Blind-sided Read online

  Blind-Sided

  Monette Michaels

  and

  Janet Ferran

  Copyright © 2004 by Draper-Ferran, LLC

  First published by Atlantic Bridge Publishing, May, 2004

  Atlantic Bridge www.atlanticbridge.net

  Suspense/Thriller

  NOTICE: This work is copyrighted. It is licensed only for use by the original purchaser. Duplication or distribution of this work by email, floppy disk, network, paper print out, or any other method is a violation of international copyright law and subjects the violator to severe fines and/or imprisonment.

  Published by Atlantic Bridge Publishing, 6280 Crittenden Ave, Indianapolis, Indiana. Copyright 2004, Draper-Ferran, LLC. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the authors.

  This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues in this book are of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons, living or dead, is completely coincidental.

  Jeanette saw the man, his presence first reflected in the store windows. He was following her and had been now for three blocks. Instinct told her to lead him away from her apartment and seek help.

  Jeanette stepped up her pace, hoping against hope he hadn’t figured her game plan. She was so close to her goal.

  Too late. Running feet approached her. She wasn’t going to make it…

  “I realize the cliche ‘page turner’ has been overused, but this fast-paced, well-written thriller certainly deserves this classification… although this is certainly a work of fiction, the clever weaving of the scientific background of the ‘epi’ project along with its New Orleans setting struck, at times, a familiar note.” — Miles H. Friedlander, MD, Corneal Specialist and Professor of Ophthalmology, Tulane Medical School.

  “It has the suspense and drama of a Grisham novel. Exposes the seedy side of health care with the greed and cover-up.” — Donald Rowan, Esq., Assistant District Attorney for Jefferson Parrish.

  “Here is a medical and legal thriller combination that, in my opinion, is right up there with novels written by author John Grisham! I simply can not describe how much I enjoyed this story. It kept me on the edge of my seat the entire time. It is very well written, fast paced, and the characters seem very realistic.”-Detra Fitch for Huntress Reviews.

  “Monette Michaels and Janet Ferran have invested a tremendous talent and well researched knowledge in their suspenseful novel, Blind-Sided. Invest your time as a reader and you will not waste a single minute.” — Stewart Thomas, author of Apology for the Devil.

  DEDICATION

  This book is dedicated to the memory of Dennis K. Bee. A portion of the proceeds of this book will be donated in his name to the Guide Dog Foundation for the Blind, Inc. in Smithtown, New York.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks to all my loved ones for their support and belief in me. It was only with the help of my daughter Tina, son-in-law Matthew, grandson Austin, friends Dee, Charles, Al, Rick, Tina, Bruce, Lynn, Walter, Henry and Elaine that an unfortunate set of circumstances became a fictional novel. I thank God for guiding me to my talented co-author Moni, who made Blind-Sided a reality.

  Finally, thanks to my favorite legal eagles Raymond Landry and Lennie Berins for believing in my real-life case enough to take on the big boys. — Janet Ferran

  I thank my husband, Tom, whose medical background made writing Blind-Sided a breeze, and my son, Michael, who is just a really neat kid. I would also like to thank the Mystery Writers of America for helping Janet and I find one another. In the writing of this book, I made a new friend. And, finally, thanks to Linda, Mike, April and Jim for helping me make the trade edition a reality. — Monette Michaels

  PROLOGUE

  New Orleans Parish Courthouse — Present Day

  “Forget everything you know, and maybe you — and your daughter will live.”

  Jeanette LaFleur stopped in the middle of the courthouse lobby. Her heart pounding in her ears, she turned slowly in an attempt to locate the source of the voice.

  The trial had already started, and the lobby was almost deserted. The only other visible presence was a bored security guard at the entryway metal detector almost thirty feet away.

  Swish, swish.

  The sound, like fabric rubbing against itself, had come from above and behind her.

  Whirling around, she looked up and caught a glimpse of a hand protruding from beneath the edge of a dark sleeve, then it vanished from the second-floor railing.

  For a second, she wondered if she might have imagined it.

  But she knew she hadn’t, anymore than she had imagined the voice.

  The voice had been unfamiliar, but there could be no doubt who the owner of the voice worked for. Jeanette’s testimony was due today, and her words could seal the downfall of the defendant.

  The perceived danger gone as quickly as it had come, she turned and headed toward the relative safety of the courtroom and the mass of people gathered inside.

  With a hand more shaky than she would have liked, she pushed the door inward and entered.

  The evil in the room was so thick Jeanette could almost touch it. She knew its source.

  The man in the defendant’s chair.

  As if by some foul telepathy, he sensed her presence and turned his head toward her. His thin lips stretched into a humorless smile. His dark cold eyes reflected the truth of his depraved soul.

  And for the first time since this whole mess began, Jeanette wondered if she had the fortitude to end this man’s reign of evil.

  Swallowing the ever-present fear that threatened to choke her, she prayed for her legs to move. As she walked, head held high, toward the front of the courtroom, his dead eyes followed. She could have sworn she heard his taunting laughter in her mind.

  PART ONE

  By the glare of false science betray’d,

  That leads to bewilder, and dazzles to blind.

