The Last Word Read online

  Mark noticed that Jesse was referring to Corinne not by name but as “the donor.” It was a subtle shift, but he knew it was a necessary one for someone in Jesse’s position. It was an act of emotional self-preservation.

  Jesse had to stop thinking of her as a person. Otherwise the complex task of arranging for and performing her organ removal would be too emotionally difficult, even for someone who’d intellectually accepted that she was already dead.

  “Any takers yet?” Mark asked, knowing that it could be days before the right candidates with the same compatibility antigens as Corinne, were found.

  And the longer the wait, the greater the chances that her physical condition could change for the worse, putting her organs at risk.

  “Just one. We’ve got a thirty-five-year-old patient right here with Eisenmenger’s syndrome. His name is Ken Hoffman. He’s at the top of the list for a heart-lung transplant and happens to be compatible with the donor.”

  That was a lucky break, Mark thought.

  The heart and lungs would stay viable for only two to four hours after harvesting, so the best possible situation was to perform the extremely delicate organ removal and transplanting at the same hospital, preferably in adjoining operating rooms.

  Corinne’s heart and lungs would be the last organs removed from her body in order to keep the other organs viable for as long as possible. The kidneys and liver could last for up to twenty-four hours with proper packing and care after removal, which meant they could be sent just about anywhere in the United States.

  “Have you lined up the heart surgeons?”

  “David Carren is on deck for the removal and Larry Carroll is coming over from Cedars-Sinai for the implant.”

  They were both excellent surgeons, though Carroll was known as a risk junkie. When he wasn’t in the operating room he liked to climb mountains, jump out of airplanes, and swim with sharks. Mark worried that anyone who enjoyed gambling with his life might be more likely to gamble with someone else’s. Then again, it often took a personality like that to excel at the kind of delicate surgeries Carroll took on.

  “Are the other organs going to local patients?”

  “I’m still working on that, but it looks like at least one kidney is headed to Houston. We’ll probably be dividing up the liver among three or four people, though I’m not sure who or where yet.”

  Mark wasn’t surprised. A healthy liver was often divided among several patients, and there were undoubtedly many, many desperate people vying for a piece of this one.

  “It sounds like you’ve got everything under control,” Mark said.

  “It’s a big relief to hear you say that, Mark. Because if I’ve got you fooled, there’s a chance everyone else will be, too.”

  They entered the ICU. The practice of medicine had become so high-tech that the unit looked less like a hospital ward than a Best Buy that happened to have a few people on gurneys plugged into the computers, cameras, TVs, and PlayStations on sale. The bright colors on the walls and the blue scrubs worn by the staff only added to the effect.

  There was a nurse at Corinne’s bedside, reviewing her chart, when Mark and Jesse entered. She had a scowl of dissatisfaction on her face. Her name was Mercy Reynolds and she was one of the hordes of utilization nurses that descended on Community General not long after Hollyworld International took over. The utilization nurses had free run of the hospital, roaming every floor and department, ostensibly to review the treatment of patients to ensure that they were receiving appropriate care.

  In truth, the utilization nurses were tasked with finding ways to save the hospital money and maximize resources, which meant second-guessing doctors and suggesting cutbacks in care whenever possible.

  “What is she still doing here?” Mercy asked.

  “Does she look like she’s ready to be released to you?” Jesse replied.

  “She looks dead to me,” Mercy said.

  She was in her early thirties, about the same age as Jesse, but she didn’t have one-tenth of his medical experience or knowledge. She was an accountant with a stethoscope, in Mark’s opinion.

  Mark wondered if she was truly as arrogant and confident as she acted or if it was all a cover for her insecurity and incompetence. It didn’t matter. Hollyworld had given her the authority to challenge doctors far more qualified than she was, under the guise of being an objective advocate for the patients. She reported to the chief of staff, a Hollyworld bureaucrat who usually sided with the utilization nurses over the frequent objections of the doctors.

