“That’s a good point,” Bart said. “I’ll wait for you to give us a green light.”
Ten minutes later Jack was on his way, walking up to 520. If it had been a quiet night for Janice, chances were it had been a quiet night for the OCME in general. That was the usual pattern, even though it hadn’t been the case the night before. Nonetheless, Jack was reasonably confident he’d be able to get a paper day to exempt him from any autopsies.
18
WEDNESDAY, 7:40 A.M.
Emerging from the depths of the Lincoln Tunnel that runs under the Hudson River between Manhattan and New Jersey, Jack had to smile while thinking of New Jersey’s nickname: the Garden State. The traffic was nightmarish, with trucks and buses, and there was hardly a tree, a shrub, or even a blade of grass in sight. It was all concrete or macadam and as densely built up as New York, just not as high.
Jack had been to the state perhaps a dozen times and thought of it as quintessentially suburban, with lots of single-family houses separated by green lawns. But those forays had always been over the George Washington Bridge. Where he was now, racing west on a sunken highway, it seemed decidedly dystopian. Yet the farther he drove, the more pleasant it became. He even began to progressively see trees clothed in autumnal splendor, as well as a few homes with white picket fences. After twenty minutes of rather frantic driving, it was apparent he was heading for the countryside.
The scenery was not the only thing that changed as Jack headed westward, away from the urban sprawl. His level of anxiety ratcheted down several notches, making him realize how tense he had been. Hethanked his lucky stars for the subway death case having been dumped into his lap and wondered how he would have been coping had it not come his way. With Sheldon Montgomery now joining his wife in camping out in the apartment, Jack felt his living situation had gone from bad to worse, making it almost impossible for him to deal with the angst and guilt associated with Emma’s circumstance. For Jack, who had a surgeon’s mind-set, he felt totally frustrated that there was nothing he could do or fix about her disorder.
As a method of emotional defense, Jack consciously turned his mind away from his domestic problems and concentrated on the case at hand. First and foremost, he still didn’t have a cause of death. He had a strong hunch plus probable laboratory confirmation it was a virus, but at almost forty-eight hours after the autopsy he didn’t have a specific organism. He’d had cases of unknown viruses in the past, but all had been at least identified by this time. Second, the patient had had a heart transplant with a heart that matched her own DNA at the twenty CODIS loci. For that to happen by chance, it would have been somewhere around one in seventy trillion, meaning it could happen only if the donor was an identical twin. Yet had that been the case, Jack was sure it would have been all over the media. Third was the weird circumstance of a youthful, well-kept, and well-dressed woman who suddenly died and yet was not missed by friends or family and even now seemed devoid of kin. Fourth involved the strange circumstance of the victim having been operated on at one hospital with expenses paid by another. And last, how was it that the executor of the woman’s estate, whatever it comprised, was a philanthropic billionaire Chinese businessman?
With some contemporary music playing in the background on the Escalade’s radio, Jack mulled over all these unique issues and wondered how many of them he might be able to explain after his visit that day. He knew he wasn’t going to learn anything about the virus. That was dependent on Aretha’s efforts, perhaps with the help of the CDC. As for the others, he thought there was a chance he’d learn something, but he reallydidn’t have a specific plan about how to go about doing so. Vaguely he thought he would just go to the Dover Valley Hospital and start asking questions. But before he did that, he wanted to stop by the Higgins Funeral Home to be a hundred percent sure they had gotten the message about the potential contagious nature of the remains.
Before he had set out, Jack had used Google Maps to locate the funeral home, as well as the hospital and GeneRx. It was a good move. Although the funeral home was in Dover itself, the hospital and the pharmaceutical company were situated a distance away in the direction of a federal property called Picatinny Arsenal. The site was north of Interstate 80, which Jack had used for about two-thirds of the drive from Manhattan. As he neared Dover, which was to the south, he exited the freeway and proceeded on side roads. He now could see what Warren meant about the area looking green. With the overcast sky and misty rain still falling, it reminded him of photos of Ireland.
The closer Jack got to his destination, the more revved up he became. His active intuition was again sending alarms that something about this strange case hinted that chicanery or worse was afoot, yet he had no idea whatsoever what it might involve. At the same time, he made himself a promise that he would make a Herculean effort at being as diplomatic as possible, meaning he would try to keep his reflexive sarcasm and self-righteousness to a minimum. The last thing he wanted was for complaints to get back to Laurie and make her job more difficult. There was also the issue Bart had raised that Jack had no official jurisdiction whatsoever in New Jersey, which could have legal repercussions.
