Forbidden Birth

by William Rubin

  “Do you remember anything about the man or where you were, April, anything at all?” asked Dietz.

  “Very little. He was maybe about your height and build, but his face was covered in a surgical mask, and I don’t know where I was.”

  “Okay. Well, if you remember anything else, just let me know.” Dietz and Halloway glanced at each other, uncertainty on both their faces. “Now about the baby, April,” Dietz paused. “It’s not going to survive. An abortion now is the best and safest option.”

  “I just can’t, Doctor Dietz. I can’t kill poor Rachel Raquel,” April said as she clutched her belly. “You know how much I want this baby,” April stammered, trying to hold back the tears. “I know God will make it right. Please don’t make me kill her, please, please,” April pleaded.

  “April. The baby won’t make it to term. But even if it did, raising a deformed child as a single mom doesn’t make sense. You have no family around here.” Dietz paused. “Who will take care of the baby while you’re off stripping and giving lap dances? You need to abort—now,” Dietz said.

  “I can’t. I can’t. Poor Rachel.” April, filled with anguish, slumped forward and sobbed as Dietz turned his back to her. He sat at the computer and added information to April’s medical record. The Physof program Dietz used was a powerful electronic medical records system employed throughout the country by doctors, clinics, hospitals, and laboratories. Dietz documented everything carefully in the EMR system, and when he was done, he stood up and, without another word to April or his nurse, left the room.

  Anne Halloway rubbed her large hands up and down April’s upper arms. Anne had been through it all with Doctor Dietz and his patients these last eight years.

  In a calm voice Halloway tried to soothe April, “I am so sorry about your baby, April, and about the Doctor just leaving like that.... But you know it is because Doctor Dietz cares about you that he insists on you following his advice—no matter how difficult it seems now. You need to remember, the Doctor is an excellent clinician and researcher. He’s been selected as one of New York’s Best Doctors three years in a row, and he collaborates with other top doctors in his field, so he really does know what’s best for you,” Halloway said with reassurance. “We'd still be in the stone ages if it wasn't for people like Doctor Dietz.” And me, Anne thought.

  A bright, articulate woman, Anne was much more than a mere nurse to Doctor Dietz. Dietz had great difficulty maintaining amicable relationships with his peers. Three other obstetric gynecologists―OB/GYN's in medical speak―had at various times been part of Dietz's practice, but Dietz had alienated all of them, and so now he toiled alone. Research Dietz performed with a Doctor Durand came to a similar ending, so he toiled on with no help from his colleagues.

  “I know. I am honored to have Doctor Dietz as my doctor,” April said as tears streamed down her face and her voice cracked. “But, I just can’t do it. I just can’t kill my baby. She’s all I have….”

  “I know dear. I know,” Nurse Halloway said as she held April Cassidy steady, not knowing what to do next. Hopefully, this would be the last of Dietz’s messes that she would have to clean up for him today.

  Chapter 15

  Matt Harvey was pitching another gem as Dad, Michelle, James, Christine, and I soaked in the goodness at Citi Field. Matt had seven strikeouts through four innings and hadn’t allowed a base runner against our archrivals, the Washington Nationals. Meanwhile we had our way with Washington’s starting pitcher, Gio Gonzalez, who left after just over one inning of work with his team down 7-0.

  Michelle looked radiant, her bright smile outshining the midday sun, in my humble opinion. She had on a brand new Mets cap we picked up for her that day at the ballpark. Her soft brown hair hung in a ponytail behind her. James was cradled in her arms, the poor guy lathered from head to toe with sunscreen. No child of ours would get sunburn as long as Michelle had anything to say about it.

