where Eric had been taken and booked for breaking and entering, plus malicious mischief It was 3:30 A.M. With Officer Carney keeping watch, a nurse was bandaging the lacerations on Eric's wrists, two of which had required suturing.
The bleary-eyed physician on duty was a moonlighter, a senior surgical resident from Worcester named Jennifer Farrell. Trying mentally to place himself in her Position, Eric had dropped a few names from her training program, and then cautiously and calmly recounted the events of the evening, using enough jargon to convince her that he was, in fact, a physician. Finally he showed her the envelope of powder and begged her to contact White Memorial for verification of his identity, and to get the home phone number of Dr. Ivor Blunt.
The nurse had just finished her work when Sergeant Clarkson and Jennifer Farrell reentered the room.
'apparently you are who you say you are,' Clarkson said.
'That's a relief 'Tell us again what you want us to do now.'
'Well, first of all I want someone to get over to AUston and see if they can find Anna Delacroix.'
'That's already being done. We called the Metropolitan Police from the station.'
'Thank you. Now I'd like to call Dr. Blunt and have him meet us at White Memorial.'
'Who is he again?'
'He's a toxicologist, and probably the only one in the city who has the equipment and know-how to identify this poison.'
'Do you agree with that, Doc?' Clarkson asked the resident.
Dr. Farrell shrugged. 'I know of Dr. Blunt,' she said. 'And I know that we can't do a thing with this powder here.'
'How does our friend here seem to you right now?'
Jennifer FarreR rechecked Eric's eyes, heart, lungs, and blood pressure.
'No problem,' she said. 'Dr. Najarian, are you sure you don't want me to sew that lip of yours?'
'I'm sure,' Eric said, unable to keep impatience from his voice.
'Okay,' Clarkson said after some thought. 'Dr. Farrell, do you have a phone with a second extension?'
She nodded. 'Dr. Najarian, I'm going to listen while you talk to this Dr. Blunt. If it sounds on the up-and up, I'll drive you in to White Memorial. Just remember, you're still under arrest. Any crazy stuff and you'll be back on the floor.'
'I understand.'
Ivor Blunt was outraged at the early hour.
Eric quickly found himself squirming in his seat as the crusty toxicologist questioned his every statement.
'Let me get this straight,' Blunt said. 'You want me to get up, shlep into the hospital, Turn on my equipment, and analyze some dust that was put on your cheek during a voodoo ceremony in downtown Auston?' i(Correci.
']X. Najm, are you crazy?'
'What I am is poisoned, Dr. Blunt,' Eric said evenly. 'Please, you've got to help me.'
'Doctor, try to see it my way. You come into my office asking if I can analyze a woman's blood for this toxin that's never been found in Massachusetts. Then, not twenty-four hours later, you're calling me from some podunk hospital, claiming to have been poisoned with the stuff.'
'That's right, sir.'
'You sick now?'
'N'of yet, no.'
'If these men wanted you dead. why didn't they just put a bullet between your eyes?' be 'I lieve they wanted to' make a point to the people they've been terrorizing, Eric said.
'errorizink with tetrodotoxin.'
'That's right.' There was a prolonged silence, during which Eric rattled off what prayers he knew.
'I think you're crazy,' Ivor Blunt said finally, 'but since you've already got me wide awake, and since I'll never get back to sleep over my wife's snoring, I'm going to do what you want.'
'Thank you,' Eric sighed. 'Thank you, sir. We can be at your lab in forty-five minutes.'
'Take your time. Bring me your powder and four red-top and one green-top tubes of blood.'
'I'll have them drawn here.'
'Fine. Do you have a personal psychiatrist on the staff?'
'No. No, I don't.'
'That's too bad,' Ivor Blunt said. don't like this, Bernard,' Laura said, listening as Eric's apartment phone rang a ninth, then a tenth time. 'I don't like this at all.'
For nearly three hours they had sat in Bernard Nelson's office, drinking coffee, sorting through the material they had brought with them from the Gates of Heaven, and trying to locate Eric. There was a message from him at the Carlisle which had come in some time around ten, but since then, nothing. Five calls to his apartment and one to the hospital had gotten them nowhere.
The nervous energy generated by their break-in at the funeral home and their grisly discoveries was wearing off, and Laura was beginning to feel desperate for some sleep. Bernard Nelson was bearing up even less well, and had already taken a prolonged nap on his couch. They had decided, at least for the night, that she should steer clear of her hotel. If someone had tried to run her down, there was good reason to avoid anyplace she might be expected to be.
Their escape through a back door of the mortuary had seemed unnoticed.
But still, Bernard had driven around for nearly an hour, making absolutely certain no one was following them. Finally they parked in the alley behind his building and entered through the basement. Only when they were in his office with the curtains drawn did they begin to examine what they had gathered from Donald Devine's safe.
Before they did, however, Bernard placed a brief, anonymous call to the Boston police, suggesting that someone stop by the Gates of Heaven.
'Where could he be?' Laura asked, concern shadowing her face as she set the receiver down.
'Where did you say his parents lived?'
'Watertown.'
'Maybe he went home and stayed over.'
'Why wouldn't he have left the number at my hotel, or at least have called back?'
'I don't know, Laura.' Nelson rubbed at his eyes.
'Listen, I hope you don't misunderstand what I'm about to say. I know you think a great deal of Eric.
And I suspect from what you've told me that those feelings are not misplaced. -But people are not always what they seem to be. You haven't known him that long. There are any number of things he could be into that he hasn't let you in on.'
'Maybe.' Laura thought for a moment and then added, 'But I don't think so. I think we should go over to his apartment.'
Bernard Nelson massaged the back of his neck and once again stretched out on the couch.
'Laura, a couple of days ago in East Boston, some heavies nearly tore the two of you apart. Yesterday afternoon someone probably tried to kill you. There's every reason to believe that whoever they are, they're watching his place as well as yours. If they've already got him, the best thing we could do is wait until they contact us. It's you, and your brother's tape, they're after, not him. If they haven't got him, well, then the best thing we can do is wait anyhow.' He forced a smile. 'Besides, one break-in a night is my limit.'
'I have a key.'
Bernard looked up at her and softened.
'Are you sure his phone's working?'
'The operator says it is.'
'Well, I still think we're better off getting a couple of hours sleep and at least waiting until it's light. It's just too dangerous, really it is. Trust me on that.'
'I'm very worried about him.'
'I know you are. Listen, the couch in my waiting room's a fold-out.
Give me just a couple of hours.'
'Oh, okay. What about all of this?' she asked, gesturing to the piles of notes, receipts, and ledgers.
'Laura, our late friend generated and squirreled away more paperwork than the Department of Defense. If we
