"As far as I know I am," he said. "For a time I kept trying to get my name taken off the goddam county's list, but they kept telling me to wait until they found someone else who was willing to take over. I tell you, there are so many incompetents in the government, it's a wonder goddam Khrushchev hasn't walked right in and taken this whole place over long ago."
Laura gave Eric a sad look that said she hadn't missed the reference.
"So you still do work for the county?" she asked.
"White Memorial, that where you said you worked?"
"I do. Yes, sir," Eric said, glancing again at Laura. "I work in the emergency room." Once more he could see Bushnell beginning to nod off. "Were you on the staff there?"
The man's bloodshot eyes opened again.
"Thirty years or more," he said. "If I could do it all over again, I'd be a goddam vet."
"But you still work as a medical examiner?"
"You can't believe it, can you," the old man said. "Well, neither can I." He seemed suddenly to perk up. "I keep hearing how this state's got one of the most advanced forensic departments in the country. Well, I'm here to tell you that that is a bunch of hogwash. There's no goddam money. There's incompetence at every step of the line. There's fancy equipment that no one knows how to use. There's tests that get sent off and never get done. And there's old farts like me still on the rolls because the state won't come up with the cash to pay anyone else."
"Do you actually do autopsies?" Eric asked.
"Hell no. If I suspect foul play in a death, I turn the whole thing over to one of the state pathologists. But they're so damned overworked, it's a wonder one of them hasn't cut his thumb off during a post. In fact, for all I know, one of them has."
He snorted a laugh at the notion, and then broke into a fit of coughing. As soon as he had calmed down, he lit another cigarette.
"Do you get called in on a case often?" Eric asked.
"Every few days, maybe. Sometimes I don't bother answering my phone, though. It serves 'em right for not letting me retire."
"Dr. Bushnell," Laura said, "we're trying to learn something about my brother. His name's Scott Enders, but you would have known him as Thomas Jordan. This past February, you went to see his body at the Gates of Heaven Funeral Home. From what we can tell, you used fingerprints to identify the body, and then signed the death certificate. Do you remember that?... Dr. Bushnell?"
The old man had nodded off again, his burning cigarette still dangling from his lips.
"I can't believe he hasn't fried himself yet," Eric exclaimed, pulling the cigarette free and dropping it into an already-overflowing ashtray.
"Can you imagine him fingerprinting a case and searching out a next of kin?" Laura asked.
"I can't imagine him leaving this house."
"Is it worth pushing things further?"
Eric studied the man and then shook his head.
"He may have signed a death certificate," he said, "but it's doubtful he did any more extensive research than peeking into a casket."
Laura took a tattered afghan from the couch and wrapped it around the old physician's lap. Then, quietly, the two of them stood and left the house.
"Does this make any sense to you?" she asked as she closed the door behind them.
"No," he said. "But I'll bet it makes sense to one Donald Devine. Something really ugly is going on here."
Hand in hand, they walked to where they had parked.
"Want to come up to my place for a bit?" he asked. "Verdi'd love to serenade you."
"Another night, maybe. From what you've told me, Verdi sounds like my kind of parrot. Tonight I've got to be alone for a while to sort some things out. I would love you to walk me to the hotel though, if you want."
They worked their way up Charles Street, then crossed Beacon into the Public Gardens.
"You know, I haven't traveled a great deal," Laura said, "but Boston is the most beautiful city I've been in."
"I haven't traveled at all," Eric replied, "but Boston's the only place I really want to live."
"Does continuing to live here depend on getting that promotion at your hospital?"
"If I want to stay in some area of academic medicine, it probably does."
"And your chances are good?"
"Fifty-fifty," he said.
"Well, I hope you get it. But if you don't, then maybe it's because something better is in store for you. Yes?"
"Maybe."
They walked onto the footbridge over the small swan-boat lagoon, and leaned on the concrete railing. Below them, the lights of the city reflected off the still water.
