‘Killers, plural?’
‘You don’t think someone starts performing major surgery like
that on their own, do you? They would have needed a team. Every surgeon needs a
nurse.’
Will gave Bob Hill a ride back to his own cabin. He suspected that, though
Hill’s office might have been basic, his house was elsewhere — and
not nearly so spare as Baxter’s. The dead man was clearly an extreme kind
of extremist.
They said their goodbyes, exchanged email addresses, and Will began the long
drive on. Bob Hill was obviously a nut — DNA for dissidence indeed
— but this business with the kidney was definitely strange. And why would
Baxter’s killers have given him an injection?
He pulled off Route 200 to fill up the car and his stomach.
He found a diner and ordered a soda and a sandwich. A TV was on, tuned to
Fox News.
‘… Dateline London now and more on the
scandal threatening to topple the British government.’
There were pictures of a harried-looking Gavin Curtis emerging from a car to
an explosion of flash bulbs and television lights.
‘According to one British newspaper today,
Treasury records show clear discrepancies which can only have been authorized
at the very top. While opposition politicians demand a full disclosure of accounts,
Mr Curtis’s spokesman says only that “there has been no wrongdoing”…’
Without thinking, Will was taking notes, not that he would ever need them:
Curtis’s chances of heading up the IMF were surely slim to non-existent
now. Watching the pictures of Curtis being shepherded past the baying press mob
— a classic ‘goatfuck’ as the TV guys called them — Will’s
mind wandered onto trivial terrain. How come his car is so ordinary? This Gavin
Curtis was meant to be the second most powerful man in Britain, yet he was
driven around in what looked like a suburban sales rep’s car. Did all
British ministers live so modestly — or was this just a Gavin Curtis
thing?
Will called the sheriff’s office for Sanders County and was told that,
for all the federal investigations and Unabomber inquiries, Baxter had no
criminal record whatsoever. He had been under heavy surveillance, but it had
yielded nothing: a couple of unexplained trips to Seattle, but no evidence of
illegality.
He had never been convicted of anything. Will flicked back through his
notebook. He had scribbled down all he could of the autopsy report, including
the name at the foot of the document. Dr Allan Russell, Medical Examiner,
Forensic Science Division, State Crime Lab. Maybe this Dr Russell would be able
to tell him what Mr Baxter’s militia comrades had not. How had Pat Baxter
died — and why?
H
e had got there too late; the
crime lab was shut for the day.
No amount of cajoling could alter that fact; the staff had gone home. He
would have to come back tomorrow. Which meant he would have to spend the night
in Missoula.
He was briefly tempted by the C’mon Inn, if only because the joke was
too good to resist. But Will realized, he could still tell people about it in New
York: he did not actually have to stay there. So he played safe and checked
into the Holiday Inn for a third night of room service, the remote control and a
phone call with Beth.
‘You’re making this too complicated,’ she said, audibly getting
out of the bath.
‘But it is complicated. The guy has a kidney missing.’
‘You need to see a medical history. Maybe — what’s his name
again?’
‘Baxter.’
‘Maybe Baxter had a history of renal problems. Any reference to that
or to dialysis or kidney trouble of any kind, and that will give you an
explanation.’
Will was silent.
‘I’m ruining it, aren’t I?’
‘Well, if we’re talking news value, the choice between the death
of an old man with a past history of renal failure and an attempted
kidney-snatching is very close. But, yeah, you might be right: the
kidney-snatching probably just edges it.’
Will was relieved they were back into banter mode. Several days now stood
between them and the row; the wound seemed to be closing.
The next morning, Will was ushered into Dr Russell’s
office. He saw it straight away, a certificate on the wall carrying an emblem
Will recognized: an open book, inscribed with Latin words, topped off by two
crowns.
‘Ah, you were at Oxford. Like me. When were you there?’
‘Several centuries before you, I suspect.’
‘That can’t be true, Dr Russell.’
‘Call me Allan.’
At last, a lucky break. ‘You know, Allan, I’m not even sure I’ll
write about it for the paper, but this Pat Baxter business does intrigue me, I
must confess,’ he began, as if settling down for an agreeable chat at
high table. Will noticed his own English accent had become more pronounced.
