Treadmill (18 page)

“Did you know what she was involved in?” Florio asked.

“She told me that she was trying to convince people that her husband was not killed accidentally.”

Florio nodded.

“Did she give you any details of this speculation?” Florio pressed.

“Yes,” Cooper said guardedly. He was determined to prove his credibility, and carefully edited his response, a difficult balancing act.

“Well, what did she tell you?” Florio asked.

“Only that she had been unable to convince the police that she believed her husband’s death might be other than an accident.”

“Did she ever mention Vice President Riggs Haley?”

“Yes. She told me that her husband worked for him.”

“Anything more?”

“No.”

At that moment, another man stepped into the apartment. He was out of breath and angry.

“I lost him,” the man said, before seeing Cooper.

“No, you didn’t,” Cooper said.

The man pushed back his hat on his head.

“You certainly led me a merry chase,” the man said.

“I hope so,” Cooper countered.

“People who deliberately evade surveillance usually have something to hide,” Agent Morris said. Cooper noted that his eyes were an icy cobalt blue.

“I suppose that’s true,” Cooper said. “I guess my worries about Laura frightened me into thinking someone was after me.”

Cooper looked at the man who had followed him. Up close he did not seem as sinister as he had looked from a distance. Cooper smiled at him.

“Did you feel guilty about something?” Morris asked.

“Isn’t it natural to feel guilty when someone is following you?”

Again the two men exchanged glances. But it was the third man who commented.

“He was good at it,” the third man said.

“Thank you,” Cooper said.

“Have you any idea where Mrs. Chase might be?” Florio asked.

“None. Do you?”

“You heard the message,” Morris said. “She called the Vice President’s office from somewhere.”

“At least that’s what it’s meant to look like,” Cooper said.

“That’s a serious charge,” Florio snapped.

Perhaps he had gone too far. “I’d like to know why she’s being investigated,” he asked aggressively, although he apparently knew the reason. She was, from their point of view, harassing the Vice President, certainly a serious charge.

“We’re not obliged to answer that question,” Florio said. He seemed the more pugnacious of the two. The third man was silent.

“Am I going to remain under surveillance?” Cooper asked.

“Not necessarily,” Florio said. “As long as you are reachable.”

“I’m sure you have my address and telephone number.”

“Yes we do,” Florio said. “And we expect you to call us immediately when you hear from her.”

“If I hear from her,” Cooper said.

His expectations about hearing from Laura had run the gamut from hope to fear. At the moment, he was somewhere in between. A new way of looking at things had clicked into place in his mind.

“A piece of friendly advice, Cooper. Refrain from making any reckless accusations,” Florio said.

Cooper arrived a few minutes early at the Shamrock. The Happy Hour regulars had not yet begun to arrive. Most of the booths were empty, but the waitress had recognized him and seated him in Prentiss’ usual booth. He ordered a beer and waited. Questions spiraled in his brain, and he felt a growing anxiety about Laura. If she were safe, she owed it to him to let him know! She had put him through agony, and he was resentful. Her actions had brought down the wrath of the FBI, a formidable and all-powerful institution.

Prentiss, looking tired, slid into the booth in front of him. She held up two fingers and the waitress nodded.

“The FBI are in it now,” Cooper said.

“I know. They paid me a visit. It seems Mrs. Chase has stirred up a hornet’s nest. And I got stung in the ass. She must be making them crazy.”

“Maybe she’s making us all crazy,” Cooper said, pleasantly surprised that they were both using the present tense.

The waitress came with the double vodka and tonic. Cooper watched as Prentiss quickly downed half the contents.

“I’ve already been called on the carpet so many times by my boss, I’m wearing it out.”

“Will this cost you your job?” Cooper asked.

“Maybe,” Prentiss said. “Especially, if there’s no payoff.”

“Meaning?”

“Now it seems I’m a rogue cop.” She paused for a moment and gave Cooper her most potent laser look. “Why did you doubt that Carlton Stokes is relevant?” she asked, watching his face for a reaction.

The remark took Cooper by surprise, and his expression exposed him.

“I…” he began unconvincingly. “Call it a hunch.”

“Okay, Cooper. Now listen to mine.”

