Marker (37 page)

Laurie went back to the front elevator, and as she waited, she wondered if it would be helpful if Roger intervened as far as the charts were concerned. In the back of her mind, she had the sense that somewhere in the charts from either St. Francis or the Manhattan General, there would be some hidden piece of information that would be the keystone of the mystery.

Gaining the fifth floor, Laurie hesitated for a moment, building up her courage. She wanted to drop in to Jack's office to talk with him but was concerned about what she'd be confronting, after what Riva had said. Although Laurie accepted that the current estrangement with Jack was largely her fault due to the affair with Roger, it didn't make it any easier. At the same time, she was not about to apologize.

Taking a fortifying breath, Laurie started down the hall. In contrast to the day before, she didn't hesitate. She let her momentum carry her all the way into the room, where she found both Jack and Chet bent over their respective desks, peering into their microscopes. Although she hadn't been trying, she'd come in silently, such that neither man knew she was there.

"I'd be willing to bet five bucks I'm right," Jack was saying.

"You're on," Chet responded.

"Excuse me!" Laurie called.

With obvious surprise, both men's heads bobbed up and turned to face their visitor.

"Forsooth!" Jack exclaimed. "Speak of the devil! The ghost of the missing Dr.

Montgomery has just materialized in our midst."

"Miraculous!" Chet added. He drew back, pretending to be terrified.

"Come on, you guys!" Laurie said. "I'm in no mood to be made fun of."

"Thank God she's real!" Jack said as if relieved. He pressed the back of his hand against his forehead in the stereotypical fainting gesture.

In a similar fashion, Chet put his hand to his chest as if he were experiencing palpitations.

"Come on! Knock it off!" Laurie said while looking from one to the other. It seemed to her that they were carrying the charade a bit too far.

"We thought you were gone for good," Chet explained with a snicker. "The rumor was that it had been a sudden dematerialization. As the day's scheduler, I was supposed to know where you were, but I had no idea. Even Marlene in reception didn't see you leave."

"Marlene had stepped away from her desk when I went out," Laurie said. It was apparent to her that her absence had been the subject of speculation, which, under the circumstances, was not a good sign.

"We're all a little curious about where you did go, since, according to Calvin, you were supposed to be in your office."

"What is this, the Spanish Inquisition?" Laurie asked, hoping a bit of humor would deflect the question. She looked directly at Jack. "Riva said you stopped by, so I'm returning the favor. Was there something specific on your mind?"

"I was going to give you the final lowdown on Mulhausen's autopsy," Jack said. "But first, we are all truly curious about where you so mysteriously went. Can't you fill us in?

We've got a lot of money riding on it."

Laurie's eyes flicked back and forth between the two men. They were watching her expectantly. This was the question she feared, and she frantically tried to think up an appropriate response without lying. Nothing came to mind.

"I went over to the Manhattan General Hospital—" Laurie began, but Jack cut her off.

"Bingo!" Jack said. He pointed at Chet with his fingers positioned to make his hand appear like a gun. "You owe me five bucks, hotshot."

Chet rolled his eyes in apparent disappointment, shifted his weight to get his wallet out of his back pocket, and plopped a five-dollar bill in Jack's waiting hand.

Jack clutched the money triumphantly and looked back at Laurie. "Looks like I get to profit from your assignation after all."

Laurie felt her ire rising, but she held it in check. She didn't like this public gamesmanship at her expense. "I went over to the Manhattan General because I had an idea that might solve the mystery of my serial-killer series."

"Oh, sure!" Jack said. "And just by coincidence, you had to share this idea with your current flame."

"I think I'll head down and get some coffee," Chet said, hastily getting to his feet.

"You don't have to go on my accord," Laurie said.

"I think I will just the same," Chet responded. "It's time for lunch." He stepped out of the office and pulled the door shut behind him.

For a moment, Laurie and Jack eyed each other.

"Let's put it this way," Jack said, breaking the silence. "I find it demeaning that you would spend considerable effort convincing me to have dinner with you and then immediately disappear for four hours to see the man with whom you are currently having an affair."

