An Eye For Murder: A Medical Thriller

by Martin Sherwood

  His mockery annoyed me. But I knew that if I went on, he would believe me. He had to.

  But then I got stuck. There was no continuity. I had reached a black hole in my memory. Everything was scrambled inside my head. I muttered stuff about the riverfront, mailboxes, intercom, and the ditch covered with planks and thick, slimy mud.

  “I need to shower and change.”

  Ramzi pursed his lips tightly, bent, and picked up a folder and car keys. “Somehow I get the feeling you aren’t telling me everything. This might hurt you later.”

  “What? Am I a suspect?”

  “People refuse to cooperate only when they have something to hide.”

  “Am I a suspect?”

  “Not at all.”

  “I’m shattered.” I sighed and collapsed back on the bed. “I want to go home.”

  “First you need to be discharged from the hospital, then we pay a short visit to the institute, do a short ID of the corpse, and have you sign a statement. Finished.”

  I remained silent and he just shrugged.

  “I know it’s bypassing procedure, but I really don’t see any problem for you—a concerned citizen willing to help the police, aren’t you? Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think we both want to put an end to this mess as quickly as possible. I hate bureaucracy. Then, after we’re done, I’ll personally drive you home.”

  That was the last thing I needed—to be driven into my neighborhood in a police car. It would ignite a week’s worth of gossip in my dreary cul-de-sac. But then I recalled my Kia being stuck in the medical school parking lot last night—if it were indeed last night.

  Then it registered: He’d also mentioned a short visit to an institute. “Institute?” I asked.

  “Uh-huh.” The inspector sucked the last of his Ricola. “The Louisville Forensic Institute, next to the morgue on Baxter.”

  25

  Chicago, Illinois

  “You’re gonna have to make it short, Mr. Pigg. I’m off to a Talmud class.”

  Bernie Cooperstein stood at the head of the stoop and squinted at his watch. Except for a wrought-iron gate and two statues of lions spewing water into a small pond, there were no visible trappings of abundant wealth. If he’d had it his way, a handyman would have been hired to remove the kitschy fountain—it only accumulated mold, leaves, and tadpoles in the murky water. His house backed on to a private forest, as did every other house in the neighborhood. The leafless trees depressed Bernie’s wife Wendy, who’d been a social worker with modest requirements from life. That week she had reiterated her wish to return to their previous apartment in Morton Grove. Bernie had refused to put it up for sale because of the memories it held, but those same memories made it hard for him to return to it. It was there that their only daughter had died of cancer.

  “Can’t we afford to buy another apartment?” she had asked, characteristically naïve. “They’ve started building next to Cynthia.”

  Bernie Cooperstein smiled. He could afford to buy the whole subdivision.

  When the investigator had suddenly showed up, Bernie was already dressed and ready to go. He remembered their first meeting in his office two weeks ago, when the man had introduced himself as a PI working on behalf of an insurance company, probing Ashraf Nouri’s disappearance. Bernie had not forgotten his name—how could he? “Holden Pigg, with two Gs”—but the smirk had been wiped off his face as soon as the man said he wanted to discuss Dr. Nouri again.

  Pigg accepted Bernie’s offer and accompanied him on the twenty-minute walk to the synagogue. “My cardiologist’s order,” Bernie said with a shrug.

  There was no news about the mysterious disappearance of Dr. Ashraf Nouri. Why, then, had the investigator asked to see him again?

  “You said in your deposition that Dr. Nouri was on his way to a research meeting with your company.”

  “His very first meeting, Mr. Pigg, but he never made it.”

  Holden Pigg drew an envelope out of his coat pocket, opened it, and pulled out a bunch of color photos held together with a rubber band.

  Bernie stopped, pulled his readers from his pocket, and examined the images. It was a sequence of the same scene: a black Acura Legend, parked by a sidewalk, the door open and a man leaning out. In the first pictures he was reaching out, and in the final ones, he was inviting a thin man into the car—or perhaps snatching him from the sidewalk. The man on the sidewalk was Ashraf Nouri. The man in the vehicle was impossible to identify; only his back was visible.

