by Robin Cook
Finally, Neil disconnected. As sure as he’d been that she’d answer, he was even more disappointed than he’d been earlier. He even experienced a touch of paranoia by irrationally wondering if she’d been warned he was coming and was deliberately avoiding him. “That’s utterly ridiculous,” Neil murmured when his more sane self intervened.
Deciding that a good breakfast was in order, Neil headed back to his table. As he walked, he wondered if her absence had anything to do with the other gentleman who had been looking for her, and as he pondered the question, he realized something else. He felt jealous.
Positioning himself at his table so he could see the hostess stand, he picked up the menu and motioned for the waiter.
Inspector Naresh Prasad directed his government-issue vintage white Ambassador automobile into the Amal Palace Hotel driveway and accelerated up the ramp to the hotel’s entrance. As it was nearing nine a.m., there was a profusion of other cars arriving and discharging their businessmen occupants.
When it was Naresh’s turn, one of the resplendently attired and turbaned doormen waved him forward, then put up a hand for him to stop. He opened the Ambassador’s door, straightened up, and saluted as Naresh alighted from the car.
Having gone through this ritual before, Naresh had his billfold open, displaying his police identification. He held it up almost at arm’s length so the impressively tall doorman could read it and check the photo if he so chose. Naresh recognized there was an element of humor in the scene as he was on the short side. At five-foot-three, he made the nearly seven-foot Sikh look like an absolute giant.
“I want the car parked up here by the door and ready for a quick departure if it is needed,” Naresh said.
“Yes, Inspector Prasad,” the doorman said, indicating he had carefully checked Naresh’s ID. He snapped his fingers and directed one of the uniformed parking valets on where to put the car.
Naresh self-consciously tried to make himself as tall as possible as he walked up the few steps toward the hotel’s double doors and past a group of hotel guests waiting for transportation. Once inside, Naresh glanced around the expansive lobby, trying to settle on how to proceed. After a moment of deliberation, he decided enlisting the help of the concierge made the most sense. Wanting to avoid making any scene, he waited his turn as several guests kept the two concierges busy making dinner reservations.
“What can I do for you, sir?” one of the formally dressed concierges asked with a charming smile. Naresh was impressed. The man and his partner conveyed an alacrity that suggested they truly enjoyed their work, something Naresh rarely saw in the vast Indian civil service that he had to deal with on a daily basis.
Continuing to be careful not to make a scene, Naresh subtly flashed his identification. “I am interested in one of your hotel guests. There is nothing serious. It’s just a formality. We are only interested in her safety.”
“What can we do to help, inspector?” the concierge asked, lowering his voice. His name was Sumit.
The second concierge, finishing with a guest, leaned forward to be included in the conversation after having seen Naresh’s police identification. His name was Lakshay.
“Are either of you acquainted with a young American woman who is a guest of the hotel named Jennifer Hernandez?”
“Oh, yes!” Lakshay said. “One of our more pleasant, attractive guests, I might add. But she has only come to the desk to request a city map so far: no other services. It was I who assisted her.”
“Seemingly very friendly woman,” Sumit added. “She always has a smile when she passes and makes an effort to make eye contact.”
“Have you seen her today?”
“Yes, I have,” Sumit said. “She left the hotel about forty minutes ago. You had left the desk momentarily,” he said to Lakshay, in response to his partner’s questioning expression.
Naresh sighed. “That’s unfortunate. Was she accompanied or alone?”
“She was alone, although I do not know if she met anyone outside.”
“How was she dressed?”
“Very casual: a brightly colored polo shirt and blue jeans.”
Naresh nodded as he weighed his possibilities.
“Let me run out and ask our doormen. They might remember her.” Sumit came out from behind the concierge’s desk and briskly walked outside.
“He acts like he’s enjoying himself,” Naresh commented, watching the concierge through the glass, noticing the man’s tails flapping in the breeze.