He averted his eyes and finished his beer as he watched her take out a small notebook, turning the pages with her massive chocolate hands.

“He’s a resident at Martin Luther King. You know what specialty he’s bucking for?”

Cooper shook his head. He did not like the direction her statement was taking.

“Anesthesiologist.”

“So?”

“You know what kind of a nurse Anni was.”

“No.”

“Surgical. Highly skilled.”

“I don’t see….”

“There’s more,” Prentiss snapped with military firmness. “Did you know that Congress runs a full time clinic for members of the House and Senate?” She did not wait for an answer. “None of the Vice President’s medical records are in the clinic’s computers. Nor, for that matter, are they anywhere else to be found.”

Cooper started to interrupt.

Prentiss raised her hand. “Don’t ask how I know. The ship of state leaks like a sieve and a good cop knows where the holes are.”

“Makes sense. I imagine that politicians are paranoid about their health records becoming public knowledge.”

“Especially if that person has designs on the Presidency. Like Haley. But this is troubling. The man was in the Senate for fifteen years, and before that in the House,” she said. “No medical records. Nada. No history. Nothing.”

“I’m not surprised,” Cooper said.

“They have been…I believe the word is ‘expunged.’ That’s another actionable crime.”

“Because he has a condition that will hurt his career?” It was a rhetorical question, but Prentiss nodded.

“So goes our theory, Cooper. We have a surgical nurse. We have an anesthesiologist. And let’s just suppose we have a very sick man in need of a…,” she paused and watched Cooper, perhaps searching for a glimmer of understanding. “…something you can’t get so easily these days.”

“Like what?” Cooper asked.

“Like an organ replacement,” Prentiss said. “Things break down, they put in a new kidney, a liver, a heart, even heart and lungs together. Now that’s a trick. Don’t know how they manage that one.”

So it was not AIDS….but something just as serious.

“Items you can’t buy off the shelf,” Prentiss said. “And an organ cannot simply be changed like replacing a light bulb. It requires a skilled surgeon, sensitive machinery, operating rooms, anti-rejection drugs, immune system boosters, blood and tissue samples, the whole nine yards.”

“Are you suggesting that Haley had some sort of a secret surgery?” Cooper asked. “How do you keep something like that a secret?”

“I’m not sure,” Prentiss admitted. “…but it might validate Laura’s theory about her husband.”

“And Anni?”

“Murdered because she knew the same thing Laura’s husband knew. She was probably at the party passing out surgical instruments. Raped to make it look like an unrelated crime.” Prentiss’ explanation confirmed Cooper’s earlier suspicion about Anni’s death.

“But that couldn’t eliminate all witnesses. The surgeon. Other people must have been needed to do the job. A team maybe.”

“Dale Chase might have balked at what was going down. Maybe Anni was having second thoughts as well.”

“Why do you think?” Cooper asked.

“Maybe. Or maybe they just wanted something tangible to keep their mouths shut real tight. The acquisition of lucre, they say, can be stronger than the sex drive.”

“Are you suggesting that somehow Kent Henderson is…well…there’s no other way to put it…a murderer?”

“Not the trigger man, but certainly a conspirator,” Prentiss said, lowering her voice.

Cooper could see her intelligence at work. So far, he was churning clumsily behind her, trying to catch up with her logic.

“The donor,” she said, after a long pause. “There is no organ in the national registry that is not accounted for in this area,” she said. She shot him a glance. “Do you have any idea what that means?”

“If, in fact, Haley got his transplant, of whatever organ, how did he get it and from whom?” Cooper added on cue.

“Somebody could have donated a kidney…” Prentiss said. “…And survived.”

He remembered a documentary film showing poor people in third world counties donating one of their kidneys for money.

“On the other hand,” Prentiss said. “Somebody could have donated somebody else’s liver or heart or lungs. Get my drift?”

“You mean against their will,” Cooper said, deliberately coy.

“It does make a juicy little motive,” Prentiss said. “We expect this to be a crime with a growing potential, especially if you place a big number on various hard to get body parts. After all, from a hit man’s point of view, this organ replacement thing represents some serious value added. Why throw away something that is as good as gold, in fact, better? How much, Cooper, would you pay to extend your life?”

“My life?” he murmured.

“However worthless you may think it is,” Prentiss laughed.

