Girl Missing

by Tess Gerritsen

  What was her name again? Novak. Yes, that was it. Vaguely he wondered what Dr. Novak’s first name was, thought it had to be something blunt and to-the-point, like the woman. She was a straight shooter; he appreciated that. What he hadn’t appreciated were her sharp eyes, her keen antennae. She’d seen far more than he’d intended to reveal.

  He merged onto the freeway. Still half an hour to Surry Heights. He wanted out of the city, out of all this gray and gloomy concrete.

  Then he passed a highway sign that said: SOUTH LEXINGTON, EXIT ½ MILE.

  What came next was a snap decision, a crazy impulse that rose purely out of guilt. He turned onto the ramp and followed the curve until it eased into South Lexington Avenue. Suddenly he was driving through a war zone. The area around the ME’s office had been shabby, but at least the buildings were occupied, the windows intact.

  Here, on South Lexington, it was hard to imagine anything but rats residing behind all this red brick and shattered glass. He drove past empty warehouses and dead businesses, reminders of the city’s better days. Two miles south, beyond the abandoned Johan Weir tannery, he came to the Projects. He could see them from blocks away, those seven gray towers propped up against an equally gray sky.

  They were relics from an earlier age, born of good intentions, but doomed by location and design. Built miles from any jobs, constructed of monolithic concrete, they looked more like prison towers than public housing. Even so, they remained occupied. He saw cars parked on the road, clumps of people gathered on corners, a man huddled on his front stoop, a kid shooting baskets in an alley hoop. They all glanced up as Adam drove past, every pair of eyes taking note of this territorial incursion.

  Adam drove another block, pulled over to the side, and parked in front of Building Five.

  For an hour he sat in his car, watching the sidewalks, the alleys, the playground across the street. Mothers shuttled babies in strollers across broken glass. Young kids played hopscotch on the pavement. Even here, he thought, life goes on. He knew people were watching him; they always did.

  Someone tapped on his window. He glanced out through the lightly tinted glass and saw a young woman. She had a wild mane of uncombed black hair, dark eyes, a white face heavily caked with makeup. Upon closer scrutiny, he realized it was just a young girl under all that rouge and powder.

  Once again, she tapped on the window. He rolled it down a few inches.

  “Hey, honey,” she said sweetly. “You lookin’ for me?”

  “I’m looking for Maeve,” he said.

  “Don’t know any Maeve. What about me?”

  He smiled. “I don’t think so.”

  “I’m open to anything. Indulge your fantasies.”

  “I’m really not interested. Thank you.” He rolled up the window.

  At once her smile transformed to a scowl. She muttered an obscenity, audible even through the closed glass, then she turned and walked away.

  He watched her blue-jean-clad hips sway as she headed down the street, saw her pause by a gathering of young men. Automatically she tilted her head up in a smile. No interest there, either. With a shrug, she kept walking.

  Something about that young woman—her raven-colored hair, perhaps, or that walk, announcing to the world: I can take care of myself—reminded him of someone. Dr. Novak, the woman with no first name. She had hair that color, a thick and glossy black, just long enough to lap at her shoulders. And her gait, what he’d seen of it in the dim basement corridor, had that confident spring to its step. He suddenly wished he’d told her the truth, about the matchbook, about Maeve. She knew he’d been lying. It was necessary to hide the truth, but he felt uneasy about it. And it troubled him that Dr. Novak now considered him some sort of miscreant, whose word was not to be trusted.

  Why should it bother me? I’ll never see the woman again.

  At least he hoped he wouldn’t. A trip to the city morgue wasn’t the sort of experience he cared to repeat. He wondered how she could stand it, dealing every day with death, probing the contents of those ghastly refrigerated steel drawers. How did one live with the images? He himself was having trouble dealing with just one image he’d confronted an hour ago—the dead woman, the one who’d been clutching the matchbook.

  Thank God it wasn’t Maeve.

  He reached for the car phone, dialed his office, and told Greta he wouldn’t be coming in. She sounded surprised; it was unlike him to skip work, even for a day. “Let Hal hold the fort,” he told her. After all, what were senior vice presidents for?

