by Robin Cook
“To what end? I could tell you weren’t going to come, even after I expressed how much I thought I needed you.”
“But you did fine without me. Doesn’t that change to some degree how you feel about the original event?”
“No,” Jennifer said, without hesitation.
“How do you feel that I came to India even though I said I wasn’t? You haven’t told me.”
“I appreciate it, but I’m also confused. I guess the jury is still out whether I can really trust you, Neil. I have to be able to trust you. For me, that’s a big, big requirement.”
Neil inwardly cringed when he thought about how he revealed her secret to Laurie just that evening. He was absolutely certain had he confessed it to Jennifer she’d decide he couldn’t be trusted. With the thought came a certain exhaustion. Was it all worth it? At the moment he didn’t even know, as there was no guarantee she would ever be capable of a normal give-and-take relationship. He worried that in her mind he was always going to be either totally good or totally bad, whereas in reality he was somewhere in between, like everyone else.
“Who should call whom in the morning?” Neil asked, trying to lighten the atmosphere. Any vague thoughts of possible intimacy had vaporized the moment she said she hoped he was not expecting to come into her room.
“Why don’t we set a time?” Jennifer said. “How about we meet down in the breakfast room at nine?”
“Sounds good,” Neil said. He was about to leave when Jennifer launched herself at him, enveloping him in a sustained hug.
“Actually,” Jennifer said, with her head buried against his chest, “I really do appreciate that you’re here. I’m just afraid to show it for fear of being disappointed. I’m sorry I’m so skeptical.” With that she pulled away, gave him a quick kiss on the lips, and then disappeared into her room.
For a second Neil stood there, caught off guard by her actions. As he had said, there were always surprises.
Chapter 30
OCTOBER 19, 2007
FRIDAY, 7:45 A.M.
NEW DELHI, INDIA
Inspector Naresh Prasad drove up the Amal Palace Hotel ramp. While he did so he checked his watch. It was earlier than his arrival was yesterday, although not as early as he had been shooting for. He’d conveniently forgotten that the rush-hour traffic Friday morning was always a little worse than it was on other days, and it had taken him longer to get to his office and from his office to the hotel than he’d planned.
The head Sikh doorman recognized him, and he pointed with his stack of parking tags to the same spot Naresh had used the day before. Naresh drove through the porte cochere, angled around it, and parked. He waved to the doorman as he walked into the hotel. The doorman saluted in return.
“Back again, Inspector!” Sumit said cheerfully as Naresh approached the concierge desk.
“I’m afraid so,” Naresh admitted irritably. In truth, Naresh was not happy with his assignment. Just like yesterday, which led to a disaster, his instructions were hopelessly vague. What did it really mean to keep tabs on Jennifer Hernandez? It was kind of like babysitting. And the more Naresh thought about yesterday’s calamity, the more convinced he was that the fault lay squarely on Ramesh’s shoulders.
“You’re in luck today,” Sumit said. “I have yet to see Miss Hernandez, although I did see her companion.”
“Is he staying here as well?”
“Absolutely.”
“What is his name?”
“Neil McCulgan.”
“Are they staying in the same room?”
“No, separate rooms.”
“Did he go out already?”
“No. He was in exercise clothes. He’s down in the spa.”
“I believe Miss Hernandez spotted me yesterday, so I think I’ll have to wait in the car.”
“Very good,” Sumit said. “We will try our best to keep you informed.”
“Thank you,” Naresh said. “Meanwhile, I’d appreciate if you brought me some tea.”
“Of course. Coming right up.”
“It’s a travesty that the Indian civil service can sleep in their beds at night and allow those children to beg in the streets,” Laurie said indignantly, as she and Jack entered the Queen Victoria Hospital. She had been incensed by the plight of the children on the ride over to the hospital. Remembering her hormonal sensitivity, Jack had been careful to agree wholeheartedly with her response.
“What do you think of this hospital?” Jack asked, trying to get her to change the subject.
