Dead Certain

Lapinsky kept repeating the same story over and over again until she became quite agitated. She claims that immediately before she went into respiratory arrest, she saw the devil come into her room, a monster with a big eye, who put something into her IV.”
    “Who put something into her IV?” I echoed.
    “That’s all she said,” replied Dr. Cho. “The neurologist seemed to think the whole thing was a hallucination resulting from grand mal seizure. Still,” continued the doctor earnestly, “if I were really interested in what was going on, I’d want to interview the only survivor.”
     
    Before I left, I called Elliott’s office. He was out, but I asked to be connected to the lead investigator on HCC. I gave him the address and phone number listed in Mrs. Lapinsky’s chart, and he promised to do his best to locate her immediately.
    Driving back to the office, I tried to put the pieces together. The only trouble was that I didn’t know whether they were to one puzzle or two. What Elliott had reported proved beyond any doubt that Gavin McDermott knew all about causing respiratory arrest in patients using paralyzing anesthesia drugs. But what possible reason could he have for killing his own patients? He gained nothing from their deaths, and indeed, the cumulative result had been a slipping of his reputation and whispering among his peers. I remembered what Julia Gordon had said about these cases usually being the work of deranged individuals. Surely Gavin McDermott wouldn’t be the first surgeon to slip off the edge. Perhaps the deaths were part of a systematic effort on his part to free up beds for more critically ill patients? But in the past when Gavin had gotten into trouble, it had been with alcohol. If he were going through some kind of personal crisis, you’d expect him to start drinking, not become psychotic.
    And where did Claudia fit into all of this? Was it possible that Carlos was Prescott Memorial’s angel of death? It certainly made sense. Not only was he in and out of the hospital with access to all kinds of drugs, but usually it was first-line caregivers—nurses and paramedics— whose burnout manifested itself in homicide. I wondered if perhaps he had some sort of grudge against McDermott, and made a mental note to mention it to Blades.
    When I got back to the office, I found a note from Cheryl saying that she’d gone to the police station to pick up Claudia’s father, as well as a message to call Julia Gordon at the medical examiner’s office. I punched in the number on the message slip and found myself listening to elevator music while I waited on hold for the forensic pathologist to come to the phone.
    “Kate,” exclaimed Dr. Gordon, coming on the line. From the booming quality of her voice and the sound of running water in the background, I surmised she was on the speakerphone in one of the autopsy suites.
    “Thank you for seeing to it that things got moved along,” I said. “I talked to Detective Kowalczyk and he told me that you’d already released the body.”
    “Yes. The funeral home has already picked it up. I understand the young woman’s father is taking the body back to New York with him for burial.”
    “Yes. All the arrangements have already been made.“
    “Well, I just wanted you to know that I kept my promise and called in a favor from one of the chemists in the toxicology lab and had him screen for the kinds of drugs you and I talked about.”
    “And?”
    “You’ll be interested to know that Dr. Sylvestri noticed a fresh puncture mark on your roommate’s arm.“
    “What kind of puncture?”
    “Consistent with a hypodermic injection. It turns out your suspicions were correct. Dr. Stein was injected with Pavulon before she died.”
     

CHAPTER 26
     
    I rocked back in my desk chair and told myself to breathe. Suspicion is one thing. Knowing is another.
    “So she didn’t surprise a burglar,” I said finally.
    “No,” agreed Julia Gordon, “it doesn’t look that way.“
    “But what I don’t understand is, if you were going to inject her with Pavulon, why would you then stab her? What’s the point?”
    “Perhaps whoever did it was trying to disguise the nature of the crime by making it appear to have occurred during the course of a robbery. Besides, injecting someone with Pavulon probably wouldn’t kill them.”
    “I don’t get it,” I said, confused. “I thought you told me that Pavulon is a derivative of curare.”
    “It is. But