“So, uhh, it’s strange but there’ve been no fatal accidents involving young people over the past week or so. There was an old guy who had a stroke while driving and veered into a tree. Pronounced brain dead at the scene by one of your guys. His wallet was still in evidence, and I took a peek—he was an organ donor, and the stick was, uhh, stuck pretty good. Not sure if that helps.”
Beckett felt his heart sink.
Even though he knew from the get-go that it was unlikely the organs were from cadavers—I know what you are, I know what you did—this pretty much sealed it.
“Yeah, it helps, Dunbar,” Beckett replied. “Thanks. I was just grasping at straws, anyway. Take care.”
Dunbar started to say something, but Beckett had already hung up the phone.
Suzan was right, of course; he had to tell somebody — either that, or he had to do something about it.
People were being killed; young people.
Beckett opted for the latter.
Chapter 26
“Ron? It’s Beckett.”
“Two times in as many days? Either you’ve got a crush on me or you need a favor.”
“Well, my type isn’t usually sickly-looking men with drinking problems. But, you know me, I’m always looking for a new experience,” Beckett said. He didn’t feel in the mood to joke around, but knew that this was part of the game.
A major reason that Ron was so fond of Beckett, he’d realized long ago, was that the man lived vicariously through him. It wasn’t just the lifestyle, but also Beckett’s ability to say whatever he wanted to whomever he wanted. This was one of the mitigating factors in pushing Beckett into a discipline that didn’t require interaction with patients. Ron, on the other hand, had a front facing profession, one that forced him to constantly put on a face.
Which was why he drowned himself in drink, Beckett also concluded. Keeping two different personas was an exhausting task.
“And as you know, I’m in a steady relationship with my friend Jack… Jack Daniels. What can I do for you, Beckett?”
“You still have your connections at UNOS?”
“Yeah, the two head honchos over there owe me a favor. Those assholes tried to slip a liver riddled with metastases into a 14-year-old kid. What’s up?”
“Just wondering if you can do a little digging for me… see if you can find out if a stray liver has popped up over the past few days. Under the radar, of course.”
Ron cleared his throat before replying.
“Popped up, hmm? Sure, I’ll ask around.”
“Thanks, Ron. I owe you a drink… or six.”
***
The Lab Guy met Beckett outside the main lab building. Dressed in a white lab coat, the man’s appearance reaffirmed his moniker: he had thick glasses and greasy hair tucked behind his ears.
He also had a minor stutter, Beckett noticed, that seemed more prominent in person than it did over the phone.
“D-Dr. Campbell?”
Beckett skipped the niceties; he’d played that game with Ron and didn’t feel like stepping up to the plate again so soon.
“Who picked up the liver?” Beckett asked as he followed the man into the lab. He made sure that the door was closed behind them and that they were alone before continuing. “Who was it?”
Lab Guy shrugged.
“No clue. He was in and out in just a minute. Said he knew you, said that it was okay. Should I—”
Beckett shook his head. He already had Ron on the case.
“Naw, it’s fine. Don’t worry about it.”
“But why—”
Beckett shook his head again, more deliberately this time.
“Above your pay grade.”
“Everything’s above my pay grade,” Lab Guy muttered.
Beckett placed a hand on the man’s shoulder.
“Speaking of which, I’ve got a couple of other things I need you to do for me. With discretion, of course.”
Lab Guy’s face contorted.
“I’m not sure—”
“I have no problem writing a letter of recommendation, in case another position—say, head of lab stuff—comes up. You might have heard some rumors about me, but one thing is certain: I still hold some clout here.”
Lab Guy looked as if he was about to say something, but then he closed his mouth and nodded.
“What do you need me to do?” he said with a sigh.
“Incinerate the heart. Pretend you never saw it.”
“What? Why?”
“Above your pay grade,” Beckett repeated, placing the organ donor cooler that he’d brought with him on the table. “I want you to run some genetic tests on the two other hearts and then get rid of them, as well.”
Lab Guy’s eyes bulged so dramatically that Beckett could practically hear them squish up against his thick spectacles.
“Are you—wait, do you—”
“Above—”
“—my pay grade,” Lab Guy finished for him.
Beckett clapped him on the back and smiled.
“And who says that an old dog can’t learn new tricks.”
Chapter 27
Beckett returned to his office after meeting with Lab Guy, but as he approached he felt a knot twist in his stomach.