  Outside, a police car slowly cruised by and continued down South Lexington. Children, just out of school, skipped along the pavement, kicking glass. Adam told Greta he’d see her in the morning, and hung up the phone. Then, grim-faced, he settled back against the seat and resumed watching the street.

  Dr. Davis Wheelock, the chief medical examiner, had an office on the fourth floor, in a distant corner of the facility. It was about as far as he could get from the grim day-to-day business of the morgue and still work in the same building. The brass plaque on his door was a gift from his wife, who had been distressed by the cheap plastic version provided by the city of Albion. If one must be a public servant, so her reasoning went, at least one could do so in style.

  Dr. Wheelock shared his wife’s view, and his office was a reflection of his expensive and eclectic taste. In various places of honor were displayed Kenyan masks, Egyptian papyri, Incan statuettes, all acquired during his travels. The office faced east, toward the river. On this overcast day it was an unremittingly depressing view. The gray light through the window seemed to cloak Wheelock and all his primitive artwork in gloom.

  “Drug ODs are a fact of life in this town,” said Wheelock. “We can’t chase them all. Unless you’re sure it’s something new, I can’t see getting distracted—”

  “That’s just it,” said Kat as she sat down in the chair across from him. “I don’t know if it’s something new. But I think you should notify the mayor. And maybe the press.”

  Wheelock shook his head. “Aren’t you overreacting?”

  “Davis, in the last twenty-four hours, I’ve had two come in, young women, no signs of trauma. Both found in the South Lexington area. Since they both had tracks on their arms and recent needle punctures, I was ready to call them ODs.”

  “Heroin?”

  “That’s the problem. I can’t identify it. I’ve sent blood, urine, and vitreous to the state lab for immunoassay, but that’ll take a week.”

  “What have you run here?”

  “Thin layer and gas chromatography. Subject One had a positive ethanol. Subject Two turned up salicylates, probably just aspirin. Both subjects had the same peak on gas chromatography—it looks like a narcotic.”

  “There’s your answer.”

  “Here’s the problem. It’s a weird peak, biphasic. Not quite an opiate, not quite cocaine. I’ve never seen it before.”

  “Impurities. Someone cut two drugs together.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Wait till the state IDs it. It’ll just take a week.”

  “And in the meantime?”

  “You’ve only got two victims.”

  She leaned forward on his desk. “Davis, I don’t want any more victims. And I’m afraid we’re about to get more.”

  “Why?”

  “After the second woman rolled in, I got on the phone. Called around town to all the hospitals. I found out Hancock General admitted three ODs yesterday. Two were obviously suicide attempts. But the third was a young man brought in by his parents. He had a cardiac arrest in the ER. They managed to pull him back. He’s in the ICU now, still unconscious and critical.”

  “Hancock’s a busy ER. You’d expect ODs to show up there.”

  “I spoke to the hospital lab. They ran a routine gas chromatography on the man’s blood. It turned up a biphasic peak on the narcotics screen. Not quite an opiate, not quite cocaine.”

  Wheelock said nothing. He simply sat there, frowning at her.
/>   “Davis,” she said, “we’re seeing the start of an epidemic.”

  WHEELOCK SHOOK HIS HEAD. “IT’S TOO early to call,” he said. “Too early to go to the press. You’ve only got three vics—”

  “Guess where the young man lived? South Lexington. Within five blocks of where the two women were found. I’m telling you, there’s something new, something that’s killing off junkies. And South Lexington seems to be its point of origin. Here’s what I think you should do, Davis. Get on the phone to the mayor. Call a joint press conference. Get the news out before we get more John and Jane Does cluttering up my basement.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “What don’t you know?”

  “It could be a single batch. Maybe that’s all it is.”

  “Or maybe there’s a whole ton of the stuff sitting in some pusher’s warehouse.”

  Agitated, Wheelock sat back and ran his hand through his gray hair. “All right. I’ll talk to the mayor. It’s a bad time to be bringing this up, what with the city bicentennial and all. He’s launching his campaign this week—”

  “Davis. People are dying.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll call him this afternoon.”

