Panacea Read online

  She motioned to the chair on the far side of her desk. As Phil doffed his Stetson and seated himself, she wiggled her mouse to wake her computer.

  “One of the assistants here is a graphic artist on the side, works with photos … manipulates them every which way. I gave him a couple of high-res shots of the burn vic’s back to see if he could clean them up some way that would bring out the tattoo.” She opened a desktop folder and clicked on the first jpeg icon. “Here’s the best he could do.”

  A rectangle of burned skin appeared with the tattoo vaguely visible. She clicked the NEXT arrow and the same image appeared except that the tattoo had been outlined in yellow, showing the snake, the staff, and the comet. It also showed a horizontal line through the middle.

  Next she opened a photo of the second vic’s back. No photo tricks needed on this one: all the same elements, except the line here was angled, running through four o’clock and ten o’clock.

  “Well,” Phil said, leaning forward for a closer look, “that clinches it, doesn’t it.”

  “Something is certainly clinched,” Laura said. “But just what remains to be seen.”

  A neck pop. “The killings … they’re related.”

  “I prefer to say ‘deaths’ for the time being. But I don’t think there’s any doubt about a relation. But what do these tattoos mean? And why the bisecting lines at different angles?”

  “Who knows? Maybe it’s a rank insignia.”

  Laura doubted that—tattoos were not easily changed—but didn’t press the point.

  “A gang tat that’s a variant on the caduceus? Don’t they go more for bloody daggers and skulls with flames shooting from the eye sockets?”

  “Well, yeah. Usually.”

  “The caduceus reference implies healing and … oh, God.” A thought hit her like a punch.

  “What?”

  “Caduceus … healing … and the two healthiest corpses I’ve ever seen. There’s a crazy symmetry to it.”

  “I’m not following.”

  Just as well that he wasn’t … too crazy.

  “I’m rambling. Don’t pay any attention.” She moused up another photo, this one of the vic’s left palm—the one with 536 drawn on it. “Does 536 mean anything in gang terms?”

  “Not that I know of.” He leaned closer. “A tattoo?”

  “No. Done with a Sharpie. Shortly before his death, from what I can tell.”

  He shook his head. “Doesn’t ring any bells. But I can look into it. In the meantime, I’ve got a present for you.”

  He opened the manila folder he’d brought with him and handed her an eight-by-ten color photo. It showed a bare-chested man and a short, dark woman standing before a wall of dense, lush greenery.

  “Where did you get this?”

  “Believe it or not, the vic had a fireproof lockbox. The arson guys found it in what was left of his bedroom. This was inside it. The original is out for fingerprinting. If our guy’s in the system, we can ID him.”

  “Just this? No insurance policy or birth certificate?”

  Lawson shook his head. “Not a single identifying document.”

  She stared at the photo again. “Must have been very important to him.”

  “I’ll say. Um, correct me if I’m wrong, but that sure as hell looks like our second vic in better times.”

  Laura nodded. The facial resemblance was remarkable, but …

  “I wouldn’t say ‘better.’ He looks sick and wasted.”

  Like someone with AIDS … because those sure looked like Kaposi’s sarcoma spots on his chest.

  Phil said, “I meant the living-and-breathing kind of better.”

  Laura stared at the photo and felt her palms grow just a tiny bit sweaty. This was vic number two, no question. In the photo he appeared to be dying of AIDS. But the man in the cooler downstairs had been hale and healthy and carried none of the stigmata of the disease.

  He’d been cured … healed. And his tattoo hinted at healing.

  What was going on?

  “You know something?” Phil said, looking around. “The plants in the picture sorta look like these.”

  Laura snapped out of her mini daze and shifted her gaze from the man to the background.

  “Good eye,” she told him. “A couple of them are the same.”

  “I just wish we could identify the woman he’s with. They look pretty chummy. She could give us the lowdown on him, I’ll bet.”

  Laura studied her. “She’s Mayan.”