Cooper considered the worth of his life. All right, he had put himself on hold. But there was promise in the wind, he told himself, despite present complications. Susan had restored desire and engendered hope. That was no small thing.

No price is too high
, he decided.

“I know it’s morbid,” Prentiss said. “But morbidity is my business. If you think in those terms, it changes the way you look at life. A person who believes he has more to live for, maybe more to contribute than someone else, that person may truly believe that his decision is high minded, as if his right to life existed on a higher moral plane.”

“By taking it from someone he decides is less worthy than himself,” Cooper added.

“Exactly. One could go a long way with that rationalization,” Prentiss said. The idea disgusted her.

“This subject can drive you to drink,” she said, blowing out a deep breath and signaling for the waitress to bring another drink.

“You?” she asked.

“I’ll take one like yours.”

“So the heart of my theory is that the Vice President got a transplant from an unwilling donor. Call that theft, not homicide. I’ve checked every conceivable place within hailing distance for a murder victim of any gender, about thirty-five or under, the ideal transplant age, with a missing heart or liver.” She shook her head. “No luck. Plenty of bodies strewn about but no apparent missing hearts or livers. The fact is, Cooper, that my search might have been a waste of time, considering that this surgical team is also undoubtedly an expert in dismemberment. No body, no evidence. No evidence, no case.”

“You seem to have talked yourself out of your own theory,” Cooper remarked.

“Not out of the theory. Only out of the possibility of finding the donor in one piece.”

As he saw it, the main issue was still finding Laura.
In one piece
, he thought suddenly. The idea chilled him.

“You have to have an athletic skill for deduction in this business,” Prentiss sighed. She leveled a hard, penetrating look directly into his eyes. “Frankly, I was looking for the remains of Mike Parrish.”

Cooper’s throat constricted. Subliminally, he had probably been waiting for Parrish’s name to surface. A man with no past, no records, no identity would make the ideal candidate for such an operation.

“Isn’t his sudden absence what brought us together at this point in time?” Prentiss said with elaborate sarcasm. “Put that together with Laura’s suspicion that whatever dark deeds happening are centered around this ill-begotten club to which you all belong. Corazon worked out there and shows up at the Vice President’s house, Corazon the surgical nurse whose corpse is found wearing Parrish’s blank dog tag. Now there’s circumstantial evidence to make a prosecutor’s mouth water. Blake was the VP’s trainer. Kessler, a recent arrival, and the mysterious Dr. Dietrich.” She shook her head and once again smiled. “And Blake. He’s quite a character. He’s got a very long and descriptive rap sheet. Molestation of a minor, and attempted rape. Served three years.”

Cooper was astonished.

“And now our Laura, another member, nowhere to be found.”

The waitress came with their drinks. The Shamrock had gotten crowded, and the Happy Hour buzz filled the room.

“I love these crazy Irish bastards,” Prentiss said, surveying the room.

She held up her glass. Cooper did the same. They clinked.

“To the unhealthiest health club in the U.S. of A.”

Cooper drank deeply.
Blake, a child molester and a rapist?
He couldn’t get it out of his mind.

“Oh yes, and that other fellow Melnechuck? Who do you think was Blake’s roomie in the can? An armed robber, that one.”

Cooper nearly choked on his drink. Tears rolled down his cheeks as he caught his breath and spat back liquid into his glass.

“Easy Cooper. We can’t have another casualty who is a member of that club.”

“Parrish is in California,” Cooper blurted, recovering.

“So you say. But you haven’t given me the source.”

“No, I haven’t,” Cooper said evasively. “That’s one I have to check out.”

“I’ll await the verdict, Cooper,” Prentiss said, obviously not happy with his decision to keep the source hidden. “You believe it? About Parrish being all healthy in California?”

Nothing
, he decided,
must shake Susan Haber’s credibility
, especially now that he had invested in her trust, despite the misunderstanding about Dr. Kramer’s vacation plans. He had no reason to doubt that Susan could adequately explain this. As for Carlton Stokes, Cooper was certain that that, too, would be accounted for, regardless of Prentiss’ theory.

“The stolen baby,” Cooper said.

“And, therefore, a perfect victim,” Prentiss said with a finality.