Delores was sitting at her desk, her head down as she used the first finger of each hand to peck away at her keyboard. He’d known the woman for the better part of four years now—unlike many of the other doctors, he opted not to have a personal secretary—and they’d always had a pleasant, albeit superficial relationship.
Until he’d blown up at her for something that was in no way her fault, that is. And it most definitely wasn’t her fault; she wasn’t, after all, a gatekeeper. People were free to walk the halls as much as they liked, and the fact that she hadn’t seen who had delivered the organs was not her purview.
It was also very much unlike him to explode at all; Beckett dealt with stress mainly by cracking jokes and teasing others. But ever since the Virgin Gorda…
“Dr. Campbell?” Dolores said, poking her head up from her computer. Beckett raised his eyes and was dismayed to see that there was actual fear in the woman’s pale face. “I found—”
Beckett stopped the woman by raising a finger.
“Dolores, who’s your favorite actor?”
The woman squinted at him.
“Excuse me?”
“Who is your favorite actor?” Beckett repeated.
“I… I dunno… maybe Tom Hardy?”
Beckett grimaced.
“Okay, who’s your favorite B level actor, then?”
Dolores paused again. She was clearly confused by this line of questioning, but was clearly averse to upsetting Beckett again.
“Ryan Reynolds?”
Beckett questioned whether or not Ryan Reynolds was a B actor—he was an A- at worst—but it was still something he thought he might be able to swing.
He parked this information in his brain and then changed the subject.
“Good choice. Now, what were you going to tell me?”
The confusion slid off Dolores’s face and she became serious again.
“You know that video you asked for? The security footage? I called in a favor with the older gentleman at the security desk and managed to get a copy. It should be in your email.”
Beckett felt his heart rate quicken. It appeared as if he might get to the end of this morbid mystery sooner rather than later.
And, if he was being perfectly honest with himself, a tiny part of him was disappointed; Beckett had hoped for a greater challenge.
The majority of his being, including his now tingling fingertips, however, was undeniably excited. It had been three days since he’d put an end to the sick bastard that was Wilson Trent and he could feel the urge to kill returning.
He felt like a 2L bottle of Pepsi that was slowly being shaken and the pressure from the CO2 was about to reach a head.
“Thanks,” Beckett said putting his arm on top of Delores’s ha
nd for a brief moment before pulling it back.
“Oh, and Dr. Campbell?”
Beckett turned back to look at her.
“Yeah?”
“A student of yours came in to speak to you? Said you were expecting him? Looks like Jay Baruchel with a shaved head?”
Beckett chuckled.
Speaking of B—and C and D—level actors…
“Grant McEwing,” he said under his breath.
Dolores nodded.
“Yeah, that’s him. Is he… is he related to the new transplant wing?”
Beckett paused for a moment, mulling over the curious way that Delores had phrased her sentence.
How deep are Grant’s ties to the Unit? Beckett wondered. He was there for the ribbon-cutting ceremony and Ron mentioned that the Foundation usually placed family members on the Board.
For the life of him, however, Beckett couldn’t recall ever seeing him at any of the Board Meetings for the transplant unit.
“Is he related?” Beckett said at last. “Yeah, he most definitely is.”
***
Beckett entered his office without even casting a glance in Grant’s direction. Instead, he pretended not to notice the man and took a seat at his desk. He was eager to view the video that Dolores had sent him, but judged that that that wouldn’t be a good idea with Grant in the room. Instead, he woke up his computer and then confirmed that the email was in his inbox. Then he reached for the stack of tests on his desks, the ones that Suzan had marked in record time, and shuffled them aimlessly.
Grant cleared his throat and Beckett finally raised his eyes. The man looked tired and his hair had started to grow in—it was patchy and matched the hair on his cheeks and chin.
“Why did you tell Delores that I was expecting you?” Beckett asked suddenly.
The corners of Grant’s mouth twitched.
“I’m sorry, but I got the impression that she wouldn’t let me in otherwise.”
Beckett’s eyes narrowed and he slowly reached for the top drawer of his desk. He opened it several inches, just wide enough for him to catch a glimpse of the scalpel in his periphery.
Grant looked very much like Jay Baruchel, at least in physical stature, and there was no question in his mind that if it came down to it, Beckett could take him.
Still, one could never be too careful.
“What else have you lied about, Grant?”
“What? Nothing? I just… I had to speak to you. I’m sorry—”
“Do you know who I am?” Beckett interjected.
Grant recoiled slightly.
