Extreme Measures (24 page)

“Artie?”

The man, wearing a T-shirt with the sleeves cut away to accommodate his biceps, handed his crate hook to the bull and advanced on Eric, who was still too dazed to react with any force.

“No!” Laura screamed.

Then, from behind the mountain of, oil drums, the engine of a forklift rumbled to life.

“Please, no!” she screamed again.

The three men stopped and turned toward the sound. At that moment a drum came hurtling off the top of the pile. It caught the bull-necked leader squarely in the chest, slamming him against the wall. As he crumpled to the tarmac the drum burst open, drenching him with heavy black crude, which also splashed onto Laura and Eric.

“Run!” a voice cried out from behind the barrels. “Get the hell out of here!”

The two men still standing were reaching for guns as Laura grabbed Eric’s arm and pulled him through the sticky pool of oil toward the far end of the building. Before they had gone ten yards, there was a shot. Instinctively they dived to the pavement, but behind them, Artie screamed and fell, clutching his thigh.

“He shot me!” he shrieked. “The fucker shot me.”

“Run!” the voice shouted again.

As Laura and Eric scrambled to their feet they saw the two men, flattened down in the oil, firing at someone behind the far end of the barrels.

Heads down, they sprinted toward the main gate. Behind them, the shooting stopped. Eric glanced over his shoulder as they neared the gate. Far across the tarmac, he could see groups of workers heading toward the commotion.

“Don’t stop,” he gasped.

They dashed across the road.

“Thank God,” Laura said when they spotted the Toyota, still parked where they had left it.

She held her breath as Eric wiped crude oil off the key and slipped it in the ignition, and didn’t exhale until they were speeding toward the bridge and Boston.

Irene Morrissey looked down at the peaceful face of Norma Cullinet, and said a silent prayer. Norma’s CT scan had disclosed a subdural hemorrhage, and the neurosurgical suite was being readied for her. A White Memorial graduate, Morrissey had stayed active in nursing through six children and, now, eleven grandchildren. At one time she had held Norma’s supervisory job, but had given it up several years before to return to part-time work. Now, it appeared, she would be back for a while.

She stayed in the room until an orderly came, and then helped the resident to transfer Norma’s IV lines to the gurney.

“God be with you, Norma,” she said softly as they wheeled her away. “You’re too good a woman to die like this.”

She watched until the gurney disappeared around the corner, then picked up her clipboard. There was business to attend to—namely the disposition of the body of a poor soul named Loretta Leone.

She went up to Norma’s office—the office that once had been hers—and set Loretta Leone’s chart on the desk. When there was no next of kin, her only obligation was to notify a medical examiner and tum the case over to him. It took her a minute to find the M.E. on-call list, which Norma had tacked to a corner of her corkboard. Roderick Corcoran and Thaddeus Bushnell were listed for that day. Irene smiled wistfully. Ted Bushnell and she had known one another for as long as she could remember, and had worked together on any number of his patients over the years. She was surprised to see that his retirement from family practice did not include his position as medical examiner, but pleased at the chance to reconnect with him. She dialed his number. At the seventh ring, just as she was about to hang up, Thaddeus Bushnell answered.

“Hello?” His voice sounded weak and distant.

“Hello, Ted. It’s Irene Morrissey.”

“Who?”

“Irene Morrissey. I’m the nursing supervisor—well, acting nursing supervisor—at White Memorial.… Ted?”

“Yes?”

“Ted, don’t you remember me?”

“I don’t remember anything,” Bushnell said. His words were slurred. “Now what is it?”

“Nothing,” Irene said sadly. “Nothing at all.”

She set the receiver down, then picked it up again and dialed Dr. Roderick Corcoran.

T
hey picked up a change of clothes for Laura at the Carlisle, and showered at Eric’s apartment. The stench of oil was weaker but still persistent. Equally frustrating was the lack of answers to any of the dozen questions they had been asking of each other. Eric called the East Boston police, then the
Globe
and
Herald
. No one had heard anything about a shooting or any kind of disturbance on the East Boston docks.

“I think we should go to the police,” Laura said.

She was sitting on the bed, drying her hair and wondering what kind of an impression she was making on Verdi. From its perch at the foot of the bed, the bird was watching her every move.

“If no one has reported anything,” Eric said, “what in the hell are we going to tell them? I have a feeling those guys didn’t even work on the docks.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about drugs.”

“What?”

