The Last Word (16 page)

Whoever it was would have had to obtain a sample of West Nile virus from somewhere, and that wouldn’t have been easy. But once he had the virus, keeping it viable would take only a freezer.

Whoever was doing it had come up with a chilling and ingenious way to kill. He was letting the organs, bones, and tissues do the killing for him. There was no telling how many people he could murder from a distance, all over the United States, just by infecting one person.

It was serial killing by proxy.

Mark was still mulling over the implications when he noticed Ort studying him. Ort didn’t look pleased with whatever he’d read in Mark’s expression.

“This is now a federal serial killer investigation,” Ort said. “The CDC is lending us their resources and expertise. Representatives from the National Institutes of Health and the Food and Drug Administration will also be involved.”

“You’re talking about a lot of people descending on this hospital from outside agencies,” Janet said. “Things are going to get out of hand very quickly.”

“By that, I presume you mean that the media will find out about our investigation,” Ort said. “That’s inevitable.”

“There’s no evidence that anyone at Community General Hospital is involved in this,” Janet said, “but if word gets out before you have a suspect, the implication will be that we are responsible for these deaths.”

“Murders,” Ort said.

“The reputation of this hospital could be ruined,” Janet said. “That’s a crime, too.”

“I can’t be concerned about that,” Ort said.

“You’d better be,” Trotter said. “Need I remind you of past cases in which the FBI falsely implicated people in crimes and later paid out millions in legal judgments as a result?”

“That’s not my problem,” Ort said. “I expect nothing less than the full cooperation of everyone in this hospital. You will be receiving warrants within the hour compelling you to open specific patient records for our review.”

“We need to shut down the transplant unit immediately,” Mark said.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Sharpe said.

“It’s a horrible idea,” Janet said. “We do that and it’s practically an admission of guilt—and a public relations nightmare for this hospital.”

“If we don’t,” Mark said, “we run the risk that someone else will be infected and more viable organs will be ruined.”

“Keeping the transplant program running will help the investigation conclude more swiftly,” Janet said. “The FBI can catch whoever it is in the act.”

“Unless it’s me,” Jesse said.

“Or me,” Amanda said.

“Or me,” Mark said. “Besides, I don’t think you want the liability of using a donor as a guinea pig. If you’re right, and someone outside Community General is responsible, by keeping the program open you are encouraging the killer to go ahead and infect, and perhaps murder, another victim.”

“Dr. Sloan has a good point,” Trotter said.

“Shut up, Clarke,” Janet said.

“I agree with Dr. Sloan and Dr. Sharpe,” Ort said. “If you don’t close the transplant program down voluntarily, I’ll see to it that the appropriate agency compels you to do it anyway. You won’t like that publicity any better. We’re done for now.”

Everyone rose. Janet Dorcott pointed at Jesse.

“You’re suspended until further notice. I don’t want to see you in this hospital.” She turned to Mark. “We have to talk. Now.”

Ort stepped between them. “Me first.”

The agent led Mark to the back of the room, where they could talk privately.

“Thanks for saving me,” Mark said.

“When I said I wanted everyone’s full cooperation, I wasn’t talking about you,” Ort said. “I’d like you to cooperate less.”

“Meaning what?” Mark asked, genuinely confused.

“I saw the look on your face. You were already thinking about what investigative angles you and Scooby-Doo were going to pursue. Don’t.”

“I do have some experience at this sort of thing,” Mark said. “I could be an asset.”

“You’re a suspect,” Ort said.

Mark looked at him incredulously. “I’ve been a consultant to the LAPD for over forty years. My son is a homicide detective. I’ve worked closely with the FBI many times, and so have Dr. Travis and Dr. Bentley.”

“I’m aware of all that,” Ort said.

“Then how could you possibly believe that any of us would purposely infect an organ donor with West Nile virus?”

“I know cops and FBI agents who’ve turned out to be rapists, embezzlers, blackmailers, and killers,” Ort said. “So do you, Dr. Sloan. We both know their badges and past achievements in law enforcement didn’t make any difference. They still committed heinous crimes. I believe whatever the evidence tells me. And right now, it tells me that you are a possible suspect. Stay out of this investigation.”

Ort held Mark’s gaze for a moment to emphasize his point and then walked away.

Someone was using patients at Community General Hospital as guns, and their organs as bullets, to kill people. There was no doubt that these killings would go public, and when they did, the scandal would smear the hospital where Mark had spent his entire career and destroy the reputations of two doctors who were like his own children.

If Dr. Special Agent William Ort thought Dr. Mark Sloan was going to sit by and let that happen, then Ort wasn’t much of a detective—and he needed all the help that Mark could give him.

Whether he wanted it or not.

Steve and Tanis showed up outside of Tony Sisk’s house in the hills above Malibu shortly after the attorney left for work. They were driving a Pacific Bell truck and were wearing telephone technician uniforms.

It took them only a few minutes to attach the bugs to the phone lines at the junction box. They didn’t need to break into Sisk’s house and plant listening devices in order to eavesdrop on conversations in the rooms. They had devices that could do the job from outside.

The phone line bugs did double duty. Not only did they record incoming and outgoing calls, but when the phones weren’t in use, they became voice-activated listening devices, capturing any conversations that were going on in the room.

Another device, hidden under the windows, picked up the sound waves in the room and transmitted them back to the secret Web site using the home’s own satellite dish.

Steve and Tanis managed to thoroughly and efficiently violate Tony Sisk’s civil rights in under half an hour.

From there, they moved on to Sisk’s office building on Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills. Still posing as telephone technicians, they were able to do all their work without leaving the garage.