Dover turned out to be a pleasant, modest rural town, with the tallest brick buildings only three or four stories tall. Google Maps had pegged the population at a bit more than eighteen thousand, and for Jack, coming directly from New York City, it appeared even smaller than that. Higgins Funeral Home was close to the center of town, and it was housed in a white, wood-framed Victorian building similar to a number of the funeral homes Jack had been forced to visit over the years. ForJack, the experience was like living a cliché, including the decorum and appearance of the funeral director, Robert Higgins III. Gaunt and pale and dressed in a dark three-piece suit, he was perfectly cast.
Jack introduced himself without bothering to flash his NYC official badge and came right to the point. “I believe you have the body of Carol Stewart here in your facility, which was picked up last evening from the New York Chief Medical Examiner’s Office.”
“That’s not correct,” Robert said. He spoke slowly and precisely, his tone hushed, even though there were no visitors in evidence.
“What is not correct?” Jack asked. He tensed, wondering if he was in for another major surprise.
“The body was picked up by my younger brother,” Robert agreed. “But it is not here.”
“Has it already been cremated?” Jack asked. He couldn’t think of any other reason the body wouldn’t have been there.
“It has not,” Robert said. “A second autopsy was formally requested by the executor of the estate. Early this morning the body was picked up by one of the Morris County medical examiners, who also has a small private office here in Dover.”
“Is there no next of kin involved?” Jack asked.
“None,” Robert said. “We have been dealing only with the executor.”
“Interesting.” That had become his stock phrase over the last couple days, adopted from Aretha. The request for a second autopsy by Wei Zhao was a surprise for Jack, although not nearly in the same category as the other surprises he’d been experiencing about the case. But this had a personal aspect, as it was a minor professional slap in the face, since there had been no attempt to contact him about the findings of the first autopsy. Jack felt strongly that a second autopsy was a total waste of time and resources.
“His name is Dr. Harvey Lauder,” Robert offered. “And his office is only a few blocks away. Would you care for the address?”
“That would be helpful,” Jack said. While Robert wrote down theaddress on the back of one of his business cards, Jack added: “The reason I stopped in here was to make sure you were told that the case may involve an unknown infectious virus and precautions need to be taken until it is ruled out.”
“We understood that,” Robert said. “And we communicated it to Dr. Lauder as well. We did not remove the body from the sealed body bag while it was in our possession in our cooler. When the body comes back we will treat it with the utmost care, whether it is to be cremated or embalmed, depending on the dispensation decided upon by the executor.”
“That would be the prudent course,” Jack said, unconsciously mimicking the funeral director’s stilted language.
Once outside, Jack used Google Maps on this phone to locate the private office of the forensic pathologist. When he saw how close it was, he walked. It felt good to stretch his legs.
“I’m sorry, but Dr. Lauder is not here,” an assistant-cum-secretary said. “He’s at the Dover Valley Hospital for a case.”
Jack left his card with his mobile number and asked if Dr. Lauder might give him a call. He thought there was a chance he might see the pathologist at the hospital, which was Jack’s next destination, but in case he didn’t, Jack wanted to find out exactly what was found at the second autopsy. He was also interested to learn why it was ordered.
Leaving Dover, Jack drove north, going under Interstate 80. Soon he was in even more rural environs. Now he understood even better Warren’s laconic description of the area as “a bunch of little lakes and green hills.” Especially in the direction of Picatinny Arsenal to the north, Jack was amazed at the extent of the virgin temperate forest, all in a blaze of color despite the cloud cover and lack of direct sunlight. It didn’t seem possible to him that such an environment existed within a forty-minute drive of the concrete canyons of New York City.
Coming within sight of the Dover Valley Hospital and its neighboring GeneRx building, Jack could see that the photos he’d viewed online did not do it justice. Both buildings were larger and more impressively modern,with their sheathing of travertine marble and gold-tinted glass, as well as more carefully constructed than the pictures suggested. What had not been apparent also was the degree of physical security around GeneRx. Although it was partially concealed with elaborate plantings, a high razor-wire-topped fence faced the building and disappeared off into the forest on either side. Also partly hidden with evergreen trees was a manned gatehouse guarding the entrance drive.