"Have you ever wanted something so badly you were willing to risk hurting someone to get it?" Eric asked suddenly.
"Hardly. My problem's been never wanting anything badly enough to risk hurting myself to get it. Are you talking about the promotion?"
"It's a hell of a jump right out of residency. Really a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity."
"And you have to hurt someone to get it?"
"Not exactly, but ... it's a long story."
"Eric, I hope you don't take this wrong, but I believe life is a whole string of once-in-a-lifetime opportunities. Some of them happen for us, some of them don't. The worst thing that will happen if you don't get the promotion is that something else will happen for you."
"I guess."
"Don't you see that you've already accomplished something that has eluded most people--including me? You've found the thing you want to do with your life. You've sacrificed and studied and worked like hell, and you've made yourself a doctor. Wherever you go for as long as you live, there are people who are going to need what you can do. There are lives you will help change for the better. The promotion is just a thing. The skills you've mastered are much, bigger than that."
"Maybe so," he said.
"No maybe's. You cared enough about it to grind through college and medical school and residency. Two weeks ago I wouldn't have been able to say these things, because until then I hadn't ever experienced that kind of caring and commitment. But now I know what it means to be willing to pay a price for something that's important to you."
"You mean finding your brother."
"Yes! I feel totally committed to that, and I'd be willing to endure just about any amount of pain to see things through. But if it came to hurting someone else in order to accomplish what I want ... well, I think I'd just find another way."
"I appreciate your saying those things to me. I really do." He thought of the caduceus pin. "Tell me," he asked, "do you sense that the man I pronounced dead was Scott?"
Laura tossed a pebble into the dark water.
"Do you?" she asked.
Once again, the scene at the man's bedside that February morning crystallized in Eric's mind. There was no question that he had been distracted by the work he was doing on Russell Cowley, and quite aware that Cowley was a trustee of the hospital. Had his desire for the associate director's position influenced his decision making? There was so much going on that morning. If he'd had just the derelict to think about, would he have given up as quickly?
"I don't know," he answered. "I just don't know."
"Well, then," she said, "if you don't know for certain, I guess we can still hope."
She moved closer to him and put her arm around his waist.
"Are you working tomorrow?" she asked.
"Actually, no. I was scheduled to, but this afternoon Reed Marshall, the other chief resident, called and asked if I would switch days with him. Some sort of appointment the day after tomorrow that he couldn't get out of."
"Well, good. In that case, how about letting me take you out for breakfast tomorrow? Afterward, you can take me to the Gates of Heaven to meet your friend Donald."
"Sounds divine," he said.
She laughed and turned to him. Before he even realized what was happening, they were kissing--softly at first, then with hunger.
"It's been so long for me," she whispered, her finge
rtips tracing the lines of his face. "So damn long."
Eric slipped his hands beneath her sweater and explored the silky hollow at the base of her back. The taste of her ... the smoothness of her skin ... the subtle scent of her hair ... one moment each sensation was distinct, isolated in his senses; the next there was only the woman. He felt giddy, intoxicated.
"Don't stop," he begged as she lowered her head to his chest.
She pulled herself tightly against him.
"Please hold me, Eric," she said. "For now, just hold me."
For nearly half an hour they stood there, holding each other as the reflected moon glittered off the water below. Then, without a word, she took his arm and they headed off toward downtown and the Carlisle.
"Eric, tell me something," she said as they approached the hotel. "The man you worked on, the one with the tattoo--what did he die of?"
Eric felt himself tighten.
"I don't know," he said. "Exposure, maybe, in the end. He was found in the snow. The initial event? Maybe a coronary, maybe just too much alcohol. He had a bottle of cheap wine in his coat."
"Was there alcohol in his blood?"
"I ... I don't know. There wasn't time to get a measurement. To all intents, he was gone before he ever reached the hospital."
"There was nothing that could have saved him," she said. It was a statement to herself, not a question.