  “Really? You mean like the ancient Mexican Mayans? I visited one of their pyramids on a side trip when I was in Cancun. How do you know?”

  Because I’m half Mayan.

  “I just know. Trust me on this.” She didn’t want to get into her lineage.

  “I didn’t think they were around anymore.”

  “They never went away.”

  “They’re still in Mexico?”

  “Not Mexico—Mesoamerica.”

  “Strange how things keep repeating themselves here.”

  “More than strange. Downright eerie.”

  A tap on her doorframe made her look up. A sixtyish woman stood there holding a folder. Highlighted hair in a short bob, face prematurely aged from sun exposure, she had a runner’s physique with thin, tanned arms poking out of a sleeveless blouse.

  Doctor Susan Henniger, Chief Medical Examiner for Suffolk County.

  “Sorry to interrupt.”

  Deputy Lawson, ever the gentleman, leaped to his feet. He knew the CME—he seemed to know everyone—and they exchanged a few pleasantries.

  “I’m checking up on those two dead pot growers,” he told her, then popped his neck.

  Henniger flinched. Obviously she’d never heard him do that.

  “Oh, um … yes.” She turned to Laura. “Were you able to establish a cause of death on the second?”

  “Same as the first, I’m afraid: extremely healthy and no detectable trauma.”

  The chief ME’s usually flat expression turned dour. “That’s not acceptable.”

  “I’m well aware of that. Let’s hope the myocardium slides shed some light.”

  “Yes, let’s.”

  She’s ticked, Laura thought. She wants answers and I don’t have them.

  “In the meantime, we have a new arrival. I know you’d rather not do children but we have no one else available.”

  Posting a child always got to Laura and she ducked it whenever possible.

  “How old?”

  “Eight. MVA.”

  She shuddered—just a little—as she took the folder. Marissa’s age. At least a car accident vic wouldn’t be an involved case. Head or visceral trauma. A quick in and out.

  Henniger added, “And besides, the mother asked for you.”

  “What? Really? Why?”

  “Haven’t the faintest. At least the cause of death on this one won’t stump you,” Henniger said pointedly, then turned and left.

  Laura peeked inside the folder. Tommy Cochran? Why did that name sound familiar?

  “A real sweetie, that one,” Phil remarked after Henniger was gone.

  “She can’t help it. It’s not an easy job. Everyone wants a cause of death yesterday.”

  “Or the day before,” Phil said. “Gotta get moving. Tell you what. Do me a favor: Scan that photo and see if you can pinpoint the location of the plants.”

  Laura already knew it was taken on the Yucatán Peninsula, but she said nothing. Her office printer was a three-in-one, so she scanned the photo and returned it to Lawson.

  “Great,” he said. “I’ll crop the girl out and see if one of the papers’ll run it. Maybe someone’ll recognize him. And can I get copies of those tat photos? And the 536 on his palm? And a little case summary if you’ve got one. I’ll need to show them to the gang task force. Maybe someone has seen something like them.”

  “Sure. I’ll email them.”

  When he was gone, Laura returned to the folder on the young MVA vic. She read the name again.


  Tommy Cochran … slowly it came to her. She did know a Tommy Cochran. She checked the address. Mastic. Yes, that would be about right.

  When Marissa had first fallen ill, her initial diagnosis of juvenile rheumatoid arthritis was soon proved wrong, but not before Laura met Tommy and his mother through a rheumatologist. Tommy’s JRA had been well along by then.

  She read further.

  “… struck by a truck while riding a bicycle…”

  Riding a bike? The Tommy Cochran she’d met couldn’t even walk.

  6

  “I left the house and the panacean in your hands,” Nelson said, pacing his office. It looked much like Pickens’s, only half the size. He fought to keep from screaming. “All evidence up in smoke: That is the protocol.”

  He’d left for the airport first thing this morning, never imagining that the panacean’s body hadn’t burned.

  Brother Bradsher stood by the window, hands in his pockets. “I’m well aware of that, sir. It’s the worst imaginable luck. But what was I to do?”