Laurie looked around the large sumptuous lobby with its modern furniture and marble floor. “It’s very attractive.” She looked into the coffee shop. “Very attractive indeed.”
“Here’s the deal,” Jack said. “While you head up to your appointment with Dr. Ram, I’m going to check out Maria Hernandez’s body.”
“You’re not coming up to see the ultrasound?” Laurie asked plaintively. “You’ve never seen it.”
“I’ll be there,” Jack assured her. “I just want to check out the body so we’ll know what we’re dealing with. Then I’ll be up to see the ultrasound. I promise.”
Reluctantly, Laurie let Jack go to the elevators while she approached the busy hospital front desk.
Jack was very impressed with the hospital. From his perspective it was not only modern but constructed with great care and with superior materials. It was obvious no money had been spared when the hospital had been designed. As he waited for the elevator, he noticed that the nurses were dressed in old-fashioned white uniforms, complete with hats. There was something nostalgic about it. Since most people were going up in the elevators, Jack had a car to himself going down.
Emerging onto the basement level, Jack walked down the hall and peered into the modern cafeteria. There was a handful of doctors and nurses having coffee. No one paid him any heed. Backtracking toward the elevators, Jack opened the first of two walk-in coolers. There were no bodies. Closing the heavy door, he stepped on to the next. The fairly ripe aroma told him he was in the right place.
There were two gurneys and two bodies, both covered with sheets. Luckily, the temperature was fairly cold—Jack guessed just about freezing. Grasping the edge of the sheet on the first gurney, he flipped it back. The patient was an obese man who appeared to be in his mid-fifties. Jack assumed it was Herbert Benfatti.
After re-covering Benfatti, Jack moved to the second gurney. He pulled back the sheet and found himself staring at Maria Hernandez. Her broad, full face had collapsed somewhat, pulling her mouth down in a grimace. Her color was a mottled greenish-bluish gray. Pulling the sheet down more, Jack could see that she was still wearing her patient’s johnny. Even her IV was still in place. Jack returned the sheet back over her. For a minute he pondered how to handle the situation. As far as he was concerned, he didn’t feel he had a lot of choice.
Returning to the door, Jack stepped back outside. He looked down the long corridor and saw a guard in an oversized baggy uniform sitting in a chair next to a pair of double doors he was ostensibly guarding. Without hurrying, Jack walked down to the elderly man, who’d watched him approach but otherwise didn’t move.
“Hello,” Jack said with an insouciant smile. “I’m Dr. Stapleton.”
“Yes, Doctor,” the aged guard said. Except for his eyes, he was motionless. He was like a statue until Jack caught a partially suppressed pill-rolling tremor. Jack surmised the man had Parkinson’s disease.
Jack pushed through the doors and stepped out onto the loading dock. There was one van in the small parking area. On its side in careful lettering it said Queen Victoria Hospital Food Service. Satisfied, Jack turned back inside. He smiled again at the guard, who smiled back. Jack was confident they were now old friends.
Back on the elevator, Jack pressed the button for floor four. He wasn’t particularly choosy; he just wanted a patient floor, and when the door opened, he knew he’d chosen wisely. He walked over to the busy central desk. The first wave of patients had been sent up to
surgery a little more than an hour earlier, and the second wave was being readied. It was mild pandemonium.
“Excuse me,” Jack said to the harried ward clerk. “I need a wheelchair for my mother.”
“The closet next to the elevators,” the clerk said, pointing with the pen in his hand.
Without hurrying, Jack went to the designated closet and wheeled out one of the chairs. It had a waffle-weave blanket folded on its seat, which he left in place. He took the chair to the elevators and brought it down to the basement. Once there, he wheeled it into the cooler with the two bodies and left it.
Returning to the front door of the hospital on the lobby level, Jack walked out into the parking area, climbed into the van that the Amal Palace Hotel concierge had arranged, and drove it around the back of the hospital and down the ramp. He parked it next to the hospital’s food-service vehicle with its rear butting up against the freight dock.