"I can understand, and I'm sorry. It didn't dawn on me that it would affect you like this."

"Oh, please! Put yourself in my position!"

"Well, after the fact, I must admit I was afraid you would ask where I had gone. But, Jack, I went only for the reason I said. The Queens cases gave me an idea of how I might be able to come up with a list of potential suspects. It was not a tryst. Don't belittle me with that kind of talk!"

Jack tossed Chet's five-dollar bill onto his desk, lowered his eyes, and rubbed his forehead.

"Jack, believe me! Part of the reason I had the idea I did was your comments about the plot thickening and a pall being over AmeriCare. In fact, I wanted to ask you what you meant specifically."

"I'm not sure I had anything specific in mind," Jack said without taking his hand from his forehead. "It's just that if your series jumps to thirteen cases at two hospitals, both of which are AmeriCare institutions, it makes you wonder."

Laurie nodded. "I thought you had something about managed care in mind. If these are murders, I'm getting the impression they are not random. The demographics are too similar. For instance, I learned today that all of them, at least those at the Manhattan General, have been relatively recent AmeriCare subscribers. How that fits into the picture, I haven't a clue."

Jack took his hand away and looked up at Laurie. "So you're now thinking this might be some kind of conspiracy thing?"

Laurie nodded. "I thought that was what you were implying from your comments."

"Not really, and from a capitation standpoint, it doesn't make sense, so it can't have anything to do with managed care per se. On the other hand, medicine has become big business, and AmeriCare is one enormous organization. That means there are actuarial types and their bosses who are so far removed from patient care that they forget what the product of the company ultimately is. They see everything in terms of numbers."

"That may be true," Laurie said, "but getting rid of new, healthy subscribers is diametrically counterproductive to any actuarial goal."

"It might seem that way to us, but my point is that there are people involved, at high levels, whom we cannot hope to understand. Some kind of conspiracy still could be involved whose rationale might not be immediately apparent."

"Maybe so," Laurie said vaguely. She was disappointed. She thought Jack might have something specific to offer.

Laurie and Jack gazed at each other for a few beats. It was Jack who broke the silence.

"Let me ask you something straight-out that I alluded to down in the pit. Is this dinner date tonight some kind of elaborate setup to tell me you're getting married, because if it is, I'm going to go ballistic. I just want to warn you about that."

Laurie didn't answer right away, because the comment reminded her of how complicated everything in her life had become. It was hard for her to keep everything and everybody in perspective.

"This silence is not giving me a good feeling," Jack warned.

"I am not getting married!" Laurie said with sudden vehemence, jabbing her finger at Jack. "I told you that in no uncertain terms down in the autopsy room. I told you that I needed to talk to you about something that involves you and me and no one else."

"I don't think you included that 'no one else' part down in the pit."

"Well, I am now!" Laurie barked.

"All right, all right. Calm down! I'm the one that's supposed to be upset, not you."

"You'd be upset if you were me."

"Now, that's a statement I can't interpret without a bit more information. But, you know, Laurie, I hate to see us going at each other like this. We're like two blind people flailing away in the dark."

"I couldn't agree more."

"Well, then, why don't you tell me whatever it is you need to tell me and put it behind us."

"I don't want to talk about it here in this setting. I want to be away from the OCME. It has nothing to do with work, and I don't want to be here. I made a reservation at Elios at five-forty-five."

"Whoa! Is that going to be dinner or a late lunch?"

"Very funny," Laurie said impatiently. "I warned you it might have to be early. It's Friday night, and they are booked. I was lucky to get what I did. Are you going to be there or not?"

"I'll be there, but it's going to be a big sacrifice. Warren is going to be disappointed I won't be showing up on the basketball court for the big Friday-night run. Well, actually, that's a lie. I've been playing so poorly since you left that he won't have me on his team.

I've become a relative persona non grata on my own court."

"I'll see you at Elios," Laurie said, "provided you deign to show up." She turned and walked out of the office.