“Always,” Lakshay said. “Has the young lady done something wrong?”
“I’m really not at liberty to say.”
Lakshay nodded, mildly self-conscious about his obvious curiosity.
They watched Sumit and one of the Sikhs have a short, animated conversation. Sumit then returned inside.
“It seems that she only went as far as the Imperial hotel, provided we’re talking about the same woman, which I’m pretty sure we are.”
A middle-aged English couple approached the concierge’s desk. Naresh stepped aside. While the English couple asked for a lunch recommendation in the old section of Delhi, Naresh mulled over what he thought he should do. At first he thought about rushing over to the Imperial, but then he changed his mind, realizing it had been close to an hour that Jennifer had been away, and that he might miss her, especially with no one there who could make a positive identification. He decided to stay at the Amal in hopes she was not out for the day and would soon return. At least at the Amal he had the concierges available for identification purposes.
“Thank you for your help,” the English woman said after Sumit handed her a lunch reservation. The moment the English couple turned to leave, Naresh moved in to regain his spot.
“Here’s what I’ve decided to do,” he said. “I’m going to sit here in the center of the lobby. If Miss Jennifer comes in, I want you to signal me.”
“We will be happy to do that, inspector,” Sumit said. Lakshay nodded as well.
Jennifer looked across the breakfast table at Rita Lucas and was impressed with how well the woman was holding up. When Jennifer had first arrived at the Imperial hotel, the woman had apologized for her appearance, explaining that she’d been unwilling to look at herself after being up all night, first at the hospital for a number of hours, then on the phone with family and friends.
She was a slim, pale woman, the opposite of her late husband. She reflected a kind of shy, desperate defiance in the face of the tragedy in which she’d found herself.
“He was a good man,” she was saying. “Although he could not control his eating. He tried, I have to give him credit, but he couldn’t do it, even though he was embarrassed at how he looked and embarrassed at his limitations.”
Jennifer nodded, sensing that the woman needed to talk. Jennifer got the impression that it was she more than her husband who was embarrassed and who had urged him to undergo the obesity surgery, which had now resulted in his death.
Earlier Rita had admitted that the hospital had tried to push her into making a decision about disposition of the body. She said they presented it as a suggestion at first but then became progressively more insistent. Rita admitted that had she not spoken with Jennifer first, she surely would have given in and had the body cremated.
“It was their inability to explain how he died that really influenced me,” Rita had explained. “First it was a simple heart attack, then a stroke with a heart attack, then a heart attack causing a stroke. They couldn’t seem to make up their minds. When I suggested an autopsy, that’s when they got almost belligerent; well, at least the case manager got angry. The surgeon seemed unconcerned.”
“Did they mention whether he had turned blue when he had his heart attack?” Jennifer had asked.
“He did mention that,” Rita had responded. “He said that the fact it cleared so dramatically with artificial respiration had made him optimistic he was going to pull through.”
Rita paused for a moment before asking, “What about
your forensic pathology friends who are on their way here to help with your grandmother? You mentioned they could check my husband’s case as well. Is that still a possibility?”
“They’re en route, so I haven’t had a chance to ask them. But I’m sure it will be fine.”
“I would really appreciate it. The more I thought about your comment about us owing it to our loved ones, the more I agree. From everything you’ve told me, I’ve become suspicious, too.”
“I will ask them tonight when they arrive and get back to you tomorrow,” Jennifer said.
Rita sighed, and as a few new tears welled up, she carefully pressed a tissue against each eye in turn. “I think I’m talked out, and I know I’m exhausted. Maybe I’d better head upstairs. Luckily, I have a couple of old Xanax tablets. If I ever needed one, this is the time.”
Both women stood and spontaneously hugged. Jennifer was surprised at how frail Rita felt. It was as though if she squeezed too hard, some bones might crack.
They said good-bye in the lobby. Jennifer promised to call in the morning, and Rita thanked her for listening. Then they parted.
