The affair had started the night of the medical center Christmas party, and from his rendition of the story, it involved Kera’s actively pursuing him. One way or another they had found themselves enjoying each other’s company, exchanging entertaining and self-deprecating stories of their respective childhoods, his in Massachusetts and hers in Los Angeles. They also found that they were both avid skiers in winter and enthusiastic surfers in summer. When the evening had drawn to a close, they had exchanged numbers with the idea that they would have a drink together at some unspecified date.
When they did get together for a drink that had been instigated by Carl a week later, he didn’t hide that he was married, had been for just shy of twenty years, with three children, one in college and two in high school. He also felt he had been up front and entirely honest in explaining that his wife had gone back to her successful career as an advertising executive when their youngest child had entered middle school and that their intimacy had suffered to the point of being almost nonexistent, all of which was true. What he didn’t tell her was that he’d had a series of affairs over the previous ten years. He also didn’t tell her that his wife’s income trumped his and he had no intention of getting divorced as he was literally and figuratively wedded to his lifestyle.
As soon as Carl had been told by Kera that she was pregnant, he offered to arrange and pay for an abortion. Having already had the experience with a previous lover, he expected Kera would eventually see the light and agree and that would be the end of it. But instead of coming around to his way of thinking, Kera became progressively committed to having the child. At the same time, she became progressively committed to the idea that she and Carl had to arrange a meeting with his wife and put it all out in the open despite his having said over and over that he had no intention of leaving his family. It waswhen Kera threatened to call his wife that Carl had decided he had little choice and that it was either his life or Kera’s life.
Having been successful in keeping the relationship with Kera a secret and out of the medical center’s potent gossip mill, he was certain he could accomplish what needed to be accomplished with the help of the lethal power of fentanyl and with the opioid crisis as a cover. What he hadn’t expected was to be thwarted by Aria Nichols and her unexpected and dogged interest in finding the father of the fetus. That was the beginning of the dark clouds, especially when he realized he had no idea how much Madison Bryant knew about his affair with Kera.
Solving the potential Madison Bryant threat had not been easy, especially when she somehow managed to live through getting run over by a train, which he had managed to make happen. Yet persistence paid off, thanks to potassium chloride, and once again Carl had thought he was in the clear. But instead of the storm clouds dispersing, they re-formed with the unexpected arrival of genealogical family trees that would have fingered him if he hadn’t come up with the story that he was friends with Paul Sommers, the Manhattan district attorney. Carl had known he had been adopted since he was a child and had never had any interest whatsoever in his genetic past until now. At some point in the near future he’d get the family trees Aria Nichols had made from the safe-deposit box, where he had stashed them, and find out about his genetic family. It was heady stuff. The idea his birth mother was living over on Fifth Avenue was intriguing although after Aria’s description, he had little interest in meeting her.
Taking care of the direct threat that Aria Nichols presented had been easy, since she lived alone like Kera. It had also been helpful that she’d used a background story with the genealogical company she’d worked with that couldn’t possibly incriminate him. But the most worrisome part of Aria’s involvement, and the one that frightened him the most, was that she’d shown the family trees to Dr. LaurieMontgomery. When Carl had heard that, the clouds truly thickened and threatened a catastrophic storm. But then, as if manna from heaven, he learned that Dr. Montgomery was to have surgery that very day, meaning she’d be in the hospital and undoubtedly have an intravenous line in place, and it all had just been confirmed by her husband. It was this information that had parted the clouds, allowed a bit of sun to shine through, and made him feel like celebrating.
