“Nothing wrong with saving the environment.”
Harry Moran made a rude noise. “You ever hear of the Earth Liberation Front?”
“Can’t say that I have,” Kurtz said.
“How about the Monkey Wrench Gang?”
“Nope.”
By this time, Harry Moran had tweaked his sources. “He and his brother were both suspected of being members. They would do things like burn ski resorts in Vail, Colorado and sabotage logging operations, sometimes with dynamite.”
Kurtz winced. “I was hoping that he was a more mundane sort of lunatic.”
“Apparently not.”
“Why didn’t all of this come up when he applied for the job?”
“He was arrested only once,” Harry said. “He was sixteen at the time, a juvenile, so the records were sealed. After, that, he has no record. He either went straight or he never got caught.”
They were sitting in Patrick O’Brien’s small office. Moran and Patrick were sipping from cups of the cafeteria coffee. Kurtz, who had just arrived after finishing a case, was wearing a white lab coat over green hospital scrubs.
“Their parents died in a house fire. James was only thirteen at the time. An aunt and uncle took in both brothers until they went away to college. James and Joseph stuck together after that, until Joseph took his header off the bridge.”
“Anything suspicious about the fire?” Kurtz asked.
Moran shrugged. “Not that we know of.”
“How about the aunt and uncle?” Patrick asked.
“Strongly religious. They belong to a small fundamentalist sect that believes in keeping to themselves and living as simply as possible. No central heating, no modern technology, not even electricity. A lot like the Amish.”
“I bet James and Joseph just loved that.”
Harry shrugged again. “No idea.”
“Any evidence that the kids were abused?”
“None at all.”
Patrick frowned down at a file. “His yearly performance appraisals are interesting, more for what they don’t say than for what they do. He’s competent. He keeps to himself. He doesn’t hang around with his co-workers. Basically, they don’t seem to like him much but they can’t say exactly why.”
“How about the paper?” Kurtz asked. “The envelopes, the stamps, the crayon? Any way to identify where he’s getting them?”
“Common brands,” Moran said. “Available from literally hundreds of outlets. No way to trace them.”
“How about if he got them online?”
“Then we could probably trace them, assuming that he used his own name, his own address and a credit card, but only if we had a search warrant. We’re not getting a search warrant. Not with what we’ve got.”
“Then we’ve just got to get more,” Kurtz said.
Moran gave him a quick, cynical grin. Kurtz had the uncomfortable feeling that Moran was looking into his soul and laughing.
“Any idea how?” Moran said.
“Not yet,” Kurtz said.
Moran shrugged and rose to his feet. “Let me know when you come up with something.”
“Right,” Kurtz said. “You bet.”
He did have one more idea. Not much of an idea, admittedly, but if it worked out, it might help to nail down at least one minor point. Kurtz and Patrick O’Brien were sitting across a table from Lillian Mayberry.
“Recognize anybody?” Patrick asked.
Lillian Mayberry frowned as she looked through the pile of twenty blown up photographs. None of the photos were members of the medical staff of Staunton University Hospital. One of them was the same picture that was on the ID card of James McDonald, pharmacy technician.
“No,” she said, after carefully inspecting each picture. “I’m afraid that I don’t.”
Lillian Mayberry was the supervisor of the Medical Records Unit on the day shift. There were three other clerks on the day shift, two on evenings and one on nights. The day shift clerks had all been shown the pictures and all had failed to recognize any of them except for one clerk, a pretty brunette who frowned down at one picture and said, “Isn’t that Justin Bieber?”
“No,” Patrick O’Brien said automatically. “It’s not.” He looked a little closer. “Oh,” he said. “Yes, actually I think it is. Well, do you recognize any of the others?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Sorry.”
Patrick sighed. “That’s okay. Thanks.”
One of Patrick’s men came back for the evening shift, and then another came back for the night shift. None of the clerks recognized any of the men in the photos.