“Well, just look at what happened. Three thugs with guns who seem to know who we are—or at least who
you
are—accuse your brother of killing someone and maiming someone else. Then they demand some sort of videotape. What does it sound like to you?”

He snatched up the phone, dialed the White Memorial E.R., and asked about any gunshot victims or other injuries from the docks. Predictably, nothing had come in. Several calls to other E.R.’s also drew blanks.

“Maybe Artie only
thought
he was shot,” he mused.

“Do you think Scott was selling drugs?”

“Laura, I don’t know what on earth your brother was into, but it sure wasn’t communications networks.”

“Who could have saved us out there?”

“Hey, no repeat questions allowed, remember? Especially none with ‘beats me’ as the answer.”

“So where do we go from here?”

Eric glanced over at the clock.

“Well, unless you have another idea, I would think that in half an hour we go to the Gates of Heaven.”

“How’s your belly feeling?”

“Let’s just say that getting sucker-punched like that is not an experience I want to repeat. However, if there’s one thing that five years of emergency medicine have taught me, it’s how to take a punch. I’ve been hit at work any number of times by any number of crazies.”

She pulled him down and kissed him.

“You know,” he said, “believe it or not, there’s an up side to all this for me. For the first time in longer than I can remember, I’m immersed in things that have nothing to do with medicine.”

“Just with pain and confusion,” she said.

“Hey, Pain and Confusion are my middle names. Speaking of which, why don’t we head on over to meet
with Don Devine. Service is
his
middle name. I’m getting a little antsy for some explanations.”

“Just watch your midsection,” Laura said.

Donald Devine was dressed in the same suit and blue tie that he had worn during Eric’s previous visit to the mortuary. As before, he ushered the two of them to his office and turned down the background strings. Eric thought he caught a bit of the Muzak version of “Sounds of Silence.”

“Now then,” Devine said. “What can I do for you this time, Dr. Dadarian?”

“Najarian,” Eric corrected, noticing that the man seemed less at ease than he had on their first encounter. “Mr. Devine, we don’t want to take up too much of your time, but there are some things we hoped you could clear up.”

“Go right ahead,” the little man said.

“We have reason, good reason, to believe that the man I spoke to you about the other night—the man you called Thomas Jordan—is Laura’s brother.”

“That’s impossible.”

The man’s response was nearly knee-jerk.

“Is it?”

“Of course. That body was identified by the medical examiner, signed for by his next of kin, and cremated.”

“Mr. Devine,” Laura said, “we went to see Dr. Bushnell last night.”

“So?”

“So he was drunk and barely able to make it from his chair to the door, let alone do the fingerprinting and research you claim he did.”

“What Dr. Bushnell does on his own time is no concern of mine,” Devine said, beginning to pace and avoiding any eye contact with her. “He did exactly what I said he did.”

Laura crossed to him and forced him to meet her gaze.

“Please help us,” she said softly. “We don’t want to cause trouble for you, but we are determined to find my brother.”

“And I hope you do,” Devine said. “But it won’t be here, because I have nothing more to tell you.”

He tried to hold her gaze but failed. Finally, he forced himself past her and across the room to his desk.

“Mr. Devine,” Eric said, taking up the slack, “perhaps you don’t understand. We’re convinced something’s going on here. Something illegal.”

“Nonsense.”

“Is it?”

“I think I would like the two of you to leave.”

“If we go, we’ll be back,” Eric said, “either with a court order to examine your records, or with a reporter. We promise you that.”

“Do what you wish,” the mortician said, pausing to mop at his brow with a linen handkerchief. “I have nothing to hide, and nothing more to say to you except that if you continue to harass me, I shall be forced to speak with the police.”

“A wonderful idea,” Eric said. “Let’s do it now.”

Arms folded, Devine turned to him.

“I think it’s time you left,” he said. “You have learned all there is to learn here.”

“Mr. Devine, please,” Laura said.

“No. I have work to do. Now, would you please go.”

Laura and Eric exchanged looks, and silently decided that this was not the time for a major confrontation.

“You know we’ll be back, don’t you,” Laura said. “My brother is all the family I have, and we’re going to find him or learn what happened to him.”

“I wish you luck,” Donald Devine said.

The two of them had started toward the door when Eric turned back.

“Donald, I’d suggest you go right out and get
yourself some more handkerchiefs,” he said. “Before we’re through, you’re going to need a bunch of them.”