"No," Eric said, too weakly. "There wasn't."
He could see tears beginning to shimmer in her eyes.
She reached up and kissed him lightly on the mouth.
"Thank you," she whispered. "Thank you for everything. Call me when you get up."
Before he could respond, she had turned and hurried inside. Eric followed with his eyes until the elevator doors closed behind her. Then he turned away, feeling drained and empty, yet at the same time as full and excited about life as he could ever remember being.
Eric wandered home through the deserted downtown streets, then past the gold-domed Statehouse and onto Beacon Hill. His thoughts were a collage of images of Laura Enders, Donald Devine, Thaddeus Bushnell, and Thomas Jordan. In the morning he and Laura would confront Devine with their suspicion that he was involved in diverting bodies to medical schools, and that he was using the signature of an alcoholic old man to authenticate his perfidy. Whatever it took, they would break him down. They would find the body of the man named Thomas Jordan, and they would learn for certain whether or not he was Scott Enders.
It was well after eleven when he entered the building through the alley. He took the back stairs to his apartment and went straight to his bedroom. His clinic coat, with the caduceus pin on the lapel, hung over the door. Laura was right, absolutely right, he thought. His years of obsession with work, and now the promotion that he felt would validate that commitment, had blanketed his perspective like a fog. Suddenly, the mist was burning away.
He undid the pin.
Wherever you go for as long as you live, there are people who are going to need what you can do.
It was such a simple truth. But over the years of his immersion in White Memorial he had lost sight of it completely.
He studied the pin for a few moments. Then he took it to the small balcony off his living room and hurled it out into the night. When he stepped back inside the apartment, his phone was ringing. He hurried to the bedroom.
"Hi," he said, assuming the caller to be Laura.
"Dr. Najarian," the distorted, electrolarynx voice said, "we're glad you made it home. We've been trying to reach you."
"Who is this?" Eric demanded, sinking down on the edge of his bed.
"Who I am--who we are--will be disclosed to you when it is appropriate to do so."
The robotic voice was as chilling as before.
"What do you want?"
"You have been wearing our symbol. In three days the search committee will select you as the new associate director of White Memorial emergency services. But first, tomorrow morning we will have work for you to do."
"Stop right there," Eric said. "I've decided not to participate. In fact, I'm not even on duty tomorrow."
"You are on the schedule. That was checked."
"Reed Marshall switched with me. I'm not on until the day after tomorrow."
"Then you must switch back."
Eric's ear was beginning to throb from the pressure of the receiver.
"I don't think you heard me," he said. "I've decided not to participate."
"You have no choice," the voice responded. "You put on the caduceus. That was your choice. Now there is a treatment protocol which must be instituted by you tomorrow morning."
"What kind of treatment protocol?" Eric asked, feeling panic begin to take hold. "To whom?"
"You will be instructed when you report for work tomorrow."
"I'm not going to work."
"Three days, Dr. Najarian. In three days you will get the appointment that you have been hoping for. But only if you complete your part of the bargain. We have that power. Believe me, we do. Is that clear?"
"I want to know who you are."
"You have not yet earned that privilege, Doctor."
"And I ... I don't intend to."
"Dr. Najarian. We know and you know what is at stake for you."
... I hope you get it. But if you don't, then maybe it's because something better is in store for you.... The worst thing that will happen if you don't get the promotion is that something else will happen for you....
"Look," Eric said with sudden intensity, "you're right. I do want that position. I want it a lot. But I want it based on the work I've done these last five years, not on whether or not I join some club."
"Caduceus is not a club, Dr. Najarian. It is a group of dedicated people on the verge of the most important breakthrough in medicine in modem times. This breakthrough will save millions of lives. We need you."
"I ..." Eric felt his resolve beginning to falter. Once again he heard Laura's voice. He thought about his decisions at the bedside of Thomas Jordan. Whether he had made the right choices that day or not, his ambition had influenced his thinking. Thanks to Laura, at least now he could admit that much to himself.