  Satisfied that she’d made her point, Kat left Wheelock’s office and headed down to the basement. In the corridor, two of the overhead fluorescent lights flickered like a strobe flash. Everything seemed to be wearing down, wearing out. The building. The city.

  And there they were, celebrating the bicentennial. What are we celebrating exactly, Mr. Mayor? Two hundred years of decline?

  Back in her office, Kat considered drinking the last dregs of the coffeepot. No, she wasn’t that desperate. Two files lay on her desk, files she couldn’t complete, perhaps would never be able to complete. One was Jane Doe’s. The other was for Xenia Vargas, the second woman from South Lexington. She, at least, had been found with ID in her purse, though they hadn’t yet confirmed Vargas was really her name. Nor had they been able to contact any relatives.

  Two dead women. And no one who could tell her how—or why—they had died.

  On a corner of her desk was a notepad, with the name Dr. Michael Dietz scribbled on it. He was the ER doctor she’d spoken to earlier, the one who’d admitted the male overdose victim at Hancock General.

  It was five o’clock; she could hear the evening morgue attendants laughing in the prep room, enjoying the brief and blessed lull before the madness of nightfall.

  Kat changed into her street clothes, pulled on her coat, and left the building.

  She didn’t drive home. Instead she drove to South Lexington, to Hancock General Hospital.

  It sat like a fortress in a war zone, its parking lot surrounded by a barbed-wire fence, the front entrance overhung by surveillance cameras. The ER clerk was sitting behind glass—bulletproof, Kat surmised. He spoke through a microphone; the tinny voice coming through the speaker made Kat think of a McDonald’s drive-through. “How can I help you?” he asked.

  “I’m Dr. Novak,” she said. “ME’s office. I want to see a Dr. Michael Dietz. It’s about a patient of his.”

  “I’ll page him.”

  Dr. Dietz emerged a few minutes later, looking like some weary veteran of the trenches. A stethoscope was looped around his neck, and his scrub pants were splattered with blood. “You just caught me,” he said. “I was going off shift. You’re from the ME?”

  “We talked earlier. About that overdose.”

  “Oh yeah. He’s up in intensive care. I can’t remember his name …”

  “Can we go up to the unit?” she asked. “I’d like to look over his chart.”

  “I guess it’s okay. Seeing as you’re official and all.”

  They headed to the elevators. The hospital looked the same as Kat remembered it, dingy linoleum floors, halls painted a bizarre aqua color, gurneys shoved up against the walls. Through the doorway on the right was the cafeteria, with its echoes of clinking dishes and scraping chairs. On the overhead paging system, a bored voice read out a list of doctors’ names and extension numbers. Dr. Dietz moved like a sleepwalker in tennis shoes.

  “I see the place hasn’t changed any,” said Kat.

  “Did you used to work here?”

  “No. I did my residency over at St. Luke’s. But I knew a patient here. A relative.”

  He laughed. “I’m not sure I’d want any of my relatives here.”

  “Didn’t matter to her. She didn’t know where she was, anyway.”

  They stepped into the staff elevator and crowded in beside nurses and orderlies. Everyone stared straight ahead, as though mesmerized by the changing floor numbers.

  “So are you from the city?” asked Dietz.

  “A native. And you?”

  “Cleveland. I’m going back.”

  “Don’t like it here?”

  “Let’s put it this way. Compared with this town, Cleveland is the Garden of Eden.”

  They got off on the third floor and headed into intensive care.

  The unit was set up like a giant stable, with stalls marked out by curtains. Only two beds were empty, Kat noted; not much preparation for an unexpected disaster. And there was a full moon. That was always a harbinger of a busy night.

  The patient was in bed thirteen. Only comatose patients went into that bed, Dietz said. Why scare some conscious patient? When you’re fighting for your life, even dumb superstitions take on frightening significance.