They showed the same pictures to Christina Pirelli. When she came to James McDonald, she frowned and looked at it for a long time. “This looks a lot like the guy who was following me. The hair’s a little different. The nose is a little thinner.” She hesitated. “If it’s him, he’s lost weight.”
“Could you identify him in court?”
“Not for certain. I wouldn’t want to swear to it.”
“Oh, well,” Kurtz said, the next day. “It was worth a try.”
Patrick shrugged. “Now what?”
“I don’t know,” Kurtz said. “I guess we better think of something else.”
Kurtz wasn’t expecting much, and he was he was not surprised by the Dean’s reaction. The Dean listened to him, nodding, then said, “So you think you know who he is, but you can’t prove it.”
“Yes.”
The Dean frowned. “Our hands are tied, then. You know that.”
“I’m informing you of what we’ve discovered. We’ve identified a suspect. What you do with that information is entirely up to you.”
“Unfortunately,” the Dean said, “or maybe not so unfortunately, this medical center is unionized. We can’t fire him. We can’t retaliate in any way without proof, and even if we could, our goal is to make this campaign of intimidation stop. He can send letters and make phone calls just as easily from outside the institution as inside.”
Kurtz shrugged. “Like I said, I’m telling you what we’ve got.”
The Dean looked at him. “Go get more,” he said.
Where had Kurtz heard that before? “I intend to.”
“Good,” the Dean said. Then he gave a lopsided grin. “Good work, anyway.”
A large man in a Security uniform stood watch in a corner of the men’s locker room. He ignored the assorted hospital workers as they entered the room, grabbed scrubs from the wire shelving, opened their lockers, changed into work attire and exited the locker room. Most of the workers cast speculative looks at the Security officer but nobody felt it advisable to ask him what he was doing there. When James McDonald arrived, the officer gave him a slight smile but said nothing. McDonald opened his locker, changed, closed the locker and exited. The Security officer exited with him. The officer nodded at him, gave a wide grin, and turned away. He walked slowly down the corridor, whistling.
James McDonald frowned.
Two hours later, as McDonald was in the process of stocking the medication dispensary on the 14th Floor, the same Security officer walked down the hallway, smiled at McDonald, and wandered away. McDonald paused. His hands clenched into fists. He drew a deep breath and continued with what he was doing.
Soon after lunch, McDonald exited an elevator, pushing his medication cart in front of him. When he arrived at the nursing station, the same Security officer was waiting. The officer said nothing as McDonald stocked the dispensing machine, then followed him down the hallway toward the elevator. As the elevator arrived and McDonald stepped in, the officer tipped his hat and gave McDonald a small smile.
So it went throughout the day. The same officer would appear at random, gravely watch McDonald at his work, smile and go his way. At the end of the day, McDonald entered the men’s locker room and stopped. Taped to his locker was a white envelope. McDonald frowned, reached up, took the envelope and opened it. Written on a white sheet of paper in red crayon, it read:
I
t’s been fun, hasn’t it? Enjoy it while it lasts. It won’t last long.
McDonald crushed the piece of paper into a crumpled white ball and carefully placed it into the garbage pail in the corner of the room. Then he changed into his street clothes and went home for the night.
“I don’t know what you mean,” Patrick O’Brien said.
James McDonald put his hands on Patrick’s desk and leaned forward. “Your men are following me. I want them to stop it.”
Patrick stifled a yawn behind one gigantic palm, cleared his throat and looked James McDonald straight in the eye. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Patrick said.
McDonald drew a deep breath. His lips thinned. He said nothing, turned and walked out of Patrick’s office.
Patrick grinned. “Well,” he said to the air, “what’s the matter with him?”
The Security guard showed up at noon the next day, watching him while McDonald went through the food line at the cafeteria, and then at 2:00 PM while he was working on one of the floors, and again, right before he got off work. Each time, the guard would nod, smile with thinly veiled amusement and watch with seeming interest as James McDonald went about his work. He never said a word.