As Jennifer exited the hotel, she promised herself a real taxi, not an auto rickshaw, on her ride back to the Amal.
Chapter 25
OCTOBER 18, 2007
THURSDAY, 9:45 A.M.
NEW DELHI, INDIA
On the relatively short run from the Imperial hotel back to the Amal Palace Hotel, Jennifer decided the regular taxi wasn’t that much more relaxing than the auto rickshaw except for having sides, providing at least the impression of being safer. The taxi driver was as aggressive as the auto rickshaw driver had been, but his vehicle was slightly less maneuverable.
En route and after checking the time, Jennifer reconfirmed her plans of doing some sightseeing during the morning and exercising and lying around the pool in the afternoon. After her breakfast with Rita, she was even more convinced something weird was afoot, and she didn’t want to obsess. As she looked out the cab’s window, she was becoming familiar enough with Delhi traffic to recognize that the morning rush hour was beginning to abate. In place of stop-and-go it was crawl-and-go, so it was as good a time as any for her to drive around the city.
Back at the hotel, she didn’t bother going up to her room. Using the house phone, she called Lucinda Benfatti.
“Hope I’m not calling too early,” Jennifer said apologetically.
“Heavens, no,” Lucinda said.
“I just had breakfast with a woman whose husband died last night, not at the Queen Victoria but at another similar hospital.”
“We can certainly sympathize with her.”
“In more ways than one. The whole situation resembles our experience. Once again, CNN was aware before she was.”
“That makes three deaths,” Lucinda stated. She was shocked. “Two can be a coincidence; three in three days cannot.”
“That’s my thought exactly.”
“I’m certainly glad your medical examiner friends are coming.”
“I feel exactly the same, but I feel like I’m treading water until they get here. Today I’m going to try not to think about it. I might even try to act like a tourist. Would you like to accompany me? I really don’t care what I see. I just want to take my mind off everything.”
“That’s probably a good idea, but not for me. I just couldn’t do it.”
“Are you sure?” Jennifer asked, unsure if she should try to insist for Lucinda’s sake.
“I’m sure.”
“Here I am saying I want to take my mind off everything, and I have a couple of questions for you. First, did you find out from your friend in New York what time he learned about Herbert’s passing on CNN?”
“Yes, I did,” Lucinda said. “I wrote it down somewhere. Hold on!”
Jennifer could hear Lucinda moving things around on the desk and mumbling to herself. It took about a minute for her to come back on the line. “Here it is. I wrote it on the back of an envelope. It was just before eleven a.m. He remembered because he’d turned the TV on to watch something scheduled at eleven.”
“Okay,” Jennifer said, as she wrote down the time. “Now I have another request. Do you mind?”
“Not at all.”
“Call up our friend Varini and ask her what time is on the death certificate, or if you are going out there, ask to look at the death certificate yourself, which you are entitled to do. I’d like to know the time, and I’ll tell you why. With my granny, I heard about her passing around seven-forty-five a.m. Los Angeles time, which is around eight-fifteen New Delhi time. Here in New Delhi, when I asked to see her death certificate, the time was ten-thirty-five p.m., which is curious, to say the least. Her time of death was later than it was announced on television.”
“That is curious! It suggests someone knew she was going to die before she did.”
“Exactly,” Jennifer said. “Now there could have been some screw-up here in India that could explain the discrepancy, like someone writing ten-thirty-five p.m. when they were supposed to write nine-thirty-five, but even that is too short an interval for CNN to get the tip, verify it in some way, write the piece about medical tourism, and get it on the air.”
“I agree; I’ll be happy to find out.”
“Now, the last thing,” Jennifer said. “When my granny was discovered having passed away, she was blue. It’s called cyanosis. I’m having trouble explaining that physiologically. After a heart attack sometimes the patient can be a little blue, maybe the extremities, like the tips of the fingers, but not the whole body. With all the other similarities between Granny and Herbert, I’d like to know if he was also blue.”