  Christine sat in my lap. Squirmed in my lap is a more apt description. She alternated between wanting to run around in the stands, with a desire to be held in my arms. I gladly complied with the latter request, as I always did. I knew our little ones wouldn’t be little for long, and I cherished every hug, kiss, and giggle I could get my hands on. Dad sat next to me in our field level box seats, soaking in every last drop of fun and sun. His Mets cap was tattered around the bill from years of putting it on and pulling it off and sometimes stomping it into the ground with his shoe. Dad sipped a tall beer with nonchalance as he cracked open peanuts and tossed the shells down in front of him. I envied dad. It was an ideal day at the ballpark, yet I was struggling to relax; I just couldn’t let go of the gruesomeness I had recently witnessed at work.

  “Nothing like taking it to the Nats, huh Dad, especially after their years of abuse,” I said as I lit into my own nine dollar beer and chewed on the last remnants of a hot dog that should have fed a family of five for the price it cost.

  “You’ve got that right, Chris. If we win this, the Nats are seven games back—all but dead and buried in my book,” Dad said with a bright smile, the sun glaring off his dark black sunglasses. Dad came from a long line of New York Giants baseball fans who knew the game well. They were all crushed when the team moved west in the late 1950s. A few years later though, the Mets came into existence and Dad and everyone else in the family transferred their allegiances to them.

  Dad leaned over to Christine and tickled her under her arm. “How’s grandpa’s little sweetie doing? Do you want to come to me?” he said with a warm smile.

  “Not now, Grandpa,” our precocious little one replied. “I want Daddy, Daddy, Daddy,” she said, leaning into me and putting her arms around my neck as she stood on my lap. I was putty in my little girl’s hands. I kissed her cheek and tickled her on and off for the next few minutes. She protested with unconvincing giggles, but Daddy knew better. She was loving every bit of the attention. And so was I.

  “You are blessed, Chris, you know that, don’t you? They’re great kids. The best actually,” Dad said as he got a few tickles in of his own before switching gears and taking James from Michelle. Dad was right, I was blessed to be sharing such a beautiful day at the ballpark with my wonderful family. The case was going well too. So what was wrong with me? Why was I distracted, filled with a sense of foreboding when I should be feeling lighthearted and happy?

  “How are you guys doing back there?” Michelle chimed in. “Let’s not get out of hand, or I’ll have to call the cops on you two,” she said through a giggle of her own. “Matt’s kicking butt, huh? He’s got a great slider today.”

  “You never cease to amaze me, Mrs. Ravello. When we first met, you didn’t even know where first base was. Now you’re right on in your analysis of the Dark Knight’s stuff. Pretty impressive, my dear.”

  “Well, you know Chris. I was just waiting for you to come along and show me around the bases,” Michelle said with a chuckle. “Before you, I was just pitching no-hitters at my gentlemen callers.” Michelle leaned back towards me for a nice, sweet kiss. It lasted but a split second but felt oh so good. More than a dozen years after we first met, Michelle’s kisses still felt just as good as ever.

  The afternoon flew by at the ballpark, the Mets winning 10-6. We laughed and smiled the whole time, and I began feeling connected again. I was Chris Ravello the good son, the wonderful husband and daddy, the self-assured man. The grizzled, stressed out, doctor detective, I am happy to say, was nowhere to be found that afternoon.

  I just wish those great feelings had lasted a little longer.

  Chapter 16

  Beethoven’s Fifth startled me awake again. I grabbed my cell phone off the nightstand and answered the call.

  “Ravello here.”

  “Sorry to cut short your beauty sleep, partner, but we’ve got another one, same MO,” Kennedy replied.

  “Shit! Where? When?” I said as I hurried out of the master bedroom and into the hall bathroom so as not to wake Michelle.

  “A y
oung female. She was pulled out of the water a little while ago at East River Park, just north of the tennis courts near the Williamsburg Bridge. She was discovered by an early morning fisherman. The woman’s abdomen was carved up like a Jack O’ Lantern, just like the other one, Chris. Hard to tell anything else right now, she’s a real mess.”

  I knew what this meant. We had a serial killer. No woman in or around New York City was safe, not even my Michelle. I had to catch the killer before more women died. I threw my head back, then grabbed the side of my face. This is why Spatick hired me, I thought. I’d either prove myself to him quickly, and save his precious DMC, or find myself out of a job again, with no way to support my family. My hand massaged my face. Shit, could I be under any more intense pressure than this?!