Glancing at the antique wall clock, Carl thought this was an opportune time to pay a quick visit to the Emergency Department. He stood up and got his long white doctor’s coat. He then checked himself in the mirror mounted on the back of his door. Although he had plenty of syringes, he needed more potassium chloride. Like with Madison Bryant, he planned to visit Laurie Montgomery’s hospital room during that same early-morning time interval when the night shift took their lunch breaks. With Laurie, the task would be considerably easier than what he’d had to face with Madison. As a VIP Laurie would undoubtedly be in a private room, especially if she was in the Kimmel Pavilion, which Carl expected she would be. With Madison, he had to worry about nurses and nurses’ assistants in constant attendance. That was not going to be the case with Laurie. And 3:00 to 4:00 was when most hospital deaths occur.
Confident he looked very much the part of a clinical professional, Carl walked out of his office. He informed his private secretary that he had a short meeting he needed to attend but would be back in about a half hour. She said that she would hold all his calls.
CHAPTER 37
May 11th
12:40P.M.
This is big-time weird,” Vinnie said. He and Jack had paused just after they finished removing the clothes from Aria Nichols’s corpse, which was lying on table #1 in the autopsy room. Since there was only one other case going on at that moment all the way down on table #8, they felt like they were by themselves, facing the unique situation of autopsying the body of a person they had interacted with on a personal level just the day before. “I’ve always wondered what it would be like to autopsy someone I knew, and now I know I don’t like it.”
“Me, neither,” Jack said. “It’s a jolting reminder of the fragility of life. And it’s not just emotionally disturbing. From a professional point of view, it’s going to make it more difficult to maintain the objectivity that is required. It also makes me embarrassed that I’d found her unpleasant to deal with. Now that she’s dead, it seems so petty.”
“Unpleasant wouldn’t be the way I’d choose to describe her,”Vinnie said. “I think ‘snotty entitled bitch’ would be much closer to the truth.”
“Tone it down, big guy!” Jack said. Both Jack and Vinnie heard the door to the hallway burst open, and both turned to see someone coming in their direction. It was Chet McGovern. He’d pulled on a surgical gown over his street clothes and was holding a surgical mask against his face. He walked right up to the table and looked down on the naked corpse.
“Nice body,” he said. “What a waste.”
“Oh, please,” Jack complained at the utter inappropriateness of such a comment. “Let’s show a modicum of respect for the dead, particularly a colleague!”
“Hey, loosen up,” Chet said. “I was only trying to lighten the mood with a bit of black humor.”
“I hope that was the case,” Jack said. “But with a man of your off-hours reputation, who’s to know?”
“Okay, maybe I crossed the line,” Chet said. “I suppose under the circumstances it was out of place and out of line.”
“You got that right,” Jack said.
“Are you guys okay to do this case?” Chet said. “Having just worked with her yesterday, maybe you want me to find someone else to do the autopsy who hasn’t had anything to do with her.”
“We’ve got it under control,” Jack said. “To be honest, Laurie specifically asked me to take care of it, and I said I would. But thanks for asking.”
Once again, the door to the hall banged open, and all three men turned to see who it was. This time it was Marvin Fletcher, one of the mortuary techs, and he, too, came directly to table #1 and looked down at the corpse. “Holy shit, it is her! I heard about this and couldn’t believe it. I had to come and check if it was just a rumor.”
“It’s certainly not rumor,” Jack said.
“Obviously,” Marvin said. “It’s a shame, I guess, but I can’t say Iwas charmed by her. I also heard that she still had the needle embedded in her arm, just like the case I did with Dr. Montgomery and her just a few days ago.”
“That’s right,” Jack said. “We just removed the syringe, and as expected it tested positive for fentanyl. I assume you are talking about the Kera Jacobsen case?”
“That’s the one,” Marvin said. “We thought it meant she died really fast, probably with a big overdose of fentanyl.”
“That could be the case here, too,” Jack said. “Who knows, maybe they got the drug from the same source since they both worked at the NYU Med Center, and it contained more fentanyl than usual. Part of the overdose problem is that the concentration of fentanyl can vary, and as potent as it is, it doesn’t have to vary too much to be lethal.”
“We wondered the same thing,” Marvin said. Then he added, “Hey, do you mind if I stay and add my two cents?”