“Who would I ask?”
“The nurses. It’s the nurses who know what goes on in a hospital. Or medical students, if the hospital has them.”
“I’ll give it a try.”
“I’m sorry to be giving you all these tasks.”
“It’s quite alright. I actually like having things to do. It keeps me from obsessing over my emotions.”
“Since you’re not up for sightseeing, how about dinner? Are you going out to the airport to meet your sons, or are you going to wait for them here?”
“I’m going to the airport. I really am anxious to see them. As for dinner, could I let you know later?”
“Absolutely,” Jennifer said. “I’ll call you in the afternoon.”
After appropriate good-byes, Jennifer hung up the house phone and hastened over to the concierge desk. Now that she had decided to sightsee, she wanted to get on her way. Unfortunately, there was a line at the desk, and she had to wait. When it was her turn and she had stepped up to the desk, she couldn’t help but notice the reaction of the concierge. It was like he’d just recognized an old friend. What made it particularly surprising was that he wasn’t even the concierge who’d given her the city map the day before.
“I’d like some advice,” Jennifer said, while watching the man’s dark eyes. Rather than make proper eye contact, he seemed to be intermittently looking over Jennifer’s shoulder out into the lobby, so that even Jennifer herself turned to see if there was something going on, but she saw nothing unusual.
“What kind of advice?” the man asked, finally engaging Jennifer with normal eye contact.
“I want to do a little sightseeing this morning,” she said. She noticed the man’s name was Sumit. “What would you recommend for two to three hours?”
“Have you seen Old Delhi?” Sumit inquired.
“I haven’t seen anything.”
“Then I suggest Old Delhi for certain,” Sumit said, while reaching for a city map. He opened the map with a practiced shake and smoothed it out on the desktop. Jennifer looked down at it. It was identical to the one she’d gotten the day before.
“Now, this is the area of Old Delhi,” Sumit said, pointing with his left index finger. Jennifer followed his pointing finger but out of the corner of her eye she saw Sumit wave with his right hand over his head as if trying to ge
t someone’s attention. Jennifer turned to look into the lobby area to see who Sumit was waving at, but no one seemed to be returning the gesture. She looked back at the concierge, who seemed mildly embarrassed and lowered his hand like a child being caught reaching for the cookie jar.
“Sorry,” Sumit said. “I was just trying to wave at an old friend.”
“It’s quite alright,” Jennifer said. “What should I see in Old Delhi?”
“For sure, the Red Fort,” he said, poking a finger at it on the map. He took her guidebook and flipped it open to the proper page. “Perhaps second only to the Taj Mahal in Agra, it might be India’s most interesting landmark. I particularly like the Diwan-i-Aam.”
“It sounds promising,” Jennifer said, noticing that the man no longer seemed to be distracted in the slightest.
“Good morning, Ms. Hernandez,” the second concierge said when he’d finished with his last client and was waiting for the next to step up. It had been he who had given her the city map the day before.
“Good morning to you,” Jennifer responded.
“Ms. Hernandez is going to visit Old Delhi,” Sumit said to Lakshay.
“You’ll enjoy it,” Lakshay said, while waving for the next hotel guest to approach.
“What about after the Red Fort?” Jennifer asked.
“Then I recommend you visit the Jama Masjid mosque, built by the same Mughal emperor. It is the largest mosque in India.”
“Is this area near these two monuments a bazaar?” Jennifer asked.
“Not only a bazaar but the bazaar. It is the most wonderful labyrinth of narrow galis and even more narrow katras where you can buy most anything and everything. The shops are tiny and owned by the merchants, so you must bargain. It is marvelous. I suggest you walk around the bazaar, shop if you are so inclined, and then walk here to a restaurant called Karim’s for lunch,” Sumit said, pointing at the map. “It’s the most authentic Mughlai restaurant in New Delhi.”
