An Eye For Murder: A Medical Thriller

by Martin Sherwood

  A mocking smile crossed his face. How ‘nice’ of me to refer to a multimillion-dollar cache as ‘nice.’

  “Until then,” I snapped—my fuse was about to burst—”I think I deserve a short vacation. I’ve earned it.”

  “Oh yes, absolutely.” He remained seated, flipping pages in his orange notebook, leaning one elbow on the table. “You know it’s an international investigation, and it’s not over yet. I just need a phone number, in case I have to contact you.”

  “I won’t be available.”

  That last part I yelled joyfully from the hallway on my way to the bedroom. My suitcase was open on the mattress. I heard the creak of a chair in the kitchen. Ramzi appeared in the doorframe and glanced at the pile of clothes in the laundry basket. Only the whites were already folded in the suitcase. My shirts were hanging everywhere—closet, windowsill, doorknob. Open drawers were congested with balled-up socks.

  The newest item was a peach winter coat hanging from the door. I wasn’t sure if I’d need it in Kenya. Once Ramzi left—finally—I would go online to check the weather situation in Nairobi.

  I picked up the laundry basket and made my way down the hall to the staircase; I could feel his eyes piercing my back as I leaped down the steps. When I reached the washing machine in the utility room, I threw the basket down and burst out laughing.

  I was right! That policeman from Mt. Lebanon was incredible!

  The inspector still suspected me. He was sure I would be flying to Kenya with tube #12 in my pocket.

  63

  Everyone was waiting for me in Kenya.

  Leanira reported that a couple of British zoologists were staying with their daughter, a gorgeous medical student about my age, in an apartment adjacent to theirs at the Institute in Nairobi. So, she told me, I’d better bring no fewer than three sets of new contact lenses.

  I had decided not to take any study material with me to Kenya; I filled my bag instead with a new book by Tess Gerristen, reinforced by the latest Patricia Cornwell and Michael Palmer. I had recently completed a huge but fascinating biography of Stalin. But I had no patience for another seven-hundred-fifty-page book. I was not a relaxed flyer, so a short paperback would do the job.

  I shrugged into the backseat of the cab. As it started moving, I checked again—and again and again—that I had my passport and airline tickets, a compulsive habit the Zuckers have had for generations.

  I wasn’t remotely fatigued, although I’d barely slept two hours last night.

  The vehicle sailed through the lazy traffic. The driver was skillful and ignored such trifles as stop signs, rights of way, and speed limits. We were on the Watterson Expressway in no time, and soon after the Poplar Level exit I started seeing approaching aircrafts and hearing the purr of their engines.

  ***

  To this day I don’t know what made me do it.

  It just happened.

  As I entered the terminal, I rummaged in my pocket and pulled out my new smartphone. Before climbing into the cab, I’d made a decision to keep it off all the way to Standiford Airport. I had already said goodbye to my grandma and friends and planned to fly with a clear head. But the temptation to use it one last time was overwhelming. I pressed the on button and after several seconds reached the New Messages page.

  An unfamiliar phone number appeared on the screen—an unanswered call from only four minutes ago. I hesitated for a moment, but it passed quickly. I knew that if I did not find out what it was, it would haunt me all the way to Nairobi. That’s the way I am.

  I tapped the number to return the call, and after only two rings, someone picked up. I recognized the voice—Zoe. When I told her that I was on my way to the airport she sounded confused for a moment; she’d thought I was supposed to fly out next week.

  “What’s up?”

  “Nothing.” She hesitated. “Really nothing important. We can manage without you.”

  “Please, tell me.”

  After a tense pause it finally came out. “Your grandmother refuses to sleep.”

  I swallowed hard. “She’s tried to escape again?”

  “No, nothing like that. Besides, I don’t leave her alone in her room.”

  Thus the reason she had called from her personal cellphone. My last visit to Grandma had been brief, about ten minutes—it would have been a pity to wake her. But with Grandma Bertha, nothing could be taken for granted. Mom told me that in her youth, she had been quite a trickster.

  “She is sitting in bed waiting for you,” Zoe said. “We told her it was night already, that you’d be here tomorrow, because I believed you were leaving next week. And then, then she…”

  “She what?”

  “I’ve never seen your grandmother like that. Never.”

  I tensed in the cab seat. “What are you saying?”

