An Eye For Murder: A Medical Thriller Read online

  Lister and Gibbons stared at each other for a long moment, until the medic gave a slight nod. The younger guard approached and seized Gibbons by his elbow, pulling him towards the door.

  “Let me just run a quick check on him before you of take him away,” Lister said. “We’re going to need the evidence.” His face was grave as he concentrated on the bruises and scratches that poor Salinger had left on his killer’s face and chest. As he got closer, he sniffed the strong odor of booze and hashish. Finally, the medic just smiled; something about this lunatic fascinated him.

  In that instant, they clicked. The medic had grand plans for the future, and he had a gut feeling that this detainee was going to play a major role.

  Lister gestured for Gibbons to go with the guards. He would take care of the rest.

  No witnesses. The official version was self-defense.

  Peter Lister was discharged from the military, went to college, and established a pharmaceutical company. Gibbons remained in the Marines for another year, during which time he was involved in several more fights. His civilian life was spent working at odd jobs and malingering.

  Then he received a phone call: “I need you at Medionetyx.”

  Now Gibbons was sitting in his car behind the animal facility, listening quietly to the voice that came from the other end of the line. The boss hated being interrupted.

  There was a change in plans, he said, and he needed Gibbons to come to O’Hare airport as quickly as possible.

  He did so without hesitation.

  ***

  Jeffery Gibbons went directly to Lister’s private hangar at O’Hare.

  Both engines of the Galaxy Gulfstream G-500 were already roaring as the stewardess motioned him to leave everything behind and go immediately inside.

  Peter Lister didn’t like to wait, especially not in his current mood. The pressure of the blood circulating in the veins of the company president was at danger level. Over the years Gibbons had learned that the boss’s tone was inversely proportional to his state of mind. Worst of all was the silence, accompanied by the frequent blinking of his right eye. Lister suppressed any display of human feeling, and the closest he had to such was a tearing in his right eye, a result of the retinal surgery that had left him with three pupils. They were dark hollow bites in his pastel iris; one central in the left eye, and two—a central and one just below it—in the right eye that pulsated like a galloping horse.

  One hundred twenty beats per minute—and Bernie Cooperstein was responsible for each and every one of them.

  The plane sped down the runway even before Gibbons could settle comfortably into his seat and fasten his seatbelt. Except for the flight crew there was no one else on board; they were alone in the soundproof conference room.

  The boss turned around in his half-sphere executive chair, his teeth grinding the ice cubes he dug from the bottom of a glass of bourbon.

  Jeffery Gibbons sat up straight in front of him and waited for him to speak. For a moment he thought his boss might express his gratitude for abruptly cancelling his vacation in the Seychelles Islands. But Lister didn’t even offer him a drink. The atmosphere inside the flying conference room was as cool as the temperature on the wings outside.

  Finally, Gibbons broke the silence and reported that the Pakistani affair was taken care of.

  The message was received coldly. No sign of gratitude, not so much as a whiff. The boss didn’t want to hear details. He only changed his position in his chair and poured himself another glass of bourbon.

  So deep was the silence that ensued that Gibbons could hear the ice cubes dancing in a frenzy at the bottom of Lister’s glass. Outside a sudden flash of lightning in the sky illuminated the cabin as if it were daytime. The walls of the conference room shivered and crackled as before an imminent crash.

  Gibbons said nothing. He knew the boss had not invited him simply to let off stream. And sure enough, the reason soon came, after another series of rattles and turbulence.

  God! What do these rich people find in their private jets? A commercial plane doesn’t sway so much in air pockets, Gibbons thought. First-class tickets would cost much less than the money poured into a private plane, pilots, flight attendants, and maintenance.

  “Listen carefully, Jeff.” His employer raised a finger. The briefing was short and concise. The details were none of the assistant’s business.

  “We are going to drop you off shortly. Stephanie has already packed you a travel bag.”