  “How…”

  “It happened at Jackson Boulevard, opposite the entrance to Fidelity Bank. These images are from their surveillance cameras. Know the man inside the car?”

  Bernie shook his head, folded his glasses, and they continued to walk in silence. By the time they reached the park behind the local school, Bernie was struggling, his big feet slapping the pavement in their heavy orthopedic shoes. He apologized and slumped onto a bench, wheezing and cyanotic with angina pectoris.

  “Would you do me a favor and look at the photos one more time?”

  It was getting dark. Cooperstein sighed and slid down the bench toward the light of a streetlamp. He unfolded his glasses again and perused the pictures critically. When he shook his head again, Holden Pigg added two enlargements.

  “We asked our tech to zoom in and enhance the resolution. Even with our best efforts, his face cannot be identified, but you can clearly see that he has red hair. Anyone you recognize, Mr. Cooperstein?”

  Bernie shook his head vehemently. “Poor Nouri. Such a nice young man. What the hell happened to him? Any idea?”

  Pigg studied Bernie’s expression as he put the photos back inside the envelope. The man was either genuinely distressed or a talented actor.

  “So help me God,” Bernie murmured in dread.

  Bernie Cooperstein continued his way to the synagogue after Mr. Pigg had bidden him farewell, but instead of entering the study adjacent to the chapel, he descended into the vestibule below the stairs. He pulled his cellphone from his jacket and searched for Professor Efron’s private number.

  He had to warn her.

  And Poldi’s little daughter.

  26

  Ramzi slid behind the wheel, locked the doors, and started the engine.

  The police car came to life with a hiss from the heater vents. The steam outlined a fan of fingers on the bottom of the windshield.

  The police radio chirped loudly, but the inspector elected not to reply. As the vehicle passed the hospital’s exit gate, Ramzi waved hello to the guard, perhaps an old acquaintance.

  First, we drove eastbound on Chestnut Street. I thought he planned to revisit the stinking pit, but he made several sharp turns into alleyways and service roads instead.

  Lights flickered after last night’s storm; a high-voltage cable lay on the road beside a police patrol car. As we passed the cop, he exchanged salutes with the inspector. Traffic whirled around the winding roads, picking up. Life was getting back to normal quicker than expected.

  As we crossed Hancock, Clay, and Shelby, I had a chance to study Inspector Ramzi closely. He looked about thirty, newly married, judging by the shiny ring on his finger. His mocha-olive skin projected a Mediterranean background, twinned with a mane of dark hair and a neatly trimmed mustache that was beginning to fade at the edges. Below it he had a set of tobacco-stained teeth and a tongue that whirled around a new Ricola. The collar of his jacket kept his neck warm. When he stretched, his belt was exposed and I squinted at the shiny badge that hung there, with the nametag below it: S. Ramzi.

  “No, it’s not a spelling mistake,” he said without taking his eyes off the road, “and I’m not Celtic. My name has its own story, like yours. Don’t really look like a Ramsey, do I?”

  He told me he was a Druze, the son of Lebanese emigrants who had escaped from a small mountain village near Beirut during the ci
vil war. He had relatives in Israel—an Israeli Defense Force colonel and a police officer, he informed me with pride—as well as cousins in Syria. The latter was said gloomily, since they had lost contact and he feared for their lives. The S stood for Syd, better accepted in the US than the original Sayyid, especially after 9/11.

  By the end of the genealogic summary we entered the parking lot of the Jefferson County Coroner’s office, located on Barrett Avenue and St. Anthony’s Place.

  The radio continued to crackle. This time Ramzi responded with two staccato sentences. “Yes, he’s with me. Three minutes.”

  The building was dreary and lugubrious. Its grey walls were lined with barracks-style windows and shutters that contrasted with a red roof and evergreens in the yard—reminiscent of a country manor. But a high fence and an electric gate with a rectangular plaque left no room for error: This was not a private home.

  We cruised into the side entrance, reserved for security vehicles, and passed an open area that looked like a heliport, rinsed by the last rain. There was a lull in the storm and a pale blue bald patch unzipped overhead between clusters of clouds. The sun dared to peek out, forming a rainbow with margins of pearly haze.