  “She’s very restless, constantly mumbling. We can hardly understand a word—something about a plant. ‘Where is the plant? Why did they take the plant? The doctor on duty did something to it.’ She’s not coherent. Just ‘Plant. Plant.’ This morning Boris saw all its leaves yellowed—”

  “You mean the philodendron?”

  “Milbert,” Zoe said, for the first time calling me by name, “I beg you, pay no attention to all that—you go ahead and fly to Africa. I promise you I will personally take care of your grandmother until you return. Everything will work out. You know how she gets sometimes—agitated.” She was careful not to say ‘disoriented’ or ‘demented.’

  She kept talking, but I didn’t hear what she was saying, because I could feel the pulse climbing up my sinuses. Lights were flashing in front of me—not the lights from the Departures terminal, but rather from bulbs inside my head.

  I leaned over to the driver. “Turn around. Now!”

  “When did you say your flight was?”

  “Just turn around.”

  I hung up with Zoe, then pulled up a name from my Contacts list. Gus Fielding was already in the isotope lab. It was thanks to me that he passed embryology—he owed me.

  ***

  Blue Meadows was still fast asleep.

  I leaped out of the cab even before the wheels came to a halt and darted to the entrance door. Surfing over the steps I realized I hadn’t paid the driver for the last-minute change of destination, so I spun around and pulled out my wallet. The taxi driver opened the trunk, tossed my little suitcase onto the gravel, and glanced sourly at the folded bill I stuck in his hand. He grunted in dissatisfaction, but after he met my gaze, he seemed to decide that I was a dickhead, not to be messed with. He took off with a glorious squeal of tires.

  Boris spotted me through the corner mirror and came forward. Dr. Nguyen typed something on the computer and stood up. He was on duty again. They had given my grandmother her regular sleeping pill, but by the relics of white powder under her pajamas, they were not sure how much had actually reached her stomach.

  Grandma Bertha set erect in her bed, two pillows behind her back. Her chin slumped, and she seemed to be struggling with all her might to stay awake.

  “Only in the last ten minutes she seems to have relaxed again,” whispered the doctor, before he left to examine Mrs. Whittaker’s chest pain. The knitting lady was also on his route, battling another bout of asthma.

  A door slammed somewhere and Grandma jolted up, alert. Her eyes linked with mine, but this time there was an alarming delay in her reaction. Did she recognize me? I wasn’t so sure.

  Her smile widened and she stretched out her arms to greet me, but I had a feeling these were involuntary movements.

  I decided not to remind her about my flight to Kenya. I was afraid of the reaction. I wasn’t sure I was doing the right thing. Only now I noticed that she was wearing her evening shirt. The string of pearls clacked on her sternum and bright red lipstick puckered her mouth.

  Grandmother Bertha was full of fizz.


  “Granny, you told Zoe something about the plant and the doctor on call.”

  She didn’t hear me; she was totally concentrated on her effort to get out of bed.

  “Granny, please listen a moment!” I turned her around and forced her to face me. “You said she left something here. Right?” I finally succeeded in stabilizing her, then gazed sideways and noticed the large empty spot and the circular muddy stain on the floor, under the window, where the giant philodendron had once stood.

  ***

  “This morning?”

  My howl was carried out on the wind, reverberated against the walls, and permeated through every room and bedpan in Blue Meadows.

  I grabbed Gus by the elbow the moment he came through the front door. I turned him a hundred and eighty degrees into the backyard. A green Dumpster occupied half the veranda like a giant toad.

  I hopped on the single step and pushed the lid on the track. The disenchanted Gus sighed and climbed on the step beside me.

  The garbage was packed in large black bags and tied with twine, but unidentified remains of human food occasionally spilled out. The less solid components dripped through tears in the bags made by rodents and cats. If this morning’s trash had been just poured out, it was likely that what we were looking for would be near the top of the stack.

  I signaled Gus to go to the far corner, while I rolled up my sleeves and pulled out a black plastic bag. The bag was still intact. Inside I saw yellow philodendron leaves with folded branches, and tortuous roots that had not yet given up their grip on chunks of soil.

  I cautiously poured the topsoil cover into my palm and kept sieving the dirt until the tube emerged. It was diagonally cracked but still whole, the inner glass wall laminated with a yellowish gloss.