At 5:00 PM, McDonald arrived home. Picking up the mail from the box in the lobby, he patiently waited for the elevator, then pushed the button for his floor. He took a deep breath. It had been a long day and he was pissed off. Patrick O’Brien, he had to admit, was annoying him. He walked down the floor, opened the door to his apartment, placed the mail on the counter and poured himself a drink. He savored the sharp bite of the alcohol then crunched a bit of ice between his teeth. Idly, he sorted through the mail. One envelope contained no return address. He shrugged and opened it and stared at the letter inside. His hand, he vaguely noticed, was trembling. In blue crayon, the letter said:
I’m enjoying this. I hope you are, too. I’ll be coming for you soon.
Chapter 24
“You’re looking pleased with yourself,” Lenore said.
“Hmm?” Kurtz looked up from the book he was reading.
Lenore pursed her lips and gave him a quizzical look. “I said that you’re looking like the cat that swallowed the canary. What’s going on?”
Kurtz shrugged. “I could tell you but then I’d have to kill you.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yup,” Kurtz said.
“Don’t press your luck, Bozo.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kurtz said.
“But seriously,” Lenore said.
“Can’t talk about it. I really can’t.”
“Are you kidding?” Lenore said.
“You being a potential witness and all.”
“Oh, shit.”
“Like I said.”
Lenore looked at him, frowned and then shrugged. “Want some more wine?”
“Sure,” Kurtz said.
“Let me give you a piece of advice,” Lenore said, and poured the wine.
“Yes?”
“Don’t get in over your head.”
“Wouldn’t dream of it,” Kurtz said. It was, he reflected, excellent wine.
The next day, Audra Fox, the Assistant Head of Labor Relations, gave Patrick O’Brien a call. “You know a guy named James McDonald, in pharmacy?”
“He was in here yesterday accusing me of having him followed,” Patrick said. “Aside from that, I can’t say that I do.”
“Oh,” Audra Fox said, “well, I just got a call from Merryl Packer.”
Merryl Packer was a worker in the laundry division of the hospital who just happened to be the President of the Union. She was known to be foul mouthed, ambitious and basically insane, but very far from stupid. “So?” Patrick asked.
“She says that you’re harassing this James McDonald. She’s filed a grievance.” Audra sighed. “She called you ‘a fucking pig.’”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Yeah, us too.” The National Health Care Workers’ Union, generally referred to as 1199, from its very first district in New York, was founded in 1932 by a group of pharmacists. It had since spread over the entire United States and was the largest representative of health care workers of all sorts in the country. “Merryl is nuts.”
“Nothing I can do about that,” Patrick said.
“She’s asking that Security cease and desist its campaign of harassment. She’s also asking for punitive damages.”
Patrick shrugged. “Let me know if I have to testify.”
“You bet. So, what’s the real story with this James McDonald?”
“We are keeping an eye on him, but nobody’s harassing the guy.” Patrick paused, thinking uncomfortably that both Kurtz and Moran (or at least, Kurtz) might have their own agenda. “Not that I know of, anyway.”
“Why are you doing that?”
“I can’t tell you,” Patrick said. “I mean it. It’s confidential.”
“Really…”
“Yup.”
Audra Fox sighed. “Well, good luck.”
“Yeah. You, too.”
James McDonald’s nerves were on edge. Today, a different Security guard had shadowed him, a middle-aged, fat white guy instead of a middle-aged, stout black guy, but the cold eyes and the silent smiles were identical. The Security guard had appeared without warning, randomly throughout the day, never speaking, never interfering, coldly watching, then vanishing. Prick.
James McDonald breathed a long, slow sigh of relief, feeling his tight muscles unwind as he turned the key on his apartment door and entered. He wanted, no, he needed, a drink, a nice big one. Something good. Johnny Walker Blue, that would do it, he thought. Settle my nerves. Think about the future. He wasn’t going to take this lying down. James McDonald had a history, abilities and resources that Patrick O’Brien knew nothing about. He thought about that, and smiled, as he pondered his next move.