When he entered the hospital from the loading dock, he again smiled and said hello to the elderly guard. Jack was confident they were even better friends now. The guard’s toothless smile was even broader.
As he walked down the hall to the elevator, which was going to take him to the lobby so that he could get directions to Dr. Ram’s office, he took out his mobile phone and the piece of paper with Neil McCulgan’s number and dialed it.
“I hope I’m not waking you guys,” Jack said once Neil had answered.
“Not at all,” Neil said. “I’m in the gym riding the stationary bike. I’m supposed to meet up with Jennifer at nine.”
“You asked if you could help last night.”
“Absolutely,” Neil said. “What do you need?”
“I imagine they’ve already given Jennifer her grandmother’s belongings. What I need is a set of her clothes. Could you ask Jennifer for them and then run them over here to the Queen Victoria Hospital? Laurie and I will be in seeing Dr. Arun Ram. I don’t know where his office is, or I would tell you.”
“Clothes? What do you want clothes for?”
“She needs them, not me. She’s being discharged in an hour or so.”
When Veena had left the bungalow for work that day, Cal had given her specific instructions to artfully find out at some point what had transpired with Maria Hernandez’s body. He’d asked her to do this even though last evening he’d specifically told her, Samira, and Raj not to call attention to themselves in regard to their victims’ remains. But with the American forensic pathologists coming, he knew that it was going to be the critical day.
As he laced up his jogging shoes in preparation for a run, his mind was busy mulling over what Veena might tell him that evening. He hoped and was reasonably confident that the day’s events would be the end of the problem. He wanted to hear that the body was cremated or at the very least embalmed.
While he was thinking about Maria Hernandez, he couldn’t stop obsessing about Jennifer Hernandez, either, and what it was that had aroused her suspicion. During the morning meeting in the conservatory he almost brought up the subject of what he was planning, but at the last minute changed his mind. He was afraid of Petra’s and Santana’s responses, particularly Santana’s, in relation to the necessity of having the Hernandez woman disappear after he had learned from her what he needed to learn.
Cal ran in place for a couple of seconds. His shoes were new, and he wanted to make sure they were comfortable. Everything seemed fine. He grabbed his water bottle and headed for the door. He didn’t quite make it. His phone’s insistent jangle brought him to a halt and initiated a rapid debate: Do I get it or do I let voicemail get it?
With so much happening all at the same time, he thought he’d better answer it, but it irritated him. “Yeah!” he said gruffly.
“It’s Sachin,” an equally gruff voice responded.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Gupta,” Cal said with a more businesslike tone.
“You called last night.”
“I did. We have another job. Are you available?”
“It depends on the job and on the compensation.”
“The compensation will be more than the last time.”
“Give me an idea of the scope of the job.”
“It’s an American. A young woman. We’d like to entertain her here for perhaps twenty-four hours, and then we would like her to leave.”
“For good?”
“Yes, for good.”
“Do you know where she is, or is that part of the job?”
“We know where she is.”
“It will be double last time’s charge.”
“How about one and a half times?” Cal suggested. Even though he didn’t care about the cost, he had an irrepressible urge to bargain.
“Double,” Sachin said.
“Alright, double,” Cal responded. He wanted to get out for his run. “But I want it to happen today, if possible.”
“I’ll be by for half the compensation now and for the rest tonight.”
“I’m going out for a run. Give me a half-hour.”
“What is the name, and where do I find her?”
“Her name is Jennifer Hernandez, and she’s staying at the Amal Palace Hotel. Is that a problem?”
“No. It shouldn’t be. We have friends who work in maintenance. We’ll let you know. I’ll give you a call before we bring your guest over for her visit.”
“It’s nice doing business with you.”
“Likewise,” Sachin said before disconnecting.
“That was easy,” Cal said to himself, hanging up the receiver.
