Pandemic

22

WEDNESDAY, 1:05 P.M.

“Yes, Dr. Lauder is here now,” the secretary/assistant said in answer to Jack’s query as she stood up from her desk. “What was your name again?”

“Dr. Jack Stapleton,” Jack said. He was back at the very modest storefront private office of the medical examiner in the town of Dover. Jack was interested in finding out if anything at all had been learned at the second autopsy carried out at the Dover Valley Hospital. Other than providing samples of the heart, he couldn’t imagine it had accomplished anything.

While he waited, Jack looked around the tiny, skimpy waiting area with Masonite walls, several molded plastic chairs, and some outdated magazines. Other than possible work relating to the Dover Valley Hospital and GeneRx, he couldn’t imagine there would be much call for a medical examiner in such a small town. Jack thought it was a good thing the man did it part-time. He remembered from the Higgins funeral director that the ME also worked for the Morris County Medical Examiner’s Office, apparently splitting his time. After the offers of employment by Wei Zhao, Jack tried to imagine himself living in the area. He couldn’t. No matter how much they paid him, he thought he’d go mad.

“Dr. Lauder will see you now,” the secretary/assistant said, reappearing from the inner office.

Jack retraced the woman’s steps. The inner office had the same unrefined general appearance as the outer room. The furniture looked as if it had come from a secondhand store, and Dr. Harvey Lauder fit in perfectly. He was a short, stocky, pug-nosed man with thinning hair and a very obvious comb-over vainly attempting to cover a tonsure-like bald spot. His casual clothes had a baggy, lived-in look with a tear in his flannel shirt at the left elbow. As Jack entered, the ME got to his feet and extended his hand in a welcoming fashion. “Harvey Lauder,” he said, giving Jack’s hand a shake. He pointed to a single straight-backed chair and retook his aged, wooden desk chair.

“I got the card you left this morning, and I was meaning to give you a call,” Harvey said. “I’ve just been up to here with work.” He put his hand under his chin as he spoke, to indicate he’d been up to his neck. “So what can I do for you?”

“I wanted to find out how the second autopsy went on Carol Stewart,” Jack said. “I was the one who did the first.”

“So I heard,” Harvey said. “It went fine. No problems at all.”

Jack wondered exactly what he had done but decided not to make an issue of it.

“I haven’t seen the slides yet,” Harvey said. “They are not going to be available until tomorrow or Friday. But I don’t expect any surprises. What exactly did you find on the first autopsy?”

“Extensive lung damage and edema consistent with a cytokine storm,” Jack said. “The heart looked perfectly fine, without any trace of inflammation. However, we did find a mild inflammatory response in the spleen, gallbladder, and both kidneys. Toxicology was negative.”

“Our toxicology is pending,” Harvey said.

“It was a very rapid clinical course,” Jack said. “She essentially died on a subway after having respiratory symptoms for about an hour.”

“So I hear,” Harvey said.

“How long have you been working with the Dover Valley Hospital?” Jack asked.

“About four years as part of my private practice,” Harvey said. “I split my time between here and the Morris County Medical Examiner’s Office.”

“Meaning you must have been around when Carol Stewart got into trouble and acutely needed a transplant.”

“Most definitely,” Harvey said. “That was only a bit more than three months ago.”

“I was told that the donor of the serendipitously well-matched heart had been in a motorcycle accident. Were you involved with that case as a Morris County medical examiner?”

“I most certainly was,” Harvey said.

“Do you recall the name of the victim, by any chance?” Jack asked. “Was his family name Stewart?”

“No, it was Bannon,” Harvey said. “James Bannon. He was a seventeen-year-old teenager, the poor kid.”

“Dr. Ted Markham thought it might have been a Stewart, to explain why there was such a close match. But you are sure it was Bannon?”

“I’m absolutely sure. Maybe he was related to the Stewarts. There was a lot of inbreeding around here not that many years ago. Actually, it’s still going on. Besides, he could have been adopted.”

“Did you personally do the autopsy on James Bannon?”

“Why do you ask?”

“I’m curious about it and have some general questions,” Jack said. “There are some things about the Carol Stewart case that intrigue me, including the source of the transplant organ.”

“You know, not to be unfriendly, but I do want to remind you that you are in New Jersey, not New York. Maybe you should be asking your questions through the official channels.”

“Yeah, I could do that, but you know what that’s like,” Jack said, trying to appeal to his sympathies as one ME to another. “As I’m sure you are aware, going through official channels takes forever, and I have to sign this case out in the next day or so.”

“An autopsy wasn’t done,” Harvey said in a defensively forceful tone.

“Really?” Jack questioned. He was taken aback and disappointed. “In New York we autopsy all motor vehicle accidents.”

“Generally, so do we,” Harvey said. “But this one happened on a very busy weekend with multiple accidents and a double homicide, which is very rare for us. But the most important thing was that there wasn’t any question as to the cause and manner of death. With no helmet involved, most of his brain had to be scooped up off Interstate Eighty. And then there was cardiac death after the ventilator was turned off in the hospital in conjunction with the harvesting of the heart. No mystery there, either.”

“This all happened at the Dover Valley Hospital, I gather,” Jack said.

“That’s correct,” Harvey said, regaining his composure. “It’s the best-equipped hospital in the area. And the hospital did all the tests for alcohol and drugs, all of which were negative. It was one of those situations where an autopsy would not have added anything whatsoever and the family seriously objected to it. They were very vocal about it.”

“Interesting,” Jack said, falling back on his new favorite expression.

“I hope I have been of some service, but I do have to get back to work. If you’ll excuse me...” Harvey stood and walked over to the flimsy door. He opened it and held it ajar as an unmistakable indication the meeting was over.