  The man’s name was Nicos Biagi. He was a husky fellow, about twenty, with biceps and pectorals that had obviously done time in the weight rooms. There were seven tubes snaking out of various parts of his body—a grim prognostic indicator. He lay utterly flaccid. According to the chart, he was unresponsive to even the most intense of stimuli.

  “Twenty-four hours and not a twitch,” said the nurse. “Plus, we’re having trouble stabilizing his pressure. It goes haywire on us, shoots up, then bottoms out. I’m going crazy, juggling all these meds.”

  Kat flipped through the chart, quickly deciphering the hurried notes of the ICU resident. The patient had been found unconscious in his car, parked outside his parents’ apartment. He’d been sprawled on the front seat. Beside him on the floor had been his kit: a tourniquet, syringe and needle, spoon, and cigarette lighter. Somehow, during the frantic rush to stabilize the patient and transport him to the ER, the EMTs had lost track of the syringe. They thought the family might have it; the family claimed the EMTs had it. The police said they’d never even seen it. In any event, the blood toxicology screen would provide the answers.

  At least, it should.

  They’d found out a few things. A 0.13 ethanol level proved the man was legally drunk. Also, he’d been pumped full of steroids—something Kat could have guessed from those bulging biceps. What the tests hadn’t answered was the primary question: Which drug had put him into the coma?

  All the usual medical steps had been taken. Despite a treatment of glucose, Narcan, and thiamine, he hadn’t awakened. The only therapeutic strategy left was supportive: maintain his blood pressure, breathe for him, keep his heart beating. The rest was up to the patient.

  “You have no history at all?” asked Kat. “Nothing about what he shot up? Where he got it from?”

  “Not a thing. His parents are in the dark. They had no idea their kid was a junkie. That’s probably why he did it in the car. So they wouldn’t know about it.”

  “I’ve got two women in the morgue. Both with the same biphasic peak on gas chromatography. Like your man.”

  Dietz sighed. “Terrific. Another wonder drug hits our streets.”

  “When will your final tox report be done?”

  “I don’t know. It’s been twenty-four hours already. If this is something new, it may take weeks to identify. These pharmaceutical whizzes out there crank out drugs like new shoes. By the time we catch up with the latest fad, they’re on to something else.”

  “You agree, then? That it’s something new?”

  “Oh yeah. I�
��ve seen it all come down the pike. PCP, tropical ice, fruit loops. This is something different. Something bad. I think the only reason this guy’s still alive, and your two women aren’t, is that he’s a big dude. All that muscle mass. Takes a bigger dose to kill him.”

  It still might kill him, thought Kat, gazing at the comatose patient.

  “If this goes to the media, can I use you as a source?” she asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I think a warning ought to go out on the streets. That there’s bad stuff making the rounds.”

  Dietz didn’t answer right away. He just kept looking at Nicos Biagi. “I don’t know,” he said at last.

  “What do you mean, you don’t know? It’d just be to voice your opinion. To confirm my statement.”

  “I don’t know,” he said again. He was gripping the IV pole. “It’s not as if you need me. You’ve got the authority.”

  “I could use the backup.”

  “It’s just … the press. I’m not crazy about talking to them.”

  “Okay, then just let me cite you by name. Would that be okay?”

  He sighed. “I guess so. But I’d rather you didn’t.” Abruptly, he straightened and glanced at his watch. “Look, I have to get going. I’ll catch you later.”

  Kat watched him walk out of the ICU, his shoulders hunched forward as though his whole body was straining to break into a sprint. What was he afraid of? she wondered. Why wouldn’t he talk to the press?

  She was on her way out of the ICU when she spotted the Biagis, coming in to visit their son. She guessed at once who they were, just by the grief in their faces. Mrs. Biagi was dark-haired, dark-eyed, and her face was seamed with worry. Mr. Biagi was much older and bald; he looked too numb to be feeling much of anything at the moment. They went to Nicos’s bedside, where they stood for a moment in silence. Mrs. Biagi stroked her son’s hair and began to sing softly, something in Italian. A lullaby, perhaps. Then she faltered, dropped her head to her son’s chest, and began to cry.