  Lister sucked up the rest of his drink and leaned forward with an envelope. Gibbons opened it and pulled out a single page of paper, then spread the document on the table to read it—a photo and a short bio. He could barely read the heading in the cabin’s flickering light. The destination: SDF, Standiford Airport in Louisville.

  “There’s also a fat check inside for the scientist. She’s a tough lady, but I trust you to take care of her.”

  Gibbons recalled the woman with black curls who had visited him in Gary. “So I pay her,” he said hesitantly, “and return with something?”

  Lister nodded. “A tube, Jeff, a test tube.” He wiggled a finger; his speech was slurred. “And there’s no way you’re coming back empty-handed.”

  The overhead lamp lit up and the hoarse voice of the pilot instructed them to fasten their seatbelts.

  Gibbons rested his cheek on the window and peered out into the darkness. The Galaxy Gulfstream crossed another air pocket somewhere over a Hoosier cornfield, then descended toward the bend of the Ohio River.

  7

  That night, Bertha planned to stay awake.

  Shortly after eight thirty, Bertha heard a few short phone calls at the nurses’ station. Then came an important call for Mrs. Hertz. The witch was cautious—she took her calls on the private line in her office.

  At about eight forty-five, Bertha heard the electric gate snap. She rose up on her elbows to peep out and, in the spotlights, saw a sedan enter, crossing the gravel and almost climbing the steps. Because of the heavy rain and mist she was unable to identify the driver. She heard hurried footsteps down the hallway, then the whistling wind slammed the entrance door shut.

  Bertha turned her chair and rolled it silently toward her room.

  Something was happening at Blue Meadows.

  She was driven by an inexplicable urge to keep herself alert in anticipation of impending disaster. Her level of concern increased as she opened her eyelids wide to welcome the evening dose of eyedrops.

  Bertha placed the sleeping pill in her mouth and pretended to swallow it with water; then she spat it between the bed and the wall when Boris wasn’t looking. She acted drowsy and didn’t resist when Boris shifted her position in bed, smoothed the sheet, and plumped up her pillow.

  She had left her dinner untouched. Boris sighed, covered the tray with a paper towel, and placed the saucer on top of the chocolate milkshake. Maybe later she would wake up hungry.

  Boris switched the room lights off. He knew Bertha refused to fall asleep in the dark, so he left the flat fanlight above her bed on, its glow directed toward the wall.

  As soon as Boris’ footsteps faded in the corridor, Bertha crawled out of bed. Her lower extremities tended to awaken very slowly, so she used her elbows to move to the edge. With one hand she used the strap to swing her lethargic legs over the edge of the bed.

  After a minute that seemed eternal, she was sitting erect in her wheelchair, rolling it through the internal corridor into her bathroom. It was a spacious room, equipped with a shower, a low-set toilet, and apricot-colored ceramic tiles. She would occasionally linger there longer than necessary, being in no hurry to return to the room she hated.

  For Bertha the real advantage of the bathroom was its proximity to the nurses’ station and to the office of the manager, Mrs. Hertz, popularly known as “the witch.” Only a thin wall separated them and the archives. M
ost of the time the door was left unlocked. The only downside to the bathroom was the relatively high location of the single window and the difficulty involved in accessing it, even for someone standing steady on both legs.

  And that was how, long after the bedtime curfew, Bertha was still in the bathroom, her ear attentive, her neck craned up to the window and her owlish eyes on constant alert.

  The entrance door opened again and slammed in the wind. This time it was followed by a new sound—a car engine revving up under the awning, in the space reserved for the manager. Bertha opened a small slit in the Venetian blinds but saw only the car’s red rear lights.

  Another thirty minutes passed, and nothing happened. The night was saturated with its regular background noises—thunder outside, snoring from the rooms inside, the clatter of bedpans and urine bottles in the treatment room, cupboard doors opening and closing, and the chorus of beeps at the nurses’ station.

  At nine fifty-one pm, the tranquility was broken once again.