  “She’s an organ donor,” Mark said. “We’re in the process of arranging for the transplant surgery.”

  “How long will that take?” she asked.

  Mark glanced at Jesse, who shrugged.

  “Another day or two,” Jesse said.

  “Is that the best you can do?” Mercy demanded, impatience oozing from every word. “Every day this patient is in the ICU means there is one less bed available for someone else.”

  “You mean someone who can pay,” Mark said. “I’m guessing that Corinne Adams isn’t adequately covered by her insurance for catastrophic injury.”

  “She isn’t covered at all,” Mercy said. “She’s uninsured, which means she’s costing us money we’ll never recover, money that could go towards bettering patient care throughout the hospital.”

  “What about the money the hospital is going to make off the transplant surgery?” Jesse asked.

  “At best, we’ll break even,” Mercy said. “We aren’t allowed by law to profit financially from the organs themselves.”

  “What counts is that this surgery will save half a dozen lives,” Mark said.

  “Only one of those patients is at this hospital,” Mercy said. “If the others were here, too, we might see some profit from this.”

  “We’re in the business of saving lives,” Mark said. “That’s how we measure profit and loss.”

  “Last time I checked, Dr. Sloan, you were drawing a salary, and a sizable one at that,” Mercy said. “Where do you think that money comes from?”

  “Money is not my primary motivation for being a doctor,” Mark said.

  “And it’s not mine for being a nurse either,” Mercy said. “I’m not your enemy. I wish you’d stop treating me that way.”

  “You want to hustle this patient out of the ICU because she can’t pay for the treatment she’s getting,” Jesse said. “How do you expect us to take that?”

  “It’s about more than the money to me and this hospital,” Mercy said. “Look at her, Dr. Travis. Is this a dignified way to die? Do you think being kept alive as a brainless sack of flesh is what she had in mind when she agreed to donate her organs? Do you think her family wants to see her like this any longer than absolutely necessary? The sooner we get her out of here, the sooner we end her suffering and theirs.”

  “And ours,” Mark said. “Financially speaking.”

  “Yes,” Mercy said, studying Mark’s face. “You seem shocked that I’d say that, Dr. Sloan. Does acknowledging the truth make me the bad guy or just the only honest person in the room?”

  She walked away without waiting for either one of them to answer.

  Jesse looked after her and shook his head in dismay. “What possessed her parents to name her Mercy?”

  CHAPTER TEN

  Technically, Steve’s job was done.

  He’d apprehended Teeg Cantrell, the shooter responsible for killing a bystander in a drive-by shooting and for gunning down the cashier during a robbery at a West Hills convenience store.

  Forensic evidence irrefutably connected Teeg to the murder weapon. Ballistic experts matched the bullets recovered from the victims with the semi-automatic weapon found at the home where Teeg was apprehended. Teeg’s fingerprints were all over the weapon, and his clothing tested positive for gunpowder residue.

  On top of that evidence, Steve could place Teeg at the scene of both murders. The CSI unit matched Teeg’s smashed truck to paint chips recovered from
the car he collided with while speeding away from the scene. And Steve had surveillance camera footage of Teeg shooting the 7-Eleven cashier.

  Case closed. Teeg was on his way to death row. It was time for Steve to move on to the next homicide investigation that came along.

  But he couldn’t. Not quite yet.

  He was still wondering why Teeg was hiding out with the desperate housewives on Wisteria Lane. Teeg didn’t exactly fit in with the soccer moms and dads.

  The easy way to find out was to ask Teeg about it. But Steve doubted Teeg would be very forthcoming with the guy who’d punched him in the mouth. Twice.

  So while Teeg was busy being booked and processed for his lifetime in the prison system, Steve sat at his computer researching the ownership of the Simi Valley house.