“of coursee I can see them,” Jack said. He was bending over Laurie, who was semi-recumbent on the examination table. Dr. Arun Ram was standing between her legs, which were draped with an examination sheet, directing the ultrasound probe with one hand and pointing at the screen with the other. He was a short man with honey-colored skin and remarkably dark, thick, medium-length, carefully groomed hair. He was also young: Jack guessed early thirties. What Jack noticed most was the singular gentleness and serenity he projected.
“I’m amazed I can see them so well,” Jack added with excitement. “Laurie, can you see them?”
“If you stop hogging the screen I can.”
“Oh, sorry,” Jack said. He backed up a foot or so. Using his index finger, he counted four in the left ovary alone.
“It’s a wonderful crop,” Arun agreed. His voice matched his composure.
“How much longer with the injections?” Jack asked.
“Let’s measure,” Arun said. Then, to Jack, he added, “Could you hold the probe while I get a ruler?”
“I guess,” Jack said, not sure he wanted to play doctor with his own wife. But he took the handoff of the probe from Arun, and he took it blindly. The image rapidly distorted.
“Careful!” Laurie complained.
“Sorry,” Jack said contritely. Watching the screen, he managed to reposition the probe where it had been. He felt nervous.
Arun opened the exam-table drawer and pulled out a ruler. Placing it directly on the screen, he read out the diameters of the follicles: “Seventeen millimeters, eighteen millimeters, sixteen millimeters, and seventeen millimeters. That’s terrific!” He put the ruler away. “I think we can substitute the gonadotropin trigger injection for your injection shot today.” He took the probe from Jack and removed it. He gave Laurie a reassuring pat on the top of her knee. “We’re done. You can get up, and we’ll meet in my office.” He waved for Jack to follow.
“The trigger will be today?” Laurie asked. “I’m thrilled.”
“We don’t need for them to be much bigger than they are,” Arun said from the doorway, gesturing for Jack to precede him. Inside his office, he moved a couple of chairs over to his desk. Jack took one. Arun sat down and recorded his finds in the chart he’d started for Laurie. “This looks like a very auspicious cycle, with four such healthy-looking follicles poised over the functioning oviduct. Dr. Schoener will be pleased. If the trigger shot is done today, which I’m going to recommend,
then the fertilization should be tomorrow. Are we going to utilize intrauterine insemination, or what is your preference?”
“I think we should wait for Laurie,” Jack said.
“Fine,” Arun commented, finishing up and tossing the chart aside. “Did your wife happen to mention that there was a time I aspired to be a forensic pathologist here in India?”
“I don’t believe she did.”
“It’s not important. The reason I didn’t is because the facilities for forensic pathology have been traditionally very bad, for bureaucratic reasons.”
“I notice even a hospital like this one lacks any mortuary facility.”
“That’s true,” Arun said. “There’s little need. Hindu and Muslim families claim their departed immediately for religious reasons.”
“Here I am,” Laurie said brightly, coming into the room. “I’m so excited about reaching the trigger injection. I can’t tell you how much I hate taking hormones.”
“I asked your husband about IUI,” Arun said to Laurie. “He wanted to wait for you.”
Laurie glanced at Jack. “Why did you want to wait for me?”
Jack shrugged. “He asked what our preference was.”
“Well, natural is much nicer. There’s no doubt. But intrauterine gets all those little guys where they need to be. With this much effort, we cannot take any chances. I’m afraid we have to do IUI.”
“Fine,” Jack said, waving his hands in the air.
“Then let’s make an appointment for tomorrow. How about around noon?”
Laurie and Jack looked at each other and nodded. “That’s fine,” Laurie said.
“Noon it is,” Arun said. “We’ll do all we can to see that your little one is conceived here in India. Now that that is out of the way, what is your business here at Queen Victoria Hospital? Is it something I can help you with? I am free. Today is my research day.”
“Do you have any friends who are forensic pathologists?” Laurie asked.
“I do. A very good friend, in fact: Dr. Vijay Singh. He and I have been friends since childhood. We both wanted to go into forensics. He actually did. He teaches at one of the private medical colleges here in New Delhi.”