"Well, Doctor," the eerie voice urged, "what is it going to be?"
"I ... I can't help you," Eric said.
"You don't understand."
"I know I don't, dammit. You won't tell me enough to understand." Eric sensed growing strength in his voice. "Well, now I don't want to understand. Putting your pin on was a mistake. You have my apology for doing it. But I've taken it off. Just before you called I threw it away. You'll have to find someone else to help do whatever it is you want."
The dispassionate voice grew more menacing.
"Refuse to help us now, and we guarantee that you will be off the staff of White Memorial before the month is out."
"If you have to do that to me, that's your problem," Eric heard himself say. "I'll get by."
"You are making a grave mistake," the voice warned.
"Well, I'm sure it won't be my last."
Eric's hand was shaking mercilessly as he set the receiver down in its cradle.
Seated on a doorstep across the street from the Hotel Carlisle, Larry Dexstall angrily stubbed out his cigarette and stared up at the darkened hotel windows. It had been a long day--a long week--and he was desperately in need of a few hours of sleep.
Laura Enders's light had gone on and off several times, suggesting she was having trouble drifting off. Once he had seen her at the window, and twice he had seen the flickering light of her TV. Now it was nearly 2:00 A.M. At 4:00, if the light stayed off, he would go upstairs to the room he had rented and take his chances for an hour or two. It would be a disaster to lose her at this point, but thanks to Neil Harten, starting at sunup he would have to be especially sharp.
From the moment Laura Enders left Communigistics, Dexstall had been following her. He had watched her save an old lady from a mugging. He had followed as she went from store to
store, hotel to hospital, refusing to sit down or even slow down for hours at a time. He had watched her interact with people, and had learned her habits and her ways. Tonight, he had seen her meet a man.
Over the week, he had developed a lot of respect for the woman--not a surprising reaction, given that for nearly seven years he had been as close to Scott Enders as anyone in Plan B. He was certain Neil Harten had chosen to use him because of that closeness and his determination to learn what had happened to Scott.
From the beginning Dexstall had been against holding back what little information they had from the woman. But Harten had insisted, maintaining that the less she knew, the more vigorously she would approach her search, and the more likely she would be to stir something up.
Now, suddenly impatient, Harten had decided to up the ante. Instead of being the guide, Laura Enders was to become the bait. It stank, and Dexstall had just hung up from saying as much to the man. But Neil Harten had carte blanche to do whatever the hell he wanted. And over the day just past, he had taken the information his contacts had turned up, and had started sending out the lie that Laura knew where her brother had hidden a certain tape.
He had also ordered Larry Dexstall to be damn sure he was right there when someone responded.
Dexstall waited a few minutes longer, then trudged to an all-night coffee shop to write the note that was part of Harten's new ploy. If only Scott had stuck to the goddam weapons assignment. But Dexstall knew that taking chances and thinking for himself were what made the man so good at what he did.
Dexstall smoothed a piece of paper out on the table and began to write the words Neil Harten had given him. For days he had done a decent job of keeping track of Laura Enders, losing her just once. Beginning at sunup, he would be on her like glue.
APRIL 14
Although Eric was sure that, like most people, he dreamed almost every night, it was rare for him to wake up with any notion of what the dream had been about. This morning, though, the images were vivid and terrifying. He was in the emergency room, directing a resuscitation, issuing orders to an army of residents and nurses. Then, suddenly, he was dressed in a tattered overcoat, wandering across the Common, a bottle of cheap wine protruding from his pocket. Children passed by, pointing and laughing. A band of teenagers knocked him down and began kicking him. Shielding his face with his arms, he rolled away, trying to escape their blows. All at once he toppled over the edge of a precipice and was plummeting through a heavy blackness, screaming as he fell.
Extreme Measures (1991) Page 13