“Yes, you’re Dr. Campbell, the head of the forensic—”
“Do you know what I do?” Beckett snapped quickly.
Again, a minor recoil.
“I—I—”
“I asked you if you knew what I did?”
“Y-yes. You’re a Senior Medical Examiner for the State of New York. You also…”
Beckett wasn’t listening anymore; he was staring at the man’s face, and, more specifically, his eyes. He’d looked into the eyes of Donnie DiMarco when he died, and he’d seen Craig Sloan’s go wide before being struck by the rock.
And the others… he’d made a point of staring into their eyes before he finished them off.
Beckett was a doctor and a pragmatist. He didn’t believe in the soul or afterlife, but there was something undeniably missing in all of his victims' eyes. Something that was difficult to articulate, but tangible, none-the-less.
Something dull, a flatness that he’d only witnessed a handful of times.
It was the same thing he saw in his own eyes when he stared in the mirror.
“One last thing, Grant: wherever you go, go with all your heart,” Beckett said, focusing in on the young man’s pupils.
Chapter 28
Grant shook his head and blinked rapidly several times.
“I-I-I don’t—I just came in here to—”
“To what, Grant?”
Grant suddenly sighed and his shoulders slumped. When he spoke again, he did so with his head bowed.
“I-I-I have to tell you something.”
Beckett smirked and snaked a hand into the top drawer of his desk. His mind started working, trying to come up with a scenario by which he could dispatch Grant without Delores asking questions.
It doesn’t have to be now, it doesn’t have to be here…
Beckett’s fingers were tingling so much now that he was almost trembling.
“Go ahead,” he said with a grin.
Another heavy sigh.
“I have… I have this memory,” Grant said. The response was so unexpected that Beckett recoiled this time.
“What?”
“I have an eidetic memory,” Grant’s eyes flicked at the tests still in Beckett’s hand. “I wanted to tell you before you marked the tests, but I see that they’re already done.”
Beckett was confused as to what was going on. He’d seen something in the man’s eyes, that much was certain, and was about to act on this when Grant had pulled a one-eighty.
An eidetic memory? What in the fuck?
“If I read something, I have perfect recall,” Grant continued. “I’ve been accused of cheating too many times in the past… so I thought I would give you the head’s up.”
“I know what an eidetic memory is. I also know that it’s exceedingly rare in adults.”
“Question nineteen,” Grant said, looking off to one side. “What are the most common risk factors for acute aortic dissection in young people?”
Beckett didn’t want to look at the test, but eventually, curiosity took over. Indeed, question nineteen was word-for-word as Grant had spoken it.
“And the answer?” Beckett asked, eyebrow raised.
“Marfan syndrome, bicuspid aortic valves, and larger aortic dimensions,” Grant replied immediately.
Beckett didn’t need to look at the test for this; he knew the answer to be correct.
“What about question fifty-four?” Beckett asked.
Again, Grant looked off to one side before replying.
“What structures are most commonly affected by Vogt–Koyanagi–Harada disease?”
Beckett confirmed that this was correct.
“And the—”
Grant didn’t even wait for him to finish.
“Bilateral, diffuse uveitis.”
Who the fuck is this guy? Beckett wondered. Doogie Howser?
It was possible that Grant had managed to obtain a copy of the test beforehand; after all, Beckett put so little stock in these things that he usually just kept them stored locally on his hard drive. He also recycled tests year on year.
“And this memory of yours… does it work for everything?”
Grant shook his head.
“No. Only for medical-related topics. I think… I think I got it from my father.”
Chapter 29
Beckett had gone from planning Grant’s death one moment to being genuinely curious about the man in the next. But that didn’t make it any easier to dial back his urge.
And this frightened Beckett.
Sure, he’d seen the man’s eyes… Grant had a secret—another secret—of that Beckett was certain.
But that wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
Was I really going to pull the scalpel out? He wondered. Was I really going to kill Grant right here in my office?
The rational part of his brain told him that that was ridiculous, that like with Wilson Trent and the others he needed solid proof that they had committed murder—he needed them to say it. But his lizard brain was still firing, and his fingers were still tingling something fierce.
Calm down, Beckett. Figure out if this whole eidetic memory thing is a slight of hand, a red herring. Don’t be rash; be calculated. Be safe.
He swallowed hard and interlaced his fingers on top of his desk, squeezing them tightly as he did.
Organ Donor: A Medical Thriller (Dr. Beckett Campbell, Medical Examiner Book 1) Page 10
