“I don’t care if you’re a cop. I’m not giving you anything from my lab.” The starched white smock flapped behind the laboratory supervisor when he blocked John’s path, an imitation of a protective goat-herder keeping a hungry coyote at bay.
John noted the blue stitching on the lab coat that bore the supervisor’s name. “Listen, Martin . . .”
“That’s Dr. Robinson to you. You can’t barge in here and take samples from my lab.”
“The tissue sample Dr. Anderson sent you is evidence in a criminal investigation. I need the medical examiner to take custody and evaluate the sample,” John said.
“Then get a warrant. I have my lab protocols that must be followed. I can’t release anything to you. I log in each and every tissue sample, log the testing, and log the disposition of the samples. We have a chain of custody here, and I simply can’t turn over a tissue sample because you say so.”
“Show me the sample. That can’t violate any of your precious protocols. Can it?”
“That’s highly irregular.” Dr. Robinson stiffened in protest.
John probed the weakening bureaucrat. “If I get Dr. Kelly, the medical examiner herself, to tell you to release the tissue, is that within protocol?”
“I—I suppose. However, my lab will no longer be responsible for any testing associated with that tissue. Dr. Kelly will have to provide any clinical assessment and tissue typing information that’s required.”
“Agreed.” John pulled out his cell and hit the speed-dial entry for Dr. Sandra Kelly. “Why don’t you go track down the tissue sample while I speak to Dr. Kelly?”
Dr. Robinson, tight jawed from being ordered about within his own space, slunk behind the counter and retreated to the lab confines. He swiped his key card, unlocking a glass door that separated the laboratory from the outer offices.
Dr. Kelly came on the line after a few seconds. “Hi, Detective. I was just thinking about calling you. What’s on your mind?”
“I need you to take a look at a tissue sample, a kidney.”
“Related to our current case?”
“I think it is.”
“How did you stumble upon this kidney? Find another shipping container?” she asked.
“They tried to put this one in my son.”
Silence.
“The surgeon caught it before it was too late and saw that the kidney wasn’t viable.”
“I need that organ,” she said.
“I’m trying to persuade the lab supervisor at the hospital to turn it over.”
“What’s his name?”
“Martin Robinson. Know him?”
“I’ve heard about him. Very by-the-book. More of an administrator and paper pusher than a clinical guy. Is he there? Let me talk to him. Put him on.”
At that moment, Dr. Robinson returned from the lab. The lab super’s face bloomed pink, and his protruding Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed hard. “It’s missing.”
“I’ll call you back,” John said to Dr. Kelly, and he disconnected the call. “Missing? What’s missing?”
“The sample. The sample Dr. Anderson sent. The whole thing. It’s gone. There must be an explanation,” Dr. Robinson said. He rubbed his hands together to purge the imaginary stain of a potential scandal.
“You said you kept a log. Let me see it,” John said.
Robinson stepped around to his desk, opened a drawer, and pulled a thick, three-inch canvas binder from the bottom drawer. He placed it on the desk surface, opened the file to the last page of handwritten entries, and pointed. “Here is when the tissue sample came into the lab.”
John read the neatly printed line. Tissue sample (human kidney) received from Dr. Anderson for ms, vs, and bc.
“What’s that mean?” John asked.
“Mass spectrometry, vivisection, and bacterial culture. Dr. Anderson wanted those actions completed. We take small samples of the tissue, review it by mass spec, and look for abnormal tissue, cellular crystallization, edema, and foreign bodies. Fluid and tissue are tested for bacterial infection, so we grow a culture to identify the type and strain of infection.”
“Where did the organ go after you logged it in?”
“Into refrigerated storage, locker number three.” Robinson pointed to the entry in the log book.
“Show me,” John said.
Robinson froze in place for a moment as he considered his precious protocols. The rigid rules failed him, and he needed damage control now. He gestured for John to follow him through the doors into the sterile work space.
Expansive white work surfaces, stainless-steel tables, and glass-fronted cabinets dominated the lab. The work space appeared well ordered, clean, and empty. Hulking machines with lights, vials, and dials sat along the far wall, and four refrigeration units lined the end wall to the right. The refrigerated units had tall black numbers stenciled on the glass-front panels. Bottles, racks of test tubes, and plastic-wrapped specimen dishes with red biohazard labels decorated the shelves behind the glass.
