Boston Cream

CHAPTER 10

Gerard van Vliet, of the Sinai Hospital media relations squad, called just after nine the next morning. I told him I was writing a feature on genome studies at leading American hospitals, which I hoped to sell to the Globe and Mail.

“Oh, yes,” he said brightly. “Well, I’m glad you picked Sinai Hospital. We are certainly at the forefront of this type of research. If you like, I can set up an interview with the lead researcher, Dr. Tim Sellers, who’s a cancer specialist here.”

“I thought I’d start with the coordinator,” I said. “Dr. Carol-Ann Meacham?”

“Ms. Meacham isn’t a physician,” he said. “She can’t really speak to the medical aims of the project. But she could give you an overview of the structure and process.”

“Great,” I said. “Once that’s done, I’ll be able to speak to Dr. Sellers from a more informed point of view.”

“Good plan. Where can she reach you? At the number I just called?”

“Yes.”

“Let me call her office then. Our policy is that she’ll return your call within one business day.”

“The earlier the better,” I said.

“I know, I know. Deadlines. I used to be a reporter myself. Let me see what I can do.”

While we waited, I called Mike Gianelli and told him what I had found out the night before.

“This cyclist,” he said. “Why didn’t he call us?”

“Because the guys took off and he didn’t think it would be taken seriously.”

“Or he wasn’t sure what he saw. It’s tainted either way.”

“I’m just telling you what he told me. It looked like these guys were waiting for David and jumped out of their van as he was coming up the sidewalk.”

“Looked like. They could have been getting out for any number of reasons.”

“One of them grabbed David.”

“Maybe he just wanted his briefcase. And the cyclist, he didn’t get a licence plate?”

“Says it was covered with mud.”

“Big help.”

“It’s more than you had before.”

“Maybe.”

“There’s something else,” I said. “Another missing person.”

“In Brookline?”

“No. Somerville. But they’re connected.”

“How?”

“David had a copy of a flyer about this man in his apartment. An Indian man who owns a grocery store. I went there and spoke to his son. The father went missing a week before David.”

“That’s not exactly-”

“David went there the day before he disappeared.”

“To the store?”

“Yes. And it wasn’t to shop because nothing they have is kosher.”

“I still don’t see-”

“You think you could talk to your counterpart in Somerville about this other man? See if they have any leads? I know he’ll tell you more than he would me.” I wished I could tell him about the money that linked the men so surely in my mind, but that’s where that had to stay for now.

He sighed. “All right. I know one of the detectives there pretty well. We were on the Boston beat together. I’ll see what he’s got. But don’t get your hopes up, Geller. Even if some connection pans out somehow, they’ve both been gone too long.”

“For what?”

“For there to be any good news.”

Carol-Ann Meacham was around thirty, dangerously thin with dull brown hair and a pinched mouth with turned-down corners that she stretched into a smile cold as tundra. A face we’d call mieskeit in Yiddish. It generally means plain, veering into ugly. She was easily that and, by the look of her, not a woman who approved of much.

Her office was in a warren of small offices in the north end of the hospital. Grey metal cabinets lined both walls, and cardboard boxes of files were piled on top of them. More loose files were piled on top of those. One match in that room would have sent up a fireball.

We settled into chairs opposite her desk. Jenn got out our digital camera and took a couple of test shots to see if there was enough light in the office to get away without using a flash. There wasn’t.

“My colleague will take some candids while we’re talking,” I said. “And then maybe we’ll pose a couple.”

“You said this is for the Globe and Mail?”

“Yes.”

“I looked it up this morning to prep for this. You don’t have any bylines with them.”

“I’m freelance,” I said quickly. “I’m hoping this will get my foot in the door.”

“I see.”

“Let’s start with the research parameters,” I said. Parameters. I am such a quick study. “Your goal is to collect a hundred thousand samples?”

“At least.”

“And how many would you say you have so far?”

“At the end of the first full year, we had a little over twelve thousand.”

“That seems low.”

“It’s bound to grow as it becomes better known.”

“Not everyone likes getting stuck with a needle.”

“Of course not. And there’s a consent form, of course, and not everyone is comfortable with that. There are literacy issues with a large segment of our population. But we are confident the compliance rate will improve over time. And a new initiative we launched last month extends the study to visitors as well.”

“Really? You think people coming to visit will give blood samples?”

“Not without compensation, of course. Anyone who volunteers gets their name entered in a draw with some great prizes. A trip for two to the Bahamas, a new car, golf clubs, Red Sox tickets. All donated by hospital supporters. In fact, it would be great if you’d mention some of their names in your article. You could even give a sample yourself. Your colleague could take a photo of that.”

She looked at Jenn and gave her a colicky smile. Jenn quickly flashed her and she flinched. She was off-balance. Time for a low block to shake up her legs.

I asked her, “Was a man named Harinder Patel one of your participants?”

Loved her reaction: eyes widening, tendons in her throat sticking out like harp strings.

“I–I can’t comment on any individuals,” she sputtered. “That’s confidential. And why would you-”

“Because he and David Fine are both missing.”

“Who are you? You’re not a reporter.” Then she looked at Jenn. “You. Are you the woman who called me yesterday?”

Jenn didn’t say a word. She just pointed the camera and flashed Carol-Ann again.

“Stop that! No more pictures. And no comment. Get out of my office, both of you.”

“You called David repeatedly before he disappeared,” I said. “And he called you. I’m going to go out on a limb and say you weren’t lovers.”

“Lovers! Are you mad? Get out, before I call security.”

“How about the Brookline police? Want to call them too?”

“What are you talking about?”

“They’re investigating David’s disappearance,” I said. “And they know about Mr. Patel too.”

“Know what? What is there to know?”

“Come on.” I said. “He was a patient here. His son told me so.”

“So what? We have hundreds of thousands of patients here.”

“How many go missing?”

“You really need to leave now.”

“No. You really need to tell us what you know about David.”

“Nothing! Okay? I don’t know anything about him. He just left one day.”

“We’re pretty sure he was abducted.”

Her face went as grey as the cabinets behind her. “What do you mean? Who would abduct David Fine?”

“Why don’t you tell me? That night, he told his roommate he was stopping at a lab on his way home. Around six. You might have been the last person he spoke to. Was he here?”

“You have no basis for this-this interrogation.”

“You think this is an interrogation? Wait until the cops bring you in.”

Her complexion, like the song, was a whiter shade of pale. “I don’t know what happened to him! I–I wish I did. But I swear, he never said a word to me, not a word, not about leaving or anything.”

“But he was here.”

“Just to look at sample results. Morbidity and mortality statistics.”

“Why all the phone calls between you two?” Jenn asked.

“What calls?”

“They’re recorded in his phone, Carol-Ann.”

Her face grew tighter, as if strings were being pulled inside. “All right,” she said. “He did ask me out. I liked him and we talked a few times on the phone, okay?”

“Why didn’t you tell us that before?”

“Because it’s none of your business. But I can see that you’re not going to leave me alone until I tell you the truth, so I’m telling it. We were making plans to go out on a date and that’s all there is to it.”

“What did you decide?” I asked.

“About what?”

“The date.”

She hesitated before coming up with, “Dinner and a movie.”

“Dinner where?”

“Near David’s apartment.”

“Which restaurant, Carol-Ann?”

“Sichuan Garden, okay? Right on the corner.”

“All right,” I said. “Thanks for clearing that up.” I turned to Jenn. “I think we have everything we need, don’t you?”

Being the devil she is, she set off the flash again, right in Carol-Ann Meacham’s lying face.

“Now we do,” Jenn said.