Blindsight

Lou handed Laurie his gun while he used the cellular phone to call 911. He identified himself to the 911 operator and gave the address. When he was finished, he took back his gun.

“Who is this Vinnie character?” Laurie asked.

“He’s Cerino’s main rival,” Lou said. “He must have found out what Cerino was up to and this is his way of turning him in. Very effective, I’d say, with us here as witnesses. It’s also a clever way to get rid of his competition.”

“You mean Vinnie knew Cerino was behind all these overdoses?” Laurie asked. She was stunned.

“What are you talking about? Vinnie must have figured out that Cerino was killing off patients ahead of him on Jordan Scheffield’s corneal-transplant waiting list.”

“Oh, my God!” Laurie exclaimed.

“What now?” Lou asked. After the night he’d been having, he wasn’t ready for much more.

“It’s twice as bad as I thought it was,” Laurie said. “The drug overdoses were really homicides to get eyes. Cerino was having people killed who’d signed up with the Manhattan Organ Repository for organ donation.”

Lou glanced at Cerino. “He’s more of a sociopath than I could ever have imagined. My God, he was working both sides of the problem: supply and demand.”

Cerino lifted his head from his hands. “What was I supposed to do? Wait like everybody else? I couldn’t afford to wait. In my business, every day I couldn’t see, I risked death. Is it my fault the hospitals don’t have enough corneas?”

Laurie tapped Lou on the shoulder. He turned to face her.

“There’s a strange irony to this whole affair,” Laurie said, shaking her head. “We argued with one another about whose series was more socially relevant and therefore more important, your gangland-style murders or my upscale overdoses, only to learn that they were intimately connected. They were just two sides of the same horrid affair.”

“You can’t prove a thing,” Cerino growled.

“Oh, really?” Laurie said.

Epilogue

January

10:15 a.m., Wednesday

Manhattan

Lou Soldano stamped the wet snow off his feet and walked into the morgue. He smiled at the man in the security office, who didn’t challenge him, and went directly to the locker room. Quickly he changed into green scrubs.

Pausing outside the main autopsy room doors, he donned a mask, then pushed through. His eyes traveled from one end to the other, inspecting the people at each table. Finally his eyes spotted a familiar figure that even the bulky gown, apron, and hood could not hide.

Walking over to the table, he looked down. Laurie was up to her elbows in a huge corpse. For the moment, she was by herself.

“I didn’t know you did whales here,” Lou said.

Laurie looked up. “Hi, Lou,” she said cheerfully. “Would you mind scratching my nose?” She twisted away from the table and closed her eyes as Lou complied. “A little lower,” she said. “Ahhh. That’s it.” She opened her eyes. “Thanks.” She went back to her work.

“Interesting case?” Lou asked.

“Very interesting,” Laurie said. “It was supposed to be a suicide, but I’m beginning to think it belongs in your department.”

Lou watched for a few minutes and shuddered. “I don’t think I’ll ever get accustomed to your work.”

“At least I’m working,” Laurie said.

“That’s true,” Lou said. “Yet you shouldn’t have been fired in the first place. Luckily things have a way of working out for the best.”

Laurie glanced up. “I don’t think the families of the victims feel that way.”

“That’s true,” Lou admitted. “I just meant in relation to your job.”

“Bingham ultimately was gracious about it,” Laurie said. “Not only did he give me my job back, he also admitted I had been right. Well, partly right. I was wrong about the idea of a contaminant.”

“Well, you were right about the important part,” Lou said. “They weren’t accidental, they were homicidal. And your contribution didn’t end there. In fact that’s why I stopped by. We just got an airtight indictment against Cerino.”

Laurie straightened up. “Congratulations!” she said.

“Hey, it wasn’t my doing,” Lou said. “You get the credit. First you were able to match that skin sample under Julia Myerholtz’s fingernail with Tony Ruggerio’s remains. That was critical. Next you exhumed a number of bodies until you made a match with Kendall Fletcher’s teeth on Angelo Facciolo’s forearm.”

“Any forensic pathologist could have done it,” Laurie said.

“I’m not so sure,” Lou said. “Anyway, faced with such incontrovertible evidence, Angelo plea-bargained and implicated Cerino. That was what we needed. It’s downhill from here.”

“You did pretty well yourself,” Laurie said. “You got the Kaufmans’ maid to pick Angelo out of a lineup and Tony out of mug shots.”

“That wouldn’t have been strong enough for an indictment,” Lou said. “Or, even if I’d gotten an indictment, I wouldn’t have gotten a conviction. Certainly not of Cerino. But anyway it’s over.”