  Gus opened a little case, pulled out an instrument the size of a cellphone, and switched it on—the portable Geiger counter I asked him to borrow from the isotope lab. The needle jumped all the way to the top of the scale, followed by a deafening rustle.

  I lifted the tube toward the streetlamp and shook it until the sediment became a serous foamy liquid. I motioned through the window to Zoe and she dashed out with a container used to send samples out for analysis. I placed tube #12 inside and screwed the top on tight. Gus packed up the Geiger and left.

  Zoe and I embraced Grandma on both sides, and the three of us started our walk back. Every few steps I dug my hand deep inside my coat pocket to touch my lottery ticket, the tube that would bring millions.

  Grandma halted on the first step, turned, and looked up at the crystal-clear, diamond-dotted sky. “You know, that plant—all the time it was searching for light. Like my eyes after the new drops. You do understand, don’t you?”

  Her eyes glowed, perfectly cataract-free.

  “Milbert, is it true that plants have eyes? This one was constantly looking for light.”

  Author’s Note

  Several months ago, Israeli Police Detective Inspector Ramzi Issa took a leave of absence to accommodate his wife Dina’s wish to join her sister’s family in Louisville, Kentucky. While Dina and their boys enjoyed the cultural change from the Mediterranean pressure pot, Issa adopted a name he felt was more American—Syd I. Ramzi—and joined the Louisville Metropolitan Police on an international exchange program as an investigator. Shortly thereafter, he became immersed in a deadly drug-company conspiracy—centered in Louisville, it soon spread worldwide.

  This was the story of his year in Louisville, KY.

  Scientific Background of

  the Book & Thank Yous

  On May 1, 1990, the annual meeting of the Association for Research in Vision & Ophthalmology (ARVO), the most prestigious conference of eye research, was held in Sarasota, Florida.

  I was invited to present the results of my research to the greatest glaucoma researchers, world-leading clinicians—names and faces I had known until then only from textbooks and breakthrough inventions.

  This time it was me on central stage as they listened attentively, seated around small tables with white tablecloths and candles at the Golden Apple Theater. After overcoming my stage fright and retrieving my voice, I launched into my twenty minutes of fame. I soared high, and the sky was the limit. The lecture was received with enthusiasm, and applause also came from the front tables, known for their inhabitants’ stinginess and restraint in terms of encouragement and support.

  Even before I returned to my back-row seat, the theater darkened. A lonely spotlight fell on the shoulders of a slender man standing alone on the empty stage, devoid of slides or accessories. The man pulled out of his pocket what looked like a badminton birdie. He bounced it on stage, strode and dribbled from side to side. With a heavy accent he informed the spectators that the ball had once belonged in someone’s socket.

  This was my inspiration for this story and for Dr. Ashraf Nouri.

  Anyone who attended medical school at the University of Louisville came across a professor like Lucy Efron. The less fortunate even had two.

  The characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to reality is pure coincidence. The structure of the pharmaceutical companies described—management, departments, vice presidents, laboratories, production, and practices—are all real. Sometimes we learn about exceptions from the media, in programs like 60 Minutes. But it is important to note that during my thirty years’ experience with the drug industry I’ve met amazing people—honest, compassionate, and faithful. These are researchers, physicians, and lab techs imbued with a sense of mission to find cures to serious diseases that, until a few decades ago, led to inevitable blindness. Thanks to them, our days are brighter.

  Oftentimes readers may come across the statement that “Writing a book is a team effort.” This is also true here. But in order to shorten the acknowledgement list, I chose a priori a familiar territory—ophthalmology and pharmaceutical research.

  The book would not have matured were it not for the unqualified support of my family, especially my wife Bruria and my children, Roy, Inbal, and Itay, and Olive and Tulip (the latter two, alley cats who kept me company during the long nights). I also wish to thank my editor, Elayne Morgan, for saving me from making a fool of myself. The final push was made by my longtime friend David Freilich, Esq. Without his insight and editorial assistance, An Eye for Murder would have continued to collect dust in a bottom drawer.

  Message from the Author

  Before you go, I’d like to ask you for a little favor.

  If you enjoyed this book, please don’t forget to leave a review on Amazon! It only takes a minute. I highly appreciate your input.

  Independent authors such as myself, depend on reviews to attract new readers to our books. I would greatly appreciate it if you’d share your experience of reading this book by leaving your review on Amazon. It doesn’t have to be long. A sentence or two would do nicely.