permission. Trevor was horrified and begged to stay home from school on Monday, anxious about all the attention he would receive. Julie relented, but had to go the police station for more interviews, so Trevor went to his father’s.

He spent the weekend with Julie, though. It was relatively quiet. Calls from reporters eventually died down. Julie told them what she had told the police, with a few omissions. The media hounds did not need to know of her ongoing takotsubo investigation. Even if she had conclusive evidence of some rare heart condition plaguing patients at White, Julie would never go to the press without good reason. She also kept secret her belief that Sherri Platt had lied on the witness stand during the Brandon Stahl trial.

Those details, and others, Julie shared with the police during hours of interviews. The detectives did not know what to make of the takotsubo connection among Sam Talbot, Donald Colchester, and Tommy Grasso. Nor did Julie get the sense they viewed William Colchester as a suspect. The timing of Sherri’s murder and Julie’s meeting with her was most likely coincidental, one detective had said.

Julie did not believe it for a second.

“The funeral is on Sunday,” Michelle noted as she skimmed the article. “Are you going?”

Julie’s face showed the strain of a string of difficult days. “Yes, of course,” she said. “I’m taking Jordan Cobb with me. He knew her-not well, but I think her murder really shook him up. I can’t get the image of that poor girl out of my mind. It’s just been awful.”

Lucy set down her coffee. “You still think William Colchester was behind it?”

“I do. To silence Sherri Platt,” Julie said. “She was going to open up to me; I’m sure of it. And I think that’s what got her killed. I think Colchester bribed her to lie on the witness stand. Heck, he tried to bribe me, said he would do something on his budget committee to benefit White Memorial, and then he told me people would get hurt if I didn’t back off.”

“When did he say that?” Lucy asked.

“He came to my home after I met with Jordan,” Julie said.

“And the police weren’t a little concerned about that?” Michelle’s sarcasm had bite.

“According to the detectives, Colchester had an alibi. He also said there’s been no communication or texts between Colchester and Sherri. They think there would have been something if he had offered Sherri a bribe. But I say, if Sherri was going to come clean about taking a bribe, it certainly gave Colchester a motive.”

Lucy made a look of disgust. “So a crooked state representative will get away with murder?”

“It’s possible,” Julie said. “The police have to do their jobs and I’ll do mine. There’s still a chance we can overturn Brandon’s murder conviction if we can somehow show there’s a pattern of rare heart attacks in seemingly healthy hearts.”

“Won’t explain the morphine, or Sherri’s testimony,” Michelle said.

“I don’t think anything can explain Sherri’s testimony now,” Julie answered.

Lucy said, “I looked at the medical record Jordan sent me to review.”

Julie shot Lucy a glance, her eyes showing concern. “You mean our helper. I don’t want his name getting out.”

“All secrets are safe with me,” Michelle said. “I feel a connection to this, too. I want to be of help.”

Julie gave Michelle’s arm a slight squeeze. Getting to know Michelle, the friendship that had formed, was one of the few bright spots to emerge in the aftermath of Sam’s accident.

“What’s your take on Tommy’s file?” Julie asked.

“My take is I’m not a cardiologist,” Lucy said. “How the heck did our helper learn so much?”

Julie nodded her agreement. “It’s pretty remarkable.”

“Well, the EKG does look unusual for a typical heart attack. I wish he’d had an echo done. Even without one, I wouldn’t dismiss a takotsubo incident, but I wouldn’t diagnose it, either.”

“Someone deleted something in that record postmortem,” Julie reminded her.

“Are you suggesting a cover-up?” Michelle asked.

“My best guess is Dr. Coffey locked me out of Colchester’s file for a reason. But I know there were deletions in Sam and Tommy’s records, as well as Donald Colchester’s. And all three had the same unusual EKG, and we know for sure about left ventricle apical ballooning in two of the cases. Something isn’t right here. Not right at all.”

“Forget the EKGs for a second,” Lucy said. “Explain to me how someone with chronic COPD like Tommy, a quadriplegic like Sam, and guy with advanced ALS all suffer a stress-induced heart attack. What kind of stress event could they have had? It’s honestly never made sense to me.”

Julie sighed aloud and recalled how Dr. Coffey had said something very similar. Nothing was adding up. It never had. Takotsubo was an instant reaction to an extreme stimulus. These men were all debilitated in some capacity. What kind of stimulation could they have possibly experienced?

Julie’s stomach rumbled. She had not eaten breakfast, and the line at the counter was not long anymore.

“I’m going to grab a muffin,” Julie said. “I’ll be right back.”

She asked the counterperson for a banana walnut muffin and realized she had been rude not to get something for her friends. She decided to surprise them with a breakfast treat and ordered two more of the same muffin. She brought the treats back to the table on a plate.

“I got one for each of us,” Julie said.

Lucy picked up her muffin, examined it closely, and set it back down.

“Do you know if this muffin has walnuts in it?” she asked.

“Yeah,” Julie. “It’s banana walnut, to be precise. I’ve had them before. They’re delicious.”

Lucy pushed the muffin away. “Oh, good. You promise to give me CPR?” She said this with a twisted grin.

Julie slapped her forehead. “Oh my gosh. I’m so sorry. I completely spaced.”

Michelle got it. “Nut allergy, I’m guessing.”

“Horribly allergic,” Lucy said. “Growing up I was the only girl in my school with an EpiPen in her backpack. Now they’re as common as erasers, it seems.”

Julie perked up and looked at Lucy in a curious way. She picked up the muffin and examined it closely, turning it over in her hand, studying it as though she’d never seen a muffin before.

“See if they’ll exchange it for a blueberry,” Lucy said.

“No, it’s not that,” Julie answered, her voice a little distant. “It’s what you said earlier. What kind of stress event could Sam and the others have experienced? It doesn’t make sense, right?”

“Right,” Lucy responded.

“What are you getting at?” Michelle asked.

Julie set the muffin back down on the plate. “Let me ask you this, Lucy. Could that acute coronary pathology have manifested as an allergic phenomenon?”

Lucy’s eyebrows lifted as she mulled this over.

“I never gave it any thought,” she said, “but I suppose it’s possible. It could have been an allergic reaction, yes.”

“Which means it might not be takotsubo after all,” Julie said with some excitement.

“Then what could it be?” Michelle asked.

“To be honest, I have no idea,” Julie said.

“It’s worth looking into,” Lucy agreed. “But there’s a problem with that theory.”

“Which is?” Julie could not mask her disappointment.

“We did slides of Sam’s heart muscle to look at the muscle fibers. If it was an allergic reaction, we should have seen mast cell activation and a differential increase of eosinophils.”

“What are mast cells and eosinophils?” Michelle asked.

“They’re both part of the immune system,” Lucy said. “Eosinophils are white blood cells that, along with mast cells, control mechanisms associated with allergy and asthma. If it was some sort of allergy, I would expect those cells to be present in large quantity. But that’s not what the slides showed.”

“Is there any chance the slides were done incorrectly?”

Lucy shrugged. Years in the autopsy business taught her that anything was possible.

“Sure. If the tech was distracted or a wrong stain was used, it’s possible.”

“Would you mind checking for me?”

“You’re my sister from another mister. Of course not.”

“Sounds like we’ve made some progress here,” Michelle said as she flipped a page in the newspaper.

“You know what I’m thinking.” Lucy’s expression showed concern.

“What?” Julie asked.

“I’m thinking, look at what happened to Sherri Platt. Julie, are you really sure you want to dig into this any deeper?”