  Ramzi parked the car on the edge of the gravel and I followed him to the door. There were no arrows or signs in the maze, but that did not deter the inspector. He clearly knew his way around.

  Inside we were greeted by a strong odor of Lysol. Pictures of the Alps and Norwegian fjords hung along the corridor walls, in keeping with the atmosphere.

  We marched in tempo, our footsteps reverberating from the walls. A lanky orderly crossed our way and greeted us with a nod, appearing almost as lifeless as the load he pushed on a sheet-covered gurney.

  Someone stocky and owlish approached from down the hall to meet us. He had a sharp chin, small deep-set eyes, and enormous hands covered by greasy-looking gloves. Grating squeals were heard from the room behind. Two options: Either someone was playing the violin, badly, or someone was sawing open a skull.

  The lab coat had the name Max embroidered on its chest pocket. A heavy apron hanging from his waist protected his groin. He stripped off his latex gloves, which were smeared with tissue residue, and pointed at the door behind.

  “Be ready for an unpleasant scene,” Max said. “Not much left, I’m afraid, only from about the mid-sternum up. Only one hand.” He was kind enough to demonstrate with his mammoth arm.

  “It’s all right, Max,” Ramzi growled and cocked his chin toward me. “He’s a first-year med student.”

  Max’s bulldog-like face glowed. “First-year, eh? Haven’t done your rotation with us yet, huh?”

  I swallowed hard. The inspector was acting increasingly uncomfortable but seemed to be trying to disguise it. By the way he searched his pockets, I figured he was desperate for a cigarette, then apparently recalled that it was banned and settled for another sage-flavored candy. The lip-smacking seemed to irritate Max, who glared at him.

  Ramzi protested, “What the hell…” before heaving a frustrated sigh. “Max, let’s move it, we still have a lot to do.”

  Max led us through the double doors into a high-ceilinged hall with rows of tables. The head of each table was crowned with a horseshoe-shaped sink. A hose was attached to a siphon and looped around the drainage gutter that circled the table. A scale stood by the sink, along with metal scissors, scalpel handles, and strainers. A notebook near the sink was opened to a new page. A black bucket was tucked under the table.

  I counted half a dozen tables, three on each side, with a wide aisle down the middle. There were no separation curtains. On four of the tables lay mannequins with burst kishkes, loops of intestines hanging out. Teams of pathologists and techs were in various stages of examination.

  Except these were not mannequins; they were human beings.

  Ex-human beings.

  Arctic illumination overhead filtered out any glimmer of life and endowed their skin with a grey-green hue. The heads were elevated on wooden butcher’s blocks, their hair dangling over the sinks, as if having a shampoo. The shoulders were pressed against the rim, hands straight down their sides. The groins were exposed, and edematous legs stretched from the pubic junction all the way to the foot of the table. Dark spots had started to pool in the lower body parts—lakes of eternal rest.

  Thanks to my anatomy course, I was familiar with bodies and body parts. But from my first day in anatomy lab, I had developed a phobia for making eye contact with the eyes of the cadavers I dissected. I feared identifying someone familiar.

  The longer you prolonged the anonymity, the easier it was to suppress the thoughts about what your own shape and form might be when your time came. Could one’s experiences, loves, passions, pains, and disappointments ultimately amount to a bag of putrid flesh? And there you were, armed with a scalpel, bisecting somebody’s cardiac ventricles, wandering about his lungs, his kidneys and diaphragm, his brain folds. Each cadaver in this basement was reduced to a list of organs, cut and weighed, summed up in a notebook like a laundry list.

  On that very first day, I had aged a decade. Ben, Seth, Julie, and the others reported the same experience.

  On the wall, a chart occupied a large space behind each of the sinks. It was divided into rows and columns, like at Churchill Downs. But instead of names of horses and bets, it contained a list of body organs: heart, lungs, bowels, liver, spleen, kidneys, brain. On the corresponding lines, the middle column depicted the range of the normal weight in grams, and a third column described the color and appearance that would be considered WNR, within normal range.