Jack leaped from his chair, and, holding onto the doorjamb, he leaned out into the hall. Laurie was already a good distance down the corridor in the direction of her office.

There was no hesitancy in her step, and she was moving at a good clip. "Hey," he called out. "Saying it was a sacrifice meeting you for dinner was supposed to be a joke!"

Laurie didn't slow or turn around and soon disappeared from view into her office.

Jack righted himself and regained his desk chair. He wondered if he had overdone his sarcasm. He shrugged because, knowing himself, it would have been hard for him not to do otherwise. Such repartee had become his defense against the uncertainties of life. In the current situation, he feared he was going to be blindsided by Laurie in some form or fashion. He had no idea what was on Laurie's mind. Yet Lou's comment that she wanted to patch things up still resonated and gave him a sliver of hope.

The combination of street basketball and work was usually Jack's solace, and with basketball not as satisfying, as he'd explained to Laurie, work had taken over. During the previous five weeks, Jack had been a virtual workhorse. Within the time frame of slightly more than a month, he'd gone from Calvin's nightmare in respect to getting cases signed out to Calvin's darling. Not only was Jack doing significantly more cases than anyone else, he was getting them out faster. Jack returned to his microscope and the trays of slides he'd just brought down from histology that morning.

Time flew by. Chet returned, and Jack insisted that Chet take back his fiver with the explanation that the bet hadn't been fair be- cause Jack had been a hundred percent certain. After a time, Chet had gone out again, but Jack labored on. The progress he made calmed him and gave him a sense of satisfaction, but best of all, it made it possible not to think about Laurie.

"Hey, come up for air," a voice said, breaking Jack's concentration. He'd been staring at a strange hepatic parasite he'd stumbled onto in the liver of a gunshot-wound case.

He looked up to see Lou Soldano standing in his doorway. "I've been watching you for five minutes, and you haven't moved a damn muscle."

Jack waved the detective into the office with one hand while he turned Chet's chair around with the other.

Lou sat down heavily and tossed his hat onto Chet's desk. He was wearing his usual sleep-deprived face such that he had wrinkled his forehead to keep his eyes open.

"I just heard the good news," Lou said. "I think it's great."

"What are you talking about?"

"I just stuck my head in Laurie's office. She told me you and she have a date tonight at Elios and that she asked you out. What did I tell you? She wants to get back together."

"Did she tell you that specifically?"

"No, not specifically, but come on! I mean, she asked you out to dinner."

"She said she wanted to tell me something, but maybe it's something I don't want to hear."

"God, what a pessimist! You sound as bad as me. The woman loves you."

"Yeah, well, it's news to me! How did she happen to tell you we have a date, anyway?"

"I asked her. I don't hide the fact that I want you two back together, and she knows it."

"We'll see," Jack said. "Meanwhile, what's on your mind?"

"The freaking Chapman case, of course. We've been working flat out and have interviewed just about everybody over at the hospital. Unfortunately, nobody saw anybody suspicious, not that that's so strange. But we've got nothing. I was hoping that you might have come up with something. I know my captain came over to talk with Calvin Washington."

"That's weird. Calvin doesn't know anything about the case, and he didn't talk with me."

Lou shrugged. "I thought maybe you had. Anyway, do you have anything at all?"

"I haven't gotten the slides back, but they're not going to tell us anything. You got the slugs, which I think is about all you're going to get from the autopsy. What about the positioning of the victim and the fact that whoever shot her was probably sitting in the car? Are you working on the angle that the victim might have known the perpetrator?"

"We're working every angle. I tell you, we are interviewing everybody that had access to that garage. The problem is, we have no prints. Except for the shell casings, we've got nothing!"

"Sorry not to have been more help," Jack said. "On another subject, did Laurie say anything about her series of suspicious deaths that I mentioned to you yesterday?"

"No, she didn't."

"I'm surprised," Jack said. "Things are hopping in that regard. She's up to seven cases now at the Manhattan General, including one I posted today, plus she's come across six others at a hospital out in Queens."