Ramesh picked up his phone. He was not looking forward to talking with Shashank Malhotra. Despite what he said to Naresh, Ramesh knew that he was ultimately responsible for Dhaval Narang’s demise. As Naresh said, he should have been informed.
“I hope you are calling me up to thank me for solving your problem,” Shashank said when he came on the line. His tone was neutral. It wasn’t as cheerful as it had been the day before, nor as menacing.
“I’m afraid not. I’m afraid there’s an additional problem and an extension of the old one.”
“What?” Shashank demanded.
“First, Miss Hernandez has talked the spouse of the third patient into wanting an autopsy. And second, Dhaval Narang was shot and killed this morning in the Old Delhi bazaar.”
“You’re not serious?”
“Did you send him to talk to the Hernandez woman, to get her to leave India?” Naresh asked.
“He’s truly dead?” Shashank questioned, with anger and disbelief.
“I have it from a good source.”
“How could this have happened? He was a professional. He was no amateur.”
“People make mistakes.”
“Not Dhaval,” Shashank growled. “He was the best. Listen, I want this woman taken care of.”
“We feel similarly, but she’s now been alerted that someone wants her dead. I think we better handle this problem from this end.”
“You’d better!” Shashank groused. “I don’t want you to have to start looking over your shoulder to and from work.” With that said, he hung up.
Ramesh dropped the phone back into its cradle. He looked up at Naresh, who’d finished his call as well.
“Nothing yet,” Naresh said. “But they’ve barely begun the investigation. It’s not going to be easy. There are lots of private academic doctors who have admitting privileges at other nonacademic private hospitals, and most have admitting privileges at more than one. It’s more for convenience’s sake for the patients in terms of location, and they apparently don’t admit that many, as they are not supposed to have private patients.”
“Your people are going to continue to work on it, I presume?”
“Very much so. What do you want me to do?”
“Keep tabs on the Hernandez woman. Supposedly, a friend is coming tonight who is a forensic pathologist. Remember, there are to be no autopsies. Luckily, in this situation, we have the law on our side.”
Chapter 28
OCTOBER 18, 2007
THURSDAY, 4:32 P.M.
NEW DELHI, INDIA
Cal had his legs crossed and his feet on the corner of the library table. Santana had gotten him a bunch of articles about medical tourism that had been springing up in the U.S. newspapers. They had all picked up on the three CNN segments about the New Delhi deaths, and on the three networks’ evening news broadcasts. People were eating it up. Cal’s favorites were those laced with personal stories of people canceling scheduled trips, mostly to India but also to Thailand.
With everything suddenly going so well, Cal should have been ecstatic, but he wasn’t. Like a toothache, the issue involving the Hernandez woman had been bothering him all day. Early that morning, he’d called back the anesthesiologist and the pathologist, and again had gone over the hypothetical scenario involving succinylcholine. If the two doctors had been at all suspicious, they didn’t show it in the slightest, and in certain respects competed with each other in making certain the diabolical scheme was foolproof.
When he had hung up from the conference call, he’d felt reassured. Unfortunately, it hadn’t lasted, and the issue had slowly wormed its way back into his consciousness. What could it have been that the pesky medical student had come across that had initiated her suspicions? Even after the Hernandez woman’s departure, there were bound to be others who’d be just as curious and stumble on the same mysterious and potentially fatal flaw.
“Hey, man!” Durell called out from the library doorway.
Cal waved. “What’s up?”
“You want to come out and take a look at the organization’s new ride?”
“Why not,” he said. He let his feet fall to the floor with a plop and stood up.
The front door to the mansion then slammed shut.
“Can we hold off just for a few minutes?” Cal asked. “If that’s Veena and Samira, I’d like to get a debriefing. I’ve been worrying over that Hernandez chick all day, ever since you rightly said we should find out what made her suspicious. I imagine it has something to do with her being a medical student, but I cannot for the life of me figure out what it could be. I even called the two doctors we’ve originally consulted in Charlotte, North Carolina. As far as I can figure out, we’ve thought of everything.”
“I’m for finding out,” Durell admitted. “Otherwise, it’s going to be a constant worry, you know what I’m saying?”
“I know what you’re saying,” Cal agreed, as Veena, Samira, and Raj came into the library. They were in a good mood, singing a song they all knew from childhood. Samira broke off and went up to Durell for a hug and a real kiss. Veena went to Cal but availed herself of only a French-style peck on each cheek.
Raj literally threw himself laughing onto the couch as he finished the last refrain of the childhood ditty.
“You guys are happy,” Cal commented, with the suggestion he wasn’t.
“It was an easy day for all of us,” Veena said. “Raj was the only one assigned a patient, and he was just a hernia repair. Samira and I had to look for things to do.”
“How come?”
Veena and Samira looked at each other. “We’re not sure. Maybe a few cancellations. Maybe Nurses International is doing too good a job.” They laughed.
“Wouldn’t that be ironic,” Cal said. “Anyway, what’s the status with the Hernandez woman? Any feedback today?”
“I was free around two-thirty,” Veena said, “so I went down to talk to the case manager. I asked her about Maria Hernandez’s body and whether it had been taken care of. She cackled mockingly and said, ‘Of course not.’ Apparently, they had gone to the extent of offering to have the body taken to Varanasi to have it cremated on the banks of the Ganges, but the granddaughter turned it down, so they are completely frustrated. Tomorrow the medical examiner friend is coming to the hospital, which shouldn’t make the slightest difference because they absolutely refuse to do an autopsy. But there’s clear sailing in sight. The case manager told me they are getting a writ tomorrow from a magistrate to remove and cremate the body. So it should be over tomorrow sometime.”
“Same for Benfatti,” Samira said.
“Same for David Lucas,” Raj said. “The magistrate writ is to cover all three bodies.”
“You all haven’t been inquiring about your bodies, have you?” Cal asked, with mild alarm.
“Yes, we have,” Samira said. “Is that a problem? We will all feel better when the bodies are gone.”
“Please, no more! Don’t call any attention to yourselves by asking specifically about the bodies.”
All three shrugged. “We didn’t think we were causing undue attention,” Samira said. “The situation is general hospital gossip. It’s not as if we are the only ones talking about it.”
“Do me a favor and don’t participate,” Cal said.
“My patient’s death certificate was signed today,” Raj said. “But still the wife wants an autopsy on the advice of Jennifer Hernandez.”
“What was the official cause of death?” Cal asked.
“Heart attack,” Raj said. “Heart attack with emboli and stroke.”