  — The Hermit, James Beattie (1735-1803)

  CHAPTER ONE

  New Orleans, a year and a half earlier.

  The essence of scrambled eggs, bacon and other indefinable breakfast smells mingled with the lemony odors of antiseptic cleaning solution and of something else Jeanette was sure she’d rather not know the identity. She leaned against the wall next to the door of the Charity Hospital morgue and waited for the arrival of Walter Monnier, the Eye Bank technician. He was going to show her how donor tissue was harvested for Dr. Byron Rutherford’s Epi Study, more commonly known as the Living Lens Project..

  It was her first day on the job, and she was excited — nervous — and still unbelieving of her good luck to snag such a jewel of a job straight out of college.

  It had been four months ago, though it seemed like only yesterday, she’d met the charismatic head of the research project, Dr. Byron Rutherford. She’d attended the annual National Ophthalmic Convention, representing her professor and mentor, Dr. Austin Shriver’s, contact lens project on which she’d been a research assistant. Rutherford was the conference’s keynote speaker, and according to Dr. Shriver, the only reason the convention was held in New Orleans. Dr. Shriver introduced her to his residency classmate, Rutherford, who in turn charmed, then invited her to apply for a job with his project after her graduation.

  And, here she was.

  As she waited for the Eye Bank technician, the hospital awakened.

  Food service techs moved large carts filled with breakfast trays in and out of the kitchen, located right across the hall from the morgue. If the patients knew where t
heir food had been prepared, Jeanette was sure they would think twice about eating it. She’d already made a mental note not to eat in the cafeteria.

  Down the hallway, the morning shift janitors checked in, joking with the night shift as they punched out. The Tower of Babel had nothing on the mix of languages Jeanette overheard. Spanish phrases intermingled with Cajun patois, African-American hobnobbed with Vietnamese, southern twangs socialized with Texas drawls, and all of it punctuated with laughter — lots of laughter. She smiled. The unaffected joy of the hard-working men and women was infectious and brightened the gloomy lower level corridor.

  Further up the hall, blue-suited security personnel also started their day. No infectious good spirits in that crowd. They could have been cloned from the same set of genes — tall, stern-faced men with crew cuts, thick necks and eternally suspicious eyes. Women’s lib had somehow managed to miss this corner of the employment world. She’d caught several of the men eyeing her, probably assessing her potential for danger.

  Now, if they were looking for someone dangerous, the man just entering the hallway would head the top of the list. It wasn’t his size, since he was only average in height and build, but his demeanor that threatened. His body language was that of a street thug, reflected in the way he looked from side to side, as if he suspected someone might jump him. He looked like the kind of guy who carried a knife and knew how to use it.

  He stopped at the end of the hall and scanned the area slowly. His gaze swept over the janitors and the security personnel, then fixed on her. Smiling slightly, he headed her way. A sudden chill swept through Jeanette, the instinctive fear of a female being stalked by the dominant male in a primeval age. She fought the urge to check the other end of the hall for an escape route. She was overreacting, and she knew it. After all, this was a busy hospital and dozens of people, including the security men, were within calling distance. She was being silly, probably a result of her anxiety in starting a new job. However, preferring to err on the side of caution, she decided to keep her eyes and options open.

  As the man passed the phalanx of men in blue, one of them called out. The man stopped to speak to the security men. One even punched the man lightly on the arm in a teasing manner. So he must be okay. Jeanette sighed, letting out the breath she’d been holding — so much for judging people by their looks.

  Still, the man gave her the creeps.

  One of the security men motioned toward her and laughed. The man followed the gesture. He nodded at the others, joining them in the joke. They were talking about her!

  Jeanette’s face burned. With anger? Embarrassment at being the brunt of some men’s off-color jokes? Probably a bit of both. She hadn’t been intimate with too many men since her husband, Paul, died on the burning sands of Iraq during Desert Storm. Before her marriage, her experience had been nil. Her current male friends, Charles Carter, a recent law graduate, and Dr. Scott Fontenot, Paul’s boyhood friend, always treated her like a lady.

  The man clapped several of the security personnel on the shoulders, then left, continuing with a slow, steady stride toward her position. His manner was that of a predator who knew his quarry had no place to go. His face showed satisfaction in having reached his goal.

  Jeanette shivered and fought the urge to run. All she had to do was ignore him. He’d get the idea she wasn’t interested. She had a job to do and couldn’t afford to be late on her first day.

  Then it dawned. Oh no, please God, don’t let him be Walter Monnier.

  God wasn’t listening.

  “Hey. You Ms. LaFleur?” He wasn’t from New Orleans. In fact, he wasn’t from the south at all. The broad vowels and nasal intonation suggested east coast. New York? New Jersey?

  Jeanette mentally groaned, hoping her expression didn’t reflect her innate dislike — all right, she admitted it — her fear of the man standing in front of her, unlocking the door to the morgue.

  “Walter Monnier?”

  Stupid question.

  “That would be me.” He grinned at her while his black-eyed gaze traveled up and down her body at an insolent pace. His smile did nothing to lessen her unease. It reminded her of the look her grandmother’s cat got when it grew tired of tormenting a mouse and went in for the kill.