“Dr. Anderson’s tissue sample went into number three.”
“Are you certain?”
“Yes. I put it in there myself.”
John walked to the refrigerated units and tugged on the handle of the one marked with the number three. It held tight. “Who else has access?”
“Only the lab employees have access cards. Four technicians and me,” Robinson said.
Slim, metallic card readers protruded from the wall next to each glass door. Robinson unclipped his access card from his lab coat and swiped it through the card-reader slot, and a green light appeared on the door. The lock popped open.
“The sample was on the middle of the top shelf. I don’t understand how it went missing.”
Robinson shut the door, and an audible click indicated the door had locked, but John pulled the handle to make certain.
“The electronic lock system—can you access the history of who used an access card to open that door?” John asked.
“I suppose so. I’ve never had reason to do that.” Robinson pivoted on his heel and took a step to a workstation. He woke up the computer with a shake of the mouse and entered his password into the secure hospital system. He scrolled down a menu of options and then clicked on the security item.
The link required a second password, and the screen refreshed with a set of menu items specifically for the hospital laboratory.
“Access log,” Robinson said as he clicked on the item. The screen flickered and scrolled out line after line of dates, times, and names of the staff who had entered the secured spaces of the lab. Robinson paused the screen when the access data for refrigerated storage came on the screen.
“That can’t be right.”
Robinson’s finger shook as he pointed to the screen. “Here, precisely at 1:35, I opened the locker. That’s when I secured Dr. Anderson’s specimen. Twelve minutes later, the same locker opened. That’s not possible.”
John looked over the doctor’s shoulder, and the computer indicated that at 1:47, a staff member by the name of Marsha Horn opened the locker.
“Where is Marsha Horn? I need to talk to her,” John said.
“You can’t.”
“What do you mean, I can’t?”
Dr. Robinson swallowed hard and said, “Marsha’s dead. She was the lab supervisor before me. I didn’t know her, but from everything I’ve gathered, she was a good supervisor and ran a tight lab. She died in a car accident about two years back,” Robinson said.
“So how can you explain a dead woman stealing a tissue sample out of your lab?”
“I can’t.”
John looked around the lab quickly, assessed that there were no surveillance cameras and only two exit doors. A door in the back of the lab was marked for emergency use only and claimed that an alarm would sound if opened.
“Did Dr. Anderson call to tell you to get rid of the sample?”
“What? No.”
“Who else is working here today?”
“I’m down to two assistants, and one is on vacation. So today, it’s Zack Weber and me.”
“Where’s Zack?” John asked.
“I sent him down to admin. They’re holding some of our equipment requests hostage.”
John glanced at the emergency-exit door, and an uneven section on the doorframe caught his attention. He strode across the lab and grabbed the door handle.
Dr. Robinson yelled, “Wait, the alarm!” when John tugged on the handle.
The door slipped open without a crescendo of bells and buzzers.
“The door wasn’t shut completely. The alarm should have gone off,” John said. He slid his fingers along the metal doorframe and found thin strips of metallic tape attached to the sensors.
“Where does this exit go?”
“Stairwell, roof to basement,” Robinson said.
John poked his head around the back of the door and saw no hint of a keypad or access-card reader, only a simple push bar designed for quick release in the event of an emergency evacuation. The telltale smell of cigarette smoke lingered in the stairwell.
“Are the doors alarmed all the way down?”
Before Robinson responded, the front electric door unlatched. A thin, scruffy-bearded man pushed through the door and dropped a file folder on the nearest counter. His eyes, magnified through thick lenses, blinked and shifted from Dr. Robinson to John.
“Zack, this is Detective Penley.”
“Is there a problem, Dr. Robinson?” Zack asked. His voice cracked when he spoke.
Zack used a thumb to slide his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose. He crossed his arms and uncrossed them. Then he hiked up his lab-coat sleeves that were four inches too long. Zack fidgeted with the pens in his breast pocket before gathering up the files from the counter. The awkward mannerisms painted Zack as the kind of person most at home in a lab, where nothing required social interaction.
“We have experienced a breach of lab security,” Robinson offered.
“Really? Who broke in?”
“How long have you worked in the lab, Zack?” John asked.