  8

  We dined at Pasta Mia, a small Italian restaurant in Crescent Hill, less than a five-minute walk from my apartment.

  The night was divine, the food was delicious, the service was great, and my companion looked lovely in a red dress and a string of pearls. Men and women at the surrounding tables were sneaking glances, each with his or her particular reason. To be honest, I found it rather flattering, because this time the inquisitive looks of my fellow diners were different. The question on their wrinkled foreheads was so obvious: How could a bespectacled insect like me—my attempt to wear contacts tonight had been futile; my left eye refused to cooperate—get so lucky?

  However different we appeared, Johanna and I, at least we shared a healthy appetite. When the first courses arrived at our table—minestrone soup for me and Italian salad for her—we immediately set about tucking in. Every now and then I stole a surreptitious glance at her, pretending to be engrossed with the street view outside. When Johanna caught me looking, I quickly focused on a man with a walker who was leading a tiny dog across the street. When the two reached a particularly large puddle, the man leaned over, picked up the dog, and tucked him under his arm, leaving only the black tip of the pup’s nose and ears outside the wing of his coat.

  Johanna turned and looked in the direction of my gaze.

  “I had a schnauzer when I was a little girl,” she reflected thoughtfully. “You have a dog?”

  “With a schedule like mine?” I answered and immediately remembered my midnight task. “Actually, this weekend I am dog-sitting Wilbur, my neighbor’s poodle.”

  “It’s no good living alone.”

  “Oh, I don’t live alone. I live with Leanira.” I noticed the crease that appeared briefly on her forehead. A sign of disappointment? Could she really be interested in me? I paused longer than necessary before adding, “She’s my sister.”

  Johanna nodded and returned to her escarole leaves, grated Parmesan, and almonds.

  “But right now she’s in Kenya, with my parents. She won’t be back until after New Year’s. So I’m actually on my own.”

  She poured us both another glass of house wine. “We’ll have to do something about that, won’t we?”

  The main courses arrived before I could respond. She had a half-order of ravioli with spinach and ricotta cheese filling in tomato cream sauce, while I drooled in anticipation of my fettuccine Alfredo.

  We had another glass of the house wine, and then another. By the end of the fourth—or was it the fifth?—round I felt dizzy with a warm numbness. So, as I dug into the last course—tiramisu—it took a while to notice that my phone was buzzing in my pocket.

  To my surprise it was my Grandma Bertha, still awake. As I recalled, lights went out at exactly nine o’clock in Blue Meadows. The manager, the uncompromising Mrs. Hertz, was very strict.

  For more than fifty years, my grandmother had been a teacher of ballroom dancing. In her basement studio near Main Street, across from the theater in Louisville, Bertha Zucker was everyone’s teacher of the tango, English waltz, foxtrot, cha-cha-cha, and many others.

  Numerous celebrities passed under her sharp eyes. When she began phasing out, she moved her studio to the large two-story home she owned in Crescent Hill. For extra income, she divided the house into a large ground floor hall and three apartments; she lived in the one above her studio and rented out the other two.

  Now, however, she was in an assisted-living facility, confined to a wheelchair most of the time.

  It was not her body that was first to betray her, but her brain. It had started two years ago, when Granny had been found late one fall night at a bus stop in Bowling Green, with no money on her and no ID. Neither she nor anyone else had the foggiest idea how she’d ended up there. An alert Dairy Queen employee called the police, who came and took her to the emergency room, checked their missing persons lists, and eventually summoned my parents.

  Grandma underwent a full neurological workup, including CT scan. The diagnosis was a light stroke, as if there were anything ‘light’ about living longer than your brain cells.

  Thinking back, I remembered a warning sign. Some weeks earlier, during a family gathering, she had become confused several times, forgetting the names of friends she had known since I was a child.

  Mom had hired a woman from Uruguay, Jenny, to cook for Grandma and do her laundry. She slept in the spare room, but Grandma kicked her out during one of her delirious attacks, accusing her of theft. And then came Clara and Jasmin.