  The same order of organs was repeated six times, one for each autopsy table. The findings were dictated live during the autopsy, using a microphone suspended above the table and controlled by the examiner by means of a foot-pedal, wrapped in plastic for cleanup in case of any fluid spillage.

  Ramzi conversed in a low voice on his cellphone in the farthest corner, near the double door, as if he was afraid he might wake someone up. But the moment we approached the refrigerator he abruptly disconnected and joined us.

  As much as I tried to avoid eye contact with the body, I never missed scrutinizing the corpse’s palms with their unique tortuous pattern of blood vessels, the fingers, and the nails. I didn’t know the reason for that obsession—maybe because those hands had once shaken other people’s hands.

  And that was the first thing I saw when Max pulled out the body from the refrigerator. As he started to unveil the corpse, a rubbery hand slipped out. My eyes went first to the thumb, and from there skipped to the rest of the fingers. Parts of the phalanxes were missing, digested.

  But wait a minute! Something was… terribly…

  Max led me to the head of the stretcher. He raised the sheet abruptly, and I was hit with the mingled odors of Lysol and scorched flesh.

  With a single jolt, I encountered the lifeless face of Lucy Efron, her glassy eyes pointing into distant infinity. I could detect the sharp odor of whatever substance had digested the lower half of her body.

  “I thought…”

  Blond.

  Now I realized the source of my error. Efron had a tanned olive skin and a mane of jet-black curly hair. ‘Gypsy’ was what she nicknamed herself. But now, her skin had become pale, almost transparent.

  Her eyelids half sagged. Her lips were frozen in the grimace of a woman whose life had ended in surprise. So uncharacteristic of Efron, who had calculated and programmed every second of her life with the utmost precision—until her last night, when she’d completely lost control.

  What happened to her after I lost her? How did she get into the pit—had Gibbons pushed her in? But what good would that do him? He needed her alive.

  Efron had told him that I had the test tube. He had probably gotten her out of the way, stalked me, and been about to snatch me when someone interrupted his plan. I was now totally shocked, numb a
nd frozen. The inspector had mentioned someone calling the police—the rise-and-shine jogger? My fur lady? If not for them, I might have been lying not by the riverbank but somewhere else entirely. Maybe on table 5.

  So where was the Irishman now? Maybe he had followed us down here, and was waiting right now behind the gate, across the street, waiting for the moment I was left alone. And Johanna—what kind of danger was she in?

  Max interrupted my spinning thoughts. “Recognize her?”

  A vein hammered inside my temple. I pressed on it hard with two fingers, feeling awkward about my overwhelming relief. I let out a whistle that caused Max to arch a brow and made Ramzi stop his conversation and turn his head in my direction.

  “Professor Lucy Efron.”

  Mention of the academic title caused Max to frown, perhaps in an effort to recall why it sounded familiar. Finally, he just asked, hopefully, “You two related?”

  “As far as I know she has no family.”

  “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?” whispered the inspector. After a brief reflection, he added, “I would like Dr. Kushner to take a look at her—as a personal favor.”

  “Kushner?” Max asked in surprise. “Why?”

  Brent Lucas Kushner was the director of the institute. I had heard of the man—he was inordinately proud of the fact that he was both an MD and a PhD, but despite his overweening ego he was renowned for his strict and uncompromising professionalism. For Max the request meant unnecessary delay, with yet another body stuck in the pipeline.

  “But…Look at her—what more could he check?”

  “It was raining heavily at four a.m. She could’ve drowned but, if you’re lucky, maybe you can harvest some juices.” Ramzi shrugged and said, “I don’t know. Ask him anyway. Tell him it’s a personal request.”

  “What do you expect to find in her juices?” I chuckled aloud, and immediately regretted it. My big mouth.

  Ramzi’s eyes pierced me like a pair of spikes. I guess he thought I was mocking him. “Why don’t you save the police and the taxpayers some time and money, Milbert, and just tell us, here and now—what is the pathologist about to reveal in your mentor’s fluid contents?”