  “Chris, are you there?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I’ll be down within the hour. Make sure—”

  “—nobody touches anything”

  “Right.”

  “Oh, one more thing, Chris…”

  “Yeah?”

  “Happy fucking Friday, buddy.”

  “Thanks. Thanks a lot, Kev.”

  Chapter 17

  “So this is where all my money went, huh?” Tony Tramboli said, “Looks like an expensive version of the chemistry set I got for my kid last Christmas.”

  “It’s a good investment, Tony. With my expertise and this layout, we are pumping a lot of synthetics onto the street,” replied Briganti. Johnny leaned his back on the one-hundred-foot-long counter that held flasks, pipettes, centrifuges, Bunsen burners, and an array of other equipment and substances. Four black counter tops ran parallel to each other in the basement of the abandoned Bronx tenement. A ventilation system hummed overhead as workers mixed and heated chemicals to produce large quantities of Johnny’s latest creations.

  Briganti extended his muscular arms out to each side. “In addition to human growth hormone and the anabolic steroids you requested, both of which I assure you, work wonders,” Briganti said with a smile, “we’re startin’ to churn out a variety of the latest designer drugs. And we do it for much less than if we bought it elsewhere and just distributed it. That greater profit goes right in your pocket, Tony.”

  Tramboli smiled and puffed on his cigar. “We shoulda done this a long time ago. How the hell do ya get all the chemicals and shit without attractin’ attention?” Tramboli asked.

  “A buddy of mine from my days doing genetics, molecular biology, and biochem research at NYU and the Kelvin Institute. He works for a pharmaceutical company. He’s got me on the payroll as a chemist and covers my back, acquiring all the materials we need. All I have to do is pay him off and help him out whenever he has a trade show in Manhattan,” Briganti said with a confident, self-satisfied grin.

  “Very nice,” Tramboli said as he put his left arm around Johnny’s shoulder and patted his chest with his right hand. “Smart thinking. I knew getting you out of trouble a while back would pay off. Now, onto other business.

  “What the fuck are we going to do about our little dancer friend? Cassidy is turning into a real liability,” Tony said as he turned, reached into his sports jacket, and pulled out that day’s issue of The Daily. He slapped it down onto the counter in front of him. “Look at this shit, Knuckles,” Tony pointed to the newspaper’s cover, featuring photos of the Golden Garter under the heading, “PREGGERS STRIPPER BRINGING DOWN THE HOUSE.”

  “Certainly ain’t good for business having a pregnant stripper. You live near her, any idea how this happened?” Tony said as he tilted his head to the side and cast a suspicion eye at Johnny.

  Burying his fear, Briganti maintained eye contact with Tramboli and replied with cool detachment, “No idea, Tony. I spend a lot more time at the lab than I do at the club, so I don’t know who’s doing who over there. I’ll take care of it though.”

  Tramboli reached inside his sports jacket, pulled out a fresh cigar, and lit it. He looked at the rings of smoke he blew out of his mouth as they disappeared into the overhead vents. Tramboli then stared back at Johnny. “You do that. Ya got a good thing going here, Knuckles. I’d hate to see anything screw it up for ya.”

  Chapter 18

  The Giver, dressed in his white lab coat, hunched over and peered down into his CamScan 3000 electron microscope. With a delicate touch and steady hands, he atraumatically teased the nucleus out of one cell. The techniques he utilized were his and his alone, and went far beyond what any of his colleagues had ever even conceived of. The Giver knew this because at one time or another he had worked with all the so-called experts in the field. Now he alone stood at the head of the class, poised to make medical history.

  The Giver took the cell’s core of genetic material—the nucleus—and transferred it into another cell. The process at its most rudimentary level was called Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer, SCNT for short. The Giver had embellished and augmented the power of SCNT, transforming the high failure rate technique into a near flawless procedure.