  When home treatment became too complicated, she was transferred to assisted accommodation at Blue Meadows, the highest-end residence in town, with monthly fees to match. Blue Meadows had gained attention as the first diversified nursing home in the Commonwealth of Kentucky: They had an attached IV treatment facility with an in-house medical staff—therapists, nurses, and a doctor on call. Blue Meadows also boasted state-of-the-art equipment—anti-bedsore air mattresses, monitors, respirator machines, a defibrillator, and a ‘minor procedure treatment room’ with surgical gear and an autoclave.

  On the same day Grandma moved into the facility, my mother received the offer of a lifetime: a sabbatical at an institute for butterfly research in Nairobi. She and Dad were afraid of leaving Grandma alone in her new home, but Leanira and I worked hard to persuade them not to miss this opportunity. We moved into the apartment Grandma had vacated and promised to take care of all her needs and visit her regularly at Blue Meadows, and to report to them in real-time via Skype.

  I tried to visit her as often as I could despite my inhuman med-school schedule, and my folks called from Nairobi every weekend. I usually called Grandma every day around five o’clock, after her supper; I had just talked to her about five hours ago and everything had been fine, so I was surprised to hear from her—especially so late at night.

  I dabbed my fingertips with a napkin and pressed the green button.

  “Ho! Milbert! At last,” Grandma whispered. “I’m so glad I finally got hold of you.”

  “Grandma, something wrong? Are you all right?”

  “No, no, I’m fine.” I heard the bedsprings crunching. She was talking from under the covers. “It’s about Belle Mohay. Do you remember her? The lady from room six.”

  Of course I remembered—a Hungarian lady with a heavy accent who never stopped complaining about the stale food at Blue Meadows: “They never heard here about paprika?”

  I smiled at Johanna apologetically and signaled that it would not take long. I pressed the phone to my ear. “What about the woman from room six?”

  “Belle didn’t show up to the four o’clock physiotherapy.”

  Grandma suspected—again—that something strange was taking place in the nursing home. Lately these calls had become more frequent. Always on the same subject: Someone was missing; someone didn’t show up for the class on weaving wicker baskets; someone felt sick and died at n
ight. Only the names changed.

  Geriatric specialists had warned me that as they age, the elderly can develop an increasing tendency to paranoia. They might start thinking someone was eavesdropping on them from behind the door, then suspect their relatives of stealing money from them. At the end they are sure that someone in the family is trying to poison them in order to secure their inheritance.

  “Believe me,” a childhood friend had warned me, “it’s only going to get worse. A family member should obtain power-of-attorney over her property before it’s too late.”

  Since Grandma had begun her late-night conversations, I had always tried to calm her—first by logic, but soon I realized that the only way to reassure her would be by talking directly with Mrs. Hertz.

  And so I did. I’d discovered that nothing had been wrong with the first lady, Rebecca Fox. She had simply moved to Greensboro, to be near her daughter. The second lady, Rose Kaplan, had died of cardiac arrest at the age of eighty-six. I tried to explain it to Grandma with an appropriate measure of compassion—after all, she was only two years younger.

  But I needn’t have struggled. Grandma understood. “You see, Grandma? As I’ve told you before, in the end the simplest explanation is also the most accurate.” I had hoped this would be enough to stop her nightly calls, but I’d been wrong.

  “Granny, go to sleep. You know what happens when you start worrying too much—you get headaches and chest pains.” I exchanged smiles with Johanna. “Know what? I have a late start at the lab tomorrow. I’ll come by early and I promise to find out what happened to the lady in room six. How does that sound?”

  She mumbled something from under her blanket and hung up with the usual niceties.

  Johanna and I finished our meal, but I didn’t want the evening to end. I asked her where she had parked her car, and almost yelped with joy upon realizing she’d miscalculated the distance to the restaurant and was parked near the water reservoir.