  It took only a couple of minutes to get the information from the county tax assessor. The house was owned by Gold Mountain Investment Partners, who, based on their history of frequent property purchases and quick sales, were playing the housing market. They’d buy a home, make some minor cosmetic changes, then resell it a couple of months later, cashing in on the increased property value since their purchase, a practice known as flipping. When the housing market was soft, they’d hold on to the home as a rental property and then sell it the moment the market upticked again.

  The headquarters of Gold Mountain Investment Partners was a post office box rented by a Gaylord and Bette Yokley at a Mailboxes America outlet two blocks from their home in Palmdale.

  Steve ran a background check on the Yokleys and discovered that the couple, both of whom were in their forties, had criminal records.

  Bette Yokley had been arrested several times over the years for marijuana possession, drunk driving, indecent exposure, and disorderly conduct. She liked to party. She currently worked as a dog groomer in a pet salon located in the same strip mall as their post office box.

  Her husband, Gaylord, was an ex-marine and former gun dealer who spent five years in prison for selling illegal firearms and unlawful possession of explosives. His defense was that he was an “off the books” military operative for the CIA, supplying weapons on its behalf to groups attempting to overthrow anti-U.S. governments in South America and Africa. The jury didn’t buy it. After his release from prison, Gaylord went into the used-car business.

  On a hunch, Steve checked to see who’d sold Teeg his truck. Sure enough, it was Yokley Motors.

  It didn’t take a huge intellectual leap for Steve to figure out that Yokley was back in the firearms business and might have sold Teeg some weapons.

  So why was Yokley being so generous to Teeg? What exactly was their relationship? It had to be more than a simple truck sale or a gun transaction. And whatever it was, it probably wasn’t legal.

  He had an inkling where this case might eventually lead. And it was big.

  Steve took a moment to consider his options. He could take this bust and all the glory for himself. Or he could spread the wealth and bring Detective Olivia Morales into it, too. Not that anyone would blame him if he didn’t. He had no professional or ethical obligation to her; he’d found this strand on his own and followed it where it led. It was unrelated to any legwork Olivia had done.

  Even so, the last thing he needed was another enemy in the department, especially at a time when his enemies seemed to outnumber his friends by three to one.

  The more he thought about it, the more he became convinced that this Yokley thing could turn out to be an opportunity to win some favor with a few people in the law enforcement community who’d put him on their shit lists. So what if he had to share the credit for the bust with half a dozen other people? In the long run, it might do him more good than hogging it all for himself.

  He picked up the phone and made three calls. One was to Olivia Morales; the next was to assistant district attorney Karen Cross. And then he called down to the holding cells and asked an officer to bring Teeg up to one of the interrogation rooms.

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  Teeg snarled and tried very hard to appear fearsome, but his swollen lip made the snarl too painful to maintain and he just didn’t have Anthony Hopkins’s gravitas. When Steve walked into the interrogation room, he took one look at Teeg and immediately pictured the guy in his undies, flexing that silly tapeworm tattoo on his chest. Even Teeg, clueless about most aspects of human nature, could read the amusement on Steve’s face and saw himself as he must be seen. It was a pitiful moment of realization.

  So Teeg dropped the snarl and slumped in his chair, humiliated and depressed before Steve had uttered even a single word.

  “Lousy day, isn’t it, Teeg?”

  “Hell yes,” Teeg mumbled.

  “We’ve got you on two counts of murder, one count of armed robbery, and that’s just for starters. The evidence against you is so strong, the DA is sending some kid, an intern straight out of law school, to try the case for some courtroom experience. I met the kid. He’s seen cases on Judge Judy that are more complex. He thinks it might take him ten minutes to present his case, if he drags things out, and maybe five minutes for the jury to reach a verdict, and that’s counting the time it takes them to get from the jury box to the jury room. All things considered, you could be on death row before lunch.”

  Teeg didn’t know who Judge Judy was, but he’d seen parts of two or three Law & Order episodes, which just about covered his knowledge and understanding of the U.S. judicial system. The one thing he knew was that cops don’t bother talking to you unless their case is shaky. Maybe his situation wasn’t as bad as the cop was making it seem.

