Harvest

HARVEST

lounge, his scrub top soaked with sweat. He gave a grunt of exhaustion and sank into one of the easy chairs. Leaning back, he closed his eyes.

Softly Abby said to Tarasoff: 'We need you to look up the residency file on Tim Nicholls: Find out what you can about him. Tell us if he really did train here. Or if his CV's a complete fabrication.'

'I'll just call him myself. Put the questions to him directly.'

'No, don't. We're not sure yet how far this reaches.'

'Dr. DiMatteo, I believe in being blunt. If there's a shadow organ procurement network out there, I want to know about it.'

'So do we. But we have to be very careful, Dr. Tarasoft.' Abby glanced uneasily at the dozing surgeon in the chair. She lowered her voice to a whisper. 'In the last six years, three Bayside doctors have died. Two suicides and an accident. All of them were on our transplant team.'

She saw, from the look of shock on his face, that her warning had had its intended effect. 'You're trying to scare me,' he said. 'Aren't you?'

Abby nodded. 'You should be scared. We all should.'

Outside, in the parking lot, Abby and Vivian stood together under a grey, drizzling sky. They had arrived in their separate cars, and now it was time to go their own ways. The days were growing so short now; only five o' clock, and already the light was fading. Shivering, Abby pulled her slicker tighter and glanced around the lot. No maroon vans.

'We don't have enough,' said Vivian. 'We can't force an investigation yet. And if we tried, Victor Voss could just cover his tracks.'

'NinaVoss wasn't the first one. I think Bayside's done this before. Aaron died with three million dollars in his account. He must have been getting payoffs for some time.'

'You think he got second thoughts?'

'I know he was trying to get out of Bayside. Out of Boston. Maybe they wouldn't let him go.'

'That could be what happened to Kunstler and Hennessy.' Abby released a deep breath. Again she glanced around the lot, searching for the van. 'I'm afraid that's exactly what happened to them.'

'We need other names, other transplants. Or more donor information.'

'All the information about donors is locked up in the transplant coordinator's office. I'd have to break in and steal it. If it's even there. Remember how they misplaced the donor papers on Nina Voss?'

'OK, so we go at it from the recipient side.'

'Medical Records?'

Vivian nodded. 'Let's find out the names of who got transplanted.

And where they were on the waiting list when it happened.'

'We'll need NEOB's help.'

'Right. But first we need names and dates.'

Abby nodded. 'I can do that.'

'I'd help you out, but Bayside won't let me in their doors any more. They think I'm their worst nightmare.'

'You and me both.'

Vivian grinned, as if it was something to be proud of. She seemed small, almost childlike in her oversize raincoat. Such a fragile-looking ally. But while her size didn't inspire much confidence, her gaze did. It was direct and uncompromising. And it saw too much.

'OK, Abby,' sighed Vivian. 'Now tell me about Mark. And why we're keeping this from him.'

Abby released a deep breath. The answer spilled out in a rush of anguish. 'I think he's part of it.'

'Mark?'

Abby nodded. And looked up at the drizzling sky. 'He wants out of Bayside. He's been talking about sailing away. Escape. Just like Aaron did before he died.'

'You think Mark's been taking payoffs?'

'A few days ago, he bought a boat. I don't mean just a boat. A yacht.'

'He's always been crazy about boats.'

'This one cost half a million dollars.' Vivian said nothing.

'Here's the worst part,' whispered Abby. 'He paid in cash.'

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

The medical records file room was in the hospital basement, just down the hall from Pathology and the morgue. It was a department well known to every physician at Bayside. This was where doctors signed off on charts, dictated discharge summaries, and initialled lab reports and verbal orders. The room was furnished with comfortable chairs and tables, and to accommodate the often erratic work hours of its physicians, the department stayed open until 9 p.m. every night.

It was six that evening when Abby walked into medical records. As she'd expected, the room was nearly deserted for the dinner hour. The only other physician was a haggard-looking intern, his desk piled high with delinquent charts.

Heart pounding, Abby approached the clerk's desk and smiled. 'I'm compiling statistics for Dr. Wettig. He's doing a study on heart transplant morbidity. Could you pull up a list on your computer? The names and record numbers of all heart transplants done here in the last two years.'

'For a records search like that, we need a request form from the department.'

'They've all gone home by now. Could I get that form to you some other time? I'd like to have this ready for him by the morning. You know how the General is.'

The clerk laughed. Yes, she knew exactly how the General was. She sat down at her keyboard and called up the Search screen. Under Diagnosis, she typed in: Cardiac Transplant, then the years to be searched. She hit the Enter button.

One by one, a list of names and record numbers began to appear. Abby watched, mesmerized by what she saw scrolling down the screen. The clerk hit Print. Seconds later, the list rolled out of the printer. She handed the page to Abby.

There were twenty-nine names on the list. The last one was Nina Voss. 'Could I have the first ten charts?' Abby asked. 'I might as well start working on this tonight.'

The clerk vanished into the file room. A moment later she re-emerged hugging a bulky armful of files. 'These are only the first two. I'll get you the rest.'

Abby lugged the charts to a desk. They landed with a heavy thud. Every heart transplant patient generated reams and reams of documentation, and these two were no different. She opened the first folder to the patient information sheet.

The name was Gerald Luray, age fifty-four. Source of payment was private insurance. Home address was in Worcester, Massachusetts. She didn't know how relevant any of this information was, so she copied it all down onto a yellow legal pad. She also copied the date and time of transplant and the names of the doctors in attendance. She recognized all the names: Aaron Levi, Bill Archer, Frank Zwick, Rajiv Mohandas. And Mark. As expected, there was no donor information anywhere on the chart. That was always kept separate from recipient records. However, among the nurses' notes, she found written:

'0830 — Harvest reported complete. Donor heart now enroute from Norwalk, Connecticut. Patient wheeled to OR for prep…' Abby wrote: 0830. Harvest in Norwalk, Conn.

The records clerk wheeled a cart to Abby's desk, deposited five more charts, and went back for more.

Abby worked straight through the supper hour. She didn't stop to eat, didn't allow herself even a break, except to call Mark to tell him she'd be home late.

By closing time, she was starving.

She stopped at a McDonald's on the way home and ordered a Big Mac and giant fries and a vanilla