  Nelson had no answer for that. The early arrival of the fire trucks had left Bradsher no choice but to flee the scene.

  “At least the plants were destroyed, right?”

  Bradsher nodded. “Completely. They received the bulk of the accelerant.”

  Good stuff, that accelerant. Burned hotter and cleaner than anything like it. A Chechen terrorist had developed it. The Company had disposed of the Chechen but kept his formula.

  “Then we should be good. They may have the panacean’s body but there’s nothing to find there.”

  “The ME working the cases has already matched the back tattoos.”

  “But the first body was immolated.”

  Brasher shrugged. “She managed.”

  “You’re so sure?”

  “We’re into her office computer. She has comparison photos.”

  Nelson didn’t like that. He’d never doubted that the cases would be connected, but he hadn’t wanted the tattoos made public. They indicated too intimate a link.

  “Who is she?”

  Bradsher pulled out his smartphone and did some screen tapping.

  “Name’s Laura Fanning, MD, Deputy Medical Examiner, Suffolk County.”

  Laura Fanning … the name had an oddly familiar ring.

  “Have we dealt with her before?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Is she going to be a problem?”

  “I don’t think so. She did discover something we missed.” He tapped some more on his phone, then passed it to Nelson. “I took this off her computer. The panacean wrote something on his palm.”

  A photo: The sight of 536 on the dead skin startled him.

  Nelson shook his head. It wouldn’t be an issue if his body had been immolated as planned. This was not good … not good at all. Dissemination of the photo of the tattoo would put all other panaceans lurking about on alert. If this 536 photo got out, however, it would send them scurrying into hiding.

  As for the medical examiner, she’d obviously connected the tattoos, but she had no way of knowing about the panacea or the two corpses’ connection to it. That was the prime concern: Hide all evidence of the existence of a panacea. It had to remain in the realm of myth until Nelson had tracked it to its source. He had to be the first and only to find it. As for the number on the second corpse’s palm, that would mean nothing to her.

  So, the ME was not important, though the photo was.

  “We have to disappear those photos.”

  “Not so easy. I can delete them from her computer, but the originals may remain in her camera. And she’s already emailed copies to the sheriff’s office in Riverhead.”

  “Do what you can.”

  “I’ll get right on it.” But instead of leaving, Bradsher stood there, shifting from foot to foot. “I had a thought.”

  The comment struck Nelson as odd. Bradsher was an excellent field agent—competent, efficient, obedient. He rarely offered an opinion unless asked.

  “What, pray tell?”

  “Not a pleasant one.”

  “All the more reason to voice it.”

  “All right … if the 536 on the panacean’s palm means he knew we were coming—”

  “He might have heard of Hanrahan’s death, then he could have seen you getting out of your car and put two and two together.”

  “I hope that’s the case.”

  “If not, what’s your unpleasant alternative?”

  “That he knew he might be next, and so he hid his real panacea and left dummy samples for us.”

  Nelson felt as if someone had dumped a bucket of ice water over him.

  No … not possible.

  He leaned against the desk as he realized it was indeed possible. And if that were the case …

  He’d been so sure and in such a rush to convince Pickens of the existence of the panacea that he hadn’t done a preliminary experiment.

  If the panacean had worked a switch …

  But why would he do such a thing? What benefit to him?

  And yet … he’d known they were coming for him—the 536 on his palm left no doubt—and so he might have concocted a placebo as a diversion.

  Should that possibility prove true, then Nelson’s credibility—and Pickens’s opinion of his mental stability—would be forfeit.

  “Is it too late to test it?” Bradsher said.

  Nelson nodded. “The deputy director and I dosed two of the sickest on Ward Thirty-five.”

  “Then we can only pray…”

  “Yes!” Nelson said, dropping to his knees. “Pray with me, Brother.”

  Bradsher knelt opposite him. They joined hands, and Nelson led them in prayer.