“Certainly,” Jack said, getting to his feet and heading to the outer office. “I can imagine how swamped you are.” As soon as the comment left his mouth, he regretted it. There was no reason to aggravate the man.

Harvey immediately shut his office door with demonstrative finality as soon as Jack had passed through. For a moment Jack stood where he was and looked back at the door questioningly, wondering why he’d gotten the bum’s rush. He shrugged. Turning around, he gazed at the secretary. The room was small. She was only about four feet away, looking up at him expectantly.

“I was just chatting with Dr. Lauder about a case of his by the name of James Bannon,” Jack said. “It was a Morris County Medical Examiner case that wasn’t autopsied. Would you have the individual’s home address?”

“I believe we do,” the secretary said. Making use of the wheels on her desk chair, she scooted the few feet over to an upright file cabinet and pulled open the lowest file drawer. Jack wondered why she didn’t use the monitor on her desk. As she searched, Jack could hear Harvey making a phone call through the paper-thin door of the inner office behind him. The sounds were muffled, but Jack plainly heard two names: his own and Dr. Wei Zhao’s. He strained to hear what Harvey was saying but couldn’t. The only other thing he managed to hear was a third name: James Bannon. Then he heard the phone being dropped into its cradle.

“Yes, here’s the Bannon folder,” the secretary said, pulling it out from the drawer. She opened it and then added: “The address is Five-ninety-one Spring Lane, Rockaway. Do you want me to write that down?”

“I think I can remember it,” Jack said, tapping his head with his index finger. He thanked her and walked out of the office into the now sunny day.

After climbing into the car, Jack thought for several minutes what it could mean that the moment he’d left Harvey’s inner office the man had called Wei Zhao, of all people. It was yet another curious fact that he added to the mountain of other facts he was amassing about the weirdness of the Carol Stewart case. He couldn’t help but feel it suggested collusion, but collusion about what, he had no idea.

Although Jack was concerned about getting back to the OCME now that it was two, especially with Laurie’s less-than-happy voicemail, he thought it would be a shame not to make one more house call while he was in New Jersey — especially since Google Maps informed him that Rockaway was only four miles away. He had hoped to get a copy of the autopsy report on the motorcycle victim who’d been the source of the heart for Carol Stewart. But now that he’d learned there had been no autopsy, he thought a visit with the family might be in order. There was something about this case, too, that nagged him, even though he didn’t know quite what it was. At the same time, he wasn’t looking forward to visiting the bereaved family. If they had not heard the news about Carol Stewart, Jack feared they’d be heartbroken anew to learn that their son’s heart was no longer beating in the chest of the young woman. Jack understood that donating the heart certainly didn’t bring their son back, but it must have been a source of some comfort.

Jack was about to put the Escalade in gear when his phone rang. Within the confines of the SUV the sound shocked him, and he answered in a mild panic without checking to see who was calling. That was a mistake. It was Laurie.

“Where in God’s name are you?” she snapped. “No one has seen you all morning. And I didn’t appreciate your sneaking out of our apartment this morning for the second day in a row. My father was clearly disappointed not to see you.”

“I was heartsick not to see him, too, but duty called,” Jack said, being intentionally provocative.

“I’m not going to respond to that,” Laurie said.

“How has your day been?” Jack asked, to change the subject.

“To be honest, it’s been a terrible day. I’m fed up with the City Council and all the politics involved. I’m getting nowhere on this budget problem.”

“But you knew about the politics when you accepted the job,” Jack said.

“To some degree, but I never thought it would be this frustrating. That aside, where the devil are you? Are you out in the field potentially causing trouble when I asked you not to?”

“It’s so nice to be appreciated,” Jack said. “Yes, I’m in the Garden State, smelling the roses.”

“Don’t tell me you went out and visited that Dover hospital you mentioned last night.”

“I did indeed,” Jack confessed. “But you’d be proud of me. I don’t think I’ve made any enemies. In fact, I’ve managed to be so charming I’ve gotten multiple employment offers, so you better be nice to me.”

“Are you joking?”

“I’m not,” Jack said. “I’ve been treated like a hero. And strangely enough, during a rather formal luncheon that I was invited to, I was the one who got really bummed out and not my lunch companion. And even stranger still, I kept myself reasonably under control.”

“Will wonders never cease,” Laurie remarked. “I hope you haven’t been using your medical examiner badge while in another state.”

“Just a little,” Jack admitted. “But I’ve flashed it so quickly there wasn’t any chance of the people noticing it was for New York, not New Jersey.”

“God help us!” Laurie said. “You realize, I hope, that you are taking a big risk. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if showing your badge in another state is breaking the law. Think about it! It means you’re posing as an official authority when you are clearly not. I don’t know how to be more clear about this: Don’t use it!”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Jack said.

“And I must tell you that your field work isn’t as benign as you seem to feel. I already heard from the mayor, who heard from Charles Kelley, the CEO of Manhattan General Hospital, that you were over there yesterday ruffling feathers.”

“Guilty as charged,” Jack said. “But it was only Kelley’s feathers. And that is understandable. It’s not possible to talk with that man without ruffling his feathers. But everyone else thought I was peaches and cream.”

“All right, all right!” Laurie said, clearly losing patience. “This is my second call, wondering where the hell you are. The reason is that I have gotten two calls from the police commissioner, asking about the status of the police custody case. They want answers. Where are you on that case?”

“I need to get the toxicology report,” Jack said.

“Well, get back here and do that!” Laurie snapped.

“Yes, dear,” Jack said. He disconnected and turned the ringer off on his phone. It irked him to be clearly bossed around, even if it was her job to do so. The trouble was, he knew she was right. With the subway death case holding him in its thrall, he was letting everything else slide.