Zack kept his eyes on the paperwork. “Four years.”
“So it’s safe to say you know your way around this place fairly well?”
“Uh, yeah, safe to say,” Zack said.
“Then you can tell me when the alarm on the fire-exit door was bypassed,” John pressed.
The goggle-eyed lab assistant’s face bounced up from the file in his hands. “I—I don’t know anything about that,” he said.
“Sure you do, Zack. You said you know your way around here. You’d notice something like that. Besides”—John pointed to a bulge in Zack’s lab coat pocket—“there’s a cigarette butt on the stairwell landing, and I’d bet that it’s one of yours.”
“There’s no cigarette butt out there,” Zack protested.
“How would you know that?” John countered.
His lip twitched.
“You know Marsha Horn?” John asked. “You worked here when Marsha ran the lab, right?”
“Uh-huh, so?” Zack replied.
“So how is it that Marsha accessed the refrigerated storage a couple hours ago?”
“I had—I don’t know anything about that,” Zack said.
John closed in on Zack. In spite of the chill in the room, small beads of moisture formed on the lab assistant’s upper lip. The man smelled of nervous sweat and cigarette smoke.
“Sure you do, Zack. How often do you duck out into the stairwell for a smoke break?”
Zack looked to Dr. Robinson for a lifeline.
“Answer the man, Zack,” Robinson ordered.
“Couple times a day,” Zack said. His head hung low and his toe scuffed an invisible smudge on the lab floor.
“Let me see your cigarettes,” John said.
“Back off! I know my rights. Get a warrant.” The little man put up a rickety front of belligerence.
“I don’t need one,” Robinson said as he took Zack by surprise, lashed out, and snatched the cigarette package from the man’s lab coat. “The coat is hospital property.”
Robinson handed the cigarettes to John. The package felt stiffer than a normal, thin paper container. John opened the top, folded back the flimsy foil layer, and tucked behind a half dozen cigarettes, John spotted a thick, plastic-laminated card. John dumped the contents onto the counter, and a hospital access card slipped out. Marsha Horn’s access card.
“That’s no crime, using someone’s card,” Zack said quickly.
“Maybe, maybe not. Depends on why you used it. Why did you take Dr. Anderson’s tissue sample?” John asked.
“Who says I did? You’ve got no proof of anything.”
John spun the man around, pressed his own body weight against the smaller man, and pinned him against the counter. As John ratcheted the handcuffs tight, he whispered in Zack’s ear, “You don’t have the balls to pull this off by yourself. Tell me who you’re working with.”
“I don’t have to answer to you,” Zack said.
John pulled Zack around and sat him on a stool at the workbench. “Why’s that?”
“Because I’ve done nothing wrong, even according to your laws.” The little man looked smug, like he’d been waiting for this opportunity to boast. The scared lab geek transformed into someone with an edge.
“Destroying evidence, conspiracy . . .”
“Evidence of what? Conspiracy? The real conspiracy is the medical establishment and what they do to us,” Zack said. His voice deepened with the bravado of a true believer.
John needed some conspiracy of his own, so he pulled out his cell and dialed.
“Detective Newberry,” Paula said.
“It’s me.”
“How’s Tommy?”
“Long story. Short version is the donated kidney was bad. It was from our ‘friend,’ and the hospital is compromised. We caught a break with a low-level hospital employee who destroyed evidence of the connection.”
Zack’s brow winced at the “low-level employee” label.
“I’ll be there in ten. Did some follow-up on the gun, too. I got the name of the last registered owner,” Paula said.
“You were supposed to wait for me,” John said.
“Yeah. I always do what I’m told. See you in ten.” She disconnected the call.
John pointed at Zack Weber. “Sit, stay.”
John motioned for Dr. Robinson. “Doc, your computer records showed when Marsha Horn’s access card was used in the lab. Can the system pull up any other access in the hospital systems?”
“I think so, but what do you want me to look for?”
“Did Marsha Horn access UNOS data?” John asked.
Zack postured from his chair, smug and prideful. “You have no idea what you’re doing. You, of all people, Detective . . .”
John wheeled around and faced Zack. “Why screw around with a kid’s life?”
“I’ve committed no crime.”
“No, you’ve done something far worse,” John said.