look like an accident. They’ll pay twenty grand, but they want it done within a week.”
Sara shook her head. “Accidents take time to happen. I’ll need a minimum of two weeks.”
“There’s a five-thousand-dollar bonus if it’s done within seven days.”
“Do you want it done right or not?”
David thought for a moment and then reached for Sara’s empty glass. “Okay. Take your time. But remember: it’s high-profile, and the cops will be all over it.”
Sara walked away, thinking about the next hit. A doctor. High-profile.
Do your homework
, she reminded herself.
Do it very carefully
.
6
Lori McKay looked down at the face of Oliver Rhodes and studied it. Even in death he appeared aristocratic, with his chiseled features and aquiline nose. And he had so much wealth and power to go along with it. But that was all gone. Oliver Rhodes was just another lifeless body now. He had died slumped over a steering wheel, like her own father had twenty years ago. Lori could barely remember her daddy’s voice and touch. It all seemed so long ago.
“Oh-oh!” Joanna said, holding up the lungs she had just resected from Oliver Rhodes’s chest. “Was he a smoker?”
“An ex-smoker,” Lori said, and moved in for a closer look. There was a white nodule on the superior aspect of the left lower lobe. It was firm and fixed with scattered hemorrhages on the periphery.
“What do you think?” Joanna asked.
“I’ll bet it’s malignant.”
“And he was an ex-smoker, huh?”
“That’s what his records say.”
Joanna reexamined the nodule. It was almost certainly a tumor, but there were other possibilities such as a walled-off abscess or foreign body. “Briefly review his medical history for me, would you?”
Lori walked over to a side table and picked up a large file card. “Mr. Rhodes was in perfect health until he had a myocardial infarction two years ago. His angiogram showed so many blocked vessels that bypass surgery was not possible. He suffered from chronic, progressive angina and had trouble walking across the room. A year ago he underwent an experimental coronary artery-cleansing procedure. Do you want details on that?”
“Please,” Joanna said, examining the other lobes of the lungs and the pleural membrane that covered them. There were no additional lesions.
Lori went to a second index card. “The cleansing procedure is done by running a catheter from the femoral artery up to the left main coronary. The big blockages are removed by a tiny laser that acts like a Roto-Rooter. Any debris is sucked out with a vacuum. Then they squirt in a lipolytic enzyme that cleans fatty deposits off the walls of the arteries. The results were spectacular. Within a few months he could jog and play tennis on a daily basis.”
“Did he have any fever or infections from these procedures?” Joanna asked. “Did he have anything that resembled pneumonia?”
“Nope.”
“Were there any episodes of loss of consciousness when he could have aspirated a foreign object?”
Lori shook her head.
“And he never worked around asbestos or anything else that would enhance an ex-smoker’s chances of developing lung cancer?”
“There’s nothing like that in his records.”
Joanna exhaled wearily, trying to think and put the pathologic clues together. But she’d been on her feet for over fourteen hours, and the effect of it was starting to show. “See if you can find somebody to do a frozen section on this pulmonary nodule.”
“You want it done
now
?”
“Now.”
Lori walked over to a wall phone and began punching in numbers.
Joanna moved around on her feet and tried to get the circulation going. Her fatigue seemed to be increasing by the minute. She had to resist the urge to go directly to the heart, where all the answers lay. With effort she forced herself to examine the lungs once more.
The door to the special autopsy room opened, and Simon Murdock hurried in.
“Have we got anything yet?” he
Sara shook her head. “Accidents take time to happen. I’ll need a minimum of two weeks.”
“There’s a five-thousand-dollar bonus if it’s done within seven days.”
“Do you want it done right or not?”
David thought for a moment and then reached for Sara’s empty glass. “Okay. Take your time. But remember: it’s high-profile, and the cops will be all over it.”
Sara walked away, thinking about the next hit. A doctor. High-profile.
Do your homework
, she reminded herself.
Do it very carefully
.
6
Lori McKay looked down at the face of Oliver Rhodes and studied it. Even in death he appeared aristocratic, with his chiseled features and aquiline nose. And he had so much wealth and power to go along with it. But that was all gone. Oliver Rhodes was just another lifeless body now. He had died slumped over a steering wheel, like her own father had twenty years ago. Lori could barely remember her daddy’s voice and touch. It all seemed so long ago.
“Oh-oh!” Joanna said, holding up the lungs she had just resected from Oliver Rhodes’s chest. “Was he a smoker?”
“An ex-smoker,” Lori said, and moved in for a closer look. There was a white nodule on the superior aspect of the left lower lobe. It was firm and fixed with scattered hemorrhages on the periphery.
“What do you think?” Joanna asked.
“I’ll bet it’s malignant.”
“And he was an ex-smoker, huh?”
“That’s what his records say.”
Joanna reexamined the nodule. It was almost certainly a tumor, but there were other possibilities such as a walled-off abscess or foreign body. “Briefly review his medical history for me, would you?”
Lori walked over to a side table and picked up a large file card. “Mr. Rhodes was in perfect health until he had a myocardial infarction two years ago. His angiogram showed so many blocked vessels that bypass surgery was not possible. He suffered from chronic, progressive angina and had trouble walking across the room. A year ago he underwent an experimental coronary artery-cleansing procedure. Do you want details on that?”
“Please,” Joanna said, examining the other lobes of the lungs and the pleural membrane that covered them. There were no additional lesions.
Lori went to a second index card. “The cleansing procedure is done by running a catheter from the femoral artery up to the left main coronary. The big blockages are removed by a tiny laser that acts like a Roto-Rooter. Any debris is sucked out with a vacuum. Then they squirt in a lipolytic enzyme that cleans fatty deposits off the walls of the arteries. The results were spectacular. Within a few months he could jog and play tennis on a daily basis.”
“Did he have any fever or infections from these procedures?” Joanna asked. “Did he have anything that resembled pneumonia?”
“Nope.”
“Were there any episodes of loss of consciousness when he could have aspirated a foreign object?”
Lori shook her head.
“And he never worked around asbestos or anything else that would enhance an ex-smoker’s chances of developing lung cancer?”
“There’s nothing like that in his records.”
Joanna exhaled wearily, trying to think and put the pathologic clues together. But she’d been on her feet for over fourteen hours, and the effect of it was starting to show. “See if you can find somebody to do a frozen section on this pulmonary nodule.”
“You want it done
now
?”
“Now.”
Lori walked over to a wall phone and began punching in numbers.
Joanna moved around on her feet and tried to get the circulation going. Her fatigue seemed to be increasing by the minute. She had to resist the urge to go directly to the heart, where all the answers lay. With effort she forced herself to examine the lungs once more.
The door to the special autopsy room opened, and Simon Murdock hurried in.
“Have we got anything yet?” he
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