Christmas came and went. Kurtz tried to enjoy the holidays but it was tough. He was on edge, waiting for the next ridiculous atrocity. Lenore set up a small tree in the apartment and they decorated it together. The tree reminded Kurtz of his childhood, when his mother was still alive, before his father became the silent, brooding figure that he remained to this day. Kurtz slowly hung each ornament on the tree, remembering.
He sighed. Lenore, who by now understood his moods, let him be.
On Christmas Eve, they went to a party at Bill and Dina Werth’s apartment. A loaded buffet was set up along one wall, a bar along another. People came and went all through the afternoon and early evening.
“Anything new with your stalker?” Bill Werth asked him.
Kurtz glumly shook his head. “Nope.”
Werth frowned. “That’s unusual. This time of year, you would expect it to get worse. Seeing their victims in a good mood tends to piss these guys off.”
Kurtz stared down into his Bloody Mary, finished it and poured himself another. “I don’t think he cares what we expect.”
Bill Werth shook his head and had nothing more to say.
On Christmas, they met Lenore’s parents, plus her Aunt Sylvia and Uncle Milton at a Chinese restaurant on Mott Street.
“When I was a kid,” Lenore said, “there was an advertisement. It was in all the subway cars, a little old Chinese man is beaming out at the reader and the text says, ‘You don’t have to be Chinese to love Levy’s Jewish Rye Bread.’”
“Huh?” Kurtz said.
“Unlike our European brethren, the Chinese have never persecuted the Jews, and both cultures encourage education and upward mobility. The Chinese kids and the Jewish kids go to the same schools, they’re in the same classes and they join the same clubs. We pretty much grow up, together. There’s a real affinity between the two communities, though maybe it’s more a New York thing than universal. Also, the Chinese are not Christian, so unlike almost every other store and eating establishment, Chinese restaurants are open on Christmas. I’m not sure when it started, but going out to a Chinese place on Christma
s is a very old tradition in the Jewish community. In Brooklyn, there are a bunch of Kosher-Chinese places but we stopped keeping Kosher when I was a little kid, so here we are.”
Right. Esther Brinkman was still grumpy over a Reform rabbi instead of an Orthodox one but she didn’t keep Kosher. Kurtz stared in bemusement as Lenore’s plump Jewish mother deftly used a pair of chopsticks to lift a pork filled dumpling to her lips. The dumpling glistened enticingly with flecks of scallion and chili oil. “Well,” he said, “count me in.”
A couple of tepid letters arrived during the next week, the usual vague baloney threatening nameless destruction for imaginary sins. James McDonald was ignoring the ever-present security and doing his job. If he was also sending threatening letters and making harassing phone calls, they couldn’t prove it. His grievance charge against the hospital was wending its way through official channels.
New Year’s Eve came and went. Kurtz and Lenore wandered down to Time’s Square but the crowd was insane. They trudged back to the apartment, watched the ball drop on TV and popped the cork on a bottle of Champagne.
Kurtz was a lucky man with a lot to look forward to. He stared at Lenore’s serenely smiling face and felt truly grateful.
He wondered what their stalker was doing tonight.
Monday. A new month, a new rotation, a new group of resentful staff members who didn’t want to be here, and it was his job to orient them to a new environment, all without wasting time, delaying any cases and especially, all without harming any patients.
“Relax,” Mahendra Patel said.
“I can’t relax.” Jerry Hernandez was in a foul mood. These days, he usually was. Nearly twenty per-cent of the department had already flown the coop. Serkin, blithely convinced that his department was overstaffed, was perfectly satisfied with this situation. Hernandez, responsible for finding actual bodies to provide the anesthesia, at least one for each operating room, all day, every day, was at his wit’s end. It had reached the point where making out the next day’s schedule took a couple of hours of robbing Peter to pay Paul, and involved an ongoing negotiation with the other Directors at St. Agnes and Easton.
The Chairmen Page 19