‘Let me have a look here,’ Russell was saying, as he turned to
his computer. ‘Ah yes, “Severe internal haemorrhaging consistent with
a gunshot wound; contusions of the skin and viscera. General remarks: needle
mark on right thigh, suggestive of recent anaesthesia”.’
‘Now, how are you defining “recent” there, Allan?’
Will hoped his tone was saying,
Purely out of academic interest
…
‘Probably contemporaneous.’
‘You see this, I have to say, is what intrigues me. Why would anyone
anaesthetize someone before they kill them?’
‘Perhaps they were trying to reduce the victim’s pain.’
‘Do murderers do that? It makes no sense. Unless—’
‘Unless the killer was a medical man. Trained to give a shot before
any procedure. Force of habit perhaps.’
‘Or if he wanted to do something else before the murder.
Perform some other operation.’
‘Like?’
‘Well, I understand that Baxter was found minus one kidney.’
Russell began to laugh, in a way Will struggled to find funny. ‘Oh, I
see what you’re driving at.’ Russell was grinning.
‘Tell me, Will. Have you ever seen a dead body?’
Instantly, Will remembered the corpse of Howard Macrae, under a blanket on
that street in Brownsville. His first. ‘Yes.
In my work it’s hard to avoid.’
‘Well, then you won’t mind seeing another one.’
It was not as cold as he expected. Will imagined a morgue
to be a giant fridge, like those cold storage rooms at the back of large
hotels. This was more like a hospital ward.
The orderlies were moving a gurney into a curtained-off zone which Will took
to be the examination area. With not even a moment’s warning, Russell
pulled back the sheet.
Will felt his stomach tighten. The body was stiff and waxy, a yellowish
green. The stench was rancid; seeming to come his way in waves. For a second or
two he would think it had passed, or that at least he had got used to it, and
then it would strike again — inciting Will to empty his guts out on the
floor there and then.
‘It can take some getting used to. Apologies. Now take a look at this.’
Will moved closer. Russell was gesturing towards something in the stomach
area, but Will was transfixed by Pat Baxter’s face. The papers had run
photos, but they were grainy — ‘grabs’ from TV footage
mainly. Now he saw the weathered cheeks, chin, eyes and mouth of a man he would
have identified as middle-aged, poor and white. He had a longish beard that, in
a different context, might have looked elegant, even statesmanlike. (The face
of Charles Darwin popped into Will’s head). But the effect here was to
give Pat Baxter the appearance of a homeless man, one of the winos found
sleeping by trash cans in a park.
Russell was pulling back the sheet around Baxter’s torso.
Will could tell he was trying to conceal one thing, probably the bullet
wounds, and reveal something else. ‘Look closely.
Can you see it?’
Will leaned forward to see Russell’s finger tracing a line on the dead
white flesh. That’s a scar.’
‘In the area of the kidney?’
‘I would say so.’
‘And that can’t be from that night, right? I mean, it takes ages
to form a scar.’
Russell pulled back the sheet, stripped off his latex gloves and headed for
a basin in the corner of the room. He began scrubbing, talking over his shoulder.
He was enjoying this.
‘Well, of course, it’s hard to be certain, what with the severe
trauma to the skin and viscera.’
‘But what’s your professional opinion?’
‘My opinion? That scar is, at the very least, a year old.
Maybe two.’
Will felt his heart sink. ‘So it didn’t happen that night? The killers
didn’t take out Baxter’s kidney?’
‘I’m afraid not, no. You look disappointed, Will. I hope I haven’t
spoiled your story’
But you have, arsehole, was Will’s first thought. All this chasing for
nothing. Then he remembered what Beth had said on the phone last night.
‘There is one last thing that might help. Do you think we could check
Pat Baxter’s medical records?’
Russell gave him a mini-lecture about patient-doctor confidentiality, but
soon relented. Back in his office, he pulled up the file.
‘What are we looking for?’
The date Pat Baxter had his kidney removed.’
Russell paused, scanning the pages. Finally: That’s odd.
There’s no record of a kidney operation.’
Will perked up. He remembered Beth’s briefing on the phone last night.