  An arrogant smile curled across his face as he anticipated the next step. Images from the Frankenstein movies danced in his head as he applied the tiniest of electric pulses to the new cell. The current coaxed the cell’s disparate elements to fuse and then the new cell to divide. His creation began its new life.

  The cells would grow and differentiate as he and he alone saw fit. Here in his private lab, there were no governments to slow his progress, no hospital institutional review boards to trip him up with talk of “ethical dilemmas.” There was just pure research. Research that held the power to bring him closer to God. Hell, research that would soon make him The Almighty.

  The Giver thought Chicago physicist Richard Seed summed it up well. “We are going to become one with God. We are going to have almost as much knowledge and almost as much power as God...the reprogramming of DNA is the first serious step in becoming one with God.”

  There was no conflict or turmoil present in The Giver. He did not bother himself with such antiquated notions as right and wrong. He just combined and created life as he saw fit. In so doing, he advanced the potential of the entire human species, creating a new destiny for it. Ultimately, he would achieve his goal.

  The Giver would become one with God—and then decide for himself if the deity was needed anymore.

  Chapter 19

  Our vic’s belly was cut open like a freshly cleaned bluefish and her crotch was torn apart as well. As with Jane Doe, haphazard slashes and deep lacerations mutilated her midsection and genital region. Kennedy looked on as I probed inside her with gloved hands.

  “She’s torn up just like the last one,” Kennedy offered.

  “Sure is, but underlying all the savagery, the incisions I can make out are precise, as if the killer knew what they were doing.”

  “How about her uterus, is that missing?

  “Let me check.” Kennedy averted his gaze as I slid my gloved hands deeper into our vic’s abdomen, my hands searching for answers. “Her uterus is gone as well.”

  “Okay, so now we’re getting somewhere,” Kennedy said with intensity. “Both vics had their uteruses removed, both were mutilated, and both were dumped in the water. Our killer might have mutilated them to try and cover up taking their uteruses, and he must’ve dumped them in the water so they would decompose a lot before they were found.”

  “Except this one has only been dead a day, maybe two at the most.” I pulled my hands out of our vic and pointed to her abdomen. “There’s none of the telltale bloating that begins around day three.”

  “And none of that God-awful smell,” Kennedy said with relief.

  “Right. That occurs because of extensive organ breakdown. Our vic’s organs are almost completely intact.” I picked up her left arm and pointed at it. “See these blisters on her skin. This is due to tissue damage underneath the skin that releases gas, causing the bubbling. It’s an early sign of decomposition that occurs in the first day or two after death, before organ breakdown. Let me see what else I can find. ” I scann
ed our vic’s entire body, looking for clues. “Take a look at this Kev.” Kennedy crouched down and leaned in close. “There’s an unusual amount of swelling in her neck region but no clear bruising. There must have been a break in the skin just prior to her death. There was no time for a bruise to form, but it created a tract for water to seep in.”

  “But I don’t see any wound?”

  “Hmm. I’m going to have McGowan take a closer look at this. It’s right over her left jugular vein. This may be an injection site.”

  “So, that may be how she was killed, and all these slash marks are just for show?” Kennedy said with interest.

  “Precisely.”

  We’d need McGowan’s report before we could draw any definite conclusions. She had made arrangements to meet the body at the morgue at 8:00 a.m. She had also canceled an important departmental meeting and cleared the morning schedule of all other work. I had hinted at the implications of this new victim, so she was willing to go the extra mile. By noon we’d have a preliminary report from her.

  §

  I nodded my head as I finished my survey of the body. “Nothing else stands out for me. Say, did you come up with anything on our first vic’s identity?”

  “Nah, both were dead ends. How about you with Tracey Lin?”

  “That’s looking more promising. Lin appears to have been a sex slave over in Taiwan, before she fled to the US last month. She lived in an apartment complex on Central Avenue in Scarsdale. Her landlady said she kept to herself, so that’s all we know at this point.”