  7

  Laura sat in the first-floor lobby and waited for Dr. Sklar. The rheumatologist had been treating Tommy Cochran for years; he had been the one to determine that Marissa wasn’t suffering from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis but leukemia instead.

  Laura remembered how hope and horror had warred at the news. Acute lymphoblastic leukemia was potentially fatal but the newest therapies offered up to an eighty-percent chance of a cure to ALL victims Marissa’s age. JRA was incurable.

  Dr. Sklar hadn’t believed what she’d told him about Tommy’s autopsy and had insisted on seeing for himself. So she’d invited him to Hauppauge and called down to the basement to have Tommy’s remains removed from the cooler. When Sklar arrived she escorted him downstairs to where a small body waited on a gurney.

  After they were both gloved and gowned, she unzipped the top half of the body bag, revealing Tommy’s damaged face. Dr. Sklar crouched and inspected the undamaged side.

  “That’s him,” he said with a slow shake of his head. “First JRA, now this. Some kids never get a break. You’re absolutely sure he was riding a bicycle?”

  “I spoke to a uniform who was on the scene, who spoke to the driver of the truck that hit him: not a doubt.”

  “This is so bizarre. Let me see the hands, if I may.”

  Laura unzipped further and bent both arms so Tommy’s hands lay on his abdomen.

  “This…” Dr. Sklar said, a tremor in his voice as he inspected the fingers. “This can’t be. He had the typical fusiform swellings last time I saw him.”

  “Let me show you the knee I opened.”

  She pulled the zipper the rest of the way down, then snipped the few quick sutures she’d used to close the incision she’d made in the joint. She angled the overhead surgical lamp so he could have a good view.

  His voice dropped to a whisper. “The synovium … it’s pristine. And the cartilage…”

  “Smooth as a baby’s cheek. I wouldn’t steer you wrong.”

  “No-no, I never meant to imply … it’s just that it’s so…” He seemed to run out of words.

  Laura zipped up the bag again. “I know. Impossible.” That word was popping up a lot today.

  “But … but even if the disease process were somehow miraculously arrested�
��I’ll go so far as to say cured—the damage wouldn’t be reversed. The articular cartilage would remain pitted, the synovium would remain thickened. But this … it’s like he was never sick, like he swapped joints with another child.” He pulled off his gloves. “Have you spoken to his mother?”

  “No. I need to, but I thought I’d give her a day, at least.”

  “That’s good of you.”

  “I’m a mother too.”

  “Yes, yes, of course. She called today for an appointment, said he’d been cured. I didn’t believe her, of course. If only I hadn’t put her off.”

  “She asked for me to do the post.”

  Sklar frowned. “That’s odd, isn’t it?”

  “Almost unprecedented. But now I realize that she knew I was an ME, and knew that I’d seen Tommy in a wheelchair-bound state. Any other ME would simply report death by trauma. Only I would wonder what happened to his arthritis.”

  “Yes-yes. That must be it. Will you let me know what you find out?”

  “Absolutely.”

  He laid a hand on Tommy’s bagged body. “Something extraordinary has happened here.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  “You need to find out everything you can.”

  Her gaze wandered to the drawer where the unidentified second grower lay.

  “I intend to.”

  GREEN LIGHT

  1

  Nelson pulled his rental to a stop in the Walter Reed parking lot. This morning’s spot was right next to yesterday’s. He turned off the engine and rubbed his temples. Another killer headache. They were always worse in the morning—sometimes they woke him. Lack of sleep wasn’t helping. He’d spent the whole night wondering if he’d been played for a sucker by that second panacean. Giving up on sleep, he’d risen before dawn and caught another shuttle to Reagan.

  If the two sick agents he’d dosed yesterday showed no improvement, what was his next step? He hadn’t a clue. Pickens would never give him a second chance. Might even section-eight him out of the Company.

  He looked up and was shocked to see the grim-faced deputy director striding toward him. Pickens had stayed overnight in the D.C. area, so he was undoubtedly fresher. Nelson practically leaped from the car.