‘Anything there about a history of kidney problems, any disease, any
references to renal failure, dialysis, anything?’
A longer pause now. And then, with a hint of puzzlement, ‘No.’
Will sensed he and the doctor now had something in common. They were equally
baffled. ‘Does the history speak of any medical problems at all?’
‘Some trouble with his ankle, associated with war damage.
Vietnam, apparently. Apart from that, nothing. I just assumed he was a renal
patient who had to have his kidney out. This certainly appears to be a complete
record. And yet there’s nothing about a kidney. I’ve got to admit,
this has me foxed.’
There was a light knock on the door. A woman, introduced by Russell as the
media relations officer for the crime lab, opened it.
‘Sorry to interrupt, Dr Russell. It’s just we’re getting a
ton of calls on the Baxter case. Apparently, an associate of the deceased
called a talk radio station today saying that he believed Mr Baxter was a
victim of some kind of organ snatching plot?’
Bob Hill
, thought Will. So much for his exclusive.
‘Sure, I’ll be with you in a minute,’ Russell said, his
brow tensing.
Will waited for the door to close to ask what Russell would tell the press. ‘Well,
we can’t give the most simple explanation, that Baxter had a history of
kidney problems. Not now.’
It was Will’s fault: he knew too much. ‘We’ll think of
something.
I’ll show you out.’
Will was pulling out of the driveway when he heard the pounding on his car
window. It was Russell, still in his shirtsleeves and breathless.
‘I just got this call. She wants to talk to you.’ He passed his
cell phone through the window.
‘Mr Monroe? My name is Gene vie we Huntley. I’m a surgeon at the
Swedish Medical Center in Seattle. I saw the reports about Mr Baxter on the
news and Allan has just explained to me what you know. I think we need to talk.’
‘Sure,’ said Will, scrabbling to find his notebook.
‘I’m going to need some assurances from you, Mr Monroe.
I trust The
New York Times
and I hope that trust will be repaid.
What I am about to tell you I vowed never to repeat. I only tell it now
because I fear the alternative is worse. We can’t have people scaring
themselves senseless about some organ snatching ring.’
‘I understand.’
‘I’m not sure you do. I’m not sure any of us do. What I ask
is that you treat what I tell you with honour, dignity and respect. For that is
what it deserves, Mr Monroe. Do I make myself clear?’
‘Yes.’ Will could not imagine what he was about to hear.
‘OK. Mr Baxter’s greatest request was anonymity. That was the
one thing he asked of me in return for what he did.’
Will was silent.
Pat Baxter came to Swedish about two years ago. He had come a long way, we
found out later. When he turned up, the nurses assumed he was an ER case: he
looked like a bum off the streets. But he said he was in perfect health, he
just needed to talk to a doctor in our transplant unit. He said that he wanted
to give up one of his kidneys.
‘We immediately asked who he wanted to give the kidney to. Was there a
sick child involved? Maybe a family member needed a transplant? “No,”
he said. “I just want you to give my kidney to someone who needs it.”
My colleagues immediately assumed that, frankly, there must be some mental health
issues involved. Such nondirected operations are almost unheard of. Certainly
the first one we had ever dealt with.
‘I sent Mr Baxter away. I told him this was something we couldn’t
consider. But he came back and I sent him away again. The third time we had a
long talk. He told me that he wished he had been born rich. That way — I remember
his words — that way, he said, he might have known the pleasure of giving
away vast amounts of money.
He said there were so many people who needed help. I remember, he asked me, “What
does the word philanthropy mean? It means love of your fellow man. Well, why
should only rich people be allowed to love their fellow man? I want to be a
philanthropist, too.” He was determined to find another way to give
— even if that meant giving away his own organs.
‘Eventually I concluded that he was sincere. I ran the tests and there
was no medical objection. We even ran psychological tests and they confirmed he
was of completely sound mind, totally able to make this decision.
‘There was only one condition, imposed by him. He swore us to complete
secrecy, complete confidentiality. The recipient patient was not to know where
his or her new kidney had come from. That was very important. He didn’t
want that person to feel they owed him. And not a word to the press. He
insisted on that. No glory.’