  Walter opened the morgue door, then motioned for her to enter.

  Okay, so he had nice manners, but most predators lured their victims into a false sense of security with inviting ways. Fighting her gut, Jeanette preceded him into the morgue.

  Whoa! Now, she knew the origin of the indefinable odor she had smelled earlier. The room reeked of something sickeningly sweet, although a lemony cleaning solution fought hard for supremacy.

  “Formalin,” Walter said.

  “What?”

  “The smell. In the morgue.” Walter stepped into the room after her, then closed the door.

  Jeanette jumped. The thunderous click of the door lock vibrated throughout her body.

  If Walter noticed her reaction, he didn’t give any indication. He just continued talking. “It’s Formalin. Pathologists use it to preserve and fix body parts. The odor’s hard to get rid of. I smell it for hours after I leave work. Gets in your clothes something fierce. Hell, sometimes I even taste it.”

  “Uh huh.” Well, what was she supposed to say? She could find no coherent response. She needed to get a grip here. She had to work with this man, though, hopefully, not on a daily basis.

  “Not much for talking, are ya?” Walter looked her up and down — twice — slowly, lingeringly. “You’re a tiny thing, ain’t ya? Got a boyfriend or something?”

  “Yes!” No flies on that answer, Bootsie, as Paul would have teased her. No way did she want this guy to get the idea she might be available. She’d have answered “yes” even if it weren’t true. That’s what they made confession for — those necessary white lies.

  “Too bad.” Walter eyed her once more in a total body sweep. “I’ve heard you New Orleans’ gals are hot.”

  Definitely New Jersey or New York. New Orleenz, indeed.

  “Mr. Monnier, this really isn’t appropriate. Even if I were available, I wouldn’t date a co-worker.” Her statement had sounded stuffy and she’d meant it to be. She only hoped that would be the end of the personal discussion.

  “Rutherford know that?”

  “Of course.” What did he mean by that? Dr. Rutherford was attentive and charming to her, kissing her hand and looking her deeply in the eyes when she spoke. But he couldn’t be interested in her that way, could he? And if he was, she would make it crystal clear, she was his employee — and only that.

  “If you say so,” smirked Walter. “Okay, guess we’d better get the eyes and get them processed so you can get back to the Med Center. Wouldn’t want to keep the boss waiting for his co-worker, now would we?”

  Jeanette ignored the implication in Walter’s statement. The way he said “co-worker” created an urgent desire for a long, hot shower.

  Walter checked the chart on the wall by the refrigerated drawers containing the corpses awaiting autopsy, harvesting, or pickup by a mortuary.

  “Well, let’s see what we got behind door number five, why don’t we?” He unlatched the door, then pulled over a gurney on which to slide the body. The body shifted smoothly. After slamming the door shut, he pushed the cart toward the stainless steel sinks on the longest wall in the morgue.

  “Aren’t you going to place the body on the autopsy table?” Jeanette asked as Walter removed several stainless steel instruments from a drawer under the sinks.

  “Nah. It takes too much time. ‘Sides, not much mess in taking out eyes. Don’t need the drains and such.”

  He uncovered the body of an elderly black man. The dead man had an emaciated appearance as if he’d been sick for a long time or maybe suffering from malnutrition. “Get me one of those small plastic containers over there. And a lid.” Walter nodded his head toward the opposite wall.

  Jeanette moved over to the indicated shelves holding n
umerous empty containers of all sizes. “How small?” she asked.

  “Urine cup size.” He laughed. “Oh, excuse me, guess I should say two eyeballs size, huh?”

  Jeanette cringed at Walter’s cavalier and unprofessional demeanor. The shelves were clearly marked with metric measurements. But, instead, Monnier had chosen to be juvenile. “Where did you get your med tech training?” McDonalds? She set the empty jar near the corpse’s head. Walter had opened one eye lid and was extracting the first eye.

  “Not a tech.” Walter put the eye into the container, released the lid over the empty socket and proceeded to the next eye. “I’m ‘monkey-see, monkey-do’ trained.” He chuckled.

  “Oh.” Well he certainly was fast and efficient. He almost had the second eye out. “Then where did you apprentice?”

  “Prison.”

  Prison? Jeanette gulped, not even caring if he heard her or not. No wonder he was fast with a knife. Visions of knife fights and other images too horrid to put a name to flashed through her head. Speechless, Jeanette focused on the eyes lying in the translucent plastic container. While Walter re-covered the corpse and placed him back into the refrigerated drawer, Jeanette stood shivering. All her first impressions came back. This guy was a predator. Why had Dr. Rutherford hired someone like that? And more importantly, why hadn’t he warned her?

  “You okay?”

  Walter’s question, laced with suppressed laughter, shook her out of her shock. “Yes. Sure.” She wasn’t going to ask what he’d been in prison for. Nope. She wasn’t going to go there. Dr. Rutherford wouldn’t have hired him unless he trusted the man. Walter was probably completely rehabilitated.

  Yeah, Bootsie, and Attila the Hun was a pacifist.