While Tanis compromised the office’s phone lines and surveillance system, Steve slipped underneath Sisk’s Mercedes S-class and planted devices that would turn the car into a luxurious mobile recording studio.

An hour later, Steve and Tanis were at Starbucks having coffee and cake, their earphones plugged into their laptops, listening to Sisk discuss all the weaknesses in the DA’s case against a famous basketball player accused of rape.

“Now this is what I call police work,” Tanis said, smiling happily.

Steve wished he could share her pleasure, but uneasiness gnawed at him deep inside. He couldn’t shake the feeling that something was very wrong.

 

Mark sat on his deck facing the beach, a notepad in his lap. It was a sunny, cloudless day, the sky a brilliant blue, the sea an emerald green. He watched the waves break and thought about murder.

As soon as he got home, he had set up his laptop on the kitchen table and searched the Internet for information about the car accident that left Bruce Wethersby, the first organ donor, brain-dead. He found a small news item in the
Los Angeles Times
and learned that it wasn’t a hit-and-run accident. The distraught driver, forty-four-year-old Charlotte Unger, called 911 and stayed at the scene, comforting the victim until the paramedics arrived.

Unger told police that Wethersby crossed in front of her car as she was making a right turn. It was possible that Unger also pushed Corinne Adams down the staircase at UCLA, and the FBI was certainly going to look into it, but Mark was going to assume for now that the killer wasn’t responsible for the initial accidents.

That meant the killer didn’t enter the picture until Wethersby and Adams were already critically injured.

So were they injected with the virus at the scene or after their arrival at Community General?

Mark thought about both scenarios, playing them out step by step.

If the killer was one of the first responders, a cop or a paramedic, he had to carry a syringe of West Nile virus around with him until a potential organ donor showed up.

The killer would have to quickly determine at the scene if the victim was a registered organ donor and then gamble that the victim would end up brain-dead, as opposed to recovering or simply dying.

It was a big gamble.

If the killer guessed wrong, and odds were that he
would
most of the time, then Mark should be able to find some serious accident victims who later developed West Nile virus symptoms.

Mark made a note on his pad to check into it, but he had a hunch that he wouldn’t turn up any cases that fit the description—because there was a safer and more dependable way for the killer to work. The killer could wait to strike until the accident victim was declared brain-dead and scheduled for organ harvesting.

And the killer couldn’t get that information until after the victim had been treated at the hospital and a battery of tests had been done.

So Mark scratched the notion that the killer was one of the first responders.

The killer was at Community General.

No doubt Special Agent Ort had already reached the same conclusion, which was why Mark was considered a suspect, along with a couple hundred other Community General employees.

Anyone who had access to the ER or the ICU could be the killer.

But Mark was getting ahead of himself. He realized he’d skipped a crucial question in his thinking.

Where did the killer get his stash of West Nile virus?

Mark knew that the cultivation of viruses was a difficult procedure that required specialized knowledge, as well as expensive and highly technical equipment. But there was another, easier way to get the virus: Take it from someone already infected with it. The contaminated blood could be frozen or refrigerated for months without losing its infectivity. The killer would then have the means to infect more people.

It wouldn’t take much blood.

Only one tiny vial.

The killer could easily keep the vial hidden on ice in one of the many refrigerators and freezers in the hospital until a brain-dead organ donor came along.

And then all he had to do was draw some of the infected blood into a syringe, creep into the ICU, and empty the syringe into the patient’s IV a day or two before the organ harvesting.

No one would know what had happened until it was too late—when organ recipients all over the country began to die.

Even then, the deaths would most likely be written off as a freak occurrence, a terrible tragedy.

Which is exactly what the CDC, Mark, and everybody else would have done, if only it hadn’t happened twice at the same hospital.

So why did the killer do it again? Didn’t he realize that it was too big a coincidence to be ignored? Or was that the point?

Mark made a note on his pad: Was it an irresistible compulsion or did the killer
want
to be noticed? If so,
why
??

But there was a far more important question that needed to be answered first. He wrote it down, too.

Where did the killer get his vial of West Nile-infected blood?

The killer could have taken the blood from anyone with West Nile virus, regardless of whether they were suffering from mild or extreme symptoms.

And where was the killer most likely to find someone who had been positively diagnosed with the virus?

At a hospital.

And why should the killer look any farther than home?

Community General.

Mark got up, went back into the house, and sat down in front of his laptop computer. He logged on to the Community General computer system and began searching for any patients who’d been admitted with confirmed cases of West Nile virus. It wasn’t a common affliction, so he didn’t expect to find many.

He was right. He found only one.

Six months earlier, a fifty-five-year-old man had come into the ER suffering from what initially seemed to be a severe case of the flu. But he was soon diagnosed with West Nile virus. He was hospitalized for two weeks and then went home.

The man’s nurse was Susan.

A quick check of the records confirmed that she’d also treated organ donors Bruce Wethersby and Corinne Adams.

And in both cases, Susan’s husband, Dr. Jesse Travis, performed the organ-harvesting surgeries. Susan was right at the center of it all.

Mark didn’t believe for a second that Susan was the killer, but the circumstantial case against her would be very convincing to someone who didn’t know her as well as he did.

He could even see a strong case being made that both Jesse and Susan were involved in the tainting of the organs with the virus.

They both had the medical knowledge, the means, and ample opportunity.

And there was another fact in their pasts that made the case against them even more damning. They both knew how an organ could be used to kill . . . because they’d seen someone else do it before.

Jesse and Susan had helped Mark solve a homicide several years ago in which a patient consumed drugs to taint his kidney with a substance that would kill the intended recipient of the organ.

The case was hardly a secret. Clarke Trotter knew all about it and probably saw the same parallels between it and the current case that Mark did.