Following a fitful night’s sleep filled with images of computer screens and human organs tied up with bright ribbon, John rose hours before the rest of the family.
He made coffee for Melissa and collected the newspaper from the front drive. A quick scan of the main section revealed nothing surprising: a rehashed version of yesterday’s political squabbles and budget shortfalls. His morning routine included a review of the obituaries for people that he knew. Occasionally, one of the memorials struck a chord; a young person succumbed to disease before they had a chance at life. This morning’s paper listed a boy Tommy’s age. The announcement didn’t list the cause of death, but the family asked that donations go to Central Valley Hospital Transplant Program. John couldn’t recall if he’d ever seen the boy during one of Tommy’s visits at the hospital. Melissa would remember; she was good at making those sorts of connections. Networking, she called it.
At the bottom of the page was the funeral announcement for Daniel Cardozo. There was no attempt at flowery praise of Cardozo’s lifetime accomplishments or mention of whom he left behind. It contained the date and time of the memorial service with a graveside service to follow, nothing more.
John refolded the paper with the child’s obituary facing out and sat it next to the coffeepot for Melissa. He made a mental note to ask her about the boy.
He showered in the guest bath and dressed in the dark to avoid disturbing the family. When he returned to the kitchen, he didn’t expect to find Melissa at the table huddled with a cup of coffee.
“I tried not to wake you,” he said.
She lifted her head, hair still tousled from sleep. Wayward strands hung across her face, hiding her blue eyes. She tucked the stray hair behind an ear and said, “You only think you’re quiet.” She pointed at the newspaper. “You saw this? The Gunderson boy didn’t make it.”
He nodded. “I can’t place him. Which one was he?”
“He had Tommy’s doctor, and his mother said he had polycystic kidney disease. He went on the transplant list two months ago.”
“Wow. I guess he never had a chance,” John said.
“You really don’t remember, do you?”
“I told you I didn’t.”
“He got the transplant a month ago. The same time Tommy got bumped from the top of the list.”
“That was him? I wonder what happened.”
“Rejection, probably. Shame. I liked his mother. She felt bad about taking ‘Tommy’s kidney.’”
“The kid was a better match for the donated kidney. At least that’s what Dr. Anderson told us. I just don’t understand why other kids get their transplants and Tommy gets put on hold.”
“I know.” She reached out and took hold of John’s hand. “We have to be strong for Tommy.”
John thought of his dark web conversation from the night before. “You think it matters where Tommy gets his donated kidney from?”
“I’m not sure I follow.”
“Does it matter what kind of person the donor was? A creep, a gangbanger, or a prison inmate?”
She shook her head. “I don’t think Tommy would care if it meant he was finally healthy.” She kissed the back of his hand and let him go. “Where are you off to so early this morning?”
“Paula and I have some follow-up on a case.”
“Anything to do with why you stayed up late last night?”
“You don’t miss much, do you?”
“I’m a mom. That’s what we do.”
John sat across from his wife. “You know how I said I’d always separate work and home life?”
“Yeah. We both agreed the kids didn’t need to see or hear about the monsters you run across.”
“Paula called me on it yesterday. The case we’re working looks like it involves human-organ trafficking, and Paula said Tommy’s condition might cloud my judgment.”
“Trafficking? Here? I’ve read stories about it, but always in some other corner of the world. You shouldn’t have anything to do with it. It’s too close to home, John. Our home.”
“Someone might be manipulating the waiting list. It could affect Tommy. I can’t let that happen.”
“Dr. Anderson explained how the wait list works to us. There are safeguards to prevent that kind of thing from happening. Paula’s right. You are letting Tommy influence your thinking. You need to get someone else to handle this one,” Melissa said.
John leaned back in his chair and considered Melissa’s argument. He’d never asked to have a case reassigned and took pride in that fact. Pride. Is that what this was about? He wasn’t about to tell his wife about his late-night chat with a black-market organ broker.
“Maybe,” he said.
“I know what maybe means. You’re too stubborn and bullheaded to admit when you’re wrong.”
The woman was perceptive.
John stood, leaned across the table, and planted a kiss on his wife’s forehead. “I’ll consider it.”
He left her huddled with her coffee and went out the back door so he didn’t wake the kids. Light, early-morning traffic meant he got to Paula’s address without much trouble. He pulled the police sedan to the curb in front of a clean, Craftsman-style home in midtown. The bronze number on the impeccable 1920s residence matched the address Paula gave him.
The neat and tidy image was so out of character for his new partner that John’s first thought was that she deliberately sent him to the wrong address. John dialed Paula’s number.
She picked up on the first ring. “I’m almost ready. Come on in.”
John turned to the house and glimpsed Paula waving at him from the front door.
He got out of the car and followed a walkway framed with a low boxwood hedge to a wooden front porch. Paula left the massive mahogany door open for him and called out when she heard his footfalls on the porch.
“In the kitchen,” Paula said.
Gleaming hardwood floors and meticulously crafted built-in cabinetry looked as if they could be featured in an issue of Architectural Digest. The period light fixtures, rubbed-bronze switch plates, and antique furnishings made the place seem more museum than residence. It looked so different from Paula’s landfill of a work space at the station.
Paula caught him taking in the mortised woodworking detail on a glass-fronted library cabinet. “Like that one? I found it in the basement. Someone painted it blue and used it as junk storage.”
“Nice. Did you restore it?”
“Don’t look so surprised. Turns out it’s only a copy of a Stickley piece, but it does go with the house.”
“Is this really your place? I mean, don’t take this all wrong, the place is beautiful, but . . .”
“It’s not what you thought. I have my work life and my private life. This is my private life. Here there is order, peace, and reason. At work, it’s different.”
“This is like night-and-day different. At the office, your desk—”
“I know. I’ve heard it. Wasteland, dump, toxic-waste storage. People see that and think a certain way. They make judgments about who I am and what I can do. I like proving them wrong.”
John took a few steps into the kitchen and found a renovated kitchen, modern appliances, and marble counters. “Wow. How long have you had this place?”
“About four years. I’ve restored the front of the house and have the bathrooms and bedrooms to go. I dump all my overtime checks into the place and work on one room at a time. I finished the kitchen last month. Took me six months, working late nights and weekends, but I like the way it turned out.”
“I think Melissa and I need you to come over and work on our place. Hell, you could do remodels for half the detective bureau.”
“Don’t you go telling anybody at the station about this. This is what I do to unwind. Besides, half the cops don’t think I should be a detective, and this will only give them more ammunition. I can hear Stark and his cronies telling me I should hang it up and be an interior decorator.”
“Screw them.”
Paula changed the subject. “Let me lock up and we can get over to Central Valley Hospital. You think we can get Trisha Woods to give us a list of everyone who accessed the UNOS system over the past few months? If our killer accessed the system, it would have been during that time.”
“We need to find a way to connect whoever accessed the UNOS system to our victims, and I think I have an idea. But you’re not gonna like it.”