35
NYPD Lieutenant James Francis Moran pushed open the door of Dr. Benjamin Cook’s waiting area on the fifth floor of Sloan-Kettering Memorial Hospital. He had come to pick up his wife, Sandra. Six months earlier, she had been diagnosed with Adult Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia and had spent the previous night at the hospital undergoing extensive testing.
Moran glanced at the clock on the wall behind the reception counter: 11:30 a.m. He was an hour early for his appointment with Dr. Cook. The doctor had telephoned the night before and asked to speak with Moran alone. The doctor’s ominous vagueness weighed heavily on his mind. Moran took off his topcoat as he neared the dour, stiff-looking receptionist with her hair in a beehive and gave his name.
“You’re early,” the woman said in a flat tone while she continued to watch her computer screen.
Moran winked, “Thought we could spend more time together.” The remark was greeted with a grunt. The lieutenant shrugged his wide shoulders lightly and started to walk toward the waiting area. “You know where to find me.”
When he reached the waiting area, Moran slumped his trim six-foot-three-inch frame into one of the waiting room’s vinyl upholstered chairs and steeled himself for the meeting that lay ahead.
Lacing his fingers and crossing his legs, the cop let his brown eyes float around the room. On an end table next to him was a haphazard pile of reading material: Style; Women; Elle; National Enquirer and others.
Bored, Moran turned his attention to the other people in the waiting room. He began his favorite mental exercise, one he engaged in when riding the subway, or a bus. Or like now, waiting for Dr. Cook. As if, for any reason, he might someday have to describe the people in the waiting room at a trial. It was also a way of keeping his powers of observation keen. He enjoyed guessing what they did for a living, why they were there, and even if they were happily married. It was James Francis Moran’s version of ‘What’s My Line’; his way of keeping those little gray cells alert, as his favorite fiction detective, Hercule Poirot, always said.
He started by concentrating on the rotund man seated to his left dismissively flipping through a magazine: Asian, eyeglasses, about fifty, right-handed, five-five, and two hundred pounds. The stranger’s pleasant expression told Moran the man was happily married or newly divorced. Probably here because of a weight problem or diabetes.
Moran turned his attention to the woman in front of him: Latina, less than a hundred pounds, a slight tic in her right eye, about forty, five-two, and a wedding band on her left hand; probably here to cure her anorexia or wants to get pregnant and can’t. When Moran finished assessing her, he turned to his right and focused on the stout middle-aged woman with the sad black eyes who nervously fingered the rosary in her hands. He was about to begin his evaluation when the receptionist called out.
“The doctor will see you now, lieutenant.”
When Moran entered Dr. Cook’s office, the doctor rose from behind his desk. “Good morning.” He held out a meaty hand. A gold ring with a large sapphire in the center flashed from his pinky finger.
“Doctor,” Moran said and took the man’s hand.
“Sit down, please, lieutenant.” Cook cast a critical, cold eye at Moran’s rumpled off-the rack-navy-blue suit. Moran caught the look and shrugged inwardly. He liked buying his suits at The Men’s Wearhouse, where he didn’t have to put up with prissy, overly sweet salespeople, and where he saved a bundle.
The doctor pulled at his closed suit jacket, whose buttons