  “So if I’m this badly screwed,” Teeg said with all the cocky bravado he could muster, “why are you in here talking to me?”

  “Because you’re such a pathetic criminal, and your stupidity has made catching and prosecuting you so easy, I get absolutely no career bump at all for arresting you,” Steve said. “I want something out of this.”

  “You think I give a crap about you?”

  “No, but I think you care about yourself. You’re going to prison for the rest of your life. That’s a done deal. There’s nothing either one of us can do about that. But it’s up to you whether you get a lethal injection or serve a life sentence somewhere, and whether that time is spent in a hellhole or in a Ramada Inn with bars on the windows.”

  “I’m not confessing to nothing, if that’s what you want.”

  Steve leaned on the table and got in Teeg’s face. “You’re not listening to me. I don’t need you to confess. I’ve got you. But you could save your ass and enormously improve your future standard of living in prison by telling me about Gaylord Yokley’s black-market arms business.”

  Teeg’s eyes bugged out. “You know about that?”

  Steve did now.

  “You bought your guns from him. You bought your truck from him. You were hiding out in a house owned by him. Yeah, Teeg, we know about you and Yokley.”

  “Did he rat me out? Is that how you found me?”

  That was some mighty faulty logic as far as Steve was concerned. He couldn’t see what possible upside there would be for Yokley to let Teeg hide out in his house and then turn him in to the police. But Steve also didn’t see any benefit to telling Teeg how inane his reasoning was. He decided to let Teeg think whatever he wanted to if it would get him to talk.

  So Steve simply shrugged, which communicated volumes to Teeg.

  “Damn,” Teeg said. “After everything I done for him? He’s made a lot of money off me and my homeys.”

  “What were you doing in his house?”

  “I told him I smoked a vato and needed a place to go where nobody would look for me until things cooled off. Me and my homeys are his best customers. So he let me crash at his place in Simi.”

  “You thought you’d just blend right in.”

  “Why not?” Teeg asked without a trace of irony. He honestly didn’t see how a tattooed gangbanger might stand out in a cul-de-sac full of middle-class families. And not just anywhere, but in S
imi Valley, the city that let the cops who nearly beat Rodney King to death walk with only a finger-wagging and a stern warning.

  “My mistake,” Steve said. “So tell me what you and your homeboys were buying from Yokley.”

  “Guns, man,” Teeg said. “We go in like we’re buying cars, and he delivers the quetes in the trunk with the spare tire.”

  “But you bought a pickup truck,” Steve said. “What kind of weapons did you need a cargo bed for?”

  “Rifles, shotguns, like that.”

  Like that.

  Steve glanced at the mirror on the wall. On the other side of the glass, he knew, Detective Olivia Morales and ADA Karen Cross were watching, along with invited guests from LAPD’s Gang Intervention Unit, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, or ATF. They were all absorbing the news that Yokley was supplying LA street gangs with weapons and using his profits to buy and sell real estate.

  Getting a search warrant and raiding Gaylord Yokley’s home and business with a multi-agency task force would be a no-brainer now.

  Steve turned back to Teeg and smiled. “Suddenly your future is looking a little less bleak.”

  “Like how?”

  “I can guarantee that in return for your testimony against Gaylord Yokley, the State of California won’t be strapping you to a table and injecting lethal drugs into your veins.”

  “Can I get a TV in my cell?”

  “Sure,” Steve said. “Under the rules of the Geneva Conventions, depriving you of American Idol would constitute cruel and inhuman punishment.”

  “Make it a wall-mounted flat screen,” Teeg said. “I don’t know what prisons are like in Geneva, but the cells here are cramped.”

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The executive dining room was another improvement Hollyworld International made after it purchased Community General. The senior staff and upper-level administrators were served the same food on the same dishware as the people dining in the cafeteria, but somehow the dim lighting, tablecloths, and absence of bothersome patients, worried loved ones, and harried interns made it taste better.