Leon Blumenthal walks over to me. “Tell me,” he says. “Is the use of the phrase ‘guardedly optimistic’ just hospital speak for ‘not at all optimistic’?”
“It could be. But you never know until the operation’s over.”
Blumenthal nods. “Good answer,” he says.
Then I say, “Only the Lord Jesus knows the end of the story.”
“Amen,” says Blumenthal.
I think he smiled slightly. I’m not sure.
CHAPTER 16
TWO HOURS LATER, LEON Blumenthal, two NYPD assistant detectives, and myself are seated around a banged-up metal lunch table in the residents’ cafeteria. This room is no longer a cafeteria. The area has been clumsily transformed into a law enforcement investigation center at Gramatan University Hospital. Clusters of plastic forks and squeeze bottles of ketchup and cafeteria trays have been replaced by computers and wires and files and cameras and TV screens. Eager young residents have been replaced by eager young assistant detectives and NYPD officers.
Blumenthal is talking to NYPD personnel as they stream in and out. I am on my laptop giving updates and fielding questions from Troy and Tracy Anne and other midwife staffers. Katz walks nervously in and out of the conference area. We are all nervous, tired, and essentially ignoring one another. Then, into this insane police center, comes a very important visitor, Dr. Rudra Sarkar.
At this moment Rudi Sarkar is not his usual calm and dapper self. To put it bluntly, Sarkar looks like shit. He is exhausted, sweaty, red-eyed. He practically limps toward the table. His scrubs are splattered with blood. There is blood on his bare upper arms and the V-shaped exposed area of his chest. His disposable paper slippers are bloody.
We all reflexively stand when we see the doctor.
Sarkar says, “I am happy to tell you that Katra Kovac has come through this event very, very well.” He adds, “I think that perhaps the patient’s condition appeared much worse than it actually was.”
I think Sarkar is being modest. Or he’s being crazy. A C-section performed viciously, under unsanitary conditions, without anesthesia … Come on, Rudi, it was a horror show, and this is a miracle. For a moment I think I will say something, but somehow cheerleading and praise seem inappropriate at this moment.
I can hardly wait to get to the recovery room and see Katra Kovac. I know Katz wants to get his PR people churning out their brand of blather to the media. I can only imagine the gangs of reporters roaming outside the hospital.
But one thing I predict is this: Blumenthal must, of course, have his own agenda for continuing the investigation as quickly as possible.
The usually quiet detective spins around like an athlete and faces the group.
And I’m right.
“I … want … your … attention!” Blumenthal is just a decibel short of shouting. Suddenly he moves to his right and looks fiercely at Katz. “Get off the phone … now!”
Katz looks both startled and scared. I don’t think the CEO is going to try to play the CEO card again. He quickly whispers into the phone, “I’ll call you right back.”
Blumenthal lowers his voice just a bit. But the energy and anger are still there. “Listen. This is a doublebarreled investigation. The challenges are … there’s no other word … overwhelming. Okay, our victim lives. Super thanks and congratulations to Dr. Sarkar. That’s number one. That’s great, but it also means that we’ve got a person or persons who need to be brought in for attempted murder, some fucker or fuckers who butchered a pregnant woman. I know everyone is as disgusted and angry as I am. But as you all know, part two of the case is this, and it’s just as bad: there’s another brand-new stolen baby out there. The same pervert who slit open the baby’s mother has that mother’s baby.
“And now I’ve got to tell you just one more thing, one more thing you may already have figured out, and many of you know. Because these are kidnappings, we’re dealing with a federal crime. That means the FBI is already crawling up our butts. A few members of their CARD team, the Child Abduction Response Deployment folks, have already been brought up to speed. They could be a help. They could be a hindrance. But whatever it turns out to be, it is a fact. They’ll join us here. And we’d be idiots not to welcome their help. So there’s no need to speak any further on that subject.
“This is my last thing. Then I’ll shut up. I want to give you what else we’re doing here in New York City. FYI, there are NYPD detectives and soon FBI agents at every hospital—every hospital—in every borough in New York. Lenox Hill. Beth Israel. Bellevue. This goes from Richmond Med Center on Staten Island to Montefiore in the Bronx, and everything in between. They’re assigned to walk-in clinics, to fancy-ass private cosmetic surgery places. Hell, the commissioner is so into this, I think he’d stick police guards at every doctor’s office in New York City if he could. On and on. He’s with us every inch of the way. There’s no need to go into everything else, but we have all the police labs open. We’ve interviewed anyone who might have seen something. The entrance and exit security was extremely tight. So it could have been an inside job.”
He pauses for a few seconds. He looks at the ceiling, then quickly around the room. Now when he starts to speak, he sounds somber and sad.
“Look. We just don’t know enough. I’ll be here for the next twenty-four hours. At least.”
He pauses again. Then, “Go about your business. Except for you two …” Blumenthal is looking directly at me and Dr. Sarkar. “I need to talk to you two. Everyone else, thank you. And, Dr. Katz, if you need a cigarette, go outside and smoke.”
CHAPTER 17
“LISTEN, YOU TWO. I don’t have a helluva lot of time,” says Leon Blumenthal, “so you’ll have to forgive me if I put my nice-guy personality on ice.”
Sarkar, who looks like he could collapse from exhaustion at any moment, nods.
I say, “Sure,” and I try to remember a time in my short relationship with Blumenthal when I ever witnessed that “nice guy personality.”
We sit, and Blumenthal leans in toward us from the other side of the cafeteria table.
This is the closest I’ve been to him physically. His hazel eyes are rimmed with red. He needs a shave, and his haircut looks like one of those ten-dollar jobs you get out in my neighborhood.
He’s also—and I’m surprised and embarrassed to be thinking this—cute as hell … in that grumpy dad-bod way.
Blumenthal looks directly at Dr. Sarkar and speaks. “Is there anything, anything at all, anything you remember—any little thing that was slightly out of the usual during the surgical procedure on the victim, on Kovac?”
Without hesitation, Sarkar says, “No. Absolutely not. It was difficult. But I have dealt many times before with people who were assaulted—stabbings, domestic violence, slashings, vehicular accidents. This one was particularly brutal, and the fact that it was immediately postnatal didn’t make it easier. But I cannot supply you with any further information.”
I decide that my opinion is needed here. “I don’t think Dr. Sarkar can minimize the seriousness of working on a patient who was in her ninth month. The uterine wall … the … What else, Rudi?”